UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF BOSTON TO AMERICAN 
 INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF BOSTON 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIRST 
 CELEBRATION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 MONDAY, JULY $, 1897 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL 
 1897
 
 PRESS OF MUNICIPAL PRINTING OFFICE 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
 
 0f 
 
 IN BOARD OF ALDERMEN, Sept. 2, 1897. 
 Resolved, That the thanks of the City Council be, and are 
 hereby tendered to the Rev. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D., 
 for the very appropriate, interesting and eloquent oration 
 delivered by him on the Fourth of July, in commemoration 
 of the One Hundred and Twenty-first Anniversary of the 
 Declaration of American Independence, and that he be 
 requested to furnish a copy of the said address and his 
 portrait, for publication. 
 
 SjV Adopted unanimously by a rising vote. Sent down for 
 
 <?) concurrence. 
 
 PERLIE A. DYAR, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 IN COMMON COUNCIL, Sept. 23, 1897. 
 Concurred unanimously by a rising vote. 
 
 JOSEPH A. CONRT, 
 %j President. 
 
 Approved Sept. 27, 1897, 
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY, 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 A true copy. 
 
 Attest : 
 
 JOHN M. GALVIN, 
 
 City Clerk.
 
 ORATION. 
 
 MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS : 
 
 Faneuil Hall is the cradle of liberty, and the child 
 was born not far away. It was in the council 
 chamber of the Old State House yonder that " Amer- 
 ican independence was born." 
 
 These are the words of John Adams, whose fea- 
 tures you are looking on. He assisted at the birth, 
 and he has told for us the story. 
 
 He says, speaking of that day : " Otis was a flame 
 of fire. Otis hurried everything before him. Ameri- 
 can independence was then and there born. In fif- 
 teen years the child grew up to manhood, and 
 declared himself free." 
 
 When that moment came, the Congress of the 
 United States was sitting in Philadephia. It had 
 been summoned two years before, on the seventeenth 
 of June, 1774 St. Botolph's day, be it remembered, 
 the saint's day of Boston. On that day Samuel 
 Adams of Boston moved in the Provincial assembly, 
 sitting at Salem, that a Continental Congress should 
 be called at Philadelphia. At Philadelphia, observe, 
 because thre was no English garrison there. Samuel 
 Adams took the precaution to lock the door of the 
 Salem assembly chamber on the inside. While the
 
 6 ORATION. 
 
 motion was under discussion the English Governor 
 Gage's secretary appeared at the outside of the door 
 to dissolve the assembly. But Sam Adams was 
 stronger than he. The delegates were chosen, he 
 was one; James Bowdoin, John Adams, Thomas 
 Gushing and Robert Treat Paine 1 were the others. 
 
 All of these were from Boston; so little was 
 known of the jealousy which dabsters in politics now 
 speak of between the city and the country. There 
 was no such jealousy then, and there is really no 
 such jealousy now; none except in the minds of 
 people who, for their own ends, play with the 
 machinery of government. 
 
 That day, the seventeenth of June, John Adams 
 entered public life, as he says. He presided at the 
 crowded town meeting held on the saint's day in 
 this hall. 
 
 Observe that, excepting him, who by misfortune 
 was not born on this peninsula, all these delegates 
 to that Congress which changed the government of 
 the world were Boston boys. And, almost, of course, 
 as we Latin School boys say, they had learned de- 
 mocracy and liberty as they read their Latin and 
 Greek at our Latin School. Sam Adams himself is 
 now, I believe, unanimously regarded as the author, 
 or father, of American independence. James Bow- 
 doin was afterward governor of the new-born State. 
 
 1 Paine was born In Boston, but for a part of his life he practised law In Taunton. 
 He sat in the Assembly for Taunton, and was regarded as representing the " Old 
 Colony " in the Continental Congress.
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 7 
 
 Thomas Gushing gave place to Gerry, before the 
 declaration. Paine, in his own life, in the life of his 
 son, as in the life of his grandson to-day, never 
 wearied in the service of the nation. 
 
 Two years were to pass before the declaration was 
 drawn and signed. When that time came, our dele- 
 gation had been changed by the substitution of Han- 
 cock for Bowdoin, and Gerry for Gushing. Franklin, ^ 
 another Latin School boy, served with John Adams \ 
 and Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert 
 Livingston, on the committee who made the draft of 
 the declaration. And when the time comes for its 
 signature, John Hancock's name " stands at the top 
 of freedom's roll." We have a fancy, in that Latin 
 School, that, as you look at the forty-five signatures, 
 you can find a resemblance in the beautiful handwrit- 
 ing of John Hancock, of Samuel Adams, of Robert 
 Treat Paine, of Benjamin Franklin and of William 
 Hooper, the five boys who were taught to write when 
 they were at our school. 
 
 We need not be over-modest in Boston when we 
 speak of such men and such times. American inde- 
 pendence was born in our old State House. Sam 
 Adams was the father of American independence. 
 Liberty was cradled in this hall. Franklin and 
 Adams, of those who drew the declaration, were born 
 here. John Hancock was sent to preside over that 
 assembly, and accepted bravely the honors and the 
 perils of his great position. I could not anywhere
 
 8 ORATION. 
 
 give any history, however succinct, of the Declaration ; 
 I could not account for the America of to-day, with- 
 out saying all this no, not if I were addressing 
 the Shah of Persia in his palace in Ispahan. Fortu- 
 nately for me, I am not addressing him. I am 
 speaking to my fellow-townsmen. And in the privacy 
 of this assembly I propose to speak in some detail 
 to-day of the contribution which Boston made in 
 securing the independence of America. I may wander 
 a little from my subject, as I have to say what the 
 people of other parts of this Commonwealth had to 
 do in that business. They are not jealous of us, as 
 we are not jealous of them. 
 
 I HAVE sometimes feared that in his own city 
 John Hancock is not honored as he should be. 
 Woe to the city which neglects the memory of its 
 great men ! I heard with dismay a few days ago 
 that the Sons of the Revolution have not money 
 enough to pay for the bronze statue of Hancock 
 which they have ordered. Why, thanks to Hancock 
 and to the men behind him, there is money enough 
 in Boston to pay for fifty statues in gold to his 
 memory, if the people of to-day understand what 
 Independence means to them ! 
 
