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 I 5 <i 5 
 
ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED IJEFORE THE 
 
 CITY COUNCIL AND CITIZENS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 JULY 4, 1895 
 
 Rev. ADOLPH AUGUSTUS BERLE 
 
 [Document 155 — 1895] 
 
 ^fy 1(6 SO. ^W 
 
 BOSTON 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CiTY COUNCIL 
 
 1895 
 
ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 CITY COUNCIL AND CITIZENS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 JULY 4, 189s 
 
 ■ BY 
 
 Rev. ADOlfe AUGUSTUS BERLE 
 
 [Document 155 — 1895] 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CiTY COUNCIL 
 
 1895 
 


 CITY OF BOSTON 
 
 In Board of Aldekmen, July 15, 1895. 
 Resolved^ That the thanks of the City Council be and 
 hereby are extended to Rev. Adolph A. Beele for the 
 eloquent and patriotic oration delivered by him on the 
 Fourth of July, in commemoration of the One Hundred 
 and Nineteenth Anniversary of American Independence, 
 and that he be requested to furnish a copy of the same 
 for publication. 
 
 Adopted unanimously by a rising vote. Sent down for 
 
 concurrence. 
 
 Alpheus Sanford, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 In Common Council, September 19, 1895. 
 Concurred unanimously by a rising vote. 
 
 Christopher F. O'Brien, 
 
 President. 
 
 Approved September 20, 1895. 
 
 Edwin U. Curtis, 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 A true copy. 
 
 Attest : 
 
 John M. Galvin, 
 
 City Clerk. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CITIZEN. 
 
 Me. Mayor axd Fellow-Citizen^s : 
 
 Once again in accordance with a wise custom 
 established many years ago we are assembled by 
 the authority and appointment of the city of Bos- 
 ton to celebrate the birthday of onr beloved nation. 
 Full of gratitude to Almighty God for the bless- 
 ings which we have received with such un- 
 bounded liberality from His hand in the past, we 
 seek anew, in the obedience to Him who is the 
 Arbiter of all destiny, to still further work out 
 our national life with fear and trembling, God 
 working in us both to will and do of His good 
 pleasure. 
 
 We have listened to the reading of the Declaration 
 of Independence, and out of that utterance offered 
 to the world as the Magna Charta of our liberties, on 
 July 4, 1776, has come the union of States which 
 we love and cherish to-day. It was a masterful 
 statement. It had within it all the promise and 
 possibility of the nation as yet unborn. Its very 
 
6 ORATION. 
 
 language thrillGd with the fiery zeal and enthusi- 
 astic devotion of those whose sentiments it 
 expressed. It was the consmnmation of the long 
 tutelage of the Anglo-Saxon under pohtical 
 systems which sought the elevation of the citizen 
 as the potent political unit of government. It 
 was heard with wonder when fii-st proclaimed. 
 It survives as our most glorious heritage. 
 
 But we shall be deceived if we imao-iue that the 
 issuing of the Declaration of Independence created 
 the United States of America. We shall build 
 upon a false foundation if we argue that it gave 
 us anything more than an impulse in the direction 
 of a national movement. That declaration was in 
 the line of the movement for a larger liberty, 
 which was everyAvhere making itself felt, not in 
 America alone, but also and as effectively in 
 Europe. It was true to the Age-Spirit, and only 
 occasion was needed to call for its annunciation. 
 It breathed an atmosphere of hberty and human 
 rights which was not new but only not yet fully 
 accepted. It was a theoretical document in its 
 essence, and in so far as stable government was 
 concerned, it could hardly produce it. Declara- 
 tions of Independence move the hearts and lire the 
 com^age of men, but governments are not founded 
 upon them. 
 
JULY4,1895. 4 
 
 In support of this statement we have only to 
 recall the history subsequent to the War of the 
 Revolution. The Ai'tieles of Confederation under 
 which tlie united colonies carried on their war for 
 freedom constituted the loosest kmd of a tie, only 
 fii'm enough to hold them together when in the 
 midst of the stress and necessity of war. But the 
 moment peace was declared and the constructive 
 work of national existence began, what do we 
 find? iSTot a union of the people, but a mere vol- 
 untary confederation of States which could be 
 broken at will, as it was broken, and vesting its 
 functions of control in a body which is distin- 
 guished in our history chiefly by its pitiful record 
 of impotency, ignorance, and selfishness. The 
 " United States in Congress Assembled " was no 
 more the representative body wluch to-day gathers 
 for the enactment of laws under om- Constitution 
 than the handful of strugglers for liberty in the 
 early days of the 'Wav of the Revolution consti- 
 tuted in any proper sense an arm3^ 
 
 A government then remained still to be estab- 
 lished. But before we examine the instriunent, the 
 acceptance of which created our nation a govern- 
 ment, let us look at the period just preceding the 
 constitutional convention which met at Philadelphia 
 in 1787. Scarcely was peace declared than a 
 
8 ' ORATION. 
 
 strange metamorphosis began in the personal qual- 
 ity of the ruling authonities of the Confederation. 
 The most efficient leaders and the wisest and 
 most thoughtful citizens began to be absent from 
 the national councils, preferring, as it appears, 
 rather to serve their individual States than the so- 
 called general government. Both Washington and 
 JeflPerson commented on this fact, and the latter 
 even wrote a letter urging that " young states- 
 men" be sent to Congress in order that they 
 might be properly trained for the future needs 
 of the nation. American citizenship at that period 
 seemed to centre more around the idea of loyalty 
 to the State than loyalty to the nation, and for 
 the most part justifiably, for there was in reality 
 no nation as yet in existence. 
 
