"The Spirit of 76" 
 
 ,IA \;! -I! I A 
 
 "La Fayette" 
 
 Adii I '.".SI':, lie! 1 \ (.' i I li i M i I M (• !. Ik- 
 
 Ouill Clnl> of \U'w York at its 
 inectiip.' oi !--.l,,ii.n« 19th. 1907 
 
WASHINGTON AND LA FAYETTE. 
 
"The Spirit of 76" 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES H. CANFIELD 
 
 La Fayette" 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY D. ESTABROOK 
 
 Addresses delivered before the 
 Quill Club of New York at its 
 meeting of February 19tli, 1907 
 
 Printed by order of the Club 
 

 In escliaage 
 MAR 2 1916 
 
j THE SPIRIT OF 76. 
 
 b 
 
 5" It is a very pleasant task which has been assigned to 
 
 - me this evening, that of preparing the way for my elo- 
 Ql quent friend who is to delight you with what I am sure 
 will be a brilliant portrayal of one of the most distin- 
 guished founders of our Republic. During four years 
 of educational administration in Nebraska, Mr. Esta- 
 brook was one of our Regents, or trustees, and I learned 
 to lean heavily upon him as a support which never failed. 
 I am glad of this opportunity to testify to his unusual 
 intelligence, faithfulness and loyalty in all University 
 affairs. The people of that western commonwealth still 
 owe him a very distinct debt of gratitude for the large 
 and generous service which he then rendered, and my 
 personal and official obligation to him was as great as it 
 was manifest. I beg leave to welcome him to this as- 
 sembly, as I have already welcomed him to the city, as 
 an American of a type and character all too sadly needed 
 and all too rarely met. 
 
 There is a certain phase of our history most surely 
 worthy of profound study, without some knowledge of 
 which we may search in vain for a thread to lead us 
 through the labyrinth of later days. Every moment de- 
 voted to its consideration throws new light upon all our 
 later struggles. The results of this study are such as 
 to give us, at the same time, hope and courage and fear, 
 'it is full of glory, it is full of shame, it is full of re- 
 proach, it is full of encouragement, it is full of warning. 
 It is something in our past which is more commanding 
 than the details of our strife with savage nature or with 
 either savage or civilized man. It is that which gives 
 vital force to the life of our people. It is what perhaps 
 we may vaguely call the genius of American institu- 
 
tions. Popularly it is known as "The Spirit of 'jd!' 
 
 Take for illustration such a movement as the Revolu- 
 tionary movement, which though sudden and even some- 
 what unexpected in its actual manifestation, was not 
 the offspring of a mere passing impulse. Nor are you 
 for a moment to imagine that it was founded upon a tup- 
 penny tea tax — a most inadequate explanation. Much 
 more than that was needed to carry our ancestors 
 through the long and dreary days of that painful conflict. 
 There are material facts enough in those years of al- 
 most hopeless struggle — events which quicken the pulse 
 and thrill the nerves and even dim the eyes in the mere 
 recital. The smoke of burning Charlestown, the dark- 
 ness of the night of the Delaware crossing, the winter 
 of frightful suffering at Valley Forge,, the marches and 
 countermarches in Virginia and in the Carolinas, the 
 utterly worthless paper money, the shameless veniality 
 and profligacy and misrule of men in high places, the 
 scant military stores — in which barrels of sand were 
 more than once marked "gunpowder" to encourage the 
 troops, the final surrender at Yorktown — and the mud- 
 spattered, foam-flecked couriers who bore the glad tid- 
 ings through village and town ; all these we know and 
 have known for many a year. But there is still a ques- 
 tion as to whether we understand, and rightly and fully 
 understand, the spirit which lay back of all this, which 
 maintained the struggle in the face of such tremendous 
 odds, which filled the shattered ranks of the army, which 
 gave the conflict its true meaning, and which pushed 
 bravely and insistently onward until a goal was reached 
 which the most prophetic had not seen in their brightest 
 visions and which caused a republic to spring out of a 
 movement which we must admit at the outset simply 
 sought relief from unjust legislation. And yet it was 
 
this spirit which shaped the entire conflict and which di- 
 rected all the material forces. That it was greater and 
 more powerful than the material forces may be seen at 
 a single glance. When compared with the importance of 
 the questions decided, which were the real victories won 
 in that Valley of Decision, which were the actual ad- 
 vances made, which involved principles then perhaps for 
 the first time in the history of the world clearly expressed, 
 and which we have never ceased to maintain and defend 
 — when compared with all this, the instrumentalities seem 
 even pitiful. There were but 2,400 Americans at Tren- 
 ton, less than 6,000 English surrendered at Saratoga, 
 Lincoln had less than 2,000 men at the siege of Charles- 
 town, Cornwallis fought the battle of Camden with but 
 2,000 and the entire force which surrendered at York- 
 town was only 7,000. Such battles are not more than 
 skirmishes when compared with the work on the French 
 frontier during the French Revolution, or with the cam- 
 paigns of the first Napoleon, or with the forces engaged 
 in the Franco-Prussian War, or with those engaged in 
 the Civil War in this country. It seems clear then, that 
 there must have been some great and overmastering im- 
 pulse, some all-inspiring motive, some deep-seated pur- 
 pose, some dominant principle; or neither from the co- 
 lonial life in which men were trained and developed for 
 such a time and for such trials, nor from the white heat 
 of the conflict itself, could have been shaped results so 
 grand and so enduring. 
 
