The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1892-07-05

when properly nursed will inevitably /
Yield its increase, so did these deeply /
seated convictions OF our forefathers rlpen /
INTO determination TO revolntionize the |
presidents of centuries. The years /
pissed by and oppression increased. !
Despotlsm in the Old World was reflect |
ed in the New. But self-respect became !
dearer than material prosperity, and /
tyrants counted without their host. The |
were willing to be poor, but
slayes--never! No leaders were espec-
tally needed in the various American
Colonies to mould public sentiment or to
instigate our fathers t. stand out for the
right The principle involved in the
aphorism that resistance to tyran:s is
obedience to God" was so deeply lmbed-
ded in patriotic hearts that it found its
truest expression in the spontaneous
uprising of a people willing to stake
everything but their immortal souls for
the mplishment OF deeds that should
establish an undying precedent f)r all
liberty-loving people. And thus the
conflict thickened. Men untutored in
arms, mere striplings whose chief educa-
ton had been in the direction of the
pillow and the shovel and the pickaxe,
took down the old flint-lock muskets,
hitherto used solely as a defense against
wolves and bears and Indians and sailed
forth with their fathers to prove by val
orous deeds the sincerity of their convic-
tons. Theirs was not fight for con-
quest, nor even, in the first instance, for
separation from the country that
had brought forth and nourished
so many of their fathers, but
simply an emphatic protest against vir-
tual slavery and the inalienable rights of
man. They believed that firm stand
taken for a little time in behalf of true
manhood and true manhood's rights
would convince their oppressors of the
folly of practically seeking to enslave
men who, in spite OF everything to the
contrary, were bone OF their bone and
| flesh of their flesh. But those We're days
of intolerance in politics just as well as
in religion. England, which to-day sup
plies SO much of the sublime moral in
! fuence that rules the world, a century ago
was too prone, like other European pow
.ers, to follow precedents based solely up
on physical power and blind oppression,
and therefore declined to be convinced
of the impossibility of crushing out the
uprising of her subjects on the distant
shores of the Atlantic. 1t brought a
pang to many American hearts when the
conviction was forced upon them that
their nourishing mother deliberately
| treated her own children with cruelty
and contempt, but facts had to be met with
facts, fire with fire, and force with force,
and the children were unwillingly COM
/ PEELED by every consideration of self
respect and personal safety to leave the
mother to her folly, and build new home
for the protection of themselves and
! their posterity 1t did not require long
to take the plunge, and our fathers
staked everything upon the issue. With
an unalterable faith in the sincerity OF
their convictions, and an abiding trust in
their God, they unhinchingly crossed the
river and burned the bridge behind them,
! issuing to the world manifesto as a de-
tense of their conduct, procaiming in
tones that have never yet ceased to echo
from every quarter of the globe that
'all men are created equal, and
that therefore kingly despotism has no
logical place in the civilized world. In
spired by such conviction, they endured
every privation and poured out their
blood and their treasure. For years the
conflict waged. The scales turned first
one way and then another. They were
neither unduly elated by victory nor dis
| heartened by defeat The battle-felds OF
Princeton and Monmouth and Benning-
ton told the story of their desperate valol
and unflinching determination. But fin
ally the day dawned, and the veterans
of many a ight-men whose feet had
bled from winters exposure and whose
limbs were often clothed in nothing save
rags-found themselves victor5 in the
conflict for Individual liberty and un'
trammeled manhood.
And what was the almost immediate
effect in certain portions OF the world
Manifestly this--that men hitherto op
pressed and downtrodden by organized
despotism commenced to believe thai
they had right to think and speak and
act for themselves. 1t was to them the
dawn OF new Reformation, as radica
as that which shook the whole of Europe
when Luther and his followers asserted
the right OF private judgment as against
the DEGREES of a corrupt ecclesiastical
organization. 1t became q matter o
popular conviction for the first time
that, in spite of the will OF autocrats an(
despots, in spite of wealth heaped up anC
employed as an instrument of tyranny
in spite OF rusty precedents handed
down from feudal ages, and the conserv-
alive tendencies of q corrupt nobility anC
aristocracy, men as men. and becaus
they 1Oere men, however poor or OPP
pressed or overworked, were the posses
sors of certain inalienable rights which
no monarch could henceforth safely trea
with contempt, inasmuch as they wer,
the only substantial and Legitimate
source OF political power. These were
the imperishable principles that, previ
ously held in Holland but long concealed
, from view, burst forth at the close o
our Revolutionary struggle in the splen
dor of a new glory SO grandly radian
: that the course of centuries can neve
dim their brilliancy. Henceforth
slowly but surely, men were to under
: stand that the right to govern could bt
asserted and exercised only by consen
, of the governed. And the first fruits @
: harvest were gathered from a field tn
/ least expected. The immortal Lafayette
| by whose aid our victories were won
returned to France with heart full c
{ yearning for his oppressed countrymen
3 and in less than decade after our strug
4 gle with England the subjects OF a COZ
: rupt and oppressive monarchy stampe
their heels upon the necks of their auto
: cratic oppressors. The world can neve
: forget the scenes of carnage and bloc
t that followed, nor the wild fanati
1 cism that subsequently transforme
4 a wise revolution into an insane ar
: archism. 1t is scarcely Just, however, t
2 condemn furnished lion, who has bee
q cruelty Gagged, for bouncing upon his pre-
\ after he has succeeded in breaking tn
3 bars that have confined him, and no on
| i L. IL