The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1883-11-28
Curtis Dedication Address.

tl0n, which strikes the key note or the
whole address, and is well worth perus-
al, vas as follows:
The great series of revolutionary
centennial celebrations ends itly upon
this day and upon this spot. The mo-
mentous events that marked the open
ing, the elimination, and the close of
the conflict. have been duly commemo-
rated, and for eight years the full
stretched memory OF the country, a
harp ola thousand strings swept by
patriotic emotions, has resounded with
the heroic music of the revolutionary
story. To-day the revolutionary story
ends. At this hour, a hundred years
ago. the last British sentry was with
drawn. The imperial standard of Great
Britain fell at the fort over which 1t
had loated for a hundred and fifty
years, and in its place the Stars and
Stripes of American Independence
flashed in the sun. Fleet and army,
royal flag and scarlet uniform, coronet
and ribbon, every sign and symbol of
foreign authority, which from Concord
to Saratoga, and from Saratoga to
Yorktown, had sought to subdue the
colonies, vanished from these shores.
Colonial and provincial America had
ended; national America had begun;
and after the lapse of hundred years,
the cradle song of the hope and prom
Use of our national nativity is still the
pecan of our mature power and as
sured prosperity; glory TO God in the
highest, peace on earth, good will to
mani
Yet a more sorrowful departure his
tory does not record. In that humil-
iating moment, the fruit of the victor
les Of the elder Pitt. which had girdled
the globe with British glory and sup
piled che pretext for taxing America,
crunbled to ashes. The catastrophe
was not that an English army was van
qnished, it vas that England was
wounded. 1t was not a field lost, it
wa an empire rent asunder. 1t was
not a blunder of military. strategy, 1t
was a moral mis~calculation. AS her
wisest statesmen mad predicted, Eng
land had fallen upon her own sword;
and she had drawn it against herself.
In striking at her kindred in America,
she struck at the political traditions,
the immemorial rights, the jealous lib
orr which ora fha haraditary prida ~
the English name; and the rustic con-
tinentals who had defended those
rights from Bunker Hill to Newburgh,
and who returned hither Oh this day a
hundred years ago, marched through
these streets as they had marched to the
battlefelds of the revolution, keeping
step to the steady drum-beat of Crom-
wells Ironsides at Worcester and Dun
bar, and winning at last as great a vic
tory for the English-speaking race.
But none the less the political separa-
ton of the two countries was complete.
England had declined the greatest OPP
p~ortunity that vas ever offered to a
great nation, and America, panoplied
in the mighty memories Of her birth
right, with the sturdy self reliance Of
indomitable conviction and of conscious
power, turned to carry forward as a
new nation, under other conditions and
through other institutions, the cardi-
nal principals of constitutional liberty.
This day, therefore, commentaries
the end of the old order, and this spot
the beginning of the new. With the
evacuation of New York monarchy
ended; with the Inauguration of Wash
ington the national republic began.
The result, indeed, had been foretold
by the course of events through all the
colonial period, which eliminated in
the total overthrow Of British power.
In the course of the grafton he paid
this tribute to the memory of the great
hero and patriot.
Nay, even doubt was treachery. For
still he lived in the prime of glorious
manhood he still lived, whose faith,
and character, and courage, when pat.
riotism despaired and hope expired, had
moved before his struggling country a
pillar of cloud by day, of lre by night.
To think of the revolution Is to see
him. The whole scene is radiant with
his presence and his power. He was,
indeed, but n patriot among patriots,
and an ardent and general patriotism it
was that marshaled minute men and
enrolled SON of liberty. 1t was a sub
lime popular daring that deied the
British empire aud made good its def
ance. Doubtless the American revolu-
ton was the work Of the people, but it
SEEING the work of a man. How can
we conceive its heroic prosecution.
its triumphant issue, without its
leaderp
AT length eleven of the thirteen
states had solemnly adopted the consti-
tuition. In the jubilee of Joy that fol-
lowed, as of a people breaking a deadly
spell, opposition was silenced, and the
man who, like Moses, had led his
try through the Red Sea of armed strife
was summoned by the instructive love
and perfect confidence of the whole peo-
pie, to perform the miracle for which
they waited; and like a greater than
Moses, to stretch forth his hand and
raise the dead frame of national union
to life.
A New Jersey physician advises the
annlIcation of the great pain-cure. st