Drexel University - Spartan Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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l 4 t Z it had l'o1'titied liberty against the power of the Crown, America appeared still more worthy off admiration for the sat'eg'nards which, in the deliberations of a single memorable year, it had set. up against the power ot' its own sovereign people. It 1'esembled no other known democracy, for it respected freedom, authority, and law. And the same great historian declares that in that Revolution 'tthe principle gained ground that a. nation' can never abandon its fate to an authority it cannot control -a very modern principle that, ladies and gentlemen, which Americans placed at the founda- tion ot' their new government. So t'ar Lord Acton. You t'ared forth then on a new era disciplined by a. great principle. Your life llowed on with some vieissitudes, but be- tween the years 1850 and 1865 it ran between deep and beetling gorges, and the ship otf state was often nearly wrecked on hidden rocks. Tlirougliont tllat period you were Si'1'll,9,'g'lill,fZ,' for a. great principle. The North believed that it had entrusted to it the keep- ing ot? the sacred law of liberty, and believed that liberty and law must be extended: but the Southerner, even otf to-day, the old Southerner, will not admit that he too was not tigllting' for liberty. He maintained that he also was defending, not the institution of slavery in itsell', but the principle of civil liberty, and so you went on with your strug- gle. And what wonderful men you had! 'How your people were educated, and how the world was educated! NVhat orators you possessed in NVebster and Lincoln! 'l'he mean- ing off that struggle was gathered up in one man of the people, who to-day stands out before you as your second great hero, and is admired by us, the other branch of the ling- Iish-spealcing people, as one of the most niagnitieenti products of our race, Abraham Lin- coln. ,ln that great war you fought for liberty, you fought for morality as you conceived morality, and your people were edueated and disciplined into a new character by reason ol? the struggle. it is obvious what that issue had to be, and l may state it in these words of President NVilson: The South was conservative and not creative. It was against the drift and destiny of the time. It protected an impossible institution and a. belated order of society. lt withstood a. creative and imperial idea, the idea of a united people and a single law of freedom. And so your present generation, the children of that past age, understand .t'reedom by reason of the sacrifice of those years. For a very few moments-because 1 shall not detain you mueh longer-let me turn now to the other branch. ln Great liritain, in he1' colonies and dominions also, in the nineteenth century, we see expanding freedom. Responsible government, sensitive to the voice of the people, had extended its influence not only in the home land, but in its overseas dominions, guaranteeing freedom founded on reverence for law, her spirit is also set forth in literature. I think I may take two representatives to illustrate what ' 26 , l

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read you two short selections, one from Chatham and the other from Burke. Here speaks Cha.tha.m in 1775, the year before the Declaration of Independence, urging the Prussian rulers of those days--because they were simply Prussian rulers--to be generous and to understand those who were sons, he says, and not basta1'ds. His words are: This universal opposition to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen. It was obvious from the nature of things and from the nature of man, and, above all, from the eontirmed habits of thinking, from the spirit of Whiggism flourishing in America. The spirit which now pervades America. is the same which formerly op- posed loans, benevolenees and ship-money in this country, is the same spirit which roused all England to action in the Revolution, and which established at a. remote era. your liber- ties, on the basis of that grand t'undamental maxim of the Constitution that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent. To maintain this principle is the common cause of the YVhigs on the other side of the Atlantic and on this. It is the alli- ance of God and nature, immutable, eternal, lixed as the lirmament of heaven. S0 far Chatham. And you know l3urke's incomparable speech on Conciliation with America, in which he warns the Commons that Americans who snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze cannot be deprived of their freedom by the Parliament without attacking some of those principles or deriding some of those feelings for which our ancestors have shed their blood. His closing appeal contains these words. He is addressing the Commons: As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply the more friends you will have. The more ardently they love liberty the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that g1'ows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia: but until you become lost to all feelings of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. And yet they misused the monopoly, and your fathers at the Revolution came forth and founded the greatest democracy that the world had seen. Let me read from perhaps the most learned of English historians as to that-Lord Acton, Professor of History at Cambridge. This is what he said: American independence was the beginning of a. new era. It established a. pure democracy, but it was democracy in its highest perfection, armed and vigilant, less against aristocracy and monarchy than against its own weakness and success. Whilst England was admired for the safeguards with which in the course of many centuries 25

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t t t I mean-Dickens and illllil0li61'i1y. ltlngland is 0tll.Cll called perIidious Albion, hypo- critical, Pharisaical. There may be grounds for this charge, but there have been no 1llU1'0 scathing indictments given of the hypocrisy and l.'harisaism ot Britain than have been penned by ll'hackeray and Dickens. ltf you want to know how vile tl1e 'ltlnglislnnan can be, just turn to his own novelists. And yet you rise from the reading otf their stories convinced that on the whole the people are honest, that on the whole they do love right- eouness, that on the whole they try to do the square thing. That is the quality of their life as seen in their literature, and they have carried that spirit abroad. Just as you fought for a. moral ideal in the Civil 'War, so they have prolfessed that they live for a moral ideal. I can think of no liner representative of the righteousness of Iflngland than John lfiright, who embodied, like Milton, the English character in its purity, and who taught his age, as XV01'tlSXV01'tll says, not otf .lohn liright, but ot' Milton, HIIIZIIIIIGVS, virtue, freedom, powerf, And England sent forth its men in multitudes to extend 1l1e sense of law and order over this world. Adventurers, many otf them have been, but slavery they have put down, piracy they have stamped ontg and Scott who died at the South Pole may be taken as a good representative ol' the very gallant gentlemen who have gone into the t'ar distant parts ot' the earth and who, in spite ot' whatever may be said, Nr. flllilll'lll2lll, have maintained the freedom ot? the seas. Here then, we have the two streams that have been disciplined by a. very varied experience after their connnon origin. lVhat is the result? The result is that both on your side of the Atlantic-well, we Canadians a1'e on the same side, and I should say on our side of the Atlantic, though in times past we we1'e not ,associated very closely-the two branches of the ltlnglish-speaking peoples have an interest in law and in liberty. One of the most distinguished recent historians otf the thought otf the nineteenth century tells us that the distinctive interest of the English-speaking philosopher is ethics or morals, and that their ethics or morals are based upon the coneeption of law as being a divine order, that through the mind off the lflnglish-speaking peoples there runs the view that there is a spiritual sanction behind righteousness, and, at the same time, while we obey the law of righteousness, we must be free in order that we may act as our conscience bids us aet. That principle has been enforced by the experience otf our common history, and in that we are one. We must be free who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spoke, the faith and morals hold which Milton held. Fll1'tll01'lll0l'C, when the law goes forth from your Congress and is interpreted by your Supreme Court, it is accepted by your people. Law is sacred to you. It is an abiding principle of your lite, and you say that it must be just, and yet within it you must have liberty. Again we are involved in a ghastly struggle. The question now before us is, Shall law prevail, not only within our own borders, but the world over? Shall international 27 t 1 l t t t t I r i I t l w 1 1 l t ,. V t l lt l V, 1 t l li