 You will find this all the more surprising, though not 
 inexplicable, when you remember what a simple-minded 
 and simple-mannered folk our ancestors were. There 
 was sufficient of the heroic and philosophic in them all, 
 but as a race they were neither heroes nor philosophers. 
 No matter from what stock they sprang, they were 
 
largely of the middle class ; living in a quiet way, in what 
 we, their somewhat faster and less reverent descendants, 
 might call a rather humdrum way, supported largely by 
 the labor of their own hands, with class distinctions great- 
 ly modified although they had not yet disappeared, obso- 
 lescent though not yet obsolete ; for the great part hav- 
 ing no more apparent ambition than to secure for them- 
 selves the immediate advantages of life in the New 
 World, and for their children the possibility of expansion 
 without deprivation and without the necessity of swarm- 
 ing again from the hive. I am not sure that we over- 
 rate the devotion to specific principles of that earlier day, 
 certainly I have no desire to abate in the slightest the 
 well-deserved praise of our fathers in the flesh. They 
 had a strength of purpose and a purity of character and 
 grip and grit which sometimes put us to the shame in 
 the comparison and make us feel as though our own 
 moral sinews were rather flabby. But after all they were 
 no mere theorists, they were no knights-errant with a 
 lofty mission constantly heralded to the world, they were 
 no hobby-riders. They attacked original sin with hard 
 blows, but they were just as sturdy in their dealings with 
 the primaeval forest or with the original savage. They 
 drove out Roger Williams, but this was quite as much 
 because he questioned their title to their land as because 
 he differed with them in religion, or they thought had 
 little or none of his own. They punished the Quakers, 
 but this was really because disorder in the colony was 
 opposed to thrift and they felt that the situation demand- 
 ed that men should work as well as pray — and just then 
 the Quakers seemed only inclined toward the latter. They 
 themselves admitted^ very frankly that they came to this 
 country not only to cultivate religion but to cultivate the 
 soil as well, not only to worship God but to trade and to 
 
catch fish. I am one of those who beheve that the rigid- 
 ity of Puritan faith and the simpHcity of Puritan life and 
 the austerity of Puritan manners and the intensity of 
 Puritan character furnished this nation with about all the 
 moral backbone it ever possessed; but I am also one of 
 those who feel obliged to admit that the Puritans made 
 sharp bargains with the simple Hollanders, and swapped 
 the Indians out of their entire inheritance. The fact is 
 that our Puritan progenitors were peculiar pocket-book 
 people, they were eminently practical, they had all the 
 staying and abiding and conservative traits of the Eng- 
 lish from which thev sprang ; but when the full time came 
 they pledged their lives and their fortunes and their 
 sacred honor to the maintenance of an idea, and they 
 grandly redeemed the pledge. 
 
 It is only proper to remind you right here that the 
 Puritans were not the only people in the country at the 
 outbreak of the Revolution, nor were the Puritans the 
 only people who possessed the genius which was to 
 warm a slumbering continent into new life, nor was 
 this genius restricted to the English-speaking race. 
 When the mad tempest of war finally broke on our east- 
 ern coast, none were more loyal, none were more hope- 
 ful, none were more patient, none were more unselfish, 
 none were more patriotic than our kinsmen from Hol- 
 land and Germany and our neighbors from France. 
 Whatever the impulse was, it seemed to belong to all. 
 The spirit which brooded so mightily over the chaotic 
 elements and which was destined to bring light out of 
 darkness and order out of confusion and strength out of 
 weakness, was common to all. A most interesting ques- 
 tion is whence had this spirit come, what had given It 
 birth, under what conditions had it been implanted in the 
 hearts of these largely unconscious pioneers of freedom. 
 
The answer to this will only be found when we recall 
 again the entire dependence of the present upon the past, 
 will only be found when we make a careful study of 
 that past, may be found within the circle of the century 
 one of whose most striking movements was emigration 
 to this almost unknown land. 
 
 The pace of the world has always been so swift, so 
 much has always been compressed into a hundred years, 
 that at times it seems difficult to differentiate one century 
 from another in the richness and fullness of its experi- 
 ence. Yet it is hard to name a century more prolific 
 in great events than the one just named, more full of 
 prophecy, more fruitful in magnificent scheming, more 
 crowned with enthusiasm. The art of printing had just 
 been discovered and was beginning to manifest its mar- 
 velous power. Great libraries were being brought to- 
 gether and for the first time were ministering somewhat 
 adequately to scholastic needs, the revival of learning was 
 quickening and uplifting all intellectual life. As Taine, 
 ever brilliant, puts it, "For the first time men opened their 
 eyes and saw," The discovery of this continent fired 
 popular imagination as it had never been fired before. 
 Men thronged the seas under every conceivable banner, 
 seeking the New World. And while all was thus fervid 
 and thus tenselv strained, the Reformation, which you 
 will recall as simply a grand struggle of the human 
 mind for its own freedom — the Reformation started 
 suddenly into life in Germany, and spreading swiftly 
 through the north and west, stirred with tumultuous 
 force the mind of all Christendom. That was the 
 flash which touched with its white light not only kings 
 and courtiers, bishops and scholars, but that which was 
 far better — the vast common life of nations. This it was 
 which made an age until now munificent, instantly heroic. 
 
 8 
 
Following this or concurrent with it, and largely because 
 of this, came a swift advance of the power of the people, 
 a decadence of all past authority, a weakening of the rule 
 of mere force, a constant and intelligent seeking after 
 that legitimate sovereignty which represents the best 
 there is of national existence, the will of the people. All 
 this new life was full of warmth and emotion and ideal- 
 ism, yet it was vigorous and energetic and practical and 
 constructive. It really seemed inspired, and before its 
 impetuous onset all that was old and weak and obstruc- 
 tive gave way. The century was full to overflowing 
 with philosophy and learning and genius and statesman- 
 ship — but it was also full of industry ; and all these other 
 qualities were constantly active, constantly at work, mag- 
 nificently at work — all inspiring to great enterprises, all 
 animated by vast hopes, all willing and anxious to under- 
 take imperial plans. 
 
