The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-03-16
Tho Moral OF the Centennial.

We look with sollcitude to the coming
Centennial, as around it all that is left
of patriotic and reverential sentiment must
looking at the snowy ridges and giant
peaks of the Bernese Alps is like keep
ing company with the great and good of
the heroic past. 1t inspired grand thoughts
and high imaginings in the present So say
We, and SO will every right-minded man, native
or stranger, say of this Centennial. The con-
temptation of it is utterly inconsistent with
low thoughts and base imaginings 1t is no
mere figure Of speech, no such tawdry rheto-
rio as Mr.. Beecher and his school rejoice in,
to say that like some gigantic tree, venerable
in age and majestic in form, it tells US not
only of growth, which, in our case, is almost
marvellous, but it tells Of innate strength and
that the roots of our institutions are deeply
set; and, though there have been superficial
scars, and branches and boughs have been
twisted and torn, the sap flows freely and
healthtully and the great trunk is rs sound as
when q century ago it started heavenward
from the soil. 1t tells of permanence and, we
are assured, of perpetuity.
II is typical of republcanism in its highest
and best sense-not of the antique republic
canism of former days. with patrcian Senates
and spasmodic tribunes (of the people we
mean) and consuls who, dbsit omen, OCCASION
ally on emergencies were made dictators, and
could do rs they plsased-not of minute
San Marines long since faded away, Po-
land or even Switzerland, existing only by
permission, but constitutional republicanism,
administered not directly by the people but
for the people through their representatives
1t tells, too, of century completed more
wonderful in its results, more impressive in
its events, than any since the momentous one
nineteen hundred years ago. Think what it
has comprised and of the share which we, who
were nothing hundred years ago, have had in
all of it. In 1776, on the 4th of July, there was
but one government, one set OF political insti-
tutions of those at present existing, which Is
now, even measurably, what it was, and that
is the English-speaking community from
whose loins we sprang, and perhaps one
other-Austria. Austria, after commissions
and revolutions and INSCRIPTIONS, is not unlike
what she was when the cry went up, "Nori-
AMIR pro rege nostrdE France has been every
thing by turns and nothing long. Spain is in
her normal state of self-disturbance. Italy is
revolutionized, and hardly anything is left as
it was except the purely ecclesiastical Papacy.
In 1875 thirteen meagre, feeble colonial de-
Tendencies which, but for absolute lunacy,
might have been kept dependencies no one
can say how much longer, took it into their
heads to set up for themselves, and, binding
themselves together by the feeblest possible
political tic, to declare themselves ndepen-
dent and take position among the nations of
the world They did so. They fought for
their declaration, and, after seven years con-
flict, they wrung recognition from the OPP
pressor.
1t is this event, not the recognition, but the
heroic declaration maAe when the chances of
success in maintaining it were few and feeble,
that we, their grateful descendants, are called on
to commemorate, and there are hesitation and
doubt whether it ought to be DONE and reluc-
lance TO cooperate TO secure its success, and
we are driven TO advocate aud urge it on the
low ground of IN tterial intore It. In what we
venture to say with feeling and emphasis
to-day no such baser considerations weigh.
The Centennial failing, which it certainly will
not, VIC shall feel that our past has been in
vain. TIC Centennial succeeding as, in
honoly phrase, we feel it in our bones it will,
there will be an assurance for the century
about TO dawn that the great experiment. Of