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 -THE 
 
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 A HISTORICAL LECTURE , BY 
 
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 I BET. ABRAHAM SYLVESTER' GABDIMER, A. H., : 
 
 PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 I B 
 
 MILFORD, PIKE CO., PA. 
 
 3 DELIVERED O? THE 22 OF FEBRUARY IN VARIOUS PLACES » 
 THROUGH SUCCESSIVE YEARS. 
 
 ni 
 
 mi 
 
 ■• Where may tlie weaiiod eye n , 
 
 When gazing on the Great- 
 win re neither sru'lty glory glows, 
 
 Nov despicable stale ? 
 
 h— tli ,n'st— tin- last— the best- 
 Tin' Cineinna^us of the W 
 Whom envy dared not li ite, 
 
 then the name of Washington 
 o make turn blusl there was but one ! '— BYRON. 
 
 1886. 
 
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 -THE- 
 
 -: REVOLUTION, WASHINGTON :- 
 
 AND THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION: 
 
 A HISTORICAL LECTURE, BY 
 
 REV. ABRAHAM SYLVESTER GARDINER, A. I, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 MILFORD, PIKE CO., PA. 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE 22 OF FEBRUARY. IX VARIOUS PLACES 
 THROUGH SUCCESSIVE YEARS. 
 
 
 '• Where may the wearied eve repose 
 
 When gazing on the GreaV- 
 Wliere neither guilty glory glows, q, ^ -, . 
 
 Nor despicable state ? 
 res— one— the first— the last—the best— 
 The Clnclnnatns of the West, 
 
 Whom envy dared not hate. 
 
 Bequeathed the name of Washington 
 
 To make nun blush there was but one '."— Byrox. v\. 
 
 1886. 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1886 bj 
 
 KEV. ABRAHAM SYLVESTER CARDIAL 
 
 111 the ^ce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 PSION PKIJTT, PORT JEBTIS, N. y. 
 
 
 
 
i 
 
 
 re 
 
 
 d 
 
 s 
 
 Vs 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER, 
 
 JULIA EVANGELINE GARDINER, 
 
 Who, with lamp trimmed and burning, heard the midnight cry, "Behold, 
 the Bridegroom cometh!" and, being ready, "went in with Him to 
 the marriage," Sabbath morning, August 26lh, 1882, at the early age 
 of twenty-two years and ten months : a student at Wellesley 
 College, Massachusetts, in 1877-8, and one of the two first 
 Degree-Graduates of Rockford Female College, Rock- 
 ford, Illinois, in 1882: at whose instance this Lecture 
 was delivered, February 22nd, of the same 
 year, before the Senior Class, at that time 
 engaged in the study of the 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF the UNITED STATES, 
 
 Of which class she was a member.- and whose name I wish to be associated 
 
 with my own so long as any act of my life, and any utterances 
 
 of my tongue or pen, shall be held in friendly remembrance — 
 
 THIS LECTURE IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 )'»Y HER BEREAVED FATHER. 
 
 •'(,ii. Gentle Spirit, to thy destined rest : 
 
 While [,— reversed our Nature's kindlier doom,— 
 
 Pour forth a Father's sorrow on thy tomb." 
 
 ALSO 
 
 TO THE YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN OF AMERICA, 
 To whom has been bequeathed the noble heritage of 
 
 A FREE REPUBLIC; 
 
 Who will be eager to learn its history, and to examine the solid founda- 
 tions on which it rests: and who, estimating its value by what it 
 cost, will be inspired to transmit it unimpaired to their posterity, 
 
 This Lecture is Respectfully Inscribed 
 
 by their fellow-countryman, 
 
 ABRAHAM S.GARDINER. 
 
 Milford, Pa . Feb. 22nd, L886. 
 
LECTURE. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : I propose to speak to you to-night 
 upon the Revolution, Washington, and the Constitution. The 
 day we celebrate suggests the theme. This is the Anni- 
 versary of Washington's birth. These topics are so closely asso- 
 ciated that they can scarcely be severed. Yet neither together ,nor 
 singly, can they be fully considered within the limits of a lecture. 
 While it would be eminently proper to retrace the remarkable 
 events which distinguished the career of Washington, and to 
 reproduce the life that rendered his country and age illustrious, 
 and while it would not be less appropriate to recount the marches, 
 privations, and battles of the Revolution,we shall call your atten- 
 tion chiefly to the great result which has come to us in the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. The monument to the memory 
 of Washington, just completed and dedicated in the city which 
 bears his name, the capitol of the Republic, towers above St. 
 Peter's at Rome, above the pyramids of Egypt, and above every 
 structure hitherto erected by human hands. In like manner 
 does the Constitution, suggested by Washington, drawn up in the 
 Convention of which he was President and transmitted by him 
 with his signature to the Continental Congress, accompanied by 
 an earnest letter commending it for adoption by the Confederated 
 States, rise above all the forms of government that have hitherto 
 appeared in the annals of history. 
 
 In the review which is to be taken by us this evening we shall 
 see that the work of W ashington and his associates could scarcely 
 have been accomplished at an earlier period. The way had to be 
 prepared. Innumerable agencies, operating through long periods 
 and in many lands, must precede so desirable a consummation. 
 
 In nothing is this more perceptible than, in that climax of 
 political wisdom to which we have just referred, and which, in its 
 
2 
 
 historical relations, and in honor of the day we celebrate, we now 
 proceed to consider. 
 
 As already intimated, a complete study of the Constitution of 
 the United States demands the consideration of times, persons 
 and influences which are quite distinct and indeed remote from 
 those immediately connected with its formation. Its origin can- 
 not be found in any one mind, language, country, or period. It 
 is the fruit of a tree whose roots penetrate the recesses of the 
 past. It is the result of a series of events whose bearings and im- 
 portance were not fully known, even to those by whom they were 
 suece.-sivelv achieved. These men, with all their devotion and 
 hopes, built more wisely than they knew. The "Republic" of 
 Plato, the glowing speculations of Cicero, among the ancients ; 
 the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas Moore; the "Arcadia" of Sidney . 
 the political disquisitions of Milton and of Locke, in modern times; 
 disclose rather what these writers wished than what they ex- 
 pected. But their influence has survived them in these imperish- 
 able works, and has been a powerful factor in the progress of 
 men on the line of intellectual, moral and political development. 
 They saw through a glass darkly what we behold face to face. 
 
 The historical sources and accompaniments of the National 
 Constitution, and not the Constitution itself, now claim our 
 attention. Not to go further back into the past, we may 
 say, that the period extending from the year 1300 to the year 
 1550, was of the first importance to invention, to maritime enter- 
 prise, and to the achievement of civil and religious freedom. 
 The leading events of this period, were the introduction into 
 general use of the Mariner's Compass, the invention of gun- 
 powder and guns and of the art of Printing, the Discovery of 
 America, and the Reformation. 
 
 The reports which came from the New World, at the close of 
 the 15th century, stimulated to the last degree the spirit of adven- 
 ture. The Spaniards were transported with glowing hopes, 
 kindled by the adventures of De Soto, and the reports made by 
 Sir Walter Raleigh to his countrymen in England, aroused 
 amongst them a corresponding enthusiasm. Withrespect to an ex- 
 pedition led by De Soto, the distinguished companion of Pizzaro, 
 it is said, that "as soon as the news of its design was 
 published in Spain the wildest hopes were indulged. Adven- 
 turers assembled as volunteers, many of them people of good 
 estates and noble birth. Houses and vineyards, land.- for tillage. 
 and rows of olive trees, were sold.as in the times of the Crusades, 
 
to obtain the means of military equipment. The port whence 
 the expedition was to set sail was crowded with people anxious 
 to join in the enterprise." * 
 
 Those who in England had taken part in the expedition under 
 Raleigh, were captivated by the scenes which they visited. Sail- 
 ing leisurely along the shores of North Carolina, they imagined 
 themselves within the precincts of another Eden. "The sea was 
 tranquil ; the skies were clear ; no storms were gathering ; the 
 air was agitated by none but the gentlest breezes, and all were 
 in raptures with the beauty of the ocean seen in the magnificence 
 of repose. Islands gemmed its surface, and it extended in the 
 clearest transparency from cape to cape. The vegetation of 
 that southern latitude struck the beholders with admiration. 
 The trees were without their equals in the world. The luxuriant 
 vines as they clambered up the loftiest cedars formed graceful 
 festoons. Grapes were so plenty on every little shrub, that the 
 waves of the ocean, as it lazily rolled in upon the shore with the 
 quiet winds of summer, dashed its spray upon the clusters, and 
 natural arbors formed an impervious shade which not a ray of 
 the suns of duly could penetrate. As they drew near to land, 
 the fragrance was as if they had been in the midst of a most 
 delicate garden abounding with all kinds of odoriferous 
 flowers." | 
 
 With such impressions, and such reports, widely diffused, it is 
 not wonderful that emigration from the shores of Europe was 
 prompt and rapid. Nor need it hardly be said that the settle- 
 ment of the New World by Europeans was attended by the 
 characteristics of European civilization. At this period that 
 civilization had assumed a definite outline. The emigration of 
 Goth, Vandal, Hun, Frank and Burgundian, had ceased, and the 
 intruders had become incorporated with the nations of Western 
 Europe which they had invaded. 
 
 The feudal system had begun to yield to the claims of the age 
 winch called loudly for a recognition of the rights of the common 
 people. The mutual efforts of the state and church to uphold 
 each other's authority, were at this period met with a wider and 
 sterner resistance than had marked the history of Europe for a 
 thousand years. 
 
 This, too, was the era of the Reformation. The church in 
 (Treat Britain was revolutionized. Henry VIII. assumed supreme 
 authority in both church and state. Interrupted in the reign of 
 
 • Bancroft's J I £ — t 
 
 i I ■ 1 1 -i j i 
 
Mary, it was resumed in that of Elizabeth The development of 
 events in the direction of civil freedom now became rapid, con- 
 stituted in the language of the time a New Departure. But the 
 struggle was great and protracted. Elizabeth and lier successor, 
 tlanies I., were bent upon uniformity in worship among all 
 their subjects. Non-conformists incurred the royal displeasure. 
 Among these noble assertors and defenders of human rights 
 were the "Pilgrim Fathers." Driven by persecution in the reign 
 of James I., they sought a transient refuge in Holland, and 
 afterwards resuming the march of their exile, turned their faces 
 towards the New World, and on the 22nd December, 1620, two 
 hundred and sixty-five years ago, planted their feet upon 
 Plymouth Rock. Amid ice and snow they knelt upon the shore, 
 and with prayers and tears, consecrated the land before them to 
 the enjoyment of civil and religious freedom. 
 
