WHEN Paul had been imprisoned at Jerusalem the chief captain ordered that he is to be scourged in an effort to make him tell the truth. Paul then asks: "Is it lawful to scourge a man that is a Roman?" The chief captain asks whether he is a Roman, and Paul says that he is. The chief captain goes on to say: "With a great sum obtained I this freedom," but Paul answers: "I was free born." It is a question of the right of free men in ancient Rome.
Under the ancient Porcian law which was later restored by the Sempronic, no Roman citizen might be scourged, and anyone who violated the Roman civil laws, was liable to a punishment which involved the loss of property and life. Of this, we realize how deeply treasured civil liberty and rights were in ancient Rome. The right of free men might not be assailed.
It is about this right that the chief captain says: "With a great sum obtained I this freedom!" But Paul answers frankly and proudly: "I was free born!" It is an heritage from my fathers.
Thus the young generation in America may say: We were born into civil liberty. It is an heritage from the fathers. We have obtained it at no expense of our own. But the fathers of '76 bought it with their blood. When they fought under the command of George Washington, they endangered their very lives in order to win this liberty. Many sacrificed their lives. Indeed, it was dearly bought! When the Declaration of Independence was signed, Franklin exclaimed: "Now we all will have to hang together, otherwise we will hang separately."
But in 1860 the Star Spangled Banner waved above the heads of more slaves than there were inhabitants in the country at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, for the second time America was plunged into a struggle for liberty for the purpose of making the Star Spangled Banner the true flag of the free. The spirit of '76 could not acquiesce in slavery. And through Abraham Lincoln it entered into a covenant with the great, all-embracing and deeply sympathetic heart—a heart so great that it could enfold the North and the South—so sympathetic that it was able to embrace white and colored people alike, friend as well as foe. This was the great heart that led America through the days of the Civil War—fortunately for this country.
It was this heart that beat in the breast of Lincoln when he as a 22-year old man down in New Orleans saw how human beings were sold in the same way as we nowadays sell cattle. Man and wife were sold to separate buyers and parted never to meet again—parted while they wept as though the heart should burst. Then young Lincoln raised his hand toward heaven vowing: "By the eternal God, if ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I will strike it and strike it hard." This was the Lincoln who led in the Civil War. The man with the great heart was equipped as no one else to win the victory, to maintain the union of North and South and to gain freedom for the Negroes. It was he who said, when victory was an accomplished fact, that he would continue the fight for the rights of man without hesitation, "with malice toward none, with charity to all."
But since the days of the Civil War America has gained a wealth which no other country has ever possessed. You young people are born to claim that, too.
Our youth was born to wealth and to inherit the forefathers of '76 as well as Lincoln, the man with the great heart.
It is, indeed, great to be born to all these things. But it is not easy. It requires a strong and alert youth to make the right use of such treasures.
Added to this it must be remembered that America after the Civil War was reckoned with as one of the Great Powers. When problems of world significance were to be settled, the question was asked: What does America say about it?