Oration Delivered Before the City Government and Citizens of Boston by James Freeman Clarke
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Title:Oration delivered before the city government and citizens of Boston, in Music hall, July 5, 1875. By James Freeman Clarke.

Author:Clarke, James Freeman, 1810-1888.

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Print Source:Oration delivered before the city government and citizens of Boston, in Music hall, July 5, 1875. By James Freeman Clarke.

Clarke, James Freeman, 1810-1888.

46 p. 23 cm.

Boston,

Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1875.

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OR ATI ON DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITY GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENS OF BOSTON, IN

MUSIC HALL, JULY 5, 1875. ‘ BY JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. BOSTON: ROCKWELL AND

-CHURCHILL, CITY PRINTERS, No. 39 ARCHI STREET. 1875.

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CITY’ OF BOSTON. IN BOARD OF ALDERMEN, July 6, 1875. Ordered, That the thanks of the City Council be presented to Rev. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE for the very interesting and instructive Oration delivered by him before the municipal authorities on the occasion of the observance of the ninety-ninth anniversary of the Declaration of American Indepenldence; and that he be requested to furnish a copy thereof for publication. Passed; sent down for concurrence. JOHN T. CLARK,. Crairmnan. IN CQMMON COUNCIL, July 8, 1875. Passed in concurrence. H. J. BOARDMAN, President. Approved July 9, 1875. SAMUEL C. COBB, Jalayor. 2>OanO 2 I I I i~ -I. 1,I i:, .C~t

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0 RATION. IT is an old custom, as you know, in many of our Congregational churches, to have what is called a preparatory lecture, the purpose of which is to prepare the minds of those who are to commune, so that they shall partake of that feast of brotherly love in the right spirit. I consider my little speech to-day, this ninety-ninth anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence, to be a kind of preparatory lecture for the great feast to be held next year in Philadelphia. On the 4th of July, 1876, the thirtyseven sister States of this Republic, after a hundred years’ experience of free institutions, will meet to thank God, and take courage. Certainly it is one of those happy coincidences which seem something more than mere accidents, that the people of this great Union, so long divided, and now so happily reunited, shall inaugurate the new century of freedom and union, henceforth one and inseparable, by giving and receiving the hand of fellowship, in the CITY OF BROTHERLY

LovE. Freedom and union; for without freedom, what is union worth, and without union, -o

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ORATION. how can we maintain freedom? All that I can expect to do to-day is to say a few words which may help a little to prepare our minds for the coming of that majestic commemoration. And, in order to do this, I shall endeavor to illustrate, as far as the time permits, the WORTH OF

REPUtBLICAN INSTITUTIONS, as shown by what they have done for us during the last one hundred years. We can be really and sincerely united only by a common love. What the people of this country have in common are their free institutions. If they value these, they will be united; if they’undervalue or despise them, no hearty union is possible. Every word, therefore, which can be truly said to show the solid worth of our Republican form of Government will have a direct tendency to promote union and brotherly fellowship. But such’words must be those of truth and soberness. The time has happily passed by when a Fourth of July oration was expected to contain only glittering generalities, idle boasting, and empty declarations concerning the superiority of America, its people and institutions, to all the rest of the world. The time has happily come when, though one should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not TRUTH, he will become as a sounding brass and as a tinkling cymbal. And yet, though I should like to give all the importance I can to my work to-day, I am obliged to 6

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JULY 5, 1875. admit that you, Mr. Mayor, and you, gentlemen of the City Government, have already given us the real preparatory lecture before next year’s centennial. Your splendid celebration of the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, conspicuous as a magnificent pageant, was vastly more remarkable for the way in which Boston offered the right hand of fellowship to the South, and in which the South accepted the offer. For the first time during a hundred years the jealousies, rivalries and ignorant animosities between the Northern and Southern people disappeared in a generous outbreak of mutual good-will. Without disguising any of her old convictions, Boston said to these Southern soldiers, “Our fight is over; let us now forget the past, and be friends.” And the Southern soldiers accepted this courtesy as freely as it was nobly given. The echo of this warm brotherly meeting has gone out through all the land, and has struck that note of reconciliation, which we trust will be followed next year by a grand choral of harmony.

Sad South Carolina, crushed between the upper and the nether millstones, has heard the sound of it, and is glad. Far Louisiana rejoices along her sugar-coast, and gathers hope. Even the’-New York Nation,” which has carried its honest hatred of tawdry sentimentalism so far as almost to forget the real place sentiment must always occupy in human affairs, has been forced to-admit that the political importance of this 7

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ORATION. outbreak of sentiment can hardly be over-estimated. It seems now as if the period of demagogues, of military interference with State rights, of ignorance misled by low cunning, was approaching its end; and the intelligence and virtue of the South, honestly accepting the new situation, may be able to save that fair region from its plunderers. One man among us, gifted with that prophetic insight which is born of unselfish sagacity, foresaw this, and advised it as the only possible way of reconstruction. Ten years ago, in his farewell address to the Legislature, our great war-governor, John Albion Andrew, the pilot who weathered the storm, told us that until the South was governed by the intelligence of the South no real reconstruction could take place. Then he gave the advice which we have at last accepted; and asked us, having done our.past duty in a vigorous prosecution of war, now to do our present duty in a vigorous prosecution of peace. I congratulate you, Mr. Mayor and gentlemen of the City Government, that you have not lost this great opportunity, but have known how to avail yourselves of it, and to turn this noble celebration of the past into a nobler preparation for the future. And once again may we not say, that it is not a mere coincidence, but rather a happy providence, which makes this old city of Boston, the place ” where American freedom raised its first voice,” - the Cradle of Liberty a hundred 8

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JULY 5, 1875. years ago, - to become again to-day the Cradle of Reunion and of National Brotherhood? Merely to boast of free institutions is always foolish, but to bring proofs of their value can never be unreasonable. From the beginning there have always been prophets of evil, announcing the speedy downfall of this Republic; always those who have preferred the glare and glitter of courts and aristocracies to the simple happiness of a democracy. Using the pithy definition of Abraham Lincoln, I shall therefore proceed to show the advantages we have derived in this country by maintaining, during a hundred years, a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” In this definition, the second clause gives the chief characteristic,which distinguishes a Republic.

