The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-05

Great Britain. 1t was a new world
and a new heaven, and the confines
of earth have caught the sound Of its
proclamation.
And then this preamble goes
.-randly on prudence indeed will die
tate, that governments long establish
cd, should not be changed for light
and transient causes, and, according
Iy all experience hath shown, that
mankind are more disposed to SUI
fer. While evils are sufferablc, than to
right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed
But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same object eVinces a design to re-
duce them under absolute deSpotism,
it is their right, it is their duty to
throw off such government and to
provide new guards for their future
security"
This made revolt not only right,
but duty, whenever a change would
remedy the oppression and the wrongs
of the people. The whole theory of
our form of government has never
before nor since been stated so clear
~ and tersely, When President Lin
coin in his great speech at Gettysburg
styled this a government of the peo-
pie by the people and for the peo-
pie" he fell short of the fullness of
the definition set out in this preamble
by the Continental Congress.
When the Almighty God in his own
person spoke to Moses from amid the
thunders and lightnings of Sianai he
commanded him that in the year of
jubilee he should proclaim liberty
throughout all the land to all the in
habitants thereof" The unknown
Of T,,JI h 0la f1Gt n
cut the tidings of this declaration
of human rights had cast those
words upon its rim, all unknowing the
use TO which the bell would be put in
after years. Those of you who have
seen the Liberty Bell at Philadelphia
or Chicago will recall the inscription
and those who shall go to st. Louis
may see it there.
The great leader. law-giver and
prophet of Israel who heard and re-
G, rded the divine command had him
self no conception Of the infinitely
wider and more abiding application
which would be given those words
me re than thirty centuries later in q
new world of whose existence he had
no conception and among a people
and amid conditions he wat not of.
Those who believe in a God who con-
Germs himself with the affairs of
mortal men can not but believe that
this inscription and the declaration
Of human rights in the preamble were
inspired. No one will claim that the
unknown moulder of the bell, nor
that Thomas jefferson and his CO.
patriots were inspired men, but these
utteranccs may we'll have been in
spired-cVen as was the declaration
of the high priest Caiaphas that it
was eXpedient that one man die for
tl1c people and the whole people
perish not" which the Scriptures tel;
us land this spake he not of him
self. And the same Scriptures de-
care that God hath spoken to man
Gin sundry places and in divers man
ners." Who is learned enough, who
: wise enough and instructed enough
to say that this was not one of the
&C asons?
Of the signers Of the declaration
ac we'll as of him who cast the in
scribtion upon Tic bell, it may well be
said:
'"rhe hand that rounded Peters Dome
And Croined the arches of Christian
Rome
Wrought with a sad sincerity
Ills hCert nom God he could not flee
He builded better than he knew
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
The craftsmen and the signers of
the declaration knew she exact pur-
port and full meaning of the immort-
al words of that preamble. They did
It frame those sentences for rho
zeal display. They wrought in a
sad sincerity" 'Tncv spoke graf
tru. his. for all mankind and for all
the ages. But they Gould not have
+. reseen in it's entirety the far-reach-
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