 Here was John Hancock, a young merchant of 
 fashion, of family and of wealth things which in 
 those days were highly considered hi Boston. He
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 9 
 
 was surrounded by all the temptations which sur- 
 round young men of fashion, of family, and of 
 wealth in a provincial city, and Boston was then a 
 provincial city. As things go in such cities, the 
 nephew of a rich merchant, surrounded with every 
 indulgence, is not apt to throw himself into what 
 is called rebellion against his king. But such a 
 young gentleman as that, after the lines of rebel- 
 lion are fairly drawn, when all the world knows 
 what he means, accepts what are the critical positions 
 of selectman and of a Boston member of the House of 
 Assembly. That means that, at the age of twenty-nine, 
 he accepts the lead of Sam Adams, who is already 
 laying his large plans for the independence of this 
 empire. The royal governors are surprised and dis- 
 tressed. In ways known to such men from that 
 tune to this time, they try to separate Hancock 
 from his alliance with the people. He is offered 
 this, and he is offered that, and he refuses the offers. 
 And so, after the battle of Lexington, when George 
 III. offers a pardon to almost everybody else in 
 Massachusetts, the two great exceptions are Samuel 
 Adams and John Hancock. 
 
 The day when the young Hancock was chosen into 
 the General Assembly, John and Sam Adams hap- 
 pened to meet 011 the mall at the head of Winter 
 street. They walked up and down the mall, and 
 as they came in sight of Hancock's elegant mansion, 
 the older man said to the younger : " This town has
 
 10 OKATION, 
 
 done a wise thing to-day; they have made that 
 young man's fortune their own." And John Adams 
 says more than once that John Hancock was one 
 of the younger men whom Samuel Adams, so to 
 speak, took in training as soon as he saw their 
 ability to serve the Commonwealth. When one 
 remembers that others in the same company were 
 the second Josiah Quincy and Joseph Warren, one 
 sees how great is the compliment implied. There is 
 not a youngster of us all who might not be proud 
 to have been selected as a special friend of freedom, 
 and a possible martyr in her cause, by such a leader 
 as Samuel Adams. 
 
 In later life, when there was time to quarrel, the 
 master and his pupil parted. For thirteen years 
 Hancock and Adams were not friends, although 
 George III. had written their names in the same 
 line, and so writing, had helped their immortality. 
 But, really, that quarrel is very little to you and 
 me. Because Hancock was a rich man and lived in 
 a palace, and Adams was a poor man, who lived by 
 the scanty profits of his retail shop, we can well see 
 that there might have been petty issues which 
 should part them in daily life. No matter for that. 
 For nothing can part them in the great record of 
 history. That record is that the older man con- 
 ceived of the Declaration of Independence, and that 
 the younger man, though he had a rope around his 
 neck, was the first to sign that declaration. Showy
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 11 
 
 and pompous in his daily life, if you please, but he 
 knew the responsibilities of wealth so well that in 
 time of famine, brought on by King George, his 
 agents had the charge of the relief of three hundred 
 families. Shortsighted as to etiquette in his dealings 
 with Washington, you say? But this is because he 
 has the honor of Massachusetts at heart. He will 
 not, by any etiquette, let Massachusetts take a lower 
 place than belongs to her. 
 
 John Adams named George Washington, the Vir- 
 ginia colonel, to the command of the American 
 army just before Warren died at Bunker Hill. 
 John Adams writes privately, what he did not say 
 in public, that up to that time, the services and the 
 sacrifices of John Hancock in the cause of the 
 nation had been immeasurably beyond those of 
 George Washington. Time has gone by, and there 
 is fame enough for both of them. But you and I 
 are not going to forget that, when the moment for 
 battle came, and the blow was to be struck which 
 should declare independence, our own John Hancock, 
 bone of our bone and blood of our blood, was 
 found worthy to be named by the side of George 
 Washington. 
 
 And by way of showing that wealth is not always 
 vulgar, and that the man of the largest wealth may 
 still be the truest servant of the people, it is worth 
 while to say, in passing, of these two leaders whose 
 names have thus come down together in the history
 
 12 ORATION. 
 
 of this day, that George Washington was the richest 
 man in Virginia and John Hancock the richest man 
 in Massachusetts. Such men were not ashamed nor 
 afraid of the probable honor of being the first mar- 
 tyrs when they committed themselves as the fast 
 friends of America. 
 
 Massachusetts may refuse her statues if she doubts 
 as to the achievements of her sons, but she does not 
 doubt nor refuse such an honor when it is proposed 
 for John Hancock. 
 
 In those days men were praised when they made 
 sacrifices for the nation. Nay, States and towns ex- 
 pected to make sacrifices ! I see, now, to my disgust, 
 that ev^rj^Statads. expected to^stand for itself, and 
 to forget that it is one member of aTliatioEL Hancock 
 
 - -better 0n~tKaTgreat occasion when Washing- 
 ton prepared to bombard and burn Boston, Hancock 
 wrote in words which we will inscribe on the base of 
 his statue : "All my property is there, but may God 
 crown your attempt with success. I most heartily 
 wish it, though individually I may be the great- 
 est sufferer." Such is the motto of statesmen, of 
 States, and of their senators. 
 