 Yainly did the far-seeing Father of his Country 
 endeavor to convince Congress of its duties in the 
 direction of a closer and more efficient union. 
 Vainly did the most earnest patriots by voice and 
 pen urge the necessity of prompt action to save 
 the infant Republic from dissolution. Without the 
 slightest interest did Congress see the vicissitudes 
 of a treasury which had no means of securing a 
 revenue. Or funds being in hand, promptly did 
 they vote themselves salaries, while the army 
 waited for its slender pay. The service of the 
 
JULY 4, 1805. 9 
 
 nation was too contemptible for the most able, 
 and not lucrative enough even for the incom- 
 petent. Credit the nation had but little, and that 
 only because some of the States themselves had 
 considerable. Appeal after appeal was made, and 
 each time without any apparent result. If by any 
 circumstance Congress was roused to action, it 
 had no power to enforce its demands. It waited 
 like a beggar at the table of the sovereign States. 
 "Well might Randolph call it, as in fact it was, 
 a " government of supplication." 
 
 ISTor were the difficulties of the administration 
 all that the young nation had to contend with. 
 England seeing the disorganization prevailing 
 looked confidently to see enacted, by internal dis- 
 sension, what she could not accomplish by force 
 of arms. Trade and commerce began to vex the 
 various States both as regarded their intercourse 
 between themselves as well as that with foreign 
 countries. Tariff barriers were erected between 
 them. Lack of uniformity with reference to 
 foreign commerce added to the natural irritations 
 of competition. Ah-eady the Southern agricult- 
 urahsts and the ]^orthern manufacturers were 
 contending for their various interests. Business 
 success and prosperity were, under such conditions, 
 manifestly impossible. Widespread depression fol- 
 
10 ORATION. 
 
 lowed, and though the more cheerful and opti- 
 mistic tried to disguise to themselves the actual 
 condition of the land, the facts were only too real 
 in their practical effect. 
 
 Still another danger threatened. There was no 
 stable, if indeed there can be said to have existed 
 any, national currency. The question of money 
 was ever present. Robert Morris went out of 
 the treasury announcing his inability to raise in- 
 terest on foreign loans. In the States the battle 
 between specie and paper money raged almost 
 incessantly, now the one side and then the other 
 triumphant. Rhode Island, always the most selfish 
 and intractable of States, made it a penal offence 
 to refuse paper at par; but a vigorous citizen 
 butcher carried the case to the courts, and won 
 a signal victory for honest money. This, too, 
 was patriotism. Thus on every side wei-e the 
 clamors heard of States rights, of individual lib- 
 erties, of fear of monarchy, of trade depression, 
 of monetary wranghng, while the complacent 
 mother country steadily shipped her felons to our 
 shores to swell our criminal population, and 
 looked forward to the day when she would again 
 possess the land. 
 
 It was in this strait that it began to dawn 
 upon the people that declarations do not make 
 
JULY4,1895. 11 
 
 nations ; that national stiength rests npon loy- 
 alty to the whole and not loyalty to a part ; 
 that dearly as Sam Adams loved Massachnsetts 
 he mnst love the United States more. That true 
 to ]!Srew York as her governor, George Clinton, 
 was, he mnst be trner still to the JSTational 
 Union. It was this dawning consciousness, aided, 
 it mnst be confessed, very materially by the 
 events of the honr, that led finally to the calling 
 of a constitntional convention first at Annapolis 
 and afterward at Philadelphia. 
 
 The history of the Philadelphia convention is 
 so well known that I need not to-day recall to 
 yon any of the almost insurmountable difficulties 
 which it encountered in its own membership ; of 
 the despair which at least once overcame even 
 the optimistic Franklin and moved him to call 
 for the invocation of Divine aid in the delibera- 
 tions. It is sufficient for our purpose liere that 
 it gave birth to the Constitution of the United 
 States. The national feeling and spirit had seen 
 the light. The nation was crystallized and a 
 government, in fact, was born. But not at once 
 even then. There were long struggles still. The 
 Massachusetts Legislature rang with the earnest 
 protests of Sam Adams against the proposed in- 
 strument ; by a most slender majoiity, and then 
 
12 ORATION. 
 
 only after the mighty battle in which Hamilton 
 and Jay and Madison and other Federalists did 
 valiant work, was 'New York bronght to endorse- 
 ment. All the States after more or less of 
 struggle were brought in, only the little fractious 
 and spiteful Rhode Island declining. But the 
 end came at last, and the year saw the Con- 
 stitution accepted and in force as the organic 
 law and iinal source of authority for the people 
 of the United States without respect of State or 
 station. 
 
 ]!^ot that the Constitution was itself a perfect 
 document. It was, even in the opinion of those 
 who created it and loved it, as men can only 
 love their own offspring, imperfect in many de- 
 tails. It invited difficulty and controversy. It 
 practically dodged or surrendered the issue of 
 slavery, but it was, humanly spealdng, the best 
 instrument that out of the combined wisdom 
 and patriotism of the framers, and these joined 
 to the natural difficulties of the situation itself, 
 could be produced ; and there it stands to-day, 
 the pride and the safeguard of every citizen, be- 
 cause it came from a union of citizens and not 
 from a union of States. This is what links the 
 humblest citizen directly with the supreme law 
 of the land. Our union was henceforth to be a 
 
JULY4,1895. 13 
 
 union of people, a fraternity of citizens having 
 the majesty of the combined personaUty of 
 millions of freemen, rather than a contract signed 
 under duress to be broken when the arm of 
 force was withdrawn. 
 
 There is something sublime in the thought 
 which I have just presented, suggesting that the 
 Constitution is something more than a formal 
 alliance partaking of the nature of a contract. 
 One remembers, then, not its language or the 
 provisions of its various sections, but the man- 
 hood, the wisdom, the unselfish love of country, 
 the patient labor and the anxious waiting which 
 are here congealed, as it were, into a solid 
 structm-e of adamant. As buildings suggest 
 the character of their architects, as pictures 
 reveal to the practised eye the personality of 
 the painter, so the book or the treatise presents 
 to the man of insight the life of him whose 
 brain worked through its doctrines, and shaped 
 the form of their expression. Thus, to say that 
 this or that is constitutional is more than to 
 say that it shall legally stand ; it is as though 
 one should say. This has behind it the force, the 
 majesty, the patriotism, the unselfishness of all 
 true citizenship from the foundation of our gov- 
 ernment until to-day. It is as though one should 
 
14 ORATION. 
 
 announce, with the subhme confidence of one 
 who had himself inherited their noble blood, 
 This is the life of the founders living in us 
 their children. 
 
