Of those with whom the plan originated of erecting on this spot a

monument worthy of the event to be commemorated, many are now present;

but others, alas! have themselves become subjects of monumental

inscription. William Tudor, an accomplished scholar, a distinguished

writer, a most amiable man, allied both by birth and sentiment to the

patriots of the Revolution, died while on public service abroad, and now

lies buried in a foreign land.[62] William Sullivan, a name fragrant of

Revolutionary merit, and of public service and public virtue, who

himself partook in a high degree of the respect and confidence of the

community, and yet was always most loved where best known, has also been

gathered to his fathers.[63] And last, George Blake, a lawyer of

learning and eloquence, a man of wit and of talent, of social qualities

the most agreeable and fascinating, and of gifts which enabled him to

exercise large sway over public assemblies, has closed his human

career.[63] I know that in the crowds before me there are those from

whose eyes tears will flow at the mention of these names. But such

mention is due to their general character, their public and private

virtues, and especially, on this occasion, to the spirit and zeal with

which they entered into the undertaking which is now completed.

I have spoken only of those who are no longer numbered with the living.

But a long life, now drawing towards its close, always distinguished by

acts of public spirit, humanity, and charity, forming a character which

has already become historical, and sanctified by public regard and the

affection of friends, may confer even on the living the proper immunity

of the dead, and be the fit subject of honorable mention and warm

commendation. Of the early projectors of the design of this monument,

one of the most prominent, the most zealous, and the most efficient, is

Thomas H. Perkins. It was beneath his ever-hospitable roof that those

whom I have mentioned, and others yet living and now present, having

assembled for the purpose, adopted the first step towards erecting a

monument on Bunker Hill. Long may he remain, with unimpaired faculties,

in the wide field of his usefulness! His charities have distilled, like

the dews of heaven; he has fed the hungry, and clothed the naked; he has

given sight to the blind; and for such virtues there is a reward on

high, of which all human memorials, all language of brass and stone, are

but humble types and attempted imitations.

Time and nature have had their course, in diminishing the number of

those whom we met here on the 17th of June, 1825. Most of the

Revolutionary characters then present have since deceased; and Lafayette

sleeps in his native land. Yet the name and blood of Warren are with us;

the kindred of Putnam are also here; and near me, universally beloved

for his character and his virtues, and now venerable for his years, sits

the son of the noble-hearted and daring Prescott.[64] Gideon Foster of

Danvers, Enos Reynolds of Boxford, Phineas Johnson, Robert Andrews,

Elijah Dresser, Josiah Cleaveland, Jesse Smith, Philip Bagley, Needham

Maynard, Roger Plaisted, Joseph Stephens, Nehemiah Porter, and James

Harvey, who bore arms for their country either at Concord and Lexington,

on the 19th of April, or on Bunker Hill, all now far advanced in age,

have come here to-day, to look once more on the field where their valor

was proved, and to receive a hearty outpouring of our respect.

They have long outlived the troubles and dangers of the Revolution;

they have outlived the evils arising from the want of a united and

efficient government; they have outlived the menace of imminent

dangers to the public liberty; they have outlived nearly all their

contemporaries; but they have not outlived, they cannot outlive, the

affectionate gratitude of their country. Heaven has not allotted to this

generation an opportunity of rendering high services, and manifesting

strong personal devotion, such as they rendered and manifested, and

in such a cause as that which roused the patriotic fires of their

youthful breasts, and nerved the strength of their arms. But we may

praise what we cannot equal, and celebrate actions which we were not

born to perform. _Pulchrum est benefacere reipublicae, etiam bene

dicere haud absurdum est._

The Bunker Hill Monument is finished. Here it stands. Fortunate in the

high natural eminence on which it is placed, higher, infinitely higher

in its objects and purpose, it rises over the land and over the sea;

and, visible, at their homes, to three hundred thousand of the people of

Massachusetts, it stands a memorial of the last, and a monitor to the

present and to all succeeding generations. I have spoken of the

loftiness of its purpose. If it had been without any other design than

the creation of a work of art, the granite of which it is composed would

have slept in its native bed. It has a purpose, and that purpose gives

it its character. That purpose enrobes it with dignity and moral

grandeur. That well-known purpose it is which causes us to look up to it

with a feeling of awe. It is itself the orator of this occasion. It is

not from my lips, it could not be from any human lips, that that strain

of eloquence is this day to flow most competent to move and excite the

vast multitudes around me. The powerful speaker stands motionless before

us. It is a plain shaft. It bears no inscriptions, fronting to the

rising sun, from which the future antiquary shall wipe the dust. Nor

does the rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its summit. But

at the rising of the sun, and at the setting of the sun; in the blaze of

noonday, and beneath the milder effulgence of lunar light; it looks, it

speaks, it acts, to the full comprehension of every American mind, and

the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart. Its silent,

but awful utterance; its deep pathos, as it brings to our contemplation

the 17th of June, 1775, and the consequences which have resulted to us,

to our country, and to the world, from the events of that day, and which

we know must continue to rain influence on the destinies of mankind to

the end of time; the elevation with which it raises us high above the

ordinary feelings of life, surpass all that the study of the closet, or

even the inspiration of genius, can produce. To-day it speaks to us. Its

future auditories will be the successive generations of men, as they

rise up before it and gather around it. Its speech will be of patriotism

and courage; of civil and religious liberty; of free government; of the

moral improvement and elevation of mankind; and of the immortal memory

of those who, with heroic devotion, have sacrificed their lives for

their country.[65]

In the older world, numerous fabrics still exist, reared by human hands,

but whose object has been lost in the darkness of ages. They are now

monuments of nothing but the labor and skill which constructed them.

The mighty pyramid itself, half buried in the sands of Africa, has

nothing to bring down and report to us, but the power of kings and

the servitude of the people. If it had any purpose beyond that of a

mausoleum, such purpose has perished from history and from tradition. If

asked for its moral object, its admonition, its sentiment, its

instruction to mankind, or any high end in its erection, it is

silent; silent as the millions which lie in the dust at its base,

and in the catacombs which surround it. Without a just moral object,

therefore, made known to man, though raised against the skies, it

excites only conviction of power, mixed with strange wonder. But if the

civilization of the present race of men, founded, as it is, in solid

science, the true knowledge of nature, and vast discoveries in art,

and which is elevated and purified by moral sentiment and by the

truths of Christianity, be not destined to destruction before the final

termination of human existence on earth, the object and purpose of

this edifice will be known till that hour shall come. And even if

civilization should be subverted, and the truths of the Christian

religion obscured by a new deluge of barbarism, the memory of Bunker

Hill and the American Revolution will still be elements and parts of the

knowledge which shall be possessed by the last man to whom the light of

civilization and Christianity shall be extended.

This celebration is honored by the presence of the chief executive

magistrate of the Union. An occasion so national in its object and

character, and so much connected with that Revolution from which the

government sprang at the head of which he is placed, may well receive

from him this mark of attention and respect. Well acquainted with

Yorktown, the scene of the last great military struggle of the

Revolution, his eye now surveys the field of Bunker Hill, the theatre of

the first of those important conflicts. He sees where Warren fell, where

Putnam, and Prescott, and Stark, and Knowlton, and Brooks fought. He

beholds the spot where a thousand trained soldiers of England were

smitten to the earth, in the first effort of revolutionary war, by the

arm of a bold and determined yeomanry, contending for liberty and their

country. And while all assembled here entertain towards him sincere

personal good wishes and the high respect due to his elevated office and

station, it is not to be doubted that he enters, with true American

feeling, into the patriotic enthusiasm kindled by the occasion which

animates the multitudes that surround him.

His Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth, the Governor of Rhode

Island, and the other distinguished public men whom we have the honor to

receive as visitors and guests to-day, will cordially unite in a

celebration connected with the great event of the Revolutionary war.

No name in the history of 1775 and 1776 is more distinguished than that

borne by an ex-president of the United States, whom we expected to see

here, but whose ill health prevents his attendance. Whenever popular

rights were to be asserted, an Adams was present; and when the time came

for the formal Declaration of Independence, it was the voice of an Adams

that shook the halls of Congress. We wish we could have welcomed to us

this day the inheritor of Revolutionary blood, and the just and worthy

representative of high Revolutionary names, merit, and services.

Banners and badges, processions and flags, announce to us, that amidst

this uncounted throng are thousands of natives of New England now

residents in other States. Welcome, ye kindred names, with kindred

blood! From the broad savannas of the South, from the newer regions of

the West, from amidst the hundreds of thousands of men of Eastern origin

who cultivate the rich valley of the Genesee or live along the chain of

the Lakes, from the mountains of Pennsylvania, and from the thronged

cities of the coast, welcome, welcome! Wherever else you may be

strangers, here you are all at home. You assemble at this shrine of

liberty, near the family altars at which your earliest devotions were

paid to Heaven; near to the temples of worship first entered by you, and

near to the schools and colleges in which your education was received.

You come hither with a glorious ancestry of liberty. You bring names

which are on the rolls of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. You come,

some of you, once more to be embraced by an aged Revolutionary father,

or to receive another, perhaps a last, blessing, bestowed in love and

tears, by a mother, yet surviving to witness and to enjoy your

prosperity and happiness.

But if family associations and the recollections of the past bring you

hither with greater alacrity, and mingle with your greeting much of

local attachment and private affection, greeting also be given, free and

hearty greeting, to every American citizen who treads this sacred soil

with patriotic feeling, and respires with pleasure in an atmosphere

perfumed with the recollections of 1775! This occasion is respectable,

nay, it is grand, it is sublime, by the nationality of its sentiment.

Among the seventeen millions of happy people who form the American

community, there is not one who has not an interest in this monument, as

there is not one that has not a deep and abiding interest in that which

it commemorates.

Woe betide the man who brings to this day's worship feeling less than

wholly American! Woe betide the man who can stand here with the fires of

local resentments burning, or the purpose of fomenting local jealousies

and the strifes of local interests festering and rankling in his heart.

