THE NATIONAL CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 INTRODUCTION AND ADOPTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 " RESOLUTIONS RESPECTING INDEPENDENCY." 
 
 HELD IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ON THB 
 
 Evening of June 7, 1876, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, 
 
 AND ON 
 
 July i, 1876, 
 
 AT THB 
 
 HALL OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE COMMITTEE 
 
 MDCCCLXXVI.
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 COLLINS, PRINTER.
 
 0, 
 
 73 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 IN the month of March, 1876, by direction of the President 
 of the United States Centennial Commission, an Historical 
 Department was formed, designed to commemorate and illus- 
 trate the pre-revolutionary history of the country, by bringing 
 together portraits of Colonial worthies, documents of historical 
 interest, and personal memorials of the past ; and Colonel 
 Frank M. Etting was requested to accept the position of Chief. 
 His fitness for promoting and carrying out this object was 
 manifest from his successful services in the restoration of 
 Independence Hall and the formation of a JSTatioual Museum. 
 A committee was selected with the approval of the Director- 
 General, and efforts were at once made to gather together, in 
 the brief time afforded, articles desirable for exhibition in the 
 department ; appropriate space having been allotted in the Art 
 Building for the purpose. Subsequently, it was found neces- 
 sary, owing to the large influx of foreign pictures, to cancel 
 the allotment of space to the Historical Department; and 
 thus, at the eleventh hour, the committee found the depart- 
 ment at an end, and themselves with a valuable collection on 
 their hands, but without a place to exhibit it. In this dilemma, 
 application was made to the President and Board of Directors 
 of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, who at once 
 liberally offered a portion of their fire-proof building for the 
 purpose ; and the committee, consisting of Messrs. Frank M. 
 Etting, James L. Claghorn, Francis S. Hoffman, J. Sergeant 
 l
 
 2 P II E F A T R Y N T E . 
 
 Price, Frederick D. Stone, Charles Henry Hart, Mrs. Anne 
 Hopkinson Foggo, Mrs. Katharine Johnstoiie Wharton, and 
 Mrs. Mary Johnson Brown Chew, organized the historical 
 "National Centennial Commemoration." 
 
 The time selected for the opening of the exhibition at the 
 Academy of the Fine Arts was the 7th of Jane, the one hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the day on which Richard Henry Lee 
 offered in Congress the Resolution for Independence. On the 
 evening of that day the invited guests, composed of the most 
 eminent of Philadelphia's citizens, and of representatives from 
 the mother country and from each of the thirteen original 
 States, assembled in the lecture room of the Academy ; when, 
 after a brief introduction by the Chairman of the committee, 
 a commemorative historical address was delivered by the Hon. 
 William Wirt Henry, of Virginia. At the conclusion of the 
 address, the exhibition was declared by the Chairman as for- 
 mally opened, and the guests proceeded to view the collection, 
 which occupies the northwest gallery of the building, on the 
 second floor. 
 
 A large portion of the exhibition consists of paintings, and 
 there is also an interesting collection of relics of historical 
 personages. The western end of the room is occupied by 
 paintings by American artists, designed to illustrate the his- 
 tory of art in America. It includes works by West, Pratt, 
 Smibert, Copley, Hesselius, Charles Willson Peale, James 
 Peale, Sharpless, Stuart, St. Memin, Malbone, Sully, Allston, 
 Theus, Earle, and Pine. 
 
 The northern side of the. hall is occupied by exhibits de- 
 signed to illustrate the early history of the settlements at 
 Plymouth and Salem, made respectively by the Pilgrim Asso- 
 ciation of Plymouth, and the Essex Institute of Salem. In 
 the Plymouth collection are exhibited a number of interest- 
 ing relics, including a table and platter which belonged to 
 Miles Standish; a model of the vessel Mayflower; a portrait
 
 PREFATORYNOTE. 6 
 
 of Paul Revere; the barrel of the gun which is said to have 
 killed King Philip ; a chair over 200 years old, which belonged 
 to Governor Treat, of Connecticut ; and a Bible which belonged 
 to John Alden, who came over in the Mayflower. 
 
 The Salem collection embraces portraits of John Endicott 
 and Simon Bradstreet, the first and last Governor of the 
 Colony under the first charter; of Sir Richard Saltonstall, one 
 of the patentees of Massachusetts; John Leverett, Governor 
 of Massachusetts ; Timothy Pickering, and others, while above 
 them are draped the flags of the Colony. In the cases of the 
 Essex Institute are exhibited a number of very interesting 
 documents and memorials, including the Royal charter, under 
 the great seal of England; manuscript record of the witch- 
 craft trials, in the handwriting of Rev. Samuel Parris; the 
 Christening robe of Governor Bradstreet, worn in 1588, and 
 many others of value. 
 
 In the northeastern corner of the room is the collection 
 made to illustrate the career of Washington, and which in- 
 cludes a number of original portraits by Stuart, Peale, Pine, 
 and other well-known artists. There are also scenes of Mount 
 Vernon, and a picture of the room in which Washington died. 
 The case contains the miniature of Washington worn by Mrs. 
 Washington after his death; the profile miniature on copper 
 by the Countess de Brehan ; the beautiful miniature by James 
 Peale belonging to the Artillery Corps Washington Grays, and 
 a number of others. Also, his spectacles, surveying instru- 
 ment, silver cup and salver, portions of the dinner china which 
 he used, and, possibly most interesting of all, a letter from his 
 mother, Mary Washington, written to her brother in 1759, in 
 which she speaks of " George" having left the army. There 
 are but two letters of Mary Washington known to be in ex- 
 istence, and this the only one mentioning " George." 
 
 Benjamin Franklin is represented by an extremely interest- 
 ing collection, embracing a number of well-known portraits,
 
 4 PREFATORYNOTE. 
 
 the bust by Ceracchi, and a painting representing him when 
 he appeared as the representative of the Colonies at the Court 
 of Louis XVI. In the case is the original commission he 
 received from Congress to represent the Colonies in France, 
 together with his " Letter of Instructions," each signed by 
 Henry Laurens, President, and attested by Charles Thomson, 
 Secretary ; also his Air-Pump and Insulating-stool, given by 
 him to Francis Hopkinson ; and many other personal memo- 
 rials. 
 
 Maryland and Virginia are represented by a number of por- 
 traits of persons who bore an important part in their early 
 history. Among these are portraits of Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 Pocahontas, Lord Baltimore, Governor Spottiswoode, and Pat- 
 rick Henry. Near by are cases containing a number of curious 
 relics, including the lines written just before his execution by 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, in his own handwriting, and interesting 
 letters from, among others, William Penn, George Fox, Sir 
 Jeffrey Amherst, Rev. George Whitefield, Generals Braddock 
 and Wolfe, Baron de Kalb, General Burgoyne, Lord Rawdon, 
 and Admiral Howe. 
 
 In another case are exhibited the Strong Box of Robert 
 Morris, with his original appointment as Superintendent of 
 Finance ; the silver shoe-buckles worn by Sam. Adams when 
 he signed the Declaration of Independence ; the Desk upon 
 which Jefferson wrote the original draft of the Declaration ; 
 the wine-glasses presented to Hancock by John Wilkes, bear- 
 ing the motto " Success to Wilkes and Liberty ;" the specta- 
 cles of Wm. Ellery ; the watch of Charles Carroll ; a miniature 
 of John Nixon, who read and proclaimed the Declaration of 
 Independence publicly to the people for the first time July 8th, 
 1776, from the Observatory in the State House yard; the com- 
 mission of Benedict Arnold; the MS. parole of Major Andrd 
 when a prisoner at Lancaster, Pa., February 23d, 1776, 
 together with other souvenirs of this unfortunate and inte-
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 5 
 
 resting officer, and of many other characters of the Revolu- 
 tion; while, in still another case, are brought together cos- 
 tumes of the last century, household china and glass of the 
 same period, and the communion service presented to Christ 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, by Queen Anne. 
 
 The committee for the historical "National Centennial 
 Commemoration," having charged itself with the duty of dis- 
 tinctly marking the historical epochs leading up to that which 
 the United States Centennial Commission was formed to cele- 
 brate, and having commemorated the 7th of June, prepared to 
 commemorate duly the 2d of July, the day on which was 
 passed the Resolution for Independence, the reasons for which 
 were adopted two days later. As early as the 25th of October, 
 1875, the Committee on the Restoration of Independence Hall 
 had addressed to the most prominent American authors and 
 historical students the following invitation. 
 
 To 
 
 INDEPENDENCE HALL. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, October 25, 1875. 
 
 SIR : The Committee on the Restoration of Independence Hall have resolved 
 to invite the presence of American Historians, Biographers, and Literati at 
 that place on the second day of July, 1876. They desire that a Biographical 
 sketch of every individual, whose memory is associated with this Building 
 during the early days of the Republic, maybe prepared and deposited on that 
 day among the Archives of the National Museum. 
 
 You are respectfully requested to be present at Independence Hall on 
 the day above mentioned, and to bring with yon a sketch of the life of 
 
 or in case of a preference for another subject, to communicate the fact. It is 
 desired that these sketches should not exceed two pages of foolscap. 
 With great respect, 
 
 FRANK M. ETTING, 
 
 Chairman of the Committee'''
 
 li 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 It was thought appropriate for the two committees to unite 
 their efforts, and accordingly it was decided that on the ad- 
 journment of the meeting in Independence Hall, there should 
 be commemorative exercises in the State House yard ; and a 
 programme was arranged, and accomplished speakers invited 
 to make addresses. These proceedings commemorative of the 
 2d of Julj 7 form the second part of this publication, which is 
 designed as a memorial of the Centennial anniversary of the 
 introduction and passage of "Certain Resolutions respecting 
 Independency." 
 
 CHARLES HENRY HART, 
 FREDERICK D. STONE, 
 
 Committee on Publication. 
 PHILADELPHIA, October, 1876.
 
 THE 
 
 
 
 .Anniversary of June jth, 1776. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, JUNE 7, 1876.
 
 1776. 
 
 JUNE 7 . 
 
 1876. 
 
 REMAKES OF COL. ETTING. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 THE collection of portraits and memorials now about to be 
 opened to tbe public is designed to supplement the National 
 Museum in Independence Hall. The Committee on the Re- 
 storation of Independence Hall and the National Museum 
 Board, after steadily pursuing our purpose for four years, find 
 ourselves cramped for room in the State House. More space 
 has been promised, but cannot, notwithstanding earnest efforts 
 to that effect, be had at present. Failing to secure appropriate 
 galleries at the Centennial Exposition though Memorial Hall 
 had been erected by the State of Pennsylvania for this specific 
 purpose the Historical Committee applied to the President 
 of this noble Academy, who promptly and cordially gave up 
 adequate apartments. Causes, not now to be detailed, have 
 induced the withdrawal of some of the States from partici- 
 pancy in our commemorative work, but the Pilgrim Hall 
 Association and the Essex Institute, of Massachusetts, aided 
 by the individual efforts of the ladies of Baltimore and of 
 Philadelphia, enable us to offer you a highly interesting and 
 instructive collection. The intent of the Committee, as you 
 are aware, is to trace the history of the country for nearly 
 two hundred years from its first settlement in 1607, and while 
 we revive every event in the progressive advance of true 
 liberty, we shall be enabled to realize the vitality of the men 
 
 2
 
 10 THENATIONAL 
 
 the Founders of the country in their persons, and thus keep 
 in view as exemplars the principles for which they struggled. 
 
 Among the events incumbent upon us to commemorate in 
 this Centennial season, is that which achieves its one hun- 
 dredth anniversary this day June 7, 1876. 
 
 The official record kept by Charles Thomson, and published 
 at the time that tried men's souls, is meagre in the extreme 
 thus, "certain resolutions respecting independency being 
 moved and seconded," etc. But I have before me an auto- 
 graphic tracing of these resolutions ; it is in the handwriting 
 of Richard Henry Lee ; it reads 
 
 "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought 
 to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved 
 from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political 
 connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, 
 and ought to be, totally dissolved." 
 
 Thus was taken the first step in the National Councils 
 towards the birth of the nation. While we leave each suc- 
 cessive one to be appropriately marked, we seem called upon 
 to look at the promptings of this, the initiative. We find it 
 was ordered to be taken by the Colony of Virginia, in Conven- 
 tion, and that, among the members of that Convention, one 
 name stands out in bold relief Patrick Henry. Who, then, 
 so appropriate to recount to you this evening the events of 
 our Centennial as his grandson, a gentleman who, by birth- 
 right, preserves the private papers of Mr. Henry, while he 
 brings to bear upon the investigation, not only all the energy 
 prompted by filial duty, but the advantages of high legal 
 attainments and experience. He is the namesake (and at the 
 request of Mr. Wirt) of Mr. Henry's great biographer. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the pleasure of presenting to 
 you, as the orator of the evening Mr. WILLIAM WIRT HENRY, 
 of Virginia.
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 11 
 
 ADDRESS OF ME. HENEY. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE, AND FELLOW- 
 CITIZENS : 
 
 Permit me to congratulate you of the Committee on the 
 happy conception and admirable realization of the design 
 to aid in commemorating the birth of the nation, by illus- 
 trations of its early history. To be able to look on the 
 noble faces of the great founders of our republic, preserved 
 by brush and chisel in the hand of genius; to handle the 
 familiar articles which they used, and which a pious care has 
 preserved as Lares of the household, relics more precious than 
 the heir-looms of princes, does indeed bring us face to face 
 with the illustrious dead, and enables us to see, and to touch, 
 as it were, the honored men whose names we have been taught 
 to revere from childhood, the fruits of whose arduous and 
 perilous labors we have inherited, and which it becomes us to 
 transmit to our posterity, wasted by no prodigal hand. And 
 while we gaze on the features of those who have shed such 
 lustre upon our Continent and upon our race, how naturally 
 are we reminded of the noble principles which actuated their 
 conduct, and made them of the great men of the world prin- 
 ciples which they laid deep as the foundations upon which 
 they built a temple for the goddess of Liberty, and which they 
 commended to our constant, vigilant care, in those words of 
 solemn warning, verified in the experience of so many nations: 
 "K"o free government or the blessing of liberty can be pre- 
 served to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, mode- 
 ration, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent 
 recurrence to fundamental principles." Let us honor our 
 fathers, that the days of our freedom may be long in the land 
 which the Lord our God hath given us. The day selected for 
 the opening of this exhibition is peculiarly appropriate, as it
 
 12 THE NATIONAL 
 
 marks the time when independence was moved in the Con- 
 gress of the Colonies, the final throe in the birth of the 
 Nation ; and I thank you for the honor done me in asking 
 that I represent on this occasion the State at whose command 
 the motion was made. If in doing so I should speak mostly 
 of Virginia, it will not be from any intention of doing injus- 
 tice to the other Colonies each of whom has a bright record 
 in the struggle for independence, but because the occasion 
 requires me to speak more particularly of her. 
 
 The action of Virginia, culminating in her motion on the 
 7th of June, 1776, needs no justification at my hands to-day. 
 Mankind have vied in her praises, and Great Britain herself 
 has learned to honor her ; yea, if we are permitted to judge of 
 the councils of the Judge of all the earth, by the blessings 
 which have descended, heaven itself has set its seal of appro- 
 bation to her acts. 
 
 It is proper, however, as we stand here to-day to commemo- 
 rate her motion, to glance, rapidly it must be, at the events 
 which preceded and prompted it. When we look at the first 
 settlements of Europeans on this continent in the seventeenth 
 century, we find that they were induced by various motives. 
 Led by the love of adventure, of wealth, or of glory, or driven 
 by the lash of persecution, English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, 
 Swedish, and French contributed to the planting of a new 
 nation on the virgin soil of America, which, assimilating its 
 different elements, put forth a new and peculiar growth, des- 
 tined far to outstrip the stocks from whence it sprang. But, 
 by whatever motives impelled, and however diverse in their 
 opinions, their prejudices or their manners, whether Puritans 
 in New England, or Episcopalians in Virginia, Quakers in 
 Pennsylvania, or Catholics in Maryland, all united in a com- 
 mon love of liberty, and a determination to try the experiment 
 of self-government on a more liberal plan than had ever been 
 attempted before. The elective franchise, the General Assem-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 13 
 
 bly, the trial by jury, and the habeas corpus were common 
 possessions ; and possessed of these great characteristics and 
 safeguards of liberty, far removed from the power of the 
 mother country, under liberal charters, and stimulated by that 
 spirit of personal independence peculiar to emigrants to a new 
 and savage land, the Colonies soon developed into communi- 
 ties of enterprise, of wealth, and of singular attachment to 
 free institutions ; communities in which were read the works 
 of John Milton, John Locke, and Algernon Sydney, and 
 whose citizens held with them that freedom is the native 
 right of man. 
 
 It was not long, however, before the wealth of the Colonies 
 attracted the cupidity of the mother country, and one of 
 the most memorable of the acts of that Parliament which 
 restored royalty to the British throne, was the passage of a 
 navigation law which gave a monopoly of their commerce 
 to British merchants. This act, frequently amended only to 
 be made more odious, was submitted to by the Colonies as an 
 exercise of the power of Great Britain to regulate trade, and 
 not until 1760, when it was determined to break up the con- 
 stant evasion of the detested law by general warrants, author- 
 izing search and apprehension at the discretion of the officers 
 holding them, did the dangerous power exercised by the mo- 
 ther country become the subject of discussion and alarm. In 
 resisting the issuing of these " Writs of Assistance," so repug- 
 nant to the British constitution, James Otis, of Massachusetts, 
 the most brilliant of her orators, electrified his Colony. In 
 his audience there sat a young man, his equal in genius if not 
 in oratory, whose soul was filled with delight at the great 
 doctrines of natural and of English freedom which the orator 
 proclaimed ; and who, at once throwing his whole soul into 
 the struggle for constitutional liberty, himself with matchless 
 eloquence stood forth afterwards a most distinguished cham- 
 pion of American rights. Happy Massachusetts! Happy
 
 14 THENATIONAL 
 
 America ! The electric spark emitted by the genius of James 
 Otis kindled the genius of John Adams. 
 