 You know there are times when there seems to be a 
 general movement of the popular mind, possibly even of 
 the world-mind, in a given direction. We speak of cer- 
 tain tendencies as "in the air" — we move on certain lines 
 by a common impulse. I wish I could give you a clear 
 impression of all that was "in the air" during this won- 
 derful period. Think of the familiar names of men and 
 of the familiar incidents which crowd the pages of that 
 period of history, of what all these suggest, of the possi- 
 ble connection of all these with the New World, of the 
 possible influence of all these upon the life in the New 
 World. Michael Angelo died in the same year in which 
 Laudonnierre made his fatal settlement in the south, 
 and less than a year before the settlement at St. Aug- 
 ustine. Titian lived until 1576. Galileo was condemned 
 only five years before Harvard College was founded. 
 The great Gun Powder Plot was concocted and thwarted 
 
only two years before the settlement of Jamestown. 
 Cervantes published Don Quixote, a book which was 
 destined to laugh the last traces of feudalism and chiv- 
 alry out of existence, just before John Smith reached 
 Virginia. Both Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the 
 samiC day, less than four years before the landing on the 
 Massachusetts coast ; and the first edition of the works 
 of the great dramatist appeared in the year of the settle- 
 ment at Plymouth. It was the very next autumn that 
 Wentworth rose in Parliament and declared that the only 
 issue before the English people was that the liberties, 
 franchises, privileges and jurisdictions of Parliament are 
 the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of 
 all subjects of England — and what rebel colonist would 
 ever want a better text or better authority than that ! 
 Four years later began the administration of that grand- 
 est of Cardinals and greatest of statesmen, Richelieu. 
 Kepler — ardent, restless, burning to distinguish himself — 
 finished his great work and laid down in death when 
 Winthrop was governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
 Roger Williams went down to Rhode Island not quite 
 two years before the Scotch in their solemn league and 
 covenant consecrated all they had and were to the cause 
 of religious freedom — and only two years later the Long 
 Parliament began its fateful session. Moliere was never 
 more brilliant than in the year in which honest and testy 
 one-legged Peter Stuyvesant was compelled by his weak 
 fortifications and his weaker Council to surrender New 
 Amsterdam to the English. Racine lived long enough to 
 make a study of witchcraft in Massachusetts. Rubens, 
 Rembrandt, Vandyke and Claude Lorrane were winning 
 imperishable renown when Rhode Island and Connecticut 
 and the Carolinas were struggling for charter rights and 
 even for continued existence. Newton made his great 
 
 10 
 
discovery and his equally great system known to the 
 world in the year of the hiding of the Connecticut char- 
 ter. Leibnitz discovered the differential calculus just as 
 Phillip of Narragansett gave up the unequal struggle 
 with the white man. Milton, who had written most stir- 
 ring words in behalf of English freedom, died just as 
 Edmund Andrus was made a royal governor and insti- 
 tuted a short-lived English tyranny in New England. 
 Descartes, whose philosophy forms one of the great land- 
 marks in the history of free thought, was at the very 
 height of his power and reputation when the Catholics 
 settled in Maryland. Grotius, the philosopher, jurist and 
 statesman, was leader of the diplomatic service of Sweden 
 when the first printing press was set up at Cambridge. 
 Spinoza, who was long proscribed because of his bold 
 and unconquerable love of truth, died just at the close of 
 Bacon's rebellion. Now I do not wish you to look for 
 any close connection between these ; they are not like 
 links in a chain, they are not related as cause and effect, 
 there is no logical sequence. But they will serve to show 
 you the stir and stress and strife of that period, a period 
 of struggle with powers invisible, with the material 
 world, and with man's very self. 
 
 But there were closer relations than these. Suppose 
 we take the century nearest the more active colonial life 
 of this country, that which closed with the subjection of 
 New Netherlands, the year when the eastern and north- 
 ern portion of our present national domain passed under 
 the control of the English, the year 1664: and let us set 
 as the initial date, the accession of Elizabeth in 1558. 
 What mighty events are compressed between these two ! 
 There is the marvelous reign of the great Queen — great 
 in spite of shameless mendacity, ungovernable passion, 
 and base ingratitude : the coming in of the Stuarts, 
 
 11 
 
headed by one who was shrewdly called the wisest fool 
 in all Christendom ; the revolt of Hampden and the ride 
 of King Pym and the rise of the Commons ; the downfall 
 of Charles the First, most exemplary and most stupidly 
 obstinate of monarchs ; Cromwell and the Protectorate ; 
 and the final triumph of parliamentary and constitu- 
 tional government. Side by side with this you must 
 place the great Protestant struggle in France, the massa- 
 cre of St. Bartholomew, the rise and reign of Henry of 
 Navarre, pitiful Louis XHI., a king in name only with 
 Richelieu as real master of the destinies of France, 
 Mazarin, the philosophic statesman and the instructor of 
 the great Louis, and some of the promise of his pupil. 
 Southward rises the forty years' reign of Philip the Sec- 
 ond, who with all his power lost on both sea and land, 
 and with whose death Spain began a swift decline. The 
 Netherlands revolted. Sweden awoke from its lethargy 
 and was regenerated and redeemed. Within the limits 
 of the century thus defined came the entire Thirty Years' 
 War, full of sorrow and sacrifice and heroism, closing in 
 the welcome Treaty of Westphalia. The rude Holland- 
 ers rescued their land from the ocean, wrought within 
 that scanty basin a most majestic history, and made their 
 country the center of a commerce whose sails whitened 
 every known sea and whose merchants circled the globe. 
 Now remember that right out of the midst of that 
 century, rent with war and red with strife, came the early 
 settlers of America. Fresh from this constant strife, 
 tempered by conflict, toughened in every sinew and fiber, 
 with all the hope and zeal and splendid energy of that 
 age coursing hot and almost riotous in veins and arteries, 
 they sought the New World. Think of the English. 
 There were men in these colonies who had sailed with 
 Frobisher and Drake; who had filled the camps along 
 
 12 
 
the coast and kindled the watchfires at the approach of 
 the great Armada; who remembered how the Queen in 
 her golden speech to her last Parliament had won her 
 way back to the hearts of her people. There were men 
 in these colonies who had served under Cromwell, who 
 had seen the royal line broken and the royal banner 
 trailed in the dust at Nasby and Marsten Moor, who had 
 witnessed the faithful execution of the fundamental pro- 
 vision of that greater charter — the right to behead a 
 king. Doubtless you all remember how Endicott at 
 Salem cut the red cross out of the old banner of Eng- 
 land, but he was only delivering one last home thrust at 
 the hated religion of Spain. The Catholics of Maryland 
 in accepting religious freedom were simply exemplify- 
 ing the spirit of their fathers who fought for free Eng- 
 land against an Armada which a Catholic had armed and 
 a Pope had blessed. Wadsworth, in hiding the Con- 
 necticut charter, was only following the example and the 
 leadership of the men who had resisted the ship-money 
 and had refused benevolences. 
 