 MR. CHOATE said of Virginia that she was "the 
 mother of great men and was not unmindful of 
 her children." The remark is eminently true. 
 But I am apt to think that Massachusetts, the
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 13 
 
 leader in the revolution, mother of great men, is 
 sometimes unmindful of her children. The truth is 
 that in the birthright of every son of Massachusetts 
 he inherits the duty which is a privilege, or the 
 privilege which is a duty, that first of all he 
 must live to the glory of God. A Massachusetts boy 
 or a Massachusetts man, a Massachusetts girl or a 
 Massachusetts woman, must not live for himself 
 alone no, nor for herself alone. First of all we 
 live for the common good and for the public ser- 
 vice. I say this is ingrain in our make-up ; it is a 
 part of our birthright privilege. And so it is that 
 you shall have a man like Kobert Treat Paine, a 
 Massachusetts lawyer, who is taken from his daily 
 duty to go to Philadelphia and engage in the direct 
 work of treason. He is sent there, and he goes 
 there ; openly and before the world he " devises war 
 against the king." This is the definition of treason. 
 It is a pity if we forget such men ; if we do not, 
 on these great occasions of history or of ceremony, 
 repeat their names and commemorate their service. 
 Here is your type, then, of the Massachusetts law- 
 yer. In that remarkable case in which these people, 
 hot with rebellion, decided the right and wrong of 
 the Boston massacre by the calm methods of a civic 
 trial, Paine appears on the one side and his friend 
 Quincy on the other. He signs the Declaration of 
 Independence ; he is the first attorney-general of 
 Massachusetts ; he is a judge in the Superior Court.
 
 14 ORATION. 
 
 I do not wonder, and I do not complain, if, after 
 a century, this honored name brings up, first, the 
 memory of another honored Robert Treat Paine, of 
 our own fellow-citizens, who is drawn by the deter- 
 mination to serve mankind into the homes of the 
 poorest, in his relief of those most unfortunate. 
 And farther back, such is the magic of song that a 
 thousand men will sing : 
 
 "Ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves," 
 
 and shall remember the Paine who wrote those 
 words, for one who remembers his father, the 
 stern jurist whose name I spoke just now. But 
 there are justly honors enough for all. 
 
 FOE a generation after the Declaration no one 
 could have said or sung a word with regard to the 
 great struggle without speaking of Joseph Warren, 
 another of these younger men whom Samuel Adams 
 loved. It does not seem to me that in our time he 
 receives the tribute which is his due. Whoever else 
 was second, the people of Massachusetts in 1775 
 counted Barren first. TE was 5ecause~~they had 
 given him the rank of a major-general in their 
 militia that he thought it his duty to appear at the 
 redoubt at Charlestown, where he waived the com- 
 mand, which was in the hands of a more experi- 
 enced soldier, and where he fell. He died too soon
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 15 
 
 for his own fame. In the work of those critical years, 
 which needed courage and decision as perhaps no other 
 years in history ever needed them, Warren had shown 
 already that he was a leader of men. But in our time 
 he has shown this only to those who study old archives, 
 who disinter old letters from their graves, and then 
 sadly ask themselves what might have been. 
 
 To the country, his loss seemed at the time 
 almost irreparable. The language used by those who 
 knew him, and by those who only knew about him, 
 is the language of the most profound regret, as if 
 the national cause in his death had sustained a 
 great disaster. We know to-day, what they did not 
 know, that the battle fought on St. Botolph's day, 
 on our own hill yonder, was not only the first 
 pitched battle of the American revolution, but that 
 in a certain sense it was the last. For that battle 
 really decided the contest, as I think all military 
 men would say. From that time till the surrender 
 at Yorktown, no English general had the temerity 
 to order troops to attack any military work fitly 
 manned by Americans. 1 From that time till the end, 
 the war on the part of England was generally, with 
 a few distinguished exceptions, a series of Fabian 
 campaigns campaigns of endurance and waiting, of 
 hoping for a collapse which never came. 
 
 1 Ido not forget the desperate attack on Red Bank in 1777 and Its terrible failure. 
 This was the Bunker Hill of Pennsylvania; but this attack was ordered, not by an 
 English officer, but by Donop, a Hessian, who died of his wounds. And Howe, who 
 had seen Bunker Hill, would never have made so costly an error. Poor Donop died 
 saying, " I die the victim of my ambition, and of the avarice of my sovereign."
 
 16 ORATION. 
 
 It is of such campaigns that, at the end of six 
 years, poor Cowper sang that the English troops 
 
 " With opium drugged, 
 Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave." 
 
 Such is the lesson which was taught by the 
 "embattled farmers" who surrounded Warren when 
 he died. But the men of their time did not under- 
 stand that lesson. In that time men spoke of 
 Bunker Hill with tears of rage. They spoke of it 
 as I remember six and thirty years ago we spoke 
 here of the first Bull Run. In the midst of that 
 rage there was this pathetic sorrow, that Warren, 
 the first man in Massachusetts, most beloved and 
 most trustedpliad lost "RIs life. His children were 
 adopted by tEe State, a monument to his memory 
 was ordered, which the piety of other generations 
 built. And to-day, after four generations have passed, 
 you and I must not forget the service which had 
 won such sorrow. His monument, thank God and 
 our fathers, is secure! 
 
 Listen to what Daniel Webster said of him who 
 knew hundreds of men who had known Warren 
 well. Daniel Webster was not used to exaggerate. 
 And he knew what he was saying: 
 
 But, ah! Him! the first great martyr in this great 
 cause ! Him ! the premature victim of his own self -de voting 
 heart. Him ! the head of our civil councils, and the des- 
 tined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought
 
 FIFTH OP JULY, 1897. 17 
 
 hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit. Him ! 
 cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety 
 and thick gloom, falling, ere he saw the star of his country 
 rise ; pouring out his generous blood, like water, before he 
 knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of 
 bondage ! How shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle 
 the utterance of thy name ! Our poor work may perish, but 
 thine shall endure. This monument may moulder away; 
 the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to the level of 
 the sea, but thy memory shall not fail. Wheresoever among 
 men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of 
 patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred 
 with thy spirit. 
 
 WHEN Washington arrived in Cambridge, at the 
 beginning of July, 1775, he found the English army 
 blockaded in Boston. The battle of Bunker Hill had 
 been fought. Strong works on Prospect Hill and the 
 other hills in Somerville made any advance of the 
 English troops over Charlestown Neck impossible. 
 Efficient works on Charles river blocked the passage 
 against any boats sent from the squadron up that 
 river. The strong fortification had been begun which, 
 under the auspices of my friend here, has just now 
 been restored, on the heights of Roxbury, and 
 blocked the way for any such " military promenade " 
 as Percy had made in April of that year. These 
 works had been designed by Henry Knox, another of 
 our Latin School boys. 
 
