Oration delivered before the city authorities of Boston, on the Fourth of July, 1866

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16—47372-3 OPO

ORATION

DELIVEREP BEFORE THE

CITY AUTHORITIES OF BOSTON,

FOURTH OF JULY, 1866,

REV. S. K. LOTimOP, D. D.

BOSTON:

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, CITY PRINTERS, 31 SCHOOL STREl^T.

1 8 6 G.

t— A 6 (a

CITY OF BOSTON.

In Common Council, July 5, 1866.

Resolved : That the thanks of the City Council are due and
they arc hereby tendered to Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, D. D.,
for the eloquent and patriotic Oration delivered by him before
the Municipal Authorities of Boston on the occasion of the
XCth anniversary of the Declaration of American Independ-
ence; and that he be requested to furnish a copy of said
Oration for publication.

Sent up for concurrence.

JOHN C. HAYNES, Pres. pro tern.

Concurred.

In Board of Aldermen, July 7, 1866.
G. W. MESSINGER, Chairman.

Approved July 7, 1866.

F. W. LINCOLN, Jr., Mayor.

ORATION.

Mr. Mayor, Gentlemen of the Ciiy Council^ Friends
and Fellow- Citizens :

My words may be dull, but the occasion has an
eloquence of its own ; my thoughts may be feeble,
but the day clusters with memories, associations and
hopes that should give it power and make it an
inspu-ation to our hearts. Patriotism is an instinct
of humanity. Whether it be amid the snows of Lap-
land or the arid deserts of Arabia, wherever, what-
ever it may be, barren or beautiful, every man
loves his country, and every true man is ready to
live and labor, to toil, sacrifice, suffer, and, if
need be, to die for his country. But we, of all
people, should love our country ; our patriotism has
so much to sustain it, that it should be not simply
an instinct, but a principle ; a deep conviction of
the judgment as well as a warm emotion of the
heart. We have a glorious past, a grand though

troubled present, and a future rich in such hopes

1*

b JULY 4, 1866.

and promises as never before invited the energies,
or met the honest, pure, noble ambition of any
people. Nay, our patriotism should find its founda-
tion and nourishment in religious faith, — faith in
God, faith in humanity, and faith in those great
principles of liberty and love, with which Christianity,
for eighteen centuries, has been striving to impreg-
nate the heart of the world, and which, under the
providence of God, have here a grander opportu-
nity for development, expansion and application than
was ever offered them before.

History is the unfolding of God's thought, the de-
velopment of his purpose. Its epochs are the foot-
prints of the Almighty on the sands of time. In
our land, and in all that relates to it, these foot-
prints are so distinct and impressive that we must
be infidel indeed, if we do not mark and stud)
them with reverence and gratitude.

The hand of God in our country, the tokens of
his benignant purpose to protect and advance in it
the interests of liberty and humanity, is a theme
for whose details volumes would be required ; the
few paragraphs of an oration can oidy sketcli the
outline.

It begins with the discovery of America, which
was so wonderfully opportune in time, that mc no

OBATION. • <

longer ask why the Western Hemisphere was kept
concealed for so many ages from the Eastern, the
imtravelled waters of the Atlantic rolling between
them. Had the discovery been made a few centuries
earlier, the semi-barbarous institutions and feudalism
of the Old World would have been transplanted in
their vigor to the New, and social America would
have been little more than a reproduction of social
Europe. Had the discovery been delayed a few
centuries, the new ideas and principles in regard
to religious and civil liberty, government, society,
man, the Gospel in all its applications, which the
Reformation called forth, would, in all human proba-
bility, have had but a short-lived, struggling exist-
ence. Confined to Europe, they would have been
strangled, crushed, put down and kept down by
those influences of habit and custom, of civil and
ecclesiastical power, which have there opposed their
progress, and so long prevented their legitimate re-
sults,— the enfranchisement and elevation of humanity.
Well may we bow in adoring faith before that be-
neficent Providence, which so ordered it, that just
when it was most needed, when the Reformation
broke the slumbers of Europe and stirred its commu-
nities, as' they have never been stirred before, to
intense intellectual, moral and social activity, then

O JULY 4, 18GG.

this new continent, discovered, less than half a century
before, offered to this activity a new and fair field ;
and the new ideas and principles, which in Europe,
overborne in the struggle with long established insti-
tutions, ' and hereditary organizations, forms and
usages, would here have failed to work out any grand
results upon a great scale, found here, on the virgin
soil and comparatively unoccupied territory of this
new world, an opportunity for untrammelled devel-
opment, — a development which for more than two
centuries has steadily increased, giving impulse and
progress to humanity, producing results which form
one of the grandest and most interesting chapters in
the history of our race, and sending back upon the
Old World influences, which have been and vvill be
more and more salutary and beneficial.

If ever civil and religious liberty, — that boon
winch every man craves for himself and eveiy noble
man would accord to others, — if ever that great,
iutelligtnit, res])ousible freedom, which, through the
gospel and tlie spirit of the Lord, comes to the
soul of man, is to prevail over the earth, if it
is ever to maintain a strong foothold among the
nations, it will be because, at the hour of its
utmost need, God gave it opportunity to ])lant itself
on this new continent, and strike its roots so deep

oBATioN. y

that no despotic power could tear them up, no
storm of passion and folly blight the blossoms, or
destroy the fruit of the tree.

Beginning thus with the auspicious time of the dis-
covery of our country, i\\Q wonderful workings of a
wise and merciful Providence may be traced all
through the infancy, the growth and progress of every
colony established therein from Maine to Georgia.
In the planting of the Plymouth colony, — where a
few noble men and high-souled women stepped upon
a low, shapeless rock, against which the waves of
the Atlantic had beaten for centuries, and the world
knew not of it and cared not for it, and by their toils
and tears, their sufferings and sacrifices, made that
rock to become one of the sacred spots of earth,
hallowed by the noblest memories and grandest re-
sults,— there may be more of romance, more of thrill-
mg incident and wonderful achievement, than in that
of some of the others ; but these elements so abound
in all, that, if we have faith as a grain of mustard
seed, our hearts must prompt us to recognize and
adore a divine purpose and providence, wonderfully
manifested in the events connected with the early
settlement and colonization of our country, till we
come down to that great epoch in its history, of
which this day is the commemoration.

10 JULY 4, 18G6.

Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens, I need not dwell
upon the principles, nor recite the incidents of that
solemn and sublime struggle of our fiithers for
independence, in the success of which we gather
here at this hour, citizens of this free Common-
wealth, mheritors in this grand republic. These
principles have entered into the education of oiu*
people for generations. These incidents are written
in our histories, taught in our schools, graven upon
our memories, familiar as household W'Ords upon our
lips. But it was a glorious struggle. It was an
appeal to arms, to the God of battles, as necessary
and as justifiable as it was triumphant. That was
not a rebellion, any of whose authors felt con-
strained to acknowledge, that the government from
which they would separate, and so far overtlii'ow,
was the wisest, the best, the most paternal and
beneficent ever instituted. That was not a rebel-
lion Avhose success was to put limitations upon
liberty, and give extension and a deep, terrible per-
manence to slavery. That was not a rebellion
so utterly without cause, in any grievance endured,
or oppression exercised, that its instigators or authori-
ties never made, and never dared attempt to make,
any public proclamation to the world of the wrongs
they had to redi'ess, of the rights they would vindi-

OBATIOX. 11

cate, or of the sphit and purpose of the new nation-
ahty they woukl establish. No, it was not such
a rebellion. That grave, calm, solemn document,
which our fathers put forth ninety years ago to-day,
and which has just been so admirably read to us this
morning, — that document, its preliminary utterances,
rightly understood and interpreted, not " glittermg
generalities, " but solid, substantial and everlasting
verities, having their foundations in that eternal
justice, which is older than all institutions, and
anterior to all governments save that of God, — that
document, its recital of facts so true in letter and
spirit, as to defy refutation or denial, — that docu-
ment, which at once assumed and will forever hold
its place, as one of the most important historic
documents of the world, the natural and legitimate
child of that Magna Charta of England, which
England violated and trampled upon when she
attempted to oppress and subject us, — that docu-
ment — the Declaration of Independence, vindicates
our fathers to the judgment, while its successful
maintenance secures to them the admiration and
gratitude of mankind.