 Take the Huguenots. There was not a more generally 
 influential, cultivated, dependable class in all America. 
 The movement which they represented began in the cities, 
 in the capital of France, in the universities and schools 
 of learning. Nobles like Conde and CoHgni were its 
 leaders. M'arguerite of Navarre had been its charmed 
 and charming centre. In its ranks were nearly all the 
 skilled artisans of France. These had given their coun- 
 try the most extensive and the most renowned manufac- 
 tures which the world then knew. The commerce of the 
 kingdom was largely in their hands. They were graceful 
 and brave, pliant yet with a temper like steel, and they 
 brought out of their home-conflict a nerve and an impetu- 
 osity which played a magnificent part on this side of the 
 
 13 
 
Atlantic. Three presidents of the Continental Congress 
 were of this Hneage. Fanuel, whose hall was the "cradle 
 of liberty," was the son of a Huguenot. Marion, the 
 swamp fox, was the son of another. Huger and Jay and 
 Laurens and Bayard and Gallatin^all these and more 
 were given us by the blind zeal and bigoted partisanship 
 which revoked the Edict of Nantes and harried all 
 France until the most serviceable portion of its popula- 
 tion had become exiles and strangers, seeking a far 
 country. 
 
 Then there were the Hollanders, who came out from 
 under the moulding hand of William the Silent. First 
 of all sovereigns, first of all statesmen, had he sought to 
 build up a great middle class, a strong third party. 
 Patient, industrious, patriotic; trained in the common 
 schools in which they then led the world ; full of Protes- 
 tant fervor and inheriting the old Teutonic spirit of indi- 
 vidual freedom — these were the men who laid so well the 
 foundations of the great future metropolis. Think of 
 the whirlwind of strife which their ancestors had known. 
 The Atlantic for sixty years was almost hidden with the 
 smoke of their guns — now down under the shadow of 
 Gibraltar, and again in the very streets of Antwerp and 
 Leyden; fighting from every window, and when they 
 had given their land back to the sea, fighting from the 
 tree-tops. Think of their love of liberty and the sacri- 
 fices which they had made for it, through whole genera- 
 tions ; and then perhaps for the first time you will begin 
 to understand the spirit and the temper which they 
 brought to the little village and the pleasant boueries 
 along the banks of the majestic Hudson. 
 
 What came with the Swedes? Gustavus Adolphus, a 
 monarch almost worshiped by his people, had raised 
 Sweden to a signal, point of power in European affairs. 
 
 14 
 
With the first regular organized army known upon the 
 Continent — the first army not made up of mercenaries, 
 the first armv with a regular commissary — he swept into 
 the current of the Thirty Years' War most gallantly, 
 carrying all before him. His followers prayed where 
 others plundered and they sang where others swore. 
 They dwelt under the shadow of their own lances and 
 they cooked their food in the ashes of conquered towns. 
 They fought for liberty and for Protestantism, and they 
 won. Their king gathered in fortresses as a reaper 
 gathers sheaves. Blind Catholicism laughed when it 
 heard of his landing on the northern coast and sneered 
 that this snow-king- would soon melt before the rays of 
 the imperial sun. But blind Catholicism fled in wild dis- 
 may as he approached. Before he took up this, his last 
 work — and he said with prophetic utterance, "There is 
 now no rest for me save the eternal" — he had restored 
 order to his kingdom, he had given great encouragement 
 to education, he had advanced the general welfare of 
 his people, and he had sent out the colony which gave 
 to the west shore of the Delaware the name of their 
 beloved land. After his death in that fatal fog at Lutzen, 
 Oxensteirn, his favorite minister, gave to these pioneers 
 much encouragement and aid, and though they were soon 
 absorbed in New Netherlands you can easily see what 
 added impulse came in the lines of thoughtful endeavor, 
 independent action, and simple, manly life. 
 
 Out of this century of strife, this generation of blood- 
 shed, came also the Germans. It is stated as an historical 
 fact that during that war three-fourths of the people 
 perished and three-fourths of the dwellings were de- 
 stroyed. But the independent spirit which made these 
 people the great Protest-ants of the world was not 
 touched — much less was it disheartened or dismayed. 
 
 15 
 
The fire that ran along the ground, the iron hail that 
 broke the branches of every tree, had only burned and 
 beaten deeper and deeper into their minds and hearts 
 courage and purpose and hope. In the New World was 
 opportunity, in the New World were possibilities : and 
 they chose the wilderness of God across the seas rather 
 than the wilderness which man had made of the dear 
 Fatherland, the home of the Teuton race. 
 
 I am wondering whether, after all, you see what I 
 mean, what I am striving in a very inadequate way to 
 suggest. No matter whence they came, whether from 
 hot work at Edgehill or at Taunton, from facing 
 Claverhouse and his dragoons at Loudon Hill or Mon- 
 mouth at Bothwell Brig, from La Rochelle or the Ga- 
 ronne, from the marshes of Holland or from the snowy 
 fields of Sweden, from plains swept by the guns of 
 Tilly and Wallenstein or from the councils of Church 
 and State, these forefathers of ours came out of a cen- 
 tury of marvelous and widespread and intense activity of 
 both mind and body, a century rich in genius and cre- 
 ative power ; a century in which civil, mental and relig- 
 ious freedom advanced with strides never before known. 
 This was the birthplace and the birthright of the Ameri- 
 can spirit, which has become the spirit of western civili- 
 zation ; this was the seed-time of individual independence 
 and individual accountability and individual power. 
 Planted in the soil of the New World, it had been grow- 
 ing silently but luxuriously for a century and a half 
 before, at Concord, the embattled farmers fired the shot 
 which echoed 'round the world. Born of struggle, endur- 
 ance, aspiration, achievement ; on this continent God gave 
 it room, incentive, training. This, gentlemen, is our 
 inheritance and our inspiration — this is "The Spirit 
 of '76." 
 