 He kept the leading bookstore in Boston, at the 
 head of King street, a place where English officers
 
 18 ORATION. 
 
 looked in for the latest books. He kept himself 
 well supplied with the books on tactics and all mil- 
 itary art; he studied these books himself while he 
 sold them to the enemies of his country. 
 
 When Paddock, famous for the elms, left Boston 
 for England, he recommended Knox as his successor 
 in command of the artillery company. With such 
 training, Knox joined Ward at Cambridge, as soon 
 as Ward took command of the army. He recom- 
 mended himself at once to Washington. By Wash- 
 ington's appointment, probably at Knox's own 
 suggestion, he was sent to Ticonderoga to bring 
 across the mountains the artillery which Ethan Allen 
 captured there. With the arrival of that artillery, 
 the works which he had built could be properly 
 armed. It would have been hot shot from his 
 cannon which would have destroyed the wooden 
 town of Boston had it been determined, in John 
 Adams's phrase, to " smoke the rats out of their 
 hole." 
 
 From the first, Washington saw the ability and 
 merits of this great man. Then, at Washington's sug- 
 gestion, he was made a brigadier in the Continental 
 army. At Washington's request, after Knox's distin- 
 guished service at Yorktown, he was made a major- 
 general. Washington made him secretary of war and 
 
 . of the navy, when the nation became a nation. It 
 ~\ 
 
 is hard to say what would have become of the 
 infant cause of independence had it not been for
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 19 
 
 Henry Knox. The finest line in Dwight's " Conquest 
 of Canaan" gives Knox his epitaph: 
 
 "And Knox created all the stores of war." 
 
 One is glad to say that the vigor of such a man 
 is preserved generation after generation among his 
 descendants. More than one of them has done 
 essential service to the state. It was a grandson of 
 Knox who led the way in the naval attacks of the 
 nation in the capture of Fort Fisher and of Mobile. 
 
 I MUST leave to some other orator, better equipped 
 for his task than I am, to give the whole of this 
 sacred hour on some future Fourth of July to the 
 memory of Samuel Adams, the father of American 
 independence. He, too, like Hancock, was so eager 
 in later life that Massachusetts should not lose one 
 leaf from her laurel crown that he was coy and 
 doubtful when the constitution of the nation was 
 brought to him for his approval. Yet here, too, it 
 is to be said that, when the moment came for the 
 great decision, Adams was willing to sacrifice his own 
 pride for the welfare of the whole. His decision 
 saved the constitution. He was too great a man to 
 sacrifice Massachusetts on the altar of "separate 
 sovereignty. " 
 
 Later generations have remembered fondly, what in 
 commencement week is worth repeating, the subject
 
 20 ORATION. 
 
 of his master's address at Cambridge thirty years 
 before the revolution : " Whether it be lawful to resist 
 the supreme magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot 
 otherwise be preserved." 
 
 I am fond of thinking that from that moment 
 forward Adams must have called together around 
 him the younger men of Boston, perhaps in some 
 social club of which we have forgotten the name, in 
 which they were indoctrinated with the eternal princi- 
 ples of home rule, in which they learned the cate- 
 chism of independence. Samuel Adams saw, I should 
 say, before any other public man saw, that the colo- 
 nies were in fact independent. It is a pity that in 
 our anniversary orations we do not always recollect 
 this. The declaration which we celebrate to-day was 
 a declaration of past history and present truth. 
 "These united colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
 free and independent States." 
 
 It is not the declaration of a future which one 
 hopes for, as the people of Crete to-day might declare 
 that they will be independent to-morrow and in the 
 future. It is the declaration of what has been for 
 generations, of what is on this Fourth of July, 1776, 
 of what shall be till time shall end. The State of 
 Massachusetts was independent under its old charter. 
 It corned its own money, it made its own wars, it 
 signed its own treaties of peace. When King 
 Philip, who could call more men into the field than 
 the colony of Massachusetts could, attacked her,
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 21 
 
 Massachusetts fought with him and conquered him. 
 And when some ~&iends in .England asked~ why 
 
 Massachusetts had not_ sent to England. _jox__assist- 
 ance, Massachusetts proudly replied that England 
 had no business in the affair. In fact, England did 
 not send an ounce of powder or lead for that death 
 struggle. Even after William III., who knew what 
 power was, and who meant to hold it in his hands 
 after he sent us the second charter, the colony 
 taught every successive governor that he was 
 dependent upon Massachusetts. Every judge and 
 every governor must receive his salary from the 
 Massachusetts treasury. 
 
 And when she chose, Massachusetts erected monu- 
 ments to her friends in Westminster Abbey. There 
 were the vestiges of a certain royal dignity; the 
 lion and the unicorn were on the town house; the 
 crown and the mitre were in King's Chapel. But 
 the crown could not search a house unless the 
 colony granted the writ of assistance. 
 
 That is what the Declaration of Independence 
 expresses in those central words : " These united 
 colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and 
 independent States." 
 
 "Daughter am I in my mother's house, 
 But mistress in my own." 
 
 JOHN ADAMS himself has left to us the history 
 of his time, in which he filled a place so large.
 
 22 ORATION. 
 
 Impetuous even to audacity, a magnificent hater, he 
 made enemies with the greatest ease. It was once 
 said of the Adams family, that "they never turn 
 their backs on any but then* friends." It has fol- 
 lowed with John Adams that he, also, has not had 
 the honor that he deserved. He was not in the 
 ranks of battle, but in debate and in diplomacy he 
 showed that fight was in him, to the very sole of 
 his foot, if he were sure that he was in the right. 
 
 When the English commissioner, Oswald, sent the 
 treaty of peace home from Paris, he said: "If we 
 had not given way in the article of the fishery, we 
 should have had no treaty at all. Mr. Adams 
 . . . declared that he would never put his hand 
 to any treaty if the restraints proposed were not 
 dispensed with." 
 