It was a glorious struggle, just in its origin,
noble m its purpose, grand in its success, grander
because that success was a triumph over the

12 JULY 4, 18G6.

prowess of England, — the most signal defeat to
her power, the greatest loss to her possessions she
ever sustained. Never, before or since, have any of
her colonies or territorial possessions succeeded in
throwing off her yoke. It has been attempted in
India, in Canada and the West Indies, and the
attempts have failed. "NVlierever, in any quarter of
the globe, England gets a foothold, plants her
standard and erects her forts, there she holds on
against all intruders and against all revolt; and it
is true to-day as of yore — " her drum-beat
follows the sun, and may be heard all around
the earth." In addition to her large colonial terri-
tories, or in connection with them, she holds
some of the most important and salient points
of the globe in either hemisphere. It is, and
has ever been her policy to seek possession of such,
— a policy which the commercial and political inter-
ests of this country, especially on our Western coast,
and in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, demand that
our government should withstand by all just and
honorable means. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, it
was supposed that ocean steam - navigation would
cripple the maritime power of England ; but it has
largely increased it, because England alone, — luigland
to a greater extent than any other nation, — that all

OB AT 10 X. 13

but omnipresent power whose centre is London, can
send her merchant or war -steamers into all the
waters of the globe, and everywhere coal at her
own ports, beneath the shadow of her own flag
and the protection of her own guns, — an advantage
she will not fail to hold, to use exclusively for
herself when she needs, — to extend when she can.
It was a glorious struggle, the revolutionary strug-
gle of our fathers, and a signal defeat and loss to
power of Great Britain. But the point, I wish to
make, is the testimony it affords to a benign purpose
on the part of the L)i^•ine Providence towards this
land, and the interests and progress of humanity as
connected with it. In the general aspects of the
struggle, there are three particulars worthy of especial
notice in this connection. First, the quick and thor-
ough union of the colonies, when the hour for forci-
ble resistance arrived, and the stern appeal to arms
had to be made. Here were thirteen colonics, three
millions of people, — a sparse population, a vast
territory, with none of the modern facilities for
personal intercourse, the diffusion of information,
or for concert of action. Single, isolated rebellion
on the part of any or all of these colonies would
have been a f\iilure. It would have been sj^eedily
crushed. By a wise foresight oiu- fathers were led

14 JULY i, 186G.

to provide iigainst this ; and suddenly, through means
whose suggestion and efficacy seem wonderfully provi-
dential, the thirteen became a unit, with a general
Congress, and iVrticles of Confederation strong enough
to carry them through as long and severe a struggle,
as liberty ever exacted of her champions.

This point is important in another aspect. No one
of these colonies, in the exercise of individual sover-
eignty, declared itself independent of Great Britain, or
undertook in its own name to be, or to set up a new
nationality on the earth. As' colonies they Avere
subject to Great Britain ; as revolting colonies they
instantly became united, and within eight and forty
hours after the fii'st blow of armed resistance was
struck at Lexington, troops from more than one of
these colonies were acting in concert in the siege of
this city. As colonies uniting in revolt, they passed
into a confederacy of States, and thus made to Eng-
land and to the world their " Declaration of Indepen-
dence ;" and from a Confederacy of States they passed
under the Constitution into a Union, not of the States,
but of the people: — "We, the people of the United
States, do ordain and establish this Constitution, which,
with the laws and treaties formed under it, shall be the
supreme law of the land, anything in any State consti-
tution or legislation to the contrary notwithstanding."

OBATIOX. 15

Not for an hour has any one of these States been
an independent State, universally known and rec-
ognized among the nations in its exercise of the
rights of absolute sovereignty. At first the most
important of these rights vested in Great Britain ;
then they were assumed, I had almost said, rather
than transferred to the Continental Congress ; and
then, by a grand and solemn act of the people, they
were committed to a Federal or National govern-
ment, under the Constitution of the United States.
The most important right of absohite sovereignty
these Colonies or States ever exercised was to part
with that sovereignty, and confer its highest and most
essential attributes upon a central or Federal au-
thority, that by union that might become great, re-
spectable and strong before the world, which, in its
separate parts, would remain insignificant and power-
less. This seems to be the historic fact, — that no
one of these States has ever been an independent,
absolute sovereignty, — and this fact seems to have
an important bearing upon that doctrine of " State
rights" and "the sovereignty of the States" which
since 1798 has been the bane of our internal polit-
ical action. This doctrine was the essential germ of
our recent civil war, whose fruits, in this instance.

16 JULY 4, 18G6.

that war has crushed, but, as was to be expected,
has not entirely eradicated or destroyed the germ
itself. God forbid that it should have life enough
to revive, and unfold into another rebellion.

The second signal feature, in the revolutionary
struggle of our fiithers, was their indomitable energy
and perseverance, amid tremendous discouragements,
at a cost of large sacrifices, painful sufferings and
privations. Here I will not detain you with details,
nor attempt to give you pictures of that, wdiich has
so often been portrayed by the masters of patriotic
eloquence. We all know, that upon any compari-
son of means, men, money, munitions and instru-
mentalities of war of all kinds, the struggle seemed
hopeless at the beginning ; and often and often, at
the end of many a campaign during those seven long
years, the fortunes of oiu- fathers seemed dark and
utterly desperate. But they did not and would not
give it up ; their enthusiasm kindled afresh after
every disaster and defeat; their small resources, often
apparently exhausted, failed not to offer fresh sup-
plies when called for; their bold confronting, year
after year, all the ])()W(>r and policy of England,
reached at last that sublime, unselfish, indomitable,
moral heroism, which always conquers because it must

OBATION. 17

conquer, and which at length compelled England to
acknowledge that the brightest jewel of her crown
was gone, and that these United States were a
power no longer subject to her control.

How shall I speak of the third signal and pro-
vidential feature in that great revolutionary strug-
gle of our fathers ? — their great Leader, wonderful
beyond all comparison in the intellectual and moral
combinations that formed his character, the Pro^'iden-
tial ]\lan, raised up to carry them forward through
transcendent difficulties to a grand success, and adorn
tlieu" records with the most glorious and unspotted
name in all human history. Niagara stands alone,
umivalled among the cataracts of earth, and man
might as w^ll attempt to create it, as by pen or
pencil to give an adequate description or impression
of it. Thus AVashington stands so unrivalled in the
combinations of his life, character and career — as
fortunate as he was great, and as good as he was
great and fortunate — that one might as well under-
take to create as to describe him. I shall not
attempt it ; but this I may say, that the more I
read history, the more I study biography, the
more I contemplate human nature, and aim to form
correct moral estimates of men, the more the char-
acter of Washington, in its glorious beauty, in the

18 JULY 4, 1S6G.

august sublimity of its splendid combinations, looms up
before my imagination, my feelings and my judgment,
as the grandest to be found in the authentic records
of our race, save those records, short and simple,
that contain the glorious gospel of the Son of God.

