deeds and words; more by the ploughshare than the sword; more by the benevolent act of some good woman in her home, among her children, than the eloquence of a Senate; more by the kindness of man to man than the splendid victories which cause the bells to peal.

It has been often the case that nations have grown up unnoticed and unknown; its roots have been hidden in secrecy and darkness; gradually the little leaves of natural life have broken through the obscuring earth. Still years have elapsed before the tree has stood, like a firm rooted oak, upon the hills or plains.

One hundred years ago to-day this people sprang full-armed and full-grown into national life. With all the stores that had been collected by Asia and Europe, and the civilization of Africa, it began its career of progress, giving to the earth a new people, but not a new race. This people had a new land in which to try the experiments of civilization. It seems as if the Divine Ruler of the world had preserved for ages this virgin land that men might come to it in the full growth of experience and advancement, and undertake to amend in the future the sad failures of the past. Some nations have been created for one purpose, others for another, according to the providence of God, but it seems to have been especially reserved for this people to undertake, in the world's prime, the work of Nation Building in a manner in which it had never been essayed before. Other nations had to work their way along, slowly and with difficulty; they had to learn by bitter experience, after many failures and blunders, and finally only succeeded in part. We began our national career with the failures of other peoples as warnings, and at once America became the beaconlight of unhappy and oppressed races throughout the world. From all quarters of the globe men turned their eyes in expectation towards a land where human life should assume a new meaning, where human existence should take a new purpose, where all the failures which had darkened the future of mankind, elsewhere, were to be swept away.

America became the hope and trust of all mankind. No European race can claim the sole honor of the organization of this people. The Celt, the Saxon and the Teuton, alike have had their part to play, in forming a newer and better country. We are to

day as our fathers were in the past, engaged in this work of nation building. Many nations have had their representative to build for them; they have had kings to guide them, despots to lead the way for them. We have had none of these. Our heroic age was very short. The peculiarity of American civilization is that we depend upon no hero, no king, least of all, a despot, for our civilization, but on the average Common Sense of common men. Upon the average men and women of this land has come the work of nation building. It has been our part to fell forests, to drain marshes, to build cities, to lay railroads that carry commerce and civilization over the broad prairies of the West, and the savannas of the South, and the hills and dales of the North. We have prospered in these hundred years that have passed, and, thank God, there is nothing in our history which we desire to hide for shame. We have had hard work, have made mistakes, and have been not the best people in the world, by any

means.

Look upon the record of our conquests over the physical forces. Let the world look, and see what we have done in one hundred years. What other land in all the earth can show the like?

We can show no throne, and thank God for that. We can show no aristocracy, and thank God for that, also.

We have no established church. You cannot point out in the streets the towering columns which commemorate victories in the past, neither the statues of the heroes fallen centuries ago. We cannot point you to the lofty palaces of our great and rich men, but we can direct your gaze to Forty Millions of people, better fed, better housed, better cared for, better clothed, more intelligent, better educated in the average than any forty millions of people that have ever lived upon earth. I take it that this is something

to be thankful for.

While we are showing our visitors, in this Centennial year, the great advancements in material civilization, I am sure that our people have not forgotten what lies before them in the century which is to come.

NATIONAL PERILS AND SAFEGUARDS.

AN ORATION BY HON. THEODORE ROMEYN.

DELIVERED AT DETROIT, MICH., JULY 4TH, 1876.

The English colonization of North America commenced less than three centuries ago.

Patents, or charters were procured from the Crown, and the relations of the colonies were directly with the King and not with Parliament. Hence, in the Declaration of Independence, is the recital of the injuries and usurpations of the Crown. The right of Parliament to pass laws affecting their internal affairs, or for raising revenue by taxing them, was steadfastly denied, and efforts to exercise such asserted rights were uniformly resisted. Such attempts led to united arrangements for opposition and redress.

On the 6th of July, 1774, Massachusetts passed resolutions, inviting the other colonies to meet in general congress. Delegates from all of them, except Georgia, met in Philadelphia in September, 1774. These joined in a declaration of rights, claiming that the foundation of English liberty and of all free governments is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council, and that, as they were not, and from various causes could not be represented in the British Parliament, they were entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation, in their several provincial legislatures, in all cases of taxation and internal policy; subject only to the negative of their sovereign; while they expressed their cheerful assent to such acts of the British Parliament as were restrained to the regulation of their external commerce for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country.

Their claims were rejected, and Parliament persisted in passing laws for levying taxes.

Armed resistance began at Boston. That city was seized and

occupied by British troops. Its port was closed; civil courts were suspended.

On the 19th of April, 1775, a large detachment of the British army marched from Boston to capture the military stores which had been accumulated by Massachusetts at Concord. Passing through Lexington they fired upon a small body of militia, about seventy in number, and not drawn up in array, and killed eight. The detachment marched on to Concord. The people of the town gathered for defense and fell back across the North Bridge, with orders from their commander, Maj. John Butterick, not to give the first fire. While they were pulling up the planks of the bridge the British opened fire upon them. This was returned, and the first battle of the Revolution there began.

"By the rude bridge that spans the flood,
Their flag in April's breeze unfurled;

That day the embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world."

The sword was drawn, but the scabbard was not yet thrown aside. Petitions and remonstrances were still addressed to Parliament, asking for concessions and aiming at reconciliation.

On the 15th of June, 1775, George Washington was unanimously elected by Congress, Commander-in-Chief of the Provincial army. The next day, and before his arrival at Boston, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought.

Still there was hope of adjustment and peace. On the 8th of July, 1775, Congress sent a respectful and loyal petition to the King. They also issued an address to the inhabitants of Great Britain.

All efforts to secure their rights failing, independence began to be spoken of as the sole resource. Georgia on the 20th of July, 1775, acceded to the confederation. The delegates of the colonies, now numbering thirteen, continued in session, and still aimed at peaceful adjustment. But the conflict grew broader and deeper. On the 4th day of July, 1776, the delegates from the thirteen colonies, after long debate, adopted the declaration which has just been read to you; and, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions, they did solemnly

publish and declare that the United Colonies were and of right ought to be free and independent States.

This was the necessary result of their treatment by Parliament. This declaration embraces the assertion of the principles of government and of the rights of the colonists as always claimed by them. The alternatives were abject submission or asserted independence. They chose the latter, and the result is Our Country.

One hundred years ago the sun shone on less than three millions of people in these colonies, living along the narrow belt east of the Alleghanies, with no claim to the territory west of the Mississippi, or to its mouth, or to the shores of the Gulf, or to the Floridas. West of the mountain range and north of the Ohio was an untouched wilderness, except so far as occupied by Indians and by a few French settlements. Some of these had been made along the waters that bound our own State. In all the Northwestern territory, now comprising the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Winconsin, and containing more than ten millions of inhabitants, there was not a settlement of English origin, and the white population did not exceed five thousand.

A century has passed, and we meet to celebrate the beginning of another.

The revolving earth brought this morning to the first rays of the sun the rocks and sands of the Atlantic coast. As it rolls on, the whole breadth of the continent, from the lakes to the gulf and to the boundaries of Mexico, will reflect the day-beams, until they glitter on the golden gate of California and are quenched in the Pacific. Everywhere within these boundaries, on this day, the "bloom of banners" is in the air, but no foreign flag waves as a sign of sovereignty. The star spangled banner floats over the wide domain, the emblem of a nationality, which comprises more than forty millions of, thanks to God, united and free people.

In the City of Philadelphia, then having a population of less than forty thousand, more than seven hundred thousand people now dwell, and to-day the nation holds there its great festival, where its chief officers and representatives from all its States and