..:,.,‘m. ,7, ,‘ V
m~m,.'.V7..‘.M..«4\«.m,»«mm...«.,;..,a»u$»s».ye.«.».««c ‘ mu.» 'Ww»mwm$wV4,wxmlNéh?a§I&Hh

BEFORE THE

AN

‘ORATION

BEFORE THE

CITY AUTHORITIES OF BOSTON,

OR THE

FOURTIFI OF JULY, 1872.

Brit 0HARL1«:s FRANCIS ADAMS, JR.

 
BOSTON:%
RQGKVVELL 823 CI“IUI?:CI“IILL, CITY PRINTERS,

-122'WwwnINqmoN Swnmzm.


CITY OF BOSTON.

 
IN BOARD OF ALPERMEN, July 8, 1872.

Resolved, That the thanks of the City Council are due,
and they er_e hereby te11€1e1:'ec1, to CI-IARLES FRANCIS ADAMS,
J :e., fer his exceedingly eloquent and interesting o1'e.tio11 dew
livered before the mu11icipe.1 authorities of this City on the
fourth of July; and that he be requested to furnish a. copy
for publication.

I-’as.s-ed. Sent down for 00110111-1'e11ce.

S. LITTLE, Olmitrmczn.

 q

IN COMMON CoUNe1:L, July 11, 1872.
C0neu1'1'ed.
M. F. DICKINSON, J.R.., Pr*e.92'cZe7'Lt.

Approvecl July 11, 1872. A
WIOLLIAM GASTON, M.as3/07'.

ORATION.1

IN the neighboring graveyard, -—--- Within a stone’s
throw of the spot Where We are gathered together,
---—rest the remains of ﬁve men Whose violent death,
more than a century ago, in what is still the chief
cominercial street of our city, stimred to its depths the
heart of the cofu11t1:'y. No moliument, the vvo1*k of
hun:1an hands, marks the con11non graveof the victims
of what is still known as the Boston Massacre, but
over it the elm trees spread their graceful branches,
beneath Whose protecting shade in the heart of the
city they lie, unknown and unnoticed. Wit11 the
memorable event of March 5th, 1770, through
which the names of five rioters in an obscure provin--
cial town becan1ei11separab1y connectecl with one of
the great epochs in history, originated the custom of
this annual address before the authorities of the town
and city of A Boston. A year ago the first century
was con1p1eted.. Through your favor it has devolved
upon me to celebrate the opening of the second.

Stancling thus, as it Were, upon the threshold of a

6 ORATION.

new cycle, memory cannot but revert to those Who,
in response to your summons, have addressed the
citizens of Boston during the century which has now
elapsed. The roll is indeed a distinguished one. In
its record of honorable and familiar names is read the
history of Massachusetts, ——-—- almost of America. Pa»-
triots all, -—---to-day they pass before us in solemn pro-
cession. As is meet and proper here in New E11g-
land,-—---representing in his person that principle of
free schools which hath ever been the rock of her
salvation and the source of her prosperity, -———-«Master
James Lovell, then principal of the Boston Latin
School, leads all the rest; ----9 and, as if 1]Ol3l1l1]g‘ should
be Wanting to make that first occasion typical of the
time and of the race, both education and religion
were inseparably associated with it, for the master
of the Latin School spoke from the pulpit of the
Old South Church.

After Master Lovell follow famous names,-—--—-I
might almost say familiar faces. As reg'ar,ds the
celebration of 17 7 2, occurring second in order, and
exactly one hundred years ago, Gov. Hutchinson has
recorded in his histor , that “ Mr. Adams had been
pressed to pronounce the oration upon this occasion,
but declined it; and Dr. "Warren, who afterwards lost
his life at Bunker’s Hill, and Whose L popularity Was
increasing, undertook it. Though he gaiiied no

JULY 4, 1872. 7

great applause for his oratorical abilities, yet the

fervour, which is the most essential part of such com—-
positions, could not fail of its effect upon the minds
of the great concourse of people present.” Samuel
Adams and J oseph"Warren l---to use the words of Dan-

