USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > A discourse pronounced on the inauguration of the new hall, March 11, 1872, of the Historical society of Pennsylvania, No. 820 Spruce street, Philadelphia > Part 3
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But why need I speak of churches, of colleges, of libra- ries, of halls, or of houses in ancient, remote, and busy parts of our city, and in regions of it where many present can in any ordinary visits never find their way. Si monu- mentum quæris, aspice! What a monument of the wealth, the intelligence, the science, the humanity of our province
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does the institution upon whose venerable walls we look- upon whose ancient soil we stand-exhibit to this day; this great institution whose corner-stone declares its history :
IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST MDCCLV,
GEORGE THE SECOND HAPPILY REIGNING,
(FOR HE SOUGHT THE HAPPINESS OF HIS PEOPLE,)
PHILADELPHIA FLOURISHING,
(FOR ITS INHABITANTS WERE PUBLIC SPIRITED,) THIS BUILDING
BY THE BOUNTY OF THE GOVERNMENT
AND OF MANY PRIVATE PERSONS
WAS PIOUSLY FOUNDED
FOR THE RELIEF OF THE SICK AND MISERABLE.
MAY THE GOD OF MERCIES BLESS THE UNDERTAKING :
an institution, the very grandeur of whose walls tells a history ; an institution so large in its dimensions, so admi- rably conceived in its plan; so effectively set in operation, with such wisdom and beneficence combined, that not- withstanding the great growth of this city in all directions since the day when it was founded, no new institution of the same kind was for near a century afterwards, ever greatly needed, or put into any operation.
Indeed we can hardly read the history of anything useful, humane, good, great, or illustrious, in provincial times, and not find the name of our city or our state connected with it. In Pennsylvania was established as far back as 1690 the first paper-mill in the provinces; here was printed at a later day the first monthly, magazine; here our own West, whose genius and humanity alike, the building in which we are now assembled was erected to honor, displayed in 1745 his
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first ability." Here so far back in provincial days that scarcely a trace remains, Bartram, the greatest natural botanist that the world has seen, established those botanic gardens which made the wonder of the time, and procured for him the title of American Botanist to George III. Here, first in America, were taught to assembled classes, the wonders of our frame which anatomy discloses; here founded those schools which make it still our privilege to live in a city where medical science is in advance of what is known else- where. Here, in 1693, George Keith issued his remon- strances by published essay against slaveholding; remon- . strances that were followed up in later days by Ralph Sandeford, Benjamin Lay, and Anthony Benezet, and by a line that never failed until the impressive act, passed by our legislature almost in the same moment that we became an independent state, for the gradual abolition of slavery within our borders, was accomplished ; t prelude all of it to that great ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio,-the ordinance I mean of 1787, which finally declared :
" There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted:"
an ordinance to which we owe, no doubt, as a remote cause the extirpation of the curse of slavery from our whole land. And the excellent men of our colony did not seek to strike off the fetters from our slaves only to leave them free. They were men as wise as benevolent. They knew that before liberty is to be desired for any one, it is requisite to know in what way it will please the freedman to exercise his new possession ; whether to make it a blessing to himself and others or much the reverse of it to both. They, therefore, devoted themselves-Benezet especially-to the education of
* He was then but seven years old. The building in which the Histori- cal Society now meets was originally built to receive and exhibit West's picture of Christ Healing the Sick, painted by him as a gift to the Penn- sylvania Hospital.
+ Act of March 1st, 1780.
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the blacks; to instilling into them, from childhood, the principles of good morals and religion, and in giving them such other instruction as that when they came to full age they would prove an advantage to society rather than its nuisance.
There it all stands! Religion, education, science, litera- ture, the arts, domestic dignity and discipline, prudence, charity! The whole conjugation of these excellent things exhibited and coming to us in this day from our old colony with a fulness and perfection which any other city of the provincial times will seek in vain to show, and which is hardly exceeded by like institutions or efforts of the repub- lic anywhere! Surely the men to whom we owe these things were great men in intellect, good men in principle, loving men in heart! Ought not their names, and memo- ries, and acts to be kept by their descendants in perpetual freshness ? If gratitude forgot its office, civic pride-per- sonal interest itself, I was about to say -- would perform the dnty.
I know not whether to call it the misfortune of our prov- ince or the happiness of our state, that the lustre of these colonial annals will be forever dimmed by the different glo- ries of the Revolutionary and the Republican epochs; by events, all of them immortal, and with every history of which the name of Philadelphia will be indissolubly promi- nent.
We speak much of the Congress of 1776. The whole nation turns its eyes already to this city. The civilized world will do so when the centenary comes.
