That riz me up still more, for I knew it wuz true. Yes; when Columbus pinted the prow of that caraval of hisen towards the New World, the water broke on each side of it, a-washin' back towards the Old World the decayin' creeds and orders of the Old World, and the ripples that danced ahead on't, clear acrost the Atlantic, wuz a-carryin' new laws, new governments; and hoverin' over the prow as it swept on in the darkness and the dawn, onseen to any eye, not even the prophetic eye of the discoverer, hovered the great angels Liberty, Equal Rights, and Human Brotherhood.
For them angels could see further than we can; they could see clear ahead when the iron chains should fall from black wrists, and as mighty chains, though wrought with gold, mebby, should fall from the delicate white wrists of mother, and wife, and sister.
It could see that this indeed wuz "A New Order of Centuries."
And then we see—kep jest as careful as though it wuz pure gold and diamonds—the petition of the Colonies to the King of England. And I'll bet England has been sorry enuff to think it didn't hear to 'em, and act a little more lenient to 'em.
And then there wuz the old Constitution of the United States, in the very handwritin' of its immortal framer.
And then there wuz the Declaration of Independence.
Good, likely old document as ever wuz made. I know I hain't felt towards it as I'd ort to time and agin, when I've hearn it read Fourth of Julys by a long-winded orator, in muggy and sultry dog-days in Jonesville.
But though, as I ort to own up, I've turned my back onto it at sech times, I've allers respected it deeply, and it wuz indeed a treat to see it now—
The very paper, writ in the darkness of oncertainty, and hopelessness, and despair of our forefathers, and which them four old fathers wuz willin' to seal with their blood.