 While this scene was being enacted upon the coast of New 
 England, another, of scarcely less importance, was opening upon 
 the banks of James River, in the Colony of Virginia. In the 
 year 1619 the first Colonial Assembly that ever met upon this 
 continent was convened at Jamestown. It was composed of a 
 Governor, a newly appointed Council, and two Representatives of 
 the eleven burroughs of the colony. Two years after the conven- 
 tion of this assembly, a memorable ordinance of the London 
 Company gave to Virginia a written, constitution, by which a 
 system of representative government and trial by jury was estab- 
 lished as an acknowledged right. In this memorable document, 
 as in that drawn up in the cabin of the Mayflower, Ave discover 
 the germs of the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 From the year 1625 to 1674, the colonies under their re- 
 spective governments, whether Provincial, as was the form under 
 which were included the colonies of New Hampshire, New York, 
 Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, or Pro- 
 prietary, as was that of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware, 
 or Charter, the government of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and 
 Connecticut, enjoyed greater liberty and tranquility than their 
 countrymen in England. 
 
 During this period which extended from the accession of 
 Charles 1., to near the close of the reign of Charles II., Ena-land 
 was in a state of continual agitation. The bigoted views of 
 James I., and of his son were not congenial to the spirit of the 
 British Constitution and the rising spirit of the British nation. 
 When therefore Charles attempted a positive invasion of the 
 
rights of his subjects,hemet with unexpected and determined resist- 
 ance. The intelligence and power of the Third Estate, as the 
 people were sometimes called, were far greater then than at any 
 previous period of English history. 
 
 The House of Commons, once so impotent and unpopular, had 
 become the right arm of the state. The power to originate 
 money hills to meet the expenses of the government, was lodged 
 exclusively with this branch of Parliament. The exercise of 
 arbitrary power attempted by the King was stoutly resisted by 
 these representatives of the people. The King would accept 
 nothing the Commons were willing; to grant. Thus we are in- 
 troduced to perhaps the most interesting period in British annals; 
 to one of the epochs of modern history. 
 
 Peaceful measures having failed, the King grasped the sword. 
 This act was promptly and resolutely answered by the Commons 
 and people. In the ensuing conflict the power of the King, once 
 deemed invulnerable, was broken. The scaffold and block, so 
 often reddened with blood spilt in the cause of liberty, now blushed 
 with the blood of a martyr to tyranny. 
 
 The reign of Charles I. was followed by the energetic and 
 generally benignant protectorate of Cromwell, and this was suc- 
 ceeded by the restoration of the Stewarts in the person of 
 Charles II. 
 
 We are now brought to a period of special significance to our- 
 selves. It was during the reign of Charles II. that the British 
 Parliament took the tirst step which on the part of the mother 
 country injuriously affected the American colonies. 
 
 At this period an act of Parliament was passed prefaced by the 
 following preamble : " Whereas, it is just and necessary that a 
 revenue be raised in America for defraying the expenses of de- 
 fending, protecting and securing the same." The act then pro- 
 ceeds to lay a duty on clayed-sugar, indigo, coffee, silk, molasses, 
 calicoes, &c, being the produce of a colony, not under the 
 dominion <>t his Majesty. To this exercise of power on the part 
 of Parliament the colonists submitted, but not without complaint 
 and remonstrance. The subject of taxing the American colonies 
 had indeed been agitated before this time. But this was the first 
 actual attempt to enforce that policy. 
 
 Referring to this action on the part of Parliament and the colo- 
 nies, Charles Fox, the celebrated British orator and statesman, says: 
 "There is something curious in discovering that even at this 
 early period (1685) a question relative to North American liberty, 
 
6 
 
 and even to North American taxation, was considered as the test of 
 principles friendly or adverse to arbitrary power at home. But 
 the truth is, that among the several controversies which have 
 arisen, there is no other where the natural rights of man on the 
 one hand and the authority of artificial institutions on the other, 
 as applied respectively by the Whigs and Tories to the English 
 constitution, are so fairly put in issue, nor by which the line of 
 separation between the two parties, is so strongly and distinctly 
 marked." 
 
 Charles II. was succeeded by his brother James II. Blind 
 or indifferent to the intelligence and spirit of the English people, 
 James by still more arbitrary acts increased their exasperation, 
 "lie suspended the exercise of the Protestant religion, acknowl- 
 edged the supremacy of the Pope, and allowed the Jesuits again 
 to establish themselves in the kingdom." 
 
 The thoughts of his subjects at this moment were similar to 
 those expressed by Archibald Rowan at his celebrated trial in 
 Ireland in 179-1. "I did imagine," said he on that stirring occa- 
 sion, "that the British Constitution was a representative legisla- 
 ture ; that the people were represented by the House of Com- 
 mons ; that the Lords - represented the territory, the property ; 
 and that the King represented the state ; the power of the whole 
 placed in his hands for the benefit of the whole. As a person, 
 as a man, I know nothing of the King. I can know nothing of 
 him except as wielding the force of the nation, and if ever that 
 force should be misapplied or abused, it then remains for the 
 people to decide in what hands it ought to be placed." 
 
 Such were the views of the English people more than a 
 century before. And these views were urged with such vigor 
 that James II. was forced to abdicate his throne. This abdica- 
 tion and the accession of William of Orange, with Mary, elder 
 daughter and heiress of James, accomplished the Revolution of 
 1688. As an expression of the mind of the people and of the 
 new rulers whom they had chosen, a Bill of Bights was adopted, 
 containing the following provisions : 
 
 1. The pretended power of suspending laws, or the execution 
 of laws by regal authority without the consent of Parliament, is 
 illegal. 
 
 2. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the 
 execution of laws by regal authority as it hath been assumed 
 and exercised of late, is illegal. 
 
 3. That the commission for erecting the late Court of Com- 
 
missioners for ecclesiastical causes, and all other commissions and 
 courts of like nature, are illegal and pernicious. 
 
 4. That levying money for or to the use of the Crown by 
 pretense of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for longer 
 time, or in all other manner than the same is and shall be 
 granted, is illegal. 
 
 5. That it is the right of the subject to petition the King, 
 and that all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning 
 are illegal. 
 
 6. That the raising or keeping a standing army within the 
 kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with the consent of Par- 
 liament, is against law. 
 
 7. That the subjects, who are Protestants, may have arms 
 for their defense, suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by 
 law. 
 
 8. That elections of members of Parliament ought to be free. 
 
 9. That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in 
 Parliament ought not to be impeached in any court or place out 
 of Parliament. 
 
 10. That excessive bail ought not to be required ; nor exces- 
 sive fines imposed ; nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 
 
 11. That Jurors ought to be duly impannelled and returned ; 
 and that Jurors who pass upon persons in trials, for high treason, 
 ought to be freeholders. 
 
 12. That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of 
 particular persons before conviction, are illegal and void. 
 
 13. And that for the redress of all grievances, and for the 
 amending, strengthening and preserving of laws, Parliament 
 ought to be frequently held. 
 
 Smm was the Bill of Eights of the Revolution of 1688. You 
 will readily perceive its importance. It gave the unwritten 
 laws of England a definite form and character. The rights of 
 King, Parliament, and people, were brought out from the dim 
 obscurity and uncertainty of the common law, which was com- 
 prised of customs, prescriptions, reports, statutes and traditions. 
 
 While, however, the Revolution of 1688 achieved much, it 
 fell short of securing to British subjects the full measure of 
 national freedom. "The Great Charter of King John and the 
 Bill of Rights," says Dr. Parley, "were wise and strenuous 
 efforts to obtain security against certain abuses of regal power 
 by which the subject had been formerly aggrieved ; but these 
 
were, either of them, much too partial modifications of the con- 
 stitution to give it a new original/' 
 
 The progress of liberty was not to stop with this triumph. 
 Its advance, however, was promoted by means at that time little 
 anticipated. While far away over the Atlantic the Colonies 
 watched with interest the revolutionary movements in England, 
 and were animated with an intelligent love of the more liberal 
 features of the British Constitution, which the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries had developed ; they found themselves called 
 upon to defend the political principles thus established, and to 
 give them a wider application than either the King, or Parlia- 
 ment, or the British people had suspected. 
 
 In the year 1765 an attempt was made by the home govern- 
 ment, ''practically to exert over the colonies the power of in- 
 ternal legislation and taxation." 
 
 This assumption of legislative power was promptly resisted. 
 The grounds of resistance were the same in all the colonies. 
 Notwithstanding the differences in their original and actual 
 political organization, "whether charter, provincial, or pro- 
 prietary," the Colonies, at the time of the American Revolution, 
 enjoj'ed, in most respects, the same general rights and privileges. 
 In all of them there existed a governor, a council and a repre- 
 sentative assembly, composed of delegates chosen by the people, 
 by whom the legislative and executive functions were exercised 
 according to the particular organization of the Colony. In all 
 of them express provision was made that all subjects and their 
 children, inhabiting in the Colonies, should be deemed natural 
 born subjects, and should enjoy all the privileges and immunities 
 conferred by the British Constitution upon the most favored citizens 
 of the mother country. In all the Colonies, the common law of 
 England, so far as it was applicable to their situation, was made 
 the basis of their jurisprudence, and that law was asserted at all 
 times by them to be their birth-right and inheritance. Again, 
 "it was insisted that the sole claim of England to the American 
 Continent being founded in the mere title of discovery, the 
 Colonies brought with them, all the laws of the parent country 
 which were applicable to their situation." 
 
 That the Colonies were bound to resist the violation of the 
 laws of the realm, and the spirit of the Great Charter and the 
 Bill of Rights, is a truth which lies embedded in the very 
 structure of government. "If public expediency be the founda- 
 tion, it is also the measure of civil obedience ; the obligation of 
 
subjects and sovereigns is reciprocal, and the duty of allegiance, 
 whether it be founded in utility or compact, is neither unlimited 
 nor unconditional. Peace may be purchased too dearly. 
 Patience becomes pusillanimity when it serves to increase the 
 weight of our burden, or to bind it the faster. The submission 
 which surrenders the liberty of a nation, and entails slavery 
 Upon future generations, is enjoined by no law of national mo- 
 rality. Each one should compare the peril and expense of the 
 enterprise with the effects it is expected to produce and to make 
 choice of the alternative by which not his own present relief or 
 profit, but the whole and permanent interest of the state, is 
 likely to be promoted." * 
 
 AVe will now examine those acts of the King and Parliament 
 which the Colonists considered infractions of their Constitutional 
 rights, and which called forth their prompt and determined 
 opposition. 
 
 In the year 1765 Parliament imposed a duty on stamps. That 
 this was a serious and questionable step, may be inferred from 
 words spoken by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. 
 Several years before, when a similar scheme for taxing the 
 colonies was proposed, he said : " I will leave that for some one 
 of my successors who may have more courage than I have, and 
 be less a friend to commerce than I am." 
 
