Glass 
 Book. 
 
 1^ (\oG 
 
 as. 
 
 91^ 
 
FREE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ITS PRICIPLES AND ITS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 The Oration of the Hon. Ed\vard A. Sowles, at S-wanton 
 on the Fourth of July, 1879 
 
 Mk. Pkesidext,— We have assembled toge- 
 ther on this memorable occasion amidst the 
 roar of cannon, the beat of drums, the dis- 
 play of national emblems, and numerous 
 forms of demonstration, to celebrate our na- 
 tional birthday. We have been accustomed 
 to do so in one form and another since the 
 _<i;reat achievements which made us a separate 
 iuid independent nation, with all the attri- 
 butes of government. We have rejoiced with 
 each other over the triumphal inauguration 
 and successful results of the principles under- 
 lying the foundalionsof our Republic, namely, 
 the great principles of civil or pohtical lib- 
 erty. It must then be understood that we 
 celebrate and commemorate an idea — a prin- 
 ciple havmg perpetuity — while other nations 
 commonly celebrate the birthday of their 
 rulers — their regal heads. It is therefore emi- 
 nently proper that we should refer to the ori- 
 gin of this great principle, and briefly trace 
 iis origin and developments until its success- 
 ful culmination on American soil, and the ad- 
 vancement and final triumph of American 
 civilization, institutions and industries. 
 These principles are much older and of 
 slower growth in the world than we are ac- 
 customed to realize. They had their birth in 
 the classic il and congenial soil of Greece, 
 about 400 years before the Christian era. and 
 as the ally of Christianity travelled with it for 
 a long time in a path so narrow they could 
 scarcely go abreast. They have always been 
 wedded together so that to a considerable ex- 
 tent, each had become comparatively useless 
 
 without the other. Greece was first divided 
 into different States as our own country is 
 now divided, and from which we have natu- 
 rally copied. Hence the development of 
 those Grecian States in the elements of gov- 
 ernment, are full of interest and instruction. 
 Nowhere on the earth's surface has so small 
 a spot of earth made such large contributions 
 to the settlement of important questions in 
 
 The Science of Self-Government, 
 
 Which is the off -spring of political liberty. 
 ]Nowhere else can be found the same variety. 
 Those numerous little cities and States, if 
 they have served no other purpose, have 
 given a lasting example of the results of po- 
 litical liberty as developed in the single ele- 
 ment of self-government. They conceived 
 and embodied all the ideas of States, towns 
 and confederacies ; and that form of govern- 
 ment lasted more than 500 years, amidst all 
 the dissensions and animosities existing be- 
 tween the different States, under one confed- 
 eration, striving to work out the great prob- 
 lem of political liberty under a self-govern- 
 ment. These different States, and especially 
 the Athenians and Spartans, in their respec- 
 tive civilizations, excepting perhaps their 
 religion, were in fact the antipodes of each 
 other, like the Northern and Southern sec- 
 tions of our own country. They were as 
 hostile as South Carolina and Vermont, 
 when, before our late rebellion, a member of 
 Congress facetiously (though honestly, if he 
 could,) proposed to dig a ditch around the 
 
 Jn 
 
2 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 latter and float her ofE into the Atlantic 
 ocean, to get her out of the Union, on ac- 
 count of her devotion to political liberty. 
 The former afterwards tried the experiment 
 of voluntary secession, and Vermont was 
 among the first to teach that prodigal "how 
 worse than serpent's tooth is an unfaithful 
 child." Athenian and Spartan dissensions 
 finally resulted in the complete dismember- 
 ment of the Grecian Stales, and it finally de- 
 generated into a monarchy. Not so with the 
 turbulent and subjugated South Carolina, 
 and the patriotic. Union-loving, Union-sav- 
 ing and victorious Vermont. The Grecian 
 republic, no less than our own, was not proof 
 against corruption, and as a republic it could 
 not stem the current of luxuiy and bribery, 
 and it finally fell. This early germ of liberty 
 soon took root in Rome. The storm of rage 
 and indignation which burst upon this mon- 
 archy sounded the death knell of Tarquin, 
 and Rome became a republic in about the 
 year 483 B. C, with a Republican form of 
 government and a constitution. The ballot 
 was introduced and there were two parties in 
 existence, namely, the patricians and pleb- 
 eians, with opposing views of the methods 
 requisite in their respective judgments of 
 administering the affairs of a republic. It 
 was a republic in which the aristocratic fea- 
 ture the most strongly predominated. Their 
 prominent idea was to do everything for the 
 city of Rome. Hence her constitution was 
 not formed so as to favor her colonies, and 
 they were kept in subjection. Slavery was 
 abolished for a time, to all appearances, but 
 when Caesar's bloody garment appeared, it 
 flung Rome again into slavery. Corruption 
 had crept into Rome as it had into Greece, 
 and showed itself prominently, and with it 
 the Roman republic, and its spirit and es- 
 sence, expired, after an existence of about 
 350 years. The next exhibition of 
 