 16 
 
LA FAYETTE 
 
 Of course, by this time his fellow-members of the 
 Quill Club know my friend Canfield well enough to take 
 what he says not simply with a grain of salt, but abso- 
 lutely in pickle. I know him of old. As he says, I was 
 once a regent of the Nebraska University, of which insti- 
 tution, during the time, he was the Chancellor. To pre- 
 pare myself for the duties of my office I looked up the 
 word "regent" in the dictionary. It means a governor 
 or ruler; but, like Mark Twain when he was suffering 
 with a carbuncle and found that the dictionary defined 
 "carbuncle" as a "precious jewel," I deprecate humor in 
 a dictionary. For I found that so far from being a gov- 
 ernor or ruler, my sole function as regent was to ascer- 
 tain exactly what Canfield wanted and vote for it accord- 
 ingly. He dominated everybody and rose superior to 
 everything, and to-night has risen superior to truth itself. 
 Was there ever a more perfidious betrayal of a friend 
 than his introduction of me to this distinguished audi- 
 ence? 
 
 In his letter inviting, or rather ordering, me to speak 
 here this evening, Mr. Canfield was frank enough to 
 insinuate that my only remuneration would be the un- 
 usual privilege of associating for a little while with some 
 people strictly respectable, but that it was useless for me 
 to aspire to membership in the Quill Club because — well, 
 because a line had to be drawn somewhere. He said 
 that the Club had been organized by the editors of relig- 
 ious weeklies in the city of New York, who possibly 
 knew that the individual quill of a religious editor was 
 not a formidable weapon against the world, the flesh and 
 the devil, but who thought maybe by combining their 
 quills they could present to the common enemy chevaux 
 
 17 
 
de frise that would make the fretful porcupine look like 
 a pen-rack. There is an inference that the religious 
 editors found themselves lonesome, for it was not long 
 before they took in some other editors not quite so relig- 
 ious, and then finally, in a moment of abandon, took in 
 the librarians. "And there they stopped," says Mr. Can- 
 field ; and it is high time they did, for unless Mr. Car- 
 negie is headed off by somebody this last move will cer- 
 tainly insure to the Quill Club a numerous membership ; 
 though judging the ilk by what I know of Canfield it 
 reconciles me somewhat to my exclusion. 
 
 But it is wonderful how the habit of domination still 
 clings to brother Canfield, for, as I say, he not only sum- 
 moned me to appear before you this evening, but directed 
 that my speech should be appropriate to the month of 
 February and Washington's Birthday — not about Wash- 
 ington, but apropos of Washington. He not only dic- 
 tated my subject, but I am persuaded would have dic- 
 tated my speech if I would have stood for it. I once told 
 the people of Nebraska that Chancellor Canfield had the 
 physique of a sawed-off Hercules and the static energy 
 of dynamite. For sheer strenuosity he out-teddies 
 Roosevelt, and / think is a pernicious example to the 
 youth of any institution with which he is connected. 
 This age is too strenuous. It needs tranquilizing and 
 Canfield is no man for such a job. 
 
 The mandatory but encouraging remark made to a 
 party of the name of Eli (whether to him of the Bible, 
 or to him with the patronymic of Perkins, I wot not), to 
 "get there, Eli!" has been hurled at every youth in this 
 country with the least symptom of ambition. It is a 
 o-enuine Americanism, in line with hustler and hummer 
 and other words signifying inordinate activity and un- 
 comfortable energy. Whether a man is running for a 
 
 18 
 
street car or only for an office, he is admonished to get 
 there. It is desirable, of course, that he get there with 
 both feet; otherwise his foothold is uncertain, and his 
 tenure as precarious as that of the old fellow Myron 
 Reed tells about — one foot in the grave and the other on 
 a banana peel. The word "there" doubtless represents 
 a goal of attainment; but it is a vague word, and won- 
 derfully illusive. Whereabouts is "there"? What do 
 we know of the locus in quo, as the lawyers say? It may 
 be that, in the words of the gospel hymn, "there" is "a 
 land that is fairer than day" ; but we know nothing of its 
 metes or bounds, or latitude or longitude, or, indeed, if 
 it is on this planet or not. Like the fabled island, it 
 seems to recede precisely as it is approached. The poor 
 devil delving in a ditch hopes one day for a job that will 
 keep him from the poorhouse. If he hustles he may get 
 there, but he will not be satisfied. The business or pro- 
 fessional man, in no danger of the poorhouse, neverthe- 
 less longs for leisure to indulge some dormant fancy. 
 If he is a hummer he may get there, but he will not be 
 satisfied. The rich man, with both means and leisure, 
 yearns also for fame. If he "humps" himself he may get 
 there, but he will not be satisfied. The famous man 
 wishes for a title of nobiHty. In some countries he may 
 achieve it ; but he will not be satisfied. 
 
 Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter : Fame, 
 riches, title — every object of worldly ambition, is an 
 ignis fatuus. 
 
 And what is that ? An incandescent miasma. 
 
 Do I, therefore, exclaim with the preacher: "Vanity, 
 vanity, all is vanity"? There is not an ounce of pessi- 
 mism in my composition, I mention this fact, this scien- 
 tific and religious fact, not by way of exhortation or com- 
 plaint; but simply because it explains a fact, known of 
 
 19 
 
all men, and utilized by great men. For there is a moral 
 quality to greatness which distinguishes it from clev- 
 erness. 
 
 Yes, the Almighty hath implanted in the human breast 
 a divine unrest, which only finds its anodyne in minis- 
 tering to others. Vainly the tentacles of our being clasp 
 the favors of the world, dragging them into self; in the 
 very delirium of gratified vanity there comes an apoc- 
 alypse of self, and the naked soul shrivels in the glance 
 of God ! Is it not, I say, divine that the penalty of self- 
 ishness should be a nausea of self? 
 
 "Shall I," asks Balzac, "shall I tell you how to make 
 your way in the world ? You must plow through human- 
 ity like a cannon ball, or glide through it like a pesti- 
 lence." 
 
 Dear old Balzac! prodigy of industry as you were of 
 genius ! Did you, from the poverty of your garret, 
 croak dire philosophies? Thank God, your religion was 
 better than your creed ; for your self-devoted life has 
 made you a way in the world higher than that of Napo- 
 leon, the cannon ball ; or Robespierre, the pestilence ; you 
 are, while language lasts, Shakespeare of France ! 
 
 Look you! Men will of course make way for a can- 
 non ball, but what pleasure does the cannon ball have in 
 that? It is of iron, without sensibility. If it have a 
 feeling it is a feeling of pride, which is harder than iron 
 and a thousand times more cruel. Men will succumb to 
 a pestilence, but what joy does the pestilence take in 
 that? Its crown is a wreath of snakes, its breath the 
 vapor of graves, its laugh the gibber of a corpse. 
 