 Soon after the passage of the " Stamp Act " a colonial Con- 
 gress of twenty-eight members met at New York. This assem- 
 bly remonstrated against the act of Parliament and made a declar- 
 ation of the rights of the colonies, declaring that taxation and 
 representation were inseparable, and that Parliament had no right 
 to take their money without their consent. 
 
 That the stand taken by this assembly was correct is clear from 
 the language of Dr. Paiey, at that day one of the leading writers 
 in England, on the British Constitution. 
 
 " The Constitution," he says, " provides that every district of 
 the Empire shall enjoy the privilege of choosing representatives 
 informed of the interests and circumstances and desires of their 
 constituents, and entitled by their situation to communicate that 
 information to the Xational Council. The meanest subject has 
 some one whom he can call upon to bring forward his complaints 
 and requests to the public attention." And on this subject of 
 taxation he says : " Every law which by the remotest construc- 
 tion may be deemed to levy money upon the property of the sub- 
 
 * Pa ley. 
 
10 
 
 ject, must originate, that is, must first he proposed and assented 
 to in the House of Commons. By this regulation the levying of 
 taxes is almost exclusively reserved to the popular part of the 
 Constitution, and the House of Commons, it is presumed, 
 will not tax themselves nor their fellow suhjects, without being 
 first convinced of the necessity of the aids which they grant." 
 
 We thus perceive that the British Constitution guaranteed the 
 full representation of all British subjects. 
 
 In keeping with these sentiments of Dr. Paley, was the opinion 
 of Lord Chatham pronounced in Parliament just after the news 
 of colonial resistance reached England: 
 
 " You have no right to tax America. I rejoice that America 
 has resisted. Three millions of our fellow subjects so lost to 
 every sense of virtue, as tamely to give up their liberties, would 
 be fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." 
 
 The obnoxious " Stamp Act " was at length repealed. But 
 strange to say, this was followed by other acts still more obnoxious. 
 One imposed a duty upon painters 1 colors, glass, paper and tea. 
 Another established at Boston a Board of Commissioners to man- 
 age the revenue arising from the duties. Another to compel the 
 colonists to provide for British troops, and to support them at 
 their own expense. 
 
 These several acts awakened among the colonists increased ex- 
 citement and resistance. Yet all this, instead of producing 
 moderation in parliamentary proceedings, had a contrary effect. 
 " A bill was speedily passed by which the port of Boston was 
 precluded the privilege of landing and discharging, or of lading 
 and shipping wares and merchandise." 
 
 Another bill was passed essentially altering the charter of the 
 province of Massachusetts, making the appointment of the 
 Council, justices, judges, sheriffs, or other officers, dependent on 
 the Crown, or its immediate agent. 
 
 Another act directed the Governor to send to another colony, 
 or to Great Britain, for trial, any person indicted for murder or 
 any other capital offence. 
 
 The news of these proceedings went through the land as on 
 the wings of the wind. 
 
 The time for action had now arrived. The people resolved to 
 assemble for consultation. Eleven of the colonies appointed 
 deputies for this purpose. On the -fth of September, 1774, these 
 deputies met at Philadelphia, and there organized under the name 
 of"" The Continental Congress." 
 
11 
 
 The proceedings of this celebrated assembly were attended 
 with the most mature deliberation. The responsibility they as- 
 sumed was of the gravest character. 
 
 To meet the legislation of Parliament, " a non-importation and 
 non-consumption agreement " was made. An address was issued 
 to the inhabitants of British America, and another to the people 
 of Great Britain. They also drew up and unanimously adopted 
 a Declaration of Bights substantially as follows : 
 
 1. That we are entitled to life, liberty and property, and have 
 never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose 
 of either without our consent. 
 
 2. That our ancestors who first settled these colonies were at 
 the time of their emigration from the mother country entitled to 
 all the rights, liberties and immunities of free and natural born 
 subjects within the realm of England. 
 
 3. That by such emigration they by no means forfeited, sur- 
 rendered or lost any of their rights ; but they were, and their 
 descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of 
 all such of them as their local and other circumstances enable 
 them to exercise and enjoy. 
 
 4. That the foundation of English liberty and of all free gov- 
 ernment is a right in the people to participate in their Legislative 
 Council. And as the English colonists are not represented, and 
 from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be rep- 
 resented in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and 
 exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial Legisla- 
 tures, where the right of representation can alone be preserved in all 
 cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of 
 their Sovereign in such manner as has heretofore been used and 
 accustomed. But from the necessity of the case and a regard to 
 the mutual interests of both countries, we cheerfully consent to 
 the operation of such acts of the British Parliament as are, in 
 good faith, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, 
 for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the 
 whole Empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefit 
 of its respective members ; excluding every idea of taxation, in- 
 ternal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America 
 without their consent. 
 
 5. That the respective colonies are entitled to the common 
 law of England, and especially to the great and inestimable privi- 
 lege of being tried by the peers of the vicinage, according to the 
 course of that law. 
 
12 
 
 6. That they are entitled to the benefit of such of the Eng- 
 lish statutes us existed at the time of their colonization, and which 
 they have by experience respectively found to be applicable to 
 their several local and other circumstances. 
 
 7. That these his Majesty's colonies are likewise entitled to 
 all the immunities and privileges granted and confirmed to them 
 by royal charters, or secured to them by their several codes of 
 provincial law. 
 
 8. That they have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of 
 their grievances and petition the King ; and that all prosecutions, 
 prohibitory proclamations and commitments for the same, are 
 illegal. 
 
 9. That the keeping a standing army in these colonies in times 
 of peace without the consent of the Legislature of the Colony in 
 which such an army is .kept, is against law. 
 
 10. It is indispensibly necessary to good government, and 
 rendered essential by the English Constitution, that the constitu- 
 ent branches of the Legislature be independent of each other ; 
 that therefore the exercise of legislative powers in several col- 
 onies by a council appointed during the pleasure of the Crown, is 
 unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the freedom of 
 American Legislation. 
 
 Such was the Declaration of Rights made bv the Coni:rc>s 
 of 1774. 
 
 The addresses which were issued to the people of Great 
 Britain, and to the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec were 
 marked with the same moderation and decision. 
 
 In the address to the people of Great Britain, after setting 
 forth the distinctions in legislation made by Parliament between 
 the colonies and the mother country, they add : 
 
 "Reason looks with indignation upon such distinctions, and 
 freemen can never perceive their propriety. And yet however 
 chimerical and unjust such discriminations are, the Parliament 
 assert that they have a right to bind us in all cases without ex- 
 ception, whether we consent or not ; that they may take and 
 use our property when and in what manner they please; that we 
 are pensioners on their bounty for all that we possess, and can 
 hold it no longer than they vouchsafe to permit. Such declara- 
 tions we consider heresies in English politics, and which can no 
 more operate to deprive us of our property, than the interdicts 
 of the Popes can divest Kings of sceptres which the laws of the 
 laud and the voice of the people have placed in their hands/' 
 
13 
 
 In the address to the people of Quebec, after recounting the 
 rights guaranteed by the British Constitution, they say: "these 
 are the rights without which a people cannot be free and happy, 
 and under the protecting and encouraging influence of which 
 these Colonies have hitherto so amazingly flourished and increased. 
 These are the rights which the Ministry are. now striving by 
 force of arms to ravish from us, and which we are, with one 
 mind, resolved never to resign but with our lives." 
 
 Lord Chatham said,January 20th, 1775, in Parliament : " Had 
 the earl) r situation of the people of Boston been attended to, 
 things would not have come to this, but the infant complaints of 
 Boston were literally treated like the capricious squalls of a 
 child, who, it was said, did not know whether it was aggrieved 
 or not. Put full well I knew, at that time, that this child, if 
 not redressed, would soon assume the courage and voice of a 
 man Full well I knew, that the sons of ancestors, born under 
 the same free constitution, and once breathing the same liberal 
 air as Englishmen, ancestors who even quitted this land of 
 liberty, the moment it became a land of oppression, and, in 
 resistance to bigoted councils and oppressive measures, tore 
 themselves from their dearest connections ; I say, full well I 
 knew, that the offspring of such ancestors would resist upon the 
 same principles and on the same occasions. * * * * 
 
 " I have crawled, m}' Lords, to this house to-day to tell you so. 
 1 think it my duty to give the whole of my experience and 
 council to my country at all times, but more particularly when 
 she is so much in need of it ; and having thus entered upon the 
 threshold of this business, I will knock at your gates for justice, 
 and never stop, except infirmities should nail me to my bed, until 
 I have at least tried everything in my power to heal those 
 unhappy divisions. 
 
 " There is no time to be lost — every hour is big with danger — 
 perhaps, whilst I am now speaking, the decisive blow is struck, 
 which may involve millions in the consequence; and, believe me, 
 the very first drop of blood that is spilled will not be from a 
 wound easily skimmed over, it will be irritabile vulnus ; a wound 
 of that rancorous and festering kind, that, in all probability, 
 will mortify the whole body. 
 
 " Who then, in the name of heaven, could advise this measure? 
 Or who can continue to give this strange and unconstitutional 
 advice? If his Majesty continues to hear such counsellors, he 
 will not only be badly advised, but undone. lie may wear his 
 
11 
 
 ,;,,,"! ' i * r" not ],e w '"'"' wearin g : '■" , ' , «<i of 
 i. "i s .tVr'ff'r A " uT, r !, -, i ' , win iose its r " stre »<« »o 
 
 m!!|,'s,v • " e <Mge>><>e winch should irradiate the brow of 
 
 \<n^!TJZ^ lip ^ at , !' e P a P ere transmitted us from 
 a-menca, when 3 ou consider their decency, firmness and wisdom 
 
 v:.;;;;:!r t :::r? f eir -? e and wisfi to s str^s: 
 
 «b e ' tt u "i I T a " d a ™ w ' that ' "' a " ™y readi "S «'"! 
 ooseivation, and it has been my favorite study— 1 have read 
 
 or me vroild, that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity 
 -«1 wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of dXent 
 circumstances no nation or body of men can stand in preference 
 to the general Congress at Philadelphia " pieteience 
 
 bese addresses respectful and well founded as they were 
 Produced only an exasperating effect upon the Ministry.'' Otho,- 
 
 wl , 1,'d" h'dv , OWed ?°' l68S ob J<*«onable than t , , . 
 vviut.ii naci aJieadv been passed 
 
 The issue toward which all previous discussions and acts h-,,1 
 ended was now reached. In the legislature of Virginia Pat ck 
 Henry gave expression to the general feeline • « A S 1 ♦ 
 nnnsand the God of battles," he excTatj,' « is ^tha^ Lft 
 
 'Peace' P^,? M™* 9 ^ mttet - 4ntleluen "'^ 
 1 eace reace . but there is no peace. The war is ar-r'nallv 
 
 e > th, clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren arc already in 
 
 sweet, as to be purchased at the 'price of ,l,t Z T™ S " 
 Forbid ff, Almighty God ! I LlTno^Zr^Zy 
 
 On Mav tn°H m XT% me Hbert * ° r S ive me death !" 
 the nil ' f "' V 1 '■ C ° T gl ' eSS ! net a « ain at Philadelphia. On 
 
 -fon was celebrated at Ci ^^^""T^tS 
 
 ffc£SS£|^^ 
 
15 
 
 honor to be present on the occasion and to participate in a 
 banquet given in Memorial Hall by the city of Cambridge in 
 commemoration of that interesting event. 
 
