The New York herald., 1878-07-04
The Fourth Of July-Ths Defence
OF Freedom.


tion lost faith in the great experiment of "a
government ofthe people, for the people, by
the people?" Is freedom valued less than
it was at any time within the past hundred
years? Are the people less resolute to de-
fend it than the fathers were to gain it. or
than the heroes Of all our bloody conflicts
were to preserve intact for their children
the heritage handed down to them?
Perhaps the day is not an un-
seasonable one for inquiries Of this
nature. Anniversaries are of little
other value than as milestones on the great
high roads of history, and each time that
one of these is passed it presents an incl
dent in the journey that gathers the
thoughts of all about it's nature, it's pur-
poses, the great stages OF its progress.
Dates Of this sort may have very little sig
nificance to those who have always
thought for the welfare of the country. As
ssaH places that the eye Of Heaven visits are
to a wise man ports and happy havens,"
SO all days are days for the cele-
bration Of independence with those whose
faith is not shaken Iy the fears of the feeble
ones, and all times are good ones for the
remembrance of great examples and for tho
cultivation of that spirit which leads men to
initiate them. But most men are only pious
on Sunday, and very large number are only
patriotic on the Fourth Of July and if even
once year they can be brought to reflect
upon all the great things of which the date
is significant the habit is to be encouraged.
Our national festival was founded when
the people were to be defended from the
tyrannies and expressions Of George Ill;
and danger in the precise form in which it
came then will never menace the American
become and Of what we are-knowing what
we do of ourselves-it will seem to many o
strange fancy that there could ever have
been any doubt on the issue Of con-
lict waged in the circumstances OF the
Revolutionary War. That this country
could ever have been reduced to the
condition in which few thousand British
soldiers are able to keep the millions of
people in Hindostan is of course not to be
supposed; but that we might have been
kept as Ireland is kept is possible; or if the
'loyal" element of the population had had
their way we might have continued in that
condition of slow and herrstonic vitality
in which Canada still remains, and been
prepared to pray that Her Majesty Victoria
would be pleased to send one of her
sons to govern us. But whatever may be
thought of the difficulties the people Of the
Republic had to contend with in their
memorable struggle-and we cannot put
ourselves in their position sufficiently to
Judge those difficulties fairly-the one great
fact as to which there is no doubt whatever
is that they were equal to the occasion.
They saw the danger, they faced it, and
they overcame it. They made with brave
souls the sacrifices that were neces-
sary. They relinquished peace in which
they were prosperous and plunged
into a war full OF uncertainties and
perils, and put in the scale ''their
lives, their fortunes and their sacred
honor?" In those great words they
pledged themselves to one another, words
that the present generation might hardly
initiate; for '.sacred honor" is o style that
of their fortunes now that they would con-
sciously leave them ont Of the record lest
they should be charged with thinking over
much about them. Through that struggle
our fathers brought US a free people, great
with the confidence OF victory.
In another age came another danger.
George I'LL had been slowed away for
generations the perils of British tyranny
figured only in the patriotic fume Of some
far-away orator in the rural districts, who
had not heard the news for fifty years
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamil-
ton-sll of them were gone, and o genera
tion had been buried with them of
men whose glory was that they had
Taught the people how to make the
most of the results Of their great achieve
mens. But the danger came and vas
greater than that the fathers had faced. In
one section of the Union was preserved, and
hardened into definite forms, that aristo-
whole colonial society under the monarchy
and in another the growth of vigorous
democracy had swept away not only all
forms and facts inconsistent with its SUE
premacy, but had purged mems thoughts
and memories even of the notion
that there could be any good in a
system which. admitted inequalities of
any sort. Ambitious agitators, ready to
ride into fame and place on any breeze,
made the most of the necessary hostility
that thus arose, and the nation was plunged
into q war the issue Of which was the
preservation of American freedom by the
triumph Of the Northern people or the
decay and destruction of that freedom
through the schism Of the Union and never
ending conflicts of the parts into which it
would be divided Again, the great fact
was that the people we're equal to the