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 forever. 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 careworn
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.
[Illustration: _John Hancock._]
[Sidenote: An imaginary speech in opposition to 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.
[Sidenote: Supposed speech of John Adams in favor of the Declaration.]
"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[17] 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, 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 forever."
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.
[Illustration: _Samuel Adams._]
[Sidenote: Tributes to John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat
Paine.]
It would be unjust, fellow-citizens, on this occasion, while we express
our veneration for him who is the immediate subject of these remarks,
were we to omit a most respectful, affectionate, and grateful mention of
those other great men, his colleagues, who stood with him, and with the
same spirit, the same devotion, took part in the interesting
transaction. Hancock, the proscribed Hancock, exiled from his home by a
military governor, cut off by proclamation from the mercy of the
crown,--Heaven reserved for him the distinguished honor of putting this
great question to the vote, and of writing his own name first, and most
conspicuously, on that parchment which spoke defiance to the power of
the crown of England. There, too, is the name of that other proscribed
patriot, Samuel Adams, a man who hungered and thirsted for the
independence of his country, who thought the Declaration halted and
lingered, being himself not only ready, but eager for it, long before it
was proposed; a man of the deepest sagacity, the clearest foresight,
and the profoundest judgment in men. And there is Gerry, himself among
the earliest and the foremost of the patriots, found when the battle of
Lexington summoned them to common counsels, by the side of Warren; a man
who lived to serve his country at home and abroad, and to die in the
second place in the government. There, too, is the inflexible, the
upright, the Spartan character, Robert Treat Paine. He also lived to
serve his country through the struggle, and then withdrew from her
councils, only that he might give his labors and his life to his native
State, in another relation. These names, fellow-citizens, are the
treasures of the Commonwealth; and they are treasures which grow
brighter by time.
It is now necessary to resume the narrative, and to finish with great
brevity the notice of the lives of those whose virtues and services we
have met to commemorate.
[Sidenote: Adams appointed Minister to France.]
Mr. Adams remained in Congress from its first meeting till November,
1777, when he was appointed Minister to France. He proceeded on that
service in the February following, embarking in the frigate "Boston,"
from the shore of his native town, at the foot of Mount Wollaston. The
year following, he was appointed commissioner to treat of peace with
England. Returning to the United States, he was a delegate from
Braintree in the Convention for framing the Constitution of this
Commonwealth, in 1780. At the latter end of the same year, he again went
abroad in the diplomatic service of the country, and was employed at
various courts, and occupied with various negotiations, until 1788. The
particulars of these interesting and important services this occasion
does not allow time to relate. In 1782 he concluded our first treaty
with Holland. His negotiations with that republic, his efforts to
persuade the States-General[18] to recognize our independence, his
incessant and indefatigable exertions to represent the American cause
favorably on the Continent, and to counteract the designs of its
enemies, open and secret, and his successful undertaking to obtain loans
on the credit of a nation yet new and unknown, are among his most
arduous, most useful, most honorable services. It was his fortune to
bear a part in the negotiation for peace with England, and in something
more than six years from the Declaration which he had so strenuously
supported, he had the satisfaction of seeing the minister
plenipotentiary of the crown subscribe his name to the instrument which
declared that his "Britannic Majesty acknowledged the United States to
be free, sovereign, and independent." In these important transactions,
Mr. Adams's conduct received the marked approbation of Congress and of
the country.
[Sidenote: Vice-President, 1789-1797; President, 1797-1801.]
Returning to the United States in 1788, he found the new government
about going into operation, and was himself elected the first
Vice-President,[19] a situation which he filled with reputation for
eight years, at the expiration of which he was raised to the
Presidential chair, as immediate successor to the immortal Washington.
In this high station he was succeeded by Mr. Jefferson, after a
memorable controversy between their respective friends, in 1801; and
from that period his manner of life has been known to all who hear me.
He has lived, for five-and-twenty years, with every enjoyment that could
render old age happy. Not inattentive to the occurrences of the times,
political cares have yet not materially, or for any long time, disturbed
his repose. In 1820 he acted as Elector of President and Vice-President,
and in the same year we saw him, then at the age of eighty-five, a
member of the Convention of this Commonwealth called to revise the
Constitution. Forty years before, he had been one of those who formed
that Constitution; and he had now the pleasure of witnessing that there
was little which the people desired to change. Possessing all his
faculties to the end of his long life, with an unabated love of reading
and contemplation, in the centre of interesting circles of friendship
and affection, he was blessed in his retirement with whatever of repose
and felicity the condition of man allows. He had, also, other
enjoyments. He saw around him that prosperity and general happiness
which had been the object of his public cares and labors. No man ever
beheld more clearly, and for a longer time, the great and beneficial
effects of the services rendered by himself to his country. That liberty
which he so early defended, that independence of which he was so able an
advocate and supporter, he saw, we trust, firmly and securely
established. The population of the country thickened around him faster,
and extended wider, than his own sanguine predictions had anticipated;
and the wealth, respectability, and power of the nation sprang up to a
magnitude which it is quite impossible he could have expected to witness
in his day. He lived also to behold those principles of civil freedom
which had been developed, established, and practically applied in
America, attract attention, command respect, and awaken imitation, in
other regions of the globe; and well might, and well did, he exclaim,
"Where will the consequences of the American Revolution end?"
