Have Faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. | Page 6

on Calvary.
July 4, 1776, was a day of history in its high and true significance. Not
because the underlying principles set out in the Declaration of
Independence were new; they are older than the Christian religion, or
Greek philosophy, nor was it because history is made by proclamation
or declaration; history is made only by action. But it was an historic
day because the representatives of three millions of people there
vocalized Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill, which gave notice
to the world that they were acting, and proposed to act, and to found an
independent nation, on the theory that "all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The wonder
and glory of the American people is not the ringing declaration of that
day, but the action, then already begun, and in the process of being
carried out in spite of every obstacle that war could interpose, making
the theory of freedom and equality a reality. We revere that day
because it marks the beginnings of independence, the beginnings of a
constitution that was finally to give universal freedom and equality to
all American citizens, the beginnings of a government that was to
recognize beyond all others the power and worth and dignity of man.
There began the first of governments to acknowledge that it was
founded on the sovereignty of the people. There the world first beheld
the revelation of modern democracy.
Democracy is not a tearing-down; it is a building-up. It is not a denial
of the divine right of kings; it supplements that claim with the assertion
of the divine right of all men. It does not destroy; it fulfils. It is the
consummation of all theories of government, to the spirit of which all
the nations of the earth must yield. It is the great constructive force of
the ages. It is the alpha and omega of man's relation to man, the
beginning and the end. There is and can be no more doubt of the
triumph of democracy in human affairs, than there is of the triumph of
gravitation in the physical world; the only question is how and when.
Its foundation lays hold upon eternity.
These are some of the ideals that the founders of our institutions
expressed, in part unconsciously, on that momentous day now passed
by one hundred and forty years. They knew that ideals do not maintain
themselves. They knew that they there declared a purpose which would

be resisted by the forces, on land and sea, of the mightiest empire of the
earth. Without the resolution of the people of the Colonies to resort to
arms, and without the guiding military genius of Washington, the
Declaration of Independence would be naught in history but the vision
of doctrinaires, a mockery of sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Let
us never forget that it was that resolution and that genius which made it
the vitalizing force of a great nation. It takes service and sacrifice to
maintain ideals.
But it is far more than the Declaration of Independence that brings us
here to-day. That was, indeed, a great document. It was drawn up by
Thomas Jefferson when he was at his best. It was the product of men
who seemed inspired. No greater company ever assembled to interpret
the voice of the people or direct the destinies of a nation. The events of
history may have added to it, but subtracted nothing. Wisdom and
experience have increased the admiration of it. Time and criticism have
not shaken it. It stands with ordinance and law, charter and constitution,
prophecy and revelation, whether we read them in the history of
Babylon, the results of Runnymede, the Ten Commandments, or the
Sermon on the Mount. But, however worthy of our reverence and
admiration, however preëminent, it was only one incident of a great
forward movement of the human race, of which the American
Revolution was itself only a larger incident. It was not so much a
struggle of the Colonies against the tyranny of bad government, as
against wrong principles of government, and for self-government. It
was man realizing himself. It was sovereignty from within which
responded to the alarm of Paul Revere on that April night, and which
went marching, gun in hand, against sovereignty from without,
wherever it was found on earth. It only paused at Concord, or
Yorktown, then marched on to Paris, to London, to Moscow, to Pekin.
Against it the powers of privilege and the forces of despotism could not
prevail. Superstition and sham cannot stand before intelligence and
reality. The light that first broke over the thirteen Colonies lying along
the Atlantic Coast was destined to illuminate the