 The Constitution, then, being the crystallized 
 and combined personaHty of the citizens by whose 
 adoption it became the supreme law of the land, 
 its authority and dignity can be preserved only 
 as it continues to represent the combined per- 
 sonahty of the citizens who live under its sway. 
 It thus becomes strangely true that the Consti- 
 tution is in a measure the citizen, and also that 
 the citizen is the Constitution. If for any reason 
 or through any cause the organic law fails to 
 represent the united personality of the people or 
 a very large majority thereof, it is as truly 
 null and void as though it had been abrogated 
 by foraial vote. The maintenance of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States is not therefore a 
 duty which can be delegated to public officers, 
 but an ever-present obligation resting upon every 
 citizen in the land without any reference what- 
 ever to his station, creed, or possessions. No 
 man can ever become great enough to justly 
 neo-lect it, and no man can ever become mean 
 enough, without dishonor, to be deprived of it. 
 The Constitution represents men, and when it 
 
J U L Y 4 , 1 8 9 5 . 15 
 
 ceases to represent them truly, it ceases to be 
 their source of civic rule. 
 
 For more than a century now we have Kved 
 under a constitutional government, and have made 
 the exceptional and striking progress which is 
 the never-ending source of wonder to the world. 
 We have passed through many trials of depres- 
 sion, war, and disunion, but have survived them 
 all. More marvellously than any romancer could 
 have imagined it, have we grown in size, wealth, 
 population, capability, civilization, and national 
 power. We have l^een able to confound the 
 mighty by our almost unheard-of defiance of the 
 operations of natural law. We have been able 
 to make blunders which, if made by any other 
 nation, would probably have resulted in its 
 complete ruin. We have been able apparently 
 to conduct our national household on a scale 
 which has led to a reckless extravagance for 
 which no bounds can apparently be set. We 
 have conducted our finances, our commerce, our 
 education, our public ser^dce, by methods and 
 with wastes that almost take us into the realms 
 of fairyland when their combined figures are 
 studied. But we are still here as a nation, and 
 prosperous and still advancing. But it must be 
 obvious to even the most modestly trained 
 
16 ORATION. 
 
 thouorhtfnl citizen that onr resources cannot last 
 forever; that we must sooner or later come to a 
 realizing sense of our situation and the duties 
 which it enforces upon us. More than this, we 
 must begin to see to it that the expensive, dan- 
 gerous errors of the past shall not recur to 
 jfinally weaken our national system and destroy 
 our institutions. 
 
 As our civilization and laws grow more com- 
 plex, it is becoming needful to appeal more and 
 more frequently to the Constitution for settle- 
 ment of the new questions which are arising 
 among us. Within the year past we have seen 
 the Supreme Court ruhng upon three questions 
 of utterly dissimilar character, and yet each one 
 full of suggestive thought for the future. One 
 of these related to the income tax, another re- 
 lated to the question of election registration, the 
 third had to do with the question of habeas 
 cor])us growing out of the Chicago strike. These 
 are all significant matters. All three have one 
 point in common; namely, that they deal per- 
 sonally with the individual citizen: the first, as 
 to his money; the second, as to his vote; and 
 the third, as to his person; and on each of 
 these questions we have had a decision. The 
 circumstances out of which these questions grew 
 
JULY 4, 1895. 17 
 
 are interesting in the accompanying demonstra- 
 tions wliicli they evoked. 
 
 It is not for me to discnss to-day questions 
 upon which we have the right and privilege of 
 differences of judgment ; but I may with pro- 
 priety venture to examine some of tlie general 
 principles which seem to be involved in these 
 decisions. Take first the decision of the Supreme 
 Court with reference to the tax on incomes. 
 Here we have a most singular fact to record. 
 What is recognized as a right, proper, and just 
 subject of taxation, a wise method of raising the 
 necessary revenue, of half the civilized govern- 
 ments of the world, is here pronounced impossi- 
 ble and is forbidden. Does it not strike you as 
 strange, that what England and France and Ger- 
 many and Italy and Australia and many other 
 nations practise as a habitual method of taxation 
 should here be unconstitutional and void ? I say 
 it without any hesitation whatever, that if the 
 Constitution does not permit the taxation of 
 incomes, then the Constitution ought to be 
 modified so that it will so permit. And why? 
 ^LSTothing in our land is more menacing than the 
 increasing power of accmnulated wealth. "We 
 have seen great corporations invade the private 
 rights of citizens with an abandon that would 
 
18 OEATION. 
 
 seem to be incredible if we had not become 
 habituated to the wrong. We have seen Legis- 
 latures corrupted, and it is notorious that in 
 some States vast sums have been expended to 
 be used in influencing the choice of members of 
 the United States Senate. We have repeatedly 
 seen the interests of the people over-ridden in 
 order that the selfish ends of private j^ersons 
 might be secured. Is it any wonder that the 
 millions are misled into the hope of freedom by 
 a debased currency? When creditor and debtor 
 classes are arrayed against each other, and we see 
 a governor of a Western State calling for a con- 
 ference of other governors in the South and West 
 with a view of combining commercially against 
 the East, is it cowardice to ask what that 
 symptom means? When within a month of each 
 other two great voluntary assemblies of citizens 
 meet in the same city to urge upon their fellow- 
 citizens two diametrically opposed platforms with 
 reference to the financial policy of the govern- 
 ment, is it pessimism to inquire what is mov- 
 ing these people? I venture to say that at the 
 bottom of all this agitation is simply the deep 
 resentment among the people of all classes of 
 thoughtful men of the fact that money is operat- 
 ing too efiectively against the common interests. 
 
