gree of prosperity which we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time, of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves, we feel more attached, the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age and race and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these, men-descended by blood from our ancestors-among us, perhaps half of our people, who are not descendants at all of these men; they are men who have come from Europe-German, Irish, French and Scandinavian -men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood they find they have none. They cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they

feel that that moral sentiment, taught in that day, evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.

5

(February 21, 1861, Address to the Senate of New Jersey.-Life by Hanaford, p. 69.)

Away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen "Weem's Life of Washington." I remember all the accounts there given of the battlefields and struggles for the liberty of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at that time, all fixed themselves on my memory more than any single Revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early impressions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking

then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common that those men struggled for. I am exceedingly anxious that that thing which they struggled for, that something even more than national independence, that something that held out a great promise to all the people of the world in all time to come-I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be happy, indeed, if I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, His almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.

6

(October 15, 1858, Speech at Alton, Ill.-Debates, p. 225.)

I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say that all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal-equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This they said and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually en

joying that equality, or yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors, everywhere.

7

(June 26, 1857, Speech at Springfield, Ill.-Life and Speeches by Howells, p. 181.)

The assertion "That all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be-as, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling-block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants and they meant, when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them, at least, one hard nut to crack.

8

(June 26, 1857, Speech at Springfield, Ill.-Howells, p. 182. Answering Judge Douglas' argument that the Declaration was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown.)

My good friends, read that carefully over some leisure hour, and ponder well upon it; see what a mere wreck-mangled ruin-it makes of our once glorious Declaration. "They were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain?" Why, according to this, not only negroes but white people outside of Great Britain and America were not spoken of in that instrument. The English, Irish and Scotch, along with white Americans, were inIcluded, to be sure; but the French, Germans and other white people of the world are all gone to pot along with the Judge's inferior races!

I had thought that the Declaration promised something better than the condition of British subjects; but no, it only meant that we should be equal to them in their own oppressed and unequal condition. According to that it gave no promise that having kicked off the king and lords of Great Britain we should not at once be saddled with a king and lords of our own. I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere, but no it merely "was adopted for the purpose of justifying