Union, established in justice, in patriotism, and the most plain and

obvious common interest,--union, founded on the same love of liberty,

cemented by blood shed in the same common cause,--union has been the

source of all our glory and greatness thus far, and is the ground of all

our highest hopes. This column stands on Union. I know not that it might

not keep its position, if the American Union, in the mad conflict of

human passions, and in the strife of parties and factions, should be

broken up and destroyed. I know not that it would totter and fall to the

earth, and mingle its fragments with the fragments of Liberty and the

Constitution, when State should be separated from State, and faction and

dismemberment obliterate for ever all the hopes of the founders of our

republic, and the great inheritance of their children. It might stand.

But who, from beneath the weight of mortification and shame that would

oppress him, could look up to behold it? Whose eyeballs would not be

seared by such a spectacle? For my part, should I live to such a time, I

shall avert my eyes from it for ever.

It is not as a mere military encounter of hostile armies, that the

battle of Bunker Hill presents its principal claim to attention. Yet,

even as a mere battle, there were circumstances attending it

extraordinary in character, and entitling it to peculiar distinction. It

was fought on this eminence; in the neighborhood of yonder city; in the

presence of many more spectators than there were combatants in the

conflict. Men, women, and children, from every commanding position, were

gazing at the battle, and looking for its results with all the eagerness

natural to those who knew that the issue was fraught with the deepest

consequences to themselves, personally, as well as to their country.

Yet, on the 16th of June, 1775, there was nothing around this hill but

verdure and culture. There was, indeed, the note of awful preparation in

Boston. There was the Provincial army at Cambridge, with its right flank

resting on Dorchester, and its left on Chelsea. But here all was peace.

Tranquillity reigned around. On the 17th every thing was changed. On

this eminence had arisen, in the night, a redoubt, built by Prescott,

and in which he held command. Perceived by the enemy at dawn, it was

immediately cannonaded from the floating batteries in the river, and

from the opposite shore. And then ensued the hurried movement in Boston,

and soon the troops of Britain embarked in the attempt to dislodge the

Colonists. In an hour every thing indicated an immediate and bloody

conflict. Love of liberty on one side, proud defiance of rebellion on

the other; hopes and fears, and courage and daring, on both sides,

animated the hearts of the combatants as they hung on the edge of

battle.

I suppose it would be difficult, in a military point of view, to ascribe

to the leaders on either side any just motive for the engagement which

followed. On the one hand, it could not have been very important to the

Americans to attempt to hem the British within the town, by advancing

one single post a quarter of a mile; while, on the other hand, if the

British found it essential to dislodge the American troops, they had it

in their power at no expense of life. By moving up their ships and

batteries, they could have completely cut off all communication with the

mainland over the Neck, and the forces in the redoubt would have been

reduced to a state of famine in forty-eight hours.

But that was not the day for any such consideration on either side! Both

parties were anxious to try the strength of their arms. The pride of

England would not permit the rebels, as she termed them, to defy her to

the teeth; and, without for a moment calculating the cost, the British

general determined to destroy the fort immediately. On the other side,

Prescott and his gallant followers longed and thirsted for a decisive

trial of strength and of courage. They wished a battle, and wished it at

once. And this is the true secret of the movements on this hill.

I will not attempt to describe that battle. The cannonading; the landing

of the British; their advance; the coolness with which the charge was

met; the repulse; the second attack; the second repulse; the burning of

Charlestown; and, finally, the closing assault, and the slow retreat of

the Americans,--the history of all these is familiar.

But the consequences of the battle of Bunker Hill were greater than

those of any ordinary conflict, although between armies of far greater

force, and terminating with more immediate advantage on the one side or

the other. It was the first great battle of the Revolution; and not only

the first blow, but the blow which determined the contest. It did not,

indeed, put an end to the war, but in the then existing hostile state of

feeling, the difficulties could only be referred to the arbitration of

the sword. And one thing is certain; that after the New England troops

had shown themselves able to face and repulse the regulars, it was

decided that peace never could be established, but upon the basis of the

independence of the Colonies. When the sun of that day went down, the

event of Independence was no longer doubtful. In a few days Washington

heard of the battle, and he inquired if the militia had stood the fire

of the regulars. When told that they had not only stood that fire, but

reserved their own till the enemy was within eight rods, and then

poured it in with tremendous effect, "Then," exclaimed he, "the

liberties of the country are safe!"

The consequences of this battle were just of the same importance as the

Revolution itself.

If there was nothing of value in the principles of the American

Revolution, then there is nothing valuable in the battle of Bunker Hill

and its consequences. But if the Revolution was an era in the history of

man favorable to human happiness, if it was an event which marked the

progress of man all over the world from despotism to liberty, then this

monument is not raised without cause. Then the battle of Bunker Hill is

not an event undeserving celebrations, commemorations, and rejoicings,

now and in all coming times.

What, then, is the true and peculiar principle of the American

Revolution, and of the systems of government which it has confirmed and

established? The truth is, that the American Revolution was not caused

by the instantaneous discovery of principles of government before

unheard of, or the practical adoption of political ideas such as had

never before entered into the minds of men. It was but the full

development of principles of government, forms of society, and political

sentiments, the origin of all which lay back two centuries in English

and American history.

The discovery of America, its colonization by the nations of Europe,

the history and progress of the colonies, from their establishment to

the time when the principal of them threw off their allegiance to the

respective states by which they had been planted, and founded

governments of their own, constitute one of the most interesting

portions of the annals of man. These events occupied three hundred

years; during which period civilization and knowledge made steady

progress in the Old World; so that Europe, at the commencement of

the nineteenth century, had become greatly changed from that Europe

which began the colonization of America at the close of the fifteenth,

or the commencement of the sixteenth. And what is most material to my

present purpose is, that in the progress of the first of these

centuries, that is to say, from the discovery of America to the

settlements of Virginia and Massachusetts, political and religious

events took place, which most materially affected the state of

society and the sentiments of mankind, especially in England and in

parts of Continental Europe. After a few feeble and unsuccessful

efforts by England, under Henry the Seventh, to plant colonies in

America, no designs of that kind were prosecuted for a long period,

either by the English government or any of its subjects. Without

inquiring into the causes of this delay, its consequences are

sufficiently clear and striking. England, in this lapse of a century,

unknown to herself, but under the providence of God and the influence of

events, was fitting herself for the work of colonizing North America,

on such principles and by such men, as should spread the English

name and English blood, in time, over a great portion of the Western

hemisphere. The commercial spirit was greatly fostered by several laws

passed in the reign of Henry the Seventh; and in the same reign

encouragement was given to arts and manufactures in the eastern

counties, and some not unimportant modifications of the feudal system

took place, by allowing the breaking of entails. These and other

measures, and other occurrences, were making way for a new class of

society to emerge, and show itself, in a military and feudal age; a

middle class, between the barons or great landholders and the retainers

of the crown, on the one side, and the tenants of the crown and barons,

and agricultural and other laborers, on the other side. With the rise

and growth of this new class of society, not only did commerce and the

arts increase, but better education, a greater degree of knowledge,

juster notions of the true ends of government, and sentiments

favorable to civil liberty, began to spread abroad, and become more

and more common. But the plants springing from these seeds were of slow

growth. The character of English society had indeed begun to undergo a

change; but changes of national character are ordinarily the work of

time. Operative causes were, however, evidently in existence, and sure

to produce, ultimately, their proper effect. From the accession of

Henry the Seventh to the breaking out of the civil wars, England

enjoyed much greater exemption from war, foreign and domestic, than for

a long period before, and during the controversy between the houses of

York and Lancaster. These years of peace were favorable to commerce

and the arts. Commerce and the arts augmented general and individual

knowledge; and knowledge is the only fountain, both of the love and the

principles of human liberty.

Other powerful causes soon came into active play. The Reformation of

Luther broke out, kindling up the minds of men afresh, leading to new

habits of thought, and awakening in individuals energies before unknown

even to themselves. The religious controversies of this period changed

society, as well as religion; indeed, it would be easy to prove, if this

occasion were proper for it, that they changed society to a considerable

extent, where they did not change the religion of the state. They

changed man himself; in his modes of thought, his consciousness of his

own powers, and his desire of intellectual attainment. The spirit of

commercial and foreign adventure, therefore, on the one hand, which had

gained so much strength and influence since the time of the discovery of

America, and, on the other, the assertion and maintenance of religious

liberty, having their source indeed in the Reformation, but continued,

diversified, and constantly strengthened by the subsequent divisions of

sentiment and opinion among the Reformers themselves, and this love of

religious liberty drawing after it or bringing along with it, as it

always does, an ardent devotion to the principle of civil liberty also,

were the powerful influences under which character was formed and men

trained, for the great work of introducing English civilization, English

law, and what is more than all, Anglo-Saxon blood, into the wilderness

of North America. Raleigh and his companions may be considered as the

creatures, principally, of the first of these causes. High-spirited,

full of the love of personal adventure, excited, too, in some degree, by

the hopes of sudden riches from the discovery of mines of the precious

metals, and not unwilling to diversify the labors of settling a colony

with occasional cruising against the Spaniards in the West Indian seas,

they crossed and recrossed the ocean, with a frequency which surprises

us, when we consider the state of navigation, and which evinces a most

daring spirit.

The other cause peopled New England. The Mayflower sought our shores

under no high-wrought spirit of commercial adventure, no love of gold,

no mixture of purpose warlike or hostile to any human being. Like the

dove from the ark, she had put forth only to find rest. Solemn

supplications on the shore of the sea, in Holland, had invoked for her,

at her departure, the blessings of Providence. The stars which guided

her were the unobscured constellations of civil and religious liberty.

