have begun, in all forms of government, to think and to reason on
affairs of state. Regarding government as an institution for the public
good, they demand a knowledge of its operations, and a participation in
its exercise. A call for the representative system, wherever it is not
enjoyed, and where there is already intelligence enough to estimate its
value, is perseveringly made. Where men may speak out, they demand it;
where the bayonet is at their throats, they pray for it.
[Sidenote: Respect for the judgment of the world.]
We may hope that the growing influence of enlightened sentiment will
promote the permanent peace of the world. Wars to maintain family
alliances, to uphold or to cast down dynasties, and to regulate
successions to thrones, which have occupied so much room in the history
of modern times, if not less likely to happen at all, will be less
likely to become general and involve many nations, as the great
principle shall be more and more established, that the interest of the
world is peace, and its first great statute that every nation possesses
the power of establishing a government for itself. But public opinion
has attained also an influence over governments which do not admit the
popular principle into their organization. A necessary respect for the
judgment of the world operates, in some measure, as a control over the
most unlimited forms of authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this truth,
that the interesting struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to go on
so long, without a direct interference, either to wrest that country
from its present masters, or to execute the system of pacification by
force, and, with united strength, lay the neck of Christian and
civilized Greek at the foot of the barbarian Turk. Let us thank God that
we live in an age when something has influence besides the bayonet, and
when the sternest authority does not venture to encounter the scorching
power of public reproach. Any attempt of the kind I have mentioned
should be met by one universal burst of indignation; the air of the
civilized world ought to be made too warm to be comfortably breathed by
any one who would hazard it.
[Sidenote: The Greek struggle for independence.]
It is, indeed, a touching reflection, that, while, in the fulness of our
country's happiness, we rear this monument to her honor, we look for
instruction in our undertaking to a country which is now in fearful
contest, not for works of art or memorials of glory, but for her own
existence.[12] Let her be assured that she is not forgotten in the
world; that her efforts are applauded, and that constant prayers ascend
for her success. And let us cherish a confident hope for her final
triumph. If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it
will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central
fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it;
mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force
will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or other, in
some place or other, the volcano will break out and flame up to heaven.
[Sidenote: South American liberty.]
When the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the existence of South
America was scarcely felt in the civilized world. The thirteen little
Colonies of North America habitually called themselves the "Continent."
Borne down by Colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast
regions of the South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in our
day there has been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemisphere
emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains begin to lift themselves into
the light of heaven; its broad and fertile plains stretch out, in
beauty, to the eye of civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the
voice of political liberty the waters of darkness retire.
[Sidenote: The example of the republic of the United States.]
And, now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction of the
benefit which the example of our country has produced, and is likely to
produce, on human freedom and human happiness. Let us endeavor to
comprehend in all its magnitude, and to feel in all its importance, the
part assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We are placed
at the head of the system of representative and popular governments.
Thus far our example shows that such governments are compatible not only
with respectability and power, but with repose, with peace, with
security of personal rights, with good laws, and a just administration.
We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are preferred, either
as being thought better in themselves, or as better suited to existing
condition, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto
proves, however, that the popular form is practicable, and that with
wisdom and knowledge men may govern themselves; and the duty incumbent
on us is to preserve the consistency of this cheering example, and take
care that nothing may weaken its authority with the world. If, in our
case, the representative system ultimately fail, popular governments
must be pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances more
favorable to the experiment can ever be expected to occur. The last
hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; and if it should be
proclaimed that our example had become an argument against the
experiment, the knell of popular liberty would be sounded throughout the
earth.
These are excitements to duty; but they are not suggestions of doubt.
Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us, and all that
surrounds us, authorize the belief that popular governments, though
subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps not always for the
better, may yet, in their general character, be as durable and permanent
as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any other is
impossible. The _principle_ of free governments adheres to the American
soil. It is bedded in it, immovable as its mountains.
[Sidenote: The obligations of Americans.]
And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation,
and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who established our liberty
and our government are daily dropping from among us. The great trust now
descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is presented
to us, as our appropriate object. We can win no laurels in a war for
independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are
there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders
of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great
duty of defence and preservation; and there is open to us, also, a noble
pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our
proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement.
In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of
peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers,
build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see
whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something
worthy to be remembered. Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and
harmony. In pursuing the great objects which our condition points out
to us, let us act under a settled conviction, and an habitual feeling,
that these twenty-four States are one country. Let our conceptions be
enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the
whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object
be, OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, by
the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid
monument, not of oppression and terror, but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of
Liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!
THE COMPLETION OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED JUNE 17, 1843
[It was determined by the directors of the Bunker Hill Monument
Association, that the completion of the work should be celebrated
in a manner not less imposing than that in which the laying of the
corner-stone had been celebrated, seventeen years before. The
co-operation of Mr. Webster was again invited, and, notwithstanding
the pressure of his engagements as Secretary of State at
Washington, was again patriotically yielded. The President of the
United States and his Cabinet had accepted invitations to be
present; and delegations of the descendants of New England attended
from all parts of the Union, including one hundred and eight
surviving veterans of the Revolution, among whom were some who were
in the battle of Bunker Hill. According to the estimate of Richard
Frothingham, one hundred thousand persons were gathered, and nearly
half that number are supposed to have been within the reach of the
orator's voice. The ground rises slightly between the platform and
the Monument Square, so that the whole of this concourse, compactly
crowded together, was within the full view of the speaker. When,
after saying, "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," Mr. Webster paused,
and pointed to the monument, the audience burst into long and loud
applause. It was some moments before he could go on with his
address.]
A duty has been performed. A work of gratitude and patriotism is
completed. This structure, having its foundations in soil which drank
deep of early Revolutionary blood, has at length reached its destined
height, and now lifts its summit to the skies.
[Illustration: _Bunker Hill Monument._]
[Sidenote: The changes of eighteen years.]
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.
[Sidenote: The purpose of the monument.]
The Bunker Hill Monument is finished. Here it stands.[13] 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.
[Sidenote: The monuments of the past.]
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.
[Illustration: _John Tyler._]
[Sidenote: President Tyler.]
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.
[Sidenote: Visitors present at the dedication.]
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.
[Sidenote: The American Union.]
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 forever 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 forever.
[Sidenote: Importance of the battle of Bunker Hill.]
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, everything 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 everything 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.
[Sidenote: The motive for the engagement.]
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.
[Sidenote: The consequences of the battle.]
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!"
[Sidenote: The purposes of the Pilgrims of Plymouth.]
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.
[Sidenote: English liberty and Spanish greed.]