AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON BUNKER HILL, ON THE 17th OF JUNE, 1843, ON
OCCASION OF THE COMPLETION OF THE MONUMENT.
[In the introductory note to the preceding Address, a brief account is
given of the origin and progress of the measures adopted for the
erection of the Bunker Hill Monument, down to the time of laying the
corner-stone, compiled from Mr. Frothingham's History of the Siege of
Boston. The same valuable work (pp. 345-352) relates the obstacles which
presented themselves to the rapid execution of the design, and the means
by which they were overcome. In this narrative, Mr. Frothingham has done
justice to the efforts and exertions of the successive boards of
direction and officers of the Association, to the skill and
disinterestedness of the architect, to the liberality of distinguished
individuals, to the public spirit of the Massachusetts Charitable
Mechanic Association, in promoting a renewed subscription, and to the
patriotic zeal of the ladies of Boston and the vicinity, in holding a
most successful fair. As it would be difficult farther to condense the
information contained in this interesting summary, we must refer the
reader to Mr. Frothingham's work for an adequate account of the causes
which delayed the completion of the monument for nearly seventeen years,
and of the resources and exertions by which the desired end was finally
attained. The last stone was raised to its place on the morning of the
23d of July, 1842.
It was determined by the directors of the 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. Many
circumstances conspired to increase the interest of the occasion. The
completion of the monument had been long delayed, but in the interval
the subject had been kept much before the public mind. Mr. Webster's
address on the 17th of June, 1825, had obtained the widest circulation
throughout the country; passages from it had passed into household words
throughout the Union. Wherever they were repeated, they made the Bunker
Hill Monument a familiar thought with the people. Meantime, Boston and
Charlestown had doubled their population, and the multiplication of rail
roads in every direction enabled a person, in almost any part of New
England, to reach the metropolis in a day. The President of the United
States and his Cabinet had accepted invitations to be present;
delegations of the descendants of New England were present from the
remotest parts of the Union; one hundred and eight surviving veterans of
the Revolution, among whom were some who were in the battle of Bunker
Hill, imparted a touching interest to the scene.
Every thing conspired to promote the success of the ceremonial. The day
was uncommonly fine; cool for the season, and clear. A large volunteer
force from various parts of the country had assembled for the occasion,
and formed a brilliant escort to an immense procession, as it moved from
Boston to the battle-ground on the hill. The bank which slopes down from
the obelisk on the eastern side of Monument Square was covered with
seats, rising in the form of an amphitheatre, under the open sky. These
had been prepared for ladies, who had assembled in great numbers,
awaiting the arrival of the procession. When it arrived, it was received
into a large open area in front of these seats. Mr. Webster was
stationed upon an elevated platform, in front of the audience and of the
monument towering in the background. According to Mr. Frothingham's
estimate, a hundred thousand persons were gathered about the spot, 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 immense concourse,
compactly crowded together, breathless with attention, swayed by one
sentiment of admiration and delight, was within the full view of the
speaker. The position and the occasion were the height of the moral
sublime. "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 multitude around me,--the
powerful speaker stands motionless before us,'--he paused, and pointed
in silent admiration to the sublime structure, the audience burst into
long and loud applause. It was some moments before the speaker could go
on with the 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.
We have assembled to celebrate the accomplishment of this undertaking,
and to indulge afresh in the recollection of the great event which it is
designed to commemorate. Eighteen years, more than half the ordinary
duration of a generation of mankind, have elapsed since the corner-stone
of this monument was laid. The hopes of its projectors rested on
voluntary contributions, private munificence, and the general favor of
the public. These hopes have not been disappointed. Donations have been
made by individuals, in some cases of large amount, and smaller sums
have been contributed by thousands. All who regard the object itself as
important, and its accomplishment, therefore, as a good attained, will
entertain sincere respect and gratitude for the unwearied efforts of the
successive presidents, boards of directors, and committees of the
Association which has had the general control of the work. The
architect, equally entitled to our thanks and commendation, will find
other reward, also, for his labor and skill, in the beauty and elegance
of the obelisk itself, and the distinction which, as a work of art, it
confers upon him.
At a period when the prospects of further progress in the undertaking
were gloomy and discouraging, the Mechanic Association, by a most
praiseworthy and vigorous effort, raised new funds for carrying it
forward, and saw them applied with fidelity, economy, and skill. It is a
grateful duty to make public acknowledgments of such timely and
efficient aid.
The last effort and the last contribution were from a different source.
Garlands of grace and elegance were destined to crown a work which had
its commencement in manly patriotism. The winning power of the sex
addressed itself to the public, and all that was needed to carry the
monument to its proposed height, and to give to it its finish, was
promptly supplied. The mothers and the daughters of the land contributed
thus, most successfully, to whatever there is of beauty in the monument
itself, or whatever of utility and public benefit and gratification
there is in its completion.
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.[1] 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. 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.[2] 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.[3] 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 reipublica, 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.[4]
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 decet 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 co-operation 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 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.
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.[5] 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 deserved 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!"
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