Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1820-07-11
american Independence.
CELEBRATION AT SILVER CREEK.

Olson county, and from the neighborIng
counties, united with those OF the Marine
Settlement at Silver Creek, to celebrate
the anniversary of our independence, at
the house of ROWLAND p. ALLEN, Esq.
The ceremony commenced by reading
the motives and reasons, contained in the
declaration of independence, which IN
duced our yirtuous and heroic ancestors
to sever the bands with which the Bril-
fish tyrant then attempted to bind and
enthral them; succeeded by the follow
ing Grafton, by NATHANIEL w. WAT
KINs, Esq. to numerous and attentive
audience, which was received with salts
faction and applause:
If, fellow citizens, we take into view
the inequality of the parties engaged;
the dangers, the difficulties they encoun-
tered; the sacrifices Of private and indi-
vidual interest to the general good the
magnitude and importance of the princi-
pies contended for; the population and
extent of territory effected by it, we may
Justly rank the American revolution
among the most important events re-
corded in the annals of mankind.
On the one hand we behold the largest,
the most powerful and energetic empire
the world ever saw she whose territory
was confined to no quarter of the globe,
but who boosted of conquest and posses
sion in every cline, and on every sea !;
who rode triumphant mistress of the
great deep for centuries; and who had
but just triumphed over a coalition of
three of the most potent powers in
Europe, with peace and plenty al
home; feared and respected abroad;
united to the great civilized families
Of the world by a similarity of govern
ment and of interests. On the other
hand we behold an infant people, possess
ed it is true of large territory, but thinly
populated; people who had fed from
the tyranny, cruelty, and bigotry of the
old world, to encounter dangers and diff
hculties in this, in the pursuit of liberty,
happiness, and a free exercise of their
religion. They were without any per-
manently established government; with
out arms, money, or Notifications cut
off from any communication with the rest
of the world by her insulated situation /;
without the prospect or even hope of any
aid from foreign powers, and solely de-
pendent on her own exertions; with an
extensive frontier on one side peopled by
hostile savages, whose cruelty and indis-
criminate massacre ofall those who fallin
theirpower is too we'll known in this state
to need recapitulation; and on the other,
an extensive sea coast, covered with the
fleets of the enemy.
Such, fellow citizens, is brief, faint,
and imperfect view of the situation of the
parties at the commencement of that re-
volution which severed the British en-
pire, and gave existence to our own free
and excellent form of government. Such
was the situation of the parties when
the government Of England thought pro-
per to commence a course of conduct
towards her colonies, which was marked
with cruelty and usurpation, and which,
it submitted to on our part, would have
been fatal to the best interest of this
largest and most valuable portion of the
globe. But, fortunately for ourselves,
and the cause of liberty in general, our
ancestors were too sensible of its blessings
to yield it without struggle. The love
of independence had been too strongly
engraven on their minds to be easily
eradicated. They bad felt too sensibly
in the old world the inconveniencies re-
sulting from tyranny and oppression !;
and they had already surmounted too
many dangers and difficulties in the first
settlement of this country, in order to Sc
cure the blessings of liberty and equality,
to tamely submit to the arbitrary and il
legal mandates of the mother country.
They also knew that, in the first settle
ment of this continent, when they were
poor, weak, and defenceless; when they
had to struggle for existence against the
savage aborigines, they had been shame
fully neglected, left singly and alone to
contend with every danger and every
difficulty incident to an infant settlement
in foreign and inhospitable cline; that
when they were weak and in need of pro-
lection, contempt and neglect was allthcy
received. But so soon as they became
prosperous and flourishing, they excited
the envy and jealousy of the mother
country, who wished to exercise an arbi-
trary control over them, by asserting the
right and exercising the power of unlimit-
ed authority. First, by the assumption of
right of taxation; then by an arbitrary re-
peal ofour charters; next by refusing to
pass laws the most wholesome and neces-