 The Spirit of Political Iiiberty 
 
 Showed itself in the forests of Germany, 
 during the fourth and fifth centuries. At 
 the very bottom of the social state of 
 Germany lay the system of force— 
 the power of the individual — the high- 
 est possible degree of political liberty. 
 This legacy given to modern Europe has been 
 of immense importance. The more ancient 
 republics knew nothing of it. Greece and 
 Rome favored the despot. He was the actor 
 and the individual was the subject. But 
 the German mind asserted and exercised the 
 right of developing itself on its own account, 
 and in its own way, and this right has had a 
 most important influence upon modern repub- 
 lics, la Germany, towns and cities began to 
 
 organize, containing the elements of munici- 
 pal corporations. From those institutions — 
 from what grew out of them — and the rela- 
 tions existing between them and from the 
 void left by the recedina: of the Empire, grew* 
 the political institutions of modern Europe 
 and America. These forces first appeared in 
 the free cities of Italy, Gaul and Germany, 
 finally settling down in Holland and Belgium, 
 in Switzerland, and in a modified form in 
 "the borough system" of England, and the 
 free untrammelled form of popular rule m 
 America. In certain parts of Switzerland in 
 the fifteenth century all distinctions of rank 
 were abolished, recognizing no noble class, 
 counting all as eaual politically. It was here 
 the story of William Tell had its origin. 
 The tyrant Gesslcr demanded his son as a 
 ransom for uttering liberal sentiments, unless 
 the father could shoot an apple from his son's 
 head with his bow and arrow. It was here 
 this same tyrant was shot by Tell, at the 
 beautiful and historic Lake Lucerne. It 
 was here the battle of Morat was fought 
 which vies in history with Marathon, with 
 Lexington and Petersburgh. It was here the 
 young native of Freburg, who had been en- 
 gaged in that battle, ran a distance of twelve 
 miles and with such speed that on his arrival 
 at the market-place, he dropped with fatigue 
 and was only able to shout that the Swiss had 
 been victorious over the allied forces of 
 France and Germany, and immediately ex- 
 pired. It was here a twig of lime tree which 
 he carried in his hand was planted on the spot 
 in commemoration of the event, and which 
 afterwards grew to be a tree and was called 
 "the tree of liberty." It was here, doubtless, 
 from this real tree, that we get the figurative 
 "tree of liberty" which is now extending its 
 branches and benign influences over our 
 mighty nation. It was here, in this land of 
 watchmakers and beautiful and picturesque 
 scenery, that liberty struggled, in one form 
 and another, for about 500 years. Since the 
 twelfth century France has several times at- 
 tempted to be a republic with 
 
 A Liberal Form of Goveriiiiicut. 
 
 She has always, however, stood on the brink 
 of a political convulsion. Turbulent and 
 vacilating, she has ever failed in her efforts 
 to maintain liberal principles. This has been 
 in part the result of lier versatifity of charac- 
 ter and in part the animosity, on the part of 
 the leading nations of Europe, against the 
 establishment ot a powerful republic on 
 European soil, fearing that its success might 
 be the nucleus of a Confederacy which ulti- 
 mately might engulf all Europe in one grand 
 republic. Laboring under these apprehen- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OP FREE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 3 
 
 sions and fears, Napoleon Bonaparte con- 
 vulsed all Europe with the celerity of his 
 movements and success of his arms. He 
 claimed to be the personification of the sov- 
 ereignty of the people. "'Who," said he, 
 "like me, has been elected by eighteen mil- 
 lions of the people ?" "Who is like me, the 
 representative of the people?" And with 
 these words all Europe was in a state of trep- 
 idation and fear. When after his downfall 
 it became necessary to incarcerate him, noth- 
 ing short of the Island of St. Helena— in mid- 
 ocean— could safely hold his revolting spirit ; 
 and after his death his remains were not for 
 a long time, permitted to be brought to 
 France, fearing that his ashes might be sown 
 upon French soil, and lilce the dragon's teeth 
 sown by Cadmus of old, bring forth crops of 
 soldiers. 
 