 But the rapacity of Great Britain did not stop at laws by 
 which her merchants and ship-owners might grow rich at 
 the expense of her Colonies. Her treasury, exhausted by 
 war, must needs be replenished, and the taxation of America 
 was determined on. Liberal charters stood in the way, and 
 these it was planned to recall, and to substitute in their 
 stead one uniform, arbitrary system of government. To im- 
 pose a direct tax at first was deemed too bold a measure, and 
 the expedient was devised of a stamp act, which executing 
 itself, and bearing but lightly in its collection, it was fondly 
 hoped would arouse no opposition to its enforcement. On the 
 9th of March, 1764, therefore, George Grenville, Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, in unfolding the budget in Parliament gave 
 notice that at the next session a bill would be introduced 
 imposing stamp duties in America. The intelligence of this 
 intention produced the profoundest sensation throughout the 
 Colonies. The right to say through their own representatives 
 what taxes they should bear, was one fundamental to the 
 British constitution, and secured to them by their charters, 
 and they could not admit that the British Parliament repre- 
 sented them who had no voice in the selection of its members, 
 and who had their own Assemblies vested with the power of 
 taxation. The voice of Boston was first heard in her instruc- 
 tions to her delegates in the Colonial Assembly, prepared by 
 Samuel Adams, aptly styled the Palinurus of the Revolution. 
 These were followed by the noble argument of James Otis, in 
 his pamphlet entitled " The Rights of the British Colonies 
 Asserted and Proved." The alarm sounded in Massachusetts 
 was taken up in the other Colonies, and petitions and remon- 
 strances against the proposed act were forwarded by the 
 Assemblies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Penn- 
 sylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. Their remonstrances
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 15 
 
 proved vain. But few voices opposed the act on its passage 
 in the House of Commons none in the House of Lords and 
 on the 22d of March, 1765, the King, bereft of his reason, 
 gave his assent, through a commission. Had Parliament as 
 well as the King been afflicted with insanity, no greater mis- 
 take could have been committed. The news of the passage of 
 the act produced the most widespread consternation in the 
 Colonies. Their views of their rights were unchanged, but it 
 was one thing to remonstrate against a proposed act, and 
 quite another to resist a law. The first was the right of every 
 British subject ; the last was rebellion. A sullen submission 
 was all that could be expected was all that could be yielded 
 but submission was deemed inevitable in every quarter. 
 
 The time was short when the dreaded law must take effect, 
 and all they contended for seemed about to be lost, and if once 
 lost, lost forever ; for the principle once yielded could never 
 be reclaimed. Despondency spread her black wings over the 
 land, brooding despair, and the sorrows of death compassed 
 
 the patriot cause. 
 
 
 
 " Fear at its heart, as at a cop, 
 Its life-blood seemed to sip." 
 
 Even the eloquent tongue of Otis, the great champion of 
 American liberty, faltered ; and admitting Britain's right of 
 taxation, he deplored resistance, and thus gave up the great 
 issue. All the hope he had was that a united, loyal petition 
 might move the compassion of that Sovereign whose ear had 
 been found deaf to the demands of justice. 
 
 But the Divinity that shapes our ends had ordered other- 
 wise. God had not left Israel without a prophet. Suddenly 
 Virginia was heard denouncing the law as " void and destruc- 
 tive to British and American liberty ;" speaking now, for 
 the first time, through one whose trumpet tones echoed and 
 re-echoed throughout America, where 
 
 " Every mouutain now hath found a tongue ;"
 
 16 THE NA TION AL 
 
 arousing the patriot cause from its death-like torpor, and re- 
 verberating in the very palace of the British King, warning 
 him that an outraged people had once dragged a tyrant from 
 that palace to the bloody block. It was the voice of her 
 
 " Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes, 
 Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas." 
 
 Had it sounded from heaven in the ears of the desponding 
 Colonies, the effect could scarcely have been more sudden or 
 more startling. 
 
 The pent-up indignation of America, which, like a black 
 cloud overcasting the heavens, seemed slowly approaching the 
 horizon to be 
 
 " In the deep bosom of the ocean buried," 
 
 as by an electric flash was suddenly discharged, and poured 
 forth such a torrent as overwhelmed all who vainly attempted 
 to withstand its flood. "No taxation without representa- 
 tion ! resistance to the stamp act !" were suddenly heard on 
 every side, and so* terrible was the passion of the people, now 
 thoroughly aroused and lashed into a tempest, that when the 
 time arrived for the commencement of the tax no man in 
 America was bold enough to act as the distributor of stamps. 
 The British administration itself was overwhelmed, and, bow- 
 ing to the storm it had raised but could not rule, repealed 
 the obnoxious act. But the day-star of the American Revo- 
 lution had arisen with healing for the nations in its beams. 
 America had felt her own power, and henceforth it was im- 
 possible to rivet upon her the manacles forged by her tyrants. 
 The ever-memorable action of Virginia was embodied in her 
 resolutions passed the 30th of May, 1765, in these words: 
 
 " Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this 
 his Majesty's colony and dominion, brought with them and 
 transmitted to their posterity and all other his Majesty's sub-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 17 
 
 jects since inhabiting in this his Majesty's colony, all the privi- 
 leges, franchises, and immunities that have at any time been 
 held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain. 
 
 " Resolved, That by two royal charters granted by King 
 James I., the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to all 
 the privileges, liberties, and immunities of denizens and 
 natural-born subjects, to all intents and purposes, as if they 
 had been abiding and born within the realm of England. 
 
 " Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, 
 or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who 
 can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and 
 the easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by 
 such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of 
 British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution 
 cannot subsist. 
 
 " Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people of this most 
 ancient Colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of 
 being thus governed by their own Assembly in the article of 
 their taxes and internal police, and that the same hath never 
 been forfeited or in any other way given up, but hath been 
 constantly recognized by the kings and people of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 " Resolved therefore, That the General Assembly of this 
 Colony have the sole right and power to lay taxes and im- 
 positions upon the inhabitants of this Colony, and that every 
 attempt to vest such power in any person or persons what- 
 soever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a 
 manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American 
 freedom." 
 
 The author of these resolutions, which rent an empire, left 
 a copy in his own handwriting, which I now hold in my 
 hand, and, desiring to be remembered by posterity for this 
 act, he claims, by the endorsement he made on the paper, that 
 by their passage " the great point of resistance to British 
 3
 
 18 THENATIONAL 
 
 taxation was universally established in the Colonies. This 
 brought on the war which finally separated the two countries, 
 and gave independence to ours." 
 
 I need not detail the subsequent renewal of the effort to 
 tax America by another mode, culminating in the occupation 
 of Boston by British soldiers, and the assembling of the 
 Congress of 1774, in Carpenters' Hall ; but I will hurry on 
 to the events immediately preceding the day we celebrate. 
 
 The war between the Colonies and Great Britain was waged 
 at first in defence of political rights, but with no thought of 
 final separation between the countries, except perhaps by a 
 few, who, endowed with more of prophetic ken than their 
 fellows, saw the end from the beginning. Certain it is, that 
 in all the public papers issued by those who had a right to 
 speak for the people, the idea of separation was carefully dis- 
 owned. The Congress of September, 1774, in its address to 
 the king, used these words : " Your royal authority over us, 
 and our connection with Great Britain, we shall always care- 
 fully and zealously endeavor to support and maintain." And 
 the Congress of 1775, in its address of the 6th of July, setting 
 forth the causes and reasons for taking up arms, said : " Lest 
 this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and 
 fellow-subjects in any part of the Empire, we assure them that 
 we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so 
 happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to 
 see restored." This address was penned by Thomas Jefferson, 
 and was read amid thundering huzzas in every market-place, 
 fervent prayers in nearly every pulpit, and booming cannon 
 in the patriot army. 
 
 As late as the 29th of November, 1775, we find the Conti- 
 nental Congress declaring in their letter to the agents of the 
 Colonies in England, that " There is nothing more ardently 
 desired by North America than a lasting union with Great 
 Britain, on terms of just and equal liberty." Nor did the Con-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 19 
 
 gress alone bear witness to the desire of the Colonies. On the 
 9th of November, 1775, the Pennsylvania Assembly instructed 
 her delegates to resist any move in the direction of independ- 
 ence. On the 28th of November, the New Jersey Assembly gave 
 similar instructions to her delegates. On the 7th of December, 
 the Maryland Convention declared that the people of that 
 Colony " Never did, nor do, entertain any views or desires of 
 independency." On the 1 4th of December, the New York Pro- 
 vincial Congress declared that their people had not withdrawn 
 their allegiance, and that their turbulent state did not arise 
 " From a desire to become independent of the British crown." 
 On the 25th of December, the town of Portsmouth, New 
 Hampshire, instructed their delegates in the Provincial Con- 
 gress to resist the formation of local government, " To show 
 that they were not aiming at independency." The North 
 Carolina Provincial Congress, in an address which was adopted 
 on the 8th of September, 1775, disclaimed in earnest terms the 
 design of independence. The other Colonies also gave full 
 assurance that independence was not their desire. But the 
 government of Great Britain was not content, and the king 
 preferred American independence to the continuance of the 
 connection on American principles. In December, 1775, was 
 enacted the bill prohibiting all traffic with America, and sub- 
 stantially declaring war. The effect of this and other measures 
 consequent, was soon manifested in the Colonies, and inde- 
 pendence was openly discussed. Left without their regular 
 government, they had, early in the war, resorted to temporary 
 expedients, and thus had become accustomed to the exercise 
 of independent powers, though in every instance the taking 
 up of government was declared to be temporary, and to end 
 when reconciliation was accomplished. The spring of 1776 
 found a great change in the feeling of the Colonies. All hope 
 of reconciliation seemed to have been lost by the great bulk of 
 the people, and submission or independence were the only alter-
 
 20 THE NATIONAL 
 
 natives left ; but they still hesitated to take the final step. The 
 Convention of Virginia was fixed to meet the 6th of May, 
 and the elections of the delegates revealed the state of public 
 feeling there. In many, if not most, of the counties, the 
 candidates were required to pledge themselves to a final sepa- 
 ration from Great Britain. As a specimen of the instructions 
 given to their delegates, listen to the following from the 
 county of Charlotte my native county, I am proud to say 
 to Paul Carrington and Thomas Read, her delegates, dated 23d 
 April, 1776, and the earliest move for independence of any 
 community I have ever met with, which has been clearly estab- 
 lished : " Despairing of any redress of our grievances from the 
 King and Parliament of Great Britain, and all hopes of a 
 reconciliation between her and the United Colonies being now 
 at an end, and being conscious that their treatment has been 
 such as loyal subjects did not deserve, and to which as freemen 
 we are determined not to submit ; by the unanimous approba- 
 tion and direction of the whole freeholders, and all the inhabi- 
 tants of this county, we advise and instruct you cheerfully to 
 concur and give your best assistance in our Convention, to 
 push to the utmost a war offensive and defensive until you 
 are certified that such proposals of peace are made to our 
 General Congress as shall by them be judged just and friendly. 
 ***** And we give it you in charge to use your best 
 endeavors that the delegates which are sent to the General 
 Congress be instructed immediately to cast ott' the British 
 yoke, and to enter into commercial alliances with any nation 
 or nations friendly to our cause. And as King George III., of 
 Great Britain, has manifested deliberate enmity towards us, 
 and, under the character of a parent, persists in behaving as a 
 tyrant, that they, in our behalf, renounce allegiance to him 
 forever ; and that, taking the God of heaven to be our king, 
 and depending on his protection and assistance, they plan out 
 that form of government which may the most effectually
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 21 
 
 secure to us the enjoyment of our civil and religious rights 
 and principles to the latest posterity." 
 
 Brave words from the grand old county of Charlotte ! Well 
 worthy to become the last resting-place of him who "gave 
 the first impulse to the ball of the revolution." Elected by 
 such constituents the convention could not be other than a 
 noble body. It was looked to by all the Colonies with the 
 earnest expectation that the wisdom of its councils might 
 resolve their doubts as to the course to be pursued. Richard 
 Henry Lee, not knowing that he might be able to leave his 
 seat in Congress to attend its sessions, wrote to Patrick Henry 
 from Philadelphia on the 20th of April, 1776, to urge that 
 the decisive step be taken. Said he : "I invite your attention 
 
 9 
 
 to the most important concerns of our approaching conven- 
 tion. Ages yet unborn, and millions existing at present, may 
 rue or bless that assembly, on which their happiness or misery 
 will so eminently depend. Virginia has hitherto taken the 
 lead in great affairs, and many now r look to her with anxious 
 expectation, hoping that the spirit, wisdom, and energy of her 
 councils will arouse America from the fatal lethargy into 
 which feebleness, folly, and interested views of the proprie- 
 tary governments, with the aid of Tory machinations, have 
 thrown her most unhappily." After arguing the necessity of 
 immediately declaring Independence, forming a permanent 
 government, and seeking foreign alliances, he adds: "This I 
 take to be the time and thing meant by Shakspeare, when he 
 says, 'There is a tide in the affairs men,. which, taken at the 
 flood, leads on to fortune; that omitted, we are ever after 
 bound in shallows.' " 
 
 And, in truth, no nobler band of patriots ever met together 
 than assembled in that convention. Its roll contained nearly 
 all of the great men of Virginia, at a time when Virginia 
 would not suffer in comparison with any State, ancient or 
 modern. Listen to the names of some of the most conspic-
 
 22 THE NATIONAL 
 
 uous: Edmund Pendleton, Richard Bland, Eobert Carter 
 Nicholas, John Blair, Edmund Randolph, William Cabell, 
 Henry Tazewell, Benjamin Harrison, Archibald Gary, George 
 Wythe, Thomas Nelson, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, 
 Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry. One name, the 
 grandest of all, was missing from its accustomed place on that 
 roll, but Virginia had given her Washington to America, that 
 like a saviour he might lead her through the " Valley of the 
 shadow of death," to glorious victory and peace, and he was 
 now at the head of her armies 
 
 "Our tower of strength, 
 Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew." 
 
 
 The honor of presiding over the convention was conferred 
 
 on Edmund Pendleton. On the 14th of May, the body sat as 
 a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Colony, with 
 Archibald Gary in the chair. On that day General Thomas 
 Nelson, the most popular man in the Colony, of unhounded 
 generosity, fortitude, and patriotism, moved the following 
 resolves, which had been drawn by Edmund Pendleton: 
 
 " Forasmuch as all the endeavors of the United Colonies, 
 by the most decent representation and petitions to the king 
 and parliament of Great Britain, to restore peace and security 
 to America under the British government, and a reunion with 
 that people upon just and liberal terms, instead of a redress 
 of grievances, have produced from an imperious and vindic- 
 tive administration increased insult, oppression, and a vigor- 
 ous attempt to effect our total destruction ; by a late act all 
 these colonies are declared to be in rebellion, and out of the 
 protection of the British crown; our properties subjected to 
 confiscation ; our people, when captivated, compelled to join 
 in the murder and plunder of their relatives and countrymen, 
 and all former rapine and oppression of Americans declared 
 legal and just; fleets and armies are raised, and the aid of
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 23 
 
 foreign troops engaged to assist these destructive purposes. 
 The King's representative in this Colony hath not only with- 
 held all powers of government from operating for our safety, 
 hut, having retired on board an armed ship, is carrying on a 
 piratical and savage war against us, tempting our slaves by 
 every artifice to resort to him, and training and employing 
 them against their masters. In this state of extreme danger 
 we have no alternative left but an abject submission to the 
 will of these overbearing tyrants, or a total separation from 
 the crown and government of Great Britain, uniting and 
 exerting the strength of all America for defence, and forming 
 alliances with foreign powers for commerce -and aid in war. 
 "Wherefore, appealing to the Searcher of Hearts for the sin- 
 cerity of former declarations, expressing our desire to preserve 
 the connection with that nation, and that we are driven from 
 that inclination by their wicked councils and the eternal laws 
 of self-preservation, 
 
 " Resolved unanimously, That the delegates appointed to rep- 
 resent this Colony in General Congress be instructed to pro- 
 pose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies 
 free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to 
 or dependence upon the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain ; 
 and that they give the assent of this Colony to such declara- 
 tion, and to whatever measures may be thought proper and 
 necessary by Congress for forming foreign alliances and a con- 
 federation of the colonies at such time and in the manner as 
 to them shall seem best. Provided, that the power of forming 
 government for, and the regulations of, the internal concerns 
 of each Colony be left to the respective Colonial Legislatures. 
 
 ''Resolved unanimously, That a committee be appointed to 
 prepare a Declaration of Rights and such a plan of government 
 as will be most likely to maintain peace and order in this 
 Colony, and to secure substantial and equal liberty to the 
 people."
 
 24 THENATIONAL 
 
 These resolutions were discussed on that and the succeeding 
 day in Committee of the Whole, and on the 15th of May were 
 reported to the House, according to custom, by Archibald 
 Gary, who had presided over the committee, and the record 
 shows they were unanimously agreed to by the House, 112 
 members being present. 
 
 From an oration delivered by Edmund Randolph at the 
 grave of Edmund Pendleton, and from a fragment of a 
 hitherto unpublished manuscript history of Virginia by the 
 same eminent person, I am enabled to give you a sketch of 
 this memorable occasion. Says Edmund Randolph : " When 
 the disposition of the people as exhibited by their represen- 
 tatives could not be mistaken, Henry had full indulgence of 
 his own private judgment, and he concerted with Nelson 
 that he (Nelson) should introduce the question of independ- 
 ence, and that Henry should enforce it. Nelson affected 
 nothing of oratory, except what ardent feelings might inspire, 
 and, characteristic of himself, he had no fears of his own 
 with which to temporize, and supposing that others ought 
 to have none, he passed over the probabilities of foreign aid, 
 stepped lightly on the difficulties of procuring military stores 
 and the inexperience of officers and soldiers, but pressed a 
 declaration of independence, upon what with him were incon- 
 trovertible grounds, that we were oppressed, had humbly sup- 
 plicated a redress of grievances which had been, refused with 
 insult ; and that to return from battle against the sovereign 
 with the cordiality of subjects was absurd. It was expected 
 that a declaration of independence would certainly be passed, 
 and for obvious reasons Mr. Henry seemed allotted to crown 
 his political conduct with this supreme stroke. And yet for 
 a considerable time he talked of the subject as critical, but 
 without committing himself by a pointed avowal in its favor 
 or a pointed repudiation of it. He thought that a course 
 which put at stake the lives and fortunes of the people should
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 25 
 
 appear to be their own act, and that he ought not to place 
 upon the responsibility of his eloquence a revolution of which 
 the people might be wearied after the present stimulus should 
 cease to operate. But after some time he appeared in an ele- 
 ment for which he was born. To cut the knot which calm 
 prudence was puzzled to untie was worthy of the magnificence 
 of his genius. He entered into no subtlety of reasoning, but 
 was aroused by the now apparent spirit of the people. As a 
 pillar of fire, which, notwithstanding the darkness of the pros- 
 pect, would conduct to the promised land, he inflamed, and 
 was followed by the convention. His eloquence unlocked the 
 secret springs of the human heart, robbed danger of all its 
 terror, and broke the keystone in the arch of royal power." 
 Opposition had been manifested to the motion in the Commit- 
 tee of the Whole, but, overwhelmed and led captive by the 
 orator, it but swelled his triumph. 
 
