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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.

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

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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.

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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

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

of beauty, pendant between massive towers suggestive of art alone, is contrasted with the over-reaching vault of heaven above and the ever-moving flood of waters. beneath, the work of omnipotent power, we are irresistibly moved to exclaim, What hath man wrought!

Man hath indeed wrought far more than strikes the eye in this daring undertaking. It is not the work of any one man or of any one age. It is the result of the study, of the experience, and of the knowledge of many men in many ages. It is not merely a creation; it is a growth.

In no previous period of the world's history could this bridge have been built. Within the last hundred years the greater part of the knowledge necessary for its construction has been gained. This construction has employed every abstract conclusion and formula of mathematics, whether derived from the study of the earth or the heavens. The great discoveries of chemistry, the nature of gases, the properties of metals, the laws and processes of physics, from the strains and pressures of mighty masses to the delicate vibrations of molecules, are all recorded here.

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It looks like a motionless mass of masonry metal; but, as a matter of fact, it is instinct with motion. It is an aggregation of unstable elements, changing with every change in temperature and every movement of the heavenly bodies, but the product is absolute stability. It stands before us to-day as the sum and epitome of human knowledge; as the very heir of the ages; as the latest glory of centuries of patient observation, profound study, and accumulated

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skill, gained step by step, in the never-ending struggle of man to subdue the forces of nature to his control and use.

A PLEA FOR FREE TRADE

FRANK H. HURD

From a speech delivered in the national House of Representatives, February 18, 1881.

No more perfect illustration of the effect of free trade has been shown than in the history of the United States. Very much of our prosperity is due to the fact that the products of each state can be sold in every other state without restriction. During the war the most potent argument for the cause of the Union was found in the apprehension that disunion meant restriction of commerce, and particularly the placing of the mouth of the Mississippi River under foreign control. The war was fought, therefore, to maintain free trade, and the victory was the triumph of free trade. The Union every day exhibits the advantages of the system.

Are these due to the accident of a state being a member of that Union, or to the beneficent principle of the system itself? What would prevent similar results following if, subject only to the necessities of government, it were extended to Mexico, to Canada, to South America, to the world? In such extension the United States have everything to gain, nothing to lose. This country would soon become the supply house of