Five Sermons | Page 8

us to be free as you are, and our union with you will be our

greatest glory. But if your ministers sport with human rights, if neither
the voice of justice, the principles of the constitution, nor humanity will
restrain them from shedding human blood in an impious cause, 'we will
never submit.' We ask peace, liberty and safety, and for this we have
laid our prayer at the feet of the king as a loving father." The battles at
Lexington, Concord and Ticonderoga preceded the second meeting of
Congress in May, 1775. Their plea for justice had been spurned. The
outlook was dark as midnight. These brave men represented no
government, they had no power to make laws, they had no officers to
execute them, they could not impose customs, they had no army, they
did not own a foot of land, they owed the use of their hall to the
courtesy of the artisans of Philadelphia. On the 12th of June Congress
made its first appeal to the people of twelve colonies, ( Georgia was not
represented). It was a solemn call for the whole people to observe one
and the same day as a day of fasting and prayer "for the restoration of
the invaded rights of America and reconciliation with the parent state."
They who sought the protection of God knew that under God they must
protect themselves. All hearts turned to George Washington, a delegate
from Virginia, and he was unanimously chosen to be
commander-in-chief. When Congress met in July, 1776, the people had
been branded as traitors; the slaves of Virginia had been incited to
insurrection, the torch and tomahawk of the savage had been let loose
on frontier settlements, an army of foreign mercenaries had landed on
their shores, their ports were blockaded, an the army under Washington
for their defence only numbered 6,749 men. On the second day of July,
1776, without one dissenting colony, the representatives of the thirteen
colonies resolved that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to
be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally
dissolved." Two days later Benjamin Harrison, the great-grandfather of
our present president, the chairman of the committee of the whole,
reported to Congress the form in which that resolution was to be
published to the world, and the reasons by which it was to be justified.
It was the work of Thomas Jefferson, then aged thirty-three, and never
did graver responsibility rest on a young man than the preparation of
that immortal paper, and never was the duty more nobly fulfilled. In the

original draft of the declaration there was the allegation that the king
"had prostituted his negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to
prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce in human beings." This
was struck out, as Mr. Jefferson tells us, in "complaisance to South
Carolina and Georgia, not without tenderness to Northern Brethren who
held slaves." Time forbids my calling over the roll of these noble
patriots who signed their names to our Magna Charta. There is John
Adams, of whom Jefferson said, "He was our Colossus on that floor,
and spoke with such power as to move us from our seats." Benjamin
Franklin, printer philosopher and statesman. Roger Sherman, of whom
John Adams said, "He is honest as an angel and firm as Mount Atlas."
Charles Carroll, who, when a member said, "Oh, Carroll, you will get
off, there are so many Carrolls," stepped back to the desk and wrote
after his name, "of Carrollton." John Hancock, who, when elected
speaker, Benjamin Harrison had playfully seated in the speaker's chair
and said, "We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by
making a Massachusetts man our president, whom she has by
proclamation excluded from pardon." A friend said to John Hancock,
"You have signed your name large." "Yes," he replied, "I wish John
Bull to read it without spectacles." Robert Morris, the financier and
treasurer of the Revolution. Elbridge Gerry, the youngest member, the
friend of Gen. Warren, to whom Warren had said the night before the
battle of Bunker Hill, "It is sweet to die for our country." What a roll of
names! the silver-tongued Rutledge, brave Stockton, wise Rush,
Lee--fifty-five noble names, not one of whom who did not know that,
as one member said, "If we do not hang together, we shall hang
separately." It was not timidity which made any of the delegates
hesitate to take the irrevocable step. All the associations of their lives,
all the traditions and memories of the past bound them by ties of
kindred and affection to the mother country. They