Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-07-18

I
/ greatness Of the continent, the element!
that God had put here that made it tht
| happy home of an independent nation for
| eyer-tben our fathers planted their great
| est of great works in this new world tha
| they had conquered and made independent
They started out on that great work hun
/ dred and three years ago to-day. Let me
stop you for moment and call your atten
| ton to the marvellous part. That which
| was put forth by our fOrefathers one hun
dred and three years ago to-day, in theil
| Declaration Of Independence, was a doc
trine that was not believed by any Govern
ment on this globe It costs a man some
| thing, even before an audience of this size
| to teach q doctrine that not one man ol
woman who hears him believes to be true
| For a man to meet face to face five thou
sand of his fellow men and preach a doc
| trine that every one of them diSbelieves re
quires some courage.
But our fathers, only three million!
strong, I03 years ago to-day, stood up be
/ fore the face Of the civilized world anC
taught a doctrine that not one single
statesman on this globe, outside of Ameri
ca, believed to be true-nOt one. Their,
was not Government on the globe thai
DclGN6u TIE uOClElu6 OuE ldluCTS Taught
there was not a legislative body on the
globe that believed the doctrine our father!
taught; there was not a ruler on the glob,
that believed it. Now, what was that doc
trine? They started out with the doctrine
that all men we're created equal, and tha
the only true source Of power was the con
sent of the governed. and they scorned t.
debate it. They said it was an anxiOH
that was self-eFident. II was so true they
would not make an argument in favor of it
They scOrned to give a reason for that doc
trine. They just calmly put it forth be
fore the civilized world as a truth that nc
man would safely deny; and the day they
put it forth every statesman on the eiviliz
ed globe denied it, and said it was utterly
false. Now, fellow citizens, have great
many times tried to find out where oul
fathers got that dOctrine-where they heard
of it. You and have believed it all oul
lives, and all before US here believed it fol
over a hundred years. Where did oul
fathers get that remarkable doctrine?
have hunted for it in the books. There
was here and therela dreamer, philosopher
like Hobbs and Fenelon, few great writ
ers Of the old world that taught it, but they
were considered dreamers, theorists, and
nobody believed it. l have only one theory
about it. That idea grew-grew in the
minds of the people who settled in this
wild free wilderness of the West. The air
sang il to them, the seas roared it, the
great rivers trilled it as they rolled; the
freedom of this bright free life taught that
to the colohists. 1t grew IN their hearts as
a rose grows on a roSe-tree, as a flower
grows on bush. 1t grew because, when
God created the germ of the rose-tree he
created the possibility of the rose and its
glory. and when he planted this mighty
free continent and free hearts in it, that
doctrine Of freedom terminated and grew
and fourished, until it brought forth the
century plant, the Declaration of Independ-
ence, thst burst into full and glorious bios
some 103 years ago to-day. lApplausel
Our fathers started out on that principle,
and when they had achieved their indie
pendence, they achieved it in the name of
all the people. Let it be understood that
there were none Of the colonies that declar-
ed independence by herself.
You, perhaps, are aware, if you have
noted it carefully, thBt they did not even
enumerate the colonies in the Declaration
of Independence. They did not say Vir-
ginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode
Island declare their independence, but they
simply say that we, the representatives of
the good people of all these colonies, do
make this declaration. No Government on
this globe ever started with so popular an
origin as ours. 1t was movement of the
people, by the people. and for the people
from the beginning to the end of the chap
ter. Now, when they started to found a
Government, they had the models of the
Old World before them, and they did not
like the methods of the Latin races-of
France to Spain-but they did like the
methods of their own forefathers, who are
our own forefathers; we say Englishmen
Just once removed; but the English had
forefathers, and who were they? The Ger
mans. The British Constitution says:
Montesqueen, one of the greatest of writers,
was born in the woods of Germany. That
is where they got their Constitution. IA
voice: civilian the Conquerer."
Ny friend near me says, civilian the
Conquerer." Oh, yes, after we got the Ger
man base planted in England, then by and
by we had contributions from Normandy,
from France, from the Danes, from the
Norwegians, from all the populations of
the world. But the base of our life as a
British people was the German, mingled
with little of the old Frank or Celt.
You know, fellow citizens, that an alloy
of metals is far stronger than the elements
that go into it, and so union of races
that can unite make a stronger resultant
than either race alone. And so, when our
fathers came to establish their Govern
ment on this continent, they took the An
glo-Saxon models and not the Latin mod
els, and they took their Anglo-Saxon mod
els from England. But they had one ser
ieus trouble about the English model; it
was this: The whole doctrine of rank, the
whole doctrine of personal sovereignty,
they wished to get rid of. The theory that
Feudalism had left in England was this:
Here is a man, king by the grace Of God,
king because his father was king, duke
because his father was duke, a knight be-
cause his father was knight. They said,
mo, we will have no king by the grace of
God, we will have no sovereignty in this
country except one, the sovereignty of the
whole body Of the people themselves. They
are the only sovereigns." And let me call
your attention to fact, in passing, that
in our admirable Constitution and Govern
ment the words sovereign and sovereignty
never occur once. They did not call the
State sovereign, and they did not call the
Nation sovereign. Neither the State nor
the Nation are sovereign in this country,
tut the people alone, the creators of the
State, the creators Of the Nation-they are
the sovereigns, and the only sovereigns.
Now, the great problem of our fathers was
to do away with the doctrine of hereditary
right, hereditary sovereignty, and they did
it.
Then their next great problem-and it is
the chief problem in the American Gov
ernment = was this: what substitute
shall we get for George HIP" That was
the great problem that our fathers debated
10S years ago to-day. ''What shall we get
as substitute for George III? We won't
have HIM, nor anybody of his kind. No
man that claims any right of his own; no
man that claims any title of his own by
birth; no man that claims any deyine
right to rule anybody else." They went to
work and framed a system of government
that should get rid of George III, and
therefore, they said: "We will distribute
this old notion of sovereignty so widely
that supreme power shall not be lodged
anywhere. We will give some Of it to the
Nation, some of it to the States, and great
deal OF it we will reserve to ourselves, un-
delegated forevermore, so that in any time
OF emergency, il either the Nation or the
State does not behave we'll, they being our
creatures, and we, the sovereigns, we will
correct them by taking away some of the
power we have given them.' In that ad-
mirable way our fathers built up this Gov