E ton, “ names tolerably well known in the history of the

revolution.” , Stately John Hancock then passes be-
fore us, the ideal representative of a race of formal and
polished gentry now wholly extinct. Thacher, Mor-
ton, Austin, Tudor and Minot succeed; once more we
see and hear Harrison Gray Otis, that famous mod-
erator whose silvery eloquence through so many
years fascinated the town-meetings in Faneuil Hall;
brave old Josiah Quincy again stands before
us, instinct with his ﬁery nature, -——-—— municipal
integrity personiﬁed; Channing, Savage, Dexter,
Lyman, Loring, Grray, and Curtis; Sprague, Hil--
lard and Holmes, all challenge attention; while scat-
tered among the rest, appear Lemuel Shaw, whose
ponderous sense and inﬁnite learning shed so rich a
lustre on the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth;
John Grorham Palfrey, the faithful and erudite histo-
rian of New England; Charles Sumner, the deep glow
of whose eloquence has burned his name into the his-
tory of emancipation and of his native land; Horace
Mann, the martyr to an unselﬁsh devotion in the great

cause of education; and Edward Everett, the last ech- l

8 ORATION.

oes of whose musical rhetoric seem yet to linger in the
recesses of this hall, as if loth to die away from the
scene of their magical triumphs. a
One by one these my predecessors pass before you,
each laying his gift upon the altar. Teachers, Gren-
erals, Senators, Governors of the Commonwealth,
Presidents of the Continental Congress, and of the
United States ,: merchants, scholars, physicians, divines,
soldiers, and jurists; poets, historians, and statesmen,
--——-the long roll-~call of those who in turn have
answered to your call is well calculated to ﬁll your
hearts with honest pride, as you thus enumerate the
famous progeny of the ancient town. To me, how-
ever, their latest successor, they teach a lesson of
modesty,-—-—-I might almost say,’ of deep humility.
Their presence speaks to me of my shortcomings,
and causes me to feel how much more eloquent than
any words or thoughts of mine is the memory of the
silent voices of the past.

And yet it is no easy task to restrain the imagina-~
tion, or to put a curb upon the fancy, as the mind
reverts to that memorable panorama which has
swept before the eyes of your century of orators.
VVl1or could ﬁtly portray it?—--r—-—-Tlier majestic organ
notes of "Webster can no more roll out in sonorous
music in answer to your call; nor can the clarion
voice and exquisite periods of Everett be sum-

JULY 4, 1872. , 9

moned to the task. They would have been equal to it.
Others may, perhaps, shadow" forth a feeble outline
of the great picture; but Where is the majestic sweep
of the brush, and the Warm sunset _coloring', which
alone reveal the hand of the master! Yet a precedent
is not Wantino‘. Ninety-seven years ago an orator,
Whose gorgeous language replete with philosophic
thought has excited the mingled admiration and
despair of three generations of the Englisl1—speaki11g
race, lifted the veil from such a picture in all its con»-
summate perfection of finish. He imagined a kindly
angel, standing fourscore years before by the cradle
of the aged Bathurst, and there opening to him the
material Wonders which were to pass before his
eyes, ere yet he was to taste of death. Well might
Burke, as he dropped the Veil over his immortal
picture, exclaim, that if this had then been foretold,
‘Would it" not have required all the saiigtiiiie cre-
dulity of youth and all the fervid glow of eI1thu—-
siasm to create belief in it! Yet how commonplace,

how uninspiring, Were the events which had trans--i

pired and the results which had been achieved
during the life of Bathurst, compared with those
which crowded in rapid sequence before the eyes of
that Venerable Samaritan, who passed away a few days
sincewithiu ourcity, on the threshold of his h'un—-
dredth year! Born While the mcnlory of the Boston

10 _ iOI-LATION.

1nassac1'e was fresh in the minds of the citizens,
in the Very year in which War1‘e11, with the shadow
of his coming cleeth already upon him, poured forth
before his fellow-M-colonists his expressioii of that

love of liberty, "Whit-:h was so soon to hurry him, at e

Major Geneml and yet it Volunteer, to die on
Bunker’s Hill,~—~—-born before one drop of the blood
of any arrned n1:.-ni had yet been shed in the Inon1en-
tous struggle then so nearly iinpencling, —----— What a oen-
tnry Oftl1lCl{~CO111l1].-g‘ events and swiftost progress was
destined to pass before his eyes, ere that infant was
to taste of death! 7 Our own 1:'eVolution, the t1~a11s~

planting of the trees of’ liberty to Europe, the awful

1‘eS111‘1“CC‘.tiOI1 of France, the cczgmcmoles, the guillotine,
the reign of te1*1'o1'-,——-until, at last, a.1nzmiae nation
ﬂung in the face of the bended monarchs of Europe
the head of a Kiiicr. Then Bo11apzn'te passed before
the eyes of {L ﬁ*igl1te11ec1Wo1*l,cl, ancl four continents
trembled beneath the tread of his legions. VVhen
the guard broke at Wate1'1oo, he Who so 1'e-
cently died had just concluded his for-ty—~third
year; but he who saw the meteor of the Naipoleons
ﬂash up in the briglit blaze of Lodi was destined
to see it srnoulder ayvay in the foul smoke of Seclzm.
The close of that life was to Witness events even

more portentous than its beginiiin-g; again his own

count1*y was to be mclzecl by civil War, and, before

JULY 4,1872-   11

the century was complete, France was once more
to be devastated, and the Very pillars of icivilization
Were to tremble under the terrible throes of a mod-—
ern Enceladus. A