Does any one maintain that in the raising up of
such a man, to be the leader of our fathers in
their revolutionary struggle, to be the model, guide,
and inspiration in all coming time, to the new
development and progress, which humanity is
to make on this continent, he sees nothing won-
derfully providential; that in all this struggle, he
finds no special token of a benignant j)TU-pose of
the Almighty, in regard to the interests of liberty
and humanity in this land, I can only answer,
that I envy not the coldness or the scepti-
cism of his heart, which seems be wanting in
the great element of faith, — foith in the invisible,
the spiritual and the eternal, which has ever been
one of the noblest attributes of the noblest minds.
Most persons will recognize, and delight to recognize,
the hand of God in that glorious Revolutionary
struggle of our fathers, Avhose importance can never
diminish, and the memory of which can ne^'er die.
It was the first stern conflict between the despotism
of the Old World and the liberty of the Xew.

OR ATI ox. 19

In that conflict liberty triumphed, lifting up our
country " from impending servitude to acknowledged
independence ; " and that triumph should stand before
us to-day as " the Lord's doing, marvellous in our
eyes," a testimony to his gracious purpose to pro-
mote the interests and progress of humanity in our
land, and throughout the world.

And that testimony abides ; it abounds all through
the record of our wonderful prosperity and progress,
since the conclusion of that struggle. The formation
and adoption of the Constitution of the United
States afford an im]iressive illustration of this. All
human instruments have something of weakness and
defect, stamping their origin. It is easier to
destroy than to create, to find fault than to make
perfect ; and the Constitution of the United States
never has been, is not now, never will be beyond
the reach of ol)jection. But when we calmly review
the state of the country, after the close of the
war of independence; when we contemplate all the
circumstances of the times, the necessities that re-
quired, and the obstacles that stood in the way of a
stronger government than the old confederacy, all
the diverse rights, interests, opinions, prejudices,
that had to be harmonized; then the Constitution
stands before us w^onderful in its penetrating and

20 JULY 4, 18GG.

comprehensive sagacity, its all-embracing political
wisdom ; an instrument of civil organization and
government so perfect, that could there always
have been found an integrity adequate to its
just, dispassionate and impartial administration, it
would, of necessity, have made the people living
under it as happy and prosperous as the limitations
of earth permit.

Wonderful in its formation, its adoption ulti-
mately by the people of all the States, so different
in character and population, and so widely sev-
ered, is even more wonderful than its formation ;
and when we look at the great general results
produced by this Constitution, observe how imme-
diately it brought prosj^erity and power, raised our
country from a feeble to a mighty nation, ga^e it
a name and an influence over all the earth ; when
we consider how it has conferred upon many millions
of people such blessings, comforts, privileges, oppor-
tunities, as no government ever conferred before
upon a like number, making our land such an
" oasis in the desert " of the world, that for half
a century past, emigrants from other countries have
thronged to it, as they ne\'er thronged to any land
before; finding here a security, a happiness, and an
opportunity they could find no^vllere else on earth,

OBATION. 21

— when wc consider tlicse things, the formation
and adoption of the Constitution of the United
States are events so wonderful, so extraordinary
upon any calcuhition of human probabihties, that
we are justified, nay, constrained to regard them as
such an overruling of Providence, such tokens of
a benignant protection of liberty in this land, that
they should not only quicken and invigorate our
patriotism, but give to it something of the sanctity
and power of religious faith.

But all will admit, probably, that the most impres-
sive evidence and exhibition of an overruling Provi-
dence, -in the history of our country, is its present
condition, and the terrible scenes and the great
crisis, through which we have just passed in our
recent civil war.

The origin and responsibility of this war rest not
exclusivelv Avith the men of this o-cneration. At lono-
intervals, years ago, the differing seeds from which
it sprung were planted. The first planting was at
Plymouth in 16 '20, when our fathers made there
the first permanent lodgement of liberty in the land.
The second, by a singular coincidence, was in the
same year, when a Dutch man-of-war entered James
River, with some Africans on board who were sold
as slaves, and thus, in ^^u-ginia, the first germ of

22 JULY 4, 18C6.

Slavery took root on Anglo- American soil. The third
planting was in 1776, when a committee of the
Continental Congress at Philadelphia, with ^Ir. Jef-
ferson at its head, made that grand declaration, that
" all men " — " all " — had certain inalienable rights,
of wliich no government conld innocently deprive
them. The fourth and last planting was in 1787,
when the Constitution of the United States, that
instrument, so glorious in other respects, under-
took, in singular inconsistency with its Preamble,
to join together, in peaceful fellowship, inider
one government. Liberty and Slavery. The thing
was impossible ; and in this particular, though
not in its general spirit and purpose, the Con-
stitution A\as a failure.

A conflict l)etween Liberty and Slavery existing
under one government, among one people, was inevi-
table, " irre])ressible." It begun early, it lasted long.
It may be traced all tlirough our national legislation
and policy ; and in tlie legislation of the last twenty
years, there are so many, and such violent and wan-
ton encroachments of Sla\'(>ry upon Liberty, that one
is almost tem})ted to tliiidv, (tliougli no ])ositiA'c proof
thereof in letters or speeches could be found.) that
the hope, if not the pur])ose and ])olicy of tlu^ lead-
ers and advocates of Slaverv, was to i;'oad and drive

3 y? V/vT

OBATION. 23

the North to the initiation of rebelhon, that thus
they might phice themselves before the workl, in the
light of loyal defenders of an existing Government
and Constitution.

Though not disposed to uphold or approve all
that was said and done at the North, I am disposed
to maintain that the admission of Texas, by a
gross and palpable violation of constitutional pro-
visions ; the Mexican war, unnecessarily precipitated
upon the country by an invasion of territory of which,
to say the least, it was doubtful whether it belonged
to Texas, and the consecpient acquisition of large addi-
tions to the area of slavery ; some of the odious
and arbitrary features unnecessarily introduced into
the Fugitive Slave Bill ; the miserably contemptible,
as well as wicked legislation in regard to Kansas,
and finally the repeal of the ]\Iissouri Compromise, —
that these were such violations and encroachments
upon the rights, interests and progress of liberty on
this Continent, as, combined, afforded to the free
States a more justifiable cause for revolt, rebellion,
revolution, than the so-called Confederate States can
ever declare and make good before the world.

But the people of the free States would not rebel.
They felt that under a popular representative gov-
ernment, where the will of the people, legitimately

24 JULY 4, 18G6.

expressed, is the controlling force that ultimately
accomplishes all that ought to be done, armed
resistance is almost never necessary or justifiable.
Liberty, also, which loves order and obeys law to
the utmost, was willing to bide its time, and trust
its existence and progress to the UTesistible logic of
truth and principle. This logic prevailed more and
more, till at length the Republican party was or-
ganized. According to its original platforms, this
party did not propose to distiu'b slavery where it
existed, but simply to restrict its power and preva-
lence to the limits it had ah'eady reached, — limits
whose resources it had not exhausted, but where,
as an industrial institution, it still had room for an
indefinite expansion.

This party, after one or two defeats, triumphed
in the national election of 18G(), and raised Abra-
ham Lincoln to the chief magistracy of the nation.
I need not attempt the eulogy of this man's
character or career. At the instance of our
C/ity (iovernmcnt, this has already been done by
abler hands than mine. That he was a person of
peculiar talents, admirable wisdom, perfect honesty,
and pure, disinterested purpose, will, I presume, be
admitted by all. The growing dcAclopments of his
personal character while in ofhce, his public policy

on AT I ON. 25

under circumstances of as deep perplexity, painful
anxiety, and involving issues of as g-igantie impor-
tance as ever embarrassed the head of any nation,
and his untimely death at the hand of violence,
making him at once the champion and the martyr
of liberty, these invest his name and fame with
such attributes of gloom and glory, that we become
at once sad and reverent as we speak of him.
There can be little doubt that as years roll on,
dissipating the mists of passion, and leading to a
clearer appreciation, the historic judgment of the
nation and of the world will lil't him up to a
high place among the providential men of the race;
A\ill place him near to Washington, as the second
deliverer and Father of his country, — less fortunate
in his personal fate, but thoroughly wise, honest, disin-
terested, patriotic, worthy of oiu' gratitude and our
reverence.

