doubtless signed on that day by the delegates then present, but there was a subsequent engrossment, and a new signing of all the names which now appear upon the parchment preserved with such scrupulous care among the Archives of the State Department at Washington.

Strictly speaking, then, it is an anachronism to call the 4th as we do "Independence Day." That day was the 2d and it was the day of which Adams spoke in his memorable letter to his wife written at the close of that day, as "the one that would be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival," to be solemnized by shows, parades, etc., and concerning which he predicted that through all the gloom that surrounded them he saw "the rays of ravishing light and glory" in which their posterity would bask and participate. The explanation is simply this, that as the Congress sat with closed doors the transactions of the 2d day of July and the absolute passage of the resolution were not publicly known, nor could they be until the report had been acted upon from the committee on the Declaration which was made and adopted on the 4th, when the whole proceedings, with the Declaration, were publicly proclaimed from the steps of the State House.*

It is no part of my purpose to enter upon any eulogy of the Declaration, much less to analyze its doctrines or enforce its lessons. Many of its topics were of temporary interest, and have passed away with the occasion that called them forth. One of the most able and brilliant of our recent scholars and public men, in what I must think was a burst of fancy as well as of rhetoric, once spoke of it as containing little else than "sounding and glittering generalities." If this were true of any portions of a document enshrined in the hearts and memories of all true Americans, it cannot be affirmed of two of its cardinal principles, the corner-stones upon which are erected the solid structures of American, as well as of all other true freedom. They are the absolute equality of all men before the law, and in their political and class relations, and that the true source of all governmental institutions rests in the consent of the governed. These were principles before unknown, or at least unapplied, in all the feudal, hereditary and aristocratic dynasties of the earth. They struck a fatal

* I desire as a matter of justice to state that for the main facts connected with the passage of the resolution on Independence and the signing of the Declaration, I am indebted to the painstaking industry of my friend Wm. L. Stone of New York, who has made our Revolutionary history the subject of the most indefatigable research, and who as the result of many years of earnest and unrequited labor possesses in my opinion in a set of more than eighty bound volumes, a more rare and valuable collection of documents, histories, autographs, etc., concerning the campaign of Burgoyne, the battle and surrender at Saratoga and the concomitant incidents, than is contained in any public institution or the library of any American scholar living or dead.

blow not only to what Jefferson called "the right divine of kings to govern wrong," but to the "Jus Divinum" by which they assumed to govern at all, and elevating the people to the proud distinction of sovereigns, put the reins of government substantially into their hands, to be operated by such means and agencies as they had the power and inclination to create. These principles, personal and political freedom sustained and upheld by law and the enthroned empress "the world's collected will," are those that constitute our charter, as they must be the polar star of all the struggling advocates of true liberty, and when they are denied or disregarded, freedom and law together take from this world their everlasting flight.

Among other most encouraging and gratifying incidents connected with our struggle for freedom and independence, was the sympathy and cooperation received from the friends of liberty abroad. I allude not now to the alliance with France, which occurred at a much later period of the contest, and was the result of long-continued and admirable diplomacy conducted by some of our ablest and most sagacious men. From the moment that the spirit of resistance to unjust taxation and remorseless greed in those sent to rule over us was developed, the interest in our cause was awakened in those strong and brave hearts that in other lands had been summoned to action either by similar exactions, or who gladly heard the trumpet-call of freedom and the summons to defend the rights of man. It reached them across the roaring waves of the Atlantic, and called to our aid some of the choicest of Europe's best and noblest sons. The mention of these men in connection with the Continental Congress is entirely appropriate, because each of them, unless my memory fails, reported himself on his arrival to the Congress, and was publicly recognized and received with tokens of distinguished consideration, and all were very soon appointed to positions of high rank in the American army.

Did time and space permit, I should delight to dwell on the history of these men, some of whom had not only a distinguished record, but a chivalrous and even romantic story, that fairly makes the most sluggish blood tingle at its recital. As it is, I can do little more than mention the names of some five or six of the most distinguished, leaving to your own memories or the histories of that period to supply the details which my limited time will not permit. These men were not mere soldiers of fortune, the waifs thrown to the surface of the troubled waters by the love of adventure, the Dugald Dalgettys of their day, who fought under any flag and in any cause where emolument was to be secured or reputation won. They were moved to action in most cases by the highest principle, and inspired with the noblest impulses. Some of them had seen and felt the

wrongs which were the outcome of the abuse of imperial and unchecked. power, and some had in their own persons experienced the sharp edge of the sword that tyrants and despots love to wield over prostrate humanity. They hailed the dawn of a brighter hope for that humanity in the new world beyond the sea, and recognized the maxim that "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

Poland gave to us the earliest of these coadjutors, in the persons of Count Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciusko. It would require a volume to recount their histories, so closely connected as both are with the history of unhappy Poland, whose story has never yet been adequately told, although it is as the poet Campbell emphasized it, "the bloodiest picture in the book of time." It is a story that stamps ineffaceable disgrace upon the three European despots who partitioned the territory between them, and upon Napoleon, who, when he had the power, in 1808, failed to restore the possessions of which Poland had been robbed, and the autonomy she had lost. Both these men came to us before the army had been formally organized, but their services were tendered and accepted, and both performed good and valiant deeds-Pulaski yielding his life to our cause in the attack upon Savannah, in 1779, and America gratefully commemorating the act in a monument there erected to his memory.

