The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-10

latlons, and it is the essential point of
Inference between the system of govern
nent announced in the Declaration of
independence and those systems which
lad until then prevailed among men.
1t was an experiment upon the
neart of man. All the legislators of the
au1nan race until that day had laid the
Ioundations of all government among
men In power; and hence it was that in
the aaXlmS of theory, as well as in the
practice of nations, sovereignty was held
to be unlimited and iniimitable. The
declaration of Independence proclaimed
binding upon nations as well as individ-
uais, upon sovereigns as well as upon
tributes of sovereign power. the colonists
appealed to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of their intentions,
ana neither claimed nor conferred au-
thority to do anything but for right.
George Bancroft says of it:
This immortal state paper which for
It's composer was the aurora of enduring
lame, was the genuine effusion of the
soul of the country at that time" the re-
xelation of its mind, when In it's youth,
Its enthusiasm, its sublime confronting
OF danger, 1t rose to the highest creative
powers Of which man is capable. The
pili OF rights which it promulgates is of
rights that are older than human in
stitutions and spring from the eternal
justice that is anterior to the state.
l commend this passage to some of
our worthy clergymen who are of late
preaching from their pulpits the new
commandment to do evil that good
may come.
Thackeray, no mean judge of noble
art no mean judge of noble actions,
was one day crossing the rotunda of
this capitol in company with Charles
Sumner. He stopped before the picture
where the Q6ni1lC of vi ef
of Connecticut has delineated on the
lmperishable canvas the scene when the
declaration of independence was pre-
Sented by Jefferson to the solemn sit
ting over which Hancock presided, and
the new nation, born ON the 18th of
April, 1775, was baptized in the faith
of our new gospel of liberty He stood
for moment silent, and then said to
MIR. Sumner That's your painter
Surely he was right. The foremost
action of human history is fifty repre-
scented by the great work which we
fondly hope is to be as enduring as
time. enduring as the republic endur-
ing as liberty. 1t is there in the fore
most place of honor which can be found
on this earth. No Parthenon, no st.
Peters, no palace of the Escurial, no
Sans Souci, not Westminster Abbey it
self, can equal, at least to our eyes, this
spot where forever a great and free
people declares its constitutional will.
Beneath the great dome to which the
pilgrim from afar first repairs when
he visits the capital of his country,
hangs the great picture which define
ates the scene when The nation was
first baptized into immortal life. 1t
was not only the independence of
America which was then declared-it
was the dignity of human nature it
self.
When Samuel Rogers visited the Do
minican convent at Padua, an aged
fEiar showed him the famous picture
Of The Last Supper in the refectory of
the convent. He said:
I have sat at my meals before it for
seven and forty years, and such are the
changes that have taken place among us
so many have come and gone in that
time-that when look upon the com
peny there upon those who are sitting
at that table,. silent as they, are, L am
sometimes inclined to think that we, not
they, are the shadows.
AS administrations terms of presi-
Dental office, begin and end, as SEN
ators and representatives come and go
before the silent figures in that immor-
tai picture, it seems to me that we are
but the shadows, while Hancock and
Jefferson and Adams and Franklin and
and Livingston are still deli
berating, still acting, still alive. All,
Mr. President, shall we turn it with It's
face to the wall? Shall the scroll first
be stricken from the hand of Jefferson
and another put there which shall
read:
Governments derive their just pow
eds from the consent OF the governed
some of them. Men are created equal
some of them. Taxation and repre-
sentation go together-for us, not for
other men. Life, liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness are held in the Philip
pine Islands at our will, and not at the
will of the people"
And then shall we turn the picture
with its face to the wall, and put in
stead of it a. representation Of some
great battle where the guns of our
navy and our army are turned on the
men struggling for their liberty at
Iloilo.
Now, Mr.. President, our friends tell
us that all this is emotion and rhetoric
and sentiment. They tell us that it
does not belong to the domain of prac-
teal craftsmanship, or the conduct of
the affairs of life; that these are the
things we think when we talk, and that
we are thinking of quite other things
when we act and vote
Well, the doctrines I stand upon are
the doctrines of the most practical
Of the most practical
generation that ever lived on the face
of the earth. These sentiments,
in a few sentences, not equal
ing in compass the Ten Command
ments or the Lords prayer, simplifying
only a little the golden rule itself,
have turned out to be practical force
in this world of ours. The Puritans
i,,
brief, crowded century they made Eng
land. which had been trembling before
Spain, whose knees had smote together
before Holland, whose monarch had
been the pensioner and v hose treasury
had been the tributary of France, the
greatest power the world had ever
seen. It is these that make world
powers"
Our fathers shod their feet with them
as with sandals. Borne up by them,
they crossed the Atlantic, and with
their invincible might builded on it's
sure foundations this temple that COW
ers the continent and whose portals
are upon both the seas. Is there any
practical craftsmanship, is there any
cunning of the politician, is there any
for power, is there any seek
ing for office, is there any party disci-
pline which has ever wrought in all
history such things as these half dozen
little sentences have wrought. Are
there any statesmen in American his
tory, among the living or among the
dead, whom the people love and honor
as they do the men who planted their
feet on these truths, and who bore wit
ness to them in life and in death?
These doctrines were affirmed in all
the state constitutions of that time and
have been reaffirmed in many state
constitutions since. Every state official
takes his oath to support them before
he can enter upon the humblest office
Connecticut declares in her constitu-
ton of 1776 that
the fruition of such liberties and privi-
leges as humanity civility and civiliza-