His election was the signal for the weak work
of secession, and the wicked work of rebellion and
revolution, to begin. This work, in its successive
steps, in its widening progress, in its final issue,
abounds with testimonies to the purpose of the
Almighty Providence to protect and advance the
interests of liberty and humanity in oiu* country, and
thereby throughout the world. The very neglects

26 JULY 4, 18G6.

which we condemned, the very misfortunes and de-
feats, which five years ago we regretted, have all
contributed to fulfil this purpose.

There can be no question that durmg the summer
and autumn of 1860, the President of the United
States, with the mutterings of the coming storm in
his cars, and the shadow of its dark cloud resting
upon the close of his administration, had he listened
to the suggestions of the late Lieutenant- General,
Winfield Scott, — that glorious old soldier, as wise
and patriotic as he was brave, — might have quietly
put all the forts on the Southern coast in such condi-
tion, and so disposed of the military and naval
force of the United States, that secession, like nul-
lification, woidd have reached only to a paper
ordinance, perhaps not to that, and armed rebellion
would never have raised its bloody hand.

If England in the spring of 1861, instead of being
swift through her Secretary for Foreign Affairs to
speak of the " late " United States, and grant bellig-
erent rights to the rebels, and thus encourage her
people to furnish them with munitions of war and
supplies of all kinds, had, true to her interest and
honor, as well as her professed abhorrence of slavery,
expressed her sympathy with the constitutional gov-
ernment of the United States, and her de tormina-

ORATION. 27

tion to stand by it in the struggle, there can be no
doubt that the resources of the so-called Confederacy
would have been exhausted at a very early day.

And if, in that first great battle of the conflict at
Bull Run, in July 1861, the Union arms had con-
quered, and we had di'iven the rebels back to Rich-
mond, or beyond it, to the selection of some other
spot to be its temporary capital, probably hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of persons in the South-
ern States, who up to that hour had hesitated
between rebellion and loyalty, would have decided in
favor of the latter, and the Union sentiment at the
South, feelmg secure of protection, would have de-
clared itself so strongly, that the rebellion and its
confederacy would have collapsed before the expira-
tion of its fu-st year.

But this immediate or early suppression of the
rebellion Avould have left the nation just where it
was before, — the cause of strife uni'emoved, una-
bated ; it would have stanched the blood, salved
over the wound, but left the virus within to poison
the system, to work disease and decay, to bring on,
at some other time, in some other form, another
death-struggle for national liberty and life. He, who
preside th over the nations, had a broader and more

28 JULY 4, 18G6.

benignant purpose, and His overruling is legibly
written upon the wliole course of the conflict.

This conflict, — initiated by the rebel leaders for an
independent confederacy, that should give permanence
and power to slavery, and entered into by the
government of the United States after patient reluc-
tance, originally not to disturb slavery, but to main-
tain its own authority over a territory and people,
who had no sufficient cause for revolt, and whose
obedient allegiance it might rightfully claim, —
this conflict went on, widening the range of its
operations, unfolding more and more distinctly the
good and evil principles, the sources of weakness
and of strength involved in it, and presenting
more and more clearly, also, the issues that
must be reached in order to a permanent peace ;
till at length the Avay was prcjiared, opportunity
came, necessity demanded, and the President of the
United States, in the exercise of tliat august war-
power which the Constitution lodged in his hands,
with all due ([ualiflcations and formalities, made the
proclamation emancipating all the slaves in the rebel
States.

This important measure was at flrst received
with regret and surprise by some; but it is now, I

OB ATI on: 29

believe, everywhere, at home and abroad, by every
thoughtful person, regarded as just and wise ; officially
a right, and morally a brave and noble act. To have
made that proclamation earlier would have been a
mistake ; to have delayed it longer would have been
a crime, — a crime against the Union whose preserva-
tion demanded, whose Constitution authorized it, — a
crime agamst liberty and humanity which so earn-
estly plead for it. Followed as it soon was by the
enlistment of colored troops, and by amendments of
the Constitution abolishing slavery, legitimately passed
by Congress and adopted by the required number
of States, this proclamation may now be regarded
as the thunder-bolt, beneath which the rebel confed-
eracy staggered to its fall, while to us, like the
fiery column to the Israelites of old, it was " a
burning and a shining light," beneath whose guiding
glow the Union, victorious at every point through
its moral as well as physical strength, with erect
mien and manly confidence, walked forward to a
triumphant peace, to glory and permanence.

IVIr. Mayor and fellow-citizens : Distance is said
to lend enchantment to the view, but it is also
necessary to give correctness to the vision ; we are
too near to our late civil war to judge of it cor-
rectly in all its events and proportions. In five years

30 JULY i, 18GG.

wc have m-^de a history which, only at the close
of fifty years, can be fo fully and accurately written,
as to be in all particulars thoroughly understood
and justly appreciated.

But there are some f\xcts and principles in rela-
tion to it that we can understand, and they are
worthy of a moment's notice. It was at once the
most gigantic civil w^ar on record, — and the
shortest. The Peloponnesian war was virtually a
civil war, corresponding in some particidars to ours.
The States of Greece, represented in the Am-
phictyonic council, were bound together by various
tic^s of nationality, which would have been closer
and f tronger, save that an idea, expressed by a
diffei'ent word but similar to our idea of State
sovereignty, kept them apart and led to their ruin,
through a war which, interrupted by a sliort truce,
lasted twenty-seven years. This war was important
in its influence upon the fortunes of (Greece, and
upon the civilization and progress of the world ;
but in itself it was confined to a territory not much
larger than one of our large States ; and the greatest
number, which either side ever brought into the
field in any one campaign, was sixty thousand men,
and never in any one battle were so many as these
engaged on one side.

OBATION. 31

The great civil war, under various leaders with
mingled fortunes, through which Home passed from
a Republic to an Empire, lasted twenty years. In
the first great battle of this struggle, at Pharsalia,
between Ca?sar and Pompey, the whole number in
both armies, very unequally divided, did not reach
to eighty thousand men ; and in its last, at Actium,
between Anthony and Octavius Cuesar, though about
one hundred thousand men were assembled on either
side, only a very small portion of these were actually
brought into the conflict. The Roman Empire at
this time contained three times the population of
the United States ; yet the great military captain,
Julius CcEsar, who for a brief period was master
of it, never commanded in person, at one point, so
many men as were m some of our army corps.
The glorious civil war in England, known as the
" Great Rebellion," by which free constitutional gov-
ernment became the boon of the Anglo-Saxon race
everywhere, lasted seven years ; yet the largest army
that either King or Parliament had in the field
during this struggle did not exceed twenty-five thou-
sand men. Cromwell's broad fame, as a military
commander, rests upon a few battles and campaigns,
conducted in a comparatively small area of territory,
and with a force seldom exceeding twenty thousand

