USA > California > Addresses delivered before the California Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1913 > Part 2
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In short, Hamilton seemed to be possessed of magical legal acumen, which served him well in a political capacity when struggling to rescue the country from its deplorable financial condition and establish a permanent financial policy.
He was ever vigilant in pointing out the hidden powers of the Constitution, and injecting vitality into what, in the opinion of its opponents, was a lifeless instrument.
Undoubtedly it was his financial policy and the wielding of the powers of the Constitution which developed internal resources of the country and laid the foundation of a great nation. While doubting the merits of the Constitution and its ability to stand the strain of the burden it was destined to bear, yet he bent all his energies to make it a success, and to strengthen all its weak points was his constant aim.
By establishing the doctrine of a liberal construction and the im- plied powers, he injected that vitality into seemingly barren clauses of the Constitution which gives to the whole organism eternal life.
It is said of him that he did the thinking of the time, but his life work indicates that he did the thinking for the future generations as well.
The implied powers so strenuously invoked by Hamilton in advocat- ing the Constitutionality of the National Bank measure, marked the parting of the ways when Hamilton and Jefferson became estranged and traveled divergent paths, the one leading to a close unification
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of the States, and a strong nationality, the other, along the way lead- ing to a larger independence of the States and a union dependent upon their will.
While the political antagonisms and personal enmities thus en- gendered were never healed, yet Jefferson designated Hamilton as the "Colossus of Federalism," and when the contest for President was evenly divided between Jefferson and Burr, Hamilton, as ever con- trolled by the broad, intense, patriotic instincts of his nature, and believing that the government would be endangered by the election of Burr, rose above party and utilized his vast influence in favor of his bitter enemy and secured the election of Jefferson.
Not only in the department of finance, but in all matters relating to the internal and foreign policy of the Government, he was a con- trolling factor among the Cabinet Councillors of Washington.
With Washington, he joined in resisting the clamors of the multi- tude for entangling alliances with France and all foreign powers.
Notwithstanding gratitude would seem to have created an implied duty, at least, for us to join in an alliance with France against England, at the time of the French Revolution, yet, guarding against a prece- dent for posterity, the policy of Washington and Hamilton was strict, genuine neutrality.
Hamilton maintained that gratitude, or Treaty rights, did not extend to the subjects of a King who had aided us, and whom they had deserted and beheaded; that it was not a violation of good faith to refuse to join an alliance with a people, who, under the pretext of reform, had changed to revolution, anarchy, revenge, cold-blooded massacres, cowardly murders and the execution of a king, in rapid succession.
Then was laid the foundation of a policy forbidding entangling alliances with foreign nations. It was also at this period, under the administration of Washington, strongly supported and earnestly ad- vocated by Hamilton, that the so called Monroe Doctrine first had its birth.
His genius, his logic, his intellectuality, his irresistible persuasive power over assembled bodies, even against their will, his convincing power before judicial tribunals, were marvelous revelations alike to his contemporaneous friends and foes; they have been the marvel of a century, and will ever remain so while history is read, and when- ever future generations discuss the rights of man, or attempt to weave into a governmental fabric a fundamental or constitutional guide, Hamilton will be the brilliant headlight to illumine the way, to detect obstructions on the great highway of progression, aid them to escape
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a wreck of their hopes, and enable them to reach the safety station of constitutional liberty.
Whether that fatal wound inflicted by the unerring aim of Burr, on that peaceful July morning, is to be considered, according to popular parlance, untimely, must remain a mooted question, resting in conjecture only.
Ought we to weep for one who dies mid honor's full glow, or shall we say of such a one, who has stepped to the sky, that it is blessed to go when so ready to die ?
In his 47 years of youth and middle age, he accomplished the life work of an octogenarian, and the flickering flame we call life, went out with a mourning nation at his bier, while the plaudits of posterity are still echoing around that monument of constitutional liberty in the upbuilding of which was employed the powerful intellect and wonderful genius of Alexander Hamilton.
TREATY OF PARIS
By William Ford Nichols, D. D., Bishop of California.
Trinity Church, San Francisco, Sept. 5, 1909.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, as the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America drew near, a prize was offered in France for the best essay upon the effect of that discovery upon mankind. And just four years after the Treaty of Paris, as one out- come of that prize, there appeared a book in France entitled, "The Influence of the Discovery of America Upon the Happiness of the Human Race." The writer was rather disposed to look upon it as a great mistake; that the reckoning, when it was all summed up, of the year 1792, which he anticipated by a few years, the condition of the world in his rating at the time of the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, was that the world, on the whole, would have been rather better off if Columbus had not discovered this con- tinent. One redeeming feature that the writer found for that dis- covery-and it shows his perspective-was the fact that quinine had been introduced into Europe as a good specific for fever. That was four years after the Treaty of Paris, and it reflects a world sentiment at that time, utterly ignoring the significance of what was going on in this country.