Her deck was the altar of the living God. Fervent prayers on bended

knees, mingled, morning and evening, with the voices of ocean, and the

sighing of the wind in her shrouds. Every prosperous breeze, which,

gently swelling her sails, helped the Pilgrims onward in their course,

awoke new anthems of praise; and when the elements were wrought into

fury, neither the tempest, tossing their fragile bark like a feather,

nor the darkness and howling of the midnight storm, ever disturbed, in

man or woman, the firm and settled purpose of their souls, to undergo

all, and to do all, that the meekest patience, the boldest resolution,

and the highest trust in God could enable human beings to suffer or to

perform.

Some differences may, doubtless, be traced at this day between the

descendants of the early colonists of Virginia and those of New England,

owing to the different influences and different circumstances under

which the respective settlements were made; but only enough to create a

pleasing variety in the midst of a general family resemblance.

"Facies, non omnibus una,

Nec diversa tamen, qualem docet esse sororum."

But the habits, sentiments, and objects of both soon became modified by

local causes, growing out of their condition in the New World; and as

this condition was essentially alike in both, and as both at once

adopted the same general rules and principles of English jurisprudence,

and became accustomed to the authority of representative bodies, these

differences gradually diminished. They disappeared by the progress of

time, and the influence of intercourse. The necessity of some degree of

union and cooeperation to defend themselves against the savage tribes,

tended to excite in them mutual respect and regard. They fought together

in the wars against France. The great and common cause of the Revolution

bound them to one another by new links of brotherhood; and at length the

present constitution of government united them happily and gloriously,

to form the great republic of the world, and bound up their interests

and fortunes, till the whole earth sees that there is now for them, in

present possession as well as in future hope, but "One Country, One

Constitution, and One Destiny."

The colonization of the tropical region, and the whole of the southern

parts of the continent, by Spain and Portugal, was conducted on other

principles, under the influence of other motives, and followed by far

different consequences. From the time of its discovery, the Spanish

government pushed forward its settlements in America, not only with

vigor, but with eagerness; so that long before the first permanent

English settlement had been accomplished in what is now the United

States, Spain had conquered Mexico, Peru, and Chili, and stretched her

power over nearly all the territory she ever acquired on this continent.

The rapidity of these conquests is to be ascribed in a great degree to

the eagerness, not to say the rapacity, of those numerous bands of

adventurers, who were stimulated by individual interests and private

hopes to subdue immense regions, and take possession of them in the name

of the crown of Spain. The mines of gold and silver were the incitements

to these efforts, and accordingly settlements were generally made, and

Spanish authority established immediately on the subjugation of

territory, that the native population might be set to work by their new

Spanish masters in the mines. From these facts, the love of gold--gold,

not produced by industry, nor accumulated by commerce, but gold dug from

its native bed in the bowels of the earth, and that earth ravished from

its rightful possessors by every possible degree of enormity, cruelty,

and crime--was long the governing passion in Spanish wars and Spanish

settlements in America. Even Columbus himself did not wholly escape the

influence of this base motive. In his early voyages we find him passing

from island to island, inquiring everywhere for gold; as if God had

opened the New World to the knowledge of the Old, only to gratify a

passion equally senseless and sordid, and to offer up millions of an

unoffending race of men to the destruction of the sword, sharpened both

by cruelty and rapacity. And yet Columbus was far above his age and

country. Enthusiastic, indeed, but sober, religious, and magnanimous;

born to great things and capable of high sentiments, as his noble

discourse before Ferdinand and Isabella, as well as the whole history of

his life, shows. Probably he sacrificed much to the known sentiments of

others, and addressed to his followers motives likely to influence them.

At the same time, it is evident that he himself looked upon the world

which he discovered as a world of wealth, all ready to be seized and

enjoyed.

The conquerors and the European settlers of Spanish America were mainly

military commanders and common soldiers. The monarchy of Spain was not

transferred to this hemisphere, but it acted in it, as it acted at home,

through its ordinary means, and its true representative, military force.

The robbery and destruction of the native race was the achievement of

standing armies, in the right of the king, and by his authority,

fighting in his name, for the aggrandizement of his power and the

extension of his prerogatives, with military ideas under arbitrary

maxims,--a portion of that dreadful instrumentality by which a perfect

despotism governs a people. As there was no liberty in Spain, how could

liberty be transmitted to Spanish colonies?

The colonists of English America were of the people, and a people

already free. They were of the middle, industrious, and already

prosperous class, the inhabitants of commercial and manufacturing

cities, among whom liberty first revived and respired, after a sleep of

a thousand years in the bosom of the Dark Ages. Spain descended on the

New World in the armed and terrible image of her monarchy and her

soldiery; England approached it in the winning and popular garb of

personal rights, public protection, and civil freedom. England

transplanted liberty to America; Spain transplanted power. England,

through the agency of private companies and the efforts of individuals,

colonized this part of North America by industrious individuals, making

their own way in the wilderness, defending themselves against the

savages, recognizing their right to the soil, and with a general honest

purpose of introducing knowledge as well as Christianity among them.

Spain stooped on South America, like a vulture on its prey. Every thing

was force. Territories were acquired by fire and sword. Cities were

destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thousands of human beings fell

by fire and sword. Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire

and sword.

Behold, then, fellow-citizens, the difference resulting from the

operation of the two principles! Here, to-day, on the summit of Bunker

Hill, and at the foot of this monument, behold the difference! I would

that the fifty thousand voices present could proclaim it with a shout

which should be heard over the globe. Our inheritance was of liberty,

secured and regulated by law, and enlightened by religion and

knowledge; that of South America was of power, stern, unrelenting,

tyrannical, military power. And now look to the consequences of the two

principles on the general and aggregate happiness of the human race.

Behold the results, in all the regions conquered by Cortez and Pizarro,

and the contrasted results here. I suppose the territory of the United

States may amount to one eighth, or one tenth, of that colonized by

Spain on this continent; and yet in all that vast region there are but

between one and two millions of people of European color and European

blood, while in the United States there are fourteen millions who

rejoice in their descent from the people of the more northern part of

Europe.

But we may follow the difference in the original principle of

colonization, and in its character and objects, still further. We

must look to moral and intellectual results; we must consider

consequences, not only as they show themselves in hastening or

retarding the increase of population and the supply of physical wants,

but in their civilization, improvement, and happiness. We must inquire

what progress has been made in the true science of liberty, in the

knowledge of the great principles of self-government, and in the

progress of man, as a social, moral, and religious being.

I would not willingly say any thing on this occasion discourteous to the

new governments founded on the demolition of the power of the Spanish

monarchy. They are yet on their trial, and I hope for a favorable

result. But truth, sacred truth, and fidelity to the cause of civil

liberty, compel me to say, that hitherto they have discovered quite too

much of the spirit of that monarchy from which they separated

themselves. Quite too frequent resort is made to military force; and

quite too much of the substance of the people is consumed in maintaining

armies, not for defence against foreign aggression, but for enforcing

obedience to domestic authority. Standing armies are the oppressive

instruments for governing the people, in the hands of hereditary and

arbitrary monarchs. A military republic, a government founded on mock

elections, and supported only by the sword, is a movement indeed, but a

retrograde and disastrous movement, from the regular and old-fashioned

monarchical systems. If men would enjoy the blessings of republican

government, they must govern themselves by reason, by mutual counsel

and consultation, by a sense and feeling of general interest, and by the

acquiescence of the minority in the will of the majority, properly

expressed; and, above all, the military must be kept, according to the

language of our Bill of Rights, in strict subordination to the civil

authority. Wherever this lesson is not both learned and practised, there

can be no political freedom. Absurd, preposterous is it, a scoff and a

satire on free forms of constitutional liberty, for frames of government

to be prescribed by military leaders, and the right of suffrage to be

exercised at the point of the sword.

Making all allowance for situation and climate, it cannot be doubted by

intelligent minds, that the difference now existing between North and

South America is justly attributable, in a great degree, to political

institutions in the Old World and in the New. And how broad that

difference is! Suppose an assembly, in one of the valleys or on the side

of one of the mountains of the southern half of the hemisphere, to be

held, this day, in the neighborhood of a large city;--what would be the

scene presented? Yonder is a volcano, flaming and smoking, but shedding

no light, moral or intellectual. At its foot is the mine, sometimes

yielding, perhaps, large gains to capital, but in which labor is

destined to eternal and unrequited toil, and followed only by penury and

beggary. The city is filled with armed men; not a free people, armed and

coming forth voluntarily to rejoice in a public festivity, but hireling

troops, supported by forced loans, excessive impositions on commerce, or

taxes wrung from a half-fed and a half-clothed population. For the great

there are palaces covered with gold; for the poor there are hovels of

the meanest sort. There is an ecclesiastical hierarchy, enjoying the

wealth of princes; but there are no means of education for the people.

Do public improvements favor intercourse between place and place? So far

from this, the traveller cannot pass from town to town, without danger,

every mile, of robbery and assassination. I would not overcharge or

exaggerate this picture; but its principal features are all too truly

sketched.

And how does it contrast with the scene now actually before us? Look

round upon these fields; they are verdant and beautiful, well

cultivated, and at this moment loaded with the riches of the early

harvest. The hands which till them are those of the free owners of the

soil, enjoying equal rights, and protected by law from oppression and

tyranny. Look to the thousand vessels in our sight, filling the harbor,

or covering the neighboring sea. They are the vehicles of a profitable

commerce, carried on by men who know that the profits of their hardy

enterprise, when they make them, are their own; and this commerce is

encouraged and regulated by wise laws, and defended, when need be, by

the valor and patriotism of the country. Look to that fair city, the

abode of so much diffused wealth, so much general happiness and comfort,

so much personal independence, and so much general knowledge, and not

undistinguished, I may be permitted to add, for hospitality and social

refinement. She fears no forced contributions, no siege or sacking from

military leaders of rival factions. The hundred temples in which her

citizens worship God are in no danger of sacrilege. The regular

administration of the laws encounters no obstacle. The long processions

of children and youth, which you see this day, issuing by thousands from

her free schools, prove the care and anxiety with which a popular

government provides for the education and morals of the people.