 The battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, had 
 already been fought. The prediction of Patrick Henry had been 
 fulfilled. 
 
 On June 7th, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, made a 
 motion in Congress in favor of declaring the Colonies free and 
 independent. In support of this motion John Adams spoke 
 with even more than his wonted vehemence : 
 
 " The war," said he, " must go on. We must tight it through. 
 And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration 
 of Independence ? Every Colony, indeed, has expressed its 
 willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declar- 
 ation will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of 
 a long and bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redress 
 of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British 
 King, set before them the glorious object of entire Independence 
 and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life. 
 
 " Read this Declaration at the head of the army ; every sword 
 will he drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to 
 maintain it or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from 
 the pulpit ; religion will approve it, and the love of religions 
 liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it or fall with 
 it. Send it to the public halls ; proclaim it there ; let them hear 
 it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon ; let them see 
 it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of 
 Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and 
 the very walls will cry out in its support. 
 
 'Sir, 1 know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see 
 clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue 
 it. We may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be 
 made good. We may die ; die Colonists ; die slaves ; die, it may 
 be, igiioininiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If 
 it be the pleasure of heaven that my country shall require the 
 poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the 
 appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But 
 whatever be our fate, be assured, be assured, that this Declaration 
 will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood, but it 
 will stand and richly compensate for both. Through the thick 
 gloom of the present 1 see the brightness of the future as the 
 sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. 
 
16 
 
 When wo are in our graves our children will honor it. They 
 will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires 
 and illuminations. 
 
 "Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment 
 approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I 
 have, and all that I am, I am now ready here to stake upon it. 
 And I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I 
 am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the 
 grace of God, it shall be my dying sentiment: Independence 
 now and Independence forever." 
 
 On the 4th of July, 1776, the thirteen Colonies were declared 
 Free and Independent. The title assumed was, The United States 
 of America. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence contained a concise recital 
 of Colonial grievances. On its adoption the bell of the Old 
 State House of Philadelphia rang out the news to the thousands 
 assembled in Independence Square, and to the homes of the 
 Colonists in the neighborhood of the city. The news was 
 received everywhere with the highest exultation. The ennobling 
 prospect of ;i separate national existence animated the people 
 with new courage and resolution to repel the invader. 
 
 The war of the Revolution followed. With it came suffering 
 and gloom. Truthfully did the poet Campbell sing the rise of 
 American liberty : 
 
 " Dark was the hour by stern oppression driven, 
 When trans-Atlantic Liberty arose ; 
 
 Not in the sunshine and the smile of heaven, 
 But wrapped in whirlwinds and begirt with woes !" 
 
 The climax of suffering on the part of the army seemed to be 
 reached when on the 17th December, 1777, they made their 
 dreary encampment at Valley Forge. The winter had set in 
 with unusual severity. Hungry and cold were the poor fellows 
 who had so long been keeping the field. Provisions were scant, 
 clothing worn out, and so badly off were they for shoes, that the 
 footsteps of many might be tracked in blood. It has been 
 eloquently said that "there, in the midst of frost and snow, 
 disease and destitution, Liberty erected her altar. In all the 
 world's history we have no record of purer devotion, holier 
 sincerity, or more heroic self sacrifice, than was exhibited in this 
 camp of Washington. If there is a spot on the face of our 
 broad land whereon patriotism should delight to pile its highest 
 and most venerated monument, it should be in the bosom of that 
 
17 
 
 little vale on the banks of the Schuylkill, amid the ' templed 
 hills,' consecrated by the presence and suffering of those who 
 achieved our Independence." 
 
 "The land is holy where they fought, 
 
 And holv where they fell ; 
 For by their blood that land was bought, 
 
 The land they loved so well. 
 Then glory to that valiant band 
 The honored saviors of the land ! 
 
 < ), few and weak their numbers were — 
 
 A handful of brave men ; 
 But to their God they gave their prayer, 
 
 And rushed to battle then. 
 The God of battles heard their cry, 
 And sent to them the victory. 
 
 They left the plowshare in the mould, 
 
 Their flocks and herds without a fold, 
 
 The sickle in the unshorn grain, 
 
 The corn, half garnered, on the plain, 
 
 And mustered in their simple dress 
 
 For wrongs to seek a stern redress, 
 
 To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe, 
 
 To perish or o'ercome their foe. 
 
 And where are ye, oh, fearless men? 
 
 And where are ye to-day ? 
 I call :— the hills reply again, 
 
 That ye have passed away ; 
 That on old Bunker's lonely height, 
 
 In Trenton and on Monmouth ground, 
 The grass grows green, the harvest light. 
 
 Above each soldier's mound. 
 
 The bugle's mild and warlike blast 
 
 Shall muster them no more ; 
 An army now might thunder past, 
 
 And they heed not its roar. 
 The starry flag 'neath which they fought 
 
 In many a bloody day, 
 From their old graves shall rouse them not. 
 
 For they have passed away. " 
 
 The Government during the Revolution was composed of one 
 delegate from each Colony, appointed from time to time, who 
 conducted the national affairs till near the close of the war. 
 While the Colonies were holding a belligerent attitude toward the 
 mother country, a common regard for public safety held them 
 firmly together. But the Continent;!] Congress plainly saw that 
 
18 
 
 when the external pressure should he removed, the Colonies 
 would fall apart into separate and independent States. The 
 consequences of such an event were as clearly foreseen and as 
 fully understood. In order to provide against such dangers, they 
 prepared and passed the memorable Articles of Confederation. 
 This step was carefully taken and was in the right direction. But 
 so keenly jealous was each State of its own rights, and so fearful 
 of a consolidated government, that these Articles, though passed 
 by Congress in November, 1777, were not finally adopted until 
 March, 1781. Whatever hopes may have been awakened by the 
 adoption of these Articles, and however great the efforts to do 
 that which would prove most for the public good, it was soon 
 discovered that the Confederation, even under the Articles as 
 finally adopted, was utterly powerless. "By this political 
 compact," snid one, " the Continental Congress have exclusive 
 power for the following purposes without being able to execute 
 one of them : They may make and conclude treaties, but can 
 only recommend the observance of them ; they may appoint 
 Ambassadors, but they cannot defray even the expenses of their 
 tables ; they may borrow money, on their own names on 
 the faith of the Union, but they cannot pay a dollar ; 
 they may coin money, but they may not import an ounce of 
 bullion ; they may make war, and determine what number of 
 troops is necessary, but they cannot raise a single soldier ; in 
 short, they may declare everything, but they can do nothing." 
 " It became evident, therefore, that the Confederation, being 
 without resources, and without powers, must soon expire of its 
 own debility. It had not only lost all vigor but it had ceased 
 even to be respected. It had approached the last stages of its 
 decline and the only question which remained was, whether it 
 should be left to a silent dissolution or an attempt be made to 
 form a more efficient Government before the great interests of 
 the Union were buried beneath its ruins." 
 
 A serious crisis had now arrived. The war was indeed over. 
 Peace had been proclaimed — liberty and independence had been 
 achieved — but the object for which the Nation's treasure and blood 
 had been expended was still exposed to defeat. The public 
 mind was greatly agitated by the dangers which pointed toward 
 either anarchy or despotism. The voices of those who had never 
 favored the separation of the Colonies from Great Britain, and 
 especially of those who had no faith in popular Government, 
 were heard on everv hand, boasting of their own wisdom, and 
 
19 
 
 predicting disastrous results from the policy and patriotism of 
 their countrymen. 
 
 " The signers of the Declaration of Independence themselves 
 were the persons who had fallen into the error of believing that 
 a Confederacy of independent States would serve as a substitute 
 for the repudiated Government of Great Britain. Experience had 
 demonstrated their mistake, and the condition of the country 
 was a shriek of terror at its awful magnitude. They did retrace 
 their steps, not to extinguish the federative feature on which 
 their Union had been formed. Nothing could be wider from 
 their intention ; but to restore," as we shall see, " the order of 
 things conformably to the principles of the Declaration of 
 Independence, and as they had been arranged in the first plans 
 for a confederation. To make the people of the Union the 
 constituent body, and the reservation of the rights of the State 
 subordinate to the Constitution, instead of recognizing the 
 assumed sovereignty of each separate State as the source of all 
 authority." An exigency had arisen which could no longer be 
 averted nor postponed. 
 
 At Mt. Vernon, the residence of Washington, this was well 
 understood, and there in March, 1785, the first idea of the 
 Constitution was started on a proposal to revise the Articles of 
 Confederation by an organization of means differing from that of 
 a compact between the State Legislatures and their own delegates 
 in Congress. An incipient step was thus taken toward the 
 formation of the present Constitution of the United States. In 
 that year Commissioners were appointed by the Legislatures of 
 Maryland and Virginia, to form a compact relative to the 
 navigation of the rivers Potomac and Roanoke, and the 
 Chesapeake Bay. The Commissioners met accordingly at 
 Alexandria, near Mt. Vernon, in Virginia ; but feeling the want 
 of adequate powers, they recommended proceedings of a more 
 enlarged nature. The Legislature of Virginia, therefore, in 
 January, 1786, proposed a convention of Commissioners from all 
 the States for the purpose of taking into consideration the state 
 of trade, and the propriety of a uniform system of commercial 
 relations for their permanent harmony and common interest. 
 Pursuant to this proposal, Commissioners were appointed by five 
 States, who met at Annapolis in September. 1786. They framed 
 a report to be laid before the Continental Congress, advising the 
 latter to call a convention of Commissioners from all theStates,to 
 meet in Philadelphia in May. 1787, for n //>>>/■<' effectual revision 
 
20 
 
 of the Articles of Confederation. Congress adopted the recom- 
 mendation of the Report, and in February, 1787, passed a resolu- 
 tion for assembling a Convention. All. the States except Rhode 
 Island, appointed delegates. The delegates met' at Philadelphia. 
 General Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was called to 
 preside. After very protracted deliberation, extending through 
 exactly four months, and amid great diversities of opinion, their 
 wise, patient, patriotic labors were concluded. The present ( insti- 
 tution of the United States was the result. 
 