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Not long ago a distinguished Englishman, in visiting our city, soon after the Spanish War, struck a note (and he was "English of the English") of a decidedly opposite character. Said he, "The United States first told the modern world how to have Colonies-that was in your Revolution. And just after the Spanish War and the splendid achievement of Mr. Day, in diplomatic circles, as in your Revolution- ary War you had taught the world how to foster colonies, you taught the modern world straightforward diplomacy and diplomatic relations, in directness of speech."
When, then, we turn back our thoughts over that stretch of a little more than a century and a quarter, and when we remember that the surrender of Cornwallis in the latter part of 1781 had awakened in Parliament a sense that the American war should come to a close, and voices were lifted there and matters were progressing rapidly, so that two ministries were wrecked before the King was willing to fully recognize our independence; when we study, as you have studied, the complicated condition of things in the world, because England found itself at that time not only with the prospect of making a treaty of peace with America, but with the necessity of making a treaty of peace with France, and one with Spain, and one with The Netherlands; when we turn back and look into the difficulties and the problems that confronted our representatives; it is of the utmost importance first, that out of it all we should pick out what was the opportune moment for our lifting up an ensign to the nations.
First I want to say something about the significance of the event we are celebrating and next to say a word about the signers of the treaty. The significance of the event was not merely that it was the result of a revolution, but that it was, first, a devolution, and next, an evolution. It was a devolution, because it was chartering for the first time in the world's history a power of democracy. The world had known republics before, of course, but never was unfolded to the breeze such a standard of a republic as that republic which was consummated in that treaty.
It was by a sweep of affairs in human history that we realize that democracy is a devolution from aristocracy. that the rule of the people is a distribution from the rule of the autocrat. We saw at that signal time in our history the distribution of the power. Just as we have strong instances, like that of Constantine at the beginning of the fourth century of concentrated imperialism, power gathered up into one man, autocratic power, arbitrary power, power that could speak its voice and have its behest observed over a whole world and over a united world; just as in imperialism we see power gathered up
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and centralized in one man, we see that the history of government power since that time became a history of gradual decentralization, a gradual tearing down, a gradual elimination, gradual distribution from the one center. So that from a Constantine to an American Congress of free people, you see centuries and ages in this kind of progress of human action and human thought. It is that masterly outlook down the ages that you and I need to take when we con- sider the events of a century and a quarter ago. It is for us to see the process which was going on century after century, many an agency, many a country, many a statesman, many a general, contributing to it, building better than they knew, in the great momentum of this object, in its sweep forward to its consummation, until from imperialism you have the sovereign exercise of authority in the people.
It took at least fifteen centuries for that process to work itself to completion. And the doctrine of a Locke and the exigencies of an American freedom were only the ultimate culminations of these powers which had been working underneath all the time. Men had risen against arbitrary assumption, men had given their lives against arbitrary dictation, here a little, there a little, until the power was distributed. But for the first time, did democracy, as a distinct devolution, have this power, when that treaty of Paris was signed in 1783.
It is, then, first, a more noteworthy fact upon which I cannot elaborate further here, that that document registered on the page of human history a devolution of government power from the auto- crat to the democrat.
But it was not merely a devolution. It was instantly taken up as an evolution. Professor Fiske calls attention to that utterance of Tom Payne, when he heard of this treaty, to the effect that "the times that tried men's souls are over." And then Fiske proceeds, in that masterly book he has written of the critical period of American history, to show us that the five years which followed that treaty, from 1783 to the adoption of the Constitution in 1788, was the most critical five years in American history. The treaty was not the end-it was only the beginning of a crisis. This power, dowered upon a whole people, had to be interpreted by that people aright, had to be led into right channels. There was a danger it would be led into wrong channels. It was only ten years later, that, with fire and frenzy, Paris and France were swept over by another kind of revolution, which was not a sane evolution,
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as here, of this democratic spirit. But, thank God, in the three signers of that treaty, we had men competent to meet the crisis, as the American nation always had men ready, always has the man behind the emergency. And when we think of John Adams and John Jay and Benjamin Franklin, when we think of them in that statuesque way, as you remember Benjamin West portrayed them in his unfinished picture, patrician Jay standing there, honest, farmerlike Benjamin Franklin at his side, then sturdy John Adams, the statesman in every feature-they were indeed the men for the times. Curiously enough, every one of them was ex- perienced in the courts with which England was entangled, and our own independence was in some way complicated with all those other wars. Adams had been at the court of The Netherlands, as he had been at the court of France. Franklin had been at the court of France; Jay at the court of Spain. These men of Amer- ica, as our Judge Day after our Spanish war, were on the spot, fur- nished and finished with all that was needed to meet any Machiavellian artifices and ingenuities and intrigues, in a straightforward way carried their point.