Everywhere there is order; everywhere there is security. Everywhere the

law reaches to the highest and reaches to the lowest, to protect all in

their rights, and to restrain all from wrong; and over all hovers

liberty; that liberty for which our fathers fought and fell on this very

spot, with her eye ever watchful, and her eagle wing ever wide

outspread.

The colonies of Spain, from their origin to their end, were subject to

the sovereign authority of the mother country. Their government, as well

as their commerce, was a strict home monopoly. If we add to this the

established usage of filling important posts in the administration of

the colonies exclusively by natives of Old Spain, thus cutting off for

ever all hopes of honorable preferment from every man born in the

Western hemisphere, causes enough rise up before us at once to account

fully for the subsequent history and character of these provinces. The

viceroys and provincial governors of Spain were never at home in their

governments in America. They did not feel that they were of the people

whom they governed. Their official character and employment have a good

deal of resemblance to those of the proconsuls of Rome, in Asia,

Sicily, and Gaul; but obviously no resemblance to those of Carver and

Winthrop, and very little to those of the governors of Virginia after

that Colony had established a popular House of Burgesses.

The English colonists in America, generally speaking, were men who

were seeking new homes in a new world. They brought with them their

families and all that was most dear to them. This was especially the

case with the colonists of Plymouth and Massachusetts. Many of them

were educated men, and all possessed their full share, according to

their social condition, of the knowledge and attainments of that

age. The distinctive characteristic of their settlement is the

introduction of the civilization of Europe into a wilderness, without

bringing with it the political institutions of Europe. The arts,

sciences, and literature of England came over with the settlers. That

great portion of the common law which regulates the social and

personal relations and conduct of men, came also. The jury came; the

_habeas corpus_ came; the testamentary power came; and the law of

inheritance and descent came also, except that part of it which

recognizes the rights of primogeniture, which either did not come at

all, or soon gave way to the rule of equal partition of estates among

children. But the monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy, nor the

church, as an estate of the realm. Political institutions were to be

framed anew, such as should be adapted to the state of things. But it

could not be doubtful what should be the nature and character of

these institutions. A general social equality prevailed among the

settlers, and an equality of political rights seemed the natural, if

not the necessary consequence. After forty years of revolution,

violence, and war, the people of France have placed at the head of the

fundamental instrument of their government, as the great boon

obtained by all their sufferings and sacrifices, the declaration that

all Frenchmen are equal before the law. What France has reached only

by the expenditure of so much blood and treasure, and the perpetration

of so much crime, the English colonists obtained by simply changing

their place, carrying with them the intellectual and moral culture of

Europe, and the personal and social relations to which they were

accustomed, but leaving behind their political institutions. It has

been said with much vivacity, that the felicity of the American

colonists consisted in their escape from the past. This is true so far

as respects political establishments, but no further. They brought

with them a full portion of all the riches of the past, in science, in

art, in morals, religion, and literature. The Bible came with them.

And it is not to be doubted, that to the free and universal reading of

the Bible, in that age, men were much indebted for right views of civil

liberty. The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a

book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from

God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual

responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow-man.

Bacon and Locke, and Shakspeare and Milton, also came with the

colonists. It was the object of the first settlers to form new political

systems, but all that belonged to cultivated man, to family, to

neighborhood, to social relations, accompanied them. In the Doric phrase

of one of our own historians, "they came to settle on bare creation";

but their settlement in the wilderness, nevertheless, was not a

lodgement of nomadic tribes, a mere resting-place of roaming savages. It

was the beginning of a permanent community, the fixed residence of

cultivated men. Not only was English literature read, but English, good

English, was spoken and written, before the axe had made way to let in

the sun upon the habitations and fields of Plymouth and Massachusetts.

And whatever may be said to the contrary, a correct use of the English

language is, at this day, more general throughout the United States,

than it is throughout England herself.

But another grand characteristic is, that, in the English colonies,

political affairs were left to be managed by the colonists themselves.

This is another fact wholly distinguishing them in character, as it has

distinguished them in fortune, from the colonists of Spain. Here lies

the foundation of that experience in self-government, which has

preserved order, and security, and regularity, amidst the play of

popular institutions. Home government was the secret of the prosperity

of the North American settlements. The more distinguished of the New

England colonists, with a most remarkable sagacity and a long-sighted

reach into futurity, refused to come to America unless they could bring

with them charters providing for the administration of their affairs in

this country.[66] They saw from the first the evils of being governed in

the New World by a power fixed in the Old. Acknowledging the general

superiority of the crown, they still insisted on the right of passing

local laws, and of local administration. And history teaches us the

justice and the value of this determination in the example of Virginia.

The early attempts to settle that Colony failed, sometimes with the most

melancholy and fatal consequences, from want of knowledge, care, and

attention on the part of those who had the charge of their affairs in

England; and it was only after the issuing of the third charter, that

its prosperity fairly commenced. The cause was, that by that third

charter the people of Virginia, for by this time they deserve to be so

called, were allowed to constitute and establish the first popular

representative assembly which ever convened on this continent, the

Virginia House of Burgesses.

The great elements, then, of the American system of government,

originally introduced by the colonists, and which were early in

operation, and ready to be developed, more and more, as the progress of

events should justify or demand, were,--

Escape from the existing political systems of Europe, including its

religious hierarchies, but the continued possession and enjoyment of its

science and arts, its literature, and its manners;

Home government, or the power of making in the colony the municipal laws

which were to govern it;

Equality of rights;

Representative assemblies, or forms of government founded on popular

elections.

* * * * *

Few topics are more inviting, or more fit for philosophical discussion,

than the effect on the happiness of mankind of institutions founded upon

these principles; or, in other words, the influence of the New World

upon the Old.

Her obligations to Europe for science and art, laws, literature, and

manners, America acknowledges as she ought, with respect and gratitude.

The people of the United States, descendants of the English stock,

grateful for the treasures of knowledge derived from their English

ancestors, admit also, with thanks and filial regard, that among those

ancestors, under the culture of Hampden and Sydney and other assiduous

friends, that seed of popular liberty first germinated, which on our

soil has shot up to its full height, until its branches overshadow all

the land.

But America has not failed to make returns. If she has not wholly

cancelled the obligation, or equalled it by others of like weight, she

has, at least, made respectable advances towards repaying the debt. And

she admits, that, standing in the midst of civilized nations, and in a

civilized age, a nation among nations, there is a high part which she is

expected to act, for the general advancement of human interests and

human welfare.

American mines have filled the mints of Europe with the precious metals.

The productions of the American soil and climate have poured out their

abundance of luxuries for the tables of the rich, and of necessaries for

the sustenance of the poor. Birds and animals of beauty and value have

been added to the European stocks; and transplantations from the

unequalled riches of our forests have mingled themselves profusely with

the elms, and ashes, and Druidical oaks of England.

America has made contributions to Europe far more important. Who can

estimate the amount, or the value, of the augmentation of the commerce

of the world that has resulted from America? Who can imagine to himself

what would now be the shock to the Eastern Continent, if the Atlantic

were no longer traversable, or if there were no longer American

productions, or American markets?

But America exercises influences, or holds out examples, for the

consideration of the Old World, of a much higher, because they are of a

moral and political character.

America has furnished to Europe proof of the fact, that popular

institutions, founded on equality and the principle of representation,

are capable of maintaining governments, able to secure the rights of

person, property, and reputation.

America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of

mankind,--that portion which in Europe is called the laboring, or lower

class,--to raise them to self-respect, to make them competent to act a

part in the great right and great duty of self-government; and she has

proved that this may be done by education and the diffusion of

knowledge. She holds out an example, a thousand times more encouraging

than ever was presented before, to those nine tenths of the human race

who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank.

America has furnished to the world the character of Washington! And if

our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have

entitled them to the respect of mankind.

Washington! "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of

his countrymen!" Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration

and regard in which the people of the United States hold him prove them

to be worthy of such a countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects

the highest honor on his country. I would cheerfully put the question

to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of

the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most

pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not, that, by a

suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be Washington!

The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity,

its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues

and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his

personal motives, as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is

lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering

high above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the

inhabitants of a single city or a single State, but by all the families

of man, ascends the colossal grandeur of the character and life of

Washington. In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the

other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown, it is

an American production. It is the embodiment and vindication of our

Transatlantic liberty. Born upon our soil, of parents also born upon it;

never for a moment having had sight of the Old World; instructed,

according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but

wholesome elementary knowledge which our institutions provide for the

children of the people; growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine

influences of American society; living from infancy to manhood and age

amidst our expanding, but not luxurious civilization; partaking in our

great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and

uncivilized man, our agony of glory, the war of Independence, our great

victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment of

the Constitution; he is all, all our own! Washington is ours. That

crowded and glorious life,

"Where multitudes of virtues passed along,

Each pressing foremost, in the mighty throng

Ambitious to be seen, then making room

For greater multitudes that were to come,"--

that life was the life of an American citizen.

I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened moment of

the state, in the midst of the reproaches of enemies and the misgiving

of friends, I turn to that transcendent name for courage and for

consolation. To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can

be combined with law, with order, with the security of property, with

the pursuits and advancement of happiness; to him who denies that our

forms of government are capable of producing exaltation of soul, and the

passion of true glory; to him who denies that we have contributed any

thing to the stock of great lessons and great examples;--to all these I

reply by pointing to Washington!

* * * * *

And now, friends and fellow-citizens, it is time to bring this discourse

to a close.

