Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1903-06-18
Senator Hoar on Town and State and
Nation,

At the latest annual meeting of that
venerab BILE and useful society, the Amer
lean Antiquarian society which has it's
home in Worcester, Mass, a paper was
presented by L. S Senator George Hoar
relating to the part taken by his ances-
tor, Roger Sherman, in the formation of
the constitution of the United States,
and especially in the clauses establishing
the existing distribution of political pow
or between the States and the Nation.
In view of the current efforts to substi-
tute legislative districts for towns. in
the general assemblies of the States,
and to elect United States senators by
popular votes, Mr.. Hoars remarks in
presenting his paper are worthy to be
noted. He said
Il think our generation does not ade-
quately comprehend the importance of
treating a State, or town, or city, as a
tons and principles, and Influence. and
history. instead Of mere aggregation of
human beings to he rcckonod by num-
bers. Our ancestors recognized the
American States aH cuuHl in these quail
ties, and did not apporton political power
according to the mere brute force of
numbers / am glad to learn that Con-
necticut has lately, in her recent consti-
tuition, held on, in part, to the doctrine
that the old Connecticut town, with all
its associations. with all that belongs to
it, and its name and all that it has stood
for for more than two hundred and fifty
years, is not to be drowned out by modern
communities by mere numbers. Who
would think of having a Confederacy to
which all Europe should belong, and hay
ing Switzerland, or Holland, or Sweden
vote in proportion to numbers in the
same body with Russia or Turkey? If
, there had been such a League, or Con-
federacy, for national government in an
| cient times, who would have thought of
having Athens, or Sparta, belong to a
Confederacy with Persia, and having to
vote in proportion to numbers? The fact
that a city, or state, or town is a moral
being, with a life of its own and a quality
of its own is one of the great secrets of
constitutional liberty. 1t is the secret OF
the great things which have been wrought
out in political life in all human history
The fact that you think of your country
or your state, or your city as you do of
your mother, as an individual, is what
makes you love her and ready to die for
her. l have often thought, what indeed
l nave said more than once elsewhere
that 1t is this individual quality, this
moral quality which men in free States
attribute to the State, or the country
that creates all there Is to value in &
country's history, The citizen has con
ception of the moral character of his
country, and that conception inspires hin
with the same moral qualities, whethe
they be noble or base. When the Frcncl
! soldiers marched with Napoleon through
Europe overthrowng all her Kingdom
: and Powers, to the tune of the Marseil
laise--"Sons of France Awake to Glory.
) it was the master passion of France
the mother, that inspired her sons. A
the end of that march forty centurie
looked down on her from the pyramids
But one day, in Trafalgar Bay, they me
= the children of another mother. of
a very different moral quality and charac
!, ter, inspired by a very different sent
: ment. To them Nelson gave his immorta
signal-"England expects every man t
Q do his duty" Duty-loving England an
t glory-loving France met in that deadl
a conflict, and then as ever, the lover @
e duty proved the stronger, The Englan
& that expected every man to do his dut
g was as real being to the humblest sal
II or in Nelson's feet as the mother tina
o bore him That Is what has made Ems
c land! That is what has made Massachl
J. sets. That is what has made litt
: Rhode Island! That Is what has II