JULY4,1895. 19 
 
 Great accumulations of capital and tlie fearful 
 neglect of the obligations which such possession 
 imposes have deepened the consciousness of our 
 people that somewhere there is something wrong. 
 It is at this juncture, too, that the Supreme 
 Court declares the tax on incomes unconstitu- 
 tional. It may be, and probably is. But I say 
 it solemnly that with the example and habitual 
 practice of most of the civilized nations of the 
 world before us, that tax ought to be made con- 
 stitutional without the slightest delay. Wealth 
 and the power that goes with wealth are great 
 trusts, and w^hoever, having them, cannot see 
 that he is a trustee for the common good in 
 these things should be made to render up at least 
 a fair proportion of his income as a just com- 
 pensation for the protection and security which 
 the authority of the government under which the 
 .wealth accumulates provides. It is absurd to 
 declare such a tax Avrongful. If there were no 
 other argument in the world before us, the estab- 
 lished habit of other nations and the manifest 
 justice of this means of providing revenue would 
 be sufficient to induce us to make such a method 
 at least possible. Added thereto, our constant 
 experience with the power of perverted wealth 
 should silence all remaining doubts. 
 
20 ORATION. 
 
 The doctrine which we seek to inculcate here 
 is not, as is sometimes alleged falsely, that the 
 prosperous are to be taxed in the interest and 
 for the benefit of the hstless and indolent. It 
 is rather the idea that the strong ought to bear 
 the burdens of the weak, and that those who 
 make the largest draft upon the protective power 
 of the government should bear the largest pro- 
 portion of the expense incurred in maintaining 
 that protection. It is the fair recognition of the 
 maxim that to whom much is given of him 
 will much be required. But we teach more than 
 this. We teach that wealth carries with it vast 
 responsibihties which are fraught with deepest 
 consequences to the people at large; that public 
 servants should not be subjected to temptations 
 which will almost certainly overcome them; that 
 private interests shall not stand in the way of 
 humane progress, that life, and liberty, and 
 human happiness shall be respected as belonging 
 equally to all, and that the hardships of life 
 shall not be made to bear unjustly upon those 
 least favored; in brief, in the interest of a larger 
 humanity, we proclaim that the man of wealth 
 owes peculiar duties, and is placed in circum- 
 stances of especial obhgation, to his fellow-citizens 
 and his country. Public officials, legislatures, and 
 
JULY 4, 1895. 21 
 
 even courts themselves must be guarded with a 
 strenuousness that cannot be too watchful. From 
 wealth selfishly administered, and against the 
 common good, arises their chiefest and most 
 pressing danger. And though a Supreme Court 
 decision may relieve the rich from the legal bur- 
 dens imposed by law, it can never release them 
 from the moral obligation which possession and 
 opportunity create. 
 
 In the case of the South Carolina election 
 cases we have another form of the same ques- 
 tion of the citizen's relation to the Constitution. 
 The deprivation of the ballot is probably the 
 severest loss which can come to a citizen of the 
 United States. Take from him that and he is 
 lost to his country. And whoever conspires to 
 thus deprive any citizen to whom the right of 
 suffrage is granted by the Constitution, strikes 
 directly and at once at the foundation of the 
 rule of law in the land. It is probable that 
 this was attempted in South Carolina under the 
 election laws which have recently occupied the 
 attention of the Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court. It differed from the conventional methods 
 which have the picturesque accompaniments of 
 shotgun and mob, but it was none the less, in 
 all probability, an attempt to disfranchise citizens 
 
22 ORATION. 
 
 to whom the Constitution had secured the right 
 of suffrage. All the land is filled with indigna- 
 tion at this wrong and others like it. 
 
 But while we are indignant, and justly indig- 
 nant, at any attempt to deprive the citizen of his 
 ballot by force or fraud, even when under the 
 forms of law, what shall we say of him who, 
 having the franchise, never or rarely exercises it 
 for the welfare of his country, in settling the 
 grave issues which confront us at almost every 
 turn of our varied national existence ? Can any 
 man be truly patriotic who never registers? or 
 when he registers never votes ? Who is more 
 culpable, he who, having the right of suffi-age, 
 tries to withhold it from those whom he considers 
 incompetent to hold it, in the interest of what he 
 considers good government, or he who, having 
 it, fails to value it, thus confirming the rule of 
 the ignorant, depraved, and vicious? If the Con- 
 stitution represents the combined personality of 
 citizens, then these are kindred evils before the 
 bar of patriotic devotion and fidelity. In either 
 case the sufli-age is abridged, the difi"erence 
 being that one employs illegal means to suppress 
 an ignorant and probably purchasable vote, 
 while the other selects legal means in suppress- 
 ing what is for the most part an intelligent and 
 
JULY 4, 1895. 23 
 
 non-purchasable vote. In either case votes are 
 suppressed, and thus much of the citizenship, 
 though needful to express the whole personality 
 which is wrapped up in the Constitution, is lost 
 to the use of the nation. ]!^on-voting citizens, 
 then, stand in the same relation to the whole 
 nation, barring the legal consequences of crune, as 
 do the regulators of the South, shotgun in hand. 
 In Boston particularly, and in Massachusetts as 
 a whole, this robbery is constantly practised. 
 Using to the full the privileges which our 
 country affords, and bending their energies to 
 the accumulation of money and the laying up of 
 vast fortunes, it is not strange that there should 
 be a suspicious resemblance between the non- 
 voting and the tax-dodging population, as well 
 as between the absentees and the money cor- 
 ruptionists of our political contests. 
 