 "Those violent triumphs have violent ends, 
 And in their triumph die, like lire and powder, 
 Which, as they kiss, consume." 
 
 Hence the efforts of other European nations 
 to establish liberal prmciples and forms of 
 government, so popular with the people and 
 so acceptable to the rising young men of 
 every country, have signally failed. Even 
 the patriotic oratory of Kossuth was silenced 
 by certain allied powers of Europe, lest it 
 might triumph. Exiled from his native land, 
 the United States dispatched a war vessel to 
 bring him to our free shores to partake of our 
 hospitality and to gam asylum under the 
 aegis of our free institutions, with all our 
 national and social privileges and immunities. 
 
 "There's freedom at tliy gates, and rest 
 
 For earth's down-trodden and oppressed ; 
 
 A shelter lor the hunted head. 
 
 And for the starved laborer toll andhread." 
 
 But it has been well remarked by Guizot that 
 
 Liberties are Nothiiiior Until They Have Become 
 Kigbts, 
 
 Positive rights formally recognized and con- 
 secrated. Rigiits even when recognized are 
 nothing so long as they are not intrenched 
 with guarantees. And lastly, guarantees are 
 nothing so Imig as they are not maintained 
 by forces, independent of them in the limit of 
 their rights. Convert liberties into rights, 
 surround rights by guarantees, intrust the 
 lieeping of these guarantees to forces capable 
 of maintaining them, such are the successive 
 steps in the progress towards a free govern- 
 ment. This progress has been partially real- 
 ized in England and fully carried out in 
 America. In England it has been wrung fron 
 the monarch. From the period of Magna 
 Charta in 1215, when it was declared that 
 "justice shall not be sold, refused or delayed 
 to any one," down to the present time, in- 
 cluding the period of the formation of the 
 
 British constitution, there has been one suc- 
 cession of advancement of liberal principles 
 in the British government. England's consti- 
 tution, like her common law, is unwritten 
 and hence little known. She has embodied it 
 in her liberal principles notwithstanding her 
 monarchial forms. How else could she have 
 reared such men as Pitt and Fox and John 
 Bright among the first champions of liberty? 
 The people there vote indirectly on every im- 
 portant measure, though the Crown enjoys 
 the royal perogative of vetoing any measure. 
 The present crowned head is not George the 
 Third. Every American might with propri- 
 ety condemn his arbitrary course, and with 
 equal propriety applaud the noble virtues, 
 the generous impulses and the quiet reign of 
 Victoria. Under the reign of the former 
 Montreal was captured by Montgomery and 
 Benedict Arnold by force of arms. Under 
 the latter it was peaceably taken by capitula- 
 tion on the Queen's birthday last May, by 
 the 13th Brooklyn regiment, and accorded the 
 right of clergy. It was a significant event to 
 witness in full uniforms and full arms the 
 mingling of "the blue and the red" in peaceful 
 congratulations, engaging in the great inter- 
 national fight of "Punch and Judy— especi- 
 ally Punch." It was at least an omen of 
 peace between the two leading nations of the 
 world. National differences are not now 
 settled by the arbitrament of arms, but by 
 national arbitration. The swords have truly 
 been turned into plowshares and spears into 
 pruning-hooks. Our common soil and people 
 need the conversion. 
 
 "O God! that Dread should be so dear, 
 And flesh and blood so cheap !" 
 
 On the British isle and among the homes of 
 the British laboring classes, the modern views 
 of liberty somewhat prevail. Here is where 
 Mr. Lincoln received moral support during 
 the dark days of our rebellion, in the many 
 addresses and letters of associations in Eng- 
 land and her colonies, all expressing sympathy 
 and bespeaking 
 