Under a monarchy or an oligarchy the government may be of the people” and “for the people,” but it is not by the people.” When the people of France voted in Napoleonism by the plebiscite, Imperialism was then “of the people,”’ for it proceeded from them. It might also have been “Jfor the people,” if administered wholly for the public good. But it was not ” by the people,” for it was a centralized government, a bureaucracy, every little commune in France being governed by a mayor appointed in Paris. A good king, like Alfred, may govern “for the people,” but his government was not, of the people” nor ” by the 9 :: -h. ”’”

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ORATION. people.” Free institutions may exist under an aristo cratic government, like that of England, where indi vidual liberty is made secure by Magnia Charta, the writ of Habeas Corpus and Trial by Jury, and where the rights of free speech, and liberty of worship, and a free press are secured to all. But it is not a gov ernment ” by the people,” but by a comparatively small body of rich men. It is, in fact, a Ploutocracy. It is so far “of the people” that whenever the major ity of intelligent Englishmen wish a change, they obtain it, as, in 1828, even the iron will of Wellington gave way to the demand for Catholic emancipation. But government “by the people,” by the whole people, in local districts, by their representatives in larger communities, was the great experiment begun here a hundred years ago, which has been continued to the present time. The main question to be settled was this: “Can the people of any country govern themselves?” And that being answered in the affirmative, the second question was, Can they govern themselves better than they can be governed by others?” These ques tions have always been answered differently, accord ing as men have had more or less faith in human nature. The vast progress made in this country in a hundred years, in population, in wealth, in general comfort, in general information, does not, by itself, prove the advantage of popular self-government. The A.*….. 10

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JULY 5, 1875. progress, indeed, has been immense. In 1775 we were thirteen colonies. We now are thirtyseven States and eleven territories. We then had a population of about two million and a half, of which Massachusetts contained more than any other State, except Virginia, and had about 360,000 persons. The United States, to-day, contains about 40 millions of people, and fifteen of the States have more than one million of inhabitants. Then, it was one of the poorest countries in the world; now, its resources are characterized by an English statistical work, as “enormous.” Then, its territory was a little strip of country east of the Alleghanies; now, its area contains three millions of square miles, nearly equal to the area of Europe; and we have nearly as many miles of railroad in operation, as in all of Europe. We send through the mails 750 millions of letters every year, or nineteen letters to each inhabitant, exceeded only by Great Britain, which sends 979 millions a year, or thirty letters to each inhabitant. Our mercantile marine, though only half that of Great Britain, is larger than that of any other nation. We imported, in 1874, goods to the value of 567 millions of dollars, and exported goods to the value of 586 millions of dollars. In the same year we exported 71 millions of bushels of wheat, of which 60 millions of bushels went to Great Britain. But this 71 millions exported was less than one-fourth part of the amount raised in the 11

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ORATION. country. According to the census tables of 1870, the annual product of the total manufacturing industries of the United States amounted to more than four thousand millions of dollars.* Such statistics as these may give a general idea of the vast progress of this nation during the last hundred years. The invention of the steam-engine, steamboat, locomotive-engine and railroad, and the electric telegraph, have made it possible to colonize the great West, and to keep this vast area of territory united under one government. But the main superiority of this country over Europe is that it offers such comfort and advantages to the poor. This is shown by the immense immigration of the humbler classes to our shores. By the census of 1870, there were living in the United States, more than five and a half millions of persons born in foreign countries; of whom more than a million and a half came from Germany, nearly two millions from Ireland, and half a million from England. The majority of this five and a half millions of people were in humble circumstances. And what an attraction must not this country have exerted, to cause such numbers to give up the ties of home, to break through the walls of habit which surround us all and keep us in our places to collect the sums necessary to pay the expenses *United States census for 1870.

Almanach de Gotha, etc. 12

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JULY 5, 1875. of the journey over land and ocean! The cost of this emigration, at only $100 each, would amount to $550,000,000. We do not mean to attribute all this prosperity and progress to Republican institutions. It is no doubt also due to the abundance, cheapness, and fertility of the soil, the demand for labor, the energy and intelligence of the race by which it was first colonized, and the universal diffusion of education and religious convictions, which have helped to develop the forces of the American people. But consider what a difference there would have been, if, instead of our free institutions, and our federal Republic, this continent had been occupied, as Europe is, by twenty different empires and monarchies; each having its standing army, its custom-houses along the frontier, its costly court, its soil owned by a few rich noblemen; its restrictions on industry, trade, the press, public meetings; with no local self-govermnent, but official persons appointed by the court, transmitting all the governing power from above; and the citizen a cipher, with no power to alter or improve his own condition or that of his neighbors. We owe a vast debt to our public schools; but another immense education has been given to this nation by the town-meetings, by the frequent elections, bv the discussion of all public questions by the people themselves, and by the struggles of party. Then, in 13

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ORATION. European countries, a thousand restrictions, the growth of centuries, rest like heavy weights crushing down the energies of the mind.

Here there is unlimited competition; the career open to all talents; the highest prizes offered to any who are able to grasp them; the largest part of the products of industry going into the hands of those who earn them.

