We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of
a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the
individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our
vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder
increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay
our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty
event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been
the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer
day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon
it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia
as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgement of a service so great, which a
few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent
support of free government throughout the world.
Although a century and a half measured in comparison with
the length of human experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of
governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough
time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of
our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human
conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long
enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the
test of experience.
It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to
proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is
maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and
principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be
sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of
partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the
Declaration of independence and the Constitution of the United States with the
assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice
remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten,
the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the
law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.
It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider
Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred
relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the
uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a
former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who
know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They
have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a
spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of
one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what
took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous
purpose they have become sanctified.
It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes
which led to the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were
largely economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which
interfered with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose
taxes which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal
governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to these
laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a new
spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed
in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized
the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not
be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was
ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature.
Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.
We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of
Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a
movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not
without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who
were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education,
and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance
and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those
who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve
of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open
hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It
brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had
developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations,
but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the
hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the
spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and
mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing
people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain
them.
The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men,
but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a
remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative
capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct
them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were
inclined to withhold action.
While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its
delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was
quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general
instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions
which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came
from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by
Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of
New York, soon adopted a like course.
This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their
constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous
positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of
government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the
Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate
thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after
long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the
preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden
conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and
disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which
rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical
movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was
conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their
constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them
under the law of the land.
When we come to examine the action of the Continental
Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was
set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can
not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance
than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation.
Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history. One
empire after another has arisen, only to crumble away as its constituent parts
separated from each other and set up independent governments of their own. Such
actions long ago became commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the
attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity.
There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that
event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused
it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate
America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.
It was not because it was proposed to establish a new
nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles,
that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in
history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached
by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their
importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration
of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble
regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the
doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain
inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of
government must be derived from the consent of the governed.
If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior
station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can
neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows
as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to
rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether
new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation,
they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But
remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration
of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be
under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and
the plan made there can be no action.
It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence
containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized
and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported
by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the
field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was
not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was
born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time
forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes
this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was
an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary
sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application
bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the
Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.
The idea that the people have a right to choose their own
rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular
attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal
of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their
independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the
British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the
Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on
the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was
displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the
same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of
inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an
assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared
as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly
revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.
But if these truths to which the declaration refers have not
before been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a
fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political
speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect upon
our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been true. But the
principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for
nearly two generations before the advent of the French political philosophy
that characterized the middle of the eighteenth century. In fact, they come
from an earlier date. A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581,
and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev.
Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before
the General Court that--
"The foundation of authority is laid in the free
consent of the people"
"The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the
people by God’s own allowance."
This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist
clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this
movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of
the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered
imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to
have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel
Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise, entitled
"The Church’s Quarrel Espoused," in 1710, which was amplified in
another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil
government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have
been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.
While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent
that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with
great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was
carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the
Scotch-Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making
that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to
independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who
acknowledged that his "best ideas of democracy" had been secured at
church meetings.
That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further
revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and
presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted
popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of
equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and
independent." It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted
with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the
task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very
largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said,
"Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man." Again, "The
end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness
of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate,
honor, and so forth . . . ." And again, "For as they have a power
every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath
this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall
determine." And still again, "Democracy is Christ’s government in
church and state." Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty,
and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise
at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the
consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.
When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it
is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence
should open with a reference to Nature’s God and should close in the final
paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of
a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it
did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say "The
people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated
from heaven."
No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion
that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of
the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which
Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield,
had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation
for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in
England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general
sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the
experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation
of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went
into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search
beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the
writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to
instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached
equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine
image, all partakers of the divine spirit.
Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no
superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must
inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was
their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have
been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the
purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to
express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole
congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great
truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of
it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.
If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the
documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are
bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree
will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of
Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material
but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the
rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are
ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions.
They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in
these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration
will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon
the cause.
We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments
do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and
logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can
create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their
source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own
responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the
government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates
the character of a nation.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is
exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal
of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which
have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may
therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But
that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created
equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is
final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these
propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only
direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward
toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no
rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay
claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but
more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
In the development of its institutions America can fairly
claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years
ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never
possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material
possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The
rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional
guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there
is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is
self-government--the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in
respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the
part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized
expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we
come back to the theory of John Wise that "Democracy is Christ’s
government." The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority
of the Almighty.
On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to
present evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at
home and the ever-broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although these
things are well known, their frequent consideration is an encouragement and an
inspiration. But it is not results and effects so much as sources and causes
that I believe it is even more necessary constantly to contemplate. Ours is a
government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes
go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our
institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart
of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform.
It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.
It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers
made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a
free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the
unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere
influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against each other
and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the
legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with checks
against each other in order that neither one might encroach upon the other.
These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise
has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from
oppression, and there has been an ever-broadening and deepening of the
humanities of life.
Under a system of popular government there will always be
those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While
there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion
that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach
to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of
harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better
understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the
foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain
conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great
blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go
back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts
which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house.
They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men
of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the
mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much
they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other
literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as
great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were
subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational
training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came
under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral
power.
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the
Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the
people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material
things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The
things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material
prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in
our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed
to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink
into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for
the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership
which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more
compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.