 Men and brethren, I have preached my sermon in 
 advance. To take it out of the abstract of ethics into the 
 concrete of experience, I propose to illustrate it by the 
 life work of one man; not a genius, in the sense of that 
 
 20 
 
mental bias we call genius, but a sane man, as Washing- 
 ton was sane ; a good man, as Washington was good ; a 
 man who, born to every extrinsic advantage for which 
 we worldling-s moil — title, riches, social caste — flung all 
 his birthrights to the wind, and then reconquered from 
 the world the homaee of mankind, and from heaven the 
 approval of Jehovah. History has enshrined him, 
 humanity may not forget him, France calls him father. 
 Surely America, in whose name and for whose sake he 
 yielded the title of "Noble" for that of "man," bartered 
 the coronet of a marquis for the toga of a citizen, giv- 
 ing to the word citizen, indeed, a significance and glory — 
 America, whose Washington clasped him to his heart of 
 hearts, and called him son — surely America will recall 
 him thus forever joined: Washington and La Fayette. 
 
 How can I extract, condense, and fuse into the limits 
 of this address the combined essence of his life and soul — 
 a life crowded from vouth to age with heroisms, adven- 
 tures, and romance; a soul, luminous and glorious with 
 its love of right! I have felt as though I must bring 
 here and read to you the entire correspondence between 
 La Fayette and Washington; not for the effusive affec- 
 tion shown by the young officer for his chieftain, but 
 because his impetuous devotion penetrated that wonder- 
 ful reserve which has baffled history, and led even so 
 redoubted a patriot as Mr. Ingersoll to say : "Washing- 
 ton has become a steel engraving." 
 
 This correspondence shows him to have been a friend ; 
 loyal, faithful, familiar, playful and tender as a father. 
 My friends, it is difficult for youth to worship an abstrac- 
 tion, or a steel engraving; and I ask no other evidence 
 of the intensely human nature of George Washington, in 
 all those qualities which make for comradery and good 
 fellowship, than the intimate friendship between him and 
 
 21 
 
two boys — most remarkable boys, with the brains to 
 appreciate brains, the courage that demands courage, 
 hearts that feed on a heart's emotion ; I mean young 
 Hamilton and La Fayette. 
 
 As far La Fayette's romance, that one exalted pas- 
 sion which survived all vicissitudes and hung, like an 
 aureola, above the clouds of every battle — it is a theme 
 for song and story ! From field and camp, from forum 
 and prison, La Fayette found time and means to write 
 to the mistress of his heart such letters as no woman 
 might read unmoved. And she, the child wife, fairest, 
 gentlest, loveliest of womankind, became through the 
 splendor of her hero's love the wisest, bravest, noblest, 
 best. The reign of terror came, and with it those years 
 of silence and separation ; the wife imprisoned in Paris, 
 the husband in Olmiitz. What woman "attainted" of 
 noble blood did not change her name, or suffer a mock 
 divorce to escape, if might be, the scalpel of Dr. Guillo- 
 tin? Not so the wife of La Fayette! If die she must, 
 her death should be worthy the wife of such a husband. 
 Her mother, sister, even the aged grandmother, frail, 
 pitiful victims to the murderous knife, were gone — all 
 gone ! But Robespierre was killed and she was saved. 
 Yes, she was loosed from Paris, and like a homing dove 
 flew straight to Olmiitz. Yes, freedom, sunlight, God's 
 pure air once more were hers, and in that very hour she 
 knocked at the dungeon of Austria and in the name of 
 charity and love asked, begged, implored, to share the 
 entombment of her husband. The boon was granted with 
 the assurance that it must be forever. And here they 
 lived, in a mephitic twilight, with rags for clothing, and 
 prison fare for food, while months, which seemed years, 
 rolled into years, which seemed eternities. Her health 
 could not withstand this strain. La Fayette, too nobly 
 
 22 
 
proud to ask one favor for himself, petitioned humbly 
 that his wife might go and regain her strength. The 
 leave was given, conditioned that she should not return. 
 Need I assure you that she did not go? 
 
 A few years after their deliverance by Napoleon this 
 gracious woman died at the old chateau, attended by her 
 husband. Everv act of her life had been a token of her 
 love, but it was reserved for this last illness to reveal 
 its height and depth and amazing plenitude. Her death 
 was the transfiguration, the apotheosis of love. Poor 
 La Fayette could onlv sit at her bedside and with stream- 
 ing eyes and breaking heart listen to the gushing ecstasy 
 of her affection. He assured her that she was loved and 
 valued. "Nay!" she said, with wan coquetry, "I care 
 not to be valued if I am only loved. Ah, my husband, 
 there was a period when, after one of your returns from 
 America, I felt myself so forcibly attracted to you that I 
 thought I should faint every time you came into the 
 room. I was possessed with the fear of annoying you, 
 and tried to moderate my feelings. What gratitude I 
 owe to God," she would repeat, ''that such passionate 
 feelings should have been a duty!" Again in her deli- 
 rium she had said: "If you do not find yourself suf- 
 ficiently loved, lay the fault on God; He hath not given 
 me more faculties than that I love you christianly, 
 humanly, passionately." 
 
 I have chosen these sentences from a letter of La Fay- 
 ette, written in holy confidence to a friend. It seems 
 almost sacrilege that it should ever have been published. 
 And yet, not so. Perhaps, in years to come, some sub- 
 limated Zola searching for realism, not in the muckheaps 
 of humanity but in the hearts of God's children, will 
 stumble onto it and learn how real, how true, how beauti- 
 ful is human love when man is a moral hero and woman 
 
 his good angel I 
 
 23 
 
But it is not of La Fayette in the private, or home 
 relationships of life that I am here to speak; it is of 
 La Fayette as a moral force in the history of the world — 
 the apparitor of law — the evangel of liberty — the minister 
 of God's will. 
 
