THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY,

AN ORATION BY HON. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION IN TAUNTON, MASS., JULY 4TH, 1876.

I SALUTE you, my fellow-countrymen, with a cheer of welcome on this joyous day, when forty millions of human voices rise up with one accord to heaven, in grateful benisons for the mercies showered on three successive generations of the race, by the Great Disposer of events, during the hundred years that have passed away. Yet far be it from us to glory in this anniversary festival with any spirit of ostentation, as if assuming to be the very elect of God's creatures. Let us rather join in humble but earnest supplication for the continuance of that support from aloft by reason of which a small and weak and scattered band have been permitted so to grow into strength as now to command a recognized position among the leading powers of the earth.

Less than three centuries since, the European explorer first set his foot on these northern shores, with a view to occupation. He found a primitive race aspiring scarcely higher than to the common enjoyment of animal existence, and slow to respond to any nobler call. How long they had continued in the same condition there was little evidence to determine. But enough has been since gathered to justify the belief that advance never could have been one of their attributes. Without forecast, and insensible to ambition, after long experience and earnest effort to elevate them, the experiment of civilization must be admitted to have failed. The North American Indian never could have improved the state he was in when first found here. He must be regarded merely as the symbol of continuous negation, of the everlasting rotation of the present, not profiting by the experience of the past, and feebly sensible of the possibilities of the future.

The European had at last come in upon him, and the scene began at once to change. The magnificence of nature presented to his view, to which the native had been blind, at once stimulated his passion to develop its advantages by culture, and ere long the wilderness began to blossom as the rose. The hum of industry was heard to echo in every valley, and it ascended every mountain. A new people had appeared, animated by a spirit which enlisted labor without stint and directed it in channels of beauty and of use. With eyes steadily fixed upon the future, and their sturdy sinews braced to the immediate task, there is no cause for wonder that the sparse but earnest adventurers who first set foot on the soil of the new continent, should in the steady progress of time, have made good the aspirations with which they began, of founding a future happy home for ever increasing millions of their race. Between two such forces, the American Indian, who dwells only in the present, and the European pioneer, who fixes his gaze so steadily on the future, the issue of a struggle could end only in one way. Whilst the one goes on dwindling even to the prospect of ultimate extinction, the other spreads peace and happiness among numbers increasing over the continent with a rapidity never before equalled in the records of civilization.

But here it seems as if I catch a sound of rebuke from afar in another quarter of the globe. "Come now," says the hoary denizen of ancient Africa, "this assurance on the part of a new people like you is altogether intolerable. You, of a race starting only as if yesterday, with your infant civilization, what nonsense to pride yourself on your petty labors, when you have not an idea of the magnitude of the works and the magnificence of the results obtained from them in our fertile regions by a population refined long and long and long before you and your boasted new continent were even dreamed of in the march of mankind. Just come over here to the land of Egypt, flowing with milk and honey. Cast a glance at our temples and pyramids, at our lakes and rivers, and even our tombs, erected so long since that nobody can tell when. Observe the masterly skill displayed in securing durability, calling for a corresponding contribution of skilled labor from myriads of workmen to

complete them.

Consider further that even that holy book, which you yourselves esteem as embodying the highest conception of the Deity, and lessons of morals continually taught among you to this day, had its origin substantially from here. Remember that all this happened before the development of the boasted Greek and Roman cultivation, and be modest with pretensions for your land of yesterday, of any peculiar merit for your aspirations to advance mankind.

To all of which interjections of my African prompter I make but a short reply. By his own showing he appeals only to what was ages ago, and not to what now is. What are the imperishable monuments constructed so long since, but memorials of an obsolete antiquity, to be gazed upon by the wandering traveler as examples never to be copied? If once devoted to special forms of Divine worship, the faith that animated the structures has not simply lost its vitality, but has been buried in oblivion. What are the catacombs but futile efforts to perpetuate mere matter after the living principle has vanished away? Why not have applied what they cost to advance the condition of the rising generations? How about the sacred book to which you refer? Does it not record an account of an emigration of an industrious and conscientious people compelled to fly by reason of the recklessness of an ignorant ruler? And how has it been ever since? Although conceded by nature one of the most favored regions of the earth, the general tendency has been far from indicating a corresponding degree of prosperity. Even the splendid memorials of long past ages testify by the solitude around them only to the folly of indulging in vain aspirations. The conclusion then to be drawn from such a spectacle is not a vision of life but of death, not of hope but of despair.