 It is the distinguished honor of Virginia that by her resolu- 
 tion of May, 1765, she commenced, and by her resolutions of 
 May, 1776, she completed, the American Revolution, for all 
 that remained was to maintain the position she had reached. 
 She has not, however, been so fortunate as to wear her honors 
 unchallenged. John Adams in 1818, upon the appearance of 
 Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, denied that Henry's resolu- 
 tions of May, 1765, commenced the revolution, and claimed 
 that James Otis, in resisting writs of assistance in 1761, was 
 entitled to that honor. The venerable patriot had permitted 
 his zeal for Massachusetts to mislead him, and claimed for 
 another what he had yielded to Mr. Henry in 1776. On the 
 3d of June of that year he wrote to Mr. Henry these words : 
 " I know of none so competent to the task (of framing a con- 
 stitution for Virginia) as the author of the first Virginia reso- 
 lutions against the stamp act, who will have the glory with 
 posterity of beginning and concluding this great revolution." 
 
 The honor of being the first to propose independence has
 
 26 T H E N A T I N A L 
 
 been contested by North Carolina, which claims a prior decla- 
 ration, but this claim has been so completely overthrown by 
 my learned and venerable friend, the Hon. Hugh Blair 
 Grigsby, in his " Discourse on the Virginia Convention of 
 1776," that I need only state very briefly some of the grounds 
 for disallowing it. It is claimed that the Committee of Meek- 
 
 O 
 
 lenburg County, in North Carolina, on the 20th of May, 1775, 
 unanimously declared that county " sovereign, free, and inde- 
 pendent, and absolved from all allegiance to the British 
 Crown," and adopted laws, and appointed officers to execute 
 them. It is not pretended that this proceeding was ever pub- 
 lished till 1819, forty-four years afterwards, when a copy was 
 said to be found in the handwriting of the secretary of the meet- 
 ing, J. McNitt Alexander, who was dead, and who had made 
 a memorandum on the paper stating "that it might not be 
 literally correct, though fundamentally, as the original papers 
 were burned." The following facts are undoubted : On the 31st 
 of May, 1775, at the same place, the same Committee passed a 
 very different set of resolutions, which were published at the 
 time in several newspapers, and denounced by the governor of 
 the State, providing for a temporary government of the county, 
 and for officers to be selected in a different way, and expressly 
 limiting the operation of their resolves " till Great Britain 
 should resign its unjust and arbitrary pretensions with respect 
 to America," a course taken in nearly every Colony. On the 
 23d of August, 1775, the Provincial Congress of North CarS- 
 lina subscribed a test, required of .its members by that body, 
 which distinctly professes allegiance to the British crown ; and 
 Thomas Polk, John Phifer, and J. McNitt Alexander, the dele- 
 gates from Mecklenburg County, and members of its county 
 committee present on the 20th of May preceding, signed this 
 test. On the 4th of September the same body voted that the 
 plan of general confederation between the United Colonies was 
 not then eligible, and " that the present association ought to be
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 27 
 
 further relied on for bringing about a reconciliation with the 
 parent State." And on the 8th of September, the same body 
 unanimously adopted an address to the inhabitants of Great 
 Britain of course voted for by the Mecklenburg delegates 
 whom I have mentioned in which it is said : " We have been 
 told that independence is our object; that we seek to shake off 
 all connection with the parent State. Cruel suggestion ! Do 
 not all our professions, all our actions, uniformly contradict 
 this? We again declare, and invoke that Almighty Being 
 who searches the recesses of the human heart, and knows our 
 most secret intentions, that it is our most earnest wish and 
 prayer to be restored, with the other United Colonies, to the 
 state in which we and they were placed before the year 1763." 
 
 If, then, the county of Mecklenburg, North Carolina, through 
 its county Committee, made a declaration of final separation 
 and independence on the 20th of May, 1775 which has not 
 been proven as yet it appears that eleven days afterwards the 
 same Committee at the same place repudiated it, and three of 
 its members, among them its secretary, on whose loose memory 
 it is now sought to establish it, on the 24th of August and the 
 8th of September following, by their signatures and votes in 
 the Provincial Congress, expressly denied that they had ever 
 intended independence. With all due respect to our North 
 Carolina cousins, I may be permitted to say, that such a decla- 
 ration of independence, if established, is nothing to boast of. 
 Before the cock crew twice, they had denied it thrice. 
 
 Equally groundless is the attempt of North Carolina to sup- 
 plement her claim by quoting the instructions to her delegates 
 in the Continental Congress, passed the 12th of April, 1776. 
 These instructions merely removed her previous restrictions, 
 and empowered the North Carolina delegates in Congress " to 
 concur with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring 
 independence," but leaving the matter to their discretion a
 
 28 THENATIONAL 
 
 discretion which the delegates from some of the other Colo- 
 nies already had. 
 The Virginia Convention entrusted her command to Thomas 
 
 O 
 
 Nelson, one of her delegates to Congress, and upon his arrival 
 in Philadelphia, Richard Henry Lee was selected to make the 
 motion. Nor could this honor have been more worthily be- 
 stowed. Of honored ancestry, large fortune, splendid intel- 
 lect, and ample learning, from the time he offered his youth- 
 ful sword to the unfortunate Braddock he had been conspic- 
 uous for his public spirit, and had early taken rank with 
 the foremost of the American patriots. Tall and command- 
 ing in person, with the noble countenance of a Roman, the 
 courage of a Caesar, and the eloquence of a Cicero, at the 
 bidding of Virginia, he arose on the 7th day of June, 1776, 
 and in her name urged his countrymen no longer to hesitate, 
 but pressing forward, to cross the Rubicon, and secure to 
 themselves and to their posterity those inalienable rights 
 bestowed upon them by their Creator. He moved, in the 
 language of the Virginia Convention, " That these United 
 Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent 
 States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the 
 British Crown, and that all political connection between them 
 and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally 
 dissolved ; that it is expedient forthwith to take the most 
 effectual measures for forming foreign alliances ; that a plan 
 of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective 
 Colonies for their consideration and approbation.". The motion 
 was seconded by " glorious old John Adams," and Massachu- 
 setts stood by the side of Virginia. Her ardent and eloquent 
 son proved himself the colossus of the debate which followed 
 and continued through several days. Nor was Pennsylvania 
 content to be represented by her halting Dickinson, but her 
 ardent patriotism found utterance through her profound phi- 
 losopher and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, whose words of
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 29 
 
 distilled wisdom fell from his lips like proverbs from the pen 
 of Solomon. Of the eloquent speech with which Mr. Lee 
 introduced the resolution of independence only a faint outline 
 has been preserved. It is claimed by the historian, however, 
 to be substantially correct. Of this I will only detain you 
 with an extract : " The question," said he, " is not whether 
 we shall acquire an increase of territorial dominion, or wick- 
 edly wrest from others their just possessions, but whether we 
 shall preserve or lose forever that liberty which we have 
 inherited from our ancestors, which we have pursued across 
 tempestuous seas, and which we have defended in this land 
 against barbarous men, ferocious beasts, and an inclement sky. 
 And if so many and distinguished praises have always been 
 lavished upon the generous defenders of Greek and Roman 
 liberty, what shall be said of us who defend a liberty which 
 is founded, not on the capricious will of an unstable multitude, 
 but upon immutable statutes and titulary laws; not that 
 which was the exclusive privilege of a few patricians, but that 
 which is the property of all ; not that which was stained by 
 iniquitous ostracisms, or the horrible decimation of armies, 
 but that which is pure, temperate, and gentle, and conformed 
 to the civilization of the age? Animated by liberty, the 
 Greeks repulsed the innumerable army of Persians ; sustained 
 by the love of independence the Swiss and the Dutch humbled 
 the power of Austria by memorable defeats, and conquered a 
 rank among nations. But the sun of America also shines 
 upon the heads of the brave ; the point of our weapons is no 
 less formidable than theirs; here also the same union prevails, 
 the same contempt of danger and of death, in asserting the 
 cause of country. Why then do we longer delay? Why still 
 deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to the American 
 Republic. Let her arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to 
 re-establish the reign of peace and of law. The eyes of Europe 
 are fixed upon us ; she demands of us a living example of
 
 30 THE NATIONAL 
 
 freedom that may exhibit a contrast, in the felicity of the 
 citizen, to the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her 
 polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum, where 
 the unhappy may find solace and the persecuted repose. She 
 invites us to cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous 
 plant, which first sprang and grew in England, hut is now 
 withered hy the poisonous blasts of Scottish tyranny, may 
 revive and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and inter- 
 minable shade all the unfortunate of the human race. If we 
 are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, the 
 names of American legislators of 1776 will be placed by pos- 
 terity at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, 
 of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those 
 whose memory has been and forever will be dear to virtuous 
 men!" 
 
 But it is not for me to trace the history of the motion to 
 its grand consummation on the 4th of July, nor to tell of the 
 expenditure of blood and treasure, freely offered, in establish- 
 ing it before all the world against the most powerful nation 
 of the earth. Virginia moved, and America established inde- 
 pendence and regulated liberty. Vitalized and directed by 
 the heaven-born principles of liberty and order, our develop- 
 ment and growth have surpassed that of all other nations of 
 the earth, though scarcely out of our infancy, and to-day we 
 give undoubted evidence that in all that makes a nation great 
 we rank with the foremost. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of these United States : In this year of the 
 celebration of the birth of the nation, let us recur to the funda- 
 mental principles underlying and supporting our institutions, 
 and to which we owe our greatness. Let us look well to the 
 title-deeds of our liberties, and restore the ancient landmarks 
 where they have been removed. Let us transmit to our pos- 
 terity in its integrity the rich heritage received from our 
 fathers ; and may the God of our fathers Jbe our God, and pre-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 31 
 
 serve our civil and religious liberties to us, and to our children, 
 and to our children's children, till time shall be no more, and 
 the Sun of Righteousness shall be seen purpling the east 
 pencilling the day-dawn of perfect liberty and perfect order. 
 
 " Yea, Truth and Justice then, 
 
 Will down return to men, 
 Orb'd in a rainbow ; and, like glories wearing, 
 
 Mercy will sit between, 
 
 Throned in celestial sheen, 
 With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering ; 
 
 And heaven as at some festival, 
 Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall."
 
 THE 
 
 ^Anniversary of July zd, 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 HALL OF INDEPENDENCE, JULY i, 1876.
 
 1776. 
 
 JULY 
 
 2. 
 
 1876. 
 
 ON the morning of Saturday, July 1st, there assembled at 
 Independence Hall, in the room occupied by the National 
 Museum, those persons who had been invited to contribute 
 biographical sketches of the men of the Revolutionary period, 
 where they were received by the ladies of the Board of Man- 
 agement, and by the Committee on the National Centennial 
 Commemoration. 
 
 At 11.30 A. M. the doors of Independence Chamber were 
 thrown open, and the American authors and antiquaries of 
 1876, passed into the shrine of liberty as a chorus of fifty 
 voices rendered Whittier's great Centennial Hymn. 
 
 The Committee on the Restoration of Independence Hall, 
 accompanied by the Mayor of the city, who occupied seats on 
 either side of the President's chair and table, leaving the 
 former significantly vacant, immediately arose, and Colonel 
 Frank M. Etting, Chairman of the Committees on the Resto- 
 ration of Independence Hall and of the National Centennial 
 Commemoration, addressed the assemblage. 
 
 ADDRESS OF COL. ETTING. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 On behalf of the city of Philadelphia, as well as of the Com- 
 mittees on Restoration of Independence Hall, and of the Na- 
 tional Centennial Commemoration, I bid you welcome to this 
 room. As the result of four years' labor we seek to present
 
 36 THE NATIONAL 
 
 to you no mere spectacle of physical sight, but to afford you 
 the means of a spiritual vision that will enable you to see 
 through a century. Yonder parchment brought back by us, 
 scarce bears trace of the signatures, the execution of which 
 made fifty-six names imperishable. This table is no longer 
 surrounded, in the fleshly Hancock, Franklin, Jefferson, Rich- 
 ard Henry Lee, the Adamses, and the host of patriots who 
 clustered here in June and July, 1776. These chairs that once 
 were theirs are now vacant. Everything that was perishable 
 has passed away, and what is left to us we may truly say has 
 put on immortality. The " rising sun" of liberty and of per- 
 fect union, which Franklin pointed out to Jefferson as de- 
 picted upon the back of this very chair, when occupied by 
 Washington in 1787, as President of the Convention for 
 
 O ' 
 
 framing the Constitution of the United States, now shines 
 undimmed by the shadow of any subsequent event, since we 
 have permitted no trace of any memorial to remain in this 
 chamber that can recall any sectional differences. All the 
 associations that here present themselves to you are intended 
 to enable each individual for himself to exercise the miracu- 
 lous touch, to once more " set upon their feet" the Founders 
 of the Republic. The actual lineaments of their faces are 
 shown upon these walls, and every material adjunct in the 
 adoption of our Magna Charta has now been returned to its 
 former place of use. You, ladies and gentlemen, have done 
 the rest. You have shown us in prose and in verse how 
 these men lived, and how they moved, and what they strug- 
 gled for. Thus, in the whole category of events of our Cen- 
 tennial epoch, there is no commemoration of greater signifi- 
 cance than the very act of your assembling in this chamber. 
 . It was here just one hundred years ago to-day that the 
 Founders of the Republic met together, predetermined to 
 call into being a new power upon the earth. At the instance 
 of one of their number the final vote was put off' until the
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 37 
 
 morrow. Thus it was on the SECOND of July, 1776, that the 
 final act was done the United States became a Nation. 
 
 You, of all the citizens of the United States, come here to- 
 day to build up a CENOTAPH of letters to the memory of those 
 men the like of which is not afforded in the history of the 
 world no rain, no sun can ever reach it, and it must endure 
 as long as Liberty and the English language survive. 
 
 If it be permitted to departed spirits again to visit the 
 scenes of their earthl} T work, may we not invoke the shade 
 of Washington again to occupy the President's chair, and to 
 summon around him that host whose memories we hold so 
 dear ? In consonance at least with what we know to be their 
 wishes, I shall now request the Rev. William White Brouson 
 to ask the blessing of God upon our proceedings. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 God, whose name is excellent in all the earth, and Thy 
 glory above the heavens; who a century ago didst inspire and 
 direct the hearts of the delegates in Congress to lay the per- 
 petual foundations of peace, liberty, and safety; we bless and 
 adore Thy Glorious Majesty for this Thy loving kindness and 
 providence. And do Thou, who hast instructed us in Thy holy 
 word to render honor to whom it is due, pour down Thy bless- 
 ing upon these Thy servants, here assembled to perpetuate the 
 sacred memory of the Fathers of our Republic. May this 
 tribute of a Nation's gratitude be as extended and as abiding 
 as the honored names which it is designed to commemorate. 
 May the inhabitants of this land, while with hearts and voices 
 they proclaim the praises of the assertors of their rights, the 
 defenders of their liberties, and the vindicators of their laws, 
 be perpetuating a call to great and virtuous achievements. 
 And may all who, like our worthy departed of blessed memory, 
 shall be eminent benefactors of mankind, like them, also, find
 
 88 THE NATIONAL 
 
 a grateful people honoring them in their lives and in their 
 deaths. Having inherited the lustre of their names and enjoy- 
 ing the fruits of their labors, may this nation witness a suc- 
 cession of great and good men, to the glory of Thy name and 
 the prosperity of Thy people to the end of time. Grant, O 
 Lord, we beseech Thee, that this our season of national rejoic- 
 ing may be so ordered by the sanctifying power of Thy Holy 
 Spirit that we forfeit not our title to be numbered among Thy 
 faithful people. Control the words of all; restrain their appe- 
 tites; hallow their intercourse; keep far away the occasions of 
 disagreements; subdue the uprisings of angry passions; shed 
 abroad the spirit of meekness and forbearance; teach all, of 
 every class, to rejoice one with another; quicken them to acts 
 of brotherly love. Grant that whatsoever holy suggestions 
 they may any of them receive, they may carefully cherish, and 
 fill them with such gladness of heart, that they, realizing in 
 earthly things the gifts of Thy boundless love, may be encour- 
 aged thereby to press onward to the enjoyments of Thyself, 
 when all Thy goodness shall be revealed. 0, Thou Fountain 
 of Wisdom, who givest to all men liberally, and tipbraidest 
 not, grant that Thy servants here assembled, and all on whom 
 Thou hast bestowed the treasures of intellect, may be led unto 
 right apprehensions of all things. Endow them with humility 
 and soberness of mind. Bestow upon them a discerning spirit, 
 a sound judgment, and an honest and good heart, sincerely 
 disposed to employ all the talents thou hast, or shall entrust 
 them withal, to Thy honor and glory and the good of man- 
 kind; that ripening the precious fruits of intellect and of all 
 goodness, their profiting may appear unto all men, and that 
 they may give a comfortable account of their time and of their 
 acquirements to Thee, their God, when as stewards we shall 
 be summoned to our final reckoning. Almighty God, Who 
 hast, in all ages showed forth Thy power and mercy in the 
 wonderful preservation of Thy church, and in the protection
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 39 
 
 of every people professing Thy holy and eternal truth and 
 putting their sure trust in Thee, we yield Thee our unfeigned 
 thanks and praise for all Thy mercies to this people, and more 
 especially for that signal and wonderful manifestation of Thy 
 providence, which we now commemorate, wherefore not unto 
 us, Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be ascribed all 
 honor and glory, in all churches of the saints, from generation 
 to generation, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen." 
 
