Have Faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. | Page 7

world. It has been a
struggle against the forces of darkness; victory has been and is still
delayed in some quarters, but the result is not in doubt. All the forces of
the universe are ranged on the side of democracy. It must prevail.
In the train of this idea there has come to man a long line of collateral

blessings. Freedom has many sides and angles. Human slavery has
been swept away. With security of personal rights has come security of
property rights. The freedom of the human mind is recognized in the
right of free speech and free press. The public schools have made
education possible for all, and ignorance a disgrace. A most significant
development of respect for man has come to be respect for his
occupation. It is not alone for the learned professions that great
treasures are now poured out. Technical, trade, and vocational schools
for teaching skill in occupations are fostered and nourished, with the
same care as colleges and universities for the teaching of sciences and
the classics. Democracy not only ennobled man; it has ennobled
industry. In political affairs the vote of the humblest has long counted
for as much as the vote of the most exalted. We are working towards
the day when, in our industrial life, equal honor shall fall to equal
endeavor, whether it be exhibited in the office or in the shop.
These are some of the results of that great world movement, which,
first exhibiting itself in the Continental Congress of America, carried
her arms to victory, through the sacrifice of a seven years' revolutionary
war, and wrote into the Treaty of Paris the recognition of the right of
the people to rule: since which days existence on this planet has had a
new meaning; a result which, changing the old order of things, putting
the race under the control and guidance of new forces, rescued man
from every thraldom, but laid on him every duty.
We know that only ignorance and superstition seek to explain events by
fate and destiny, yet there is a fascination in such speculations born,
perhaps, of human frailty. How happens it that James Otis laid out in
1762 the then almost treasonable proposition that "Kings were made for
the good of the people, and not the people for them," in a pamphlet
which was circulated among the Colonists? What school had taught
Patrick Henry that national outlook which he expressed in the opening
debates of the first Continental Congress when he said, "I am not a
Virginian, but an American," and which hurried him on to the later cry
of "Liberty or death?" How was it that the filling of a vacancy sent
Thomas Jefferson to the second Continental Congress, there to pen the
immortal Declaration we this day celebrate? No other living man could
have excelled him in preparation for, or in the execution of, that great
task. What circumstance put the young George Washington under the

military instruction of a former army officer, and then gave him years
of training to lead the Continental forces? What settled Ethan Allen in
the wilderness of the Green Mountains ready to strike Ticonderoga?
Whence came that power to draft state papers, in a new and unlettered
land, which compelled the admiration of the cultured Earl of Chatham?
What lengthened out the days of Benjamin Franklin that he might
negotiate the Treaty of Paris? What influence sent the miraculous voice
of Daniel Webster from the outlying settlements of New Hampshire to
rouse the land with his appeal for Liberty and Union? And finally who
raised up Lincoln, to lead, to inspire, and to die, that the opening
assertion of the Declaration might stand at last fulfilled?
These thoughts are overpowering. But let us beware of fate and destiny.
Barbarians have decreased, but barbarism still exists. Rome boasted the
name of the Eternal City. It was but eight hundred years from the sack
of the city by one tribe of barbarians to the sack of the city by another
tribe of barbarians. Between lay something akin to a democratic
commonwealth. Then games, and bribes for the populace, with
dictators and Cæsars, while later the Prætorian Guard sold the royal
purple to the highest bidder. After which came Alaric, the Goth, and
night. Since when democracy lay dormant for some fifteen centuries.
We may claim with reason that our Nation has had the guidance of
Providence; we may know that our form of government must ultimately
prevail upon earth; but what guaranty have we that it shall be
maintained here? What proof that some unlineal hand, some barbarism,
without or within, shall not wrench the sceptre of democracy from our
grasp? The rule of princes, the privilege of birth, has come down
through the ages; the rule