And from all this results that terrible energy, that ceaseless activity of our people, which, like the rush of the earth on its axis, we do not perceive, because we all share it, and because it is never interrupted. No doubt every work of man has its good and its evil. The advantage of a monarchy with aristocratic institutions is, that it gives greater advantages to the few; the advantages of a Republic with free institutions and equal laws is, that it gives a wider education and larger comfort to the many. People who have plenty of money, and who care only for themselves, do well, therefore, to go and live in Europe, and enjoy the various luxuries they can there find. But those who can taste the higher satisfactions which come from the sight of human progress; from taking part in the conflict against ignorance, error, wrong; from helping on great reforms, and contributing to the diffusion of knowledge, refinement, and high principle, among the masses of men, - let them come to America and help us, as so many noble foreigners have done, from Lafayette and Steuben 14

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JULY 5, 1875. 15 to Follen and Schurz, in the greatest battle ever waged on earth, - the battle of light with darkness, of good with evil. For America is the field of this majestic struggle, and here is to be decided at last the destinies of the human race. If; then, it be asked, what has been accomplished by our I~epublican iustitutions duri~g this hundred years, I would reply, that they have demonstrated four facts, viz.: (1.) That there can be universal religion without an established church. (2.) That there can be - universal education wifl~out sectarian schools. (3.) That there can be universal order without a standing army. (4.) That freedom a~d equal rights make the most stable government. We are so accustomed, in this country, to religious institutions which are supported solely by the people themselves, that we so1~etimes forget that we are the only civilized nation which does not have an established church, or churches, supported by taxation. It has been, and is now, the almost universal opinion, that if religion is not maintained by law, it will cease to be maintained at all. All the nations of Europe are taxed to support public worship, and the result of this is, that many of them have come to confound Christianity with an odious form of government, and so have lost their faith in religion itself. Both the friends and foes of Christianity suppose that it must be held up by the State, or that it will fall. This scep{icism

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ORATION’. is the natural consequence of the union of Church and State.

Even within my own memory, every man in Massachusetts was obliged to pay a tax to support the Congregational church; which was the established church, and all others were dissenters. The law had, to be sure, been so modified, that one who did not wish to worship in the parish church might sign off” (as it was termed), and divert his tax to some other church which he liked better. But pay he must to one or to another. And when this last remains of an established church disappeared in Massachusetts, by the revision of the Constitution in 1820, many good and wise men predicted the downfall of Christianity. I myself heard a speech, made by SQ sagacious a person as Judge Story, in which he declared that in consequence of allowing the people of this State to’pay or not, as they pleased, for the support of public worship, in his opinion there would not be a church left inl Massachusetts in twenty-five years from that time. What, then, is the result in the United States of this strange and hazardous experiment of leaving religious institutions to be supported or neglected, according to the will of the people? The result has been, that the institutions are more widely, liberally and universally supported in the United States than in any part of the world. There are in this country, by the census 6f 1870, 72,000 religious societies, 16

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JULY 5, 1875. 63,000 church edifices, and church property to the value of $354,000,000-with sitting accommodations for more than twenty-one millions of persons. There are 43,000 clergymen in the United States, and the amount annually raised for the support of religious worship must be from twenty to thirty millions of dollars, beside the large sums given for missions and other religious purposes. This is probably a greater amount in proportion to population than that paid for the support of any church in the world, except the Church Of England, whose income, drawn from a population of twenty-two millions, is supposed to be about $40,000,000 a year. We have proved, therefore, by our experiment - of a hundred years, that men feel the need of religious instruction and religious worship and that they gladly give their money for this object without any compulsion.

And the census also shows, that, during the two decades, extending from 1850 to 1860, and from 1860 to 1870, the proportional amounts contributed to these objects have not diminished, but on the contrary steadily increased. The church property in 1850 amounted to $3.78 for every inhabitant; in 1860, it was $5.51; and in 1870, it was $9.35. Judging by this test alone, we see no reason for doubting that freedom does more for the support of religion than is ever done by law. We have also demonstrated, by our experiment in 17

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ORATION. America, that free institutions can give a wider education to the people than has yet been given by a monarchy or an aristocracy. The people of this country were early so sagacious as to see that the permanence of free institutions depends on the intelligence of the people. And they also saw that this intelligence could only be obtained by a public-school system which would give every child in the land free elementary instruction. When the people are to govern, the people must be educated. A government by the people will not be a government for the people unless the people are able to know what is really good for them; and foreseeing that the time would come when women, as well as men, would vote, they have made the schools free for girls as well as for boys. Public free schools are, indeed, the chief defence of a flee people. They make standing armies unnecessary; for an intelligent people will always be able to defend itself.‘No matter how large the sum spent on free schools, this expenditure is the wisest economy, for it increases the wealth and taxable property of the whole State by increasing the producing power of every individual. Educated intelligent labor, as we all know, is vastly more productive than ignorant labor, and, besides this, it has been abundantly proved that education diminishes crime, and in this way is also a great economy. I find, for instance; a paper by that well-known scholar 18

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JULY 5, 1875. an(d wise philanthropist, Mr. Charles Loring Brace, in the reports of last yeas’s Prison Congress at St. Louis, in which these facts are given: In 1871, out of 50,000 prisoners in New York jails, nearly 20,000 could not read or write. Of the illiterate class in the city, which amounted to about 60,000, one in every three had committed a crime that year, for which he was sent to prison; while of those who could read and write, only one in twenty-seven was thus guilty. Taking the whole State of New York, it appears that one-third of the crime is committed by the illiterate, who constitute only one-sixteenth of the population. In Massachusetts the proportion of criminals in jail who cannot read or write is usually about thirty per cent. of the whole number. In 1871 about one in every twenty of those who could not read or write were sentenced for crimes, while of those who were able to do so, only one in one hundred and twentysix committed these offences. Now, it may be true that such education as is given in our common schools does not necessarily make Christians, and it is not meant for that purpose. The home and the church are for that purpose. But it is very certain, if there is any truth in facts and figures, that this common-school education does have a strong tendency to prevent persons from becoming thieves, burglars, pickpockets, intemperate, and murderers. Schools cultivate habits of order, regularity, industry 19

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-ORATION. and self-control. They take children from the streets and from idleness. They open their minds to thoughts of large interests. They indirectly encourage what is good and right in all their lessons. To denounce them because they are secular, and do not teach religion, is therefore pure folly. What are Sunday Schools for, but to teach religion?

