Great Events in the History of North and South America

by Charles A. Goodrich

John Hancock.

No wonder that the hearts of some trembled. No wonder that many doubted the expediency of such a bold and adventurous step. Who was the nation with which the colonies had to contend?—the mistress of the world—a nation whose navy far exceeded that of any other nation on the globe. Her armies were numerous and veteran—her officers were skilful and practised—her statesmen subtle and sagacious, and were now fired with indignation.

All these circumstances were well known to the patriots who composed the congress of '76. They were aware that they put in peril life, liberty, and country.

Yet, they well knew the importance of the measure proposed, and not only its importance, but its necessity. The country needed some great object distinctly before them. The colonies required a bond of union—a common cause—one expressed—recorded—recognised—some one great plan, the object of which they could pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, to secure. That plan was independence.

The influence of the declaration was immediately perceived—it roused the nation to a higher tone of feeling, and gave impulse and concentration to the national energies. It helped on the tide of Revolution, and mightily aided in driving back the waves of British oppression. But the full influence of that measure is not yet felt—is not yet seen. That belongs to distant time. Some day, hereafter, it will stand out in the great picture of human liberty, in all its grandeur and importance. More will be thought of it than of the splendid and long-lauded achievements of Marathon and Salamis—of Waterloo and Trafalgar!

Nor can we yet estimate the greatness of the men. We are still too near them. But they are rising higher and higher, every year that passes. As we retire into the distance from the date and scene of their actions, their magnitude and worth acquire their true and proper dimensions. In stern and self-denying virtue, they will compare with Regulus, and in a pure and lofty patriotism, will be placed on the same roll with William Tell and Robert the Bruce.

The signers of the declaration of American independence, and their compatriots in toil, and trial, and blood, will never be forgotten. They need no monument, but they deserve one; and, for myself, I wish there was one—a Revolutionary monument—erected by the nation—worthy of the empire whose liberties, civil and religious, they secured—one which should stand—if God pleased—through all time, to serve as a consecrated offering to their patriotism, and the evidence of their imperishable glory:—a monument to which we might conduct our sons in future days; and, as they pondered the deeply engraved names of these heroes and martyrs to liberty—we, the fathers, might say, "Look upon your ancestry, and scorn to be slaves!"

What a day is the 4th of July, as it yearly recurs! The cannon on that day thunders from our hills—but it speaks of liberty. The bell from every spire sends forth its peal, but in sounds which impart a joyous impulse to the blood of the sire, and awaken a thrill of delight in the bosom of the stripling.

No other nation ever celebrated such a day. Days of joy and jubilee they have had; but they were days which, while they removed one usurper from the throne, made way for another; or celebrated some ambitious hero's victories, achieved at the expense of slaughtered thousands. Is it the spirit of an unholy triumph, which prompts the Americans to dwell with delight upon the day? Patriotic sympathy would hail with joy such a day, for any nation on the globe. And such a day, we trust, will come for all; when the sun of liberty, which warms and refreshes us, will fill with joy even the vassals of the Russian autocrat, and spread his heart-cheering beams over the tyrannized millions of the misnamed "celestial empire."

It has sometimes been cast upon us as a reproach, that we exalt the day too much. Exalt it too much! It has indeed sometimes been abused. The spirit of liberty has grown wanton, and excess has sullied the irreproachable propriety, which should ever characterize the demonstrations of joy on such a day as this. But those days are chiefly passed. No—whence the charge of exalting the day too highly?—Not by those who have tasted the sweets of American liberty, nor by those who have drawn long and deep draughts from the refreshing fountains of western freedom. Oh, no—not by such; but by the hirelings of some eastern usurper—by the myrmidons of crowned heads, who hate a day which speaks so loudly of rational liberty to the rest of the world in bondage.