We have indulged in gratifying recollections of the past, in the

prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes for the

future. But let us remember that we have duties and obligations to

perform, corresponding to the blessings which we enjoy. Let us remember

the trust, the sacred trust, attaching to the rich inheritance which we

have received from our fathers. Let us feel our personal responsibility,

to the full extent of our power and influence, for the preservation of

the principles of civil and religious liberty. And let us remember that

it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that can make men

respectable and happy, under any form of government. Let us hold fast

the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as

individuals; that no government is respectable, which is not just; that

without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public

principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere forms of government, no

machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. In our day and

generation let us seek to raise and improve the moral sentiment, so

that we may look, not for a degraded, but for an elevated and improved

future. And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to

the house appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of

country glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our

blood shall have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age

shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous

youth shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the

other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great

and glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise from

every youthful breast the ejaculation, "Thank God, I--I also--AM AN

AMERICAN!"

FOOTNOTES

[61] An Address delivered on Bunker Hill, on the 17th of June, 1843.

[62] William Tudor died at Rio de Janeiro, as Charge d'Affaires of the

United States, in 1830.

[63] William Sullivan died in Boston in 1839, George Blake in 1841,

both gentlemen of great political and legal eminence.

[64] William Prescott (since deceased, in 1844), son of Colonel William

Prescott, who commanded on the 17th of June, 1775, and father of

William H. Prescott, the historian.

[65] See the Note at the end of the Address.

[66] See the "Records of the Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New

England," as published in the third volume of the Transactions

of the American Antiquarian Society, pp. 47-50.

NOTE.

Page 87.

The following description of the Bunker Hill Monument and Square is from

Mr. Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston, pp. 355, 356.

"Monument Square is four hundred and seventeen feet from north to

south, and four hundred feet from east to west, and contains nearly

six acres. It embraces the whole site of the redoubt, and a part of

the site of the breastwork. According to the most accurate plan of

the town and the battle (Page's), the monument stands where the

southwest angle of the redoubt was, and the whole of the redoubt was

between the monument and the street that bounds it on the west. The

small mound in the northeast corner of the square is supposed to be

the remains of the breastwork. Warren fell about two hundred feet

west of the monument. An iron fence incloses the square, and another

surrounds the monument. The square has entrances on each of its

sides, and at each of its corners, and is surrounded by a walk and

rows of trees.

"The obelisk is thirty feet in diameter at the base, about fifteen

feet at the top of the truncated part, and was designed to be two

hundred and twenty feet high; but the mortar and the seams between

the stones make the precise height two hundred and twenty-one feet.

Within the shaft is a hollow cone, with a spiral stairway winding

round it to its summit, which enters a circular chamber at the top.

There are ninety courses of stone in the shaft,--six of them below

the ground, and eighty-four above the ground. The capstone, or apex,

is a single stone, four feet square at the base, and three feet six

inches in height, weighing two and a half tons."

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

Since the decease of General Washington, on the 14th of December, 1799,

the public mind has never been so powerfully affected in this part of

the country by any similar event, as by the death of John Adams, on the

4th of July, 1826. The news reached Boston in the evening of that day.

The decease of this venerable fellow-citizen must at all times have

appealed with much force to the patriotic sympathies of the people of

Massachusetts. It acquired a singular interest from the year and the day

on which it took place;--the 4th of July of the year completing the half

century from that ever memorable era in the history of this country and

the world, the Declaration of Independence; a measure in which Mr. Adams

himself had taken so distinguished a part. The emotions of the public

were greatly increased by the indications given by Mr. Adams in his last

hours, that he was fully aware that the day was the anniversary of

Independence, and by his dying allusion to the supposed fact that his

colleague, Jefferson, survived him. When, in the course of a few days,

the news arrived from Virginia, that he also had departed this life, on

the same day and a few hours before Mr. Adams, the sensibility of the

community, as of the country at large, was touched beyond all example.

The occurrence was justly deemed without a parallel in history. The

various circumstances of association and coincidence which marked the

characters and careers of these great men, and especially those of their

simultaneous decease on the 4th of July, were dwelt upon with melancholy

but untiring interest. The circles of private life, the press, public

bodies, and the pulpit, were for some time almost engrossed with the

topic; and solemn rites of commemoration were performed throughout the

country.

An early day was appointed for this purpose by the City Council of

Boston. The whole community manifested its sympathy in the extraordinary

event; and on the 2d of August, 1826, at the request of the municipal

authorities, and in the presence of an immense audience, the following

Discourse was delivered in Faneuil Hall.

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.[67]

This is an unaccustomed spectacle. For the first time, fellow-citizens,

badges of mourning shroud the columns and overhang the arches of this

hall. These walls, which were consecrated, so long ago, to the cause of

American liberty, which witnessed her infant struggles, and rung with

the shouts of her earliest victories, proclaim, now, that distinguished

friends and champions of that great cause have fallen. It is right that

it should be thus. The tears which flow, and the honors that are paid,

when the founders of the republic die, give hope that the republic

itself may be immortal. It is fit that, by public assembly and solemn

observance, by anthem and by eulogy, we commemorate the services of

national benefactors, extol their virtues, and render thanks to God for

eminent blessings, early given and long continued, through their agency,

to our favored country.

ADAMS and JEFFERSON are no more; and we are assembled, fellow-citizens,

the aged, the middle-aged, and the young, by the spontaneous impulse of

all, under the authority of the municipal government, with the

presence of the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth, and others its

official representatives, the University, and the learned societies,

to bear our part in those manifestations of respect and gratitude which

pervade the whole land. ADAMS and JEFFERSON are no more. On our

fiftieth anniversary, the great day of national jubilee, in the very

hour of public rejoicing, in the midst of echoing and reechoing voices

of thanksgiving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took

their flight together to the world of spirits.

If it be true that no one can safely be pronounced happy while he lives,

if that event which terminates life can alone crown its honors and its

glory, what felicity is here! The great epic of their lives, how happily

concluded! Poetry itself has hardly terminated illustrious lives, and

finished the career of earthly renown, by such a consummation. If we had

the power, we could not wish to reverse this dispensation of the Divine

Providence. The great objects of life were accomplished, the drama was

ready to be closed. It has closed; our patriots have fallen; but so

fallen, at such age, with such coincidence, on such a day, that we

cannot rationally lament that that end has come, which we knew could not

be long deferred.

Neither of these great men, fellow-citizens, could have died, at any

time, without leaving an immense void in our American society. They

have been so intimately, and for so long a time, blended with the

history of the country, and especially so united, in our thoughts

and recollections, with the events of the Revolution, that the death of

either would have touched the chords of public sympathy. We should have

felt that one great link, connecting us with former times, was broken;

that we had lost something more, as it were, of the presence of the

Revolution itself, and of the act of independence, and were driven

on, by another great remove from the days of our country's early

distinction, to meet posterity, and to mix with the future. Like the

mariner, whom the currents of the ocean and the winds carry along,

till he sees the stars which have directed his course and lighted his

pathless way descend, one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we

should have felt that the stream of time had borne us onward till

another great luminary, whose light had cheered us and whose guidance

we had followed, had sunk away from our sight.

But the concurrence of their death on the anniversary of Independence

has naturally awakened stronger emotions. Both had been Presidents, both

had lived to great age, both were early patriots, and both were

distinguished and ever honored by their immediate agency in the act of

independence. It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these

two should live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that act; that

they should complete that year; and that then, on the day which had fast

linked for ever their own fame with their country's glory, the heavens

should open to receive them both at once. As their lives themselves were

the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy

termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our

country and its benefactors are objects of His care?

ADAMS and JEFFERSON, I have said, are no more. As human beings, indeed,

they are no more. They are no more, as in 1776, bold and fearless

advocates of independence; no more, as at subsequent periods, the head

of the government; no more, as we have recently seen them, aged and

venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are no more. They

are dead. But how little is there of the great and good which can die!

To their country they yet live, and live for ever. They live in all

that perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the recorded proofs

of their own great actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in

the deep-engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and

homage of mankind. They live in their example; and they live,

emphatically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and

efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue

to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own country,

but throughout the civilized world. A superior and commanding human

intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift,

is not a temporary flame, burning brightly for a while, and then

giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent

heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common

mass of human mind; so that when it glimmers in its own decay, and

finally goes out in death, no night follows, but it leaves the world all

light, all on fire, from the potent contact of its own spirit. Bacon

died; but the human understanding, roused by the touch of his

miraculous wand to a perception of the true philosophy and the just

mode of inquiring after truth, has kept on its course successfully and

gloriously. Newton died; yet the courses of the spheres are still

known, and they yet move on by the laws which he discovered, and in

the orbits which he saw, and described for them, in the infinity of

space.

No two men now live, fellow-citizens, perhaps it may be doubted whether

any two men have ever lived in one age, who, more than those we now

commemorate, have impressed on mankind their own sentiments in regard to

politics and government, infused their own opinions more deeply into

the opinions of others, or given a more lasting direction to the current

of human thought. Their work doth not perish with them. The tree which

they assisted to plant will flourish, although they water it and protect

it no longer; for it has struck its roots deep, it has sent them to the

very centre; no storm, not of force to burst the orb, can overturn it;

its branches spread wide; they stretch their protecting arms broader and

broader, and its top is destined to reach the heavens. We are not

deceived. There is no delusion here. No age will come in which the

American Revolution will appear less than it is, one of the greatest

events in human history. No age will come in which it shall cease to be

seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step, a great advance,

not only in American affairs, but in human affairs, was made on the 4th

of July, 1776. And no age will come, we trust, so ignorant or so unjust

as not to see and acknowledge the efficient agency of those we now honor

in producing that momentous event.

We are not assembled, therefore, fellow-citizens, as men overwhelmed

with calamity by the sudden disruption of the ties of friendship or

affection, or as in despair for the republic by the untimely blighting

of its hopes. Death has not surprised us by an unseasonable blow. We

have, indeed, seen the tomb close, but it has closed only over mature

years, over long-protracted public service, over the weakness of age,

and over life itself only when the ends of living had been fulfilled.

These suns, as they rose slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms,

in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their meridian to sink

suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing

benignity of a summer's day, they have gone down with slow-descending,

grateful, long-lingering light; and now that they are beyond the visible

margin of the world, good omens cheer us from "the bright track of their

fiery car"!

