The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-07-04
The Eincty-sixth Year Of the Repub-
lic-ssTho Day We Celebrates"

" ID tuo Courtu VI July, ''Iuo Curious
Fourth" the nations birthday, the new year
of the republic and the ninety-sixth since that
great declaration was made, that s'these COL
onies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent States" Only ninety-six years
ago was this declaration made to the world,
and what do we now behold? Behold /"
says an inspired orator of Arkansas, ''behold
our proud bird Of liberty and his name is
II Phribas U,aum behold him perched
upon the loftiest snow-clad pinnacle Of the
Rocky Mountains, with his right wing tapping
the Atlantic and his left wing tanning the
Pacific Ocean, while his glorious head,
crowned with the North Star, is encircled by
his expansive and expanded tail overshadows
the Halls Of the Montezumas' and the Gulf of
Mexico Behold him, fellow citizens grand,
glorious, gorgeous and sublime, and let the
eagle scream - Touching our proud bird
of liberty" this covers the ground. IT, there
fore, we had intended, under the heading of
this article, anything like a patriotic outburst
of spread-eagleism, we should, on hearing
him, have been constrained to give it up, in
Difference to ''the gentleman from Arkansas
STILL without undertaking the high flight of
this Western poet and without rehashing
the vainglorious fustian Of the average Fourth
of July expounder Of American liberty
we hold that 'the day we celebrate'-
one of the greatest days in the history OF
mankind-is this day entitled to few
remarks, and we are confident of the
unanimous concurrence Of our readers in
this opinion
1t would be but the repetition of well-worn
story to say that ninety-six years ago the
United States consisted ola few feeble settle
ments scattered along the Atlantic coast; that
the vast regions beyond the Alleghanies were
almost unknown to our people; that in those
good old times of the original Ben Franklin's
post Office establishment the journey between
New York and Philadelphia if made within
three days, in times of mud and high waters,
was not slow, and that an Atlantic trip Of six
weeks against prevailing westerly winds was
doing very well that in 'the times that tried
men';- souls, " in our War of Independence, it
was hard work on the part of the Continental
Congress to maintain an active force of
twenty-five thousand men in the field, and
that the whole number Of Americans, French
and English directly concerned in the deci-
sive revolutionary struggle at Yorktown Q7S1)
was less than the number of prisoners turned
over to General Grant in the surrender of
Vicksburg, July 4, 1863 nor would it be news
to the boys and girls of our common schools to
tell them that SO late as A. D. 1903 the west
ern boundary Of the United States was the
Mississippi River or that in a treaty with the
first Napoleon President Jefferson purchased
for fifteen millions of dollars the magnificent
territory of Louisiana, extending from the
Mississippi indefinitely westward and from
the sources to the mouth Of the river. Nor
need we go back to the Oldest inhabitant to
find the man in Florida who remembers
the time when, with the acquisition of that
land of flowers, oranges and alligators, he
ceased to be Spaniard and became one of
our people.
We shall, on this occasion, therefore, pass
by ali these conspicuous landmarks in the
progress of our country as too well known in
connection with ''the day we celebrate" to
need here a recapitulation. Nor shall we
pause to mention the fact that even 80 late as
the year 1928 the expenditures of the national
government under John Quincy Adams, of
thirteen millions year, were regarded by the |
Jacksonian opposition party SO extramgant as
urgently calling for ''retrenchment and
reform" Nor shall we recur to the annexa-
ton Of the republic of Texas, which brought
on the war with Mexico, and next that treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which doubled the
area of the United States and opened to us
new world of enterprise and progress with the
discovery of the gold washings and mines of
California. But we cannot omit the subse-
quent purchase by Mr.. Seward of Alaska,
that vast hyperborean empire of four hundred
and eighty-seven thousand square miles, for
seven million two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars in gold, because the cod fisheries of the
Alaskan bays and inlets are destined hereafter
to make an important figure in the commerce
OF the United States.
But as our territorial expansion and manifest
destiny are completely covered by the patriotic
gentlemen from Arkansas; and as everybody
knows that our population has been enlarged
from three millions to near forty millions, our
national income from five millions to four
hundred millions cash down. our national
debt from nothing in 1884 to three thousand
millions in 1865, and that the payments Of
our national debt have been going on under
General Grant at the rate of hundred mil
lions and more per annum, we need say
nothing here upon these points. Nor are we
called upon here to sing hozannahs over these
achievements, or to recte the revolution
effected from the Southern rebellion in the
thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amend
ments of the constitution-that great revolu-
ton which eleyates Uncle Tom from the con-