 They asked Adams what he would do if they 
 insisted on these restraints. "Fight twenty years 
 more," he said. Seventy-eight years after, his 
 illustrious grandson had to write in much the same 
 strain to the minister of the same nation. And yet 
 there have been men called statesmen in America 
 who have offered to cede these rights of free fishing 
 in the ocean as they might give away a cigar stub ! 
 
 John Adams was no such man as that. Unfortu- 
 nately for him, and for his country, therefore, he 
 was jealous of other men; he suspected other men. 
 He suspected Franklin; he suspected Jay, both as 
 pure patriots as ever lived. But no man ever
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 23 
 
 suspected him of swerving from his country's cause, 
 in his own interest or in that of any other man. 
 The country first the country second the country 
 always ! Such men as that do not need statues for 
 their memorial ! But all the more they deserve 
 them. 
 
 Now I come to Benjamin Franklin. An accom- 
 plished scholar, born in Germany, once asked me 
 why in Boston we were so chary of our honors to 
 Benjamin Franklin, seeing Boston is best known 
 by half the world as Franklin's birthplace. I could 
 only say, as I said just now, that we had so many 
 great men to commemorate that we could not say 
 half we would about any of them. But it was a 
 poor apology. 
 
 Franklin is the oldest of our signers of the 
 declaration. At the time of Sam Adams's birth, 
 Franklin is leaving Boston for his Philadelphia 
 home. Fifty-three years after, as a representative of 
 Pennsylvania, he signs the declaration in what my 
 friend, the old writing-master, Mr. Jonathan Snell- 
 ing, used to call in one of his writing book copies 
 the " Boston style of writing." 
 
 In the same year he crossed the ocean to France, 
 and arrived in Paris just before Christmas. Lord 
 Stormont, the English ambassador, at once reported 
 his arrival in England, to be told in reply by his
 
 24 ORATION. 
 
 chief, Lord North, that he need not distress himself 
 "about the movements of an old man of seventy." 
 But before the old man of seventy had done with 
 France he had dictated the treaty of independence. 
 He had compelled George III. the Brummagem 
 Louis XIV. to surrender half his empire, and by 
 far the better half, as it has proved. 
 
 So majestic was Franklin's diplomacy that when 
 the English ministry compelled the House of Com- 
 mons to ratify the treaty, it was openly said that 
 America had seven negotiators to make it, while the 
 King of England had none. 
 
 So was it that the town of Boston will the 
 Mayor let me say the Latin School? sent the dip- 
 lomatist to Europe who crowned the work of 
 independence, as in Samuel Adams she had kept at 
 home the far-seeing statesman who began it. These 
 are our jewels! 
 
 Far in advance of all other men in the work of 
 independence are the two greatest men yet born in 
 America Washington and Franklin. Two men 
 who honored each other, absolutely and without 
 jealousy. One, in America, established independence ; 
 one, hi Europe, made independence possible. The 
 croakers tell us that in government by democ- 
 racy the people cannot find their true leaders, and 
 do not trust them when found. Tell me in what 
 oligarchy, in what empire, was ever a people so 
 loyal to a leader, in good report and in evil fortune,
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 25 
 
 as the people of America to Washington? And in 
 what empire or in what oligarchy has any nation 
 ever found a diplomatist who is to be named on the 
 same day with Benjamin Franklin? 
 
 Of leaders in lower rank I must not speak even 
 to name them. First, second and last, here is the 
 old Puritan sense of duty the present service of the 
 present God. It is in the hunger of Valley Forge; 
 it is in the wilderness tramp under Arnold; it is 
 in the injustice of Newburgh, when the war was 
 done. Duty first ! To serve where God has placed 
 me! 
 
 And when the field of such service is their own 
 field the triumph is simply magnificent. 
 
 I must not even attempt to describe the work of 
 Massachusetts ^aF~~seaT~in~tfe war ot independence. 
 Enough to say that the treaty" of peacewas forced 
 on England by seven years of losses at sea. Her 
 enemy was Massachusetts. In the year 1777 King 
 George employed 45,000 men in the English navy, 
 in all oceans of the world. In the same year New 
 England employed against him 80,000 men upon the 
 Atlantic alone. Of these nine-tenths were from 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Remember that, through the war, America had 
 more men on the sea fighting the king than Wash- 
 ington ever commanded on the land. Of these sea 
 kings, nine-tenths, at the least, were from Massachu- 
 setts. From first to last more than 3,000 prizes
 
 26 ORATION. 
 
 were taken from the English merchant marine by 
 the American cruisers and privateers, most of them 
 by the men of Massachusetts. And here is the 
 reason why, when the war ended, the merchants of 
 London insisted that it should end the same men 
 who, when it began, were hounding Lord North and 
 George III. to their ruin. 
 
 BUT this relentless clock [on the front gallery] 
 will not let me name the gallant seamen who 
 
 ' ' Bore the stars and stripes 
 O'er the oceans of the world." 
 
 The Boston children gave the clock to this hall, 
 in fear that Boston orators might speak too long. 
 
 I have named only the signers of the Declaration, 
 and the very first of the soldiers. Let us ask Mr. 
 Tarbell and Mr. Benson to paint for us such a 
 memorial as Rembrandt would have given to Hol- 
 land if ever Holland had such a group of men. 
 It shall be a painting of several of them together. 
 They shall sit around the hospitable board of Han- 
 cock. He shall make his peace with Sam Adams, 
 so that he may give a fit welcome to Franklin on 
 some visit. The portrait of Warren shall look down 
 upon the gathering. John Adams shall be leading 
 in the talk, Robert Paine listening serene, while the 
 younger Paine wants to be humming "Hail Colum-
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 27 
 
 bia" to Knox, his friend. And we will hang the 
 picture in the Old South, or in the town house on 
 King street, or in Faneuil Hall. 
 
 AND here we turn from yesterday to to-morrow. 
 And here are our lessons for our boys and girls, for 
 our young men and maidens. They need not study 
 them in catechisms. They need not repeat them 
 in words. They are object lessons, to be learned 
 as they play ball in sight of Sam Adams's State 
 House, or beneath the shadow of the monument 
 on Bunker's Hill. 
 