32 JULY 4, 1866.

men, — about as many as served for Sherman's ad-
vance-guard of " bummers " in his grand march
throu"h Georo'ia and the CaroHnas. The combined
armies of CcEsar and Pompey, disputing the empire
of the world, were less than the quota which some
of our large States sent into the field in our re-
cent struggle ; and this little State of jNIassachusetts
furnished more troops than Julius Ccesar ever com-
manded, more than all Greece brought together in
the long struggle that rent her in pieces ; more than
fought on both sides in the great English Rebellion.
And what is the explanation of this contrast?
Simply this, I conceive. Ours was a war of the
people and for the people, their liberties and their
progress against an oligarchy. Even the English
Rebellion, though liberty was promoted by it, was
in a great measure a war of oligarchies, a struggle
between titled and \ui-titled land owners, for place
and ])owcr ; and the great nWA wars of the Roman
triumvirates were Avars between oligarchies, struggles
between patrician leaders, Avho could gather no more
troops than they could pay by plunder, confiscation
and robberv. 'J'he long and fatal contest in (jrccce
Avas between ])atrician leaders and States, some of
whom, Athens, for instance, had only sixty thousand
freemen from whom to enlist her soldiers, Avliile

OB AT I ox. 33

she had four hundred thousand slaves, whom she
did not dare to arm for the contest. Ours, on
the contrary, was a w^ar of and for the people.
Not a w\ar which the government constrained the
people to wage and support, but one which the
people constrained the government to wage for its
own protection and their liberties, in behalf of a
country Avliich they loved, and of institutions and
principles which they cherished with national pride
and filial reverence. Hence when the call came,
they sprang to arms by the half-million, gloried in
what may be called a self-imposed taxation, and
poured out theu* blood and treasiu'e without stint,
and thus made it at once the most gigantic and
shortest civil war on record.

We can understand that it was a war of conflictins:
ideas and principles, which in its progress unfolded
more and more the character of these principles,
their healthful or baneful influence upon the mind
and heart of man. It was a war between Liberty
and Slavery, the records of which are full of dis-
closures, which tell in behalf of liberty as a grand
ennobling principle, and put a darker and deeper
shadow upon slavery as barbarous and brutalizing.

All w^ar is bad, subjecting men to such evil
influences, that nothing but stern necessity could lead

34 JULY 4, 186G.

a thoughtful man to uphold it; and I do not intend
to urge that all that the government, troops, people
and press of the North did and said, during our recent
struggle, is to be unqualifiedly approved. Undoubt-
edly there are things that we must regret and con-
demn. Nor do I mean to say that there is nothing,
absolutely nothing, in the rebel record that we can
approve ; no acts of courtesy, or nobleness, or mag-
nanimity, such as call forth our admiration even
for a foe. Undoubtedly there are many such. But
there is nothing in our record of which we need
be ashamed ; while there are things in rebel record
which the world will forever condemn. There
is nothing in our record like Belle Isle, the Libby,
Andersonville, Salisbury, Fort Pillow, or Fort Wag-
ner ; nothing like the attempt to fii-e Northern
cities and bring indiscriminate suffering, destruc-
tion of property, poverty, death, upon men, women
and children ; nothing which gives the shadow
of a shade of color for such a charge against
any one, as that which the President of the United
States has ventured to bring against the head of
the late Confederate Government, — complicity with
assassination and murder.

Our record is a glorious record in behalf of the
nature, character, and influences of liberty, — glori-

OBATIOX. 35

ous ill the reluctance with which the National
Government unsheathed the sword of war, and
in the spirit in which she used it, — glorious
in the skill and military genius displayed by
oiu- generals, and in the bravery, the sacrifices
and the patriotic devotedness of our troops, and
in their general character and conduct as men as
well as soldiers, — glorious in the general spirit and
action of our people, in their Sanitary Commissions,
their Christian Commissions, their Freedmen's Relief
Associations, in all the noble efforts of the women
of the country, and in the thousand Florence
Nightingales, who, without the meed of world-wide
fame and honor, humbly, quietly, m the self-sacri-
ficing spirit of a loyal patriotism and a womanly
tenderness, went forth to mstruct the ignorant in
schools, to nurse the sick and comfort the dying
ui hospitals. Oiu's is a glorious record ; and not
denying any thing there may be good and glorious
in the record of the Confederacy, so called, the
two records, taken as a whole, hold up to us two
forms, two portraits, drawn, as it were, by an
almighty artist, in living lineaments, — one Liberty,
an angel of light to benefit and bless, — the other
Slavery, a demon of wrath to curse and destroy,
not so much those upon whom she fastens her

36 JULY 4, 18GG.

ft-

fetters, as those to whom she grants her privileges
and. her power.

The nation and the world needed these por-
traits. They will be stndied long and mnch ; then*
instruction will he heeded, and their influence felt,
for many centuries. The war was a conflict of
principles ; and the whole exhibition of the con-
flict and its results seem so clear and immediate a
revelation of the divine will and law in regard to
slavery, as to make it absurd to appeal to one or
two obscure passages in the Bible, written in the
infancy of the world, and insist that these are to
be interpreted to the support of slavery as a divine
institution, a declaration of God's eternal purpose,
that a portion of his creatures should forever re-
main in that unhappy condition.

We can form some conceptions of the misery
and ruin from which this war, successfully prose-
cuted to the preservation of the Union, has saved
us. These conceptions Avill be more vivid, if we
call to mind, for a moment, the fate of the Greek
republics. At the time of the breaking out of the
great civil war between them, these republics had
reached the sunnnit of their glory. Pericles had
conceived the grand idea of forming them into a
federal union somethmg like oui's, under one gen-

OBATIOX. 37

eral government and a common capital. Had he
succeeded, the fate of Greece and the story of the
world for centuries would have been different ;
but he failed. The selfish and ambitious, the men
of ordinary talents, but eager for power, felt that
they would lose influence and position in a united
Greece ; and so the miserable idea of petty state
sovereignties prevailed. Instead of forming a union
that would have been for the strength, the glory
and the preservation of all, these republics rushed
into a war, which ended in the exhaustion and
ruin of all. Our union had already been formed
under a nobler than Pericles ; and the object, the
attempt of the war was to break it up. Once
broken, the two fragments would not long have
remained entire.

The very idea upon which many southern men,
particularly those who were in the army and navy,
undertake to defend their treason, viz., that their
State claimed and had a right to their first alle-
giance, would have compelled them to resist the
central despotism, by which alone the Confederacy
could have been held together, when once it became
independent ; so that soon the States that were to
compose it would have been fighting among them-
selves. The northern republic, the glory of the

38 JULY 4, 18GG.

old Union gone, its grand inspiration no longer a
power in the heart, wonld soon probably have be-
come a prey to internal dissensions, and so all
over the land there would have been wars and
fightings, confusion and disaster ; and these would
have continued and increased till exhaustion came,
and by the close of half a century, some new
Philip of Macedon, as in Greece, or some new
Louis Napoleon, as in Mexico, would have ap-
peared, and under the mild term of intervention,
would have seized the liberties of a people, who
had shown themselves unworthy to possess and
incompetent to maintain them, and who would be
glad to accept even despotism, if it brought peace.
In all the glorious past, there is nothing more
glorious, no more distinct token of a benignant
purpose, on the part of the Almighty Providence,
in regard to the interests of liberty and humanity
in our land, than the clear triumph of the Gov-
ernment in our late civil war. That triumph, with
all its accompaniments, has brought us to a grand
position before the world and among ourselves. It
has shown us the power of a free people when
true, and determined to be true, at any cost of
sacrifice and effort, to great ideas and principles.
It has preserved the Union, whose destruction was

OliATION. 39

attempted, and made it more stable than it was
before. It has abolished slavery, and so withdrawn
the only element that stood in the way of a living
unity and a hearty nationality among the whole
people. It has wiped out the one dark spot upon
our escutcheon, the one terrible inconsistency, which
alone had been our shame at home, and our re-
proach abroad. It has amended and improved the
Constitution of the United States, which, worthy of
our support before, may now claim the unqualified
allegiance, the devoted loyalty of our hearts and
lives, and challenge the admiration of the world.
It has shown liberty to be a grand and glorious
thing, a principle and a power, which we may
well wish to have prevail more and more among
the nations.

