Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-07-27
The Glorious Fourth.

THE Fourth of July finds the country
in condition which makes every Ameri-
can prouder of his land and of his na-
tional name. And this is not due merely
to the contrast with other countries in
which he may indulge his Imagination.
1t is the result of our own development
and real progress. For with all the weak
ness which a sagacious eye may find in
our system, and with such clouds as may
feck the horizon of the future, what we
had done and what we are doing may
properly make us both grateful ard proud.
1t is curious, indeed, to recur to an ora
ton delivered twelve years ago upon this
day, in Boston, by Mr.. Everett, in which
he set forth the success of the republic.
Its remarkable defect was that he did not
see, or forbore to state, that the test was
yet to come. Our apparent prosperity
was founded upon a condition incom-
patible with republican permanence, and
on the very day on which he spoke the
fundamental rights of a republican system,
as we understand it, were denied in half
the republic. The contest down to that
time was verbal only, but it was truly ir-
repressible, as the orator soon saw.
But now not only in certain States, but
i. throughout the Union, the personal and
political rights of every man are guaran-
teed by law, and their protection is assured.
In all the States that constitute the re-
public the equal rights of men are ac-
knowledged: the enemies of those rights
and the skeptics of our republican system
no longer control the national govern
ment; we are at peace with the world, and
never SO much respected; and there is
great nation. These glorious results
are due to the supremacy of real
republican principles. Under those
which had long controlled the government
down to the election of 1860, it was i'm
possible that the fundamental law of a re
public, the law of liberty, should ever pre-
vail. The old tendency was, indeed, so
intrenched that it could be removed only
by tremendous war. But that the per-
ception of the loyal people was so clear,
and their hearts so steady, to the triumph
ant end was the strongest possible proof
of the power of the principles which won
the victory, and which have transformed
the United States from nominal to an
actual republic
This day also sees the great party which
has hitherto strenuously denied the funda-
mental principle of the Declaration of In
dependence surrendering to the faith in
that principle which has maintained and
cemented the Union. If to-day every man
who breathes in the United States is free
man, if he is an equal citizen, if laws
foully unjust have disappeared, and the
national flag, wherever it floats, is the sym.
Dol of freedom, it is not because of the
success, but of the defeat, of the Demo
cratic party. The American principle has
been fully recognized in American law
because that party has fallen. In the
greatest glory, in the highest honor, of ou1
history that party has no share but that
of futile hostility. Now, at last, because
it no longer controls the country, the coun
try has become what it was when the
words were written, the land of the free,
as well as the home of the brve.-Harper',
IEyceEIat