No sensible man pretends that when you have taught children to read, write and cipher, you have given to them all they need in order to become wise and good men and women. But you have given them ” The Key of Knowledge.”

You have put their feet in the right way. You have reduced their chance of becoming criminals from thirty-three in a hundred to three in a hundred.

And you have made it certain that the majority of the voters who are to make your laws, and decide what shall be done with your property, cannot become the blind tools of selfish demagogues. Mr. Maurice Block, a recent French writer on Social Science (” L’Europe Politique et Sociale”), tells us that in the United States popular instruction comes nearest to its ideal. He adds that it is the only country in the world which might dispense with ” compulsory education;” but adds that it was the first country which declared it to be the right of the community to insist on elementary instruction, 20

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JULY 5, 1875. quoting the laws of Massachusetts in 1668 and of Connecticut in 1650. The United States has led the way in giving universal education to the people, and making this education purely secular; leaving religious instruction in the hands of the churches, where it belongs. Holland followed our example, in 1806, by separating the school completely from the church; and, in spite of the efforts of the Catholic Church, the law of 1857 maintained the neutrality of primary schools. Sweden and Norway also give gratuitous education in primary schools, and make it compulsory on parents. Switzerland has followed this example. Even Turkey has adopted free elementary schools, and compulsory education; and it is stated that ninety-five children out of a hundred are in the Turkish schools. All the countries of Europe recognize the right of government to insist on the education of the people. But all, with perhaps one or two exceptions, arc behind this country in the sums expended for education in the proportion of children in the schools, and in the statistics of illiteracy. We have been able, in the United States, to make education almost universal by making it first secular; and, secondly, free. Free schools, supported by the whole community, and carefully abstaining from any interference with religious opinion, have produced this result. In Europe, where the whole power of an ab 21

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ORATION. solute goverment has been at the service of the church to enable it to educate the people, the people have not been educated. The object of the church has always been, and very properly from its point of view, not to educate the intellect, but to train the heart in religious sentiments.

The church did not desire that the people should learn to read and write, but that they should be carefully taught the catechism. Consequently, in 1866, the French minister of war reported that out of a hundred conscripts only thirty could read. By tables published in Turin, in 1864, by the exminister of public instruction, it appeared that out of a thousand males in Sardinia and Lombardy, four hundred and sixty-one did not know their letters. In Tuscany, six hundred and forty-one out of a thousand were equally ignorant. In Naples and Sicily, eight hundred and thirty-five men out of a thousand, and nine hundred and thirty-eight women out of a thousand, could not read or write. Since Italy was united, things have improved; yet, by the census of 1864, out of twenty-one millions less than four millions could read and write. In Spain, about seventy-five per cent.

of the people are equally ignorant. In Spanish America, seven-eighths of the people are in the same condition. Meantime, in the whole United States, including young children, the recently emancipated slaves, the poor Southern whites and foreigners, only four millions and a half out of thirty-eight millions of 22

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JULY 5, 1875. the population could not read in 1870. In Massachusetts, including children and foreigners, only one in twenty is unable to read; and two hundred and eightyseven thousand out of fourteen hundred thousand are. at school. In the whole Unlited States there are one hundred and forty-one thousand schools, and there are more than seven millions of pupils in attendance. The money expended in the whole United States for schools in the year 1870 was ninety-five millions of dollars, or about $2.50 for every man, woman and child in the Union. Sixty-four millions of this was raised by taxation for the public schools. Compare with this vast sum freely given for education in this country, the trifling amount levied by taxation in England, which, in 1867, amounted to less than two million dollars, all the rest of the education of the people of England being left to local endowments and private charities. Twenty years before that time, in 1847, Macaulay, in one of his most powerful speeches, had pointed out how the absence of general education in England had led to terrible riots, the direct effect ” of the gross, brutish ignorance of the population, left brutes in the midst of Christianity, savages in the midst of civilization.” “]No proposition,” he adds, can be more strange than this, that the State is bound to punish its subjects for not knowing their duty, but at the same time is to take no step to let them know what their duty is.” 23

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ORATION. If Macaulay justly.charges the ferocious, riotous character of the populace of England to the absence of universal public instruction, we may say, on the other hand, that our own wonderful spectacle on the 17th of June may be partly credited to the influence of our public schools.

Massachusetts, with fourteen hundred thousand inhabitants, pays every year, for education, nearly five millions of dollars; of which over three millions is for its public schools. The county of Suffolk, with a population, in 1870, of 270,000, had 50,000 children at school. Is there any other city in the world which could have collected a crowd such as we saw here on that day; so orderly, so quiet, so welldressed, where you could scarcely find a single drunken or noisy man; a crowd amid which the most delicate lady or child could everywhere go, as safely as in a private parlor? I think, Mr. Mayor, and citizens of Boston, we have a right to take some pride in that remarkable exhibition of the results of a s) stem of universal education, began by our fathers in 1642, and maintained to the present hour. This great result of Republican institutions is not likely to be abandoned. It began with the Puritan Fathers of New England.