But our national position, though grand and glo-
rious, is not without difficulties and troubles, that
awaken anxiety, and demand the exercise of a
large political wisdom.

War always leaves, peace always opens many
questions that arc to be settled, not by force, but
by reason and judgment, by mutual forbearance and
a mutual desire to do that which is right and best.
The ai»-itation of the waves never ceases the moment
the storm subsides. And yet with us there has been

40 JULY 4, 18GG.

far less agitation tlian might have been expected.
It is but fifteen months since the war ceased, yet
never before, I apprehend, did any nation at the
close of so brief a period, after so gigantic a con-
flict, find itself in so good condition as this nation
finds itself to-day. There have been no wide com-
mercial embarrassments, no great financial crises,
nothing to bewilder, disturb or arrest the industry
or enterprise of the country ; but these, with all the
capital they can command, are putting themselves
forth in various ways to repair the waste which war
has caused : and under theh influence many ques-
tions Avill settle themselves, or rather be settled by
the force of laws, which passion, prejudice and
unwise legislation may do something to thwart, but
cannot utterly annul.

The Southern people may say, as the newspapers
tell us they do say, that they will not sell their land
to the Yankees ; that they will not encourage^ the
emigration of Northern men and Northern capital.
It is very natural that they should say this, but
they cannot " fight it out on this lino." Some will
try undoubtedly, (it would be surprising if they did
not,) but whenever it comes to a clear question
between passion and prejudice on the one hand,

OBATION. 41

and interest and progressive wealth on the other,
interest and progressive wealth will carry the day.

They will not sell their land to the Yankees ;
bnt the lands are there, imtilled and unoccnpied,
with streams, timber, mines, waiting for labor,
enterprise and capital to unfold their resources
and make them productive. And these, the incu-
bus of slavery being removed, will flock in and
find opportunities, will recei^'e a welcome, and
produce more and more tlieu- inevitable results,
and a new order of things will spring up, and
before she knows it, free Virginia, in wealth, in
population, in exports, may regain that precedence
of New York which she held in the old colonial
times; and many of the Southern States, now poor
and exhausted, may hereafter, in wealth, in intelli-
gence, in intellectual and moral power, in all that
adorns and elevates a community, rival many of their
Northern sisters, and none will glory in that rivalry
more than these sisters themselves.

Undoubtedly, as we learn through the newspa-
pers, from private letters and various other sources,
many things are said and done at public meetings,
at private gatherings and in all manner of ways

at the South, which indicate that there is still

4.*

42 JULY -i, 18GG.

a large measure of disloyalty there ; a determi-
nation on the part of many to cherish feelings
of hatred and and dislike toward the Union and the
North ; to oppose any improvement in the condition
of the negro, and keep him as far as possible in the
condition of serfdom; and, in general, in all possible
ways to fan the embers of disloyalty, sedition, and
treason, in the hope that they may be kept alive
and made to blaze out again in destructive fury.
This ought not to surprise or disturb. It was to be
expected ; and when we consider how absolutely
their hopes have been disappomted, their plans frus-
trated, and their great enterprise, upon which they
entered with such boastful confidence, brought to a
miserable failure, we ought not to expect that there
should be at once a universal and cheerful acqui-
escence in such untoward results ; but we in our
grand triumph should certainly be willing to exer-
cise a large and patient forbearance toward the irri-
tations of disappointment.

Two things which are of essential importance
are lixcd forever. Slaverv is abolished. The neiirroes
are free, and though not invested, as many other
persons are not, Avith what may be called some
of tlio ])rivileges of citizenship, yet through that
grand enactment, the Civil llights Bill, they

OBATION. 43

are protected and secured in all their essen-
tial rights as free men : and the enjoyment
and possession of these rights will bring such
a sense of manhood and such desire and oppor-
tunity to improve, that if they remain anywhere
long or largely in actual serfdom, the fault
will be chiefly their own. If we will but refrain
from returning railing for railing, we may safely
leave it to time, and to other combining and con-
spuing influences to remote the ii-ritations of dis-
appointment, to extinguish the scattered embers of
disloyalty, and, through a better knowledge and a
better intercourse between them, bring the people
of the North and South to such mutual respect and
confidence as shall bind them in strong attachment
to each other, and to the Union that makes them
one people.

Undoubtedly, there are many questions in regard
to reconstruction, and readmission to political rights,
and the extent to which deprivation of these rights,
or other punishment shall be inflicted upon rebels,
that still remain to be determined, and the determi-
nation of which, amid the diff'erent opinions that are
expressed, excites painful anxiety in many minds.
The difficulties, originally inherent in this subject,
have been somewhat enhanced by that sad event,

44 • JULY 4, 18 6G.

which raised to the Presidency of the nation one
elected to be its Vice-President.

Our experience, fortunately not frequent, teaches
that it is a great misfortune to the nation to have^
and a terribly trying position to the individual to
he^ what has been, improperly yet expressively,
termed " an accidental President of the United
States." According to the ordinary custom and
course of political affairs among us, the person put
into the Vice-Presidency has commonly little more
of political distinction or office to expect. lie is
not so much in the line of succession or advance-
ment, as prominent members of the Cabinet, the
Senate, or the House of Pepresentatives. As Vice-
President, his powers, position and prospects are
limited; and if, through the death of the President,
he is suddenly intrusted with " the powers and
duties of the said office," it is perhaps too much
to expect, that lie should be so much larger than
the office, so much stronger and superior to the
circumstances, as to be able to meet the position
naturally and simply, without thought of self, and
with no considerations other than those of the
public good to influence his action and policy.

On being thus called to this position, the first
strong feeling or consciousness of the individual must

OBATioy. 45

be, that he was not elected to it by the suffrage of
the people, that it was not expected that he would
have to fill it, that there is perhaps a general
feeling of regret that he has been summoned to it ;
and this is naturally followed by some questioning
as to how far the sympathy and confidence of the
party that elected him will gather to his support ;
while immediately there are indications more or less
distinct, — and sometimes very distinct, — that the
opposite party regard him with more sympathy and
confidence than they did his predecessor, and far
more than they ever expressed for himself previ-
ously, and stand, waiting and anticipating, ready to
welcome any such changes of policy as will enable
them to give him their party indorsement. The
next step, in the succession of emotions, is the feel-
ing that it does not become his dignity, or his
talents, or the great powers and interests intrusted
to liim, to be the mere heir-at-law, as it were,
simply the executor of his predecessor's policy and
plans ; and so he begins to diverge from these,
and diverges more and more, till at length, the
divergence from the principles and policy of the
friends, who elected him to the Vice-Presidency,
becomes so great, that there is nothing left for him

46 JULY i, 186G.

but an attempt to have a policy and a party of
his own.

I can conceive of no position in any govern-
ment, certainly there can be none in our own,
attended with so much personal discomfort, so
full of trial, temptation and difficulty as that of a
President, inducted mto his high trusts and duties,
by such an event as brought the present incumbent
to the chair of state. The very difficulties of his
position give him a peculiar claim to all that chari-
table and forbearing judgment, which we arc con-
tinually called upon to exercise toward all men in
public and political life. Such judgment we should
endeavor to exercise toward him, though we may not
be able to approve or indorse all his acts, or
disposed to relinquish our adherence to those prin-
ciples of policy, which we conceive to be of essential
importance in the present exigencies of the coimtry.