Lo! I have presented to you in this picture the three types of humanity as exemplified in the social systems of the world.

Whilst the African represents the past, and the Indian clings only to the present, it is left to the European and his congener in America persistently to follow in the future the great object of the advancement of mankind.

1. The retrogade. 2. The stationary. 3. The advance. Which is it to be with us?

We can only judge of the future by what it has been in the past. Is there or is there not a peculiar element, not found in either of the other races, which has shown so much vigor in the American during the past century as to give him a fair right to count upon large improvement in time to come?

I confidently answer for him that there is. That element is his devotion to the principle of liberty.

Do you ask me where to find it in words! Turn we then at once to the immortal scroll ever fastened into the solemnities of this our great anniversary. There lies imbedded in a brief sentence, more of living and pervading force than could have ever been applied to secure permanence to all the vast monuments of Egypt or the world.

We all know it well, but still I repeat it:

"We know these truths to be self-evident: 1. That all men are created equal. 2. That they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights. 3. That among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

I have considered these significant words as vested with a virtue so subtile as certain ultimately to penetrate the abodes of mankind all over the world. But I separate them altogether from the solemn charges against King George, which immediately follow in the Declaration. These may have been just or they may not. In the long interval of time which has passed, ample opportunity has been given to examine the allegations with more calmness than when they were just made.

May I venture to express a modest doubt whether the Sovereign was in reality such a cruel tyrant as he is painted, and whether the ministers were so malignantly deaf to the appeals of colonial consanguinity as readers of this day may be led, from the language used, to infer. The passage of a hundred years ought to inspire calmness in revising all judicial decisions in history. Let us, above all, be sure that we are right. May I be permitted to express an humble belief, that the grave errors of both sovereign, ministers and people, were not so much rooted in a spirit of willful and passionate tyranny, as of a supercilious indifference; the same errors I might add, which have marked the policy of that nation in later times down to a

comparatively recent date. A very little show of sympathy, a ready ear to listen to alleged grievances, perhaps graceful concessions made in season, a disposition to look at colonists rather as brethren than as servants to squeeze something out of; in short, fellowship and not haughtiness might have kept our affections as Englishmen perhaps down to this day. The true grievance was the treatment of the colonies as a burden instead of a blessing; an object out of which to get as much and to which to give as little as possible. Least of all was there any conception of cultivating common affections and a common interest. The consequence of the mistake thus made was not only the gradual and steady alienation of the people, but to teach them habits of self-reliance. Then came at last the appeal to brute force-and all was over. Such seems to be the true cause of the breach, and not so much willful tyranny. And it appears in my opinion at least, quite as justifiable a cause for the separation, as any or all of the more vehement accusations so elaborately accumulated in the great Declaration of 1776.

Passing from this digression, let me resume the consideration of the effect of the adoption of the great seminal principle which I have already pointed out as the pillar of fire illuminating the whole of our later path as an independent people. That this light has been no mere flashy, flickering, or uncertain guide, but steadily directing us toward the attainments of new and great results, beneficial not more immediately to ourselves than incidentally to the progress of the other nations of the world, it will be the object of this address to explain.

Let us review the century. The motto shall be Excelsior, And first of all appears as a powerful influence of the new doctrine of freedom, though indirectly applied, the coöperation, with us in the struggle of the Sovereign Louis the Sixteenth, and the sympathy of the people of France. This topic would of itself suffice for an address, but I have so much more to say relative to ourselves as a directing power, that I must content myself with simply recalling to your minds what France was in 1778, when governed by an absolute monarch coöperating with us in establishing our principle, but solely for the motive of depressing Great Britain, and what she is in this our centennial