And yet these were but the noisy outward inci--
dents of a century, Which, amid the ever--recurriiig

din of \ arms, has contributed more than any other,

since the birth of recorded time to the sum of
human possessions. VVithin its term of years a few
patient, thoughtful men, -——-—-— undisturbed amid the
noisy ring of arms or the clatter of politicians’
tongues, -——-—- taking no note of voluminous state
papers, of treatises on the abstract functions of
government, or of changes of ('ii,:f,?'1T1{tf-my and power,-—-~
Within these years those silent n1-en "froni within
the quiet recesses of their shops and their
laboratories have 1'eo1'ga11izecl our World. Steam,
the loom, electricity, the neWspaperl—--—-In presence
of such controlling forces as these, how small and
immaterial,--—-——What very dust in thebalance,--—-are

the labored contrivances of statesmen: ~——-not Wars,

nor revolutions, nor state craft, but a continued and
successful application of science to every art or ‘act
of O1"(ll1’1€l1“y~lLlfe,-----Wllellllel‘ of peace or of War,-—-—
must constitute the lasting claim of the century
Which has nowelapsed to the gateful memory of

those which are to come. One rub of that brightly A

12   ORATION.

burning lamp, and the very vapor Was compressed
into _a ‘slave more docile and potent than he Who
obeyed the imagined behests of Aladdin; -——- a Wave
of the magician’s Wand, and the thunderbolt of Jove
was turned into the post-boy of man;~—-—-—~ a glance of
that penetrating eye, and the very rocks revealed their
secrets, While the sacred traditions which sixty centu-
ries of faith had graven into the human mind became
as the baseless fabric of a vision;

Nor is there any country in the ‘Whole family of

nations which has proved so sensitive topthe toucl1 of

this animating spirit as our own. It has been to use

at once the source of all our greatness and of all our
Woes. It was Arlzwright Who, through one invention,
inaugurated the reign of the Cotton King; ----- it was
Stephenson and Fulton and Morse who, by others,
enabled us to end it. Thus, turning sharply from a
past so full of great results accomplished We find
ourselves in presence of a future big with possibili-
ties, but seething with revolution and instinct with a
spirit of change. In that future two things only can
We Ainericans regard as fixed. ’We are to remain
one country, and that country is entering upon an

era of material prosperity such as the 1'1tn1ost imagin--i

ings of other times have failed to picture. That We
are destined to remain a united people, is a proposi-
tion which few would be disposed to deny, and which

JULY 4, 1872- ' y 13

it would not be proﬁtable to discuss. This point
was settled in the issue of the war of the rebellion, ---
by that dread ordeal of battle from whose decision there
lies no appeal. That, as a people, we are now'enter-

ping upon an era of material prosperity to which no

history, even thougl1 that history be our own, affords

a parallel, is apparent from a few considerations. A.

century ago, Eclinuncl Burke, after depicting, as he

only could depict, the progress already made by those
whom he described as being, but a few years before,
“ a set of miserable outcasts, not so much sent as
thrown out on the bleak and barren shore of a deso-
late wilderness three thousand miles from all civilized
intercourse,” and who were ' still, even when he
spoke, “ a people, as it were, but in the gristle, and
not yet hardened into the bone of 1na11l1oc)cl,”---- eveil
then, while measuring in his coinprehensive mind the

progress that infant people had already made, the

great orator exclaiined in the House of Comrnons,
“ And pray, Sir, what is there in the world that is
equal to it? ” But what Would Burke have said, ---
what language could even he liave fousricl to express
the possibilities of the future, —-——-—could he in prophetic
Vision have advanced with that growing people of
whom he spoke, and, standing where we now stand,
have Ineasured its material future by its past? --- Could
even he have gazed undazzled upon the glowing
radiance of ‘ that still rising sun? ‘

14 ORATION.

Three ﬁxed conditions assure to us this material
future of which the realities Will beggar eXaggera--
tion. And, lest I may seem to be trenching on that
excessive national gloriﬁcation, which is the pre-
scriptive privilege of this day, let me further add
that to one only of these conditions can We, as a peo-
ple, claim any peculiar credit toiourselves. These

three conditions are, a soil of boundless richness,--

in which is concealed a mineral and a Vegetzible

" Wealth which many generations will be unable fully

to develop, and which untold centuries canriot ex‘-
haust, ——--- upon the more complete and rapid develop-
ment of which a singularly intelligent, energetic and
deterinined race is day hy clay bringing‘ to hear those
last and most perfect appliances of science of "which
our fatliers did not dream, and in the use of which
We as yet have acquired but tl1e proﬁciency of nov-
ices. These preniises are no less simple than un”<;le~ni-
able, but these ‘once conceded,»----and from the con-
clusion there is no escape. The piirely material
development of the (zollllllg century Will in its results