 When Patrick Henry in the Virginia house of bur- 
 gesses fulminated against King George I'll, all Europe 
 smiled at the gasconade of a provincial orator. His 
 voice scarce vibrated beyond the room in which his chal- 
 lenge was so proudly uttered. But when on the field 
 of Lexington our cannon spoke — then spoke an orator 
 with a voice that rang until, like a sounding board, the 
 vaulted sky rang back again ! It reverberated in the pal- 
 aces of kings ; it echoed from the abysm of human 
 wretchedness. Fellow citizens, within the palace that 
 very hour there was born a Fear ; within the blackness of 
 the abyss there was conceived a Hope. 
 
 What did it portend? What did it not portend? It 
 meant that just as the Decalogue issued from the thun- 
 ders of Sinai, so out of the thunders of the Revolution 
 should proceed the Constitution of the United States, 
 both God-given, thunder-voiced, one in the name of 
 morals, the other in the name of Liberty ! 
 
 There was about the palace of the king of France at 
 the outbreak of the American revolution this young 
 nobleman of nineteen, the Marquis de La Fayette, whose 
 Christian names are too numerous to mention. He was 
 of the select coterie chosen by Marie Antoinette to per- 
 form amateur theatricals in her boudoir and do quadrilles 
 in costume. He had been educated to smile affably, and 
 was a post-graduate in the art of bowing. His alma 
 mater was a dancing schoool. Three years previously, 
 that is, at the age of sixteen, he had married the daugh- 
 ter of a duke, two years younger than himself. 
 
 24 
 
I have often wondered if human nature was so anoma- 
 lous in France that children, just entering their teens, 
 could, with safety to the state, to say nothing of the 
 dignity of the home, assume the relationship of mar- 
 riage — that sublime Duality, as mysterious as the Trinity, 
 and only less sacred. But the language of France con- 
 tained no such word as "home" until, in modern times, 
 the people of France appropriated the English word; 
 in full reprisal, it seems to me, for all our depredations 
 on their language. As for marriage among the nobility, 
 it was then, as it is to-day, a matter of convention, the 
 conveyance of hereditaments, the merger of estates, with 
 love as a "contingent remainder." The court of France 
 was utterly debauched. Arrogance had ceased to be 
 arrogance, for the word implies some consciousness, at 
 least, of another's being ; but the patricians of France had 
 ruled so long, so absolute, and so unquestioned, that a 
 southern planter could not have been more oblivious of 
 a negro's entity than were the French noblesse of the 
 existence of mere people. "The state 1" cried Louis XIV., 
 "I am the state — L'etat, c'est Moi." 
 
 The fortune of this youth was among the largest in 
 Europe. He was accordingly fawned upon by courtiers 
 and humored by the king. If he was thought to be 
 somewhat erratic it was only because he had so little to 
 say, whereas society expected him to prattle. He evinced, 
 moreover, a predilection for his own wife. Except for 
 these slight aberrations he appeared to be as sane, and 
 almost as inane, as nobility in general. 
 
 What unsuspected chord in the bosom of this supine 
 aristocrat thrilled in unison with our cannon's roar? 
 What did his soul behold in the glare of this first powder- 
 flash ? God knows ! But surely the highest use of his- 
 tory is to register the onward sweep of that "power 
 
 25 
 
which makes for righteousness," and in the knowledge of 
 its trend conform our efforts to- a divine intent. Thus, 
 and thus only, may we perceive how mankind is urged 
 forward and forever upward by an inexorable Will, 
 whose special agency is some special Man. This belief is 
 not mysticism ; it is all that redeems us from insanity. 
 What happened, then, to La Fayette? What changed him 
 in the twinkling of an eye? What was it that with 
 strange compelling influence drew wise men from the 
 East to worship at a manger ? It was a star — God's star 
 of Bethlehem. What was it burst in the brain of Saul, 
 blasting his vision in an agony of light ? It was a star — 
 God's star of truth. What was it dawned on the soul 
 of La Fayette, transfusing it with a purpose so sublime 
 that henceforth all he had was offered a willing sacrifice 
 to its accomplishment? It was a star — God's star of 
 liberty. The Declaration of Independence — every sen- 
 tence of which challenged the special privileges of his 
 class, his own prerogatives, the title he bore, the right of 
 his kingly government to exist — reflected the radiance of 
 this rising sun and glowed with celestial fire. Like an 
 asterisk of destiny, like its fellow of the East, this star 
 of the West hung brightening above the cradle of men's 
 hopes. He needs must follow it ! 
 
 Accordingly, in April, of the year 1777, La Fayette 
 set sail for America, in a vessel purchased and equipped 
 by himself expressly for the journey. His resolution had 
 been taken against the protest of all his friends (save 
 only of her, the best of friends) and despite the inter- 
 diction of his monarch. To circumvent the officers of 
 the latter, he disguised himself as a courier, sleeping in 
 stables from town to town until he reached the seacoast. 
 But Louis XVI. was not to be baffled. He made it 
 known to the American Congress that under no circum- 
 
 26 
 
stances was the Marquis de La Fayette to receive a com- 
 mission in its armies. Congress was not only willing 
 to oblige the king of France, but, on its own account, 
 thought that the quixotic services of the youthful mar- 
 quis might prove more embarrassing than useful. 
 Washington, moreover, shared the same opinion. He, 
 poor man, had seen enough of foreign adventurers. So 
 that, upon his arrival, La Fayette was graciously received, 
 and as graciously ignored. It was under these circum- 
 stances, and when his cherished plans had little hope of 
 realization, that he addressed to Congress this brief but 
 immortal note: 
 
 "After the sacrifices I have made I have the right to 
 exact two favors : one is to serve at my own expense, the 
 other is to serve as a volunteer." 
 
 There was no mistaking the temper or quality of the 
 writer of these lines ! Washington relented at once. La 
 Fayette received his commission and was appointed aide- 
 de-camp to the commander-in-chief. "Thereupon," says 
 a biographer, "began one of those tender and lasting 
 friendships which exist between men who share great 
 perils in defense of great principles." 
 
 They reached the camp of Washingtoh in time to wit- 
 ness a review of troops. There were ii,ooo men, possi- 
 bly the forlornest ever calling themselves an army. Their 
 munitions were wretched, their clothing ragged, and 
 without any attempt at uniformity in cut or color; their 
 evolutions were original, not to say grotesque. But they 
 were Americans, and Washington was their leader. 
 
