The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1895-07-03
THE OBJECT LESSON.
A FRESH VIEW OF THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION.

Preceded 1.-THE Blossom of the Tree Of
Liberty-A Marvellous Inspiration-The
Gonfalon of Progress.
The United States has celebrated it's
birthday for IL" years with a boundless
p~rofusion of firecrackers, both Chinese
ind rhetorical. Grownup folks, a little
weary perhaps of the Resembling racket,
while watching the urchin at work with
punk and powder, will ask themselves,
What makes the Revolution of lf76
tower like an Alpine peak among histor-
ic revolutions?" One cannot answer this
fy saying that the immediate result was
the biggest fact which the historic yard
stick measures. That was their good
luck. growing out of the vast unknown
resources Of the continent, to which the
colonies were as blind as were George
III and his parliament. One cannot set
tie it by saying that the Declaration of
Independence was the greatest charter
of human rights ever penned. That Dec
laration contained nothing essential but
what had been fairly written before in
declaration and proclamation and pro-
test, each paper of which had been seal
ed blood red with thousands of lives.
1t was just the old story inscribed afresh
with a pen of fire by a mind of corsum.
mate sagacity.
The celebrated Russian musician. Ru-
b~instein. once said to the writer; lyon
Americans will never have a distinct
national style Of music. Only nations
with a childhood can ever have this.
Your people never had n childhood
you were born full grown This last
sentence packs an essay in 10 words
and cuts close % the bone. The time
had come in the evolution of things for
the Anglo-Saxon hive TO war; There
was not enough elbow room in the old
political hive at the beginning of that
last quarter of the last century, and the
bees determined to set mp fresh house
keeping. The new swarm felt them
selves just as wise. as capable and ms
self sustaining as the others Of the fam.
lily They had inherited all the tradi-
lions, the customs, the accumulated ex-
perience, the instinct for self govern
ment, inherent in q race which has beat.
en- the world in the keenness of it's DO
litical genius.
1t was but the difference of s, 10, 90
years or whatnot If it had not been
navigation laws" ''writs of assist
ance. - stamp act, ''tax on tea at
which the ~colonists grulnbled ~savagely,
like true Englishmen, it would have been
something else a little later. These
things were wrongs, to be sure, but they
would have been ultimately rightod in
the natural course of things and were
not a whit worse than many Affections
which beset the man Of Yorkshire or
Kent. The American ~colonist, Oh the
whole, was as free i'll the enjoyment of
social and political privilege as any
kings subject that then walked the
green earth-perhaps even had larger
liberty.
His large measure of freedom indeed
made the homespun yeoman oil this side
of the Atlantic, whose fathers had shot
the arrow flights which won Crossy and
Agincourt, andwhohad charged in Crom-
wells ironsides at Naseby and Worces-
ter, feel the smart the more keenly. So
came the swell Of the race instinct,
Grst ~embodying itself III the sword
like epigram, mo taxation without
representation, " then after q seven years
successful war getting itself crystallized
in q magnificent system of home rule,
biform in its relation to state and fed
eral affairs, and bringing the direction
of matters most intimately connected
with the citizens hearth and home as
close as possible to him, in fact. In the
triumph of q great principle England as
we'll as the whole world won when
CORVALLIS delivered his sword to Wash
ington. Englishmen over the sea have
been swarming off from the parent hive
eve since. Canada and the Australian
dominions are essentially as free as the
United States in self government and
only need their own wish to be as free
in name.
Comparing the American Revolution
with the three active great revolutions
of modern times, we see how wide the
swing of its pendulum as compared with
theirs. The heroic rising of the Neither
lands under William of Orange had its
root in religious oppression, and though
it ended in severance from Spain no
such project stamped its outset. The
English revolution of 1910, which rolled
a kings head in the sawdust, trampled
out the theory of the divine right of
royalty and enforced the fact that thence
forth in that land monarchs should only
rule with the assent and cooperation OF
parliament. 1t was one great step in the
growth of the English constitution.