 At the conclusion of the prayer, the Mayor of the city re- 
 quested the Hon. William A. Whitehead, Corresponding Sec- 
 retary of the ^N"ew Jersey Historical Society, to call the roll of 
 authors, who were then requested to deposit, each for himself, 
 as his name was called, the biographical sketch which he had 
 prepared. 
 
 ROLL OF AUTHORS. 
 
 NAME. SUBJECT. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, Massachusetts. John Hancock. 
 
 Allen, Ethan, New York. Philip Livingston. 
 
 Arnory, Thomas C., Massachusetts. John Sullivan. 
 
 Angell, James B., Rhode Island. James Mitchell Varnum. 
 
 Balch, Thomas, Philadelphia. William Shippen. 
 
 Bartlett, John Russell, Rhode Island. Samuel Ward. 
 
 Bell, Charles H., New Hampshire. Nathaniel Folsom. 
 
 Bell, John J., New Hampshire. John Taylor Gilman. 
 
 Bellows, Henry Whitney, New York. Henry Wisner. 
 
 Biddle, Craig, Philadelphia. Edward Biddle. 
 
 Bouton, Nathaniel, New Hampshire. George Frost. 
 
 Bradford, A. B., Pennsylvania. George Clymer. 
 Bradley, Joseph P., District of Columbia. William Burnet. 
 
 Braxtou, Carter M., Virginia. Carter Braxton. 
 
 Brinton, John H., Philadelphia. William Smith. 
 
 Brock, R. Alonzo, Virginia. Richard Henry Lee. 
 
 Brown, John, Maryland. Joshua Seney. 
 
 Browne, William Hand, Maryland. Robert Alexander. 
 
 Buffet, E. P., New Jersey. Abraham Clark. 
 
 Burdge, Franklin, New York. Simon Boerum. 
 
 Canning, E. C., New York. John Lansing. 
 
 Carpenter, John C., Maryland. Richard Ridgley. 
 
 Chew, Samuel, Philadelphia. Benjamin Chew.
 
 40 
 
 THE NATIONAL 
 
 NAME. 
 
 Clairborne, J. F. H.. Louisiana. 
 Clemens, Samuel L., Connecticut. 
 Cocke, William Archer, Florida. 
 Cooke, John Esten, Virginia. 
 Cox, Christopher C., District of Columbia. 
 Cullum, George W., United States Army. 
 
 Dalrymple, E. A., Maryland. 
 
 Dana, Jr., Richard H., Massachusetts. 
 
 Darlington, William M., Pennsylvania. 
 
 Davis, William W. H., Pennsylvania. 
 
 De Lancey, Edward F., New York. 
 
 De Peyster, Frederick, New York. 
 
 Dix, John A., New York. 
 
 Drake, Samuel Adams, Massachusetts. 
 
 Duane, William, Philadelphia. 
 
 Eastman, Samuel C., New Hampshire. 
 Egle, William H., Pennsylvania. 
 Elmer, Lucius Q. C., New Jersey. 
 Etting, Frank M., Philadelphia. 
 
 Fairbanks, George R., Tennessee. 
 Flanders, Henry, Philadelphia. 
 Forrest, Douglass, Maryland. 
 Forney, John W., Philadelphia. 
 Frothingham, Richard, Massachusetts. 
 Furness, Horace Howard, Philadelphia. 
 Futhey, J. Smith, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Gammell, William, Rhode Island. 
 Gayarre, Charles, Louisiana. 
 Gilman, Arthur, New Hampshire. 
 Gratz, Simon, Philadelphia. 
 Greene, George W., Rhode Island. 
 Grigsby, Hugh Blair, Virginia. 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett, Massachusetts. 
 Hammond, Mrs. L. M., New York. 
 Hanson, George A., Maryland. 
 Harrison, Samuel A., Maryland. 
 Hart, Mrs. Armine Nixon, Philadelphia. 
 Hart, Charles Henry, Philadelphia. 
 Hatfield, Edwin F., New Jersey. 
 Hedge, J. Dunham, Rhode Island. 
 Henry, William Wirt, Virginia. 
 Higginson, Thomas W., Rhode Island. 
 Hillard, George S., Massachusetts. 
 Hoadley, Charles J., Connecticut. 
 Hoes, R. Randall, New Jersey. 
 
 SUBJP;CT. 
 
 Abraham Baldwin. 
 Francis Lightfoot Lee. 
 William Richardson Davie. 
 George Wythe. 
 Matthew Tilghman. 
 Richard Montgomery. 
 
 Thomas Johnson, Jr. 
 Francis Dana. 
 John Armstrong. 
 George Taylor. 
 William Allen. 
 William Floyd. 
 John Cruger. 
 Arthur Middleton. 
 Joseph Reed. 
 
 Josiah Bartlett. 
 William Maclay. 
 Jonathan Elmer. 
 John Dickinson. 
 
 Edward Telfair. 
 Thomas Fitzinimons. 
 Daniel Dulany. 
 Thomas Mifflin. 
 James Otis. 
 
 Jonathan Bayard Smith. 
 William Clingan. 
 
 Stephen Hopkins. 
 John Rutledge. 
 Nicholas Gilman. 
 Richard Butler. 
 Nathaniel Greene. 
 Peyton Randolph. 
 
 James Lovell. 
 
 James Madison. 
 
 Benjamin Contee. 
 
 William Hindman. 
 
 Robert Morris. 
 
 John Nixon. 
 
 Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant. 
 
 Henry Marchant. 
 
 Patrick Henry. 
 
 William Ellery. 
 
 Christopher Gadsden. 
 
 Silas Deane. 
 
 John Witherspoou.
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 
 
 41 
 
 NAME. 
 
 Holland, J. G., New York. 
 Hopkinson, Oliver, Philadelphia. 
 Hoyt, Albert H., Massachusetts. 
 Humphreys, A. A., United States Army. 
 Hunter, Richard Stockton, Philadelphia. 
 
 Jones, Horatio Gates, Philadelphia. 
 Jones, William Alfred, Connecticut. 
 
 Kingsley, William L., Connecticut. 
 
 SUBJECT. 
 
 George Washington. 
 Francis Hopkinson. 
 Samuel Liverniore. 
 Charles Humphreys. 
 Daniel Roherdeau. 
 
 Ebenezer Kinnersley. 
 Thomas Stone. 
 
 Samuel Huntington. 
 
 Lanman, Charles, District of Columbia. William Samuel Johnson. 
 
 Le Vert, Octayia Walton, Georgia. George Walton. 
 
 Lincoln, John L., Rhode Island. John Collins. 
 
 Lindsley, J. Berrien, Tennessee. Lyman Hall. 
 
 Lippitt, Mrs. Mary A., Rhode Island. William Barton. 
 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, Massachusetts. Samuel Holten." 
 
 Lossing, Benson J., New York. Philip Schuyler. 
 
 Meredith, Miss Catharine K., Philadelphia. Gouverneur Morris. 
 
 Merrifield, Joseph, Maryland. John Carroll. 
 
 Messier, Abraham, New Jersey. William Patterson. 
 
 Morris, John G., Maryland. Robert Goldsborough. 
 
 McClellan, W. J., Maryland. Jeremiah Townley Chase. 
 
 Nevin, J. Williamson, Pennsylvania. 
 Nevin, William W., Philadelphia. 
 Norris, George W., Philadelphia. 
 
 Parker, Joel, New Jersey. 
 Penny packer, Samuel W., Philadelphia. 
 Phelps, Miss Eliz. Stuart, Massachusetts. 
 Pinckney, Charles C., South Carolina. 
 
 Hugh Williamson. 
 William Carmichael. 
 Isaac Norris. 
 
 John Hart. 
 Samuel J. Atlee. 
 Abigail Adams. 
 Thomas Pinckney. 
 
 Quincy, Edmund, Massachusetts. Josiah Quincy, Jr. 
 
 Quincy, Miss Eliza Susan, Massachusetts. Josiah Quincy, Sr. 
 
 Ramsay, J. G. M., Tennessee. 
 Robbins, Chandler, Massachusetts. 
 
 Seidensticker, O., Philadelphia. 
 Silliman, Benjamin, Connecticut. 
 Simmons, George A., Massachusetts. 
 Smith, John. .Jay, Philadelphia. 
 Steiner, Lewis H., Maryland. 
 Stevens, Francis Putnam, Maryland. 
 Stevens, John Austin, New York. 
 Stone, Frederick D. f Philadelphia. 
 Stone, William L., New York. 
 Strother, David Hunter, Virginia. 
 Stryker, Mrs. Helen B., New Jersey. 
 Stryker, William S., New Jersey. 
 G 
 
 William Blouut. 
 David Ramsay. 
 
 Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg. 
 
 Joseph Spencer. 
 
 Samuel Adams. 
 
 James Logan. 
 
 Richard Potts. 
 
 John Henry, Jr. 
 
 John Alsop. 
 
 Charles Thomson. 
 
 George Clinton. 
 
 Edmund Pendleton. 
 
 Elias Boudinot. 
 
 Nathaniel Scudder.
 
 42 THENATIONAL 
 
 NAME. SUBJECT. - 
 
 Taylor, Miss Cornelia F., Philadelphia. Cyrus Griffin. 
 
 Thomas, Douglass H., Maryland. John Hanson. 
 
 Thornton, J. Wingate, Massachusetts. Matthew Thornton. 
 
 Throckmorton, B. W., New Jersey. John De Hart. 
 
 Toner, J. M., United States -Army. John Morgan. 
 
 Travelli, Joseph S., Pennsylvania. Arthur St. Clair. 
 
 Trumbull, J. Hammond, Connecticut. Eliphalet Dyer. 
 
 Tyler, Samuel, District of Columbia. Luther Martin. 
 
 Wallace, John William, Philadelphia. Thomas Willing. 
 
 Westcott, Thompson, Philadelphia. James Smith. 
 
 Wheeler, John H., North Carolina. Richard Dobbs Spaight. 
 
 Whitehead, William A., New Jersey. Richard Stockton. 
 
 Winthrop, Robert C., Massachusetts. Artemas Ward. 
 
 Wood, George J., Connecticut. Oliver Ellsworth. 
 
 Woolsou, Miss Constance F., Florida. Henry Middleton. 
 
 As the name of Charles Thomson resounded through the 
 Hall, the chairman of the Committee turned to the Mayor 
 and officially announced the restoration, on that day, " to the 
 chamber, of the last piece of furniture known to be outstand- 
 ing and properly authenticated the identical desk used by 
 Charles Thomson as Secretary of Congress which has been 
 handed down from generation to generation in the family of 
 Francis Hopkinson, one of the Signers of the Declaration of 
 Independence, and now deposited by his great-granddaughter, 
 Mrs. E. A. Foggo, upon the specific trust and condition that 
 Independence Chamber shall remain forever in the same state 
 as this day officially reported otherwise to be returned to 
 the family." 
 
 The Mayor gracefully accepted the table, and invited the 
 Congress of Authors, at the conclusion of their proceedings 
 in the chamber, to follow him to the platform erected in Inde- 
 pendence Square, in order that the general public might par- 
 ticipate in the ceremonial of the day.
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 43 
 
 THE NATIONAL CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 
 
 ANNIVERSARY OF JULY 2, 1776. 
 
 1 The 2d day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am 
 apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary 
 festival ; it ought to be commemorated as tie day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion 
 to God Almighty." Letter of JOHN ADAMS to his wife on 3d day of July, 1776. 
 
 CEREMONIES IN INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, 
 
 July i, 1876, at 12.30 P. M. 
 
 Hon. JOHN WILLIAM WALLACE, President of the Historical Society of Penn- 
 sylvania, will preside. 
 
 PROGRAMME. 
 
 CENTENNIAL TRIUMPHAL MARCH (HELFRICH) .... BAND. 
 
 Introduction of the Presiding Officer by his Honor, WM. S. STOKLEY, Mayor 
 
 of Philndelphia. 
 
 ADDRESS by the Presiding Officer 
 
 CENTENNIAL HYMN. Words by WHITTIER. Music by PAINE. . . CHORUS. 
 
 ADDRESS . . . . WILLIAM V. McKEAN, Esq., of Pennsylvania 
 
 GOD SAVE AMERICA ........ BAND. 
 
 ADDRESS . . . Hon. LEVERETT SALTONSTALL, of Massachusetts. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE OLD BELL. Words by W. BRADSHAW. Music by Miss 
 
 JULIA S. THOMPSON ..... SOLO AND CHORUS. 
 
 The Solo will be rendered by Mr. GEO. A. COJSLT. 
 
 ADDRESS . . His Excellency HENRY LIPPITT, Governor of Rhode Island. 
 
 NATIONAL AIRS. HERMANN . - . . . . . BAND. 
 
 ADDRESS .... Hon. FREDERICK DEPEYSTER, of New York. 
 
 CENTENNIAL ODE. Words by S. C. UPHAM. Music by ADAM GEIBEL. . CHORUS. 
 ADDRESS ..... Hon. L. Q. C. LAMAR, of Mississippi. 
 
 CENTENNIAL HYMN Words by WM. FENIMORE. Music by WM. P. FENI- 
 
 MORE ......... CHORUS. 
 
 ADDRESS . . Hon. BENJAMIN HARRIS BREWSTER, of Pennsylvania. 
 
 THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER . * . By GEO. A. CONLY AND CHORUS. 
 
 BENEDICTION . . Rev. CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY, of South Carolina. 
 
 Hon. JOHN B. GORDON, of Georgia, Gen. WINFIELD S. HANCOCK, and Hon. 
 
 JOEL PARKER, of New Jersey, it is expected, will also address the 
 
 assemblage. 
 
 The Vocal and Instrumental Music, under the supervision of Mr. SIMON GRATZ, 
 by the Choral Society of the Centennial Musical Association; Leader, JEAN Louis; 
 and the Military Band of the same Association ; Leader, THEO. HERMANN, Conductor, 
 Prof. JEAN Louis. 
 
 By order of the 
 
 COMMITTEE ON RESTORATION OF INDEPENDENCE HALL, 
 
 CHARLES S. KEYSER, 
 
 Master of Ceremonies.
 
 44 THENATIONAL 
 
 The platform, which had been huilt at the rear of the Hall, 
 was occupied by over five thousand people, and covered the 
 identical ground from which the Declaration of Independence 
 was first read and proclaimed to the people, by John Nixon, 
 upon the 8th of July, 1776. 
 
 Delegations were present from 
 
 The United States Centennial Commission; 
 
 The Foreign Commissioners to the Exposition ; 
 
 The Historical Society of Pennsylvania ; 
 
 The City authorities of Philadelphia ; 
 
 The Clergy ; 
 
 Members of Congress and Officers of the Army and Navy. 
 
 At exactly thirty minutes past twelve, the hour appointed 
 for the exercises in the square, while the band played the 
 Centennial Triumphal March, the Hon. John William Wal- 
 lace, the President of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 
 escorted by Hon. William S. Stokley, Mayor, appeared upon 
 the stage. 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE MAYOR. 
 
 On arriving at the speakers' stand, the Mayor, amid the 
 applause of the multitude, said : 
 
 It becomes my pleasure to introduce to you Hon. John 
 "William Wallace, President of the Historical Society of Penn- 
 sylvania, who has consented to preside on this occasion. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. WALLACE. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND HONORED GUESTS 
 
 FROM MANY LANDS : 
 
 We assemble this morning to commemorate one of the great 
 days of our great year of freedom and independence ; a day 
 not less important than that illustrious Fourth on which 
 we seem to be already entering, and which we shall soon
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 45 
 
 celebrate so grandly. Let me say a word as to the history 
 of this 2d of July, and why we celebrate that day. The 
 gentleman whom I will introduce to you directly will speak, 
 perhaps, of it more fully. On the 7th of June, 1776, Richard 
 Henry Lee, of Virginia, that State of renowned and venerable 
 name, introduced into the Congress which assembled in yonder 
 chamber, this resolution : 
 
 "Jtesolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right 
 ought to be, free and independent States; that they are 
 absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that 
 all political connection between them and the State of Great 
 Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." 
 
 On the 2d of July, 1776 the day which we now commemo- 
 rate after our fathers had consulted much, and pondered 
 much, that resolution was passed ; and, so far as anything bu 
 actual and successful war could complete it, revolution was 
 accomplished, and the British Provinces of America were free 
 and independent States. We can understand, therefore, why 
 John Adams wrote as he did, on the 3d, to his wife, that the 
 2d of July would be " the most memorable epocha in the history 
 of America," and that it would " be celebrated by succeeding 
 generations as the great anniversary festival, be solemnized 
 with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bon- 
 fires, and illuminations, from one end of the Continent to the 
 other, from this time forward forevermore." 
 
 Everything relating to this great resolution is interesting to 
 all Americans, and I exhibit to you a fac-simile of it, which 
 Mr. Etting, at page 94 of his valuable book, recently published, 
 entitled "An Historical Account of the Old State House of 
 Pennsylvania, now known as the Hall of Independence," has 
 given to us from the original itself, in Mr. Lee's handwriting. 
 
 The handwriting is as bold as John Hancock's. 
 
 [Mr. Wallace, holding up Mr. Etting's work, opened at 
 page 94, here exhibited the fac-simile.]
 
 46 THBNATIONAL 
 
 This resolution of the 2d, as I have said, was really the 
 act which made us independent .of Great Britain. But Con- 
 gress, in those days, sat with closed doors. Its sessions were 
 secret. But few outside knew that independence had been 
 resolved on, and therefore the Declaration, both of the act of 
 Independence, and of the causes which impelled us to it that 
 paper required by " a decent respect to the opinions of man- 
 kind" was made in the most solemn form, and published to 
 the world. 
 
 The 2d and the 4th of July are, therefore, complements of 
 each other. The 2d is, in truth, the beginning and the cause 
 of the 4th. The 4th is the consummation and crown of 
 the 2d. 
 