 "We should feel some embarrassment," Washington 
 observed, "in showing ourselves to an officer who has 
 just left the armies of France." 
 
 "Sir," replied La Fayette, "it is to learn and not to 
 teach that I am here," 
 
 27 
 
There spoke, not simply the modesty of the man, but 
 if there be any design or meaning in the afiPairs of men, 
 there spoke his destiny. He was here to learn! 
 
 To learn what? To learn first of all, and all in all, 
 Washington by heart! To learn his Godlike integrity of 
 nature — his singleness of purpose and loyalty of faith — 
 his wisdom — his justice — his goodness — his loving kind- 
 ness — his prudence in counsel — his courage in action — his 
 deep respect of self, combined with a divine unselfishness 
 — his majesty of patience in defeat — his almost melan- 
 choly joy in victory. To learn Washington was to learn 
 what God meant when he made us in His image ; it was to 
 know Man, the archetype ! Here was a provincial farmer 
 whose pride of manhood, compared with the insolence of 
 a king, soared into the empyrean, and yet who thought 
 so little of the habilaments of power that all he asked of 
 fortune or of fate were the tranquillity of Mt. Vernon 
 and the obscurity of his home. What dignity could 
 such greatness borrow from a title ! To imagine Wash- 
 ington as a marquis was to imagine him with a ring in 
 his nose. To know him as a man was to know what 
 freedom meant, what free men were, and how to men like 
 these "liberty or death" was the dread alternative. La 
 Fayette renounced his marquisate and by act of Congress 
 was made Citizen of America. 
 
 It is not my intention to catalogue the services of La 
 Fayette to this country, either as a soldier on our battle- 
 fields or as a diplomat at the court of France. We teach 
 our children to cherish those services in grateful and 
 lasting memory. But there were two episodes of the war 
 which so clearly reveal the character of this more than 
 patriot that no estimate of him would be complete with- 
 out referring to them. 
 
 After the treachery of Arnold and his desertion to the 
 
 28 
 
enemy, it transpired that the American forces under 
 La Fayette found themselves confronting the English 
 forces commanded by the traitor. One day a nuncio 
 from the latter, under a flag of truce, sought an inter- 
 view with La Fayette and handed him a letter. Learn- 
 ing from whom the letter was sent, La Fayette returned 
 it to the messenger unopened, stating that a communica- 
 tion from any other British officer would be courteously 
 received, but under no circumstances would he so much 
 as open a letter from Mr. Arnold. "Mr. Arnold" was 
 furious of course, and Americans were threatened with 
 condign punishment. But when news of the incident 
 reached the ears of Washington he wrote to La Fayette : 
 "Your conduct upon every occasion meets my approba- 
 tion, but in none more than in refusing to hold a corre- 
 spondence with Arnold." 
 
 Again, when La Fayette was sent south in Virgina 
 to hold Cornwallis in check, the latter thought he had 
 "the boy," as he called him, where he might not escape 
 and so boasted in one of his reports. But it came to pass 
 that "the boy" maneuvered him into a cul de sac. 
 
 There seems to be little doubt that, in conjunction with 
 the French fleet, a battle with the enemy could have been 
 fought and won, and the French officers, naval and mili- 
 tary, vehemently urged that, having cornered the Eng- 
 lishman in Yorktown, it was due to La Fayette that he 
 go further and achieve the glory of his final conquest. 
 But the friend of Washington shook his head. "It is 
 my duty," said he, "to guard the enemy until Washing- 
 ton arrives; to him, to him alone, belongs the glory of 
 this coup de ^race." 
 
 If so be, at first, in the exuberance of youth, or the 
 ennui of inaction, La Fayette took up liberty as a play- 
 thing and diversion, it had now become the passion of his 
 
 29 
 
life. Like Washington, he saw and realized the horror 
 of African slavery. 
 
 "Whatever may be the complexion of the enslaved," 
 he writes to Mr. Adams, "does not, in my opinion, 
 change the complexion of the crime, which is blacker 
 than the face of any African." With a view to the ulti- 
 mate extinction of this anomaly in our government, he 
 founded an African colony on the island of Cayenne, 
 hoping to educate the negro into a sense of freedom and 
 individuality. But the task seemed hopeless. And, 
 indeed, with the surrender of Cornwallis, he felt that his 
 mission in the world had been accomplished. It was in 
 this belief that he wrote to the French minister, Ver- 
 gennes: "My great affair is settled. Humanity has 
 gained its cause and liberty will never be without a 
 refuge." 
 
 How purblind is man, who cannot see beyond his eye- 
 lashes nor prophesy from day to day what a day will 
 bring forth ! His affairs were not settled ; his great 
 affair was yet to be. For however great had been La 
 Fayette's career in America (and no American will 
 attempt to dwarf it), it was but an apprenticeship, a 
 novitiate m the cause of liberty which all too soon was 
 to rage tumultuous in the heart of France. For I repeat 
 it : he was here to learn. Our war with England was not 
 simply a political insurrection : it was an insurrection 
 of ideas. 
 
 When, therefore. La Fayette returned to France, it was 
 not as an effigy of liberty, but as liberty's incendiary. 
 His soul, like a torch, had been lighted at that star which 
 first beckoned him away, and like a torch he flung it 
 among the dry and sapless institutions of his country. 
 The conflagration, the holocaust, the nameless crackling 
 which ensued, we call the French Revolution. 
 
 30 
 
I could not, if I would, portray the venomous writh- 
 ings of this infernal orgasm; Carlyle has done it in a 
 vertigo of words. What I would impress upon you is 
 the fact that except for La Fayette this revolution never 
 would have been. He it was who inspired it, ruled it, 
 was ruled by it, emerged from it to confront the sordid 
 splendor of Napoleon with the glory of Washington, sur- 
 vived it — tyranny, anarchy, despotism — survived it all, 
 and then died, like Moses, in sight of the promised land. 
 
 France, I salute you! In the name of La Fayette, 
 whom you sent to us : in the name of Washington, whom 
 we returned to you, America joins with you, O sister of 
 liberty, in that shout which yet shall engirdle the earth — 
 "The King is dead! Long live the Republic!"