 Tbe Final Triiimitli of Liberty. 
 In America. The monarchial element, how- 
 ever, showed itself in many forms inimical 
 to the United States during the war. Still 
 the rebel papers captured from the 
 rebel archives at Richmond, when that 
 so-called confederacy collapsed, show that 
 England as a nation, would not recognize the 
 Southern confederacy, though repeatedly and 
 persistently urged to do so by the then Em- 
 peror of France, whose subsequent career in 
 battle, as on the throne, proved him to be a 
 Napoleon in name and not in reality. The 
 official correspondence shows that but one 
 government on earth fully recognzed that so- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 called confederacy, as Alexander H. Stephens 
 then said, "whose corner-stone rests upon the 
 great truth that the negro is not equal to 
 the white man — that slavery, subordination 
 to the superior race, is his natural and normal 
 condition.' It cannot, however be believed 
 that such recognition was based upon any ex- 
 pectancy that that base institution was to 
 have continuance or perpetuity, because many 
 zealous friends of that government acted a 
 conspicuous part in the final eradication, bj^ 
 force of arms, of that dark stain on American 
 character, shoulder to shoulder with our own 
 brave and patriotic countrymen in a thousand 
 hard fought battles. They too stood upon 
 the watch tower of our republic when liberty 
 and freedom were on trial, in the great un- 
 certain tribunal of war, and saw the star of 
 victory and peace rise with all its effulgence, 
 and stand over the very spot where liberty 
 in America was born. But political liberty, 
 after it had struggled in the old world for 
 twenty-two hundred years sought America. 
 As the gentle zephyrs waft the seeds of plants 
 and flowers from their germinating cells upon 
 new fields and congenial soil, so did the 
 breezes of heaven, in their ever mysterious 
 missions, transport the germs of liberty upon 
 the wings of the wind to our own soil, which 
 afterwards became ripe for the harvest. 
 While George Grenville was minister of Eng- 
 land in 1765, the stamp act was passed which 
 threw the North American colonies into a 
 blaze, and was the first in a series of acts 
 ■whicii in their entirely make up the American 
 revolution, and which our Declaration of In- 
 dependence so fully and truthfully recited. 
 In that same year the first indication ap- 
 peared of tliat mental malady which clouded 
 King George the Third's latter days. He 
 ruled as well as reigned, and the attacks on 
 American liberty were his acts, the guilt of 
 the minister consisting in his being the tool, 
 against his own convictions, of a master who 
 •was not always in possession of his reason. 
 Nevertheless he was imperial, and the war 
 was waged for seven long and eventful years. 
 Every student of American history well un- 
 derstands its details. It is indelibly written 
 upon the hearts and minds of our countr}^- 
 inen. From Lexington to Yorktown victory 
 seemed to float upon nearly every breeze. 
 It was 
 
 "As brilliant a tide 
 As ever bore freedom aloft on Its wave." 
 
 It Brought Forth a W'ashiiigtoii 
 
 And an Arnold — the one glorious in his noble 
 deeds andpatriotic devotion to the end ; the 
 other inglorious and ignominious in his be- 
 trayal of his country, notwithstanding his ex- 
 pedition into Canada and liis patriotic ex- 
 
 ploits and battles on Lake Champlain. It 
 brought forth a Warren and a Burgoyne — the 
 one giving up his life for his country, and the 
 other surrendering his sword to his valiant 
 victor as the better part of valor. It brought 
 forth a Stark and an Allen — tiie one the pride 
 of Mollie and the defender of Bennington, 
 and the other the hero of Ticonderoga, de- 
 riving his commission from high sources. It 
 finally brought forth a nation — God's saving 
 gift to a distracted and imperilled people. It 
 was his creative fiat over a weltering chaos : 
 "Let a nation be born in a day." But an in- 
 fant nation, like an infant child, had all to 
 learn. It had a constitution to build up — na- 
 tional and sectional interests to guard and 
 ambitious men to propitiate. We can hardly 
 understand the dangers of that navigation. 
 For several years the colonies remained a con- 
 federacy balancing between hopes deferred 
 and expectations not realized. Tiiere were 
 those wlio wanted a limited monarchy — still 
 clinging to their mother's apron strings. 
 Prominent among them was the great Alex- 
 ander Hamilton. But the majority headed 
 by Washington and Franklin advocated a 
 clear departure from the mother country and 
 the establishment of agovernment based upon 
 the Grecian ideas of Slates and the German 
 system of force— the power of the individual, 
 and the aggregate of individuals, to govern 
 themselves—and established upon the immu- 
 tal>le principles "that all men arc created 
 equal — that they arc endowed by their Crea- 
 tor with certain inalienable rights — that 
 among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness." These had to be "entrenciied 
 by guarantees" as contained in the written 
 constitution, which, in the language of .lohn 
 Adams, "was extorted from the grinding ne- 
 cessities of a reluctant people." But .the ship 
 was finally launched uuon its voyage of state. 
 It has been beset by dangers on 
 every hand in its perilous but prosperous 
 voyage. The war of 1812 involving 
 the "issues of free trade and sailors' 
 rights came upon the countiy in its infancy.Thc 
 waters in yonder lake, the very spot on which 
 we now celebrate, is surrounded by incidents 
 of that struggle. The original "Pinafore" 
 rounded up in Plattsburgh bay iaden with its 
 crew to visit "their sisters and their cousins 
 and their aunts." A detachment came into 
 yonder beautiful bay, crossed the river above 
 the bridge on a raft, burned the barracks near 
 where we now stand, and fled. This was 
 then the home of the brave Captain Goodrich, 
 who fell at Lundy's Lane. This has ever been 
 the home of his descendants, and among them 
 the gallant Colonel Barney, who fell in the 
 same righteous cause. Several disastrous re- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 versies and the serious inroads of Napoleon 
 towards En£rlish soil, brought the war to a 
 close. A period of almost unbroken peace 
 and prosperity continued until the great re- 
 bellion, when 
 