The aspect in which popular apprehension chiefly or alone beholds the men of 1776, is that of their assertion of popular rights; their determination to maintain such rights at every cost; their bold defiance of kingly power; their disregard in the cause of liberty of every consequence. And these, no doubt, are great features of the picture. But there are others which we must view with them, or we shall have no true estimate of the men of those times and of that Congress.
The same Declaration of Independence which was made
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by the Congress of 1776 was made anew, with no great change of words, by a convention of traitors and rebels in 1861; men who exhibited a defiance of the government under which they had lived as bold as that exhibited by our ancestors to the British crown; men who disregarded, in the cause upon which they had entered, every consequence ; men, too, who endured not badly every consequence against odds almost as great as that which met our ancestors. And the resemblance holding good in these respects, the men of Montgomery and Richmond fondly fancied that they had done by the. United States in 1861, just what the United Colonies had done by Great Britain in 1776. Their friends in England said the same.
But vast was the difference between the men, and history -no history better than that of Pennsylvania-teaches wherein the difference was. It is a difference which it is well in these times to note; for it is a difference which made the war of 1776 a just and glorious struggle, such as Heaven itself would seem to favor, and leaves the insurrection of 1861 a foul, impious, and monstrous rebellion, wholly out of the course of moral nature-such as hell alone could gen- erate.
On the 15th July, 1774, there assembled in this city depu- ties chosen from counties all through the province. Among them were men, afterwards, some in the Congress of 1776; some high in the army of the Revolution; some among those who framed the Federal Constitution. Braver men, more patriotic men, men more truly devoted to the interests of America, or more determined to maintain them than many in this assembly, there were none throughout the land. It is alike curious and profitable to read their reso- lutions. I read a few of them to you from a contemporary pamphlet.# Some were passed unanimously, some by ma- jorities only. These were passed unanimously :
* An Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great Britain over the Colon- ies in America, with the Resolves of the Committee for the Province of Pennsylvania and their Instructions to their Representatives in Assembly. Philadelphia, 1774, pp. 127.
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"1. That we acknowledge ourselves and the inhabitants of this province liege subjects of IIis Majesty King George III, to whom they and we owe and will bear true and faithful allegiance.
"2. That as the idea of an unconstitutional independence on the parent state is utterly abhorrent to our principles, we view the unhappy differences between Great Britain and the Colonies with the deepest distress and anxiety of mind; as fruitless to her, grievous to us, and destructive of the best interests of both.
"3. That it is therefore our ardent desire that our ancient harmony with the mother country should be restored and a perpetual love and union subsist between us, on the principles of the constitution, and an interchange of good offices without the least infraction of our mutual rights.
"5. That the power assumed by the Parliament of Great Britain to bind the people of these Colonies 'by statutes in all cases whatsoever' is unconstitutional, and therefore the source of these unhappy differences.
"6. That the act of Parliament for shutting up the port' of Boston is unconstitutional; oppressive to the inhabitants of that town; dangerous to the liberties of the British Colonies; and, therefore, that we consider our brethren at Boston as suffering in the common cause of these Colonies.
" 9. That there is an absolute necessity that a Congress of depu- ties from the several Colonies be immediately assembled, to con- sult together and form a general plan of conduct to be observed by all the Colonies, for the purpose of procuring relief for our suffering brethren, obtaining redress of our grievances, prevent- ing future dissensions, firmly establishing our rights, and restor- ing harmony between Great Britain and her Colonies on a con- stitutional foundation.
"10. That although a suspension of the commerce of this large trading province with Great Britain would greatly distress mul- titudes of our industrious inhabitants, yet that sacrifice, and a much greater, we are ready to offer for the preservation of our liberties. But in tenderness to the people of Great Britain as well as of this country, and in hopes that our just remonstrances will at length reach the ears of our gracious sovereign, and be no longer treated with contempt by any of our fellow-subjects in England, it is our earnest desire that the Congress should first try the gentler mode of stating our grievances, and making a firm and decent claim of redress."
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With what respect to the government " at home," with what deliberation, with what humanity, and on what solid foundation did these men proceed ! They " consulted much, pondered much, resolved slowly, resolved surely." How unlike "Immediate Secession " and the mad shouts and madder acts of 1861 ! It was not until all prospect of relief from remonstrance had become hopeless, and a prospect of relief from independence become plain ; not until the evil to be removed was sore and pressing and the good to be attained unequivocal in nature and almost certain in result, that the Declaration was made. And up to the last moment it was made by many with infinite reluctance, and only because they felt that a grave and overruling necessity obliged them to it ;- in their own words, "impelled them to the separa- tion." These men felt the weight of moral responsibility in all that they did ; felt, in the language of a venerable citi- zen of our own,* that war was a tremendous evil; that come when it would, unless it came in the necessary defence of national security, or of that honor under whose protec- tion national security reposed-it came too soon, too soon for national prosperity, too soon for individual happiness, too soon for the frugal, industrious, and virtuous habits of a people, too soon perhaps for precious institutions; and that the man who for any cause save the sacred cause of public security, which made all wars defensive-the man who for any cause but that-should promote or compel this final and terrible resort, assumed a responsibility second to none -nay, transcendently deeper and higher than any-which man can assume before his fellow man, or in the presence of God his creator.
