Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-07-01
THE LESSONS OF '76
BY JUN1Us HENRI BROWNE.

Llu5L HOW
very different the celebration of the
Fourth of July was during their boy
hood from what it is in these days.
Everything of course seems tame after
maturity in contrast with its seeming in
our early teens.
The civil war, with its terrible tension,
solicitude, agitation, uncertainty, made
the youngest of us feel old.
But, apart from age and event, the
Fourth has in its observance long ceased
to be what it was before the war. That
great strife naturally dwarfed the minor
but not less heroic struggle of the last
century and rendered US comparatively
indifferent to its commemoration. We
should still remember, however, that
our independence was won by trials, by
hardships, by unfinching fortitude, to
which in our later abundance and pros
perity we were necessarily strangers.
In this generation we can scarcely
realize, so altered are our surroundings,
what our forefathers endured, suffered
and dared, as colonists, in taking up
arms against the exactions and oppres-
sions of the mother country-one of the
strongest govern ments and greatest pow
ers of the Old World. They did not
hesitate to oppose regular, disciplined
soldiers, who had fought on many fields,
with raw recruits, having no other weap-
ons than such as they could get in an
emergency, and no other hope than that
inspired by love of freedom, and the
resolution to resist tyranny to the death.
Those were indeed the times to test
courage and patriotism, and the hardy
colonists never WINGED or faltered.
1t is pleasant to recall the ringing
words of Patrick Henry at the begin
ming of the troubles, when he declared
at the old Continental congress in Phila-
delphia, in 1874: British oppression has
effaced the boundaries of the colonies.
The distinctions between Virginians,
New Workers, Pennsylvanians and New
Englanders are no more. | am not Vir-
gilman; am an American!" The seven
arduous, often desperate, years of the
Revolution, in which we were so gener-
ously aided by the French, proved the
stuff we were made of. Always without
money, often without food or clothing
or any proper equipment for war, Wash
ington sustained defeat after defeat with
equanimity and unfailing courage, and
won his cause at last at Yorktown. De-
feat and disaster never diminished his
faith in ultimate triumph or dampened
his excessive ardor. Within three
months, during 1880, two American
armies, numerous for that day, were
destroyed, and the most formidable of
the partisan hands in the south, under
Sumter, was dispersed by Tarleton.
Nevertheless detachment from Corn
wallis forces was wholly defeated in
North Carolina, at Kings mountain, by
900of our militia, and 100 of the enemy
were killed, wounded and captured
Thus failure and success alternated until
the final and complete victory gained by
the surrender of CORVALLIS, with more
than 5000 men, including sailors.
Our troops raised during the Revolu-
ton numbered some 230, 900 Continental
soldiers and j6, 900 militia. How small
this force seems, compared with the
grand armies the north and south mar
shaled in 1861; how insignificant the
cost of life AMI treasure then to the esti-
mate in the later struggle, of loss of a
million CT men and more than billion
of money. But in the civil war the
Union was immensely rich; it had I'M
limited credit; we were provided with
every martial requirement. In 1776-S3
the gallant patriots marched often over
frozen roads with shoeless and bleeding
feet; fought while half famished and
half clad; left their plows in the furrow;
quilted the harvest with scythes in their
hands to give their lives, if need be, for
independence. They were intrepid sons
of intrepid sires; they were genuine grit,
of unconquerable stock.
Too much honor cannot be paid them.
We, their descendants, should always
keep their memory green. Their ex-
ample should never be permitted to
grow dim. We should not allow the
celebration Of the glorious Fourth to
languish. We owe it to them to keep it up
as we did in the earlier days, when we
were boys. We are boys now, though
of an older sort; we should be boys in
our enthusiasm and rejoicing over the
immortal day that disclosed the spirit of
1776, commemorative of the stern pc
Rod that put US to the proof, that tried
us by fire ii the crucible of adversely
and brought US out pure gold.
Let us observe the Fourth as afore-
time, with bonfres and Examinations,
with music and cannon, with fireworks
and reading the Declaration, with large
assemblies and patriotic speeches, with
every form of sympathy and demon
stration belonging to the day and de-
serving of ourselves.