 Tlie Pi-inciples of Political Tiiberty 
 
 And our institutions and government were 
 severely put to test by the greatest intestine 
 war the world has ever witnessed. It was 
 liberty attempting '"to smother itself under 
 the folds of its own garments." The details 
 of it are written upon every page of our mod- 
 ern history. The ravages of it are notably 
 visible in a large territory of our country, and 
 in every village of our laud, North and [South, 
 in the naaimed and crippled soldiers. It is as 
 fresh as the sods that mark the graves of its 
 thousands of victims. It is evidenced by the 
 depleted ranks of the family circle in every 
 part of this country. They sleep the patriot's 
 sleep. 
 
 " On Fame's eternal camping ground 
 
 Their silent tents are spread, 
 And Glory guards with silent round 
 
 The bivouac of the dead." 
 
 War's deadly blasts were not aimed at those 
 heroep, but at the great principles they repre- 
 sented. But political liberty had been antag- 
 onized from the organization of the govern- 
 ment by the prevalence of human slavery re- 
 cognized by law. This was the great dis- 
 turbing element in the peaceful adjustment 
 and successful worki-ngs of all the machmerj^ 
 of our government. Washington saw it, and 
 located the city bearing his name on the North 
 side of the Potomac, that it might not be easy 
 of access from the South in the event of se- 
 cession, and as a bond of union hallowed a 
 spot on the other side of the Potomac with 
 his remains. He well understood that slavery 
 did not mean liberty. His associates and 
 descendants well knew it. The great Charles 
 Sumner saw that liberty and freedom, as ap- 
 plied to the then existing state of slavery, 
 were misnomers. He saw at the beginning of 
 his public career that these greatest essentials 
 to the existence of a great republic were 
 crushed to earth by an inglorious tyrant, 
 stalking through our land with giant strides 
 — threatening our national existence and our 
 national honor. Nay, when, as it were, a 
 Herod was pursuing the children of liberty 
 and freedom to capture and destroy them, as 
 on the plains of Bethlehem, he grappled with 
 the giant. His weapons were truth, oratory 
 and patriotism. These he could handle with 
 skill and effect. He delivered several speeches 
 on the subject, culminating in his great 
 speech on the "Barbarism of Slavery," which 
 brought down on his head the enemy's invec- 
 tives and assailant's blows, while sitting in 
 
 his seat in the Senate of his country. Those 
 blows were not aimed at him alone as a man, 
 but at the sentiments he expressed and the 
 great State and people he represented. It was 
 a blow at liberty and free speech and freedom, 
 and those great attributes of a free govern- 
 ment went weeping, like Rachel, In our 
 streets. But Mr. Sumner saw these great 
 principles triumph, through the ordeal of re 
 belliou and "the flery furnace of affliction." 
 As life was gradually stealing away, he said 
 to his colleague : "If my works were com- 
 pleted and my civil rights bill passed, no 
 visitor could enter the door that would be 
 more welcome than deatb." It soon came, 
 and reared a monument for him that the ages 
 will not crumble. When, afterwards, as the 
 star of peace was about to shine upon 
 
