BIRTHPLACE OF EDWARD EVERETT AT DORCHESTER, MASS., WITH VIGNETTE PORTRAIT.

Photogravure after a Photograph.

EDWARD EVERETT

(1794-1865)

DWARD EVERETT is one of the most respectable figures in American history, elevated in his ideas, broad in his sympathies, almost unerring in his instinct of rectitude, and lacking almost nothing of the first rank as an orator and statesman. What he did lack of greatness in oratory was fire, as force was all he lacked of the qualities necessary for the highest success in statesmanship. He belongs to the class of Washington in his patriotism and in his political methods. Had Washington been an orator, he might have delivered Everett's Charlestown address on 'The History of Liberty,' or, indeed, almost any other one of those highly intellectual and instructive orations which made Everett so deservedly celebrated as an orator in a generation which knew Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and Choate. Unlike all these in his intellectual processes, Everett is unlike them in his results. It is impossible that such a style as his could ever greatly move an audience. He appeals to

the intellect, and not to the emotions. But what he loses in one direction, he gains in another. No other orator of his day depends so little on the incidents and accidents of delivery, of place, of time. Such addresses as 'The History of Liberty' have little in them which depends on ephemeral circumstance for its interest. As "reading matter," the best orations of Clay, Calhoun, or Webster are apt to suffer by comparison with the best of Everett's. This, indeed, is his fault as an orator. He too generally approaches the deliberate style of the writer, losing in doing so the rapidity, the warmth, the compelling power of the orator. His surpassingly great merit is his knowledge of history, his grasp of fact, and his ability to present it in its harmonies.

He was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 11th, 1794. "Entering Harvard College when little more than thirteen, he left it four years later with its first honors ». -a fact which, as it gave him his bent, serves better than any other single fact to illustrate his meaning in public life. Above everything else, he is "the scholar in politics." After his graduation, he began the study of Divinity, but when barely of age he was made professor of Greek Literature at Harvard, and sent abroad to study. Soon after his return,

he became editor of the North American Review, and in 1824 began delivering the addresses which made him famous. In that year, he was elected to Congress, where he served five successive terms, retiring in 1835 to become Governor of Massachusetts. In 1841 he went as Minister to England, and on his return in 1845 was chosen President of Harvard College. On the death of Daniel Webster, he was appointed Secretary of State in the Fillmore Cabinet, and in 1853 was sent to the United States Senate as the man most worthy to succeed Webster there. His long and useful public career had a fitting close in 1860, when, as a candidate on the ticket with John Bell, he vainly attempted to organize the forces of "Constitutional Union" to prevent civil war. He died at Boston, January 15th, 1865, after a life which honored his State, his section, and his country.

THE

THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY

(Delivered at Charlestown, Massachusetts, July 4th, 1828)

HE event which we commemorate is all-important, not merely in our own annals, but in those of the world. The sententious English poet has declared that "the proper study of mankind is man," and of all inquiries of a temporal nature, the history of our fellow-beings is unquestionably among the most interesting. But not all the chapters of human history are alike important. The annals of our race have been filled up with incidents which concern not, or at least ought not to concern, the great company of mankind. History, as it has often been written, is the genealogy of princes, the field-book of conquerors; and the fortunes of our fellow-men have been treated only so far as they have been affected by the influence of the great masters and destroyers of our race. Such history is, I will not say a worthless study, for it is necessary for us to know the dark side as well as the bright side of our condition. But it is a melancholy study which fills the bosom of the philanthropist and the friend of liberty with sorrow.

But the history of Liberty,-the history of men struggling to be free, the history of men who have acquired and are exercising their freedom,-the history of those great movements in the world, by which liberty has been established and perpetuated, forms a subject which we cannot contemplate too closely. This

2093 is the real history of man, of the human family, of rational immortal beings.

This theme is one; - the free of all climes and nations are themselves a people. Their annals are the history of freedom. Those who fell victims to their principles in the civil convulsions of the short-lived republics of Greece, or who sunk beneath the power of her invading foes; those who shed their blood for liberty amidst the ruins of the Roman Republic; the victims of Austrian tyranny in Switzerland and of Spanish tyranny in the Netherlands; the solitary champions or the united bands of highminded and patriotic men who have, in any region or age, struggled and suffered in this great cause, belong to that people of the free whose fortunes and progress are the most noble theme man can contemplate.

The theme belongs to us. We inhabit a country which has been signalized in the great history of freedom. We live under forms of government more favorable to its diffusion than any the world has elsewhere known. A succession of incidents, of rare curiosity, and almost mysterious connection, has marked out America as a great theatre of political reform. Many circumstances stand recorded in our annals, connected with the assertion of human rights, which, were we not familiar with them, would fill even our own minds with amazement.

The theme belongs to the day. We celebrate the return of the day on which our separate national existence was declared,the day when the momentous experiment was commenced, by which the world, and posterity, and we ourselves were to be taught how far a nation of men can be trusted with selfgovernment, how far life, liberty, and property are safe, and the progress of social improvement is secure, under the influence of laws made by those who are to obey them,-the day when, for the first time in the world, a numerous people was ushered into the family of nations, organized on the principle of the political equality of all the citizens.

Let us then, fellow-citizens, devote the time which has been set apart for this portion of the duties of the day, to a hasty review of the history of Liberty, especially to a contemplation of some of those astonishing incidents which preceded, accompanied, or have followed the settlement of America, and the establishment of our constitutions, and which plainly indicate a general