The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1895-02-26

noble Barons, wruug from that DIES
potic monarch, King fohn, that in
strument of ri ght, the Magma Charta
which proclaimed the Fundamental
principles of the common law and The
liberties of the people. Then later on
in the history of our mother country
monarchy became tyranny. What
ever of pride and selfwill the feudal
lord of the twelfth century had AFRO
gated unto himself, royalty in the lat
ter part of the eighteenth century
seemed to have assumed in tyrannic
rule and oppression. The will of the
King was the law of the land. An
unprotected peasantry whose proper
ty was taken at pleasure and whose
minds were clouded with an ignorance
as black as night was constant prey
to despotic whim; the king himself
was the ecclesiastical head over secu-
lar society. Against these and other
like conditions, against deepotic rule,
against corruption and intolerable OPP
preston, against monarchy, its shams
and pretensions, did the American
Colonists, inspired by a love Of liberty
rebel, and throw off the yoke of bond
age from an unkind mother, and build
for themselves a republic whose foun-
dation principles were right, justice
and equality before the law. True to
these noble principles, faithful in our
devotion and tribute to our divine
goddess, nurtured in the cradle of adj
versity, we have reared government
the most powerful on earth, govern
ment great in the perpetuation and
means of human happiness. govern
ment whose wisdom increases with
its prosperity, and whose virtues are
equal to its power.
Ours was a liberty that gave us a
free state and free church, a free
speech and a free press. Undor the
benign influence of its many blessings
we have grown in wealth, have cX-
Celled in power and the diffusion Of
knowledge, have outstripped in civil
ization until to-day we are in our ma
tional greatness and i'm our individual
and social relations, the realization Of
the fOndest and highest hopes of our
| liberty loving fOretathcrs. How care
fully then should we guard this great
principle that has given us our happy
system of government, the best ever
devised for a God-serving and virtu-
Gus people. How valiantly should we
strive against all classes Of COrrup-
ton in high places, how securely chain
those hydra-headed monsters, Anar-
chy and Socialism, whose very breath
is pollution and poison. How ear
nestly must we maintain law and the
Constitution against all revolutionary
intracti0ns! Let us down with Chi
canery, trickery and fraud; down
with bribery, oppression and Iegalizcd
robbery. These and such kindred
vices strike at the foundation of our
noble structure reared on the rock of
liberty. InsidiOus are their arts
Little by little they make inrOads
upon the strength of our institutions,
step by step they advance, until we, a
once free people unto all that pertains
to earthly happiness, are robbed of our
rich heritage and stripped of the cX-
allied privileges we had once hoped
eternal. Let us not unWittingly by
degrees surrender the immunities and
privileges of free people; let us i'm
bibe more and more those blessed
principles that inspired our tOrefath-
ers when they gave to us through risk
of life and expenditure of fortune that
fair fabric which is the embodiment
of all our rights. Pure as the new
fallen snow that crowns the brow of
the monarch of mountains were the
motives that begot it; sweet as the
ht-winged, dew-fallen zephyrs that
watt Saboaen odors from the spicy
shores of Araby the blest, were the
hopes it inspired, lofty as the flight of
our own symbolic eagle, towering,
exulting in her expected destiny were
the principles that urged it, noble and
patriotic the men that made it. And
may we, their children, oh, Liberty,
worshipping at thy shrine, find daily
strength as our daily need shall be,
to guard, preserve, and keep sacred
this trust, obey its precepts, and trans