 A Free ami Eiiiaiiripated People, 
 
 Liberty was again wounded in the persons of 
 the martyr President and his prime Cabinet 
 officer. The assassins had no particular en- 
 mity towards Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, 
 but it was the great principles of civil liberty, 
 of which they were the leading exponents, 
 that were attempted to be stricken down. 
 They had by the great emancipation proclam- 
 ation, as the simple mouth-pieces of over 
 thirty millions of people, proclaimed emanci- 
 pation to over four millions of slaves, and es- 
 tablished political liberty on American soil 
 forever. Slavery had sounded the tocsm of 
 war immediately on Mr. Lincoln's election, 
 and sedulously followed his inauguration and 
 first term of service. Who witnessed his tri- 
 umphal career from his first public appear- 
 ance to his melancholy assassination, witiiout 
 according to him the nighest attributes as a 
 hero, a benefactor and a statesman ! Who 
 that read of that funeral cortege, or accom- 
 panied it from Washington to his beloved 
 Western home, with a nation in tears and the 
 luminary of day almost eclipsed in clouds of 
 mourning, can doubt the great principles he 
 represented, and the prominent place he and 
 those principles had in the hearts and affec- 
 tions of his country? Washington was the 
 father of his country, but Lincoln was its 
 saviour. Washington gave it birth, but Lin- 
 coln died a martyr that it might live. Mr. 
 Seward had piloted the great ship of state 
 through the fiercest storms and tempests that 
 ever beset it. On one occasion during this 
 voyage it was my fortune to visit him in his 
 pilot-house, feeble, careworn and scarred in 
 the country's service. An unexpected storm 
 had been prevailing from the North simul- 
 taneously with the tempest that was raging 
 from the South. The staunch old ship was 
 heaving and groaning under the adverse in- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 fluences of counter winds. Its machinery was 
 working admirably. Its sails were weather- 
 ing the storms. On the one side could be 
 seen, at the mast-head, the "stars and bars" 
 and the black flag of piracy and rebellion sail 
 ing towards her. On the other side the then 
 unfriendly Union Jack intermingled with 
 the "star and bars," was just heaving in 
 sight ; and in the midst of them proudly 
 sailed our own ship of State, with the valiant 
 Seward at the wheel, and at the mast head 
 were unfurled the eloquent ''Stars and 
 Stripes," bidding defiance to al' enemies and 
 nobly protecting "the land of the free and 
 the home of the brave." On Madison square, 
 m the metropolis of the nation, cast in bronze, 
 sits m his favorite attitude a life-like statue of 
 the great emancipator, statesman and diplo- 
 matist, ready to welcome the generations un- 
 born and tell them how he, too, bled that his 
 country and its liberal principles might live. 
 
 What Our Country Now Needs 
 
 Is more such patriots and patriotism and less 
 traitors. We need more statesmen and 
 fewer states rights men. We want freer bal- 
 lots and ballotting, and fewer bullets and 
 bludgeons. We should raise more hams and 
 fewer Hamburgs. We should cultivate more 
 hemp and less cotton. We should possess 
 more national and individual integrity and fru- 
 gality and less extavagance and bankruptcy. 
 We should inspire greater private and public 
 confidence ana less betrayals of trust and 
 breaches of honor. We should have men of 
 principle for our principal men. We should 
 have less legislation and President-making 
 and more labor and recuperation. We should 
 improve the agricultural, the commercial and 
 the industrial interests of the country. The 
 field is a noble one— a broad expanse of coun- 
 try skirting either ocean, with its beautiful 
 shores and landscapes welded together by 
 bands of iron and with living arteries cours- 
 ing through every considerable section bear- 
 ing upon them the white-winged commere of 
 the world or agitated by the busy and inces- 
 sant paddle wheel keeping company with the 
 revolving hours, and surrounding the whole 
 continent with one continuous stream of the 
 coa">mercial air of America. The great 
 agency of water is harnessed to propel the 
 millions of spindles and roll the ponderous 
 wheels of extensive manufacturing establish- 
 ments ; but only to a limited extent in com- 
 parison to the unlimited capacity of the 
 country to perform. The still greater agency 
 of steam is moving the millions of wheels in 
 every conceivable form and purpose, to re- 
 lieve human labor, and is constantly hurling 
 through the country the irrepressible locomo- 
 