The ” Catholic World,” certainly an impartial witness when it praises the Puritans, in the number for April, 1870, says that “It is to the credit of the Americanii people, at least the Calvinistic portion of them, that they have, from the earliest colonial timnes, 24

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JULY 5, 1875. taken a deep interest in the education of the young,” and that “the present system of common schools at the public expense”

originated among the Congregationalists, and in Massachusetts. William Penn, Washington, and Jefferson, all exhorted this nation to educate the people.” And since every other system has proved ineffectual, and since our system of fiee schools, independent of every sect, and teaching the poorest child the elements of knowledge, has proved so successful, the people of this country will continue to maintain it, as one of the greatest blessings born out of Republican principles and the methods of a free State. Another great result of this hundred years’ experiment of government by the people and for the people is the complete demonstration that the authority of the State can be supported, and universal order maintained, without a standing army. The nations of Europe groan und(er the burden of standing armies. Their vast military organizations suck the very life-blood of the people. The colossal armies of Europe take firom productive labor in time of peace 2,700,000 men; and their number on a war footing mounts up to 6,500,000. The expense of maintaining these armies is $600,000,000 in time of peace, - and the time taken each year from productive industry amounts to eight hundred millions of days. More than a hundred years ago Montesquieu wrote 25

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ORATION. these words: ” A new disease has gone through Europe, and seized our princes with the desire to increase theii armies. It is a contagious disease; for, as soon as-one State increases its troops, the others suddenly augment theirs; so that nothing is gained but the common ruin.”

The size of these armies is now three times what it was when Montesquieu wrote that sentence, - so that now the expense has become truly terrific.

But this very expense is an advantage, for it keeps down a little’ the size of the armies. A standing army, fed by conscription, is a temptation to war. If France had not possessed such an army, she never would have attacked Prussia. If England had not possessed such an army, she never would have sent her eighty thousand soldiers to the Crimea, in a senseless attempt to keep up the balance of power in Europe,- an attempt which cost her ~78,000,000, or nearly $400,()00,000, and has disgusted her for the time with interfering any more in the politics of the continent. During the last hundred years the United States has been engaged in several wars; the war of 1812 with England, the Florida war, the war with Mexico, the great civil war. All of these wars were caused by the slave power. All were occasioned by slavery, seeking to extend itself; for slavery itself was a condition of permanent war.. It was the repetition in our time of the feudal system, in which 26

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JULY 5, 1875. a small body, belonging to a superior race, keeps down a much larger body by being always armed and always prepared against insurrection. But now that slavery has perished, we shall be as peaceful as we are powerful. We reduced our army, a year ago, to twenty thousand regular troops, - a number hardly large enough to be visible when scattered along our immense frontier. We thus proclaim to the world our peaceful purposes toward foreign nations; and, also that we do not fear any danger coming from abroad. And as regards insurrection at home, the people themselves cal be depended on to put down any such attempt, should it ever come. We do not need an army to maintain domestic order, or to support law. The people themselves take care of that. Fifty years ago Dr.

Lieber, travelling in this country, was struck by the universal respect for law; and saw an evidence of it even in the signboards on our bridges, ” Keep to the right, as the law directs.” A government by the people makes it the personal interest of every man in the community to maintain order.

The laws which the people make themselves, the people will themselves maintain. Few things in this country have more surprised European travellers than to see the universal security and quiet where no soldiers are to be noticed, and where it is extremely difficult ever to find a policeman. The explanation is always at hand. In the States of 27

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ORATION. Europe it is the business of the government to execute the laws; here it is the business of every citizen to see that they are enforced. A nation without a large standing army is weak for offensive war; and it is an advantage that it should be so. But it is strong for defence; in its prosperity, in the comfort and intelligence of the people, and in the might which slumbers in a freeman’s arm. It may be said that we do not need standing armies here as Europe does, because we are not surrounded by hostile States. But that is also owing to our being a Federal Republic.

Massachusetts does not need a standing army to de fend itself from an attack of New York; because New York and Massachusetts have a common interest, and belong to the same great union. Let the states of Europe become republics, and form a union among themselves, and they also could disband their armies, or reduce them to a mere police force like ours. But wars will never cease so long as each of the great nations has its immense army and fleet, which a few men, sitting round a green table, can, at any time, hurl upon their neighbors. It is this principle also which has made our govern ment the strongest in the world, - the least liable to convulsions, overthrow or change. Fisher Ames put the difference between a republic and a monarchy in one of those epigrams which contain the substance of a long discussion.‘In a republic,” said he, “you 28

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JULY 5, 1875. are like people on a raft; your feet are always wet, but you will not sink. In a monarchy you are like passengers in a ship, much more comfortable while you are safe; but touch a rock, and you go to the bottom.” We have been on our raft now for a hundred years. Our feet have often been under water; but the raft floats still. How many of the monarchies of Christendom have been wrecked during this interval! How many dynasties have been driven firom their homes! What repeated changes have taken place in the map of Europe! And what government is there in the world, beside our own, which could have put down the terrible rebellion of the Slave States; could have organized an enormous army and a powerful navy so suddenly; could have established and kept up an effective blockade along a thousand miles of coast; could have originated a new system of finance, and borrowed such immense sums to carry on the war, and sustain its credit? And this, too, was done in the face of a formidable opposition in the free States, and without abridging any of the guaranties of freedom. Europe saw with astonishment how, in the midst of this portentous struggle, the press was allowed full fieedom; the opponents of the government were allowed to meet and say almost anything they pleased; and that a gireat presidential election took place in which the ballot 29

