9 



of thought and experience, and accomplishment, iUustrat- 

 inof what has been done and said on our soil during? the 

 last hundred years. To our people, to Congress, to those 

 who rule over us, the event appeared only as a holiday 

 sport. To us who look back upon it, it stands out as the 

 world's rejoicing over the progress of a free people in all 

 those mental and material accomplishments, which consti- 

 tute so much of national greatness. And I doubt not we 

 shall date from it another century of progress and devel- 

 opment, in which all our hopes, as sons of our colonial 

 and revolutionary sires, will be more than fulfilled. 



I cannot discharge my duty at this time with any degree 

 of satisfaction to myself, or with any measure of justice 

 to the event which has called us together, without allusion 

 to the vital and inspiring force which gave unwonted 

 strength to our inftmcy and vigor to our growth into man- 

 hood. Our very existence as a nation was the outgrowth 

 of most earnest purpose, and most lofty thought and con- 

 viction. We turn back to this with gratitude and pride. 

 Our fathers brought with them all the fundamental prin- 

 ciples upon which they could build the structure of soci- 

 ety, — a church upon freedom of conscience, a state upon 

 the sacredness of individual rights, — and they proceeded 

 to build wisely and well. Their theories were the matured 

 thought of centuries. "Nothing came from Europe but 

 a free people," says Bancroft. They came with the doc- 

 trine of suifrage and self-government thoroughly infused 

 into their minds. They took their rulers from the ranks ; 

 and they who elected John Carver as the first governor of 

 their colony, stand out conspicuous as those who taught 

 the people how to govern themselves. They had been 

 taught to believe the truths laid down in Magna Cliarta, 

 and they read in its immortal lines, that a free people 

 were entitled to a representative government, and that 