Kosciusko came of a noble ancestry, and was a man of princely character and attainments. Soon after Washington's appointment as commander-in-chief, Kosciusko became one of his aids, and in this capacity, as well as others, performed important service for our cause. But a long

ing desire to aid, if possible, in restoring the lost glories of his native land, carried him back to Europe, before the close of our own struggle, where, in 1794, he headed the brave revolt against the oppressive Russian power, and was, literally, " Warsaw's last champion," and, intrusted with supreme authority, he, with only ten thousand men, resisted and repelled the assault of sixty thousand troops. In the words of another, "he displayed the integrity of Washington, with the activity of Cæsar." But the effort, although almost superhuman, was vain. In the last battle, he fought with scarce one-third the force of the enemy, and covered with wounds, he fell from his horse, exclaiming, "Finis Poloniae!" It was, indeed, the end of the dream of Polish freedom. Kosciusko, although a prisoner, was treated by the Emperor Paul with distinguished consideration. He never again wore sword, and, although besought by Napoleon to enter his service, he declined, without an absolute promise that his country should again receive a free constitution, and be restored to its ancient boundaries. There is no nobler name than his, not excepting that of John Sobieski, in

all Polish history. He died quietly, in France, after a life of storm and struggle and vicissitudes, and his body is entombed, by a royal mandate, in the mausoleum of the Kings of Poland, at Cracow, the most honored dust in that sepulchre of departed earthly greatness. The marble column that gleams on the eye of the passing traveler, from the cliffs at West Point, is only a cenotaph erected by a grateful country to remind its sons, in all the coming generations, of one who gave to our infant liberties the strength of a brave arm and the impulse of a generous and noble heart.

Germany sent to us, in 1779, two grand recruits in the persons of the Barons DeKalb and Steuben. They were brave and experienced soldiers, the former having served more than forty years in the armies of France, and the latter in the wars of the great Frederick of Prussia, to whom he became an aid-de-camp. Both were enthusiasts in the cause of American independence, and received distinguished commands in our army. DeKalb gave his life for us at the battle of Camden, and his memory was honored by a monument erected by Congress upon the ground where he fell. Steuben rendered most invaluable service in the organization and discipline of our armies; was rewarded by Congress with a grant of sixteen hundred acres of land in our own county of Oneida, in the soil of which he sleeps beneath a monument which our grateful fellow-citizens recently erected and publicly dedicated, with appropriate ceremonies, to his honored

name.

The most distinguished, as he was the most endeared to all Americans, was the Marquis de LaFayette, the most devoted and beloved friend of Washington. Of noble descent, of the most finished manners, the favorite of the kingly court of France, at the age of less than twenty he broke away from all the blandishments of that court and the honors it had in store for him, and gave his means, his whole soul and being to our patriotic colonists in the critical days of their struggle, and identified himself wholly with our fortunes and our cause. His history I need not repeat. It is familiar to us all as household words, and engraven on the heart of every true American, and wherever freedom finds a home and undeviating consecration to principle an honest worshiper, there will his name be found high up on the roll of the world's good and heroic men.

The next work of importance engaged in by the Congress was the preparation of, introduction into, and the passage by Congress, with the subsequent ratification by the states, of the Articles of Confederation. The subject was first brought to the notice of the Congress in the month of August, 1776; was debated from time to time, but the Articles did not finally pass the Congress until July, 1778, and were ratified in the follow

ing November. They were entered into by the thirteen original colonies proclaimed states by the Declaration of Independence. They were evidently deemed matters of momentous import, and were expected to be of extended duration, for they were entitled "Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union," but in the result it turned out that they were of much less importance than was conceived, and a short experiment demonstrated their practical inutility. They did, indeed, accomplish one object, and in effect that was about all the end they subserved. They brought the states into closer bonds and cultivated the spirit of union, and, therefore, perhaps, fitly preceded the grand work which the Constitution accomplished. They failed for the very reason that rendered the Constitution a necessity as well as a success. They had no inherent vigor and contained in themselves no power of accomplishing what they attempted. Their requisitions upon the states had no force beyond recommendations, and the states were at liberty to disobey without incurring any penalty, and with seemingly little consciousness of self-reproach.

Before proceeding to what was substantially the closing, as it was the crowning act of this Congress, let us spend a moment in refreshing our remembrance of an act followed, perhaps, by larger results and more enduring consequences than have attended any single act of legislation before or since the birth of our nation. I allude to the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, embraced in the scheme enacted by Congress for the government of that vast tract of country that went by the name of the Northwestern Territory. It comprehended a mighty space now filled up by millions of our enterprising pioneers, but then mostly an untrodden as it was an unexplored wilderness, so far as the white man had penetrated, stretching away from the west and north of the Ohio River onward toward the Pacific, with dimensions and capacities equally unknown. It had been acquired, so far as any title could be predicated of it, by loose claims and an occasional random settlement of wandering adventurers from various states, the largest claimants being the states of Virginia, New York and Massachusetts, all of whom ultimately made generous cessions to the confederacy, so that it became the common property of the Union. A scheme was devised for its settlement and regulation forming the organic law which should forever prevail in its government. It was entitled "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio." Into this ordinance was inserted this pregnant provision: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." This section was prepared

VOL. XX. NO. I -3.