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ORA’I’TI O N. was left free, and the people were permitted to vote whether this government, struggling for its life, should be supported or not. All this proved that ours is the strongest government in the world, and that it is so strong because every man in the land considers it his own, and has a personal stake in its safety and power. “But our feet are always under water,” you say, and that is disagreeable.” Yes, it is disagreeable; but perhaps it is also profitable. On a raft all are sailors, and in a Republic it is every man’s business to see that the State receives no detriment. The price of liberty is not only perpetual vigilance, but personal responsibility in all the citizens. Thus we are educated to a true patriotism. No doubt we have many battles to fight still. We shall have a long battle with the trading politicians, with the caucus, with rings, with the lobby. We shall have to fight for our school system, with those who wish to make it sectarian. We shall have to invent and apply new methods to save the tax-payers from being plundered by rings who buy votes and bribe legislators. Some of these inventions have already been made, and are being applied. The State of Illinois is now trying, with success, the plan of minority representation; with such success as to have reduced the bills passed by its Legislature from eight hundred to two hundred in the first session under the new elections. The State of 30

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JULY 5, 1875. Wisconsin has embodied in its Constitution a provision preventing its Legislature or its municipalities from imposing a higher tax than a certain fixed rate, based on the assessment of five years before. The city of New York has now a provision in its charter, by means of which three citizens may cause any officeholder to be examined in forty-eight hours before a judge, in regard to any misconduct which he may be intending to commit; so that the day of judgment for such civic offenders is always close at hand. Last winter a Democratic Legislature in Albany passed three acts to prevent the pilfering of public treasuries; and these are acts which almost make every public officer a trustee. “

Where there is a will there is a way.” If we resolve to correct public abuses, as the old abolitionists resolved to overthrow slavery, we can correct them all. What a lesson of faith and courage is there not for us all in that history! When Mr. Garrison and his friends determined to overthrow slavery, it seemed the most sublimely ridiculous attempt ever made. On the side of slavery was united every social, political, and mercan tile interest. It had for its defence both of the great parties, the commercial and manufacturing interests, the Presidents, Congress, and the U. S. Courts, all the newspapers, fashion in the upper circle of society, and the mob below. On the other side, the abolitionists had nothing but Truth and Jus .. : 31

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ORATION. tice. Their only weapon was the fact that slavery was wrong. With that weapon they conquered in the life of a single generation. They kept saying, over and over again, ” Slavery is wrong;” and before that appeal to the conscience of the people slavery tottered and fell. That one cry created the great Republican party, elected Abraham Lincoln, drove the South into secession, by which they attacked both Union and Freedom at once, and created the determination which at last conquered in thai awful struggle. And shall we, who have lived through this experience, be afraid of a Lobby or a Ring? Shall we tremble, because a caucus of political demagogues undertakes to dictate what we must do? Their power may seem enormous; but only defy it, and it crumbles to the ground. Let good men and true men have free speech and a free press, and they are more than a match for all the combined rascality of the country. Those who make politics a trade are, no doubt, astonished and angry when the people presume to select men for office outside of the party programme. But they will have to bear it. They appear to suppose that offices belong to the politicians, and that we are taking their private property if we prefer to send to Washington an honest, sensible, business man, outside of their clique. These partisans seem to me like the people who stand in a :: *. .: ee.e.. 32

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JULY 5, 1875. queue waiting for their turn to get tickets to a popu lar lecture or concert. If any man steps in before you firom the outside, you are displeased, and you re quest him to go to the foot of the line and take his turn. So the politicians stand in the line of succession, waiting their turn to be nominated by the caucus, and are much disgusted if the people choose to set aside their little arrangement, and take a better man outside of the line. All we need in order to accomplish reforms, and put down abuses in public affairs are those great elementary forces, FAITH and WORK. We must believe in the people, believe that the people honestly mean to do what is right, that when they see the truth they will follow it. And then we must be willing to work to make them see it. It is not a new thing to have rings which plunder the people, to enrich a few leaders. This has been the case under every monarchy and every aristocracy. The new thing is to have them successfully opposed and conquered, as in the case of Tweed and his fellow-robbers. Just such a ring as that surrounded Louis XIV. and Napoleon III.; only instead of being plain Tweeds, Connollys or Sweeneys, they were marquises and counts, Persignys and De Mornys. But who ever saw these titled Tweeds and Sweeneys sent to the penitentiary, driven into exile, or compelled to disgorge their plunder? And how was this : 9 -.’. .

*.:Z.. 33

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ORATION. victory over thle New York Ring accomplished? They seemed to own the city. They were sure of as many votes as they needed at every election. They could pass almost any law at Albany. They were so strongly entrenched, with a great mass of ignorant voters behind them, and the ballot-boxes in their own hands, that it seemed a hopeless thing to try to overthrow them. What, then, overturned their power? Publicity,- that is, the voice of the people, speaking through a free press. A strange terror, a panic only known to the plunderers who live among free institutions, took possession of them. This vague, wonderful power, which we call public opinion, lifted up its voice, and then this edifice of fraud fell into sudden ruin. While Mr. Tweed was considering which foreign mission he had better accept, he went to the penitentiary. It is true that the first attempt at reforming the Civil Service has failed. WVe have not succeeded, as yet, in taking the public offices out of the hands of the partisan politicians. Men are put into office, not to do its duties, but to be rewarded for political services, by getting all the money out of the office they can. This evil principle, that to the victors belong the spoils, and that the spoils are all the offices of the country, inaugurated by the Democratic party, under Gen. Jackson, has been carried to its climax by the Republican party of to-day. This disgraceful . ‘.9: .I99.9 34

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JULY 5, 1875. and ominous result has been reached, - that a department of the government has been found to be in the pay of the whiskey ring, so that the President and Secretary of the Treasury were obliged to colnceal from their own officers their attempts to convict these thieves. Those whose business it was to collect the revenue were assisting the robbers in plundering it. No doubt such facts show that our feet are still under water. We do not yet give offices to those who will best do the work. But we are attermpting to do it; and, except in China, this course has nowhere been regularly pursued. “Is he honest? is he capable? “- this test for appointing to office, which was practically applied by all our Presidents down to the time of Jackson, will yet be established as law, and organized into a working rule. Republican institutions rest on faith in human nature. Unless this faith exists they cannot be sustained. We must believe that people can be moved by the argument that it is right to do this; that it is wrong to do that. Assuming that people prefer to do right, unless where prejudice or interest mislead them, and also observing that prejudice and selfinterest will only influence some section or class of society, in regard to any special measure, it is clear that the majority of people will always be in favor of what is right. This fact is the basis of universal 35

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ORATION. suffrage, which, giving the power to the whole people, protects them against the passions, interests, and prejudices of any local faction.