 What we have affirmed of the citizen's money 
 is equally true of the citizen's vote. It is his 
 own, and yet not his own. He may use it as he 
 will, and yet he must use it for the common good, 
 remembering that it is not a natural right which 
 belongs to him, but a privilege which is conferred 
 upon him, in the expectation that he will use 
 it wisely, patriotically, and conscientiously. The 
 highest law in the land is constantly appeahng to 
 
24 ORATION. 
 
 him, saying, I rest upon yoii and your fidelity. 
 When yon are false I am the sufferer. 
 
 ISTo one who is at all acquainted with the 
 temper and feeling of our citizenship can doubt 
 that for the most part it is sound and truth- 
 loving. It wants honesty and fairness. It loves 
 law and hates mobs. It believes in righteousness, 
 personal as well as civic. It honors courage and 
 fidehty. It delights to give its best gifts to those 
 who deserve them most. But it is a fact at the 
 same time that conditions are maturing which 
 constantly make for the average citizen entangling 
 alliances, which obscure his moral sense, and make 
 him do that which he would rather not do, and 
 take upon himself burdens and pursue methods to 
 which he is at heart thoroughly and conscien- 
 tiously opposed. Business considerations, social 
 obligations, political distinctions, and race preju- 
 dices, all conspire to take him away from the 
 simplicity which would naturally govern him 
 were he free and untrammelled. The fij'st neces- 
 sity of our pohtical system is to make the citizen 
 free ; to apply all laws without respect of per- 
 sons ; and to impress upon all that justice will be 
 administered and that the welfare of the lowest 
 and poorest will be held as sacred as that of the 
 highest and richest. Our citizenship must be 
 
JULY4,1895. 25 
 
 made free. It must be able to vote and speak 
 fearlessly and with no regard for personal con- 
 sequences. Only a free man can be a worthy 
 citizen of a free country. Bondage is servitude 
 though it be in terms of commercial slavery or 
 financial obligation. Thus many flee from the 
 ballot because they cannot exercise it as they 
 would. Others, having been delivered to the lust 
 of wealth, dare not appear on the lists. Still 
 others skulk behind a false philosophy. Let it be 
 rung into the ears of these all that he who robs 
 the country of his political judgment, especially in 
 times of the country's need, is a bandit more to be 
 feared than he who steals its money. Like those 
 timid, time-serving politicians who, aspiring for the 
 highest office in the land, seek refuge in ambi- 
 guities and silence, when a mass of deluded people 
 need the statesmanlike utterance of a bold, brave, 
 lover of truth, who dare not by words fitly 
 spoken place the apples of gold in the baskets 
 of silver, so these, too, are the selfish sneaks who 
 seek to enjoy what they cannot achieve, and filch 
 from the labors of others the benefits which their 
 OAvn toil should in part supply. 
 
 The great Chicago strike and the riots which 
 attended it are still fresh in memory. More 
 damaging and destructive than many of the so- 
 
26 ORATION. 
 
 called battles of oiir Civil War, it well illustrates 
 the effect of our democratic life and institutions 
 upon minds of a certain type. It is the reign 
 and regard for law which distinguishes civiliza- 
 tion from savagery. Whenever, therefore, there is 
 a resort to destruction as argument, it is to that 
 extent a lapse into the barbarism from which we 
 are supposed, in part at least, to have emerged. 
 In this difficulty we beheld the power of a single 
 individual as truly declaring war against the 
 federal government as was the firing on Sumter. 
 We saw the mails of the United States blockaded 
 with an abandon which showed as little concep- 
 tion of the relation of the citizen to the fun- 
 - damental law of the land as it is well possible 
 to imagine. And not only so, but we saw the 
 chief executive of the State in which this riot 
 occurred, which had for its manifest and declared 
 object the literal overturning of the conditions of 
 civilized life in the country, until certain demands 
 should be met, openly denouncing the comman- 
 der-in-chief of the armies of the United States 
 for the exercise of his duty in sending troops to 
 the spot to quell as real a rebellion as ever took 
 place on American soil. 
 
 The seceding States at least contended that 
 they had a constitutional right to withdraw from 
 
JULY4,1895. 27 
 
 the Umon. These rebels took no cognizance of 
 the Constitution at all. The ordinaiy rights of 
 citizens, the privilege of pursuing one's lawful 
 vocation unmolested, the natural and necessary in- 
 tercourse between the people of the land by the 
 only means of intercommunication at hand, were 
 forcibly and with a positively sul)lime defiance of 
 simple hmnanity trampled upon by a leader of a 
 mob who, strangely enough, was also able to 
 muster thousands of citizens of the country to 
 cooperate with him in his rebellious and lawless 
 enterprise. The ordinary guarantees of the Con- 
 stitution were here simply dropped out of sight. 
 The demands of the strikers were, with them, the 
 first and the only consideration. 
 
 We may well question Avithin ourselves what the 
 tendency of democracy is if this is to be one of 
 its characteristic products. JN^or does this example 
 stand alone. In the East, as well as in the West, 
 we have seen the military arm of the country re- 
 storing order. What do these things mean ? They 
 indicate simply that we have been declaring rights 
 so long that we have forgotten that rights also 
 suggest duties, and that he who would enjoy the 
 blessings of hberty and the institutions of demo- 
 cratic life must be willing, nay, must resolve as 
 his solemn purpose, to help, aid, and assist in the 
 
28 ORATION. 
 
 maintenance of that freedom by fidelity to every 
 public obligation which the State shall mipose upon 
 him. Unrighteous though they be, statutes are 
 still laws, and as such they must be obeyed. 
 Political wrongs have pohtical remedies, and for 
 wrongs of equity we may still confidently rely that 
 the incorrupt courts of om- land will supply ample 
 and speedy justice. Thus the person as well as 
 the thought of the citizen is his country's, and 
 when the call of duty comes he must be ready to 
 spring to her rescue from destructive influences, 
 whether these originate from one cause or 
 another. 
 