as , much G3X.C8l the last, as did the last excel that

which preceded it, which, also, in its time had called

forth the Wondering ejaculations of Burke;
This, however, is but one side of the picture, upon

vvhicli I do not purpose now to dwell 5 it is the stinriut-e

lating and the glowiiig side, but it carries with it a

JULY 4, 1872. 15

reverse. There is no ordeal to which the nation, any
1nore than the man, the aggregate any more than
the individual, can be subjected, so trying, so crucial,
as the sudden accumulation of Wealth. The richest
soils ever bring forth the most profuse of harvests,
but it is amid their rank vegetation that the noxious
herbs spring up, and the venomous reptiles lurk. As
with Rome, so will it be with us,»-——---the Seine will
surely mix with our Hudson. Already have We
tasted the impure Waters of the modern Orontes, and
as yet the sliiice-grates are hardly lifted. We may
rest assured that the trials of the future will be ex-—
aetly proportioned to tlieziclvztiitziges of the future,
and our responsibilities will be measured only by our
opportunities. . Then, as now and heretofore, eternal
vigilance will be the price of liberty, and to the na-
tion no more than to the individual Will it proﬁt anv--
tl1i11g,stho11gh it gain the Whole world, so it lose its

own soul.

It is to this grave responsibility ----7 a responsibility
under which We now stagger to the verge oftentimes
of falling, and which, nevertheless, is ever increasing
upon us-—-~——that I seek to call your attention to-day.
In the coming time a peculiar and unequal portion
of this great burden is imposed upon us here and
upon our Commonwealth,-———-a burden consciously
assumed within the last ten years. You all know

16 ORATION.

ma

how, in the inscrutable ways of Providence, two
distinct seminal principles of a future civilization
were planted on the silent shores of this continent.
One fell at Plymouth, the other at Jamestown. You
all know how in the slow progress of time, these

seminal principles frnctiﬁed and brought forth after ,

their kind, and how the progeny" of each, in obedi-
ence to primal scriptural eominand, went forth to
multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it. It
is not pleasant upon this day, nor is it necessary to
now dilate-upon the fundamental dill‘ere.nces which
from the ﬁrst existed between the social and indus-
trial organizations of these two great columns of
advancing civilization. All now realize that those
ditl‘ere11ces were of a nature which did not admit of a
compromise, ---- which were as old as ci.vi.lizatio11itself‘,

F-—-—- and that, as the two columns converged, the irre-

pressible conﬁict between them could only result in the
mastery of the one or of the other. It was from the

beginning written in the book of fate that either the

Plymouth theories or the Jamestown theories of
society, of government, and of the rights and duties
and dignity of man should wholly and exclusively pre-
dominate over this continent; ---«there was not room
for both. The Titanic struggle between them was
destined to culminate in the lifetime of our genera-
tion,and its terrible history and decisive result will

JULY a mva i r 17

ever be fresh in our memory. These have been
suﬁciently dwelt upon here and elsewhere, and have
received already their meed of eloquence. The
weighty responsibility, the great load of duty
which that decisive victory imposed upon those in
whose hands thenceforth rested the destinies of a
continent has hardly received its due consideration.
For Massachusetts, however, this theme is one not
lightly to be ignored. This ancient Commonwealth,
more than any of her sisters, through the long; stages
of debate, unrest and unconscious preparation which
preceded the conﬂict, typiﬁed one of the parties to it,
and, true to the fundamental theories of her social
existence, held up the banner with no faltering hands.
The battle won, and the column victorious, there re»
mained to her no escape from the future. She may
prove unequal to the event, she cannot abclicate
responsibility for it. At the bar of the most remote
posterity, when other nations, with other customs and
manners, shall people an America, then teeming with
undreamed-of millions, --- nations which will read of us

and of our deeds in the full, strong light of long sub- A

sequent events, as we now read of the civil wars of
Greece and Rome,——---at the bar of that posterity
Massachusetts must be prepared to answer for the
use now to be made of the victory so recently
achieved. A

18 ORATION.

We are thus plunging into a future of Which we
are only sure that it is topbe one of immeasurable
possibilities for good and evil, and in which it is in-
cumbeut upon us to play a leader’s part. Can

 the old Commonwealth be made to retain during the

next century the position she has so ﬁrmly held
against all comers during the last? --—-- N umerically, be
it remembered, her destiny is already decided. Long
since distanced by her younger sisters, by her own
oﬁspring even, Massachusetts is doomed to pass fur--
ther and further from the number of those communi-
ties which inﬂuence results through the enumera--