This policy and all the matters connected with
reconstruction belong, I suppose, upon the theory of
our Government, specially, if not exclusively, to its
legislative rather than its executive department ;
and we may confidently hope, I think, that the
policy of Congress, if it need modification, will be
60 modified, will be made so just and wise and

OBATION. 47

generous as to secure the confirmation of the Pre
sident, and. be approved and uphekl by the people.
The only desire, which any thoughtful, dispassionate
person can have, in regard to all the points involved
in the question of reconstruction, is that they
should be so settled as to promote the safety of
the country, prevent the initiation of any future
rebellion, and efface, as flxr and as fast as possible,
all traces and all sources of sectional strife and dis-
cord. No man can desire that anything should be
done, that any deprivation should be prolonged or
any punishment inflicted, in the mere spirit of vin-
dictiveness.

In all cases of this kind there are two points,
two extremes, to be avoided : undue lenity on the
one hand, undue severity on the other. The lesson
of history teaches that the mistake, which all rulers
are apt to make, is that of undue severity. We,
I apprehend, are in no danger of error in this
direction. AYe are the most good-natured peo-
ple in the world ; it is one of our great faults
that we immediately feel a strong sympathy for the
criminal, a tender compassion for the wrong-doer,
the moment he gets within the grip and grasp of
the law. The fact that fifteen months have passed

48 JULY 4, 1SG6.

since the close of a rebellion, which, all thmgs con-
sidered, must be regarded as the most gigantic polit-
ical crime on record, and yet no one has been tried,
convicted or punished, is pretty conclusive testimony,
that there is nowhere any spirit of vindictivcness or
cruelty, on the part of the people or their rulers.
Multitudes have been pardoned, but no one has
been punished.

The o-reat militarv chief of the rebellion, — a
man whom the United States Government had edu-
cated, supported, honored and trusted, whose antece-
dents and position gave that government the strongest
claims to his unswerving allegiance, and whom history
will hold largely responsible for all the barbarous
cruelties inflicted upon Federal prisoners, — this man
is, and has been for some months, quietly acting as
the President of a college ; has been permitted, as
a paroled prisoner of war, to take charge of
the education, the formation of the characters of
the young men of the nation ! I may challenge
the records of all the civil wars of the world, to
2)resent a parallel to such leniency, to adduce an
mstancc in ^^lli(•ll the great military commander of
an organized rebellion, of four years' duration, was
permitted, without trial or punishment thereon, to

ORATION'. 49

glide quietly into a position of sucli trust, honor and
responsibility, as that of the head of a literary and
educational institution.

I have no desii'e that any one should suffer the
extreme penalty, which under the law attaches to the
crime of treason ; but for its moral influence upon
the country and the world, it does seem to me of
the highest importance, that through the indictment
of some one, a crime so great as this rebellion should
be brought to solenm iind unsparing legal investiga-
tion, and that there should be, on the records of the
highest tribunal of the country, a verdict of guilty and
a sentence of condemnation. That verdict reached,
that condemnation declared, I care not then what
clemency the government may exercise. God for-
bid that we should thirst for any man's blood !

Everything points to the late President of the Con-
federacy, so called, as the individual against whom
these grave legal proceedings should be mstituted.
Moreover, this man stands before the country charged
by the present President of the United States, in
a solemn proclamation issued under the seal of
State, with complicity in that foul conspiracy which
accomplished the assassination of his predecessor,
and attempted that of other important members of
the United States Government. One would not

5

50 JULY 4, 18GG.

have that arch-traitor, the head of the rebel Con-
federacy, treated with personal injustice. Personal
and national honor alike forbid the President of the
United States to keep the grounds, upon which this
grave charge was made, much longer among the
secrets of the executive archives. The charge
should either be withdi'awn, or brought to legal
investigation, or the fixcts upon which it was made
should be published to the world, that the world
may pass its moral verdict thereon.

Some measure, some limited, temporary measure
of political deprivation of political rights, as a po-
litical punishment for a political crime, would seem
to be deserved by the rebels, and imperiously de-
manded bj the safety and honor of the country.

I am not statesman enough, and certainly not
enough of a politician, to understand the nice dis-
tinctions that have been made between " re-construc-
tion " and " restoration," between rebel States being
"in" or "out" of the Union; nor have I been able
to get at the idea, under a government like ours,
of a State as an entity, independent of the people
who compose it. Through some mental or moral
defect, it may be, I have only been able to reach
to this general idea, which I supposed was an
axiom of all civil polity; namely, that armed and

OB AT I ON. 51

organized rebellion pnt everything at hazard. If it
succeed it gains all ; if it fail it loses all — all
that it had, all that it sought ; and its vanquished
instigators are at the discretionary disposal of the
government that subdues them, have no rights but
to be treated in such way as mercy, wisdom, judg-
ment, humanity may dictate, and the best interests
of the nation, whose life they have imperilled, and
whose peace they have outraged, may demand.

If this be not an axiom in civil polity, a principle
inherent m all civil government, I see not how there
can be any security against frequent rebellions or
insurrections. If our fathers had failed in their great
revolutionary struggle, and had at length said, " We
submit, we withdraw and annul our Declaration of
Independence, we admit your right to tax us without
representation, but we claim our old colonial charters
and all the rights secured to us by those charters,"
Great Britain would probably have laughed at the
idea, declined the proposal, and made answer, " Your
colonial charters : you broke, violated, forfeited these,
when you undertook to rebel and be independent.
You have no claim now, even to your old colonial
rights, and we do not think it is safe to trust you
with them at present ; we do not wish to encourage
another rebellion among you. When your loyalty is

52 JULY 4:, 18G6.

clearly re-established, when it is e"\'ident that you are
and mean to be good citizens and subjects, Ave will
restore your charters and all your colonial priAoleges,
but not till Ave arc satisfied on this point." This,
which Great Britain might have said to our fathers,
which any government, from principles inherent in all
governments, may say to vanquished rebels, our own
goveniment has a right to say to the people and
States lately in rebellion against it.

This right must be admitted, or we must admit,
that the war, on the part of the government,
was wrong from the beginning ; and this position
leads, by a swift and irresistible logic, to the anni-
hilation of the Federal Government, and the intro-
duction of anarchv into the countrv. That somethino'
of this sort may and nuist be said is, I believe,
admitted by all, except perhaps the rebels them-
selves. In fact, something of this character has
already been said, and what more is necessary
will be said ; a just measure of individual and
temporary deprivation of political right will be
awarded, and the Executive, the Congress and the
People will uphold it, and tlie world will commend
it as just and wise and right : and under its influence
the country will work its way out of these present
difficulties, and enter upon that career of glory

ORATION. 53

which is before her, — a career so grand, that imag-
ination fails and falters in attempting to form an
adequate conception of it.

Never had any other people a future before them,
making such demands upon their energies, their ambi-
tion, their highest aspirations. No thoughtful and
reflecting mind, baptized into the spirit of faith in a
divine purpose and providence guiding the educa-
tion and destinies of the race, can refuse to cherish
the conviction, certainly the hope, darkened it may be
by occasional doubts, but never sinking into despau',
that here, in this country, beneath the influence of
our civil and religious liberty, our social institutions,
and the grand opportunity offered by this broad, new
continent, there is to be a development of humanity,
a progressive social life, such as has been nowhere
exhibited in the world before, corresponding in its
fruits of intelligence, comfort, happiness, in the large-
ness of its spirit and form, its beauty and power, to
the largeness of the scale, on which nature here dis-
plays itself in our mountains, lakes, rivers and bound-
less prames. In every mind, that has ever cherished
it, that hope must be stronger and brighter to-day
than it ever was before.

Our material prosperity is all but inevitable. Situ-
ated in the temperate zone, an immense territory,

5 J: JULY 4, 186G.

stretching from north to south more than t\yo thou-
sand miles, and from east to west across the conti-
nent, from ocean to ocean, with a wide variety of
chmate, soil, productions, with mineral wealth of
every kind and of incalculable amount, with a net-
work of rivers, navigable and fertilizing, spread over
that wonderful Mississippi basin, whose annual har-
vest might almost feed the race, our country has such
material resources, is such a miniature world in itself,
that nothing but the most reckless obstinacy and per-
severing folly can prevent its material growth and
prosperity.

