Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-01-09


ternaIism and despotism. But below the
ST. Lawrence were the colonists of New
England, brave, self-reliant, self-govern-
ing, lords of their own lands, their
house their castle, electing their own
rulers, judges and ministers, and develop
ing their own system Of education. In
Boston a man was a freeman; in Quebec
he was a vassai almost a slave. In New
England was the town meeting, that TO-
rum of the freeman, one of the greatest in
stitution of the world, where citizens
every year met on an equality and deliber-
ated concerning the public good. In Que
bee all public assemblies were rigldly
suppressed and any criticism of the ruling
power severely punished, Despotism and
the repression of manhood in Quebec!
Liberty and the nfranchisemen of man
hood in New England! No expression of
civic desire and no criticism of the powers
that be tolerated north of the st Lawrence!
The free ballot, the free school and the free
press enthroned south of the st. Lawrence!
At last these two forces met On the Plains
of Abraham and decided to whom Ameri-
ca should belong. Montcalm fought for
popish mediaevalism and despotism, Wolfe
for A~ng1o-Saxon liberty and the enlight-
ened conscience, for a widening future
and a civilization that should contain a
Washington and Lincoln and all the vast
moral, intellectual and material progress
of the last two hundred years. Not until
| 1889, in Paris, did the French people throw
off the yoke that was upon their necks.
When the French Revolution destroyed
the ancient Bastile, which was then to
them the symbol and embodiment Of tyr
ranny, it's falling ruins shook all Europe
with fear and filed it with it's dust and
roar. The dOWn-trodden and suffering
people determined to have no aristocracy
save that of worth and character Anglo
Saxon liberty which had made its home on
this continent had sent across the sea the
echoes of our American Declaration of In
dependence-all men are created free and
equal and with certain inalienable rights.
But thirty years before, at the battle OF
Quebec, the Frenbh Bastile fell for Amer
lea, insuring the supremacy of English
Institutions over the new continent. And
when some future Greasy shall set himself
to re-Writethe decisive battles Ofthe world,
he must add not only the name of Quebec
but also of Manila and Santiago as names
that will also rank in history as battles
which carried with them great results to
the future of mankind. For it was the old
battle on the plains of Abraham over again;
it was the old struggle of the Latin and
the Saxon, liberty and oppression, a free
government and a free conscience against
medieval despOtism and a morlbund
past-the guns ofDewey and Shafter, the
echoes of brakes in the harbor of Cadiz
and of VOLTS upon the plains of Abra-
ham.
The difference between the conditions of
life in Canada and New England lay in
the men, the race, the ideals, the institu-
tions of those two sections of America.
The founders of the Republic were the
qualitative force which made it what it
has become. The Pilgrim fathers were
picked men. In both mental and moral
stature they were giants. They wanted
to be the schoolmaster for the
world and the worlds example in the
building of free institutions. Liberty was
to be organized on the basis of equal citi-
zenship. They first showed that liberty
was possible without license, freedom
excess, and they gave to it a gov
ernmental form, with legal instruments
and lawful expression. They wrought the
element of equality into the fabric of the
new commonwealth. Monarchies divide
men and widen the gulf between the class
es. Their civilization is stationary. In
Europe a man is born into a class and must
stay there; in America he is born into the
with all ~boundless opportunities
before him. Europe has her ''sub-
roorroH 4onth.13 America hoe hpr onoorripr
Aristocracies and monarch
les put upon every man a label, on one
prince, on another pauper; on n patri-
clan, on another plebian. The Puritans
regarded the trappings of royalty as the
livery of oppression and robbery. From
the king they would strip the Haunting
hummery of the court, from the slave his
chains, from the inferior classes their fet-
and they would apparel simple man
with robe and crown, enthrone right
eous character and lift up manhood into
the broad sunlight. Instead of making
and aristocracy hereditary, the
Puritan would exalt opportunity. He held
that greatness was a a personal thing in
OF transmission by the law of
.orimogeniture, and that each man must
or lose on his own account. Greatness
an annual flower, which could bloom
for this lifetime only, and if a son would
inherit a fathers name, he must also re-
peat his virtues. With the great mans
death supremacy must depart from his an
cestraI line unless the son exhibited his
excellencies. In a word, they
made possible democratic liberty, the lib
erty of opportunity, the opportunity to be
Ill you can, to know all you can, and to
let all you can, so long as you do not in
fringe on the rights of others-liberty for