V tions of the census. Her future appeal must lie to

intelligence and not to numbers, to reason and not to
votes. With the Commonwealth standing thus on
the verge of the great future, freightecl to the water’s
edge with responsibility, shorn of numerical impor-
tance, it is for this generation in the immediate pres-~
ent to take ﬁnal counsel as to the course in which
her safety and her honor lie. Fortunately, that
course is a direct and simple one, if we, her children,
have but the will and Virtue to pursue it. It lies in
the intelligent appreciation of the few great princi-
ples of brotherhood, duty and faith, in which our Com-

monwealth was founded, and in a ﬁrm, persistent ad-- \

herence to them. We, too, “ must put our feet in the
tracks of our forefathers, where we can neither wan»
der nor stumble.”

in

JULY 4, 1872; 19

Nor is this rule of conduct----so trite, so common-»
place--—--one easy to pursue. A ﬁdelity, under the
temptations of great success, to the simple tradim
tions of youth has ever proved the most diﬁcult
trial of maturer life. Nor with us is the present
free from doubt. ‘The era of recent change has
aﬁiected Massachusetts as it has affected few other

communities; with the exception of her traditions,

there is little within her limits, or in the way of life
of her children, which is as it formerly was. What,
indeed, was that Massachusetts of a hundred years
ago which excited the glowing encomium of Burke,
and of which we read and talk so much, and
know so little,?——-The boundaries of the Common»-
wealth were the same then as now, butit was the
home of another civilization. Tliere is no need to
land the bygone days, or to bemoan the degeneracy
of the present time; we have our virtues and our
defects, and our fathers before us had theirs; but
then and now the State is the aggregate of its citi-
zens, and their modes of life must shape its history.
To know the reason of its institutions, we must
study that social existence which is the soil from
whence they grew. To judge of their permanence,
we must understand thosefundamental social and
industrial conditions which were essential to their
origin, and without which they cannot long exist.

20 A onacrrlou.

Therefore is it very incumbent upon us, if we would

i truly forecast the future, maturely to reﬂect upon

the past as well as upon the present, that we may
appreciate into whose hands is passing that ark of
the covenant in which are garnered up the saving
traditions of our race. V

The Massachusetts of the Boston Massacre was a
vigorous community of some two hundred and seventy
thousand souls, or a poor twenty thousand more
than are now numbered within thevwards of this
single municipality alone. Its people were a
hardy, thrifty race, who tilled an ungrateful
soil and navigated a stormy sea; self-educated,
se1f—sustaining, self-—reliant, they looked to no gov-»
ernment for protection to themselves or to the:ir
industry, only too grateful if the harsh mother who
had cast them forth upon the wilderness would
abandon them to worl: out their own destiny :in
their own hard, simple way. They were not a
pleasant race,--—-~»their stern life was a poor school
for the development of gentle amenities 5 their exist»
ence had been one long, hard struggle with a
rugged soil and scarce more rugged sea, until the
biting east wind of the bleak New England shore
seemed to have eaten into their souls, cle‘velopi11g a

 
stern, unsympathetic race; dogged, tenacious, un--‘

yielding and crabbed; overﬂowing with energy,

JULY~4, 1872-; ' 21

full of resource, and impregnated with a deep love
of liberty. Not that their liberty verged upon

license,--—-——-—that indeed was most remote;f'rom their

conceptions; theirs was a grave, well-ordered,
simple Commonwealth, in which they themselves
laid down the law, whether on their own hearth-
stones or in their own town-halls. Theirs was the
purest, truest democracy which the world as yet
has seen; no doctrinaire, no theorist, no speculative
framer of constitutions or professional philanthro--
pist sprinkled with sentimentalities the cradle of that
hardy, native brat; —---— but it was the gnarly offspring
of the farm and of the ﬁsliiiiig--s1.naelc, and, like all
pure tliings of native growth, it well preserved the
ﬂavor of the soil. Their life was not a joyous one,
nor was it the life of towns; there was no city within
the limits of their State; their laws were simple, for
their wants were few; their wealth. lay in their lands
and in their ships, and with them the richest were
poor, and poorest lived in abundance. Such were
the laborers in our early vineyard; they sowed‘ and
we have reaped; they labored, and we have entered
into the fruits of their labors.

