The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1862-01-09
BY JOHN JAY, ESQ.

NtNDe S0AfN fDeLSA " Z u S>eAl
bled to celebrate the ~eighty-sixth birthday @
American Independence, and we come 10
gether under circumstances that seem 10 max.
us contemporaries and co-actors, as il were
with our fathers OF the Revolution. The cri
SIS which they met, and which their heroisn
decided after a seven years war with Grea
Britain, again meets US face to face. The
early scenes Of their struggle for constitutions
Liberty have found In our recent experience g
historical parallel of even chronological exact
ness. .
If ever the spirits Of the departed are per.
United to revisit the scenes they loved. and
hover like angels around the steps of their
successors, we may suppose that Hancock
and the Adamses, Sherman and Wolcott,
Carroll and Livingston, Jefferson and Frank
lin, Robert and Lewis Morris, Wilson and
Hush, and all their noble compeers, look
down from heaven in the hour upon the Con.
gress at Washington and God grant that the
sturdy spirit which inspired the first Congress
may equally inspire the lasti
whatever may be our fate" said join
Adams, with prophetic vision, after the adop-
ton OF the Declaration, '.be assured that this
Declaration will stand. 1t may cost treasure
and 1t may cost blood, but it will richly COM
Pensate Tor both. Through the thick gloom
OF the present l see the brightness of the fu-
ture as the sun in heaven. We shall make
this a glorious, an immortal day. When we
are Ia our graves our children will honor il.
They will celebrate it with thanksgiving. with
festivities, with b~onfires, with Nominations
On ITS annual return they will shed tears, not
OF subsection and slavery, not of agony and
distress, bat of exultation, of gratitude and of
Joy. Sn, before God, / believe the hour is
come : all that have, all that I am, all that [
hope for IN this life, l am now ready here to
stake upon 1t, and l leave off as | began, that
live or die, sink or swim, survive or perish, |
am for the Declaration. 1t is my living senti-
nent, and by the blessing of God il shall be
my dying sentiment-lndependence now, and
independence forever.
The integrity and independence of our
country are again in peril, and to-day the
crisis Is with US. We come together now.
not rs IN past years, to rejoice over a national
domain boundless in exent, peopled by coun-
trymen differing it may be in their views and
institutions, but united in loyalty and affec-
ton, at peace In their own borders, and with
the great arm of the Union protecting its citi-
zens alike on sea or land, at home or in for
elgn cilmes. But re meet in sadness to over
look n divided nation, and to listen to the
tramp OF martial forces larger than ever be-
lore frod the soil of America: the one army
bearing proudly aloft the stars and stripes,
and keeping step to the music of the Union
the other grasping the banner Of rebellion
and the black flag of piracy, proclaiming death
10 the Constitution and the Union, and ruin
to the of the Republic.
Several states, about one-fourth of our
whole number. profess to have resumed their
sovereignty and seeded, as they term it, from
the Federal Union; and certain persons pro-
TO act in their name, have extempor-
" d what they call the Southern Confederacv
elected a President, Jefferson Davis, and a
VSe-fresident, Alexander III. Stephens. or
canned an army, issued letters of maroue.
ana declared war on the people and the
government OF the United States and thew
nave publicly announced, through Walker,
me Secretary OF Davis, their intention of
seIzing our capital at Washington.
ITS national archives and muniments of
TO meet the rebel force arrayed against the
;apital, President Lincoln has called unon
loyal states, and at the word, fresh from
plough. the loom, and the workshop. fresh
college seats and the professors chair.
rom the bar, the pulpit, and the counting
'osse, fresh from every department of Amefi-
industry, the army of the Union is in the
leid, and the world awaits the impending
rsIs. Europe looks on with u~ndisguised and
interest, and while France and
Germany seem instinctively to appreciate our
lt'tation, the British Cabinet and the British
'fess have strangely blundered, and have
nuttered something We do not understand,
bout rights of beiligerents," IA wicked
var" and the bursting of the hubble of
emocmcy."
Such, in brief, is our petition at home and
broad, and this day is destined to be mem.
rabie-Perhaps as memorable in history as
nat which we have met to celebrate. The
ction OIL the Congress now assembled will
whether the national independence es-
lbllshed against the united strength of the
'1tish empire IN '76 Is to fall ignominiously
eiore the attacks of a rebel minority of our
c~ountrymen in 81.
IL Is 70 decide tine question whether i'm the |,
ext century our descendants shall refer to
ne 4th OF July as the forgotten birthday of
q extinct republic, or whether, when we
,aIl sleep with our fathers and our children =
'ail slumber by our side. their grandsons :
iall meetas we do this day to bless our men, {
ries as we bless those Of our Revolutionary d
res : to spread to the breeze from the ATTAIN =
: to the Pacific, on every hillside and in l.
rery valley, the flag of our Union, the stars
I'd stripes that we so proudly love, and Join =
cir voices in swelling the cry of Adams Il
now, and independence for V
v
While the greatissue, the success or failure :
the Anerican experiment, the continuance :.
our Union or its disintegration, rests i'm u
edintely with the President and with Con- .
ess, 1t rests in an almost equal degree upon s.
en- one of US. The American people are at
zee citizens and sovereigns-the fountain r.
d source Of the supreme authority of the ii
i'd, and to US. the people, will our servants n
Congress naturally and properly look for IT
in this extremity. Already have c,
u seen how fairly an honest executive rep d