 tive, freighted with thousands of human be- 
 ings and millions of freight, at a speed that 
 almost annihilates space and distance. The 
 telegraph and telephone are constantly send- 
 ing "winged words "' with lightning speed to 
 every part of the world, with a rapidity that 
 science itself can hardly reconcile with truth 
 and reality. Genius is exhibiting itself in 
 every conceivable form of invention, and is 
 performing wonders in relieving the drudg- 
 eiy of the world of all its odious forms. We 
 see cities spring up as if by magic and treat 
 them as commonplace affairs. We look at 
 Niagara and think it is not so big a fall as it 
 might be. We view the ereat national parks 
 of the Yellowstone and Yosemite valleys, 
 with their beautiful forests, mountains, lakes 
 and waterfalls, ^ — with their wonderful gey- 
 sers — and treat them as a matter of 
 course. Wc do not realize that we live in 
 a country presided over by " the 
 genius of liberty" and a scenic beautv 
 which is a joy forever. We do not 
 consider that millions of acres of land are still 
 unoccupied, which could alone pay our na- 
 tional debt and furnish cereals and support 
 for a whole nation. Indeed we have over 
 three millions of square miles of territory 
 equal to that of nearly all Europe — studded 
 with school houses, bristling with church 
 spires and glittering with temples of justice 
 — all speaking the language of political libeny- 
 and political equality before the law as con- 
 tained in the amendded constitution, and 
 which can never be disturbed as long as free 
 schools, religious toleration and a pure ballot 
 box are permitted to rule the land, enact our 
 laws and dispense unpurchased justice. What, 
 then,will be the future of this country? If we 
 could but lift the veil that hides the future 
 from us ; if w^e could but open the pages of 
 the living future and read them as we do 
 the dead past, it would portray to us in 
 no imaginary phase within a half of a 
 century, a country with a doubled and tripled 
 population, a commerce rivalling that of any 
 other nation, a manufacturing industry far 
 superior to any in the world, a navy proudly 
 sailing upon every sea, a power commanding 
 the respect and admiration of the family of 
 nations, wealth rivalling, if not surpassing 
 that of any nation on the globe, an intelli- 
 gence commensurate with the rapid growth 
 and thorough advancement of our free schools 
 and unrivalled colleges, and a morality elevat- 
 ing man to respect the dignity and nobility of 
 labor, and exalting woman to the noble and 
 patriotic sphere which she was designed to 
 occupy as the allies of the lords of creation 
 This is 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The Miti8ion and the Destiny of the Great 
 Republic 
 
 Of which you are all constituent members 
 and exercise a potent influence in the enact- 
 ment of its laws and the administration of its 
 affairs. The dead patriots and the venerable 
 men of to-day have pi-eserved it, the middle- 
 aged men have fought, bled and died for it, 
 tile young men now have it confided to their 
 fostering care and protection and their and 
 your children and childrens' children 
 will enjoy the rich heritage handed 
 down to them by the fathers— purchased 
 by their ancestral blood — preserved by their 
 sacrifice and heroic deeds — bequeathed to them 
 as the richest legacy ever iriven to any en- 
 lightened people. Let us then avoid the evils 
 and corruptions that have destroyed other re- 
 publics, and at times tarnished our rulers — 
 that have threatened to undermine the pil- 
 lars of our society and weaken our political 
 edifice — that are now exposing our rights and 
 liberties, of which we so proudly boast, to 
 the prey of the spoiler. Let us preserve in 
 their integrity and purity these great princi- 
 
 ples of political liberty that have destroyed 
 kingdoms and empires and built up republics 
 on their ruins— that have smitten down sin 
 and corruption and evangelized and Chris- 
 tianized the world — that has extended its 
 beneficient oflices to the oppressed and down- 
 trodden of all nations, and furnished them a 
 safe asj'Jum of retreat — that has taken eman- 
 cipation and reconstruction upon its wings, 
 and brtrne them aloft through perilous voy- 
 ages and landed them safely and securely on 
 the shores of a free country with our forty-- 
 five millions of prosperous people. Let us 
 then yearly commemorate our national birth- 
 day. Let us constantly fan the flames of 
 patriotism that are ever burning around the 
 altars of our countr\\ Let us rear to the 
 memory of those who have fallen in its de- 
 fence and preservation, those marble fingered 
 monuments pointing towards heaven in com- 
 memoration of their brillianfc and lasting 
 achievements, and above all : 
 " Let us be Arm and united 
 
 One country— one flag for us all. 
 And our strength will be freedom. 
 
 Divided we eacU of us fall." 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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