 I was talking once of education with a Japanese 
 prince. He said to me, in that supernaturally good 
 English in which they speak : " We do not give so 
 much time to arithmetic, in our schools, as you do. 
 We think arithmetic makes men sordid." 
 
 So do I. And I asked, a little nervously, "To 
 what do you give the time?" 
 
 " We teach them morals and history." 
 
 Morals and history! Might I not say that our 
 boys and girls can drink in their morals as they see 
 their history? This is why we urge on the teach- 
 ers and on the boys and girls, in the studies of 
 the Old South and in the work of the schools, 
 to begin with home history, and to make house- 
 hold words of its lessons. To learn first and last 
 that they are not alone; that they hold even part
 
 28 ORATION. 
 
 and privilege with so many others in the duty 
 and the fame of a city not second to any city 
 in the world. First and last, duty; duty to each 
 and all, right and left, who in this city live. For 
 this they shall be bred and trained in the tradi- 
 tions of their fathers. 
 
 They shall learn, first, second and last^Jojtrust^the 
 peopleofwhom they are and for whom they live. 
 We shall not discourage any meeting of the people, 
 whether round a tree in the Common or here in 
 Faneuil Hall. We shall exult in every effort to 
 lift up the people, that there may be less and 
 less of the labor or drudgery which wears men 
 out, and more and more work in which spirit 
 rules matter. We shall exult in every form of 
 education, the Public Library, the evening schools, 
 Mr. Hill's and Mr. Stewart's institutes of industry, 
 which lift up the people and give the people its 
 chance against any smaller competition. For this, 
 and for this only, are we to study the past, that 
 "we, the people" of Massachusetts, may rule Mass- 
 achusetts more happily in the future! 
 
 The boy who takes a stranger to the telegraph 
 office on State street, shall say to him : " Here 
 Crispus Attucks died. He is our first martyr; he is 
 from a despised race, but Massachusetts made him 
 a freeman, and so he died for her." The boy who 
 takes his cousin to see the azaleas in the garden, 
 shall say: "It was here that Washington hoped
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 29 
 
 to enter Boston on the ice, and so we have put 
 his statue here." The Charlestown boy who takes 
 his friends to the Navy Yard shall say : " It was 
 here that the boats from the other side brought 
 over the Redcoats, and here they rallied after run- 
 ning down the hill." The boy who carries a par- 
 cel through Washington street shall say: "Here 
 was ' Orange street;' here was 'Newbury street;' 
 but we moved those names when we named 
 it for Washington, after he rode in, in triumph, 
 while the English fleet, retiring, whitened the bay 
 yonder." 
 
 I believe if I were in your Honor's chair next 
 January, on one of those holidays which nobody 
 knows what to do with, I would commemorate the 
 first great victory of 1775. To do this well, 
 I would issue an order that any school-boy in 
 Boston who would bring his sled to School street 
 might coast down hill all day there, in memory 
 of that famous coasting in January, 1775, when 
 the Latin School boys told the English general that 
 to coast on School street was their right "from 
 time immemorial," and when they won that right 
 from him. 
 
 We have made a pleasure park of the old Fort 
 Independence, thanks, I believe, to our friend Mr. 
 O'Neil. Let no young man take his sweetheart 
 there, where sheep may be grazing between the 
 useless cannon, without pointing out to her the berth
 
 30 ORATION. 
 
 of the "Somerset" on St. Botolph's day, the day 
 democracy began her march round the world. Let 
 him show her the bastions on Dorchester Heights. 
 Let him say to her : " It was here that Lord Percy 
 gathered the flower of King George's army to storm 
 the heights yonder. And it was from this beach 
 that they left Boston forever." 
 
 When he takes her to his old school-house he 
 shall ask first to see the handwriting of some of 
 our old boys of Franklin, of Sam Adams, of John 
 Hancock, of Paine, of Bowdoin, and of Hooper. 
 They shall not stop the car at Hancock street 
 without a memory of the man who first signed the 
 Declaration. They shall cross the pavement on 
 Lynde street, and he shall say: "These stones have 
 been red with blood from Bunker Hill." And when 
 this day of days comes round, the first festival in 
 our calendar, the best boy of our High School, or 
 of our Latin School, shall always read to us the 
 Declaration in which the fathers announced the 
 truth to the world. 
 
 And shall this be no poor homage to the past 
 worship deaf and dumb^As the boy goes on his 
 errand he shall say, " To such duty I, too, am born. 
 I am God's messenger." As the young man tells 
 the story to his sweetheart he shall say, "We are 
 God's children also, you and I, and we have our 
 duties." They-4^ 
 " God needs me that this city may still stand in the
 
 FIFTH OF JULY, 1897. 31 
 
 f ore_ front of his people's land. Here am I. God 
 may draf trne "toT--sertIe~^special duty, as he drafted 
 Warren and Franklin. Present ! Ready for service ! 
 Thank God, I come from men who were not afraid 
 in battle/) Thank God, I am born from women 
 whose walk was close to him. Thank God, I am 
 his son." And she shall say: "I am his daughter." 
 
 He has nations to call to his service. "Here 
 am I." 
 
 He has causeways to build, for the march forward 
 of his people. " Here am I." 
 
 There are torrents to bridge, highways in deserts. 
 "Here am I." 
 
 He has oceans to cross. He has the hungry 
 world to feed. He has the wilderness to clothe in 
 beauty. " Here am I." 
 
 God of heaven, be with us as thou wert with the 
 fathers ! 
 
 God of heaven, we will be with thee, as the 
 fathers were ! 
 
 Boys and girls, young men and maidens, listen to 
 the voices which speak here; even from the silent 
 canvas. 
 
 ' ' You spring from men whose hearts and lives are pure 
 Their aim was steadfast, as their purpose sure. 
 So live that Children's Children in their day 
 May bless such Fathers' Fathers as they pray."
 
 A LIST 
 
 BOSTON MUNICIPAL ORATORS 
 
 BY C. W. ERNST.
 