How is it with the Commonwealth to--day? I
would not decry the p1~esei1t. Our days are better
than the days of our fathers; our lines have fallen in
pleasanter places. I would not, if I could, reverse

22 - ORATION.

the Wheels of time, nor seek to inake the’ sun of prog-
ress tarry in itscourse. I appreciate to the full the
delights and advantages of this later day; its litera-
ture, its science, and its art 3 its improved taste, its
increased Wealth, its cities, its theatres, its galleries
of pictured art, and its stores of richest thought. It
is not unnatural that We, too, should love to dally ’mid
the soft delights of our Capua. Nor can We of this
generation Well profess a fear lest the good moral
ﬁbre of our fathers has disappeared from their children.
We, too, have seen  gallant nation spring to arms at
the call of country, and, under a pure and sacred
sense of duty, grasp sabre and musket, and bare its
head in battle. Our children can never say that
We were untrue to our trad;itio1'1s.. And yet the
old Comnionwealth is gcniel Wl1e1'e once two
hundred and seventy thousand colonists tilled the
soil and faced the sea, are new gathered together a

million and a half‘ of busy, bustling‘ men, living in

cities, Working in fz1.cto1';ies, revelling in nnd1i*ea1‘ned--
of wealth, and struggling under harsh and hopeless
poverty; a community becoming more and more
sharply divided between those who have, and those

who have not ;» the responsibility and knowledge of

government disappearing year by year with the old
town meetings; ignorance and vice keeping steady
pace with the increase of poverty, while the old

ma

ominous class--cries of other lands and darker days
grow yearly more familiar to our unaccustomed ears.
A century ago, seventy out of every hundred of the
inhabitants of Massachusetts dwelt in communities
numbering less than twenty--two hundred each,
while but a single town in the province contained
above ﬁve thousand souls. To--day —-—-~ and this marks
well the change--—-the majority dwell in communities
of at least ten thousand each, while twenty-«four
cities and towns contain 1nore than half of the
inhabitants of the Commonwealth, one sixth of all
of i whom are citizens of Boston. Instead of the
yeoman, sailor race, living in the open air and in
closelcontact with nature, we have become a manu-~
facturing community whose teeming population,
crowded into heated shops or noisy mills, tends
incessantly the busy loom, or feeds the hungry
furnace. Whether“ we‘ will or not, therefore, this
grave problem is presented before us: -—-- a system of
government, the growth of one form of social and
industrial being, is to be preserved in another and
wholly different form; ---~ the traditions of a scattered
race of yeomen and ﬁshermen are to be kept in vigor--

ous life in an artisan community which is swarming

to cities.
Herein, as I take it, lies for us the political signiﬁ-~

cance of that labor question which is yearly assuming ‘

24 ORATION.

euoh increased proportione. Itie,i1.1 fact, the blind, dun-
eoneoious eﬁ’o1*t of a new eooiel and industrial o1'ga11i--
zation to adapt to its needs the forms and tmditiolm
of another time. And yet, unless I g1*eetly e1*1*,I think
it will be found tlmt the social and political o1*gm1iza~
tion which We inherited from o111‘f"at1‘1e1'e depended
for its eueeeeef’1:d VV01‘kilf1g u1j:>c)11 two eese11tie1 princi-
ples, and upo11 two alone. These Were 2:» universal,
practical, lmrd--11eaded ed.11ez:mtio.11, not only in the
1;110wleclge teL1g;ht in eehoole, but in tlmt derived
from an active contact with men e.1{1d lmhlie af1hi1'e;—----
enc111ext,e11d zmore impo:rt::mt etill, was the 1121131337 die-
tribution of property, *vvh.ieh gzwe to the Vast mzaijority
_of'eitize1ue that c1idg11i,ty of 1:»rep1*.iet:o1:'ehi};>, Whie11 ie the
et1o'o11geet g1*1zL1'ehty of eoeiel zmd 1)(I):l.i.t'.,i.C2£L1 stability.
'I‘hese We1*e,~—--——~t11eee ::ue'e the ee1.id (‘zO1'l“lCtI*~S130]T1€§££’» of
our ecliiﬁce. VVhi.le they met 111‘1dietu1*hed(1, the build-~
ing csamxxot 1h'l[l.. k

Of the met t1”1eirc:.~. tie mm tueed to speak. Meeeao1111-
setts ie fulfly and ﬁ'l.'l£LiUy’ ee%xfr11‘11itted to the emlee of
111”1iV€3l'E~3£l1,—-~if need be, of" (3()Il”l}_)ll]601"y education.
Pop111a.I' opizhioll and public mad p1~i.vete Weeltll are
ever ready to 1*ee}:)(t>11d. when t.l:1e,t te«::>1'd ie etruok.. It
ie but neeeee:;m1~ytepoi11t <:>11t deﬁeete,—-whet1e1e1*eX~
ieting de'ﬁeied11eiee or poeeime deVe1opme1:‘1t not yet
a.ttained,—-—--— end. e'[l.*1*eady the W()l‘].C of 1*efb1;'m ie more
than half eoeonnpliehmfl. Whenever end Wlxerever 3.

