Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1821-08-14
AN ADDRESS

citizens of Washington; on the occasion OF
reading the Declaration of independence,
on the fourth of July, 1921.
BY JOHN QUINCY adams.
FELLow-CIr1zENs-U within few
DAYS preceding that which we have again
assembled to commemorate, our Fathers,
the people of this Union, had constituted
a portion of the British nation; nation
renowned in Arts and Arms, who. from
small island in the Atlantic Ocean,
had extended their dominion over con
siderable parts of every quarter OF the
globe. Governed themselves by race
oil kings, whose title to sovereignty had
originally been founded in conquest,
spel-bound for a succession of ages un-
der that portentous system OF despotlsn.
and Of superstition, which in the name
of the meek and humble Jesus had been
spread over the Christian world, the his
tory of this nation had, for period OF
700 years, from the days OF the conquest
till our own, exhibited a conflict almosl
continual, between the expressions OF
power and the claims of right. In the
theories of the Crown and Mitre man
had NJ rights. Neither the body nor the
soul of the individual was his own
From the impen. trable gloom OF this
Intellectual darkness, of the deep degra-
dation of this serv;t,de, lin, Beiish ma
ton had partially emerged. The mar
tvrs of religious freedom had consumed
to ashes at the stake /: the champions Of
temporal liberty had bowed their heads
upon the scalfod; and the spirits of ma
ny bloody day had LEFT their earthly
yes,ure upon the field of battle, and
scared to plead the cause of liberty be-
fore the throne Of Heaven. The people
o. Britain, through long ages of civil
war, had extorted from their tyraDts not
acknowledgements but grants, of right.
Win this concession they had been con-
tent to stop in the progress OF human
improvement. They received their
freedom as donation from their sove-
reigns; they appealed for their priv
leges to sign manuel and seal; they
held their title to liberty, like their title
to lands. from the bounty of a man; and
in their moral and political chronology,
the great charter of Runny Mead was
the beginning Of the world.
From the earliest ages of their re-
corded history, the Inhabitants of the
British Islands have been distinguished
for their intelligence and their spirit
How much of these two qualities, the
fountains of all amelioration in the con-
di,ion of men, was stifaed by these two
principles of subserviency to ecclesiasti-
cal usurpation, and Of holding rights as
the donation of kings, this is not the &C.
casion to inquire.
OF their tendency to palsy the vigour
and enervate the faculties of man, all
philosophical reasoning, and all actual
experience, concur in testimony.
These principles, however, were not
peculiar to the people of Britain. They
were the decisions of all Europe, still
the most enlightened and most improva-
BILE portion of the earth. The temporal
chain was rivetted upon the people OF
Britain by the conquest. Their spiritual
letters were forged by subtiety working
upon superstition. Baneful as the ct
feet of these principles was, they could
not forever extinguish the light of reason
in the human mind. The discovery Of
the Mariners Compass was soon follow
ed by the extension OF intercourse be-
tween nations the most distant, and which,
without that light beaming in darkness
to guide the path ofman over the bound
less waste of waters, could never have
been known to each other. The inven.
ton Of Printing and the composition Of
Gunpowder, which revolutionlzed al
once the art and science Of war, and the
relations Of peace; the revelation OF In
dia to Vasco de Cana; and the disc To-
sure to Columbus of the American he
misphere, all resulted from the incom'
pressible energies of the human intel
lect, bound and crippled as it was by the
double cords ofccclesiastical imposture
and political oppression.
To these powerful agents in the pro-
pressive improvement of our species
Britain can lay no claim. For them the
children of men are indebted to Italy, to
Germany, to Portugal and to SPAIN
+, All these Improvements, however, con
sisted in successful researches into the
properties and notifications OF external
nature. The religious reformation was
An improvement, in the science OF mind
an Improvement in the intercourse O