There were many points of similarity in the lives and fortunes of these

great men. They belonged to the same profession, and had pursued its

studies and its practice, for unequal lengths of time indeed, but with

diligence and effect. Both were learned and able lawyers. They were

natives and inhabitants, respectively, of those two of the Colonies

which at the Revolution were the largest and most powerful, and which

naturally had a lead in the political affairs of the times. When the

Colonies became in some degree united, by the assembling of a general

Congress, they were brought to act together in its deliberations, not

indeed at the same time, but both at early periods. Each had already

manifested his attachment to the cause of the country, as well as his

ability to maintain it, by printed addresses, public speeches, extensive

correspondence, and whatever other mode could be adopted for the purpose

of exposing the encroachments of the British Parliament, and animating

the people to a manly resistance. Both were not only decided, but early,

friends of Independence. While others yet doubted, they were resolved;

where others hesitated, they pressed forward. They were both members of

the committee for preparing the Declaration of Independence, and they

constituted the sub-committee appointed by the other members to make the

draft. They left their seats in Congress, being called to other public

employments, at periods not remote from each other, although one of them

returned to it afterwards for a short time. Neither of them was of the

assembly of great men which formed the present Constitution, and neither

was at any time a member of Congress under its provisions. Both have

been public ministers abroad, both Vice-Presidents and both Presidents

of the United States. These coincidences are now singularly crowned and

completed. They have died together; and they died on the anniversary of

liberty.

When many of us were last in this place, fellow-citizens, it was on the

day of that anniversary. We were met to enjoy the festivities belonging

to the occasion, and to manifest our grateful homage to our political

fathers. We did not, we could not here, forget our venerable neighbor of

Quincy. We knew that we were standing, at a time of high and palmy

prosperity, where he had stood in the hour of utmost peril; that we saw

nothing but liberty and security, where he had met the frown of power;

that we were enjoying every thing, where he had hazarded every thing;

and just and sincere plaudits rose to his name, from the crowds which

filled this area, and hung over these galleries. He whose grateful duty

it was to speak to us,[68] on that day, of the virtues of our fathers,

had, indeed, admonished us that time and years were about to level his

venerable frame with the dust. But he bade us hope that "the sound of a

nation's joy, rushing from our cities, ringing from our valleys, echoing

from our hills, might yet break the silence of his aged ear; that the

rising blessings of grateful millions might yet visit with glad light

his decaying vision." Alas! that vision was then closing for ever. Alas!

the silence which was then settling on that aged ear was an everlasting

silence! For, lo! in the very moment of our festivities, his freed

spirit ascended to God who gave it! Human aid and human solace terminate

at the grave; or we would gladly have borne him upward, on a nation's

outspread hands; we would have accompanied him, and with the blessings

of millions and the prayers of millions, commended him to the Divine

favor.

While still indulging our thoughts, on the coincidence of the death of

this venerable man with the anniversary of Independence, we learn that

Jefferson, too, has fallen; and that these aged patriots, these

illustrious fellow-laborers, have left our world together. May not such

events raise the suggestion that they are not undesigned, and that

Heaven does so order things, as sometimes to attract strongly the

attention and excite the thoughts of men? The occurrence has added new

interest to our anniversary, and will be remembered in all time to

come.

* * * * *

The occasion, fellow-citizens, requires some account of the lives and

services of JOHN ADAMS and THOMAS JEFFERSON. This duty must necessarily

be performed with great brevity, and in the discharge of it I shall be

obliged to confine myself, principally, to those parts of their history

and character which belonged to them as public men.

JOHN ADAMS was born at Quincy, then part of the ancient town of

Braintree, on the 19th day of October (old style), 1735. He was a

descendant of the Puritans, his ancestors having early emigrated

from England, and settled in Massachusetts. Discovering in childhood

a strong love of reading and of knowledge, together with marks of

great strength and activity of mind, proper care was taken by his

worthy father to provide for his education. He pursued his youthful

studies in Braintree, under Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose fortune it

was that Josiah Quincy, Jr., as well as the subject of these remarks,

should receive from him his instruction in the rudiments of classical

literature. Having been admitted, in 1751, a member of Harvard

College, Mr. Adams was graduated, in course, in 1755; and on the

catalogue of that institution, his name, at the time of his death, was

second among the living Alumni, being preceded only by that of the

venerable Holyoke. With what degree of reputation he left the

University is not now precisely known. We know only that he was

distinguished in a class which numbered Locke and Hemmenway among its

members. Choosing the law for his profession, he commenced and

prosecuted its studies at Worcester, under the direction of Samuel

Putnam, a gentleman whom he has himself described as an acute man, an

able and learned lawyer, and as being in large professional practice at

that time. In 1758 he was admitted to the bar, and entered upon the

practice of the law in Braintree. He is understood to have made his

first considerable effort, or to have attained his first signal

success, at Plymouth, on one of those occasions which furnish the

earliest opportunity for distinction to many young men of the

profession, a jury trial, and a criminal cause. His business

naturally grew with his reputation, and his residence in the vicinity

afforded the opportunity, as his growing eminence gave the power, of

entering on a larger field of practice in the capital. In 1766 he

removed his residence to Boston, still continuing his attendance on

the neighboring circuits, and not unfrequently called to remote parts

of the Province. In 1770 his professional firmness was brought to a

test of some severity, on the application of the British officers and

soldiers to undertake their defence, on the trial of the indictments

found against them on account of the transactions of the memorable

5th of March. He seems to have thought, on this occasion, that a man can

no more abandon the proper duties of his profession, than he can

abandon other duties. The event proved, that, as he judged well for

his own reputation, so, too, he judged well for the interest and

permanent fame of his country. The result of that trial proved, that,

notwithstanding the high degree of excitement then existing in

consequence of the measures of the British government, a jury of

Massachusetts would not deprive the most reckless enemies, even the

officers of that standing army quartered among them, which they so

perfectly abhorred, of any part of that protection which the law, in

its mildest and most indulgent interpretation, affords to persons

accused of crimes.

Without following Mr. Adams's professional course further suffice it to

say, that on the first establishment of the judicial tribunals under

the authority of the State, in 1776, he received an offer of the high

and responsible station of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of

Massachusetts. But he was destined for another and a different

career. From early life the bent of his mind was toward politics; a

propensity which the state of the times, if it did not create,

doubtless very much strengthened. Public subjects must have occupied

the thoughts and filled up the conversation in the circles in which

he then moved; and the interesting questions at that time just

arising could not but seize on a mind like his, ardent, sanguine, and

patriotic. A letter, fortunately preserved, written by him at

Worcester, so early as the 12th of October, 1755, is a proof of very

comprehensive views, and uncommon depth of reflection, in a young

man not yet quite twenty. In this letter he predicted the transfer of

power, and the establishment of a new seat of empire in America; he

predicted, also, the increase of population in the Colonies; and

anticipated their naval distinction, and foretold that all Europe

combined could not subdue them. All this is said, not on a public

occasion or for effect, but in the style of sober and friendly

correspondence, as the result of his own thoughts. "I sometimes retire,"

said he, at the close of the letter, "and, laying things together, form

some reflections pleasing to myself. The produce of one of these

reveries you have read above."[69] This prognostication so early in

his own life, so early in the history of the country, of independence,

of vast increase of numbers, of naval force, of such augmented

power as might defy all Europe, is remarkable. It is more remarkable

that its author should live to see fulfilled to the letter what could

have seemed to others, at the time, but the extravagance of youthful

fancy. His earliest political feelings were thus strongly American,

and from this ardent attachment to his native soil he never departed.

While still living at Quincy, and at the age of twenty-four, Mr. Adams

was present, in this town, at the argument before the Supreme Court

respecting _Writs of Assistance_, and heard the celebrated and

patriotic speech of JAMES OTIS. Unquestionably, that was a masterly

performance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial

discussion of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing,

constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute

patriotism. He grasped the question then pending between England and

her Colonies with the strength of a lion; and if he sometimes

sported, it was only because the lion himself is sometimes playful.

Its success appears to have been as great as its merits, and its

impression was widely felt. Mr. Adams himself seems never to have lost

the feeling it produced, and to have entertained constantly the

fullest conviction of its important effects. "I do say," he observes,

"in the most solemn manner, that Mr. Otis's Oration against Writs of

Assistance breathed into this nation the breath of life."[70]

In 1765 Mr. Adams laid before the public, anonymously, a series of

essays, afterwards collected in a volume in London, under the title of A

Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law.[71] The object of this work

was to show that our New England ancestors, in consenting to exile

themselves from their native land, were actuated mainly by the desire of

delivering themselves from the power of the hierarchy, and from the

monarchical and aristocratical systems of the other continent; and to

make this truth bear with effect on the politics of the times. Its tone

is uncommonly bold and animated for that period. He calls on the people,

not only to defend, but to study and understand, their rights and

privileges; urges earnestly the necessity of diffusing general

knowledge; invokes the clergy and the bar, the colleges and academies,

and all others who have the ability and the means to expose the

insidious designs of arbitrary power, to resist its approaches, and to

be persuaded that there is a settled design on foot to enslave all

America. "Be it remembered," says the author, "that liberty must, at all

hazards, be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker.

But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the

expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the

people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge,

as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them

understandings and a desire to know. But, besides this, they have a

right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right, to that

most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and

conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and

trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is

insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right

to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to

constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees."

The citizens of this town conferred on Mr. Adams his first political

distinction, and clothed him with his first political trust, by electing

him one of their representatives, in 1770. Before this time he had

become extensively known throughout the Province, as well by the part he

had acted in relation to public affairs, as by the exercise of his

professional ability. He was among those who took the deepest interest

in the controversy with England, and whether in or out of the

legislature, his time and talents were alike devoted to the cause. In

the years 1773 and 1774 he was chosen a Councillor by the members of the

General Court, but rejected by Governor Hutchinson in the former of

those years, and by Governor Gage in the latter.