JULY 4, 1872. T 25

real need exists for common schools, or l1i,gl1 schools

or normal schools; for academies or uniVersiti.es; for
truant schools or industrial, schools or public libraries,
we may rest assured that not in our generation at

-least will the Commonwealth long be waiitiug to its

recorgl. More in this respect she cannot do. The

grand old practical college of the public life is
vanishing with the memory of tow11«1neeti11g days.

The active co:utact with nature and with men, tliat

teaching which no course of lectures nor instruction
from a normal school can at all replace, is iucousist--

ent with the present modes of life. These grave

deﬁciencies neither legislat‘ion nor public spirit can
again make good. It remains for us to supply their

place as best we may through that poor 1nachi.nery of
our schools, which. we can yet control; -—--nor, if this
is done, need we fear the g1*a11d result.  people

trained in youth to the quick reception of new ideas
may wander greatly from its path, but is never wholly
lost.

When we pass on, however, to that other essential
element to all real social or political St&blli.l';§7, whiclrl
is found only in the general C30l1te11i3l‘.ﬂ(311l3 of the g1*ieat
mass of thoseﬁfor whose well--bei11g' all goWe1'2nne21t
exists, our horizon is not wholly free from clouds.
They hang, indeed, liglitly over the present, but it is
the haze of to—-cl,ay which betokeus the storm of to-«

ZG ORATION.

morrow. The rapid increase of manufacturing pros-
perity has hitherto implied the no less rapid increase
of operative Want, a11d a Commonwealth founded on
manufactures is as yet a house built on the sand. It
thus becomes a necessity of our continued existence»
that the sense of proprietorship, the digiiity of
ownership, ---that only immovable basis of free insti-
tutions, --—- should somehow or in some Way be Widely
disseminated through all classes in our State. This,
however, can spring only from a consciousness in the
great mass of the people that they individually have
an interest in the vested accumulations of the Whole.
Our future Comnionwealth is not to be governed by
those Who have a stake in the soil, and it is therefore
incumbent upon us to extend the saving dignity
which encompasses the land-owner to the operative as
well,-—— it must belong to him who tends the loom no
less thanto him who follows the plough. Our OOl"I'1-
monwealth ean only be governed by all of her ehil-
clre:n, absolutely equal before her law, and, that they
may govern Well, all should give their hostages to
fortune. P

This is our latest problem. A new social system
demands of us nothing less than an industrial reor-
ganization, lest it result in a political decay. The
lines of division in our community must not become
horizontal; but, to prevent their becoming so, it is nec-

JULY 4, 1872. 27

essary that labor and capital should be partners, that
they may not be enemies; or, that failing, it is neces-
sary that the laborers should own their own capital,
and not the capitalists, labon This much was set—

tled in the War of the rebellion. It is not given us '

yet to see how this great result is to come about, but
we can rest assured that it will not come about tl1roug'l1
any bombardment of rlrietorical epigrains, nor yet
tlirongfh the noisy ‘re.solintion.s of sti'ilcee; it Will
not come to us tlii'o'L1gl1‘political action, nor yet
through the paeeagep of inultitudiuons laws in-
tended to regulate the hours of human toil,

tor the value of human labor, or the demand for

Wealth; all these are but the barren product of
that spirit of’ political l3€~LlI1pGl‘l_ll§§‘ whicli has been de-
eeribed as the odious Vice of  and unstable
mincle. Not oar” generation, l‘lm‘“ many succeeding
oiiee, will see the inilleuninm created by an act of
Legislature, and ushered into belllg by the club of a
constable. Far otherwise; the industrial and social
1'eo1r'g*zi11ization essential to our future, like all far»-
reaching social movements,‘ can only result from the
combined and quiet action of an intelligent and dem-
terinined people, atteiiding; in their own way to their
daily Work, and coldly dieregarcling all short cuts and

royal roads to their promised land. It must be the

result of «the deep gronnd--swell of a steady purpose,

27:8 OBATION.

and will never originate in the frothy eddies of an
idle 1‘l]e’[O1'lC., Germany has already taught us one
lesson; England is teaching us another. Both les-
sons come to us as the still, small voice of reason and
hope, nialging itself heard amid the noisy and proﬁt-f
less tumult of passion. In those countries, a few

among the owners of labor have at last learned to

co-operate, as well as to combine. Are, then, the
laborers of Germany and of Great Britain,~——--those
whoin we so constantly refer to in our vile political
jargon as “the pauper labor of Europe, ”---—- are they
more intelligent, or determined than those of Massa--
ehusettas?--Few at least, here, would care to main---
tain it. Are they better endowed with means with
which to further their experiments?-——— I cannot say;
but with one hundred and sixty millions of wealth
hoarded in the saVings—ha11ks of the Commonwealth,
our people should have a suﬂieiency of capital. Yet
the intelligenti, sell’-reliant, determined children of
Massachusetts liang backward in this great work,
while others,in less fortunate lands, press to the
front. NeV’e1'til1eless, the work will yet be accom-

plished, and what the'saVi11gs-banlg now is to the

'lahe1*ing elass of Massaolmsetts, that and inuoh more

will the mill and the Workshop he in the future.
Here, a1;all1,e1'e alone, lies the solution of the prob-

le111,--t7l':2:;:1'ei11 is the ark of salvation.