 Appreciating in this, its true and dignified value, the day 
 which we now commemorate, the Committee on the Restora- 
 tion of the Hall to whom we have been so greatly indebted 
 for much that gives effect to the present season this Commit- 
 tee, I say, some months ago, sent letters to the descendants of 
 the men of 1776, to the historians of the country, her poets, her 
 men of letters, and her antiquaries, summoning them to meet on 
 this day in that venerable Hall on which you are looking, and 
 there to bring for preservation in that vast Museum, formed 
 by the efforts of that same Committee, protected by the same 
 roof which protects the Hall of Independence and justly 
 styled National an authentic biography of some of our early 
 patriots ; thus to contribute to the erection of an imperishable 
 monument to the memory of those whose deeds make the 
 glory of our land. 
 
 Responding to this honorable call, these distinguished per- 
 sons have come from all parts of this wide republic as to a 
 sanctuary, and in the presence of that spiritual band whom 
 mental vision ever there summons up with the distinctness 
 of reality, they are now depositing in yonder hall, upon the 
 table of John Hancock, as upon a shrine, these solemn docu-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 47 
 
 ments. So soon as they have performed this high office, they 
 will present themselves on this platform, and you will have 
 the pleasure of being addressed by some of them. 
 
 Whittier's Centennial Hymn was then sung by the chorus. 
 
 At the close of the music, the Congress of Authors, who 
 had now finished their literary duties in the Hall, came for- 
 ward and took their seats in a distinguished portion of the 
 platform that had been prepared for them. 
 
 Mr. Wallace then said : I will present to you, as the first 
 speaker, a gentleman of our own city who bears a patriot name. 
 He is known more widely by his pen than by his voice, and 
 has far more readers than acquaintances. He will give you 
 an accurate historical sketch of matters relating to the day. 
 I introduce to you Mr. William Y. McKean. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. McKEAN. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 In your order of proceeding it is allotted to me to speak 
 of the events of July 1st and 2d, a hundred years ago events 
 we are here to-day to commemorate. We are gathered in a 
 place illustrious in its historic memories a place hallowed as 
 far as any spot can be hallowed by human agency. There is 
 no other place in our country so intimately associated with 
 the events that made and preserved us a nation. 
 
 Here, within these walls, the commission which, on the 
 17th of June, 1775, placed Washington at the head of the 
 American army, was signed, attested and delivered into his 
 hands. Here, on the loth of May, 1776, it was declared by 
 Congress that the exercise of every kind of authority by the 
 government of Great Britain in the United Colonies "should 
 be totally suppressed," and that all the powers of government 
 should be "exercised under the authority of the people of the
 
 48 THENATIONAL 
 
 Colonies." Here, on the 2d of July, 1776, was adopted the 
 resolution which, on that day, declared the United Colonies 
 to be free and independent States. Here, two days later, July 
 4th, was adopted the immortal "Declaration" of that resolu- 
 tion, and of the reasons for the separation from Great Britain ; 
 here it was signed, proclaimed, and sent forth on its beneficent 
 mission to mankind. Here, later on, the government of the 
 Confederation was framed, signed, ratified and proclaimed 
 those articles of confederation and perpetual union between 
 the States, w r hich kept them together and led the way to the 
 Constitution ; and here, in 1787, was framed, signed and 
 ordained that noble structure of government the written 
 Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Here, too, and in the building at the Sixth Street corner of 
 the square, for the greater part of twenty years after the Con- 
 federation was proclaimed and the Constitution was ordained, 
 was performed the labor of legislation and organization which 
 was necessary to enable the young nation to discharge its 
 duties, and to get the new government into working order. 
 All these memorable and momentous things, and many more 
 in the history of the United States, were done here. You 
 know what manner of men they were who performed those 
 admirable works, and in what reverence their memories are 
 held. 
 
 It was here within these walls that the merchants and 
 planters, and farmers and mechanics, and lawyers, sent into 
 Congress by the then obscure and remote American Colonies, 
 became translated into statesmen whose political ability and 
 wisdom, whose public virtues, and whose dignity of action 
 challenged the attention and won the admiration and praise 
 of the civilized world. Here they assembled not for a 
 casual occasion only, or for a few days or weeks, but for long 
 months, and through many years not a portion of them only, 
 but all of that resplendent constellation of illustrious men
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 49 
 
 whose names illumine the early history of political and civic 
 events in the United States. It would make a long catalogue 
 to recite them, and I shall not attempt it. The place where " 
 we are now assembled was their public home. Here within 
 these walls they sat and consulted here within these grounds 
 they walked and pondered. These places were once vocal 
 with their voices in anxious conference in undertoned con- 
 sultation and persuasion in eloquent debate. If echoes were 
 immortal things and could come back to us after the lapse of 
 a hundred years, we might pause in reverence to-day, and 
 harken with stilled breath for the reverberation of their voices 
 in that chamber, and of their footfalls through, that corridor 
 and in these grounds where we now are. 
 
 Then, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is with 
 reason, as well as from the impulses of patriotism, that we 
 regard this place not only as the historic centre of our 
 country, but as hallowed ground hallowed so far as any 
 earthly place can become so through the deeds of men, or by 
 the work of human hands. 
 
 I have mentioned briefly some of the memorable and con- 
 trolling deeds done in this place. That which is the imme- 
 diate subject of commemoration to-day is the adoption by 
 Congress of Richard Henry Lee's Virginia Resolution, on the 
 2d of July, 1776, whereby all political connection between 
 the United Colonies and the government of Great Britain 
 was then totally dissolved, and the colonies were then declared 
 to be Free and Independent States. The consideration of 
 that decisive Resolution had been postponed from the 10th of 
 June until the 1st of July, a hundred years ago to-day. The 
 patriots who were in favor of an immediate and formal de- 
 claration of the separation of the Colonies from any further 
 political dependence upon the mother country, looked forward 
 to the arrival of that first day of July with great and anxious 
 solicitude not that they doubted the adoption of the Resolu- 
 7
 
 50 
 
 tion of Independence by a sufficient majority of the Colonies, for 
 that had been assured, but because of their earnest desire that 
 the decisive act should go to the world as the unanimous voice 
 of all the Colonies represented in the Congress. During the 
 whole of the interval between the 10th of June and the first of 
 July, Jefferson and John Adams, Chase and Rodney and 
 McKean, and Franklin and James Smith, and Jonathan D. Ser- 
 geant and others, of course, but these particularly had been 
 diligently at work to insure a unanimous vote of the Colonies. 
 The people were ready, but the delegates from some of the 
 Colonies were not. These delegates were not less patriotic 
 than their more advanced and decided colleagues, but thev 
 
 o / i/ 
 
 were slow to say the final word that was to commit the 
 people of their Colonies to the irrevocable Act of Separation 
 an act which would leave them no middle ground to stand 
 upon an act which must be fought out to victory by conflict 
 of arms on the battle field for failure there would leave 
 them a conquered people, stripped of all their rights as 
 political communities. 
 
 On the 10th of June, the day when the first debate on 
 Richard Henry Lee's Resolution was closed, the delegates 
 who made up the majorities in the representation of six of 
 the Colonies were still unprepared to vote for the final act of 
 separation. Virginia and North Carolina and Georgia were 
 ready to vote for independence, so were Massachusetts and 
 Connecticut and New Hampshire and Rhode Island ; but the 
 delegates from South Carolina were not, nor were those from 
 New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Mary- 
 land. This led to the postponement until the 1st of July a 
 postponement agreed to by the more resolute advocates of in- 
 dependence, in the full expectation that the interval of three 
 weeks would enable them to bring about entire unanimity. 
 But so determined and certain were the leading delegates of 
 the Colonies already prepared, that they resolved that, in
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 51 
 
 order that no time should he lost by this postponement, com- 
 mittees should be appointed to draft a Declaration, setting 
 forth the reasons for the Resolution of Independence, and to 
 prepare a form of Confederation for the future government of 
 the Colonies. They and those who were like minded with 
 them had no doubt as to the final issue ; but they kept ear- 
 nestly and diligently at work. Jonathan D. Sergeant under- 
 took the duty of bringing about a change in the delegation 
 from N"ew Jersey ; Samuel Chase went home to Maryland to 
 stimulate the convention of that Colony to send instructions 
 for independence to their delegates in Congress ; Caesar Rodney 
 went ' down into Sussex County, Delaware, to induce a more 
 favorable tone in public sentiment from that place ; Thomas 
 McKean, together with Benjamin Rush, Jas. Smith, and others, 
 set to work to procure a popular and favorable expression 
 from Pennsylvania. Thus the way was prepared for what it 
 was hoped would be a unanimous, or nearly unanimous vote 
 on the first of July. Public sentiment was being brought to 
 bear upon the hesitating members from four out of the six 
 uncertain Colonial delegations. The New York delegates re- 
 mained passive, neither opposing nor helping, as they deemed 
 the whole subject of separation outside of their instructions ; 
 and South Carolina was too distant for such efforts as were 
 put into motion in the near at hand Colonies of ~New Jersey, 
 Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Still her delegation 
 was making progress, too. 
 
 As early as the 15th of June Jonathan D. Sergeant wrote 
 to John Adams that the new Deleo-ates about to be elected to 
 
 O 
 
 Congress from New Jersey, would be in Philadelphia by the 
 first of July, and they would " vote plump." They, in fact, 
 arrived on Friday, June 28th, three of the new Delegates 
 being Dr. John Witherspoon, Richard Stockton, and Francis 
 Hopkinson. Sergeant was entirely right about their senti- 
 ments. ~Ne\v Jersey's voice was thus added to that of the
 
 52 THENATIONAL 
 
 others in favor of independence, making eight out of the 
 thirteen Colonies. 
 
 Samuel Chase had a more time-consuming task in Maryland. 
 There the people were right enough, but the Convention of 
 the Colony was difficult to move in the desired direction. In 
 order to counteract that spirit, county conventions had to be 
 called, and pressure from them was brought to bear upon the 
 members of the Provincial Convention sitting at Annapolis. 
 They were instructed by the people to withdraw the former 
 instructions to the Maryland delegates in the Congress at 
 Philadelphia, and to authorize and empower the latter to con- 
 cur with the other United Colonies, or a majority of them, in 
 declaring the United Colonies free and independent States. 
 This was accomplished by the 28th of June, and on that day 
 Chase sent an express from Annapolis to John Adams, at 
 Philadelphia, advising him of the successful result of his mis- 
 sion. Under the stimulus of the popular uprising excited in 
 the counties by Mr. Chase, the Annapolis Convention cast a 
 unanimous vote in favor of the instructions for independence. 
 The instructions were received and read in Congress on the 
 1st of July, a hundred years ago to-day possibly at this very 
 hour and thus the voice of Maryland was added to those of 
 the other Colonies already prepared, making nine Colonies out 
 of the thirteen in favor of the Independence Resolution. 
 
 The votes of four Colonies were still undecided, although 
 that of Delaware was sure if Rodney should get back in time. 
 He was still in Sussex, leaving his delegation in Congress 
 evenly divided George Read being against the resolution, 
 whilst McKean was in favor of it. In the mean time, and as 
 early as the 25th of June, Rush, and Smith, and McKean and 
 others had procured a declaration from- a popular Provincial 
 Conference representing the people of the counties of Pennsyl- 
 vania, expressing their willingness to concur in a vote by Con- 
 gress declaring independence, and this was read in Congress
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. '53 
 
 Tuesday, June 25th. Even this did not decide the vote of 
 Pennsylvania, for all but three of her delegates still remained 
 of the contrary opinion. No change was brought about in 
 the New York delegation, and none that was decisive in that 
 from South Carolina. 
 
 This was the condition of affairs when the momentous First 
 day of July, 1776, arrived the day to which the further con- 
 sideration of Richard Henry Lee's Virginia Resolution had 
 been postponed. Nine colonies were sure to vote for it, and 
 ten, if Rodney should arrive from Delaware before the vote 
 was called. Pennsylvania and South Carolina were still ad- 
 verse, and New York declined to take part, as the whole 
 subject of separation and independence was outside of their 
 instructions. Upon meeting that First of July, Congress went 
 into Committee of the Whole House, to take up the resolution. 
 Dr. Witherspoon and his New Jersey colleagues, being new 
 members, desired to hear the arguments pro and con for and 
 against a declaration of independence. The reasons were 
 given on both sides ; but, with the exception of two or three 
 members, it is uncertain who spoke. Richard Henry Lee, the 
 mover of the Resolution, was absent in Virginia, because of 
 sickness in his family ; Jefferson, who was a power with his 
 pen and in committee, was no speaker on the floor of the 
 House ; Chase was still absent in Maryland, and Rodney had 
 not yet returned from Delaware. It is known, however, that 
 John Dickinson stated the case of the opposition to the Reso- 
 lution, and that John Adams was the great champion of 
 Independence on that day. It is not unlikely that young 
 Rutledge, of South Carolina, described by Patrick Henry as 
 the most eloquent speaker in Congress, and James Wilson, of 
 Pennsylvania, and R.dR. Livingston, of New York, supported 
 Dickinson and that George Wythe, of Virginia, and Dr. 
 Witherspoon supported the argument of Adams. But all ac- 
 counts agree that John Adams was " the pillar," the " colossus"
 
 54' THE NATION.AL 
 
 of the party of Independence on the floor of Congress that 
 day, and in the preceding debate in June, and that his first of 
 July speech made a powerful impression by its vigorous logic 
 and its noble eloquence. What a privation to this age it is 
 that we have no authentic contemporary record of that great 
 debate, so pregnant with the future destiny of the American 
 people ! 
 
 On the evening of July first John Adams wrote to Samuel 
 Chase that the debate took up most of the day. Jefferson 
 wrote in 1787 that the debate lasted "nine hours" until eve- 
 ning "without refreshment and without pause." Then the 
 vote was taken in Committee of the Whole. Nine Colonies- 
 Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, 
 New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia 
 voted for the Resolution. Two Colonies Pennsylvania 
 and South Carolina voted against it. Delaware was evenly 
 divided, as Rodney was still absent, and New York, at the 
 request of her delegation, was allowed to withdraw from the 
 vote, having no new instructions. 
 
 This vote, Mr. Chairman, you will remember, was taken in 
 Committee of the Whole," and had yet to be considered in the 
 House. The committee rose and reported their action to the 
 House, and the vote was about to be taken there, when, ac- 
 cording to the plain and brief phraseology of the official 
 record, the resolution of the committee was read, and "the 
 determination thereof was at the request of a colony post- 
 poned until to-morrow." 
 
 This brings us to the second day of July, 1776, the real date 
 of the birth of the United States as an independent nation. 
 The Colony, at whose request the vote had been postponed the 
 day before, was South Carolina. The suggestion was made by 
 Edward Rutledge, who, according to Jefferson's notes made at 
 the time, said that " he believed that his colleagues, although 
 they disapproved of the resolution, might then join in it for the
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 55 
 
 sake of unanimity." When the vote came to be taken on the 
 2d of July, Pennsylvania reversed her adverse vote of the day 
 before. That came about through two of the opposition 
 delegates absenting themselves, leaving three in favor of the 
 resolution, to two against it. Rodney had arrived by express 
 sent after him into Delaware, and his presence enabled Dela- 
 ware to cast her vote for the resolution. When South Carolina 
 was called, she, according to the intimation given by Rutledge, 
 reversed her vote, and thus made the vote unanimous with the 
 exception of that of New York, whose delegates still stood 
 aloof not voting, because they had no instructions, but de- 
 claring that individually they were in favor of the resolution. 
 On the 9th of July, the New York Convention unanimously 
 approved the resolution and the declaration. 
 
 The official record of these proceedings is in the following 
 words : 
 
 " Tuesday, July 2d, 1776. The Congress resumed the con- 
 sideration of the resolution from the Committee of the Whole, 
 which was agreed to, as follows : 
 
 " Resolved , That these United Colonies are, and of right 
 ought to be, free and independent States ; that they are ab- 
 solved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all 
 political connection between them and the State of Great 
 Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." 
 
 From the hour when that vote was taken, and that record 
 made, the United States of America " assumed among the 
 powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which 
 the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them." It is 
 the Centennial anniversary of that great event the most 
 momentous event in the political history of mankind that 
 you are commemorating by your presence here to-day. 
 
 And now, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, indulge 
 me while I say that the brief and somewhat dry narrative 
 which you have complimented, by giving it your attention, is
 
 56 THE NATIONAL 
 
 made up from the meagre journals of the Colonial Congress, 
 and from the facts, as I have found them scattered through the 
 
 * O 
 
 twenty volumes of the voluminous writings of Thomas Jeffer- 
 son and John Adams. With but two or three unimportant 
 exceptions, I have used none but the writings that were con- 
 temporaneous with the events described. And here I think I 
 may do a public service by correcting a very general error. I 
 have seen it set down in the writings of men possessing some 
 celebrity as authors, that Jefferson's narrative of the events of 
 the second and fourth days of July, 1776, was written from 
 memory when he was a very old man. This is a mischievous 
 error. His narrative was published in Paris, in August, 1787, 
 whilst he was Minister to France, and when he was but forty- 
 three years of age. The error grew out of the hasty reading 
 of a celebrated letter of Jefferson's to Samuel A. Wells, dated 
 May 12, 1819 ; but in that very letter he declares, with solemn 
 emphasis, that the narrative therein contained is extracted 
 from his original notes, made in his place in Congress, "while 
 the question of independence was under consideration before 
 Congress," which notes, he adds, "I have now before me," and 
 " for the truth of which I pledge myself to heaven and earth." 
 
 He is a bold man who reads that testimony and then under- 
 takes to say that Jefferson's narrative of what passed in Con- 
 gress connected with Lee's Resolution and the Declaration of 
 Independence was written from memory, when his memory 
 was enfeebled by age. 
 
 I am thus particular, Mr. Chairman, because the history of 
 those grand and momentous events has been falsified by many 
 imaginative pictures by fancy and by fiction to a degree 
 that has almost excluded the true history from the popular 
 mind. Some of these fanciful fictions have been issued in 
 book form in this city, within this Centennial year. 
 