The time was now at hand, however, when the affairs of the Colonies

urgently demanded united counsels throughout the country. An open

rupture with the parent state appeared inevitable, and it was but the

dictate of prudence that those who were united by a common interest

and a common danger should protect that interest and guard against

that danger by united efforts. A general Congress of Delegates from

all the Colonies having been proposed and agreed to, the House of

Representatives, on the 17th of June, 1774, elected James Bowdoin,

Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine,

delegates from Massachusetts. This appointment was made at Salem,

where the General Court had been convened by Governor Gage, in the

last hour of the existence of a House of Representatives under the

Provincial Charter. While engaged in this important business, the

Governor, having been informed of what was passing, sent his secretary

with a message dissolving the General Court. The secretary, finding

the door locked, directed the messenger to go in and inform the Speaker

that the secretary was at the door with a message from the Governor. The

messenger returned, and informed the secretary that the orders of

the House were that the doors should be kept fast; whereupon the

secretary soon after read upon the stairs a proclamation dissolving

the General Court. Thus terminated, for ever, the actual exercise of

the political power of England in or over Massachusetts. The four

last-named delegates accepted their appointments, and took their

seats in Congress the first day of its meeting, the 5th of September,

1774, in Philadelphia.

The proceedings of the first Congress are well known, and have been

universally admired. It is in vain that we would look for superior

proofs of wisdom, talent, and patriotism. Lord Chatham said, that, for

himself, he must declare that he had studied and admired the free states

of antiquity, the master states of the world, but that for solidity of

reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men

could stand in preference to this Congress. It is hardly inferior praise

to say, that no production of that great man himself can be pronounced

superior to several of the papers published as the proceedings of this

most able, most firm, most patriotic assembly. There is, indeed, nothing

superior to them in the range of political disquisition. They not only

embrace, illustrate, and enforce every thing which political philosophy,

the love of liberty, and the spirit of free inquiry had antecedently

produced, but they add new and striking views of their own, and apply

the whole, with irresistible force, in support of the cause which had

drawn them together.

Mr. Adams was a constant attendant on the deliberations of this body,

and bore an active part in its important measures. He was of the

committee to state the rights of the Colonies, and of that also which

reported the Address to the King.

As it was in the Continental Congress, fellow-citizens, that those whose

deaths have given rise to this occasion were first brought together, and

called upon to unite their industry and their ability in the service of

the country, let us now turn to the other of these distinguished men,

and take a brief notice of his life up to the period when he appeared

within the walls of Congress.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, descended from ancestors who had been settled in

Virginia for some generations, was born near the spot on which he died,

in the county of Albemarle, on the 2d of April (old style), 1743. His

youthful studies were pursued in the neighborhood of his father's

residence until he was removed to the College of William and Mary, the

highest honors of which he in due time received. Having left the College

with reputation, he applied himself to the study of the law under the

tuition of George Wythe, one of the highest judicial names of which that

State can boast. At an early age he was elected a member of the

legislature, in which he had no sooner appeared than he distinguished

himself by knowledge, capacity, and promptitude.

Mr. Jefferson appears to have been imbued with an early love of letters

and science, and to have cherished a strong disposition to pursue these

objects. To the physical sciences, especially, and to ancient classic

literature, he is understood to have had a warm attachment, and never

entirely to have lost sight of them in the midst of the busiest

occupations. But the times were times for action, rather than for

contemplation. The country was to be defended, and to be saved, before

it could be enjoyed. Philosophic leisure and literary pursuits, and even

the objects of professional attention, were all necessarily postponed to

the urgent calls of the public service. The exigency of the country made

the same demand on Mr. Jefferson that it made on others who had the

ability and the disposition to serve it; and he obeyed the call;

thinking and feeling in this respect with the great Roman orator: "Quis

enim est tam cupidus in perspicienda cognoscendaque rerum natura, ut, si

ei tractanti contemplantique res cognitione dignissimas subito sit

allatum periculum discrimenque patriae, cui subvenire opitularique

possit, non illa omnia relinquat atque abjiciat, etiam si dinumerare se

stellas, aut metiri mundi magnitudinem posse arbitretur?"[72]

Entering with all his heart into the cause of liberty, his ability,

patriotism, and power with the pen naturally drew upon him a large

participation in the most important concerns. Wherever he was, there was

found a soul devoted to the cause, power to defend and maintain it, and

willingness to incur all its hazards. In 1774 he published a Summary

View of the Rights of British America, a valuable production among those

intended to show the dangers which threatened the liberties of the

country, and to encourage the people in their defence. In June, 1775, he

was elected a member of the Continental Congress, as successor to Peyton

Randolph, who had resigned his place on account of ill health, and took

his seat in that body on the 21st of the same month.

And now, fellow-citizens, without pursuing the biography of these

illustrious men further, for the present, let us turn our attention to

the most prominent act of their lives, their participation in the

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Preparatory to the introduction of that important measure, a committee,

at the head of which was Mr. Adams, had reported a resolution, which

Congress adopted on the 10th of May, recommending, in substance, to all

the Colonies which had not already established governments suited to the

exigencies of their affairs, _to adopt such government as would, in the

opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the

happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in

general_.

This significant vote was soon followed by the direct proposition which

Richard Henry Lee had the honor to submit to Congress, by resolution, on

the 7th day of June. The published journal does not expressly state it,

but there is no doubt, I suppose, that this resolution was in the same

words, when originally submitted by Mr. Lee, as when finally passed.

Having been discussed on Saturday, the 8th, and Monday, the 10th of

June, this resolution was on the last mentioned day postponed for

further consideration to the first day of July; and at the same time it

was voted, that a committee be appointed to prepare a Declaration to the

effect of the resolution. This committee was elected by ballot, on the

following day, and consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin

Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.

It is usual, when committees are elected by ballot, that their members

should be arranged in order, according to the number of votes which each

has received. Mr. Jefferson, therefore, had received the highest, and

Mr. Adams the next highest number of votes. The difference is said to

have been but of a single vote. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams, standing

thus at the head of the committee, were requested by the other members

to act as a sub-committee to prepare the draft; and Mr. Jefferson drew

up the paper. The original draft, as brought by him from his study, and

submitted to the other members of the committee, with interlineations in

the handwriting of Dr. Franklin, and others in that of Mr. Adams, was in

Mr. Jefferson's possession at the time of his death.[73] The merit of

this paper is Mr. Jefferson's. Some changes were made in it at the

suggestion of other members of the committee, and others by Congress

while it was under discussion. But none of them altered the tone, the

frame, the arrangement, or the general character of the instrument. As a

composition, the Declaration is Mr. Jefferson's. It is the production of

his mind, and the high honor of it belongs to him, clearly and

absolutely.

It has sometimes been said, as if it were a derogation from the merits

of this paper, that it contains nothing new; that it only states grounds

of proceeding, and presses topics of argument, which had often been

stated and pressed before. But it was not the object of the Declaration

to produce any thing new. It was not to invent reasons for independence,

but to state those which governed the Congress. For great and sufficient

causes, it was proposed to declare independence; and the proper business

of the paper to be drawn was to set forth those causes, and justify the

authors of the measure, in any event of fortune, to the country and to

posterity. The cause of American independence, moreover, was now to be

presented to the world in such manner, if it might so be, as to engage

its sympathy, to command its respect, to attract its admiration; and in

an assembly of most able and distinguished men, THOMAS JEFFERSON had the

high honor of being the selected advocate of this cause. To say that he

performed his great work well, would be doing him injustice. To say that

he did excellently well, admirably well, would be inadequate and halting

praise. Let us rather say, that he so discharged the duty assigned him,

that all Americans may well rejoice that the work of drawing the

title-deed of their liberties devolved upon him.

With all its merits, there are those who have thought that there was one

thing in the Declaration to be regretted; and that is, the asperity and

apparent anger with which it speaks of the person of the king; the

industrious ability with which it accumulates and charges upon him all

the injuries which the Colonies had suffered from the mother country.

Possibly some degree of injustice, now or hereafter, at home or abroad,

may be done to the character of Mr. Jefferson, if this part of the

Declaration be not placed in its proper light. Anger or resentment,

certainly much less personal reproach and invective, could not properly

find place in a composition of such high dignity, and of such lofty and

permanent character.

A single reflection on the original ground of dispute between England

and the Colonies is sufficient to remove any unfavorable impression in

this respect.

The inhabitants of all the Colonies, while Colonies, admitted themselves

bound by their allegiance to the king; but they disclaimed altogether

the authority of Parliament; holding themselves, in this respect, to

resemble the condition of Scotland and Ireland before the respective

unions of those kingdoms with England, when they acknowledged allegiance

to the same king, but had each its separate legislature. The tie,

therefore, which our Revolution was to break did not subsist between us

and the British Parliament, or between us and the British government in

the aggregate, but directly between us and the king himself. The

Colonies had never admitted themselves subject to Parliament. That was

precisely the point of the original controversy. They had uniformly

denied that Parliament had authority to make laws for them. There was,

therefore, no subjection to Parliament to be thrown off.[74] But

allegiance to the king did exist, and had been uniformly acknowledged;

and down to 1775 the most solemn assurances had been given that it was

not intended to break that allegiance, or to throw it off. Therefore, as

the direct object and only effect of the Declaration, according to the

principles on which the controversy had been maintained on our part,

were to sever the tie of allegiance which bound us to the king, it was

properly and necessarily founded on acts of the crown itself, as its

justifying causes. Parliament is not so much as mentioned in the whole

instrument. When odious and oppressive acts are referred to, it is done

by charging the king with confederating with others "in pretended acts

of legislation"; the object being constantly to hold the king himself

directly responsible for those measures which were the grounds of

separation. Even the precedent of the English Revolution was not

overlooked, and in this case, as well as in that, occasion was found to

say that the king had _abdicated_ the government. Consistency with the

principles upon which resistance began, and with all the previous state

papers issued by Congress, required that the Declaration should be

bottomed on the misgovernment of the king; and therefore it was properly

framed with that aim and to that end. The king was known, indeed, to

have acted, as in other cases, by his ministers, and with his

Parliament; but as our ancestors had never admitted themselves subject

either to ministers or to Parliament, there were no reasons to be given

for now refusing obedience to their authority. This clear and obvious

necessity of founding the Declaration on the misconduct of the king

himself, gives to that instrument its personal application, and its

character of direct and pointed accusation.