JULY 4, 1872. r 29

'i"‘i‘°A11 immutable law, wiser than any recorded upon
human statute book, has decreed that every people
may, in course of time, regulate its own destiny.
No human power external to themselves can assist
them greatly, and none can permanently retard
them. To each community there ultimately comes,
through government or notwithstanding govern—-
ment, such an industrial and social system as they
themselves shall make. The future of Massachu-
setts rests in the hands of the mass of her citizens,
who now crowd together in towns, as their fathers
lived apart in the country. It is for them to decide,
for her and for themselves, whether they will here»-
after be dependents at the doors of corporat.ions, and
suppliants at the bar of the Legislature, orwhether
they will stand up in the honest dignity of
independent manhood, and emancipate themselves.
Capital is selﬁsh and hard 3 indeed, if it ceased to
be so, it would not long exist; it does not deal in
sentiment; by the law of its being, against which it
is childish to declaim, it buys where it *an buy for
least, a.nd sells where‘ it can sell for most 5 skill and
muscle are but one portionof its raw material, as
coal and cotton are another. It can be "etiectively
approached in one way, and in only one. To deal
successfully with it, labor has yet to prove one
essential, vital ]:_:>ostulate,---—it must demonstrate

30 , ORATION.

that labor is more proﬁtable to capital as a partner,
than as an employee. In these few words rest the
whole issue of this great debate; but this it can
never do, till it tries and fails, and fails and tries
again, for nothing here will succeed but success.
One great, co-operative triumph, the result of its
own unassisted capital and its own directing brain,
would thus outweigh to the labor of Massachusettsi
the results of a thousand successful strikes. At
once a new Declaration of Independence, and
another Bunker’s Hill, tl11'ougl1 its stirnulating
impulse the self-reliant energy still native to the
soil would again assert itself, and would go forth,
refreshed and invigorated by its moral victory, to
the encounter with those other trials which the
future has in store.

Still great changes are not easily or quickly
wrought, nor is the period of transition apt to be
a pleasant one. May we not, however, ﬁrmly trust,
that the groans and contortions of the present are
but the agony of travail? Truth is ever born out of
error, and success most surely follows the patient
study of failure. ’I‘hat in the future, the cliildreu
of Massachusetts will no more be waiitiiig to them-
selves than they have proved to be in the past, we
have as yet small ground to fear. VVitl1 the burden
comes the st1'e11gtl1; the hour will ﬁnd ~the man.

JULY ,4, 1872. _ 31

l

Wlien the time is ripe, unless the record of the
past is to “serve as a sad reproach to the future, more
than one of her sons will rise up in Massachusetts, —--
a prophet in our Israel, —— even as Horace Mann rose
up a third of a century ago. The harvest was
ready, and lo!-—~—--the reaper was there. The Work
that Mann did for education, these others Will do
for industr *3 they Will reorganize it and infuse into
its veins the rich blood of a better life; they will
cause the Wc>rla;n1an on his bench to feel that he also
has a property in his tools and in the Worksliop,
the home of his labors; that he, too, owns a part of
Whatresults froin his toil. By so doing, they Will
restore to labor its independence and its dignity; to
the laborer, the great attributes of his republican
manhood; to the State, the essentials of a continued
stability.

An illtéllulgellt people, all equal before tlie law, and
laboring together in a community of interest, inight
throw a light deﬁance in the face of change. The
forces of evil, though they include even civil corrup-
tion, could not prevail against it. True to its early
traditions, its early traditions would guide itin safety
through the dark night of storm and disaster.
And should Massachusetts now sustain herself and
prove equal to the great occasion, when another
century of orators shall have responded to your

32  ORATION.

Call, my remote successor, after dwelling in purer
accents upon the Wonders which it shall have been

the happy destiny of the coming generations to 1111--

fold, may turn to his distant present, and there behold
our ancient Commonwealth still retaining her place
at the head of that proud column Whose animating
spirit Went forth from her shores, and which he also
in truth and in soberness may see as "a noble and
puissant ‘nation rousing herself like a strong man
after‘ sleep, and shaking her inviiicible looks; an
eagle inewixig, her mighty youth, and kindling her
undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.”