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.

VI.

There we already see the beginning of the end. No popular Necessity of government can endure which does not do justice, a Change. 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 consequences 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.

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

July celebration, and endeavor to increase, if possible, the public interest in that most sacred day. To feel otherwise than joyous upon such an occasion would not be in consonance with the inherent sentiment of the genius of the American people, who are so well-grounded and settled in the faith and spirit so eloquently set forth in the incomparable declaration of principles enunciated and proclaimed a century ago. The spirit of our devotion to the sacred principles of Constitutional Free Government does not grow cold and indifferent or less vivacious by the lapse of time, though it be a century, but is ever increasing by the development of the transcendant beauty, beneficient designs of the patriotic architects of our great inheritance.

We all know how our hearts glow with patriotic ardor at the bare mention of the day which marks our Nation's birth-fathers and mothers teach their little ones to lisp and revere the day sacred to the American Independence, and the palid cheek of age flushes with enthusiasm, and the dim eye kindles with patriotic fire, when memory brings the scenes of other days around them, and pass in review the hallowed names of our illustrious sires, who dedicated their lives and fortunes to secure, preserve and maintain the immortal principles of representative self-government, which had been enunciated by the protest of a gallant people determined to be free. My friends, the fourth day of July is and should always be a festal day which we as a nation might joyfully commemorate.

The custom of reading the Declaration of Independence ought to have real practical value, but it has become somewhat common-placed, and is regarded only as a primary lesson of constitutional government, having grown from infancy to maturity, does not lessen the value of keeping those essential principles ever fresh in our hearts and memories. I do not, however, propose to read that sound and practical lesson before breakfast, my friends, but there are times when it might be read with great profit.

A recurrence to first principles sometimes is most important, and cannot it be said with emphasis that of late years both government and people have drifted far away from the essential

rudiments of republican education, and that a return to those elementary principles of constitutional government would have a very salutary effect upon the political tone of the republic. Political safety and happiness, my friends, depends largely upon a strict adhesion to the immortal principles of a free and independent government.

So resplendant and promising are our possessions and prospects, we must not permit human ambition and treacherous baseness to despoil our precious and dear-bought inheritance.

I am confident it is in keeping with this sound sentiment that we come here to welcome in this Centennial birthday of our nation, and to give some public expression to the ardor of our hearts and minds in relation to this interesting epoch in our national history.

It was this holy sentiment that developed into action the mighty energies of the men who secured the liberties we now so richly enjoy, and from which, by wise and ardent devotion, the glorious edifice upon which rest the pillars of the rights of self-government and the inestimable prerogative of freedom of conscience. Those noble men who came out of the Revolutionary struggle for Independence, with a holy love for freedom. erected and dedicated this beautiful temple to liberty and free conscience, whose foundation is a mighty continent, the boundaries of which shall reach and extend from ocean to ocean.

American free institutions is this beautiful temple, and stands this day in all its majestic beauty, the pride of history, the joy and glory of mankind; tenderer and more devoted, higher and holier than aught on earth save a mother's love, is the almost divine sentiment which makes us love and cherish the land of our birth. And now at this auspicious time, at the very beginning of this, the second century of our political experience, let us, if we would have the same patriotic and fraternal feeling that distinguished the period of the event which we this day commemorate, draw nearer and nearer to a higher appreciation of the true principles of constitutional government. If the spirit of the nation be entirely directed towards wise ends and purposes, what an endless source of happiness would be felt throughout the wide extent of this great republic. The noble superstruction