 I ask your pardon for this short departure from the imme- 
 diate theme of the day, and will now conclude my share in
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 57 
 
 the proceedings. The great importance the decisive and 
 controlling character of the Resolution of Independence, 
 adopted on the Second day of July, 1776, have been obscured 
 to the popular vision by. the fame and splendor of Jefferson's 
 immortal Declaration of the reasons for the adoption of that 
 resolution. Yet Jefferson himself never allowed the one to 
 overshadow in his estimation the importance of the other. 
 The Declaration, in his mind, was intended to be "an appeal 
 to the tribunal of the world" as a justification of what had 
 already been done. It was intended, he says, " to be an ex- 
 pression of the American mind, and to give that expression 
 the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion," "to 
 place before mankind the common sense of the subject in 
 terms so plain and firm as to command their assent." Yet 
 the Declaration of Independence has dislodged the Resolution 
 of Independence from the place of precedence in the popular 
 mind, and the Fourth of July has displaced the Second as the 
 nation's holiday, and the patriot's high festival ; and this is 
 easy enough to understand when we consider the circum- 
 stances. The Resolution was passed in private session, and 
 remained unknown to the people generally until it and the 
 Declaration were publicly proclaimed together. There was 
 nothing in the phrasing of the Resolution to cause it to live 
 in the popular memory whilst there was everything in the 
 Declaration to give it a vital hold upon the affections of the 
 American people. It was so pre-eminently "the expression of 
 the American mind of that day," that people of every degree 
 adopted it as their own. So it has remained. Its terse, forci- 
 ble, and unanswerable arraignment of the Government of the 
 mother country for the suppression of the rights and liberties 
 of the American colonists its clear and compact statement 
 of the basis of all just government "the consent of the 
 governed" and its grand exposition of the inherent and
 
 58 THE NATIONAL 
 
 inalienable rights of mankind have made it an ever-living 
 political gospel. 
 
 " Independence Day" must, therefore, remain inseparably 
 connected with the Fourth of July the day of the " Declara- 
 tion," and riot the day of the Resolution. Yet John Adams 
 had reason for writing to his wife on the 3d day of- July, 1776, 
 that "yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever 
 was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was 
 nor will be decided among men. That will live as truth 
 among all Americans who know and value the history of their 
 country." His prediction that that day would be celebrated 
 by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival, 
 " the most memorable epocha in the history of America," has 
 failed in the precise fulfilment but it is vicariously fulfilled 
 by the universal celebration of the Fourth. But his prophetic 
 vision was not entirely at fault ; and his prayer had not gone 
 without answer. On the morning of the first of July, 1776, 
 anticipating Independence in that day's vote, he wrote from 
 Pennsylvania to Archibald Bullock, " May Heaven prosper 
 the new-born Republic, and make it more glorious than any 
 former republics have been !" And on the third he wrote 
 to Mrs. Adams, after the adoption of the Resolution of Inde- 
 pendence, " Through all the gloom I can see the rays of 
 ravishing light and glory ;" and " posterity will triumph in 
 this day's transactions." 
 
 He, with Jefferson, lived until the 4th of July, 1826, and 
 departing this life together on that day, had seen a full half 
 century of the heaven-sent prosperity of the young Republic; 
 and Adams witnessed the gathering of that light and glory 
 whose advancing rays he had foreseen through the dark gloom 
 of the Revolution. They were a joy to his patriotic eyes ; but 
 what raptures would he have experienced if he could have had 
 pre-vision of the coming glories of the auspicious days of this 
 Centennial year the pre-vision of a nation of forty-four mil-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 59 
 
 lions, extending from ocean to ocean across the Continent, and 
 across twenty-three degrees of latitude, skilled in all arts, rival- 
 ling the Old World in the raising and making of all articles 
 of need, abounding in rich resources, the wilderness of the 
 west transformed into an inexhaustible granary for the neces- 
 sities of other countries, and standing the acknowledged equal, 
 in all respects, with the foremost political powers of the earth 
 the pre-vision of the assembled nations here in this hundredth 
 year of American Independence all of them, the oldest and 
 the youngest the most populous and most powerful, with the 
 humblest and feeblest ; the empire and the municipality ; the 
 liberal monarchy and the limited republic ; the democracy 
 and the autocracy ; the Christian, Mohammedan, and Pagan ; 
 Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the islands of the Sea, and 
 antipodal Australia; which, in 1776, was an unknown quan- 
 tity on the map of the world all the nations assembled in the 
 magnificent industrial palaces erected by the people of the 
 American Republic ; assembled with their multitudinous use- 
 ful products and rich treasures, in peaceful emulation, to pro- 
 mote the progress and prosperity of mankind in the interests 
 of universal peace ; assembled in commemoration of the hun- 
 dredth year of American Independence, with their choice men 
 of learning and science, and art and skill, to manifest the 
 goodwill and high estimation they hold towards the great 
 nation, the deep foundations of which he and his compatriots 
 laid a hundred years ago if some new apocalypse could have 
 disclosed all this to his yearning eyes, what an enrapturing 
 revelation would that have been ! 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : I do not often give 
 rein to exalted speech after that fashion, but exalting influ- 
 ences are in the air all about us in these days. We do well 
 to note and to celebrate the memorable epochs and the momen- 
 tous events that have called us here to-day, and to keep freshly 
 before us the example of the great and good and wise men,
 
 60 THE NATIONAL 
 
 without whose wisdom, and virtue, and patriotism, no such 
 days or events would have a place in our history. This is a 
 good service, but we can do a better. We can, if we will, 
 keep their example before us, and try to follow in their foot- 
 steps every day in the year, and every year of our lives. We 
 can endeavor to practise their public virtue, and bring our 
 best political ability, and our highest standard of character, to 
 the support and administration of the Constitution and the 
 government which they founded, in order to form a more per- 
 fect Union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquillity, 
 to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of 
 liberty for themselves and their posterity. 
 
 "God save America" was then played by the band, after 
 which Mr. Wallace came forward and said : 
 
 The name of Saltonstall is one of the early honored names 
 of Massachusetts ; and its honor has been kept in perennial 
 freshness by a succession of descendants who have added new 
 titles of respect to those long ago acquired by the ancient 
 Governor who bore it. It comes, indeed, to this very day 
 and hour with distinction in the person of one whom I intro- 
 duce to you, the Hon. Leverett Saltonstall, of Massachusetts. 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. SALTONSTALL. 
 
 As I stand here and look at that glorious old hall and call 
 to mind the fact that it was here where, one hundred years 
 ago, transpired that great, one might say, that greatest of all 
 events of history the passage of the resolution introduced 
 by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, and seconded by John 
 Adams, " that these United Colonies are and of right ought 
 to he free and independent States ; that they are absolved from 
 all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political con- 
 nection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 61 
 
 of right ought to he, totally dissolved" when I think of the 
 men who were here assembled the Adamses, Gerry, Paine, 
 Hancock, Hopkins, Sherman, Wolcott, Livingston, Morris, 
 Hush, Franklin, Carroll, Lee, Jefferson, Kutledge, Middleton, 
 and others whose names are dear to every American heart a 
 hody of men of whom Lord Chatham declared " that in all 
 his reading and observation and he had read Thucydides and 
 had studied and admired the master States of the world that 
 for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of 
 conclusion, under such a complication of circumstances, no 
 nation or body of men can stand in preference to the gene- 
 ral Congress at Philadelphia;" and when I think that that 
 resolution not only made of those feeble colonies a great 
 republic, but has brought life and hope to all the civilized 
 world, I feel greatly honored in being asked to speak in this 
 presence for the ancient Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and 
 no less embarrassed to find words to express my thoughts 
 upon this glorious theme. Nor should I have had this honor 
 had it not been that that eminent patriot and scholar, the 
 Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston, whose ancestor crossed 
 the ocean in the same ship with my own, two hundred and 
 forty-six years ago, was prevented from being here to-day. 
 And Massachusetts, surely all will agree, is the last State 
 which should be absent on this great day, from this most 
 imposing occasion. It may well be said that the Declaration 
 of Independence was the glorious fruit of that tree whose 
 germ was nurtured in the cabin of the May-Flower, one 
 hundred and fifty-six years before. 
 
 During that whole century and a half there was seldom a 
 period when a conflict did not exist between the colonists and 
 the crown ; and, thanks to God, there were always to be found 
 in Massachusetts stalwart supporters of the rights and liber- 
 ties of the people. They never swerved nor flinched, but 
 were true sires of the men who were to act their part in the
 
 62 
 
 greater struggle; so that when the time came which sum- 
 moned the colonists to meet their oppressors in arms, the ter- 
 rible necessity came to a people who had undoubtedly foreseen 
 the dire event. 
 
 To no man does the title of " Pioneer of the Revolution" 
 more truly belong than to Samuel Adams. " The last of the 
 Puritans," as he has been styled, he certainly united in his 
 character all the best traits of his Puritan ancestry. From 
 the day he left college, when he took for the theme of his 
 disquisition " Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme 
 magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be pre- 
 served," to the day of his death, this brave, far-seeing man 
 walked majestically on, caring never for himself, but only for 
 the liberties of his country. Gov. Hutchinson said of him, 
 " such is the obstinacy and inflexible disposition of the man, 
 he never can be conciliated by any office or gift whatever." 
 " His feet were ever in the stirrups, his lance was ever in its 
 rest," says Jefferson. 
 
 It is related of him that, on the morning of the battle of 
 Lexington, as he was retreating before the British troops, he 
 remarked to a friend, " This is a fine day ; I mean, a glorious 
 day for America." The man who first saw that the great 
 question must result in an appeal to arms the man who first 
 tried to prepare his fellow-citizens to meet the great issue 
 Massachusetts does well at this hour to send his marble statue 
 to the capital of the nation, which owes its existence in a 
 great degree to the sagacity, the firmness, and the courage of 
 this, her noble son. 
 
 Nor can I forbear to speak, also, of his great kinsman and 
 coadjutor, John Adams their names are so intimately asso- 
 ciated in a common glory that to speak in praise of the one is 
 to eulogize the other the man whom Jefferson styled the 
 "Colossus of (hat Congress;" whom Richard Stockton declared 
 to be the "Atlas of Independence;" who, possessing the great
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 63 
 
 gift of impassioned eloquence, knew how to keep silent when, 
 in ignorance of the true condition of affairs in Massachusetts, 
 other colonies were not prepared for the question of independ- 
 ence; but always ready to speak when occasion required, so 
 thoroughly acquainted was he with every question which 
 came before Congress, and so admirably trained were his facul- 
 ties in debate, possessing "a power of thought and expression 
 which," according to Jefferson, "moved the members from 
 their seats." The devoted husband of an admirable wife, the 
 fond father, loving his- home, but placing before all things else 
 his country, devoting his life to her cause, he was spared to 
 see his prophetic vision fulfilled when, on the 2d. of July, one 
 hundred years ago, he exclaimed: "yet through all the gloom 
 I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that 
 the end is worth more than all the means, and that posterity 
 will triumph in this day's transactions, even although we 
 should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not." 
 
 How touching is it to think of the devotion of these men, 
 the two Adamses, leaving their native State, her ports closed, 
 the doors of her courts barred, her industries dead, her people 
 in a state of starvation, her capital occupied by the army of 
 the enemy; parting from loving wives and children without 
 any cheering assurance of meeting them again ; turning their 
 horses' heads for Philadelphia, here to meet the leading spirits 
 of sister colonies, of whose names they may have heard, but 
 of whose views, wishes, and purposes, they had but a most 
 imperfect knowledge. So far at least as any positive aggres- 
 sions of the mother country were concerned, Massachusetts 
 perhaps, stood alone ; but her delegates, of whatever else they 
 may have doubted, were sure of the ready sympathy and the 
 hearty good-will of those patriotic men whom the same call 
 had summoned to this ancient revolutionary city. 
 
 It took more than a fortnight in those days to travel from 
 Boston to Philadelphia. The journey lay through a scarcely
 
 64 THE NATIONAL 
 
 settled country, occupied, with the exception of a few towns, 
 distant from each other, by simple yeomen, who must have 
 gazed with wonder, if not suspicion, upon the strangers, com- 
 ing from so remote a place as Boston. And now the trip can 
 be made between the sunrise and sunset of a summer daj% 
 traversing a country beautifully cultivated, through great 
 cities, huge factories of every kind greeting the eye of the 
 traveller, and the hum of varied industry filling his ear. 
 Great steamships lie at anchor in the harbors, and the yellow 
 harvest falls before the march of the reaping machine. The 
 electric wires, thanks to Boston's son but Philadelphia's pa- 
 triot sage, are transmitting intelligence quicker than the 
 lightning's flash from one side of the continent to the other, 
 and even under the ocean to continents beyond. 
 
 Truly said John Adams, " the day will be celebrated by 
 succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It 
 ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by 
 solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be 
 solemnized with pomp and parade, with show's, games, sports, 
 guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this 
 continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore." 
 
 But let me not close without saying, what I can as a son of 
 Massachusetts say from rny heart, that as one hundred years 
 ago Pennsylvania received the delegates from the other Colo- 
 nies, and though at the outset not herself prepared to join 
 Massachusetts and Virginia in their extreme measures, yet 
 yielded them her cordial sympathy, and exposed herself, as 
 the gathering-place of the Rebel Congress, to the severe retal- 
 iatory measures of Great Britain, becoming in the end, as she 
 has since continued to be, one of the most generous and de- 
 voted of the sisterhood of States ; so now has Pennsylvania, 
 and especially this good city of Philadelphia, almost alone 
 and under every form of discouragement, carried out this 
 magnificent project of a great centennial celebration ; and all
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 65 
 
 the nations of the earth have been invited and have come 
 hither, bringing with them their superb treasures of art and 
 industry, to take part with us in the national celebration of 
 our natal day. !N\}t alone the nations of Europe and South 
 America, but from the far East China with her four hundred 
 millions of people ; the Islands of Japan, so recently opened 
 to the world by peaceful influences, under our own brave 
 Perry ; Egypt, with her forty centuries of history coming to 
 exchange greetings with this young nation ; but most touch- 
 ing of all, Great Britain, from whose loins we sprung, with 
 her colonies, many of which, one hundred years ago, were 
 unknown to civilized man, laying aside old prejudices, has 
 brought hither and displayed to the world the rich products 
 of her looms, her workshops, and ateliers with a lavishness 
 that calls for our warmest admiration, and seems to bid us 
 take notice that she too has been busy these last hundred 
 years. 
 
 I say, then, that Pennsylvania has well earned her title of 
 Keystone to this mighty arch of the Union by her record of 
 the past, and not less by her boldness and perseverance in con- 
 ceiving and carrying out the plan of this great International 
 Exhibition. 
 
 May our people profit, as they ought, by this great educator 
 may they come from the very extremities of the Republic, 
 and meet here to rejoice together with grateful hearts, and to 
 revive in each other's breasts the memories of ancestral vir- 
 tues, so that in the next century we may show the nations of 
 the world the best results of Republican institutions, as in 
 the last we have held up to them the beacon-light of freedom. 
 
 A new Centennial ode, entitled " The Voice of the Old 
 Bell," was then sung. The music is by Mr. W. Bradshaw, 
 and the words by Miss Julia S. Thompson. The solo parts 
 were sung by the well-known basso, Mr. George A. Conly. 
 
 9
 
 66 THE NATIONAL 
 
 The piece was encored, and Mr. Conly sang his part again. 
 At its conclusion Mr. Wallace rose and said: 
 
 You will now hear from the State of Rhode Island ; but 
 before you so hear, may I not apostrophize her in the lan- 
 guage of one of her own bards, writing in times when lawless 
 violence sought to subvert her old and honored government 
 
 " Oh gallant land of bosoms true, 
 
 Still bear that stainless shield ; 
 That ANCHOR clung the tempest through, 
 That HOPE untaught to yield." 
 
 The name of Lippitt comes to us with honor from the war 
 of the Revolution. Col. Christopher Lippitt fought at White 
 Plains, at Trenton, and at Princeton, and in all fought with 
 bravery and skill. His grandson, the present wise and re- 
 spected Governor of Rhode Island, will now speak to you. I 
 introduce the Hon. Henry Lippitt, of Rhode Island. 
 
 REMARKS OP GOVERNOR LIPPITT. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 Finding myself on the list of speakers for to-day, the only 
 Governor of a State who will address you, I feel that it is pro- 
 per to say something of the revolutionary career of the little 
 State I have the honor to represent. Rhode Island is so small, 
 that her sons must speak when opportunity is offered them, 
 or she may be forgotten. 
 
 The distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts who has 
 just preceded me, has carried us back to Plymouth Rock, and 
 referred, in glowing terms, to the sentiments of the compact 
 ou the Mayflower. I trust, s'ir, that I may therefore be 
 allowed to call your attention to that glorious announcement 
 made two hundred and forty years ago by our great founder, 
 Roger Williams, when he proclaimed to all the world that he 
 had established a State on the then unheard-of principle, that
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 67 
 
 " Here is an asylum where every one has the right to worship 
 God according to the dictates of his own conscience." This 
 great principle antedates and underlies all political liberty ; it 
 is now recognized as the foundation of all our State Constitu- 
 tions, and without its practical application, we could enjoy no 
 real political freedom. 
 
 I claim, sir, for my little State, that her sons shed the first 
 blood of the Revolution. On the night of the 9th of June, 
 1772, four years before the Declaration of Independence, about 
 forty stalwart men gathered together in the streets of Provi- 
 dence, organized themselves, went down ^Tarragansett Bay, 
 attacked His Britannic Majesty's Sloop of "War " Gaspee," 
 wounded the commander, captured the vessel, and destroyed 
 her before morning. This daring and successful act was un- 
 dertaken by these men, with the full knowledge that, if they 
 escaped the bullets of the enemy in front, they were liable to 
 be hung for their disloyalty ; but such was the universal sen- 
 timent of the community in their favor, that no evidence could 
 be found to convict them. Our State was the first to move 
 officially in favor of the creation of an American navy, and 
 furnished the first American admiral, in the person of Esek 
 Hopkins, who was regularly appointed by Congress to that 
 high office. In June, 1775, one year before the Declaration, 
 the Legislature of Rhode Island fitted out two armed vessels, 
 and placed them under the command of Abraham Whipple, 
 with the title of Commodore. Whipple was one of the origi- 
 nators and leaders of the Gaspee expedition, and a man of 
 great energy and determined bravery. On his way to sea he 
 fired the first regular broadside into the British fleet, lying off 
 the harbor of Newport, that was discharged by an American 
 naval vessel against the English navy. 
 