 BOSTON ORATORS 
 
 APPOINTED BY THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES. 
 
 For the Anniversary of the JBoston Massacre, March 5, 1770. 
 
 NOTE. The Flfth-of -March orations were published in handsome quarto editions, 
 now very scarce; also collected in book form in 1785, and again in 1807. The oration 
 of 1776 was delivered in Watertown. 
 
 1771. LOVELL, JAMES. 
 1772. WARREN, JOSEPH. 
 1773. CHURCH, BENJAMIN. 
 1774. HANCOCK, JOHN.* 
 1775. WARREN, JOSEPH. 
 1776. THACHER, PETER. 
 1777. HIGHBORN, BENJAMIN. 
 
 1778. AUSTIN, JONATHAN WILLIAMS. 
 
 1779. TUDOR, WILLIAM. 
 1780. MASON, JONATHAN, JUN. 
 1781. DAWES, THOMAS, JUN. 
 1782. MINOT, GEORGE RICHARDS. 
 1783. WELSH, THOMAS. 
 
 For the Anniversary of National Independence, July 4, 1776. 
 
 NOTE. A collected edition, or a full collection, of these orations has not been made. 
 For the names of the orators, as officially printed on the title pages of the orations, 
 see the Municipal Register of 1890. 
 
 1783. WARREN, JOHN. 1 
 1784. HIGHBORN, BENJAMIN. 
 1785. GARDNER, JOHN. 
 
 a Reprinted in Newport, R. I. ,1774, 8vo, 19 pp. 
 
 1 Reprinted in Warren's Life. The orations of 1783 to 1786 were published in large 
 quarto; the oration of 1787 appeared in octavo; the oration of 1788 was printed in 
 email quarto; all succeeding orations appeared in octavo, with the exceptions stated 
 under 1863 and 1876.
 
 36 APPENDIX. 
 
 1786. AUSTIN, JONATHAN LORING. 
 1787. DAWES, THOMAS, JUN. 
 
 1788. OTIS, HABKISON GRAY. 
 
 1789. STILLMAN, SAMUEL. 
 1790. GRAY, EDWARD. 
 1791. CRAFTS, THOMAS, JUN. 
 1792. BLAKE, JOSEPH, JUN. S 
 1793. ADAMS, JOHN QuiNCY. 2 
 1794. PHILLIPS, JOHN. 
 1795. BLAKE, GEORGE. 
 
 1796. LATHROP, JOHN, JUN. 
 
 1797. CALLENDER, JOHN. 
 
 1798. QUINCY, JOSIAH. 2 ' 8 
 
 1799. LOWELL, JOHN, JuN. 2 
 1800. HALL, JOSEPH. 
 
 1801. PAINE, CHARLES. 
 
 1802. EMERSON, WILLIAM. 
 
 1803. SULLIVAN, WILLIAM. 
 1804. DANFORTH, THOMAS. 2 
 
 1805. BUTTON, WARREN. 
 
 1806. CHANNING, FRANCIS DANA.* 
 
 1807. THACHER, PETER. 2 ' 6 
 
 1808. RITCHIE, ANDREW, JUN. S 
 
 1809. TUDOR, WILLIAM, JUN. S 
 1810. TOWNSEND, ALEXANDER. 
 
 1811. SAVAGE, JAMES. 2 
 
 1812. POLLARD , BENJAMIN . 4 
 
 1813. LIVERMORE, EDWARD ST. LOE. 
 
 1 Passed to a second edition. 
 
 a Delivered another oration in 1826. Quincy's oration of 1798 was reprinted, also, 
 in Philadelphia. 
 
 Not printed. 
 
 On Feb. 26, 1811, Peter Thacher's name was changed to Peter Oxenbridge 
 Thacher. (List of persons whose Names have been Changed in Massachusetts, 1780- 
 1892, p. 21.)
 
 APPENDIX. 37 
 
 1814. WHIT WELL, BENJAMIN. 
 
 1815. SHAW, LEMUEL. 
 
 1816. SULLIVAN, GEORGE. 2 
 
 1817. CHANNING, EDWARD TYRREL. 
 
 1818. GRAY, FRANCIS GALLEY. 
 
 1819. DEXTER, FRANKLIN. 
 1820. LYMAN, THEODORE, JUN. 
 1821. LORING, CHARLES GREELY. S 
 1822. GRAY, JOHN CHIPMAN. 
 1823. CURTIS, CHARLES PELHAM." 
 1824. BASSETT, FRANCIS. 
 
 1825. SPRAGUE, CHARLES.' 
 
 1826. QUINCY, JOSIAH. T 
 
 1827. MASON, WILLIAM POWELL. 
 
 1828. SUMNER, BRADFORD. 
 
 1829. AUSTIN, JAMES TRECOTHICK. 
 
 1830. EVERETT, ALEXANDER HILL. 
 
 1831. PALFREY, JOHN GORHAM. 
 
 1832. QUINCY, JOSIAH, JUN. 
 
 1833. PRESCOTT, EDWARD GOLDSBOROUGH. 
 
 1834. FAY, RICHARD SULLIVAN. 
 
 1835. HILLARD, GEORGE STILLMAN. 
 1836. KINSMAN, HENRY WILLIS. 
 
 1837. CHAPMAN, JONATHAN. 
 
 1838. WINSLOW, HUBBARD. "The Means of the Per- 
 
 petuity and Prosperity of our Republic." 
 
 1839. AUSTIN, IVERS JAMES. 
 1840. POWER, THOMAS. 
 
 1841. CURTIS, GEORGE TICKNOR. S "The True Uses 
 
 of American Revolutionary History." 8 
 1842. MANN, HORACE.' 
 1843. ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS. 
 
 9 Six editions up to 1831. Reprinted also in his Life and Letters. 
 i Reprinted in his Municipal History of Boston. See 1798.
 
 38 APPENDIX. 
 
 1844. CHANDLER, PELEG WHITMAN. " The Morals of 
 
 Freedom." 
 
