The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-07-18

wisdom of Franklin, the austere virtue
and steadfast firmness of Jay united in
1888 to save for us alike from the
power of our great antagonist and the
wles of jealous and suspicious allies
everything that was essential to great
ness and glory by land and by sea-
Later the foresight and fearlessness of
Jefferson gained for us the great Louis
lana empire. Monroe and his minister
of state won for us the Floridas.
AT the close of the war of 1912 John
Quincy Adams and Gallatin and Clay
and the elder Bayard met the repre-
sentatives of power that had one-half
of the world for her allies and the other
half at her feet. England had just
overthrown Napoleon on land and
swept the navies of Europe from the
face of the sea. Yet we came from the
contest of war and of diplomacy with
every right and liberty unimpaired,
our honor without stain, with added
glory to our flag, and the pretenson
for which England had gone to war
with us never to be heard again.
We had another war within our re-
cent memory. Our foes were of our
own household. Our ancient enemy
and our ancient ally sat at their gates,
gazing across the Atlantic to see if
they could discover any pretext for
throwing their weight into the scale
of rebellion. England gave us provoca-
ton enough. But you remember the
sublime patience with which Abraham
Lincoln waited until the hour of our
strength came. 1t was the fortune of
another Adams to address to Earl Rus
sell one quiet sentence, perhaps the
most eloquent that ever came from an
American pen: " 1t is supertluous to
observe to your lordship that this is
war"
Foreign office and law officer re-
versed their decisions in less than an
hour, and the rams were stopped.
You know how the French emperor,
victor of Sebastopol and Solferino, in
the height of his military strength, bur-
ried out of Mexico at a word uttered by
Mr.. Seward. You remember the time
when General Grant gave notice that
any American citizen who had a claim
against Great Britain should bring
the evidence to him. That naughty
power sent over her commissioners to
apologize for her wrong and was held
as a dependent to make compensation.
You remember how the diplomacy of
the same great administration induced
nearly every first-class power in Europe
to renounce the old doctrine of per-
petual allegiance and let our adopted
citizens alone.
Those were days when the American
citizen, national and adopted, held up
his head in the pride of his citizenship.
Those were the days when our ten
thousand millions of wealth was be-
coming fifty thousand; better still, when
slaves were changing into freemen and
freemen into citizens. Those were
days when the fag-beautiful as the
| flower to those who loved it, terrible as
a meteor to those who hated it-foated
everywhere in peaceful seas and was
honored everywhere in friendly ports.
No petty British officer hauled it down
from an American masthead; no
Canadian minister of justice laughed
in the face of an American citizen
when Grant was in the white house.
I confess that, much meditating on
these things, 1 take little satisfaction
when l think of Grover Cleveland 1
do not like the policy which every
where robs American citizenship of its
glory. do not like the methods of
fraud and crime which have destroyed
popular elections in so many demo-
cratic states.
l would have the box where the
American freeman casts his ballot sa-
cred as sacrameutal vessel. do not
like this conspiracy between the old
Shareholder and the English manufac-
turer to strike down the wages of the
American workman and the comforts
of the American worknan's home. l
do not like your refusal to maintain the
American navy and to fortify and de-
fend the American coast. And | like
no better the present treaty. 1t leaves
the American sailor to be bullied and
insulted without redress and abandons
the American right to the fisheries,
older than the nation itself, which the
valor of our fathers won for us and the
wisdom of our fathers preserved for us.