 The Preamble of the Constitution reads as follows: " We, 
 the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect 
 Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for 
 the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the 
 blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and 
 establish tlds Constitution for the United States of America." 
 On September 17th, 1787, this Constitution was laid by the Con- 
 vention, before Congress, with the recommendation that it be laid 
 by Congress before the several States, to be by them considered 
 and ratified in conventions of the representatives of the people 
 to be called for that purpose.'' 
 
 The resolutions of the Convention, passed at the close of its 
 labors, together with a copy of the proposed Constitution, were 
 transmitted by Washington to Congress, accompanied with a 
 letter to the President from Washington, which concludes with 
 the following language: "In all our deliberations on this 
 subject we kept steadily in view that which appears to us the 
 greatest interest of every true American — the consolidation of 
 our Union— in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, 
 perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, 
 seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each State in 
 the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude 
 than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Consti- 
 tution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity, 
 and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity 
 of our political situation rendered indispensible. 
 
 " That it will meet the full and entire approbation of every 
 j State, is not, perhaps, to be expected ; but each will doubtless 
 consider, that had her interest been alone considered, the conse- 
 quences might have been particularly disagreeable or injurious to 
 others. That it is liable to as few exceptions as could reasonably 
 have been expected, we hope and believe : that it may promote 
 
21 
 
 the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, aud secure 
 her freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish. 
 
 With great respect we have the honor to be, sir, your Excel- 
 lency's most obedient, humble servants. 
 By unanimous order of the Convention. 
 
 George Washington, 
 
 President.*' 
 To His Excellency, 
 
 the President of Congress. 
 
 The Continental Congress promptly carried out the recommen- 
 dation of the Convention. In compliance with the action of 
 Congress, Conventions were called in all the States except Rhode 
 Island, and after many warm discussions, all the States with the 
 exception of Rhode Island and North Carolina ratified the Con- 
 stitution. Thus from the convulsions of the Revolutionary period, 
 and from the not less serious apprehensions of civil discord 
 under the Articles of Confederation, emerged the Constitution 
 whose history and associations we are now considering. 
 
 The assent of nine States only being required to put the 
 Constitution into operation, measures were taken by Congress 
 for this purpose in September, 1788, at which time the requisite 
 ratifications had been ascertained. 
 
 Accordingly elections were held in the several States, when 
 Electors for President and Vice-President were chosen. The 
 Electors subsequently assembled and gave their votes. The 
 necessary election of Senators and Representatives having 
 been made, the first Congress under the Constitution assembled at 
 New York, then the seat of Government, on AVednesday^, March 
 the 4th, 1789. A quorum, however, of both Houses for the 
 transaction of general business did not assemble until the sixth 
 of April. At that time the votes of the Electors were counted. 
 The result showed that George AVashington had been unani- 
 mously elected President, and John Adams Vice-President of the 
 United States. On the 30th of April President Washington 
 was sworn into office, and the Government went immediately into 
 full operation. 
 
 Only eleven States were at first represented, but North 
 Carolina afterward, in a Convention held in November, ITS*,*, 
 adopted the Constitution, and Rhode Island also, by a Convention 
 held in May, 1790. So that all the Thirteen States, by authority 
 

24 
 
 preceded him" said Mr. Adams, " as a guard of ornament and of 
 glory. At his passage over the Schuylkill bridge, a crown of 
 unfading laurel was, unconsciously to himself, dropped by a 
 blooming boy, from a thickly laurelled arch, upon his head. At 
 Trenton he was welcomed by a band of aged matrons commemo- 
 rating his noble defense of them, thirteen years before on that 
 spot, at the turning tide of the War of Independence — while their 
 virgin daughters strewed the path before him with flowers, and, 
 chanting a song like that of Miriam, hailed him as their protector, 
 who had been the defender of their mothers. A Committee of 
 Congress met him on his approach to the Point, where a richly 
 ornamented barge of thirteen oars, manned by branch pilots of 
 New York, was in waiting to receive him. In this barge he 
 embarked. But the bosom of the waters around her, as she 
 swept along, was as populous as had been the shores. The garish 
 streamers floated upon the gale — songs of enchantment resounded 
 from boat to boat, intermingled with the clashing of cymbals, 
 with the echoing of horns, with the warbling of the flute, 
 and the mellowing tones of the clarionet, weakened, but softened 
 as if by distance, by the murmur of the breeze and the measured 
 dashing of the waters from the oars, till on reaching New York 
 — but let his own diary given by Chief Justice Marshall, 
 his biographer, disclose the emotions of his soul amid 
 this entrancing scene: 'The display of boats which attended 
 and joined on this occasion, some with vocal, and others with 
 instrumental music on board, the decorations of the ships, the 
 roar of cannon, and the loud acclamations of the people, which 
 rent the sky, as I passed along the wharves, filled my mind with 
 sensations as painful ( contemplating the reverse of this scene 
 which may be the case after all my labors to do good ) as they 
 were pleasing.' 
 
 "How delightful it is, on this commemoration of Washington's 
 birth,"and nearly the hundredth year since those scenes transpired, 
 to reflect that all the fairest visions of hope were to be more 
 " than realized, and all the apprehensions of wary prudence and 
 self-distrusting wisdom more than dissipated and dispelled." 
 
 Washington opened his Inaugural Address, which was given in 
 New York, April 30, 1789, with the following words : " Fellow 
 Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives : Among 
 the vicissitudes of life no event could have tilled me with greater 
 anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by 
 your order, and received on the 4th day of the present month. 
 
25 
 
 On the one hand I was summoned by my country, whose voice I 
 can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat 
 which I had chosen with the fondest predeliction, and, in my 
 flattering hopes, with an immutable decision as the assylum of 
 my declining years ; a retreat which was rendered every day 
 more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of 
 habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in nry henlth 
 by the gradual waste committed on it by time ; on the other 
 hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice 
 of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest 
 and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into 
 his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondency one 
 who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature, and unpractised 
 in the duties of civil administration, ought to be particularly 
 conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, 
 all I dare aver is. that it has been my faithful study to collect 
 my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which 
 it might be affected. AH I dare hope is, that if, in executing 
 this task, I have been too much swayed by grateful remembrance 
 of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this tran- 
 scendent proof of the confidence of my fellow citizens, and have 
 thence too little consulted my incapacity, as well as disinclination 
 for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be 
 palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences 
 be judged by my country, with some share of the partiality in 
 which they originated." 
 
 In the conclusion he says : 
 
 " Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have 
 been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall 
 take my present leave, but not without resorting once more to the 
 benign Parent of the human race, in humble supplication, that 
 since he has been pleased to favor the Americau people with 
 opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and disposi- 
 tions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity, on a form of 
 Government for the security of their Union, and the advance- 
 ment of their happiness, so his divine blessing may be equally 
 conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, 
 and the wise measures on which the success of this Government 
 must depend." 
 
 During the eight years of the Revolutionary War Washington 
 received no compensation, satisfied if Congress would meet the 
 expenses necessarily incurred by him in the public service. Of 
 
26 
 
 these he kept the most exact account. When he undertook the 
 duties of the chief magistracy of the country, he gave a further 
 evidence of his unselfishness and exalted patriotism. Towards 
 the conclusion of his speech to the First Congress, April 30th, 
 1789, he says : " When I was first honored with a call into the 
 service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle 
 for its liherties, the light in which I contemplated my duty re- 
 quired that I should renounce every pecuniary consideration. 
 From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And 
 being still under the impression which produced it, I must 
 decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal 
 emoluments which may be indispensibly included in 
 a permanent provision for the executive department ; and must 
 accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in 
 which I am placed may, during my continuation in it, be limited 
 to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to 
 require."" 
 
 Having thus been led by the course of events to the inaugu- 
 ration of Washington and the complete establishment under the 
 Constitution of the Government of the United States, let us turn 
 for a while to the contemplation of Washington himself, anil 
 consider as we proceed, some of the elements of his character. 
 
 And in doing this I observe that Washington was possessed 
 of great tenderness of heart. This trait is revealed in numerous 
 incidents related by his biographers, and in not a few of his 
 writings, especially in his appeals to Congress and to the Govern- 
 ors of the States in behalf of his suffering soldiers. It was 
 conspicuous in his addresses to the soldiers themselves. In- 
 deed, so great is the pathos of many portions of his public dis- 
 courses and of his private correspondence, that for my own part 
 I can rarely read them without being moved to tears. No won- 
 der that he w T as beloved by his officers and army ! No wonder 
 that he was almost idolized by his countrymen ! Through his 
 •sympathies he held the hearts of his fellow men as with hooks of 
 steel. 
 
 He had no love for war as such. The news of the cessation 
 of hostilities between the King of Great Britain and the United 
 States (which was received by Washington at his headquarters at 
 Newburgh, N. Y., April 18th, 1783), filled his heart with the 
 most pleasing emotions. General orders were immediately issued 
 announcing the fact, and directing the proclamation prohibiting 
 hostilities to be read at the head of every regiment and corps of 
 
27 
 
 the army. "After which," adds Washington, " the chaplains, 
 with the several brigades, will render thanks to the Almighty 
 God for all His mercies, particularly for His overruling the wrath 
 . of man to His own glory and causing the rage of war to cease 
 among the nations. 
 
 " Although the proclamation above alluded to," he continues, 
 " extends only to the prohibition of hostilities, and not to the 
 annunciation of a general peace, yet it must afford the most ra- 
 tional and sincere satisfaction to every benevolent mind, as it puts 
 a period to a long and doubtful contest, stops the effusion of hu- 
 man blood, opens the prospect to a more splendid scene, and, like 
 another morning star, promises the approach of a brighter day 
 than hath hitherto illuminated the western hemisphere. On such 
 a happy day, which is the harbinger of peace, a day which com- 
 pletes the eighth year of the war, it would be ingratitude not to 
 rejoice ; it would be insensibility not to participate in the general 
 felicity." 
 