But, in order to accomplish this, the whole people must be intellectually educated, so as to be able to understand what is right; and must be morally trained, so as to feel it their duty to support what is right.

This is the basis for a universal State education, mental and moral. And, beside this, the people must have access to sources of information in regard to men and measures; and hence the necessity of free speech and a free press. And, beside all this, there must be religion to counteract the tendency to materialization which comes from prosperity; to vitalize the higher nature, and to lift man from the sphere of sense into that of soul.

Without this influence, progress in art, science, literature, and social life would lose its inspiration. Yet religion must be taught independently,- in the church, not in the school. If religion is taught in the schools, religion, being so much more important than knowledge, will be sure to make the education of the mind subordinate to the education of the religious nature. This would be the case, not only with the earnest Catholic teacher, but also with every earnest Protestant teacher. The colleges and academies in this country, which are in the hands of Protestant sects, have often had for their primary purpose to build up their sects; and for their secondary object 36

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JULI,Y 5, 1875. to give intellectual instruction. This will always be the result; and the more sincerely religious the teacher is, the worse will the school be, as a school. Thus, in Spain, Austria and Italy, where the education of the people has been confided for centuries to the Roman Catholic Church, almost one half of the people have never learned to read or write. This was not because the church was not faithful and laborious, but because it necessarily subordinated intellectual instruction to religious culture. It believed, and still believes, that it is right to do so. The principle is distinctly asserted in such statements as this, which I take from the “Catholic World” for April, 1871: “We do not prize as highly as some of our countrymen appear to do, the simple ability to read, write, and cipher… In extending education, and endeavoring to train all to be leaders, we have only extended presumption, pretension, conceit, indocility, and broight incapacity to the surface. We believe the peasantry, in the old Catholic countries, two centuries ago, were better educated, though for the most part unable to read or write, than are the great body of the American people. They had faith, they had morality, they had a sense of religion.” This is manly and plain, and we respect the honest conviction from which it proceeds, though we dissent absolutely from the principle. We do not believe that ignorance is ever the mother either of morality or of true devotion. 37

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ORATION. It substitutes superstition for devotion, and ceremonies for virtue. It is much to the credit of the Puritans, wherever they were, that they believed in knowledge, and established schools. But they are almost the only exception to the law by which religious sects are led to make religion the primary thing in their schools, and intellectual development the secondary thing. By means of universal suffrage we no doubt introduce a great deal of ignorance into the government. But at the same time we cause all to feel a personal interest in the government, and we accomplish the great object of widening the basis of representation, so as to neutralize the influence of local interests, caste prejudices, and private aims. In the same fact, we find a basis for woman suffrage. Not because woman is the same in character, ability, and quality as man,- but because she is diferent, we need her influence in public life. She will bring in new elements, and help still further in keeping legislation free from special tendencies. She will see many things which man does not, as A?e sees many things which she does not. She will make many mistakes, as he makes many mistakes,- but hers will be different from his, and his from hers, and so they will neutralize each other. Providentially, we have prepared for this coming change, by freely admitting girls with boys to all our schools, and we are now admitting the principle 38

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JULY 5, 1875. of coeducation in many of our colleges. Life attains its true and best equilibrium not by monotony, but by the union of antagonist elements, by differentiation and co-operation. For a perfect civilization men and women must be companions in everything,- in work and play, in study, in all occupations, in art and literature, in science and discovery. I do not think our politics will be what they ought, till women are legislators and voters. I do not think our schools and colleges will be what they ought, till girls are educated with boys, and women are on the boards of government and instruction with men. I do not think that our prisons, hospitals, charitable institutions will be really good, till women are in the direction together with men. When all careers are open to all talents, society will be properly balanced by the equipoise of man’s force and woman’s sympathy, man’s logic and woman’s intuition. Mr. James Parton, in his A Life of Jefferson,” tells us that in 1785 America had contributed nothing to the intellectual resources of man, except Franklin.

” We had,” says he, ” no art, little science, no literature; not a poem, not a book, not a picture, not a statue, not an edifice.” The books of Jonathan Edwards and the pictures of Copley may, perhaps, be regarded as exceptions; but, in the main, this statement is correct. We have done a little better since. We have produced no Goethe, no Byron, no Rafaelle; but 39

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ORATION. it takes more than a hundred years to produce such flowers as these. Everything with us has taken a practical direction. Our best works of art have been our vessels. Our great poem has been the country itself.

Our great edifice has been the national character. We still find our best books in the running brooks, the rolling rivers, the majestic mountains, the roaring cataracts, the mysterious caverns, the boundless prairies; the lakes, rolling like the ocean; the forests, sweeping thousands of miles toward the setting sun. It is true that the two writers whose works have had the widest circulation in modern times are American; namely, Noah Webster and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Twenty years ago fifty millions copies of the books of Noah Webster had been sold, to all parts of the world. Of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” so many millions of copies had been sold, in 1870, that Allibone found it impossible to estimate their number. But, after all, our chief contribution to the history of the world has been the successful result of these free institutions. We have shown that order and freedom may be united, that equal rights and universal respect for law can be associated. Next to this is our contribution of MEN. What great edifice, though it were a basilica of St. Peter, or a Strasburgh minster, is such an addition to the wealth of mankind as the character of George Washington, or of Abraham Lincoln? We may not have produced many original 40

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JULY 5, 1875. poems; our novdls may be often mild imitations of European models. But these men are not imitations. Untrained in any school of hereditary statesmanship, they knew how to guide the nation through darkness and storm with comsummate ability and without personal ambition.