 The reign of lawlessness in America within the 
 past year has probably furnished to the world 
 better evidence of the weakness of republicanism 
 than the most deep-rooted prejudices of the Old 
 World monarchies could possibly have invented, 
 and it is a perfectly fair inference that the con- 
 flicts at Chicago and Brookljai, the revealed cor- 
 ruptness of the 'New York police force, and similar 
 disclosures, have not only damaged om^ own land 
 in reputation, but have stayed for years the prog- 
 ress of other nations toward a larger personal 
 hberty. If the foremost republic of the world, 
 with all the manhood and power and resources 
 which are hers, shall, after a hundred years of 
 
JULY4,1895. 29 
 
 experience, show forth these as the results of a free 
 civihzation which rests upon the personal loyalty 
 and individual fidelity of the citizen to the supreme 
 law of the country, then it may well be questioned 
 whether the time for the extension of democracy 
 has come. Side by side with our splendid Exposi- 
 tion, wherein we demonstrated how quickly our 
 young nation could rival the older nations in com- 
 merce, industry, and the arts, we have also shown 
 that we have as an integral part of our national 
 thought a lack of national unity and loyalty, and 
 an absence of interest in and respect for authority, 
 which is at best discouraging. 
 
 But there is an encouraging feature, and it 
 may well be claimed to be the most imjiortant 
 achievement of our century of national existence; 
 namely, that we have now so thoroughly inte- 
 grated the Constitution of the United States into 
 the law of the various States, that more and 
 more the tendency of our people will be to 
 look at all questions involving careful political 
 judgment and a high seuse of political loyalty 
 from the truly national standpoint. The supremacy 
 of the Constitution then will appear more and 
 more, not in that it stands as a final test, but 
 in that it will be becoming more and more the 
 integral law of the States as well. Such in fact 
 
30 ORATION. 
 
 it already is, only that the increasing sense of 
 public duty among citizens will fix the fact 
 deeper in the consciousness of the people at 
 large. In addition hereto the vice of our present 
 mode of legislation, which makes our Congress- 
 men not legislators for the nation, but private 
 agents for their constituencies, will be overcome, 
 and the sectional prejudices and interests, whether 
 of silver or industrial tariffs, will give way to a 
 healthy and patriotic consideration of the welfare 
 of the nation as a whole. 
 
 Another and important effect which the recogni- 
 tion of personal obligation to sustain the national 
 law and character in the exercise of the suffrage 
 of citizenship will secure, will be the elevation 
 of the public service both at home and abroad. 
 The appointment of the nation will be honorable 
 enough to attract to the public offices those who 
 are able to give to their administration a dignity 
 and character which will adequately sustain and 
 enhance the national ideals. Our ministers at 
 home and our ambassadors abroad will not be 
 men merely who have exhibited strength in 
 political campaigns, but scholars and gentlemen 
 who have earned laurels in the circles and in the 
 occupations which require high culture, liberal 
 education, and sterling character. Our consular 
 
JULY4,1895. 31 
 
 service will feel the impulse and take on more of 
 character and capacity. The civil service through- 
 out the land will be elevated both in personal 
 quality and fitness for its duties, and we shall 
 achieve something like business du*ectness in 
 government. 
 
 Only a day or two ago we saw a marvellous 
 pageant of the warships of nations assembling to 
 celebrate the opening of the new Ivaiser Wilhelm 
 canal at Kiel. When we remember that but a 
 single appropriation was made for that great feat 
 of engineering skill, and that the work was com- 
 pleted with a balance of the appropriation still 
 in hand, and the canal opened upon the day 
 appointed when the work was begun, and then 
 reflect upon the contrast furnished by our land 
 in the similar undertakings, the State House at 
 Albany being a conspicuous example, we cannot 
 but feel that we have much to learn in the science 
 of good government. But good government can- 
 not be secured without the cooperation of every 
 citizen, and the most earnest activity of the indi- 
 vidual conscience in the conduct of public afi:airs. 
 It is the citizen, with his brain and heart ahve to 
 the duties by which he must uphold his country's 
 honor and reputation, upon whom this burden 
 rests. He mnst give his government his own 
 personality, his conscience crowning all. 
 
32 ORATION. 
 
 We see, then, how intimate under our system 
 of government is the relation of each individual 
 to the welfare of the whole as represented in 
 the maintenance of the law of the land, and the 
 just and conscientious discharge of public duty. 
 "We have not been following will-o'-the wisps of 
 abstract theory or seeking unpractical ideals, but 
 have been enforcing this relationship from concrete 
 facts drawn from our current life as a people. 
 Many and grave are the moral considerations 
 which should deeply impress upon us all the 
 necessity for a prompt and generous response 
 to the new civic movement which is everywhere 
 springing into existence. At best our eiforts 
 must be within a contracted sphere, and the issue 
 after all is not ours, but humanity's and God's. 
 " Man," says Yictor Hugo, " is neither master of 
 his life nor of his fate. He can but offer to 
 his fellow-men his eiforts to diminish human suffer- 
 ing:; he can but offer to God his indomitable faith 
 in the growth of Liberty." These, in the large 
 generous sense in which we are accustomed to 
 think out our American life and purpose, consti- 
 tute the aim of American citizenship, — to diminish 
 suffering and to promote liberty through faith. 
 On the one hand there must be a growing sense 
 of the inter-dependence of all, and on the other 
 
JULY4,1895. 33 
 
 a fixed belief that we shall ultimately triumph in 
 the midst of all our perplexities, and come off 
 conquerors in the battle for human rights and 
 freedom under law. We shall not in the ordi- 
 nary course of affairs be exempt from the mis- 
 takes which come to all positive strivers for the 
 truth, we shall not forego the hardships attendant 
 upon all pioneering in the fields of hmnan prog- 
 ress and helpfulness, but we shall be linked 
 through it all, suffering and delight, victory and 
 defeat, to the idea of a lofty attempt toward a 
 perfected humanity which shall endure as long 
 as the race remains upon the earth. We have 
 made a determined stand for liberty, and have 
 secured it. Let us make an equally brave stand 
 for unity, and secure that also. Through indi\id- 
 ual peculiarities of race, lineage, character, and 
 attainments, let us see the grand composite of 
 the American ideal working out in a sublime 
 devotion to the common good. 
 