 Washington had ambition. But it was not the ambition o 
 Alexander, who, hearing Anaxarchus, the philosopher, speak con- 
 cerning the multiplicity of worlds, wept to think that he had not ' 
 yet become master of one. Nor was it the ambition of Attila, 
 the Hun, whose footsteps were marked with desolation, and who 
 proudly called himself "The Scourge of God." Washing- 
 tun was ambitious to secure the liberty of his country, to enjoy 
 the favor of heaven, and to find a permanent lodgment in the 
 esteem and affections of his race. /And this ambition never left 
 him. Hence the wonderful spectacle, wonderful because unpre- 
 cedented, which he presented to an observing and admiring world 
 when he sheathed his sword and returned his commission to the 
 American Congress. He might have imitated the example of 
 Julius Caesar and converted his popularitj 7 into an instrument for 
 his own aggrandizement. He might have taken the path which 
 Napoleon subsequently pursued, and by his sword carved 
 liis way to a throne. That he was urged to pursue this 
 course is matter of record. But never did virtue shrink with 
 more instinctive abhorrence from vice, than did Washington from 
 the suspicion of being guilty of such a design. With all the 
 honesty of a patriot, with all the promptness of a lover of peace, 
 he resigned the sword which he had reluctantly taken. 
 / Repairing to Annapolis, where the Congress was at that time 
 sitting, Washington signified to that venerable body his desire 
 to surrender the commission which he had received from them as 
 
 J 
 
28 
 
 Commander-in-Chief of the American army. On the 23d of 
 
 \ December, 1782, the impressive ceremony took place in the 
 
 presence of a numerous auditory. The members of Congress 
 
 remained seated and covered. The spectators stood uncovered. 
 
 Washington, on his entrance, was conducted by the Secretary to 
 
 a chair, when after a brief pause the President, General Mifflin, 
 
 informed him that " the United States in Congress assembled 
 
 were prepared to receive his communications." A hush ran 
 
 through the assembly as Washington, with calm dignity, stepped 
 
 forward to perform the last, the most sublime act of his 
 
 whole military life. I cannot forbear quoting the introduction 
 
 and the close of his remarks : /" Mr. President," said he, " the 
 
 fgreat events on which my resignation depended, having taken 
 
 /place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere eongratula- 
 
 ]/ 1 tions to Congress, and of presenting myself before them to sur- 
 
 S render into their hands the trust committed to me and to claim 
 
 ithe indulgence of retiring from the service of my country." And 
 
 in conclusion, he adds, "I consider it as an indispensible duty to 
 
 close this hist solemn act of my official life, by commending 
 
 the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty 
 
 God, and those who have the superintendence of it to his holy 
 
 keeping. 
 
 !'• Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the 
 great theatre of action ; and bidding an affectionate farewell to 
 this august body, under whose orders I have long acted, I here 
 offer my commission and take mv leave of all the employments 
 of public life." 
 
 I need hardly say that this address of Washington was heard 
 with emotions too deep for utterance, and that he withdrew with 
 the benedictions of Congress, of the country, of heaven, and of 
 mankind. Upon the surrender of his military commission he 
 withdrew, he hoped forever, from all the scenes of public life. 
 His love for retirement was singularly strong, but at the call of 
 his country to serve as her chief magistrate he again sacrificed, 
 as we have seen, his personal predelietions, and repaired once 
 more to the post of duty, ready to serve in a civil, as he had done 
 in a military capacity. The period which he devoted to each was 
 by a singular coincidence the same. At the close of his Presi- 
 dential career, he prepared that wonderful paper, his Farewell 
 Address, as the last token of his solicitude for the welfare of his 
 country. After pointing out the dangers to which a popular 
 < rovernment will ever be exposed and suggesting the best methods 
 
29 
 
 for averting them, after indicating the duties which the different 
 portions of the country would owe to one another, and the whole 
 country to foreign nations, he brings his address to a conclusion 
 by a modest and affecting reference to himself. " Though in 
 reviewing,'' says he, *' the incidents of my administration, I am 
 unconscious of intentional error; I am, nevertheless, too sensible 
 of my defects not to think it probable I may have committed 
 many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the 
 Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. 
 I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never 
 cease to view them with indulgence; and that after forty-five 
 years of my life dedicated to its service, with an upright zeal, the 
 fruits of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as 
 myself must soon be to the mansions of rest." 
 
 Hon. Mr. Gladstone, Prime Minister of the British Govern- 
 ment, pays, in the North American Review, for September, 1878, 
 discriminating and glowing tribute to the British Constitution, 
 and follows it with a tribute, if possible, still more glowing to 
 the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Speaking of the British Constitution he says: " The Cabinet 
 and all the present relations of the Constitutional powers in this 
 country have grown into their present dimensions, and settled 
 into their present places, not as the fruit of a philosophy, not in 
 the effort to give effect to an abstract principle ; but by the silent 
 action of forces, invisible and insensible, the structure has come 
 up into the view of all the world. 
 
 " As the British Consitution is the most subtle organism which 
 has proceeded from the womb and the long gestation of progres- 
 sive history, so the American Constitution is, so far as I can see, 
 the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the 
 brain and purpose of man. It has had a century of trial, under 
 the pressure of exigencies caused by an expansion unexampled 
 in point of rapidity and range : and its exemption from formal 
 change, though not entire, has constantly proved the sagacity of 
 the constructors and the stubborn strength of the fabric." 
 
 And here I cannot but observe that it will ever be a wonder 
 how a man so esteemed and so applauded could have maintained 
 the equanimity for which Washington was always distinguished. 
 The praise which is now universally accorded to him was not 
 altogether withheld in his life time. Nor did the expressions 
 of warm regard emanate solely from his own countrymen. His 
 
30 
 
 character and career had attracted the attention and met the 
 approbation of the great and good in other lands. 
 
 In the year 1794, Charles Fox, one of the greatest statesman 
 of his own and,perhaps,of any age, in the course of a speech upon 
 the attempt of France to embroil the United States in her diffi- 
 culties with Great Britain, pronounced in Parliament an euloginm 
 upon Washington. Regardless of the fact that scarce twenty 
 years before, the subject of his eloquence had been pronounced 
 within those very walls, a rebel, he thus breaks forth : " Illus- 
 trious man ! deriving honor less from the splendor of his situation 
 than from the dignity of his mind; before whom all borrowed 
 greatness sinks into insignificance and all the Princes and poten- 
 tates of Europe ( excepting the members of our own ' royal ' 
 family) become little and contemptible!" "I cannot indeed 
 help admiring the wisdom and the fortune of this great man ; 
 not that by the phrase fortune I mean in the smallest degree to 
 derogate from his merit. But nowithstanding his extraordinary 
 talents and exalted integrity, it must be considered as singularly 
 fortunate, that he should have experienced a lot, which so seldom 
 falls to the portion of humanity and have passed through 
 such a variety of scenes, without stain and without reproach. It 
 must indeed create astonishment, that placed in circumstances so 
 critical and filling for a series of time, a station so conspicuous, 
 his character should never once have been called in question ; 
 that he should in no one instance have been accused either of 
 improper insolence or of mean submission, in his transactions 
 with foreign nations. It has been reserved for him to run that 
 race of glory, without experiencing the smallest interruption to 
 the brilliancy of his career. The breath of censure has not dared 
 to impeach the purity of his conduct, nor the eye of envy to raise 
 its malignant glance to the elevation of his virtues. Such has 
 been the transcendant merit and the unparalleled fate of this 
 illustrious man !" 
 
 When the news of the death of Washington reached France, 
 his great contemporary, Napoleon, announced the melancholy 
 event in an appropriate proclamation to the Government, to his 
 army, and to the people, and in token of respect, he ordered 
 black crape to be suspended from all the flags and standards 
 in the French service, the Chamber of Deputies was dressed 
 in mourning, and other marks of public sorrow were exhibited. 
 
31 
 
 Thus the representative men of the two leading nations of 
 the earth paid their homage to the character and memory of 
 Washington. 
 
 Nor since that day have the respect and affection of the world 
 diminished. On the contrary, with the lapse of time, the virtues of 
 Washington shine forth with a brighter lustre. There is no land 
 accessible to enlightened enterprise whither his fame has not 
 extended. The monument just completed at the national 
 metropolis, speaks trumpet-tongued in this behalf, for its impos- 
 ing shaft goes up not merely by the additions made from the 
 States of the Union which he so largely helped to create, but by 
 the marble or granite sent from Switzerland, and Italy, and Greece, 
 and from the Islands of the sea. Nor is it an uninteresting fact, 
 that towards the close of the year 1860 the heir apparent to the 
 British crown, in company with some of England's illustrious 
 nobles, visited the tomb of Washington. By this act they signi- 
 fied their appreciation of the virtues of the dead, and, may I not 
 add, set the seal of their approbation to the cause which he so 
 successfully defended. 
 
 But while we speak of Washington in deserved eulogium let 
 us not forget that Almighty Being who raised him up, like another 
 Joshua, to lead the hosts of our American Israel. Nothing short 
 of the divine interposition could have saved our country from the 
 perils to which she was exposed. And Joseph, and Moses, and 
 Joshua, and David, and Cyrus, were not more certainly ordained 
 of heaven to the age and work with which in history they stand 
 associated, than was Washington to the stupendous enterprise to 
 which he was summoned ; stupendous, I say, for it involved a 
 two-fold labor of the greatest difficulty and deepest significance, — 
 the achievement of Independence from a nation possessed of the 
 greatest military and naval power, and the creation and establish- 
 ment of a Popular Government upon the foundation of a written 
 Constitution. And God graciously endowed Washington with just 
 those qualities of body, mind and spirit, which the exigency of the 
 times demanded. And as He raised him up so He kindly protected 
 him against the savages of the wilderness, against traitors in his 
 own camp, and against the ten thousand dangers incident to a 
 bitter and protracted war. God was with him in the Cabinet. 
 Nothing less than wisdom imparted from above could have 
 guided him in the multiplied, new, and perplexing questions 
 which confronted him at every turn during the entire period of 
 his civil as well as military life. The difficulties which were 
 
32 
 
 encountered hy him as President may be inferred from the work 
 accomplished. 
 
 "For during the eight years of a turbulent and tempestuous ad- 
 ministration, Washington settled upon firm foundations the practical 
 execution of the Constitution of the United States. In the 
 midst of the most appalling obstacles, through the bitterest 
 internal dissentions and the most formidable combi- 
 nations of foreign antipathies and cabals, he had subdued 
 all opposition to the Constitution itself ; had averted all 
 dangers of a European war ; had redeemed American captives 
 in Algiers ; had reduced by chastisement and conciliated by kind- 
 ness, the hostile of the Indian tribes ; had restored the credit of 
 tbe nation ; had provided for the total extinguishment of the 
 public debt ; had settled the Union upon the unmovable founda- 
 tion of principle, and had drawn around bis head for the admira- 
 tion and emulation of after times, a brighter blaze of glory than 
 had ever encircled the brows of hero or statesman, patriot or 
 sage." * 
 
 Washington was a Christian. He was not ostentatious in his 
 piety, but his principles in this regard were fixed. He felt his 
 dependence upon God for the accomplishment of the purposes he 
 formed, and frequently in the retirement of the forest, as 
 at Yalley Forge, was he seen by the passing soldier, in earnest 
 prayer, on bended knee, invoking the guidance of Heaven in his 
 military plans, the pity of Heaven upon his suffering soldiers, 
 and its blessing upon his country then in the throes of revolu- 
 tion, struggling to be free. 
 
