A CENTURY OF NATIONAL LIFE 143 generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever"; and we reverently hope that these our constituted liberties shall be maintained to the unending line of our posterity, and so long as the earth itself shall endure. In the great procession of nations, in the great march of humanity, we hold our place. Peace is our duty, peace is our policy. In its arts, its labors, and its victories, then, we find scope for all our energies, rewards for all our ambitions, renown enough for all our love of fame. In the august presence of so many nations which, by their representatives, have done us the honor to be witnesses of our commemorative joy and gratulation, and in sight of the collective evidences of the greatness of their own civilization with which they grace our celebration, we may well confess how much we fall short, how much we have to make up, in the emulative competitions of the times. Yet even in this presence, and with a just deference to the age, the power, the greatness of the other nations of the earth, we do not fear to appeal to the opinion of mankind, whether, as we point to our land, our people, and our laws, the contemplation should not inspire us with a lover's enthusiasm for our country. A CENTURY OF NATIONAL LIFE JAMES A. GARFIELD This extract is taken from President Garfield's Inaugural Address, delivered from the east portico of the Capitol at Washington, D. C., March 4, 1881. It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption of the first written Constitution of the United States-the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new Republic was then beset with dangers on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority of government could be safely entrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves. We cannot overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the saving common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short trial, that the Confederacy of States was too weak to meet the necessities of a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead established a National Union, founded directly upon the will of the people, and endowed with full power of self-preservation and with ample authority for the accomplishment of its great objects. Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the growth of our people in all the better elements of national life has vindicated the wisdom of the founders and given new hope to their descendants. Under this Constitution our people long ago made themselves safe against danger from without, secured for their mariners and flag equal A PLEA FOR THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH 145 ity of rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution twenty-five states have been added to the Union, with constitutions and laws framed and enforced by their own citizens to secure the manifold blessings of local self-government. The jurisdiction of this Constitution now covers an area fifty times greater than that of the original thirteen states, and a population twenty times greater than that of 1780. A PLEA FOR THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH WENDELL PHILLIPS This plea for the preservation of the "Old South Church" was delivered in Boston, Mass., June 4, 1876. It was largely due to the eloquence of Phillips that this ancient landmark was not removed. This speech is published in Wendell Phillips's 'Speeches and Lectures." Copyright by Lee & Shepard. Reprinted by special permission. 66 With how much pride, with what a thrill, with what tender and loyal reverence, may we not cherish the spot where this marvelous enterprise began, the roof under which its first councils were held, where the air still trembles and burns with Otis and Sam Adams. Except the Holy City, is there any more memorable or sacred place on the face of the earth, than the cradle of such a change? Athens has her Acropolis, but the Greek can point to no such results. London has her Palace, and her Tower, and her St. Stephen's Chapel, but the human race owes her no such memories. France has spots marked by the ΤΟ sublimest devotion, but the Mecca of the man who believes and hopes for the human race is not to Paris; it is to the seaboard cities of the great Republic. And when the flag was assailed, and the regiments marched through the streets, what walls did they salute as the regimental flags floated by to Gettysburg and Antietam? These! Our boys carried down to the battle-fields the memory of State Street, of Faneuil Hall, of the Old South Church. We had signal prominence in those early days. It was on the men of Boston that Lord North visited his revenge. It was our port that was to be shut and its commerce annihilated. It was Sam Adams and John Hancock who enjoyed the everlasting reward of being the only names excepted from the royal proclamation of forgiveness. Here Sam Adams, the ablest and ripest statesman God gave to the epoch, forecast those measures which welded thirteen colonies into one thunderbolt, and launched it at George the Third. Here Otis magnetized every boy into a desperate rebel. The saving of this landmark is the best monument you can erect to the men of the Revolution. You spend thousands of dollars to put up a statue of some old hero. You want your sons to gaze upon the nearest approach to the features of those "dead but sceptered sovereigns who still rule our spirits from their urns." But what is a statue of Cicero, compared to standing where your voice echoes from pillar and wall that actually heard his philippics? Scholars have grown old and blind, striving to put their hands THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE 147 on the very spot where bold men spoke or brave men died. Shall we tear in pieces the roof that actually trembled to the words that made us a nation? It is impossible not to believe, if the spirits above us are permitted to know what passes in this terrestrial sphere, that Adams, and Warren, and Otis are to-day bending over us asking that the scene of their Immortal labors shall not be desecrated, or blotted from the sight of men. Consecrate it again to the memory and worship of a grateful people! Napoleon turned aside his Simplon road to save a tree Cæsar had once mentioned. Won't you turn a street, or spare a quarter of an acre, to remind boys what sort of men their fathers were? Think twice before you touch these walls. We are the world's trustees. The Old South no more belongs to us, than Luther's or Hampden's or Brutus's name does to Germany, England, or Rome. Each and all are held in trust as torchlight guides and inspiration for any man struggling for justice and ready to die for truth, THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE ABRAM S. HEWITT 66 Taken from an address delivered May 24, 1883, on the occasion of the opening of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge." Reprinted by permission. When we turn to the graceful structure at whose portal we stand, and when the airy outline of its curves |