A LIST 
 
 BOSTON MUNICIPAL ORATORS. 
 
 By C. W. ERNST. 
 
BOSTON ORATORS. 
 
 Appointed by the Municipal Authorities. 
 
 For the Anniversary of the Boston Massacre^ March 5, 1770. 
 
 Note. — The Fifth-of -March orations were published in handsome quarto editions, now 
 very scarce; also, collected in book form, in 1785, and again in 1807. The oration of 1776 
 was delivered in Watertown. 
 
 1771. — Lovell, James. 
 
 1772. — Warren, Joseph. 
 
 1773. — Church, Benjamin. 
 
 1774. — Hancock, John.^ 
 
 1775. — Warren, Joseph. 
 
 1776. — Thacher, Peter. 
 
 1777. — Highborn, Benjamin. 
 
 1778. — Austin, Jonathan Williams. 
 
 1779. — Tudor, William. 
 
 1780. — Mason, Jonathan, Jun. 
 
 1781. — Dawes, Thomas, Jun. 
 
 1782. — MiNOT, George Richards. 
 1783. — Welsh, Thomas. 
 
 For the Anniversary of National Independence, July 4, 1776. 
 
 Note. — A collected edition, or a full collection, of these orations has not been made. 
 For the names of the orators, as officially printed on the title pages of the orations, see 
 the Municipal Register of 1890. 
 
 1783. — Warren, John.^ 
 
 1784. — Highborn, Benjamin. 
 
 » Reprinted in Newport, R.I., 1774, 8vo, 19 pp. 
 
 1 Reprinted in Warren's Life. The orations of 1783 to 1786 were published in large 
 quarto; the oration of 1787 appeared in octavo; the oration of 178S was printed in small 
 quarto; all succeeding orations appeared in octavo, with the exceptions stated under 1863 
 and 1876. 
 
38 APPENDIX. 
 
 1785. — Gardiner, John. 
 
 1786. — Austin, Jonathan Loring. 
 
 1787. — Dawes, Thomas, Jun. 
 
 1788. — Otis, Harrison Gray. 
 
 1789. — Stillman, Samuel. 
 
 1790. — Gray, Edward. 
 
 1791. — Crafts, Thomas, Jun. 
 
 1792. — Blake, Joseph, Jun.'* 
 
 1793. — Adams, John Quincy.* 
 
 1794. — Phillips, John. 
 
 1795. — Blake, George. 
 
 1796. — Lathrop, John, Jun. 
 
 1797. — Callender, John. 
 
 1798. — quincy, josiah.^' ^ 
 
 1799. — Lowell, John, Jun.^ 
 
 1800. — Hall, Joseph. 
 
 1801. — Paine, Charles. 
 
 1802. — Emerson, William. 
 
 1803. — Sullivan, William. 
 
 1804. — Danforth, Thomas.^ 
 
 1805. — Button, Warren. 
 
 1806. — Channing, Francis Dana. 
 
 1807. — Thacher, Peter.'- ' 
 
 1808. — Ritchie, Andrew, Jun.' 
 
 1809. — Tudor, William, Jun.' 
 
 1810. — Townsend, Alexander. 
 
 1811. — Savage, James.' 
 
 2 Passed to a second edition. * 
 
 * Delivered another oration in 1826. Quincy's oration of 1798 was reprinted, also, in 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 ^ Not printed. 
 
 '' On February 26, 1811, Peter Thacher's name was changed to Peter Oxenbridge 
 Thacher. (List of Persons whose Names have been Changed in Massachusetts, 1780-1892, 
 p. 21.) 
 
APPENDIX. 39 
 
 1812. — Pollard, Benjamin." 
 
 1813. — LivERMORE, Edward St. Loe. 
 
 1814. — Whitwell, Benjamin. 
 
 1815. — Shaw, Lemuel. 
 
 1816. — Sullivan, George.* 
 
 1817. — Channing, Edward Ttrrel. 
 
 1818. — Gray, Francis Galley. 
 1819. — Dexter, Franklin. 
 
 1820. — Lyman, Theodore, Jun, 
 
 1821. — LoRiNG, Charles Greely.'' 
 
 1822. — Gray, John Chipman. 
 
 1823. — Curtis, Charles Pelham.'^ 
 
 1824. — Bassett, Francis. 
 
 1825. — Sprague, Charles.* 
 
 1826. — QuiNCY, Josiah.' 
 
 1827. — Mason, William Powell. 
 
 1828. — Sumner, Bradford. 
 
 1829. — Austin, James Trecothick. 
 
 1830. — Everett, Alexander Hill. 
 1831. — Palfrey, John Gorham. 
 
 1832. — QuiNCY, JosiAH, Jun. 
 
 1833. — Prescott, Edward Goldsborough. 
 
 1834. — Fay, Richard Sullivan. 
 
 1835. — HiLLARD, George Stillman. 
 
 1836. — Kinsman, Henry Willis. 
 
 1837. — Chapman, Jonathan. 
 
 1838. — WiNSLOW, Hubbard. " The Means of the Per- 
 
 petuit}^ and Prosperity of our Republic." 
 
 1839. — Austin, Ivers James. 
 
 « Six editions up to 1S31. Reprinted also in his Life and Letters. 
 ' Reprinted in liis Municipal History of Boston. See 1798. 
 
40 APPENDIX. 
 
 1840. — Power, Thomas. 
 
 1841. — Curtis, George Ticknor. " The True Uses 
 
 of American Revolutionary History." ^ 
 
 1842. — Mann, Horace.' 
 
 1843. — Adams, Charles Francis. 
 