 "The Revolution itself was a work of thirteen years — and had 
 never been completed until the adoption of the Constitution. The 
 Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United 
 States are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and 
 the same theory of government." 
 
 By the Declaration national independence was proclaimed ; by 
 the War it was established ; and by the Constitution it was em- 
 bodied or consolidated into a distinct nationality. 
 
 " The great measures by which the Revolution was commenced, 
 conducted, and concluded, were devised and prosecuted by a very 
 few leading minds, animated by one pervading, predominating 
 spirit. The object of the Revolution was the transformation of 
 thirteen dependent and oppressed English Colonies into one nation 
 of thirteen confederated states. It was an undertaking," said 
 
 * .1. Q. Adams. 
 
33 
 
 Mr. Madison, " to do that which had always before been believed 
 impossible. In the progress to its accomplishment, obstacles 
 almost numberless, and difficulties apparently unsurmountable, 
 obstructed every step of the way. That on the dissolution and 
 re-institntion of the social compact, by men marching over an un- 
 trodden earth to the very fountains of human Government, great 
 and dangerous errors should have been committed, is but an ac- 
 knowledgement that the builders of the new edifice were fallible 
 men. But at the head of the Convention was George Washing- 
 ton, the leader of the Armies of the Revolution — amongst its 
 prominent members were Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman, 
 two of the members of that memorable committee who had re- 
 ported the Declaration of Independence — and its other members, 
 without exception, were statesmen who had served in the council 
 of the Union throughout the Revolutionary struggle, or warriors 
 who had contended with the enemy upon the field." 
 
 The framers of the Constitution never claimed for it perfection. 
 They left it for time to disclose its defects and to furnish a remedy. 
 Accordingly, since its adoption fifteen articles of amendment 
 have been passed and become incorporated with it. Twelve 
 of these amendments were proposed by the first Congress itself 
 in 1789. The remaining three grew out of the recent war for 
 the Union. These latter abolish and forever prohibit human 
 slavery, and also declare that the right of citizens of the United 
 States to vote shall not be denied nor abridged by the United 
 States nor by any State on account of race, color, or previous 
 condition of servitude. So that by authority of the people of 
 the United States, and the favor of God, the Constitution framed 
 by our fathers, now stands complete. By it the right of life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is guaranteed to every 
 citizen of the Republic. 
 
 The monument, dedicated to Washington, did not reach its 
 completion till all this had been accomplished. Nay, more. 
 It was not finished until the war for the Union had vindicated the 
 truth blazoned on our national escutcheon, " E Pluribus Unum," 
 and shown that the Constitution makes the States a Nation, 
 
 "Distinct like the billows, 
 Yet one like the sea." 
 
 Had the result been otherwise, the monument had well re- 
 mained incomplete. Had the result been otherwise, well had 
 the monument paused midway to its intended height, and stood 
 
34 
 
 forever and forevermore, pointing with sarcasm and unutterable 
 disappointment to the folly which had made shipwreck of a 
 matchless Government, blighted the prospects of posterity, and 
 hurled back expectant millions, into hopeless servitude all round 
 the world. 
 
 The year 1881 completed a century since the Declaration of 
 Independence was made good in the close of the military opera- 
 tions of the Revolution. Two years hence will complete a century 
 since the Constitution was adopted,and three years,a century since, 
 in the city of New York, Washington was inaugurated President 
 of the United States. We are living in the centennial of great 
 events. To the City and State of New York will therefore be 
 accorded the honor of leading in 1889 the celebration of the Cen- 
 tennial of Peace, of the Adoption of the Constitution, and of the 
 Inauguration of Washington. * 
 
 Thus it belonged to our fathers a century ago to set in motion 
 influences whose power for good has continually intensified, and 
 whose sweep has widened with every successive year. In their de- 
 votion to the highest interest of their country and race, they com- 
 bined zeal with wisdom. In the cabinet and in the field alike, 
 they wrought with only one object in view. They contended for 
 that which belonged to them as Englishmen, and which had been 
 with difficulty obtained by the sacrifices of many generations. 
 Magna Charta was theirs. The Bill of Rights, secured at the 
 accession of William and Mary, was theirs. The traditions of the 
 past, bearing testimony to England's love of Liberty, w r ere theirs. 
 And theirs they resolved they should continue to be; and not 
 only theirs, but also their children's, and their children's child- 
 ren's. With England they would gladly continue to enjoy these 
 privileges if they could ; without her, if they must. Fidelity to 
 their high and sacred trust demanded separation. Separation 
 came. But true to the spirit and motive which impelled them to 
 this course, they embodied in written form the great principles of 
 human justice and freedom for which they contended, and by 
 common consent and common sacrifice, established as the organic 
 law of the Republic, the Constitution under which we live ; a 
 Constitution which secures to every citizen in the United States 
 
 * As this Lecture is about to go to press the following appears in the New York Tribune of April 
 7th, 1886 : 
 
 NEW YOEK WOULD HAVE THE HONOR. 
 
 Washington, April ".—Representative Phelps, of Xew .Jersey, has received a telegraphic request 
 from the New Fork Chamber of I lommerce i" offer us an amendment to the resolution introduced by 
 Mr. Butterworth for the appointment of a committee to consider the subject of a celebration in IS5H, 
 at Washington, of the centennial anniversary of the formation of the Government under the Constitu- 
 tion, "that the celebration shall be held in New York, where the event occurred.' - 
 
alike, civil and religions privileges snch as render our country at 
 this hour the freest and most favored nation upon earth. 
 
 "Thus was achieved," says Judge Story, "another and still 
 more glorious triumph in the cause of national liberty than even 
 that which separated us from the mother country. By it," he 
 adds, "we fondly trust that our Republican institutions will grow 
 up and be nurtured into more strength and vigor; our independ- 
 ence be secured against foreign usurpation and aggression ; our 
 domestic blessings be widely and generally felt ; and our Union, 
 as a people, be perpetuated as our truest glory and support, and 
 as a proud example of a wise and beneticent government, entitled 
 to the respect, if not the admiration of mankind." 
 
 If what Curran, the great Irish orator, said of Britain was 
 true of her in his day, nearly a hundred years ago, then we may 
 assert, without fear of successful contradiction, that the same 
 language is doubly applicable to America in ours. And I now 
 claim for America under her matchless Constitution, what Cur- 
 ran proudly and justly claimed for Britain : "I speak," said he, 
 "in the spirit of British law, which makes liberty commensurate 
 with and inseparable from the British soil — which proclaims, 
 even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his 
 foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is 
 holy, and consecrated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. 
 No matter in what language his doom may have been pro- 
 nounced ; no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom, 
 an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him; no 
 matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been 
 cloven down ; no matter with what solemnities he may have been 
 devoted upon the altar of slavery ; the tirst moment he touches 
 the sacred soil of Britain the altar and the god sink together in 
 the dust ; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; his body 
 swells beyond the measure of his chains which burst from around 
 him, and he stands forth redeemed, regenerated, and disen- 
 thralled, by the irresistible genius of Universal Emancipation." 
 
 W e are told that " the Arab of the desert talks of Washington 
 in his tent, and that his name is familiar to the wandering Scyth- 
 ian." And shall it be that we or our children admiring his char- 
 acter, shall ever forget that the cause in which he became illus- 
 trious, was the cause of American Liberty ? Shall we, receiving 
 at his hands the boon of civil and religious freedom, neglect the 
 admonitions which fell from his lips, and refuse to employ the 
 means by which alone that freedom can be preserved '. The her- 
 
36 
 
 eulean labors, the immense sacrifices, which this great national 
 fabric cost, should constrain us to say, that in our day at least, 
 that fabric shall not fall. Should such a calamity occur at all, 
 it would produce universal regret. But should it occur by the 
 act or the neglect of American citizens, the maledictions of a 
 world would descend upon us. And especially should it take 
 place now that the terrible ordeal of civil strife, and war for the 
 Union and the Constitution, through which the Republic has 
 triumphantly passed are over,then justly and surely should we be 
 denounced by the friends of freedom everywhere as having dese- 
 crated the altars of human liberty, and plucked down the fairest 
 temple ever dedicated to her honor by human hands. In snch an 
 event, curses, thicker than the hailstones, and keener than the 
 lightning which desolated the land of Egvpt, would descend 
 upon us, and we should almost anticipate the day of tinal doom, 
 and call upon the rocks and the mountains to cover us, that we 
 might disappear forever from the withering glance of a disap- 
 pointed world. 
 
 I speak strongly indeed, but not more strongly than I feel. 
 I love my country; and it is in her behalf I speak. I love my 
 children, and as I look upon them I cannot endure the thought 
 that the blessings of the Union, and of free institutions, shall not 
 be theirs to inherit. I love my race. With Chremes in Ter- 
 rence, I may say : " Homo sum ; humani nihil a me, alienum 
 jputoP 
 
 Hence as I look over both hemispheres and survey the teeming 
 millions that now inhabit them, and especially when I reflect 
 upon the incalculable numbers of coming generations, I cannot 
 consent that the experiment of Constitutional Liberty made under 
 such unparalleled advantages should ever prove a failure, and 
 tyrants thus be furnished with a sarcastic,an irresistible argument 
 to wield against the friends of freedom through all future time, 
 whenever and wherever they shall presume to lift up their voices 
 in the advocacy, and their hands in the defense of human rights. 
 
 In the words of Daniel Webster spoken at a public dinner 
 in honor of Washington, and in the City of Washington, Feb. 
 22d, 1S32, we may with increased emphasis say : "Other mis- 
 fortunes may be borne,or their effects overcome. If disastrous war 
 should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation 
 may renew it ; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may 
 replenish it ; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still under a 
 new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future 
 
.;: 
 
 harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol 
 were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous 
 decorations be all covered with the dust of the valley. All these 
 might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demol- 
 ished government { Who shall rear again the well proportioned 
 columns of constitutional liberty '. Who shall frame together 
 the skillful architecture which unites national sovereignty with 
 state rights, individual security, and public prosperity '. No, if 
 these columns fall, they will he raised not again. Like the Coli- 
 seum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a 
 melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over 
 them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or 
 Grecian art ; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious 
 edifice than Greece or Borne ever saw — the edifice of constitu- 
 tional American liberty." 
 
 If there was one thing which more than another Washington 
 considered as essential under God to the preservation of the na- 
 tional liberty, it was the Union of the States. Accordingly in 
 his farewell address to his countrymen he says : "The unity of 
 government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to 
 you. It is justly so ; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real 
 independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace 
 abroad; of your safety ; of your prosperity ; of that very liberty 
 which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that 
 from different causes and from different quarters, much pains 
 will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds 
 the conviction of this truth ; as this is the point in the political 
 fortress against which the batteries of internal and external 
 enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often cov- 
 ertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you 
 should properly estimate the immense value of your national 
 union to your collective and individual happii 
 that you should cherish a cordial, habitual and immov- 
 able attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak 
 of it as the palladium of your political safety and prosperity : 
 watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discounten- 
 ancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any 
 event be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon the first 
 dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country 
 from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link to- 
 gether the various parts." 
 
