of that struggle, the joy at the news of victory, the gloom after defeat. Even now when we recall those days we feel the old rage arise within us, the old bitterness return. Not far from these doors stands the statue of Massachusetts' greatest Governor-Mr. Andrews. Truly his life should teach us that as men are good and brave, so are they kind and forgiving. Surely he would not have cherished resentment toward a conquered foe. Surely he would have been the last to preach the doctrine of internal hate. Surely Mr. Lincoln was full of kindness toward the South. If ever we are again to have a united people, we must learn to feel as he felt. We must remember men will never be good citizens who are treated with suspicion and distrust. We must, above all things, teach ourselves to be just. We must remember that the foundation of this government is equal laws for all, and that there cannot be one law for Massachusetts and another for Virginia.

The issues of the war are dead; Slavery is abolished, never to be revived; it is forbidden by the Constitution, and we have the means to enforce obedience should any disobey. No State will ever again support the cause which has been trampeled.in the dust by national armies. Let us then remember this Centennial year by forgetting sectional differences. Let us receive them as brothers. There are certain duties which the citizen owes this country that cannot be thrown aside, and the first of these duties is to see that the Government is pure. The struggles of the Democrats and Federalists of three-quarters of a century ago no longer excites us. Yet we see two parties, each believing in themselves in the right, and each fighting fiercely for what they believe. We know what the Democrats were. We know that under their will the country was prosperous and happy, and we are justified in believing that had victory been reversed, the country would have prospered still. What matters it to us to which political party Washington, Jefferson, Madison, or Jay belonged? We know that they were great and wise, and we honor them and love them as American citizens. What does it matter to us if the people and the men they chose to govern them were intelligent and honest, and made the American name feared and respected throughout the world.

There may not be among us men equal to the early patriots, men whose names will still be remembered when this nation has passed away, but we have men whose honor is as stainless, whose lives are as pure, and who, if they cannot bring genius, can at least bring integrity and devotion to the public service. We have no standing army, no aristocracy. The whole future of our society rests on the respect the people feel for law. Laws can only be respected when the laws themselves, the men who make them, and the men who administer them command our respect. If the time shall ever come when American judges shall habitually sell justice, when American legislators shall sell their votes, and the public servants the nation's honor, all respect for our institutions will die in the minds of our people, and the Government born one hundred years ago to-day will be about to pass away.

V.

The question even now forces itself upon us, what do the Official Cor- things that are about us portend? Is all that we ruption. have seen and heard only the sign of a passing evil, which we may hope to cure, or does it show that we are already the victims of that terrible disease which has so often been the ruin of republics? Is the very glory and splendor of the nation to prevent its ruin, and do its wealth and prosperity bear out, then, the seeds of decay? Our fathers were small and scattered people-sober, frugal and industrious. There was no great wealth, nor was their extreme poverty. Most men were farmers, and had that best and most practical of all education -the management of their own property, the process of gov ernment comparatively simple, and the temptations comparatively small. In a century all this has changed; we are forty millions of people instead of three millions; we are crowded together in great cities; we have railways and manufactures; we have huge aspirations, vast wealth. But side by side with our beautiful churches and rich colleges there exists, where the population is dense, much, poverty and ignorance. On the other hand, men are assailed by all the tempations of a rich and complex society. In the history of the past few years that

evil has slowly gained strength; a class of men are beginning to hold office, with the approbation of the people, whose object is plunder; a class who look upon the public revenues as a fund from which to steal-nay, more, who seek public offices for motives of private gain by using their influence to make money for themselves.

a Change.

VI.

There we already see the beginning of the end. No popular Necessity of government can endure which does not do justice, much less one which is systematically perverted. No government can endure which allows the property of its citizens to be taken from them under the guise of taxes, not for profitable purposes, but to satisfy private greed. These abuses came with ring rule, and there is hardly a rich city or a great State in the Union which does not know the meaning of government by rings. Corrupt courts, enormous taxes, ruinous debts, impure politics, are the consequences, and the conse quences we have seen. If we have now arrived at the point where we feel ring government gradually closing in upon us; if the majority of the people has not the power or the intelligence, or the will, not only to protect themselves against fresh assaults, but to purify society from taint, this is for us indeed a gloomy anniversary, and our hope can be but small. In such a struggle to stand still is to be conquered. Nothing in the world is stationary, and if government does not diminish it will assuredly increase.

I do not believe there is excuse for gloom. We know the people with whom we have always lived, and we know that they are neither dishonest nor ignorant, and I do not believe that the people of the other States in the Union are behind the people of Massachusetts. But there are also other better reasons for confidence. This the generation which carried through the war; no sterner test could be applied to any people. There was no constraint upon them; peace was always within their reach; it could have been attained at any time had the majority desired it.

After brief allusions to the prominent causes for hope, the speaker concluded as follows:

'Fellow-citizens, believing as I do that our institutions are wise and good, believing as I do that, properly administered, they yield to us the fullest measure of happiness, believing that our people are essentially the same as the people of one hundred years ago-equally honest, equally intelligent, equally self-sacrificing—I see no cause for despondency in the future, I see reason for brightest hope. Provided we remember that our responsibilities are as great now as they ever have been during our history-provided we keep in mind the warning of Washington, that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance-provided we are awake to the knowledge that abuses which are tolerated may in time overpower us—there lies before this Republic the happiest future which any nation has ever been permitted to enjoy; a future as happy and as glorious as its past. Let us then, in this centennial year, putting aside all personal ambition and all selfish aims, firmly resolve that we will strive honestly, patiently, humbly, in the position in which God has placed us, to regain that noble purity in which our nation was born, pre-eminent to the end that our children, at another centennial, may say of us that they too had their ink well in the world's history, and through them this Government of the people for the people by the people still endureth.

AMERICAN FREE INSTITUTIONS; THE JOY AND

GLORY OF MANKIND.

AN ADDRESS BY DR. J. J. M. SELLMAN,

DELIVERED AT THE

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, BALTIMORE, MD.,
JULY 4TH, 1876

MY FELLOW CITIZENS, could there be anything more expressive and so eminently fitting than to see the people gathering together in their respective neighborhoods at the early dawn of the Centennial anniversary of our national independence? Does it not evince a profound reverence and love for the great fundamental principies that underlie the foundation of this free republic? Esteeming our inheritance as the richest that was ever bequeathed to mankind, we cannot but most tenderly and lovingly remember what heroism and extreme suffering those noble men and women of the revolutionary period were required to have and endure in nurturing that spirit of independence for which we as a nation are so characteristic and pre-eminently distinguished.

We might recall names, depict in stirring words the patriotic deeds, and portray in glowing pictures the spirit that animated them in making such a sacrifice upon their part, in behalf of that freedom, that was the precursor of such transcendant glory and renown to the remotest generations. But my friends, I am prescribed by the want of time from pursuing this most interesting course under present circumstances. Fully appreciating the noble work and unparelleled sacrifices of our illustrious sires of revolutionary fame, it will be no disparagement to say that others in later generations have also helped to mould our institutions and shape the policy of the government, and that we too have our part in this beneficient work commenced by the noble men of 1776.

It is well, my friends, to continue our accustomed Fourth of