Its very condition at this moment, as it emerges
from a costly civil war, carrying, as if it were a
feather's weight, an amount of debt which would
crush many other nations, is at once a testimony
to its recuperative energies, and a prophecy of its
future progress. Everywhere there is hope, cheer-
fulness, enterprise, and revelations, more and more
distinct, of the exhaustless resources and the mighty
productive power of the nation. Soon a ship canal
in our own territory will leave Niasrara still a thins:
of beauty and grandeur, but no longer an obstacle,
and put our navigation of the great lakes in a con-
dition not to be easily disturbed. Some, who hear
me, will live to see the completion of that gigantic

OltATIOX. 55

project, a railroad across this continent. In its
domestic nses and benefits, the effect of this upon
our internal development and progress cannot be
over-estimated ; while as a connecting link, a short
direct route between Western Europe and Eastern
Asia, it will, in all probability, become a great high-
w^ay of traffic and travel between these two great
centres of Christian and heatlien civilization. Should
this be the result, it will so materially change the
relations between them, that the commercial index
on the dial-plate of time will point pretty distinctly
to an hour, wdien the metropolitan city of our own
country will take precedence of London, as the mon-
eyed and commercial centre of the world.

But there is something much more important to a
nation than its material wealth and grandeur. These
can only secure it a short-lived existence ; they will
be but sure precursors of its ruin, unless accompanied
by a moral development, an intellectual culture and
strength, that shall enable the people to resist their
temptations, and use prosperity and power for high
and noble purposes. Intellectual and moral culture go
together ; they cannot bo widely separated ; the for-
mer necessarily carries with it a large amount of the
latter ; and the intellectual and moral culture of the
people of this country must be regarded by every

56 JULY 4, 18GG.

patriotic mind as the first thing to be secured and
the last to be neglected : worthy of every effort and
sacrifice, of the most patient labors, and of the most
costly contributions we can make to it.

This culture must be universal and progressive for
these are the conditions of our liberty. It must reach
to the highe^st, that it may be then* inspiration and
glory. It must reach to tlie lowest, that it may be their
resource, their defence, their incentive ; add to thek
dignity, enlarge their honor, and guide their power.
Two ideas, the one narrow and the other false, which
have been recently advocated with more ability than
they deserve, must find no acceptance among us.
"We are educating too much," it is said: "reading,
writing, arithmetic, the simplest rudiments of knowl-
edge, are all that is necessary for the mass of the
people. More only unfits them for their position and
their duties." The mass of the people ! AVho shall
dare thus to separate himself from the mass of the
people, and maintain that the education, which is
necessary and good for him, is not good for all to
wliom it can l)e offered? This mass is perpetually
shifting its particles ; the poor of to-day are the
rich of to-morrow, and the rich of to-day the poor of
to-morrow, and the intellectual and moral culture that
is good for any is good for all. Unfits them for theii*

OBATIOJSf. 61

position and duties ! Is there any position in which
ignorance is better than knowledge? or whose duties
stupidity can better discharge than intelhgence ? Show
me one person, who has more education than he can
use to advantage in his position, one person, who has
been too highly educated for his own happiness,
honor and usefulness, or for the good of the com-
munity ; and for that one person, I will bring you
an army of an hundred thousand persons, whom the
same education has made happier, nobler, more use-
ful, lifted them up, and enabled them to help lift up
the community in all things good, worthy and desira-
ble. Go into some humble dwelling in this city,
wdiose support is the daily toil of the father, (it may
be in some very humble occupation,) and you will
find perhaps that the oldest daughter is attending
our Girls' High and Normal School. Are we doing
that family and the community an injury by giving
that daughter so good an education? Are we doing
her an injury by developing her mind by all the
knowledge imparted, and her heart by all the influ-
ences that surround her at that school? I maintain
that the chances are ten thousand to one, that this
dau"-hter is a beam of moral sunli"-ht in that dwell-
ing, — its ornament, — its defence, — its incentive, —

58 JULY 4, 18GG.

its glory. She is introducing to it, it may be, better
principles and habits, a higher tone of thought, feel-
ins: and conduct. She is better fitted every way to
discharge the duties of her position, to meet both
the temptations and the opportunities that may come
to her in life ; and should she ever have a home of
her own, whether it be humbler or higher than the
one she now fills, she will make it a home of intel-
ligence and virtue ; and the more such daughters in
the same position m life we can so educate the
better, the safer for the community.

" But no," cries the advocate of the false idea,
"intelligence and virtue do not go together; education
increases the ini^enuity, but it docs not diminish the
amount of crime ; and the records of the courts show
that many persons brought into them as criminals
have had the highest advantages of education;" and
so, because Satan Avas once an angel of light, the
light should be put out and all live in darkness ;
for that is the amount of the argument. Because the
Avisc arc sometimes weak, because the educated are
sometimes criminal, education must be limited. It
is a false argument, for the fiiilure of some should
never forbid the eff'ort of any or all. As a general
statement, it cannot be true that the nearer men

OBATION. 59

approach to their Maker in one of his attributes,
knowledge, the farther they recede from him in
another, goodness. Education is an incalculable good;
all who have received any measui-e of its benefits
and blessings, feel it to be a good. It is the power
that has raised man from ignorance to knowledge,
from barbarism to civilization, and carried him for-
ward continually to a more advanced civilization, a
more glorious social condition ; and, therefore, the
the higher we carry it, the more we extend and
diffuse it, the better for our country and the world.
AVe at least in this country, (to use the expression
I have used once before this morning,) " we must
fight it out on this line." We cannot go back. Our
idea is that of freedom. AVe have determined that
every man is and shall be free m this land ; and
freedom has no security, no defence, protection or
safeguard but education, and that moral power and
prmciple which education brings ; and this education,
to preserve our freedom and accomplish oui- purpose,
must be broad, generous, universal and progressive,
must keep pace with our material growth and pros-
perity, so that the nation may be morally as strong,
wise, pure and noble, as it is great, wealthy and
powerful.

GO JULY i, 1866.

Friends and fellow-citizens, let me relieve yoiu*
patience by saying in conclusion, that no extent of
territory, however large ; no amount of material
prosperity, however grand ; no intellectual and moral
culture even, however advanced and widely difFusecJ,
can give us all that we need to fulfil the great mis-
sion that is before us. These things are necessary
ingredients, but there must be something to unite,
to bind them together. They are incidental ; they
may make a country, but they cannot make a nation.
What is necessary to make a nation, and that nation
powerful and permanent, is a spuit of nationality,
living and breathing in every heart, binding all to
common ideas, principles and interests, to a common
purpose and destiny. Thus considered, nationality is
as glorious, sublime and powerful a sentiment, as it
is sweet, lonely and venerable. AVe of all people
should have a spu'it of nationality : the grandeur of
oiu" country as it came from the hands of God de-
mands it ; our condition, prospects, privileges and
opportunities demand it. Let it be everywhere cul-
tivated and cherished, let it swell and breathe in
every soul, binding all these millions of hearts, from
the ^^•aters of }onder bay to the city of the Golden
Gate, into one great national heart, that shall live

OH AT I ox. 61

and throb with love and loyalty to all that our Hag-
symbolizes, to all that the (constitution secnres, to all
that libert}^ means, to all that humanity desii'es and
would achieve, then this Great Ilepublic, which, but
yesterday, the despots of Europe thought was crum-
blmg to pieces, shall rise again like a giant to in-
struct, overshadow and outlast them all.

"•^■4 9\

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'F^ESS

001

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