I know you will allow me, in the House of God and in the ser- vice of high praise to that Providence Who overruled it for good, while I do not underrate many another aspect of the agency of these three men of that great transaction, while I recognize their diplomacy, their ability, their training, if I, in the brief time for dealing with this subject, stress the way in which they recognized God in this destiny of the nation.
To begin with, as you read that treaty, it has, "In the Name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity" at the top of it. Of course, it may be a mere conventional phrase. But, backed up by what we know of those three men, realizing, as they did, that they were making a great page of American history, we may well consider that it was no mere fictitious nor conventional sense in which they used it or that it had to them, as they realized what they wrote and what they did was under the overruling of that same most high and undivided Trinity, the Providence of Almighty God.
It so happens that the annals of our own Church are rich with the agency of all these three men. John Adams was not of our communion. But, as Minister to England, he was instrumental in bringing some very delicate questions of our own Church at that time before the British Ministry, before the Archbishop of Canter- bury, and in later life, he looked back with especial pleasure upon the instrumentality he had had in settling the matter for us, the
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question of bringing over here the episcopate into America which had been so identified with the state in the country from which we had just become freed.
But, while John Adams was not a member of our communion, both John Jay and Benjamin Franklin were. Benjamin Franklin was vestryman of Christ Church in Philadelphia. Benjamin Frank- lin, curiously enough, suggested a revision of the prayerbook, all of his own, a copy of which Mr. Pierpont Morgan has in his library to-day as a very great rarity. He also, in the delicate diplomacies of the day, had an active agency in adjusting matters for our own Church.
John Jay was an active churchman in New York city, and was a member of our second general convention in 1786. He had a hand in phrasing some of the documents which our Church sent over to the Archbishop of Canterbury and others at the time.
And so they all made direct recognition of the power and agency of religion in envolving the great principle of freedom with which they were so closely concerned. Perhaps an utterance, which, more than anything else, would fix that, was an utterance of Franklin himself, in which he says that if, in public affairs, men would apply the principles of primitive christianity, they would change the face of the world tomorrow. That is Franklin's sentiment, and presumably was the sentiment with which he wrote at that time. It seems to me that, as we have had our Te Deum to-night, and our praises to God, so we should carry away from this service first realization that back of our indebtedness to a Washington, back of our indebtedness to a Chief Justice John Marshall, back of our indebtedness to those men that fought the battles and carried through this critical period our newly freed country, was Almighty God; and it was happily conceived by those who have thought of it, to bring to-night this anniversary celebration within the walls of God's House, and in praises and in prayer to lift up a united voice to Him in recognition of the way in which He rules the destines of nations and in which he has brought about the epochal career of this American Republic.
What is the bearing of this religion upon that evolution of democratic principle? It is this: that at the very beginning it was recognized that this new power of democracy was one which, let loose in the world, had to be tamed, that christianity is the power in the world to tame and assimilate and develop these great forces. They might, like great Niagara, thunder down the ages, carrying
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destruction before them, or they might be chained and harnessed to the use of men. And the power of religion is to take this great underlying power of humanity, and, not in one year, nor in one century, nor in ten centuries, but in many, to take it and turn it to the elevation and betterment of mankind.
That, then, is the concluding thought with which I would leave this topic, that we have here something like the full orbiting of the earth, which is unique in the role of humanity. Upon it depend the great movements of the globe itself, this unloosing, this eman- cipation of the power of the people. It is a great power. It was a devolution from imperial power and autocratic power. The men who did it stood upon the eve of a revolution of democratic power. What did they do? Why, they adapted it to the emerg- encies of the time, and in order to carry the country through those five years of its crisis and give us this century and a quarter of national life, they recognized immediately that the only thing under Heaven that could use this power and save us from carnage and destruction and anarchy was the power of Jesus Christ.
And they learned that lesson from the past. When imperialism was in the world, off in little Judea was born one who was called a King. It was at first but the sneer of the Emperor to recognize such a one as a King. When Jesus was dying and bleeding on the Cross, over a crown, not of brilliants, over a robe not of purple on the imperial throne, but over a robe of scorn, over a crown of thorns, was written in scorn "The King! The King! The King!" It was written in three languages, the language of Greece, the lan- guage of Rome, the language of Judea-the three great world civiliza- tions-"The King!"-the scoffed-at King.