 There is one exploit of this man, which is so characteristic, 
 that I trust I may be pardoned for mentioning it here. Dur- 
 ing one of his voyages, he encountered the homeward bound
 
 68 THE NATIONAL 
 
 Jamaica fleet, consisting of nearly 150 sail, and convoyed by 
 several ships of war. He concealed his guns, hoisted British 
 colors, and joined the fleet, sailing in their company several 
 days. After nightfall each day he cautiously captured one of 
 the vessels, manned her from his own crew, and despatched 
 her homeward, so as to he out of sight before morning. In 
 this way he captured ten richly laden vessels, eight of which 
 arrived safely in American ports. A gallant exploit, worthy 
 of emulation by our brave tars of the present day. 
 
 But, Mr. Chairman, I will not further weary you with these 
 details ; before closing, I wish to thank the men of Pennsyl- 
 vania, of Philadelphia, for what they have done for this great 
 Centennial Exhibition. It is in consequence of your liberality 
 and untiring efforts that the Exhibition has been held. Those 
 who live outside of your State feel this immense debt of grati- 
 tude more than you appreciate. All honor, then, to the State 
 of Pennsylvania, to the city of Philadelphia, for their glorious 
 work, crowned with success. 
 
 My own State has done what she could to promote the suc- 
 cess of the Exhibition. She has sent you many specimens of 
 the product of her industry ; but, above all, she has produced 
 that monster engine which forms such a conspicuous object in 
 the centre of Machinery Hall, where it stands as a monument 
 of its own magnificent proportions. With the power of more 
 than an army with banners, it takes charge of the exhibit of 
 the mechanical industry of the country, and sets the myriad 
 wheels in motion contained in a space of more than fifteen 
 acres. 
 
 In behalf of the citizens of Rhode Island, I wish to thank 
 the authorities and citizens of Philadelphia for what you have 
 done towards the restoration of Independence Hall. This edi- 
 fice belongs not to you alone, but to the citizens of our whole 
 country. I charge you to take care of it ; let no Vandal hands, 
 under the plea of improvement, alter or destroy its fair pro-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 69 
 
 portions. Let it be forever preserved as we find it to-day. 
 Every year that we go away from this anniversary, it will 
 become more and more sacred to our children ; they will come 
 up here from all parts of our common country, draw new inspi- 
 rations of patriotism from its walls, and bless God that we have 
 such a country. 
 
 A number of national airs were then played by the band, 
 and were loudly cheered. 
 
 Mr. Wallace then rose and said: 
 
 Among our highest pleasures to-day is the presence of the 
 Hon. Frederick De Peyster, of New York, and President of 
 the Historical Society of that State ; a worthy representative 
 of that early citizen of New Amsterdam, Johannes De Peyster, 
 distinguished for his integrity in many offices of trust under 
 both Dutch and English Colonial rule, and with whose name 
 you are acquainted. No worthier representative, no repre- 
 sentative more welcome, could the Historical Society of New 
 York send to us this day. I introduce to you with peculiar 
 pleasure the Hon. Frederick De Peyster, of New York. 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. DE PEYSTER. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS : 
 
 The event we are here assembled on this memorable spot to 
 celebrate, is one that announces to the world the stability of 
 the American Republic, tested by the century which to-mor- 
 row ushers in its successors. Where, in the vast past, is its 
 exemplar? Its bounds are the vast oceans which roll along its 
 extensive coasts, and nations, easterly, senile in contrast, and, 
 westerly, creeping into maturity, realms where all is to be 
 found, save that energy which has made our Republic what it 
 is. Many of us who are now present, were a few minutes since 
 in the very Hall adjacent, where the signers of the Declaration
 
 70 THE NATIONAL 
 
 of Independence made their names immortal, have come into 
 this open area, where the very sun shining over us seems by 
 his servant-rays to glow in sympathy with the enkindled 
 flame of patriotic ardor which animates every loyal soul here 
 and throughout this great and glorious republic. 
 
 You to-day have here already heard eloquent words in refe- 
 rence to the memorable individuals who participated in the 
 " times that tried men's souls" of the patriots who first demon- 
 strated those vital, pregnant verities, now made deathless. 
 
 It was a memorable saying of a Lord Chancellor of England 
 that, from the father were derived, chiefly, the moral quali- 
 ties, but from the mother, the intellectual. "Whether or not 
 this saying is true or incorrect, it is not now my intention to 
 investigate. It is here introduced, because this reflection is 
 suggestive of a subject-matter which deserves especial conside- 
 ration on an occasion so interesting as the present, when the 
 influences which shaped, and the minds which originated, the 
 vital measures previously mentioned, deserve especial regard. 
 
 The glorious document, the aegis of our national character, 
 contained, as has been said, "glittering generalities." It need- 
 ed, alas, the blood of patriotic men to weld the substance thus 
 misrepresented, into adamantine solidity, perishable only with 
 the national faith, that cannot die. And have the men of 
 America alone wrought out these existing results? Look 
 back upon the past, and hear the deathless notes which pro- 
 claim the mother's intellectual training of her offspring; 
 likewise, the daughter, recalling the mother's virtuous teach- 
 ing, when assuming, in her turn, the duties of a wife and 
 mother, aid in perpetuating this influence, and assist in giving 
 vigor to manly thought, and its teachings. Shall not the 
 mother and the wife of the " Father of his Country" receive 
 this day a tribute worthy of the influence which made the son 
 and husband, "First in the hearts of his countrymen"? 
 
 The susceptible nature of the growing child, gradually influ-
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 71 
 
 enced by the tender, watchful, and judicious training of the 
 mother, is as the plastic clay under the skilful touch of the 
 master sculptor, taking, almost imperceptibly, its loveliest 
 shape. The watchful care of the loving mother ever exerted 
 to guard and keep her "jewels ;" her pure and gentle counsels, 
 and her tender admonitions, act on her offspring as the sculp- 
 tor's touch upon the marble, and eventually insures an ample 
 reward. The famed Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, fur- 
 nishes us an illustration familiar to every student. Where, in 
 the annals of the old or of the new world, shall a mother be 
 found who can proudly, and beyond comparison, say of her sou 
 as Mary, the mother of Washington, might with truth have 
 said of her unparalleled son, " Here is my jewel, without com- 
 pare," the brightest "jewel" recorded in history. 
 
 Let us now review the circumstances which were instru- 
 mental in placing Washington in a position, resulting from 
 the Declaration of Independence, and which eventually led to 
 its consummation. 
 
 In America, the first attempt to secure the benefits arising 
 from harmony of thought and action, which in a national body 
 of earnest men is so apt to follow thorough discussion, was 
 made by William Penn, whose ability and wisdom led him to 
 perceive that some concert of action should be adopted for the 
 settlement of difficulties and disputes between the provinces, 
 and in order that their integrity as well as the safety of their 
 inhabitants might be rendered more secure. To this end he 
 proposed, as early as 1697, to the Board of Trade a " Plan for 
 a Union of the Colonies in America." 
 
 The attempt of France to shut out, so to speak, the English 
 settlements in Xorth America from the vast opportunities for 
 gain arising from free intercourse with the interior of the 
 country, and the attempt of this nation to secure the aid of 
 the Indian tribes in a contest the result of which could not 
 for a moment be a matter of doubt, were it not that such ad-
 
 72 THENATIONAL 
 
 ventitious aid was invoked or employed led to a proposal for 
 a Congress (similar to that which Penn had suggested) which 
 was originally devised by a former Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith. This gentleman, in 1739, 
 recommended to the ministry of Great Britain a method for 
 the formation of a union of the Colonies in America, the plan 
 proposed being that delegates from their representative bodies 
 should unite and form a sort of general provincial government. 
 It does not appear that either of these proposals served airy 
 other purpose than that of drawing the attention of the people 
 to the subject. 
 
 The first actual American Congress had its origin in a re- 
 commendation from the British government, that a call be 
 issued for a convention of delegates from the several Colonies, 
 and naming Albany as a proper place of meeting. This call 
 was issued in 1754, and was due to the British ministry taking 
 alarm at the possible action of the Indian tribes, in the event 
 of France continuing her threatening proceedings, which, 
 though not as yet actually hostile, seemed on the eve of be- 
 coming so. The ascendency which the French had acquired 
 over the Indian race in America grew in proportion as they 
 became more intimate, and with such allies as the savage war- 
 riors, the French settlers hoped to conquer their rivals, and 
 secure possession of the entire country. 
 
 This first Congress met at Albany, the call having been ad- 
 dressed to the Governor of New York, and the plan of union 
 offered by Benjamin Franklin, a delegate from Pennsylvania, 
 was received by his colleagues, with a high degree of favor, 
 and finally accepted. Notwithstanding this almost unani- 
 mous approval by the delegates in convention, it was rejected 
 by the Colonies, and came to nought. It was the persistence 
 with which the inhabitants of each colony refused to imperil 
 its individual independence, by any concession of rights to 
 a general government, that defeated this project. While
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 73 
 
 such a union as was proposed would have materially as well 
 as morally strengthened the individual colonies, and enabled 
 them the better to overcome the immediate dangers of the 
 local situation, it would also have enabled them to assert 
 their rights in the face of aggressive action on the part of 
 the home government; and, indeed, the British ministry could 
 not but regard the plan proposed by Franklin which did not 
 differ essentially from that previously brought forward by 
 Penii as other than inimical to their distant jurisdiction. 
 
 It may not be out of place to examine more fully the pro- 
 ceedings of this first American Congress, held over one 
 hundred and twenty-two years ago. As has been stated, the 
 call issued by the British Secretary of State was addressed, 
 by order of the King, to the Governor of New York. In 
 response to this call, there assembled at Albany, on the 
 19th of June, 1754, the memorable Congress of Commis- 
 sioners representing every colony north of the Potomac ex- 
 cept New Jersey, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 
 Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, with 
 Virginia represented in the person of the distinguished Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor De Lancey, of New York, who was the pre- 
 siding officer. This Congress had for its chief objects the 
 consideration of means of defence, and of entering into some 
 treaty with the powerful Six Nations and their allied tribes. 
 On the 24th of June a motion was made, and passed in the 
 affirmative, that the commissioners deliver their opinion whe- 
 ther a union of all the Colonies is not at present absolutely 
 necessary for their security and defence, and a committee was 
 accordingly appointed to devise a plan. On the 28th of June 
 this committee presented short hints of a scheme for the 
 union. After considerable debate, the question was put on the 
 2o OF JULY, whether the Board should proceed to form the plan 
 of a Union of the Colonies, to be established by an act of Par- 
 liament, and was passed in the affirmative. Debate on this 
 10
 
 74 THE NATIONAL 
 
 question, and on Indian affairs, engaged the attention of the 
 Board until the 9th of July, when a plan for a union was 
 agreed upon, and Mr. Franklin was desired to make a draft of 
 it, as then concluded upon. On the 10th, after thorough con- 
 sideration, it was resolved that the commissioners from the 
 several governments be desired to lay the plan before their 
 respective constituents for their consideration, and that the 
 Secretary of this Board transmit a copy thereof to the Gover- 
 nor of each of the Colonies which have not sent their commis- 
 sioners to this Congress. On the llth of July, of the same year, 
 the Congress adjourned. 
 
 After seven years of suffering, the struggle known in his- 
 tory as the "French "War," terminated. Canada had been 
 wrested from the French, and the Colonies had covered them- 
 selves with glory. The Home government was, however, ap- 
 parently dissatisfied, its desire seeming to be that the colonists 
 should be compelled to pay the cost of this struggle. Indeed, 
 the most arbitrary steps were taken and insisted upou, and 
 this, too, despite the remonstrances and appeals which poured 
 in from every province. I am aware that the so-called 
 " invention" of the Revolutionary committees of correspond- 
 ence has been claimed for Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts ; 
 but it is, nevertheless, a matter of record which cannot be 
 disputed, that the Assembly of New York, as early as 1764, 
 six years before the Massachusetts " invention," and nearly 
 nine years before the movement in Virginia, appointed a com- 
 mittee of correspondence with the Assemblies, or committees 
 of Assemblies throughout the Continent, with the direct and 
 avowed purpose to avert, if possible, the " impending dangers 
 which threatened the Colonies, of being taxed by laws to be 
 passed in Great Britain ;" and less than a year afterward 
 sounded the keynote of the Revolution Independence in 
 the publications attributed to John Morin Scott. The 
 honored historian of America gives this fact its proper place
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 75 
 
 in his summary statement : " Virginia marshalled resistance ; 
 Massachusetts entreated union ; New York pointed to inde- 
 pendence." At last a Congress was called by the Committee 
 of the New York Assembly, and met in New York in 1765 ; 
 it was called the Stamp Act Congress, and gave utterance in a 
 bold and decided manner to the grievances under which the 
 colonists labored, and made an earnest declaration of rights. 
 The resistance which was being offered to the enforced pay- 
 ment of a stamp duty on goods brought into the Colonies now 
 assumed definite and permanent shape; but the announcement 
 came from New York that she would give in her adherence to 
 no course of action other than that inaugurated by a General 
 Congress. 
 
 Massachusetts finally took the same view of the matter, 
 and in September, 1774, there met in this city, what was 
 known as the first Continental Congress. As yet, except 
 among a few of the most dissatisfied of the colonists, there 
 was no desire for separation from the mother country. The 
 most visionary would hardly dare even hope for a successful 
 independent existence. After more than a month of earnest 
 consideration the Congress dissolved on the 26th of October, 
 1774. The gist of their proceedings was, First, an assertion 
 of the equal rights of the colonists with other members of 
 the British empire ; and, Second, the passing of declarations 
 and resolves against the importation of merchandise from 
 abroad, which were to be rigidly and emphatically regarded. 
 Finally, the proceeding culminated in a petition to the 
 King, which was unsuccessful. Before adjourning, provi- 
 sion was made for a second Congress, to meet about a year 
 later in the same place. When we consider the consequences 
 resulting from this act of foresight we must regard this pro- 
 vision as an almost providential one, and the wisdom of the 
 measure is certainly deserving of the most unqualified praise. 
 An opportunity was allowed for a consideration, in England,
 
 7G . THE NATIONAL 
 
 of the petition sent to the King, should this direct appeal to 
 the crown fail to secure relief; then more strenuous efforts 
 would become necessary ; and what time so favorable for their 
 inauguration as when smarting under injustice and insult? 
 the very hopelessness of the situation would serve as a com- 
 jnon bond among the Colonies. Prudent, faithful, and respect- 
 ful, with a full comprehension of all that was required by the 
 occasion, there must have dawned upon even the staunchest 
 adherents to the crown in that body the conviction that a 
 struggle was imminent. To the dissenting there must have 
 come a kind of secret delight that the eve of separation, the 
 dawn of a new, untrammelled existence, was so rapidly ap- 
 proaching, and that speedily the wrath of an oppressed people 
 would find vent. Despite this, however, the colonists were 
 full of loyalty, and proud of their connection and descent, 
 and the hope was pretty generally indulged that through the 
 efforts of the great Whig party in England some relief or 
 redress would be obtained, and tranquillity again restored. 
 
 Subsequent events showed how futile was any hope based 
 on aught save the most abject submission to whatever mea- 
 sures, however unjust, the home government chose to impose. 
 This ignoble alternative was, fortunately for humanity, re- 
 fused, and fittingly so, by men worthy of their lineage. In 
 1775 all hope of a peaceable adjustment of difference had 
 ceased. There did not, however, now take place an immediate 
 and universal uprising of an intelligent and injured people, 
 but a slow revulsion of feeling began to take possession of 
 men's hearts and steadily spread throughout the land, and this 
 feeling became so deeply intense that years of the blackest 
 misery and privation did not suffice to extinguish it. 
 
 A glance at the situation will show that the condition of 
 
 the colonists at this period was most deplorable. Surrounded, 
 
 so to speak, by tribes of savages, who were so much better 
 
 managed by the government than at the present day that
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 77 
 
 their allegiance to the crown could be relied on to count pow- 
 erfully against the colonists should they rebel; with local 
 assemblies no longer in accord with the people ; with the 
 daily opposition coming from the recipients of royal favor and 
 patronage, and the dangerous hesitation fortunately of late 
 years almost extinct with which the wealthy throw their, 
 influence into the scale, all combining to increase the gravity 
 of the situation, resulted in a state of aftairs sufficient to appal 
 even the stoutest heart. 
 
 Ere the second Continental Congress had assembled, the 
 minute-men of Lexington had set the country ablaze with 
 patriotic fervor. The news of the battle of the 19th of April 
 reached New York about the 23d, and electrified, as it could 
 not well fail to do, the entire people. What now were wealth 
 and comfort, even life itself, when their sacrifice was called for 
 by the stern demands of right and duty ? In the midst of this 
 exciting state of affairs the second Continental Congress con- 
 vened. No longer in doubt as to the course to pursue, the 
 people everywhere urged their representatives to break the 
 yoke that held them in slavery to the mother country. The 
 most decided approval was given to such a course by the peo- 
 ple of New York, and the provincial Congress of that State 
 was petitioned to "instruct their delegates in Continental Con- 
 gress to use their utmost endeavors in that august assembly to 
 cause these United Colonies to become independent of Great 
 Britain." 
 
 This immortal second Continental Congress was, we see, 
 thoroughly in consonance with the popular feeling. Unlike 
 similar bodies in subsequent times, the individuals com- 
 posing this Congress sought not their own aggrandizement, 
 nor material benefit. Full to overflowing with the sacred- 
 ness of their trust ; glowing with patriotic ardor, yet deeply 
 conscious of the gravity of their actions and the dire conse- 
 quences they were probably to entail upon themselves and
 
 78 . THENATIONAL 
 
 upon those whom they held most dear; thoroughly satis- 
 fied that they gave expression to the will of the whole 
 people, they made that declaration of rights and principles, 
 and uttered that resolve to be free which, running on through 
 a round century, has ever been to the down-trodden arid op- 
 pressed a burst of light as if from the very foot of the Throne 
 of the Most High. To the fulfilment of these resolves they 
 pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.'"' 
 