 1844. — Chandler, Peleg Whitman. " The Morals of 
 
 Freedom." 
 
 1845. — Sumner, Charles. '" " The True Grandeur of 
 
 Nations." 
 
 1846. — Webster, Fletcher. 
 
 1847. — Cary, Thomas Greaves. 
 
 1848. — Giles, Joel. "Practical Liberty." 
 
 1849. — Greenough, William Whitwell. " The Con- 
 
 quering Republic." 
 
 1850. — Whipple, Edwin Percy.'' " Washington and 
 
 the Principles of the Revolution." 
 
 1851. — Russell, Charles Theodore. 
 
 1852. — King, Thomas Starr. " The Organization of 
 
 Liberty on the Western Continent." '* 
 
 1853. — BiGELOw, Timothy.'* 
 
 1854. — Stone, Andrew Leete.* 
 
 1855. — Miner, Alonzo Ames. 
 
 1856. — Parker, Edward Griffin. " The Lesson of 
 
 '76 to the Men of '56." 
 
 8 Delivered another oration in 1862. 
 
 9 There are live editions ; only one by the City. 
 
 10 Passed through three editions in Boston and one in London, and was answered in 
 a pamphlet, Remarks upon an Oration delivered by Charles Sumner . . . , July 4th, 
 1845. By a Citizen of Boston. See Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, by Edward 
 L. Pierce, vol. ii. 337-384. 
 
 " There is a second edition. (Boston : Ticknor, Reed, and Fields. 1850. 49 pp. 12".) 
 
 12 First published by the City in 1892. 
 
 13 This and a number of the succeeding orations, up to 1861, contain the speeches, 
 toasts, etc., of the City dinner usually given in Faneuil Hall on the Fourth of July. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 41 
 
 1857. — Alger, William Rounseville.'^ " The Genius 
 
 and Posture of America." 
 
 1858. — Holmes, John Somers.* 
 
 1859. — Sumner, George.'* 
 
 1860. — Everett, Edward. 
 
 1861. — Parsons, Theophilus. 
 
 1862. — Curtis, George Ticknor.* 
 
 1863. — Holmes, Oliver Wendell.'* 
 
 1864. — Russell, Thomas. 
 
 1865. — Manning, Jacob Merrill. "Peace under Lib- 
 erty." 
 
 1866. — LoTHROP, Samuel Kjrkland. 
 
 1867. — Hepworth, George Hughes. 
 
 1868. —Eliot, Samuel. " The Functions of a City." 
 
 1869. — Morton, Ellis Wesley. 
 
 1870. — Everett, William. 
 
 1871. — Sargent, Horace Binney. 
 
 1872. — Adams, Charles Francis, Jun. 
 
 1873. — Ware, John Fothergill Waterhouse. 
 
 1874. — Frothingham, Richard. 
 
 1875. — Clarke, James Freeman. 
 
 " Probably four editions were printed in 1857. (Boston : Office Boston Daily Bee. 
 60 pp.) Not until November 22, 1864, was Mr. Alger asked by the City to furnish a 
 copy for publication. He granted the request, and the first otficial edition (J. E. Farwell 
 & Co., 1864. 53 pp.) was then issued. It lacks the interesting preface and appendix of 
 the early editions. 
 
 15 There is another edition. (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1859. 69 pp.) A third 
 (Boston : Rockwell & Churchill, 1882. 46 pp.) omits the dinner at Faneuil Hall, the 
 correspondence and events of the celebration. 
 
 i« There is apreliminary editionof twelvecopies. (J. E. Farwell & Co., 1863. (7), 71 pp.) 
 It is " the first draft of the author's address, turned into larger, legible type, for the sole 
 purpose of rendering easier its public delivery." It was done by " the liberality of the 
 City Authorities," and is, typographically, the handsomest of these orations. This re- 
 sulted in the large-paper 75-page edition, printed from the same type as the 71 -page 
 edition, but modified by the author. It is printed " by order of the Common Council." 
 The regular edition is in 60 pp., octavo size. 
 
42 APPENDIX. 
 
 1876. — "WiNTHBOP, Robert Charles." 
 
 1877. — Warren, William Wirt. 
 
 1878. — Healy, Joseph. 
 
 1879. — Lodge, Henry Cabot. 
 
 1880. — Smith, Robert Dickson.'® 
 
 1881. — Warren, George Washington. "Our Repub- 
 lic — Liberty and Equality Founded on Law." 
 
 1882. — Long, John Davis. 
 
 1883. — Carpenter, Henry Bernard. "American Char- 
 
 acter and Influence." 
 
 1884. — Shepard, Harvey Newton. 
 
 1885. GrARGAN, ThOMAS JoHN. 
 
 1886. — Williams, George Frederick. 
 
 1887. — Fitzgerald, John Edward. 
 
 1888. — DiLLAWAY, William Edward Lovell. 
 
 1889. — Swift, John Lindsay.'® " The American Cit- 
 
 izen." 
 
 1890. — PiLLSBURY, Albert Enoch. " Public Spirit." 
 
 1891. — QuiNCY, JosiAH.'" " The Coming Peace." 
 
 1892. — Murphy, John Robert. 
 
 1893. — Putnam, Henry Ware. "The Mission of our 
 
 People." 
 1894. — O'Neil, Joseph Henry. 
 1895. — Berle, Adolph Augustus. "The Constitution 
 
 and the Citizen." 
 
 1' There is a large-paper edition of fifty copies printed from this type, and also an 
 edition from the press of John Wilson & Son, 1876. 55 pp. 8". 
 
 1* On Samuel Adams, a statue of whom, by Miss Anne Whitney, had just been com- 
 pleted for the City. A photograph of the statue is added. 
 
 1" Contains a bibliography of Boston Fourth of July orations, from 1783 to 1889, 
 inclusive, compiled by Lindsay Swift, of the Boston Public Library. 
 
 *" Reprinted by the American Peace Society. 
 
Jj)<^