 It will be in harmony with the design of this discourse to speak 
 
38 
 
 of Washington's personal appearance. In the Scripture narra- 
 tive respecting Saul chosen to be the ruler of Israel, it is said that 
 " there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than 
 he : from his shoulders and upward he was taller than any of the 
 people. ' "Of Washington's personal appearance," says one who 
 evidently drew the picture from life, "little further need be re- 
 marked than that it comported entirely with the solid grandeur of 
 his character.. In respect to physique, no man could have been bet- 
 ter formed for command — a stature somewhat exceeding six feet, a 
 full but admirably proportioned frame, calculated to sustain 
 fatigue without that heaviness which generally attends great mus- 
 cular strength and abates active exertion, displayed bodily power 
 of no mean standard. A light and full gray eye, firm forehead, 
 a Roman nose; his mouth was peculiar of its class — the lips firm, 
 and the under jaw seeming to grasp the upper with force, as if its 
 muscles were in full action when he sat still. It was Washing- 
 ton's habit to fasten his eyes calmly and steadily upon those who 
 were ushered into his presence, whether friend or foe, nor was it a 
 slight ordeal to thus meet his penetrating gaze. His limbs were 
 long, large and sinewy, and his frame was of equal breadth from 
 the shoulders to the hips; his joints were large, as were also his 
 feet, and the great size of his hand never failed to attract atten- 
 tion. His gait and tread was that of a practiced soldier ; his de- 
 portment invariably grave and reserved ; his speech sparing 
 and deliberate. At home he wore the usual dress 
 of a citizen ; on state occasions he dressed in a full 
 suit of the richest black velvet, with diamond knee buckles, and 
 square silver buckles set upon shoes japanned with the most 
 scrupulous neatness, black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled at the 
 breast and wrists, a light dress sword, his hair profusely powdered, 
 fully dressed so as to project at the sides and gathered behind in 
 a silk bag ornamented with a large rose of black ribbon. In the 
 prime of life Washington stood six feet two inches, and weighed 
 nearly two hundred and twenty pounds ; he measured precisely 
 six feet when attired for the grave '" 
 
 The death of Washington was in keeping with his life. It 
 did not find him unprepared. Just before the fatal attack he 
 had been making arrangements at Mt. Vernon for an improved 
 family tomb. " This change,'" he said to a relative, "I shall 
 make the first of all, for I may require it before the rest. I am 
 of a short-lived family and cannot expect to remain long upon 
 the earth.' 1 What was thus spoken of as possible, turned in a 
 
39 
 
 short time into a sad reality. On the 12th of December, 
 1799, he rode out to his farms, and during his absence encoun- 
 tered a cold wind, accompanied with rain, hail and snow. This 
 exposure was followed with serious indisposition, which, in the 
 end, proved fatal. During his illness he could speak but little. 
 To the respectful and affectionate inquiries of an old family 
 servant, who, as she smoothed down his pillow, asked how he felt, 
 he answered, " I am very ill." Penetrated with gratitude for 
 attentions, he often said : " I am afraid 1 shall fatigue you too 
 much." And on one occasion added, "Well, it is a debt we must 
 pay to each other, and I hope, when you want aid of this kind, 
 you will find it." Toward the close of the day on which he 
 expired the physician came into the room, and, upon going to the 
 bedside, the General said to him : " Doctor, I die hard, but I 
 am not afraid to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I 
 should not survive it. My breath cannot last long " The doctor 
 pressed his hand but could not utter a word. He retired from 
 the bedside and sat by the tire absorbed in grief. 
 
 " Between live and six o'clock," says one who was present, 
 " Dr. Dick and Dr. Brown came into the room and with Dr. Craik 
 went to the bed when Dr. Craik asked the General if 
 he could sit up in bed. He held out his hand and 
 I raised him up. He then said to the physicians, 
 ' I feel myself going ; I thank you for your attentions ; but I 
 pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off 
 quietly. I cannot last long.' After several ineffectual attempts 
 to speak, he at length said, 'I am just going. Have me decently 
 buried ; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less 
 than three days after I am dead.' I bowed assent, for I could 
 not speak. He then looked at me again and said, ' Do you 
 understand me ? ' ' Yes ' I replied. "T IS WELL,' said he ; the 
 last words he ever uttered on earth. With surprising self-posses- 
 sion he prepared to die — composing his form at full length, and 
 folding his arms on his bosom. About ten minutes before he 
 expired ( which was between ten and eleven o'clock on Saturday 
 evening) his breathing became easier. He lay quietly; he 
 withdrew his hand from mine, and felt of his own pulse. I saw 
 his countenance change. 1 spoke to Dr. Craik, who sat. by the 
 fire. He came to the bedside. The General's hand fell from 
 bis wrist. 1 took it in mine and pressed it to my bosom. Dr. 
 Craik put his hand over his eyes, and he expired without a 
 struggle or a sigh, December 14th, 1799, in the sixty-eighth year 
 
40 
 
 of his age, after an illness of twenty-four hours. While we 
 were fixed in silent grief, Mrs. Washington, who was sitting at 
 the foot of the bed, asked in a firm and collected voice, ' Is he 
 gone V I could not speak, but held up my hands as a signal that 
 he was no more. ' 'T is well,' said she in the same voice, ' All 
 is over now ; I shall soon follow him ; I have no more trials to 
 pass through.' " 
 
 The burial took place on Wednesday, December eighteenth. 
 The ashes of AVashington now rest in a beautiful inclosure, 
 which, in his later years, was selected by himself for a tomb. 
 
 The news of the sudden death of the illustrious patriot soon 
 spread throughout his own country and also across the sea, and 
 filled every heart with surprise and lamentation. Men of every 
 class and clime joined in expressions of lofty, generous, unstinted 
 eulogy. 
 
 A truly great man is not envious of the fame of another. " I 
 felt on his death," wrote Jefferson of Washington, " that ' verily 
 a great man hath fallen this day in Israel.' " 
 
 While Mr. Jefferson was riding, one starry night, with a mem- 
 ber of his family, the conversation fell upon Washington. 
 Pointing to the stars, he exclaimed ; 
 
 "Washington's fame will go on increasing until the brightest 
 constellation in yonder heavens shall be called by his name ! ' 
 
 A bust of Washington stood in the hall at Montieello many 
 years after Jefferson's retirement from public life. Some warm 
 admirer of his, living in France, sent a wreath of immortelles to 
 a member of his family, with the request that it 
 might, on his birthday, be placed around Mr. Jefferson's brow. 
 The day came, and the relative, informing the venerable man of 
 the request, attempted to crown him with the wreath. 
 
 "Place it on Washington's bust," he said, raising his hand to 
 prevent the intended honor. It was placed on the bust and rested 
 there for many years. 
 
 Said Napoleon : "The measure of Washington's fame is full. 
 Posterity will talk of him as the founder of a great empire, 
 when my name shall be lost in the vortex of revolutions." 
 
 " I have a large acquaintance among the most valuable and 
 exalted classes of men, "wrote Lord Erskine to Washington from 
 London ; " but you are the only human being for whom I have 
 ever felt an awful reverence." 
 
 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in the year 1780, pre- 
 sented General Washington with a picture of his majesty taken 
 
41 
 
 from life. Underneath it were inscribed the words : "From 
 the oldest General in Europe, to the greatest General on earth." 
 
 In the funeral oration delivered February, 1800, by the direc- 
 tion of Napoleon in his own presence and in that of the great 
 dignitaries of the realm, the orator, M. DeFontanes, declared the 
 illustrious deceased to be '' a character worthy the best days of 
 antiquity." 
 
 To speak of the grief and praises awakened among his own 
 countrymen would be vain. A mere catalogue of the demon- 
 strations, public and private, would consume more time in its 
 perusal than has been devoted to this entire discourse. 
 
 Suffice it to say, as a summary of the whole, Washington, the 
 patriot, soldier, statesman, sage, was "First in war, first in 
 
 PEACE, AND FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." 
 
 Having thus presented the utterances and deeds of some of the 
 leading actors in the great drama of the American Revolution, 
 having held up the character and work of Washington, the 
 illustrious representative of his scarcely less illustrious compat- 
 riots, I come now to a reluctant conclusion, and complete the 
 design proposed in this discourse by presenting once more to 
 your view the result of their combined labors, the matchless 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. And, as I 
 have all along preferred to give t< > you in place of my own, the living 
 words of men both at home and abroad who were conspicuous in that 
 great epoch of human history and since,so now I introduce as a most 
 appropriate peroration, the glowing language of Judge Story, 
 language with which he closes his masterly Commentary upon the 
 American Constitution : " If what I have said shall but inspire 
 any here with a more ardent love of their country, an unquench- 
 able thirst for liberty, a profound love for the Constitution and 
 and the Union, and a fervent gratitude to God, the source of our 
 triumphs and prosperity, then it will have accomplished all that 
 it ought to desire. 
 
 " Let Americans, and especially American youth, into whose 
 hands the power of the country must soon fall, go back to the 
 close of the Revolutionary period, and contemplate the feeble- 
 ness and incompetency of the Confederation of States then 
 existing, and trace the steps by which the intelligence and patriot- 
 ism of the great men of that day led the country to the adoption 
 of the existing Constitution ; let them never forget that they 
 possess a noble inheritance bought by the toils, the sufferings, the 
 blood of their ancestors, and capable, if wisely improved and 
 
42 
 
 faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the 
 substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, 
 of religion, and of independence. 
 
 " The structure has been erected by architects of consummate 
 skill and fidelity ; its foundations are solid ; its compartments are 
 beautiful as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and 
 order, and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been 
 reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to 
 such a title. It may nevertheless perish in an hour by the folly 
 or corruption, or the negligence of its only keepers — the People. 
 Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit and intelligence 
 of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the 
 public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate 
 are rewarded because they flatter the people in order to betray 
 them/' 
 
 !? 
 
 " Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
 
 Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
 
 Humanity, with all her fears, 
 
 With all the hopes of future years 
 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
 
 We know what Master laid thy keel, 
 
 What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel ; 
 
 Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
 
 In what a forge, and what a heat 
 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
 
 Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
 
 ' T is of the wave and not the rock ; 
 
 ' T is but the flapping of the sail, 
 
 ' T is but a rent made by the gale ! 
 
 In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
 
 In spite of false lights on the shore, 
 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ; 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 
 Are all with thee— are all with thee !" 
 
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