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. Everything
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.
[Sidenote: The consequences of the two principles.]
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 Cortéz 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.
[Sidenote: The seeds of government sown by the Colonists.]
The great elements 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.
[Sidenote: American institutions.]
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.
[Sidenote: America's contributions to European welfare.]
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?
[Sidenote: The American example.]
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.
[Sidenote: The character of Washington.]
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
anything 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.
[Sidenote: The obligations of Americans.]
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!"
ADAMS AND JEFFERSON
A DISCOURSE IN COMMEMORATION OF THE LIVES AND SERVICES OF JOHN ADAMS AND
THOMAS JEFFERSON; DELIVERED IN FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, AUGUST 2, 1826
[Since the death of Washington, on the 14th of December, 1799, the
public mind had never been so powerfully affected 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. 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 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
Jefferson also had died on the same day and a few hours before Mr.
Adams, the patriotic emotions of the country at large were 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 their simultaneous decease on the 4th of July,
were dwelt upon with deep interest. The circles of private life,
the press, public bodies, and the pulpit, were for some time almost
engrossed with the topic; and exercises of commemoration were held
throughout the country.]
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.
[Illustration: _Faneuil Hall._]
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 re-echoing voices of
thanksgiving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took their
flight together to the world of spirits.
[Sidenote: An epic consummation.]
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 the 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.
[Sidenote: The remarkable similarity between Adams and Jefferson in
their lives and in their deaths.]
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 forever 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?
[Sidenote: Their example.]
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 forever. 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.
[Sidenote: Their work.]
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"!
[Sidenote: Their public services.]
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.
[Sidenote: Adams the chief advocate of the Declaration of Independence.]
[Sidenote: His education.]
John Adams was born at Quincy, then part of the ancient town of
Braintree, on the nineteenth day of October (Old Style), 1735.[14] 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.
[Illustration: _John Adams._]
[Sidenote: Studies law.]