Bearing these guiding principles in mind, let us see in what moment of American history we shall find that incident so connected with greater events, and so expressed as to be “The most dramatic”—that incident toward which all preceding events led, and from which subsequent events have sprung. Let us then select as expressing that incident the most forceful and animated action that would be appropriate to dramatic representation.
The periods of American history are the traditionary, that of discovery and exploration, that of colonization. These three are preparatory, and “American” only in a geographical sense. Then come the period of revolution, that of nationality and rebellion and finally the present—which may be called the period of expansion, since it marks for good or for evil the birth of the nation as a world power.
These periods group naturally into two great classes: I. America as an appanage of Europe. II. America as independent. The transition from one existence to the other took place in an instant of time. Before the Declaration of Independence our nation did not exist; once that document was ratified, the United States was created a nation.
Here, then, is the dividing of the ways; here the act of divine creation of which our forefathers were but the human instruments. This is the one universally celebrated and commemorated moment in our history—the birth of “a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
The great Civil war was but the test whether that nation could endure; so said Lincoln, whom we are learning to know as our greatest statesman. All our subsequent history is but the voyage of the ship of state by the chart then drafted.
Toward the Declaration converge all previous lines of historical development; from the Declaration diverge all the lines along which patriotic statesmanship must hereafter guide the national future. Deviations from these converging and diverging paths have been but blind trails to be painfully retraced.
Here, then, let us repeat, is the focus of our national life.
In what act, in what incident shall we find this moment of time expressed most dramatically?
The streets of Philadelphia were thronged with citizens awaiting news of the action of Congress. Within the old State House were the councilors of the colonies—the group of contemporaries whom Gladstone declared unequaled in the history of the world. One by one the names of the representatives were signed to that document which was to commit them to death as rebels or to immortality as patriots.
As the last name was affixed, a little boy ran from the doorway out into the street, and, tossing his arms above his head, gave forth the tidings of a nation’s birth in the words: