The Daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1845-1850, 1849-03-27
THE ERA AND THE APOSTLES OF SELF
GOVERNMENTS

This is the title Of an eloquent Grafton deliver
ed before the New England Society of Louisiana,
en- the 22d Of December, 1913, by ]. s. b.
Thacher, member of the New England Society
of Louisiana. Judge Thacher goes back to the
beginning of New England, and traces up its
history, doing honor TO its noble founders, and
defending them from the charges which have
been brought against them. The following strik-
ing passages are quoted from the con cuding part
OF the Grafton
"Can |, as son of New England, erect no.
bier monument to the honor of the fathers, than
thus to bring TO rem entrance their imperishable
deeds, and their expression of those bold and free
thoughts which seemed ''to wander through the
eternity of the future, and garner up the com
ing acclaim OF thousand generations, bearing
en- their imperIshable names beacon fires of
freedom to world, until universal political
emancipation shall have made that world all one
New England, and the home of equal laws and
self-g governing people So full of destiny were
thetathers OF our natal land, that it would scarce
have surprised them, had celestial messenger
informed them, with undeniable signs of his
truthful mission, that in the year 1850, the num-
Der of their descendants should be twenty five
millions-that in 1900, one hundred millions with
pride should point to the rock bound shores of
New England, as TO father land, that the bau-
nered eagles OF liberty shall hutter as now thew
t1utter in the winds of Heaven, from Aroostook
to Oregon, that line from East to West. across
the united republic of freedom, spans one third
of the circumference of the earth-that the
worlds largest rivers, broadcast lakes and loftiest
mountains, blaze with altar fires of liberty, the
goddess who met our brave old prophetic fathers
on the Plymouth Rock, on storied Trimountan,
on the banks of the classic Connecticut, and be-
meath the poetic old elms of New Haven!
Is any ancestry on earth more subIimely ele.
waited than that Of New England? Greater than
Kings were brave and good old fathers
They have imprinted their thoughts and charac-
tiers SO deeply upon the age in which they lived
that three quarters OF century have not dim
med line effaced a vestige Like the tabu-
lous Indian legend of the great BuIe mammoth
after he had shaken off the avenging thunder
bolts Of the Great Spirit, enraged at his destruc-
ton OF the warrior tribes and beasts and forests
his leap over the great lakes leaving his foot.
prints in the unwasting rock from which he
sPrang, so our fathers leftthelr mighty track be-
hind them, stamping on the age. This was the
era, and this the mission of the apostles of self
government. New England was the theatre of
the great drama of freedom. Sings the gifted
Pierpont,
Oh is this not holy spot
lis the high place OF freedoms birth;
God OF our Fathers is it not
The hottest spot OF all the earth
The mission of New
England was TO found an empire after her ownIl-
lustrious pattern. She was to be mother of
States. From her bosom rent out Western New
rofK. OHIO was all her own, and Illinois and In.
utdnd, anu MISSOURI anu IoWas ~rAL W a-oonsin call
her mother. While the youngest child blooms
in the gardens OF the Oregon where the "sweet
South" breathes over the sleeping mirror of the
Pacific, and kisses the f1owery strands of the Co.
lunbia. Can it be possible that portion of our
land which has sent out such swarming millions,
can have any remaining? So far from being des-
olate, New England is still so crowded with pop.
ulation that males are measured by square acres,
and females by miles-all ready 10 engage in
new settlements after the New England pattern
as were her fathers Of the olden time.
Wherever they migrate, the church throws up
its spire; the school house smiles in the grove;
the college rears its stately walls the temple Of
justice is erected and the Press, the "artilIery
Of thought is established; and, in moment as
it were New England is struck dumb with aston
ishment at the report of western wealth. and the
roar OF outpumbering millions swels over the
Alleghanes as it will soon roll over the Rocky
Mountains, laundering at the halls of Congress-
and at our marts OF commerce, with all the wants
and the power oil an immense and free people
The lone alma mater OF the pilgrims, the vener-
able halls of Harvard, has been reinforced by
more than one hundred colleges and sister uni
versies; while the Boston Free School system
tourishes ia the cities of the Mississippi valley"