The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1863-07-23
PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
gibertp and EQUALLY
An Grafton Delivered July 4th, 1868,
To the American Residents in
Honolulu, II. L.,
Hy Rev H. CoRwiN
PAsToR o. FORT ST. CHrRcH.
AMERICAN FELLOW CITIZENS :

o,<bA 80 bASNA- EaAA , As-
our jubilant hearts hold holiday. The grear
pUisations of patriotism. which, from the fal
East, have swept across n continent, reach
us who dwell beyond the sea. Our mother
land has no outcast children among all hel
loyal sons nor time nor space can sever
that sympathetic tie which binds each patriot
heart TO the home of liberty, the land we
love.
What need have you that | should speak
The day IRE celebrate as ats o1cn best orator.
Across the wide waste of waters we hear it
speak from all the high places of the land
from tower and belfry, with sonorous clang,
the utterance of ten thousand tongues.
Hark you can almost hear it laundering
across the continent from the mouths of ten
thousand cannon. And as the shades of
evening shall soon begin to darken the East
ern border, 10, how the watch lights of liberty
blaze up upon the track Of the retiring day.
till the whole broad canopy which stretches
over that land seems TO be lighted I'D with
one grand illumination.
1t is a general Jubilee: each one, in his
own way, testifying to the Joy he feels as the
partaker of inherited national blessings. And
who would stife or repress this out-gushing
OF a nations gratitude and gladness2 Who
does not love to see the popular heart throb
thus responsive to the noblest sentiments,
the great ideas of Liberty and Loyalty, which
to-day are moving the masses of a mighty
nation Where upon the face of the earth
can you find a people who celebrate with
such hearty enthusiasm their national iubi-
lee Nowhere and why Because there
is not another people who have such an IN
t~eIligent appreciation of the true basis and
bearing and worth of their political institu-
tons.
There, as Nowhere else, popular IegisIa-
ton and universal suffrage have made the
masses intelligent, because each one has
been made to feel that he has not only an
interest. but personal power and personal
responsibility too, in every political issue.
There every body is trained to think and to
speak upon public affairs; almost every
school district has its debating society, every
vlllage its Lyceum, its Town Hall. its news
paper, and its circulating library every can
vass is a soul-stirring conflict of opinions,
and so comes 1t to pass that almost every
man and eUery other 1conaan is an intelligent
politician, and an i~ncipient d~ipIomatist.
There the humbIest citizen cannot predict
the politiSl possibilities of his children.
For there the accidents of parentage or pow
erty hinder no man from reaching the high
est point of promotion. There. there is
indeed a privileged class, int ererybody hlozgs-
TO at. This great idea of political equality,
so clearly set forth as n self-evident truth
and an inalienable right, in the Declaration
of American independence, is the fundamen-
tai principle, the firm basis of that wonder
full superstructure. which, for eighty-seven
years, has been building till to-day it spans
n continent, the grandest temple of liberty
ever reared upon the earth. Well and truly
do the American people love their political
institutions. because they recognize this prin-
.,nIa ~ .1I,f.coI no.oIf.. IL G. g.
dation of all that is enduring in what they
have builded, or in what they hope to build.
Take this away, and substitute the chimera
of social equality, and you have permitted
the widest dream of fanaticism and false
philanthropy to usurp the place of a feasible
equity and a possible progress.
That, for any people who are fit for it,
Is the best form of government which best
secures to them political equality as their
birth right, while IL leaves each one, without
help or hindrance, TO work out for himself
Il social position. Labor and capital are
forced into conflict, poverty and property
are made antagonists, the moment an aris-
tocracy of wealth is created, and political
disabilities attach TO the accident of birth.
But while the antipathies and jeaIousies
of all classes are appeased, and to a great
extent removed, by giving all an even start,
anu pldCiuS dn upon d pOilltCdl euudtlly
this antagonism is always intensified by
any attempt to legislate a particular class
into a coveted social position.
The great doctrine of that Declaration,
which eIghty-seven years ago to-day was
adopted, that governments are instituted
among men to secure to all that equality of
political rights, with which the Creator has
endowed ali by virtue of their manhood,
is the bedrock upon which the American
government rests. Ii is the recognition of
this great principle that wins to il the hearts
of the people. 1t is this that attracts the
admiring gaze of the lovers of liberty in
every land This il is that draws thither a
ceaseless tide of migration, and makes it the
asylum of the oppressed and the poor mans
paradise. For there, as the outworiing of
this political principle, labor is respected,
industry receives its amplest reward, and
manhood its freest development. 1t is upon
this broad. firm and immutable basis that
the whole superstructure Is reared and rest
ing here, that is an intelligent PATRIOTS"
which confides in its stability. Nor is ours
q blind devotion to time-honoTed institutions,
simply because they are firmly established
but an intelligent patriotism, because it takes
~cognizance of their progressive tendency and
their harmonious working.
No people are in this respect more INTEL
ligent than the masses of the American
people. What child trained up under their
excellent common school system, where the
rich and the poor meet together, is not fami-
liar with all the leading facts Of American
history? What considerable number of the
-;fizanS ara ca ignorant as not IN know