If anything yet remain to fill this cup of happiness, let it be added,
that he lived to see a great and intelligent people bestow the highest
honor in their gift where he had bestowed his own kindest parental
affections and lodged his fondest hopes.[20] Thus honored in life, thus
happy at death, he saw the jubilee,[21] and he died; and with the last
prayers which trembled on his lips was the fervent supplication for his
country, "Independence forever!"
[Illustration: _Patrick Henry._]
[Illustration: _Benjamin Franklin._]
[Sidenote: Jefferson elected Governor of Virginia.]
[Sidenote: Minister to France.]
[Sidenote: Is made Secretary of State by Washington.]
Mr. Jefferson, having been occupied in the years 1778 and 1779 in the
important service of revising the laws of Virginia, was elected Governor
of that State, as successor to Patrick Henry, and held the situation
when the State was invaded by the British arms. In 1781 he published his
"Notes on Virginia," a work which attracted attention in Europe as well
as America, dispelled many misconceptions respecting this continent,
and gave its author a place among men distinguished for science. In
November, 1783, he again took his seat in the Continental Congress, but
in the May following was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary, to act
abroad, in the negotiation of commercial treaties, with Dr. Franklin and
Mr. Adams. He proceeded to France, in execution of this mission,
embarking at Boston; and that was the only occasion on which he ever
visited this place. In 1785 he was appointed Minister to France, the
duties of which situation he continued to perform until October, 1789,
when he obtained leave to retire, just on the eve of that tremendous
revolution which has so much agitated the world in our times. Mr.
Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was marked by great
ability, diligence, and patriotism; and while he resided at Paris, in
one of the most interesting periods, his character for intelligence, his
love of knowledge and of the society of learned men, distinguished him
in the highest circles of the French capital. No court in Europe had at
that time in Paris a representative commanding or enjoying higher
regard, for political knowledge or for general attainments, than the
minister of this then infant republic. Immediately on his return to his
native country, at the organization of the government under the present
Constitution, his talents and experience recommended him to President
Washington for the first office in his gift. He was placed at the head
of the Department of State. In this situation, also, he manifested
conspicuous ability. His correspondence with the ministers of other
powers residing here, and his instructions to our own diplomatic agents
abroad, are among our ablest state papers. A thorough knowledge of the
laws and usages of nations, perfect acquaintance with the immediate
subject before him, great felicity, and still greater facility, in
writing, show themselves in whatever effort his official situation
called on him to make. It is believed by competent judges, that the
diplomatic intercourse of the government of the United States, from the
first meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774 to the present time,
taken together, would not suffer, in respect to the talent with which it
has been conducted, by comparison with anything which other and older
governments can produce; and to the attainment of this respectability
and distinction Mr. Jefferson has contributed his full part.
[Sidenote: Vice-President, 1797-1801; President, 1801-1809.]
On the retirement of General Washington from the Presidency, and the
election of Mr. Adams to that office in 1797, he was chosen
Vice-President. While presiding in this capacity over the deliberations
of the Senate, he compiled and published a Manual of Parliamentary
Practice, a work of more labor and more merit than is indicated by its
size. It is now received as the general standard by which proceedings
are regulated, not only in both Houses of Congress, but in most of the
other legislative bodies in the country. In 1801 he was elected
President, in opposition to Mr. Adams, and re-elected in 1805, by a vote
approaching towards unanimity.
From the time of his final retirement from public life, in 1809, Mr.
Jefferson lived as became a wise man. Surrounded by affectionate
friends, his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge undiminished, with
uncommon health and unbroken spirits, he was able to enjoy largely the
rational pleasures of life, and to partake in that public prosperity
which he had so much contributed to produce. His kindness and
hospitality, the charm of his conversation, the ease of his manners, the
extent of his acquirements, and, especially, the full store of
Revolutionary incidents which he had treasured in his memory, and which
he knew when and how to dispense, rendered his abode in a high degree
attractive to his admiring countrymen, while his high public and
scientific character drew towards him every intelligent and educated
traveller from abroad. Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson had the pleasure
of knowing that the respect which they so largely received was not paid
to their official stations. They were not men made great by office; but
great men, on whom the country for its own benefit had conferred
office. There was that in them which office did not give, and which the
relinquishment of office did not, and could not, take away. In their
retirement, in the midst of their fellow-citizens, themselves private
citizens, they enjoyed as high regard and esteem as when filling the
most important places of public trust.
[Sidenote: Establishes the University of Virginia.]
There remained to Mr. Jefferson yet one other work of patriotism and
beneficence, the establishment of a university in his native State. To
this object he devoted years of incessant and anxious attention, and by
the enlightened liberality of the Legislature of Virginia, and the
co-operation of other able and zealous friends, he lived to see it
accomplished. May all success attend this infant seminary; and may those
who enjoy its advantages, as often as their eyes shall rest on the
neighboring height, recollect what they owe to their disinterested and
indefatigable benefactor; and may letters honor him who thus labored in
the cause of letters![22]