 We have followed American Congresses from the beginning 
 of the necessity for their existence down to the very acm of 
 their usefulness, attained in the instance we have just consid- 
 ered. Enshrined forever in the highest place in the estimation 
 of freedom-loving mankind, let us leave the consideration of 
 the most august and patriotic assembly of modern times, per- 
 haps without a parallel since the assembling of the apostles 
 around the Master, in its effects upon the welfare and eleva- 
 tion of the human race, and seek, by the emulation of its 
 deeds of heroic patriotism, to reinaugurate that noble self- 
 denial, that earnest integrity of purpose, that consideration 
 and love for our fellow-man, which, reacting through ages, 
 may finally fit mankind for a higher state of beatitude. 
 
 Having thus considered the origin and cause of the great 
 results, which through the past century have flowed, with 
 but here and there an interruption of brief .duration and for- 
 tunately overcome, steadily along the stream of time down to 
 the present day, with its glorious realization and astonishing 
 possibilities, justice to a most important element in the con- 
 summation of these results demands a consideration of the 
 influence exerted by w r oman, who, in all times and in every 
 country, has been largely instrumental in the shaping of events. 
 It is both instructive and interesting to trace the influence 
 of the sex, in the earliest ages known to us, when, on an occa- 
 sion like the present, a great public event was to be commemo- 
 rated.
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 79 
 
 Among the ancient Hebrews, the office of announcing and 
 celebrating good news, or glad tidings, on the occasion of any 
 great public event, belonged, as learned men, familiar with 
 their records declare, peculiarly to the woman. Not in 
 ancient times alone has the influence of woman been felt in 
 the affairs of nations. The history of all ages testifies to the 
 prominent part taken by her in the shaping of events. Sure- 
 ly, from no more beautiful source than from the teachings 
 of the tender mother, and the encouragement of the loving 
 wife, could come the love of God and country ; from no purer 
 fountain on earth could flow the teachings which inculcate 
 those noble virtues and heroic qualities which assist so might- 
 ily in the elevation of mankind. Not merely the teachings 
 of woman, but her love and example have ever inspired to 
 the loftiest deeds, and the most magnificent achievements. 
 Gentle, but earnest, her counsels have always been powerful 
 in their antagonism to oppression, cruelty, and wrong. In 
 patriotic fervor, oftentimes excelling the male sex, tempered 
 as were the latter by actual experience, it w^ould seem that 
 their very physical helplessness lent greater weight to the 
 suggestions of their active intellects, and proud, but loving 
 hearts. What greater incentive to valiant conduct, after a 
 knowledge of the demands of his country, can be conceived, 
 than the Spartan soldier received from his mother, when, 
 leaving her side for the field of battle, he received from her, 
 with his shield, the parting injunction to return "with it, or 
 on it." 
 
 Is it possible that any one will challenge the claim thus 
 made, and which concedes the powerful influence of woman? 
 Scarcely ! for has not every soldier had one, if not both of 
 these blessings a beloved mother, or a beloved wife? Who 
 does not know their power as pleaders, when enlisted by sym- 
 pathy with a good cause ? 
 
 " Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 
 The harbingers of victory."
 
 80 THENATIONAL 
 
 As I have referred to these portents of the sky, let me close 
 the thought thus suggested with the adjuration of ^Eneas, 
 when he was about to wage a war which he deemed just. 
 
 " Ye springs, ye floods, ye various powers that lie 
 Beneath the deep, or tread the golden sky, 
 Hear and attest." 
 
 The Centennial Ode, written by S. C. Upham, music by 
 Adam Geibel, was then sung by the chorus, after which Mr. 
 Wallace came to the stand and said : 
 
 Our hope was that the distinguished and eloquent Mr. 
 Lamar, of Mississippi, would be with us to-day, but a tele- 
 gram just received from him states that he has been taken ill, 
 and obliged to leave the cars at Wilmington, on his journey 
 hitherward. I present to you in his stead the Hon. Francis 
 Putnam Stevens, of Maryland, who, in his office of Chair- 
 man of the Centennial Committee of Maryland, has done so 
 much to attach our citizens to him, and to bring to this 
 venerable spot from that State which I have named, so many 
 sons of those honorable fathers who bore a great part in what 
 was done here a century ago. 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. STEVENS. 
 
 I have been accorded an honor of which I am deeply sen- 
 sible.^ I had not the most remote idea of addressing this 
 vast assemblage until this moment. I had come to deposit 
 my brief memoir of John Henry, Jr., of Maryland, in the old 
 Chamber of Liberty, and to be but a silent participant in the 
 exercises of the day. 
 
 I cannot expect to fill the place of the distinguished gen- 
 tleman from Mississippi, who has been unavoidably prevented 
 from being present. But upon an occasion like this, with the 
 grand memories of the past, made glorious by the acts of our 
 forefathers just one hundred years ago, in yonder building ;
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 81 
 
 with the great gathering of the people to inaugurate the fes- 
 tivities of the National birthday, I cannot be silent ; the very 
 stones would cry out if America's sons, on this great day, 
 should refuse to speak. 
 
 Your President and Committee have bestowed a high com- 
 
 O 
 
 pliment upon the State of which I am an humble representa- 
 tive. Maryland greets you all to-day. Truly, Pennsylvania is 
 the keystone, but we, of Maryland, one of the original thirteen, 
 are an integral part of the great arch, equally as important to 
 the strength and solidity of the whole. 
 
 The Governor of Rhode Island has referred to the sentiments 
 of Roger Williams, and spoken in eulogy of his State. Roger 
 Williams, William Penn, and Lord Baltimore went hand in 
 hand in the same great cause. Massachusetts has spoken 
 through her distinguished representative to-day, and we honor 
 the old Bay State for her noble part in the struggle for inde- 
 pendence, but, Mr. President, a proud record remains for 
 Maryland. 
 
 The Ark and the Dove upon the peaceful shores of St. Mary's, 
 landed our Pilgrim fathers ; the standard which Constantine 
 saw in the heavens was planted upon the soil of Maryland, and 
 the ensign of civil and religious liberty was there unfurled first 
 among the Colonies. Maryland bore an honorable part in the 
 effort that made these Colonies a free and independent people ; 
 and upon the very day you here commemorate, her represen- 
 tatives, in Congress assembled, cast a unanimous vote in favor 
 of Richard Henry Lee's resolution, " that these Colonies are, 
 and of right ought to be, free and independent States" Maryland, 
 through her representative, Thomas Johnson, Jr., nominated 
 in those halls George Washington to be Commander-in-Chief 
 of " the armies raised and to be raised," and to-day her monu- 
 mental city points with just pride to the noble shaft she alone 
 has reared to his memory. She sent here such representatives as 
 Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, John Henry, Jr., 
 11
 
 82 THE NATIONAL 
 
 Thomas Johnson, Jr., Thomas Stone, and William Paca, She 
 hoasts " The old Maryland line," with Howard, Williams, Gist, 
 Smallwood, and others ; she gave you the first telegraphic wire, 
 the first canal, and the first steam passenger railway. It was 
 Maryland that gave to you, and to the world, your national 
 anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." There the Continental 
 Congress met ; there Washington resigned his commission. 
 
 But why enumerate the glories of Maryland ? This is a na- 
 tional occasion. We are here on this great anniversary from 
 the North and South as brethren. I need not refer to the 
 deeds of Maryland, but I would say of her as Webster said of 
 Massachusetts : " She needs no eulogium ; there she stands ; 
 look at her." 
 
 I rejoice that we meet, not as citizens of any State, but as 
 citizens of this greatest of Republics. There was a time when 
 it was said, " to be a Roman citizen, was greater than to be a 
 king." The time will come when it shall be greater than to 
 have been a Roman, to be a citizen of these United States. 
 
 We all rejoice on this glad day together, from the North, 
 the South, the East, and the West, in this land of liberty, that 
 the precepts of our fathers have made and preserved us a 
 nation, and God grant that, when the two hundredth anniver- 
 sary of America's freedom shall dawn, it shall find us all a 
 happy and united people. 
 
 The Centennial hymn by Fennimore was then sung by the 
 chorus. At its conclusion Mr. Wallace rose and said: 
 
 You have heard from Massachusetts, from Rhode Island, 
 from New York, and from Maryland. You shall now hear 
 from the State which welcomes you all this day. To citizens 
 of Pennsylvania I need not introduce the speaker. We all 
 know him. We all admire his talents and his accomplishments 
 of many kinds. To the citizens of other States and of foreign
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 83 
 
 countries I beg to introduce the Hon. Benjamin Harris Brews- 
 ter, lately the Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. 
 
 EEMAEKS OF MR. BREWSTER. 
 
 The remarks I shall make must of necessity be confined to 
 a simple subject, and a few reflections. We do not meet to 
 argue or discuss. We do not meet to enforce opinions, and 
 solicit public action in support of doctrines, but we meet to 
 testify our sense of gratitude for the public liberties we possess, 
 and the social and domestic comforts we enjoy, the fruit of 
 the courage and wisdom of our forefathers. 
 
 Citizens from other States are here who have united with us 
 in these great ceremonies ; others are here who will succeed 
 me, and I must be cautious, in this my home, not to occupy 
 that time which hospitality requires I should leave open to 
 them. 
 
 When I have recalled the incidents of our history from the 
 earliest days of colonial existence to the blessed hour when it 
 was solemnly declared that we were, " and of right ought to 
 be, free and independent States," I have observed that, in all 
 of the great events where public order, private right, or public 
 duty was the subject of popular action, they proceeded with 
 deliberation, and with a rigid regard to the strict forms of 
 legislative order, and of public legal enactment. There was no 
 mere insurrectionary spirit in the men from whom we inherit 
 the liberties and the government we now possess. Our ances- 
 tors were no insurgents. No element of the conspirator, out- 
 law, or communist was a part of their natures. They were 
 serious, God-fearing, God-loving men, and from the beginning 
 had solemn work to do, and they knew it, and within the 
 strictest forms of legal order they asserted their natural and 
 legal rights. They had known the harsh usage of adversity ; 
 they had felt its discipline. Many of 'them possessed that
 
 84 THE NATIONAL 
 
 knowledge which is the fruit of study, learning, and experi- 
 ence, and they all bowed with submission before the obligations 
 of religion, and acknowledged the supremacy of public will. 
 
 The first act done by the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and 
 just before they landed, was the organization of their form of 
 government. 
 
 Let me read to you this remarkable paper, that you may hear 
 and know how cautious, how formal, and how earnest were 
 those men. " In the name of God ! Amen : we, whose names are 
 underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign, King 
 James, having undertaken for the glory of God, and the ad- 
 vancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and 
 country, a voyage, to plant the first colony in the northern 
 parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, 
 in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and com- 
 bine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better 
 ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends afore- 
 said, and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such 
 just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and ofiices, 
 from time to time, as shall be thought most convenient for the 
 general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due 
 submission and obedience." 
 
 On the llth of November, 1620, in the cabin of the May- 
 flower, before they had placed their feet on this Continent, did 
 these true men forty-one in number for themselves and their 
 families, one hundred in all, thus formally bind themselves to 
 obey the law. They had fled from oppression ; oppression 
 inflicted in the name of the law. Sixty-three days had they 
 been tossed upon the bosom of that rough sea, and in the dark 
 November days were they about to make their homes on a 
 bleak and barren coast. A pitiless winter was before them, a 
 raging ocean behind them, and a wilderness for their dwelling- 
 place. They gave no thought to physical discomforts, but with 
 deliberation did they thus sit down and first consider their
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 85 
 
 public and social duties, and thus bind themselves to obey the 
 law, for they knew that from order and obedience only could 
 individual happiness and social prosperity come. They had 
 suffered by the abuse of the law ; but they reverenced obedience 
 to that law, which is the product of public will. 
 
 Thus was it with all the Colonies in all their actions; in 
 their domestic contentions, as well as in their disputes with 
 the mother country, were the constituted forms of legal enact- 
 ment, legal obedience, and legal resistance adhered to. 
 
 I have no recollection of such public records in the history 
 of any other people. It is peculiar to us. It is a part of the 
 glory of our career, that the pen has ever been mightier than 
 the sword. While we have perpetuated in our annals the 
 formal declarations of our principles and our acts, so have we 
 likewise in the same way embalmed in our history the living 
 words recorded at the time, which were to protect us, and 
 teach mankind through us the doctrines we had maintained 
 and the liberties we have secured. 
 
 With us the sword was only drawn to justify the written 
 word, that uttered the convictions of the very souls of our 
 great ancestors. 
 
 This thought I shall not further follow by reciting each 
 incident of public action, for the time will not permit me so 
 to do. The incidents illustrating the fact are too numerous 
 to repeat. When in the fulness of time our grievances had 
 ripened into wrongs, and the attempt to enforce the royal will 
 had degenerated into acts of oppression, then too, step by step 
 as we approached the great crisis of our separation did the 
 people at various times and in different places publish and 
 declare, in formal and apt words as were thereafter published 
 and declared here, by the Continental Congress, that we were 
 free, and of right ought to be free and independent States. 
 
 Whatever those men had to do they did publicly formally 
 lawfully. Before the outbreak of the war, they remon-
 
 86 THE NATIONAL 
 
 strated in resolutions reciting public grievances. They sent 
 Commissioners to London to assert our rights and resist ag- 
 gression. When the collision was inevitable, like an assem- 
 blage of ambassadors the delegates from the Colonies came 
 together to consider the remedies they demanded and resist 
 the wrongs they complained of. And by these men was first 
 enacted the resolution that absolved us from our allegiance. 
 And then after that was published the act of separation that 
 document known and called the Declaration of Independence 
 a document that contains more daring and self-demonstrating 
 propositions in favor of human rights than were ever before 
 pronounced to mankind by philosophers or statesmen. 
 
 Our mission was one of liberty, law, and public order the 
 rational liberty of freemen restrained by a sense of duty and 
 obedience to law and that rule have we lived by to this day; 
 
 The law has been the only compensation to mankind for 
 political tyranny in the darkest hours the world ever knew. 
 It must be supreme for then God is supreme. " For, he who 
 entrusts man with supreme power gives it to a wild beast 
 for such his appetites sometimes make him. Passion, too, 
 influences those who are in power even the very best of men 
 for which reason the law is intellect free from appetite." 
 
 Again recurring to the thought I started with, let me speak 
 to you, and through you to the millions of our people whose 
 hearts are with us this day, and whose souls exult at the 
 moral and intellectual grandeur of our history, and at the 
 inevitable splendor of our great future. Let me congratulate 
 you that we came of such a lineage of heroic men the states- 
 men of the human race who loved God, as He is the father 
 of natural liberty the liberty of obedience to law and sub- 
 ordination to natural and social duty. Let me congratulate 
 you that a hundred years of such national life has brought us 
 to this point of national glory, the peaceful glory of a pros- 
 perous people of forty millions who sprang from the few who
 
 CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION. 87 
 
 sought refuge here, and here erected a temple of human rights 
 into which all men who love law and obey order can enter 
 and find happiness and peace. 
 
 It would seem as if Milton, who had battled for the rights 
 of those exiles who were our forefathers, had predicted the 
 creation and growth of this people. Listen to him, and hear 
 the words of that old, blind republican, who spake as man 
 never before spake, and who was himself one of the greatest 
 apostles of human rights. Listen to him : 
 
 " Methinks I see in my own mind a noble and puissant na- 
 tion, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking 
 his invincible locks; methiriks I see her as an eagle renevying 
 her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the 
 full mid-day beams, purging and unsealing her long-abused 
 sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance." 
 
 As he predicted, so do we now live and act, and may it last 
 thus forever! 
 
 Mr. Wallace now rose again, and turning to the gentlemen 
 who composed the Congress of Authors, thanked them in the 
 name of Col. Etting and of the City Authorities of Philadel- 
 phia, in the name of the Committee on the National Centen- 
 nial Commemoration, and of the Historical Society of Penn- 
 sylvania, " and," said he, " I think I may venture to say, in 
 the name of the august Genius of History itself," for the most 
 valuable contribution which, in response to Col. Etting's invi- 
 tation, they had made to the historical riches of the Re- 
 public. 
 
 At the conclusion of these remarks, Mr. Couly sang, with 
 the highest effect, the Star Spangled Banner, the chorus to 
 which was sung not less impressively by the Musical Associa- 
 tion. Mr. Conly, being encored, repeated the last verse. 
 
 When the sound of this beautiful solo, and of the applauses
 
 88 THE NATIONAL 
 
 which it brought forth, had died away, Mr. Wallace came 
 forward and said : 
 
 South Carolina meant to be with us this day in the person 
 of the Rev. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, D.D., of Charleston. 
 Of what family he is, and what is the honor of that name, 
 which, in its whole length, he bears, I need tell no American 
 whatever. No more patriotic family than that of the Pinck- 
 neys ever belonged to our country, and it never had any more 
 brave, disinterested, unaffected, and honorable member than 
 the gallant General whose name is now borne by his name- 
 sake, a soldier of the Cross. You all know how, in 1798, in 
 our, threatened war of that day with France, when a question 
 of military precedence rose between General Knox and other 
 generals, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney sought 
 though Washington wished him high in command to prefer 
 others in honor to himself. " Put me anywhere," he said, 
 "where I can serve the country." The same disinterested 
 spirit exhibited itself in 1812, when a pure and patriotic politi- 
 cal party desired to make him their candidate for the Presi- 
 dency of the United States; an honor which he declined, 
 because he thought that another was more fit for it; "the 
 man," as our own late honored citizen, Charles Chauncey, 
 characterized him at a dinner given in compliment to him in 
 1812 "the man whose love of honor was greater than his love 
 of power, and deeper than his love of self." I grieve to say 
 that, owing to an accident to the steamer on which the Rev. 
 Mr. Pinckney is, on his way here and of which a telegram 
 apprises us the reverend gentleman can hardly arrive before 
 this evening ; later than he expected to be with us. 
 
 I will, therefore, ask the Right Reverend William Bacon 
 Stevens, D.D., LL.D, the Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and the official suc- 
 cessor in the Episcopate of Pennsylvania, of the good and 
 patriotic Bishop White, Chaplain both to the Continental
 
 C E N T E IS 7 N I A L COMMEMORATION. 
 
 89 
 
 Congress and to the Congress of the United States, to dismiss 
 us with a benediction. 
 
 The Right Reverend gentleman then came upon the stand, 
 and amidst a profound and reverent silence, dismissed, with 
 the well-known apostolic words, the vast assemblage. 
 
 FINIS.
 
 
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