Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1866-01-02
From the Milwaukee Septinel OF Dec. "a 1865.


Americans, of the May flower, Plymouth Rock,
the bleak wntry coast of Massach usetts, and the
stern Pilgrims who two hundred and forty-6ve
years ago, first worshipped God on the shores OF
New England. A band Of lious, devoted men
and women, who believed in civil and religious
freedom, who had no respect for kings and bish-
ops, prosecuted and oppressed at home, sought
and found q resting place and home in the New
World, and planted in New England the germ OF
that true democratic form of government which
recognizes and rests upon liber,y-relisio s, civil
and political iberty-and the equal rights of man.
The people who came in the Mayfower were
Puritans-called so then a term of reproach
by those who sneered at their devoted piety, theil
serious faith, their restrained and cody lives, and
called SO now a term Of reproach, by those
who believe that liberty means the uubrid ed and
corrupt license of the passion, and the ighF to
Cypress weaker and more dependent race. Yet
that colony and its descendants have clothed with
white and lustrous fame the Puritan pame, and
have proved by fruits, by the thinking men, the
grand ideas and the noble work of more than two
centuries, that Purtanism ia liberty, progress, ed
ucation, religion.
Some writer has said, that it was not the glory
of the men who landed at Plymouth that they
thought better than any who had gone before them
that their ideal of law, order, and government
was more perfect than that of other men who had
before them discoursed upon liberty-but they
put their ideas in practice, crystalized them into
law, and made them realities in action. They
were not dreamers and thinkers merely-idlers
who beautiful visions and painted delightful
pictures of ideal commonwealths, but took step,
dared 10 dangers resisted no tyranny. and endured
no hardships 10 secure liberty themselves and
to the world,-but The Purtans proved their
faith by their works, laid the foundation and
builded the superstructure of their commonwealth,
and, with simple faith n God and abhorrence OF
every form of tyranny, believing in their own CA
pacity for self government and therefore IN the ca
| paclty OF every other mao, they planted Democ-
| r4cy in New England, and showed the world the
| spectacle of government by the consent OF the
governed. They we're no, theorists they we're
experimenters. Their belief in free government
was no mere intellectual assent 10 it, as Of a
proposition presented to the mind, but It a
vital woiking principle. The idea of ibertj had
been in the mind Of man for ages, Ike the dry
kernel Of grain N tie storenouse and men had
looked at it, and praised its fairness and perfec-
ton but in the heart OF the Puritan this idea
found soil, quckened into life, and grew and
bore fruit to bless mankind. The Puritan touched
the feless form of Liberty. and it became animate,
and took is place the living, presiding genius
of the New World.
The Puritan was no compromiser. between
right and wrong be recognized no middle ground.
Right and freedom more 10 him than peace
and property justice aud righteousness, more
than dominion and power. When his reason was
convinced and his faith was established, they fur
nishec the law of his life. In government he wa,
harsh and exactlng, but he demanded nothing Of
others which be unwilling yield himself.
He hewed to the line HI was sometimes intol-
| erant, becausa he no compromiser; some
times bigoted because bis convictions were such
realiti, to him, that no could moi unGerst I'd how
| they could be less than convictions IN the minds
! OF others. And because he thus sincere,
jealous, uDcompromisng ia his faith, hi. enemies
have ever .neered at MIN as 4 fanatic, zsaiot,
and bigot, and have used 10 better names Than
those characterize him to whose working faith
in humanity, justice, snd righteousness, this lId
owes so much.
| 1t is said that the Puritan is meddesome, in
terfering with what is of his business and
insisting that other people shall be good as
himself. He Is q reformer, and reformer
mus, preach well practice. There no
state lines, no geographical boundaries that stop
| Il g. f. 1,,-
Of liberty; and il they right, none ought to
stop them. The vices, the injustice, the tyran-
py, the Puritan attacks, may attempt TO build
walls against him, but be mas right to scale them
if he can. Free speech, and free thought his
! weapons, and with these ne is ever laundering a;
the gates of every citadel of injustice aud Cypress
ion. He was told that slavery none OF his
business but he preached from pulpit, rom TO-
rum, from Senate Chamber, from battlefield the
gospel of universal liberty, until emancipation
| was written on the national statute book, and
freedom became the law of the land from the lake
to the Gulf. And he declines to stop preaching
to cease meddling while there is wrong to be
rghted, or an injustice to be reformed. In th,
he is irrepressbe. He believes in progress, anc
COSS nOt io-A0y OcChuec Lc Ado aSCohp liouSl
what be proposed to himself yesterday. Wher
be settled in Massachusetts he had no thought o
government independent al England. But tn,
colony grew, and liberty grew with it, aid wher
the funess OF time came, the oak burst the vas,
in which it planted, and struck is root
across the continent, aud spread its brarche
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Ever active
and restless, the Puritan has never been conten
with his work. but, still achieving, still pursuing
has made each day the standpoint from which tt
map out his future, and present achievement th
leverage is accomplishing the work of to morrow
Never satisfied, always aggressive, the pioneer 0
! humanity, the 0uant courier OF liberty tn
g Puritan has trayersed the continent; and in th
. terrible commissions of the last four wears ha
J swept from Cur land the barberiem which ha
? cursed it for two centuries, has given our cons
tuition its highest glory by writing in it "LIBERT
FOR ALL" and dedicated the republic to freedor
forevermore.
We have given this praise to the Puritan BIZ
all Puritans not born in New England. The