As our poet says of Abraham Lincoln; Nature, in making him, copied no previous model. “For him her old world mould aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, -With stuff untainted, shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of’ God, and true. ” We knew that outward grace was dust, And could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind’s unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will, That bent, like perfect steel, to spring again, and thrust.” In him, the man sent by God to be our leader, what a union of modesty and self-reliance, of caution and courage, of patience and energy, of care not to go too fast, and the determination never to stand still!- Other men have been more fluent in speech, but his words had the eloquence which went to the heart of the nation. Others were better read iii books; but who had a surer knowledge of men and things than he? And so, as the years recede, he rises higher and higher above all his contemporaries; as is the case with all true greatness. 41

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ORATION. And our own Massachusetts has also given to the records of the race some similar examples of great powers devoted to great ends. Such men, within our memory, were WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANNIG, whom Bunsen ranks with the prophets of mankind -JoHN QuINcY ADAMS, standing like a majestic monument, beat upon with storms, but never flinching, and holding on his way without haste or rest -DANrIEL WEBSTER, whose majestic presence, whose all-comprehensive intellect, have given us another measure of the possible reach of human thought-CHARLEs SUMNER, with a soul devoted to everything humane and noble, so simple in his manners, so free firom guile, so pure from every taint of selfish cunning, that he seems like an old knight-errant dropped into our time, - one whose chosen work it was to pluck the prey from the jaws of the wicked, and to help the oppressed to go free. What a lesson to time-servers and mere partisans was that great outbreak of grateful love which accompanied this honest man to his grave!

What a rebuke to those self-seekers who make political life a scramble for office and gain! ” Vipers, who creep, where man disdains to climb; And, having wound their noisome fetters round The pillars of our capitol of state, Hang, hissing, at the nobler man below.” 42

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JULY 5, 1875. Let young men mark well this lesson. They may listen to many cynical doubts as to the possibility-of honesty in public life; they may often find it the fashion to regard politics as unworthy the attention of refined persons; but, while selfish and partisan politics aile, indeed, unworthy their pursuit, what better work can they find than that which concerns the life, the happiness, the peace, the prosperity of the nation?

What better study than the complex methods by which justice is organized into law, and freedom takes form in stable institutions? What higher chivalry is there to-day, than that which devotes itself to exposing the plunderers of the State; to battling against the mere partisans who seek only the spoils of victory; and touching with the Ithuriel spear of truth, the lies with which demagogues seek to deceive the people? This is a work as high as man can do, and will always win the reward of human love, reverence and honor. And then we have had graceful orators, like EDWARD

EVERETT, whose silver arrow always sped straight on its course, to the understanding and taste of his hearers; and another kind of men like JOSIAH QUAcY, - the last, or almost the last, of that race of Yankee Romans, who joined to the sagacity running in their New England blood, a strain of the old heroic loyalty to all that is most honorable and most true. But the list increases while I attempt to bring it to 43

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ORATION. a close. Our dear old State has never been without its heroes, its saints, its martyrs; its old men, whose long experience attains something like a strain of prophecy; its young men, modest aid manly, “
with morn on their bright shields of expectation!” But one name more I must not omit to mention, one name dear to all our hearts too soon taken away from the great work he seemed made to accomplish. The greatness of our war-governor, JOHN A. ANDREW, was not in his having any one extraordinary talent, but in the large, wide, well-balanced character of his mind. Because he clearly saw both sides of each question, he was always able to decide promptly. His conscientious devotion to justice and truth prevented him from being blinded by vanity or selfinterest; the practical tendency of his mind kept him from being led away by any mere theory. He was a thorough Democrat, but he loved culture and cultivated people. He was an honest philanthropist, yet his was no rose-water philanthropy. He would not sacrifice justice to love. He was a religious man, with a most living faith in God, but as flee from the cant of religion as any man I ever knew. Why is it, let me finally ask, that to-day, while all Europe is in such unstable equilibrium, here all politics are so stable? Why is it that while there, republics are changed to monarchies, monarchies to empires, empires to republics again, and revolutions 44

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JULY 5, 1875. are the norminal condition of things; here, in this land, a Republic has existed nearly a hundred years; and, having overcome our late rebellion, is more firmly established to-day than ever? It is because we have united freedom and order, law and liberty. It is because we have not been afraid of the fullest utterance of all truth, on the one hand; and have not been ashamed of the worship and service of God on the other.

Religion, in this country, walks hand in hand with freedom, with education, with science. A free press, in this country, is the main support of government and law. Long may it be so! Here in Massachusetts was first proved the possibility of a free church, in a free State, with free schools and a free press. That is our chief gift to the cause of human progress; and it is a great one, and well deserves the praise of our New England poet:. ” Rough, bleak and hard, our little State Is scant of soil, of limits strait; Her yellow sands are sands alone, Her only mines are ice and stone. ” Yet on her rocks, and on her sands,, And wintry hills, her school-house stands;; And what her rugged soil denies, The harvest of the mind supplies.. ” For well she keeps her ancient stock, The stubborn strength of Plymouth Rock, 45

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ORATION. And still maintains, with milder laws, And clearer light, the Good Old Cause! ” Nor heeds the sceptic’s puny hands,’ While near her school the church-spire stands, Nor fears the blinded bigot’s rule, While near her church-spire stands the school! ” 46

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