 1845. SUMNEK, CHARLES. I(> " The True Grandeur of 
 
 Nations." 
 
 1846. WEBSTER, FLETCHER. 
 1847. GARY, THOMAS GREAVES. 
 
 1848. GILES, JOEL. " Practical Liberty." 
 
 1849. GREENOUGH, WILLIAM WHITWELL. "The Con- 
 quering Republic." 
 
 1850. WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY." "Washington and 
 the Principles of the Revolution." 
 
 1851. RUSSELL, CHARLES THEODORE. 
 
 1852. KING, THOMAS STARR." " The Organization of 
 Liberty on the Western Continent." 12 
 
 1853. BIGELOW, TIMOTHY. u 
 
 1854. STONE, ANDREW LEETE. S 
 
 1855. MINER, ALONZO AMES. 
 
 1856. PARKER, EDWARD GRIFFIN. "The Lesson of 
 
 '76 to the Men of '56." 
 
 1857. ALGER, WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE." "The Genius 
 
 and Posture of America." 
 
 1858. HOLMES, JOHN SOMERS. S 
 
 1859. SUMNER, GEORGE. 16 
 
 1860. EVERETT, EDWARD. 
 1861. PARSONS, THEOPHILUS. 
 
 1862. CURTIS, GEORGE TICKNOR. S 
 
 1863. HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL." 
 1864. RUSSELL, THOMAS. 
 
 8 Delivered another oration In 1862. 
 
 There are five editions; only one by the City. 
 
 10 Passed through three editions in Boston and one in London, and was answered 
 in a pamphlet, Remarks upon an Oration delivered by Charles Sumner . . . .July 
 4th, 1845. By a Citizen of Boston. See Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, by 
 Edward L. Pierce, vol. ii. 337-384. 
 
 There is a second edition. (Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1850. 49 pp. 12.) 
 
 u First published by the City in 1892. 
 
 18 This and a number of the succeeding orations, up to 1861, contain the speeches, 
 toasts, etc., of the City dinner usually given in Faneuil Hall on the Fourth of July.
 
 APPENDIX. 39 
 
 1865. MANNING, JACOB MERRILL. "Peace under 
 Liberty." 
 
 1866. LOTHROP, SAMUEL KIRKLAND. 
 
 1867. HEPWORTH, GEORGE HUGHES. 
 
 1868. ELIOT, SAMUEL. "The Functions of a City." 
 
 1869. MORTON, ELLIS WESLEY. 
 
 1870. EVERETT, WILLIAM. 
 
 1871. SARGENT, HORACE BINNET. 
 
 1872. ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS, JUN. 
 
 1873. WARE, JOHN FOTHERGILL WATERHOUSE. 
 
 1874. FROTHINGHAM, RICHARD. 
 
 1875. CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN. 
 
 1876. WINTHROP, ROBERT CHARLES." 
 
 1877. WARREN, WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 1878. HEALY, JOSEPH. 
 
 1879. LODGE, HENRY CABOT. 
 
 1880. SMITH, ROBERT DiCKSON. 18 
 
 1881. WARREN, GEORGE WASHINGTON. " Our Repub- 
 
 lic Liberty and equality Founded on Law." 
 
 1882. LONG, JOHN DAVIS. 
 
 1883. CARPENTER, HENRY BERNARD. "American 
 
 Character and Influence." 
 
 1884. SHEPARD, HARVEY NEWTON. 
 
 1885. GARGAN, THOMAS JOHN. 
 
 14 Probably four editions were printed in 1857. (Boston: Ollice Boston Daily Bee. 
 60 pp.) Not until November 22, 1864, was Mr. Alger asked by the City to furnish a 
 copy for publication. He granted the request, and the first official edition (J. E. Far- 
 well & Co., 1864, 53 pp.) was then issued. It lacks the interesting preface and appendix 
 of the early editions. 
 
 There is another edition. (Boston : Ticknor & Fields, 1859. 69 pp.) A third 
 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1882. 46 pp.) omits the dinner at Faneuil Hall, the 
 correspondence and events of the celebration. 
 
 There is a preliminary edition of twelve copies. (J. E. Farwell & Co., 1863. (7), 
 71 pp.) It is " the first draft of the author's address, turned into larger, legible type, 
 for the sole purpose of rendering easier its public delivery." It was done by " the 
 liberality of the City Authorities," and is, typographically, the handsomest of these 
 orations. This resulted in the large-paper 75-page edition, printed from the same 
 type as the 71-page edition, but modified by the author. It is printed " by order of the 
 Common Council." The regular edition is in CO pp., octavo size.
 
 40 APPENDIX. 
 
 1886. WILLIAMS, GEORGE FREDERICK. 
 
 1887. FITZGERALD, JOHN EDWARD. 
 
 1888. DILLAWAT, WILLIAM EDWARD LOVELL. 
 
 1889. SWIFT, JOHN LINDSAY." "The American Citi- 
 
 zen." 
 1890. PILLSBURY, ALBERT ENOCH. "Public Spirit." 
 
 1891. QUINCY, JosiAH. 20 "The Coming Peace." 
 
 1892. MURPHY, JOHN ROBERT. 
 
 1893. PUTNAM, HENRY WARE. "The Mission of 
 
 Our People." 
 
 1894. O'NEIL, JOSEPH HENRY. 
 
 1895. BERLE, ADOLPH AUGUSTUS. "The Constitution 
 and the Citizen." 
 
 1896. FITZGERALD, JOHN FRANCIS. 
 
 1897. HALE, EDWARD EVERETT. "The Contribution 
 
 of Boston to American Independence." 
 
 There is a large paper edition of fifty copies printed from this type, and also an 
 edition from the press of John Wilson & Son, 1876. 65 pp. 8. 
 
 " On Samuel Adams, a statue of whom, by Miss Anne Whitney, had just been 
 completed for the City. A photograph of the statue is added. 
 
 19 Contains a bibliography of Boston Fourth of July orations, from 1783 to 1889, 
 Inclusive, compiled by Lindsay Swift, of the Boston Public Library. 
 
 * Reprinted by the American Peace Society.
 
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