But Christianity took that imperial power in the world, that power of your Caesars, and the one born there after a while vin- dicated, in the three civilizations, in the language of the old Greek civilization, in the Roman civilization, in the Hebrew civilization, vindicated that he was a King. It took three centuries for that imperial purple to wrestle with this new Power and this new King before the standards that fluttered before the Roman legion had on them the Cross of Jesus Christ. Imperialism was tamed in three centuries. And in this modern time, when this new power was let loose, when the power of democracy became a new thing under the sun, Christianity was quick to grapple with it. It has grappled with it one hundred and twenty-six years. We have big problems yet, problems of democracy that are veering towards anarchy, problems to the right and to the left that are puzzling the statesmen
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of the world. But we have only had one hundred and twenty-six years, and it took three hundred years for Christ to tame imperial- ism. If it should take three hundred years to christianize dem- ocracy, does it not make us brave and does it not make us feel that we have the power of history behind us, when we reflect upon that earlier struggle ?
If it is not tamed, if this power of the people shall run riot, why, it will be like that old story which appealed to Tennyson, that story which has its direct association with those stirring times of old, almost coincident with our own attainment of democracy. You remember the key of the Bastile was sent to our Washington, and the story was that, in the old days of that prison, one day there came a pardon to a political prisoner who had been immured there for years. He had settled down into this as his lifelong sentence, the narrow constraint of the cell, the darkness to his eye. One day he walked forth a free man. Some friend, as he went forth, put a few sous into his hand, that he might buy the neces- sities of life until he could turn himself about, and, as he walks forth with elasticity and buoyancy, he suddenly sees a lark in a cage, and it at once impresses him, "There is a prisoner in that cage-there is a prisoner as I was a prisoner. I will not tolerate it a moment. These few coins shall go to buy freedom." Instantly he bought it and took the cage, and, as soon as he could, he opened the door of the cage, and the bird, freed, sped up toward Heaven. But not having known what freedom was, the bird exhausted itself, and dropped dead at his feet. Such will be the fate of human freedom, disenthralled, unless it has something to tame it, to check it, to grasp it and carry it along right lines for human progress and human elevation and human conduct. And so, if we realize that this treaty stood for the devolution from imperial power to the sovereignty of the people, and reflect upon the might of the men who steered it through those critical years, and conceive the evolu- tion of religion bringing it to the benefit of mankind, I believe we put our finger upon a lesson for the voter, a lesson for every man to-day, and that is, to be patient, to use our religion, to vote, to think, to write, to act as if Christ were underneath the things of to-day, and He is only using us in our generation, and perhaps it will be other generations, perhaps it will be three hundred years before it is all accomplished as it was in that older time. But in our day and generation we shall each be doing our part.
And so, in greeting you to-night, Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, I would greet you on the anniversary of this
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treaty as Sons and Daughters of the American devolution, and as Sons and Daughters of the American evolution, as you bring your principle, as you bring your integrity, as you bring your patriotic pride, as you bring your ancestral loyalty, as you bring your religion down to the realization of the fact that religion, in its own way, is to have a part in making American citizenship a proverb for christianized democracy.
PERPETUITY OF THE AMERICAN NATION
By EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR, M. D., Mayor of San Francisco,
At Trinity Church, September 5, 1909.
This is an occasion which might well serve to stir the hearts of all of us. An occasion like this takes us back to the Revolutionary days, when our fathers were indeed the heroes that we have always imagined them to be, and when, after a hard struggle of eight years, the peace was concluded and signed, which we celebrate tonight. I am not here to say anything to you about that occasion. The Bishop has already eloquently said all that is to be said about it. But I am here to speak upon the subject given to me, the "Per- petuity of the American Nation."
That means to me the taking an account of stock: to see how the books stand, what debits there are, what credits there are, and whether or not the credits so outbalance the debits as that we may feel reasonably well assured that our republic will be perpetuated, and will not, as others before it have done, strew the shores of Time with its dismembered fragments.
"We have made extraordinary material progress during the one hundred and twenty-six years since the treaty which started our country unquestioned on an independent career, a material progress beyond all expectations, undoubtedly, of the fathers of our country.
First take the population, which at the time of this treaty was a little more than three millions of people, certainly not as much as four. Now our population cannot be less than ninety millions, and may, perhaps, be more. In the next place, take the increase of our territorial domain. By the treaty we got simply what is now the territory within the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the
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Mississippi River, and not all of that, because some of the country south belonged to France and some to Spain. But from Spain and France and Mexico we received other territory, till now our domain extends to the Pacific Ocean and beyond, for by the con- quest from Spain of the Philippine Islands, the spread of the wings of the American eagle is nearly ten thousand miles.
At the time of the treaty our cities were few, nearly all on the Atlantic seaboard, and small in size. Now behold them-New York, for instance, one of the great metropolises of the world, where in bounteous and multifarious profusion is centered all that is best of American civilization. Indeed, it is the greatest expression of Amer- ican civilization, that expression embracing all that's best as well as all that is worst in our life. Our great cities, with their modern sky-scrapers, are little worlds in themselves. Certainly nothing of that kind could have been in the wildest imaginings of those who signed the treaty which we now celebrate.
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