The Declaration having been reported to Congress by the committee, the

resolution itself was taken up and debated on the first day of July, and

again on the second, on which last day it was agreed to and adopted, in

these words:--

"_Resolved_, That these united Colonies are, and of right ought to be,

free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance

to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and

the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

Having thus passed the main resolution, Congress proceeded to consider

the reported draught of the Declaration. It was discussed on the second,

and third, and FOURTH days of the month, in committee of the whole; and

on the last of those days, being reported from that committee, it

received the final approbation and sanction of Congress. It was ordered,

at the same time, that copies be sent to the several States, and that it

be proclaimed at the head of the army. The Declaration thus published

did not bear the names of the members, for as yet it had not been signed

by them. It was authenticated, like other papers of the Congress, by the

signatures of the President and Secretary. On the 19th of July, as

appears by the secret journal, Congress "_Resolved_, That the

Declaration, passed on the fourth, be fairly engrossed on parchment,

with the title and style of 'THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA'; and that the same, when engrossed be signed

by every member of Congress." And on the SECOND DAY OF AUGUST following,

"the Declaration, being engrossed and compared at the table, was signed

by the members." So that it happens, fellow-citizens, that we pay these

honors to their memory on the anniversary of that day (2d of August) on

which these great men actually signed their names to the Declaration.

The Declaration was thus made, that is, it passed and was adopted as an

act of Congress, on the fourth of July; it was then signed, and

certified by the President and Secretary, like other acts. The FOURTH OF

JULY, therefore, is the ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARATION. But the

signatures of the members present were made to it, being then engrossed

on parchment, on the second day of August. Absent members afterwards

signed, as they came in; and indeed it bears the names of some who were

not chosen members of Congress until after the fourth of July. The

interest belonging to the subject will be sufficient, I hope, to

justify these details.[75]

The Congress of the Revolution, fellow-citizens, sat with closed doors,

and no report of its debates was ever made. The discussion, therefore,

which accompanied this great measure, has never been preserved, except

in memory and by tradition. But it is, I believe, doing no injustice to

others to say, that the general opinion was, and uniformly has been,

that in debate, on the side of independence, JOHN ADAMS had no equal.

The great author of the Declaration himself has expressed that opinion

uniformly and strongly. "JOHN ADAMS," said he, in the hearing of him who

has now the honor to address you, "JOHN ADAMS was our colossus on the

floor. Not graceful, not elegant, not always fluent, in his public

addresses, he yet came out with a power, both of thought and of

expression, which moved us from our seats."

For the part which he was here to perform, Mr. Adams doubtless was

eminently fitted. He possessed a bold spirit, which disregarded danger,

and a sanguine reliance on the goodness of the cause, and the virtues of

the people, which led him to overlook all obstacles. His character, too,

had been formed in troubled times. He had been rocked in the early

storms of the controversy, and had acquired a decision and a hardihood

proportioned to the severity of the discipline which he had undergone.

He not only loved the American cause devoutly, but had studied and

understood it. It was all familiar to him. He had tried his powers on

the questions which it involved, often and in various ways; and had

brought to their consideration whatever of argument or illustration the

history of his own country, the history of England, or the stores of

ancient or of legal learning could furnish. Every grievance enumerated

in the long catalogue of the Declaration had been the subject of his

discussion, and the object of his remonstrance and reprobation. From

1760, the Colonies, the rights of the Colonies, the liberties of the

Colonies, and the wrongs inflicted on the Colonies, had engaged his

constant attention; and it has surprised those who have had the

opportunity of witnessing it, with what full remembrance and with what

prompt recollection he could refer, in his extreme old age, to every act

of Parliament affecting the Colonies, distinguishing and stating their

respective titles, sections, and provisions; and to all the Colonial

memorials, remonstrances, and petitions, with whatever else belonged to

the intimate and exact history of the times from that year to 1775. It

was, in his own judgment, between these years that the American people

came to a full understanding and thorough knowledge of their rights, and

to a fixed resolution of maintaining them; and bearing himself an active

part in all important transactions, the controversy with England being

then in effect the business of his life, facts, dates, and particulars

made an impression which was never effaced. He was prepared, therefore,

by education and discipline, as well as by natural talent and natural

temperament, for the part which he was now to act.

The eloquence of Mr. Adams resembled his general character, and formed,

indeed, a part of it. It was bold, manly, and energetic; and such the

crisis required. When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous

occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions

excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than as it is connected

with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and

earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence,

indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor

and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and

phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It

must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected

passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to

it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the

outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of

volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces

taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of

speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of

their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of

the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all

elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked

and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is

eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception,

outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve,

the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye,

informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward

to his object,--this, this is eloquence; or rather it is something

greater and higher than all eloquence, it is action, noble, sublime,

godlike action.

In July, 1776, the controversy had passed the stage of argument. An

appeal had been made to force, and opposing armies were in the field.

Congress, then, was to decide whether the tie which had so long bound us

to the parent state was to be severed at once, and severed for ever. All

the Colonies had signified their resolution to abide by this decision,

and the people looked for it with the most intense anxiety. And surely,

fellow-citizens, never, never were men called to a more important

political deliberation. If we contemplate it from the point where they

then stood, no question could be more full of interest; if we look at it

now, and judge of its importance by its effects, it appears of still

greater magnitude.

Let us, then, bring before us the assembly, which was about to decide a

question thus big with the fate of empire. Let us open their doors and

look in upon their deliberations. Let us survey the anxious and

care-worn countenances, let us hear the firm-toned voices, of this band

of patriots.

HANCOCK presides over the solemn sitting; and one of those not yet

prepared to pronounce for absolute independence is on the floor, and is

urging his reasons for dissenting from the declaration.

"Let us pause! This step, once taken, cannot be retraced. This

resolution, once passed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If

success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer Colonies,

with charters and with privileges; these will all be forfeited by this

act; and we shall be in the condition of other conquered people, at the

mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we may be ready to run the

hazard; but are we ready to carry the country to that length? Is success

so probable as to justify it? Where is the military, where the naval

power by which we are to resist the whole strength of the arm of

England, for she will exert that strength to the utmost? Can we rely on

the constancy and perseverance of the people? or will they not act as

the people of other countries have acted, and, wearied with a long war,

submit, in the end, to a worse oppression? While we stand on our old

ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are right, and

are not answerable for consequences. Nothing, then, can be imputed to

us. But if we now change our object, carry our pretensions farther, and

set up for absolute independence, we shall lose the sympathy of mankind.

We shall no longer be defending what we possess, but struggling for

something which we never did possess, and which we have solemnly and

uniformly disclaimed all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of

the troubles. Abandoning thus our old ground, of resistance only to

arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations will believe the whole to have

been mere pretence, and they will look on us, not as injured, but as

ambitious subjects. I shudder before this responsibility. It will be on

us, if, relinquishing the ground on which we have stood so long, and

stood so safely, we now proclaim independence, and carry on the war for

that object, while these cities burn, these pleasant fields whiten and

bleach with the bones of their owners, and these streams run blood. It

will be upon us, it will be upon us, if, failing to maintain this

unseasonable and ill-judged declaration, a sterner despotism, maintained

by military power, shall be established over our posterity, when we

ourselves, given up by an exhausted, a harassed, a misled people, shall

have expiated our rashness and atoned for our presumption on the

scaffold."

It was for Mr. Adams to reply to arguments like these. We know his

opinions, and we know his character. He would commence with his

accustomed directness and earnestness.

"Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my

heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed

not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. The

injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own

interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence

is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is

ours. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as

now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either

safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and

his own honor? Are not you, Sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our

venerable colleague near you, are you not both already the proscribed

and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all

hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power

of England remains, but outlaws? If we postpone independence, do we mean

to carry on, or to give up, the war? Do we mean to submit to the

measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all? Do we mean to submit,

and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country

and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to

submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn

obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God, of our

sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers

of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to

adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives? I

know there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general

conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one

jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself,

having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you, that George

Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised,

for defence of American liberty,[76] may my right hand forget her

cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or

waver in the support I give him.

"The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war

must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That

measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The

nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we

acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I

maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the

footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to

acknowledge that her whole conduct towards us has been a course of

injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting

to that course of things which now predestinates our independence, than

by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The

former she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter she would

feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, why then, Sir, do we not as

soon as possible change this from a civil to a national war? And since

we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all

the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?

"If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause

will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the

people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry

themselves, gloriously, through this struggle. I care not how fickle

other people have been found. I know the people of these Colonies, and I

know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their

hearts and cannot be eradicated. Every Colony, indeed, has expressed its

willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration

will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and

bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances,

for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the

glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them

anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army;

every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered,

to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the

pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will

cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to

the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the

first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw their brothers

and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of

Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

"Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly,

through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not

live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die;

die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the

scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my

country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be

ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But

while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a

country, and that a free country.

"But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this

Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but

it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the

thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the

sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we

are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it

with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On

its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of

subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of

gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My

judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I

have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now

ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or

die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living

sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment,

Independence, _now_, and INDEPENDENCE FOR EVER."[77]

And so that day shall be honored, illustrious prophet and patriot! so

that day shall be honored, and as often as it returns, thy renown shall

come along with it, and the glory of thy life, like the day of thy

death, shall not fail from the remembrance of men.

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