When such men declared independence, it was time that . independence should be here; and independence was achieved. They did not bring war and all its attendant horrors, invasion, death, devastation, and bankruptcy, upon a peaceful and most happy land, only to see at the end of it, their general and his army captives, their president a fugitive ;. to find the gracious government against which they raised
* Horace Binney, in Congress, 1884-5.
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rebellion more powerful than before; the seats of legislation once filled by themselves the possession of their slaves; and the whole region where they live involved by their acts, in such a condition that no man can foresee whether it is to be governed in future times by bayonets or by black men.
Neither is it possible, I think, for any dispassionate man, British or American, in this day, to read such a pamphlet as that which I hold in my hand, and of which many like ones are on our shelves-all in some senses ephemeral, and but for the efforts of societies like our own destined to disap- pear-without perceiving that the statesmen of that day did but assert the exact principles of the British constitution as laid down by the " old Whigs" of England in 1688; I mean by Mr. Lechmere, General Stanhope, Mr. Walpole, Sir Jo- seph Jekyll, Lord Somers, and Lord Talbot. Only by a study of this sort of literature can we perfectly comprehend how it was that Lord Chatham-" whose object was Eng- land " as much as " his ambition was fame "-though he came dying into the House of Lords to utter his last breath against our independence, had exerted his whole energies in defence of the American cause in all its vicissitudes and aspects, and contributed more to its success than any man living but Washington ;*- comprehend perfectly the declara- tion of Colonel Barre, " The people of America are as truly loyal as any subjects which the king has;"-though he added, in prophetic vision, "But they are a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them to the last if ever they should be violated;"-comprehend especially how Mr. Burke, of all men, should have been our constant and consistent friend; Burke who thus discourses on the subject of revolution of which we speak :
" The speculative line of demarkation where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act or a single event which deter- mines it. Governments must be abused and deranged indeed · before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in
* See the Quarterly Review, vol. Ixvi, p. 190; Ib. 263.
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that lamentable condition, the nature of the disease is to indi- cate the remedy to those whom nature has qualified to admin- ister in extremities this critical, ambiguous, and bitter potion to a distempered state. Times, and occasions, and provocations will teach their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold from love of honorable danger in a generous cause; but with or without right, a revolu- tion will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good."*
Such were the statesmen-Chatham, Barre, Burke-by whom was maintained that opposition of the Colonies to Great Britain which ended in the great Congress that gives to Philadelphia the first of its modern glories, the Congress of '76. How unlike the Congress of Montgomery which professed to be its imitator, the vain remonstrances of the most gifted and eloquent son of the South has not left us without a record.t
But the glory of 1776-the rupture of political bands- the subversion of ancient government-resistance and revo- lution-is not our only glory. Equal and different fame re- mains. For here was assembled the Convention of 1787, by which was framed the Constitution of these United States; a convention which numbered some of the greatest geniuses for organizing government that the earth has yet seen. That same hall which we name the Hall of Independence, was the Hall of the Constitution as well. That same chair which Hancock occupied in 1776, Washington filled in 1787 .¿ Here, in our city, was reconstructed "the fabric of demolished government;" here were reared " the well- proportioned columns of constitutional liberty;" here was framed together " the skilful architecture which unites na- tional government with state rights, individual security, and public prosperity " . . that " more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw."
* Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Works, Boston ed., 1839, vol iii, p. 49; and see Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Ib. 348. t See Appendix II. # See Appendix III.
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In this city-in yonder hall-it was all done. The nation gives Philadelphia a centenary in 1876. In thirteen years afterwards she will owe us another centenary still !
Here too first assembled the completed Congress of the United States under the Federal Constitution ;* and here met every Congress-five in number-which sat before the present century ; the great Congresses by which were chiefly framed those organic laws (as in one sense we may call them), by which the vast and complicated system of the Federal government was shaped, and put in action, and in obedience to which it still continues to move.f And with those Con- gresses came their crowning glory, the presence and the Presidency of Washington. Of nine sessions of Congress held during his term, seven were held in this our city.
Of those great deeds which give immortality to our land- deeds with whose fame the earth is full, and whose conse- quences seem destined, " like a sea of glory, to spread from pole to pole "-this, our state, and this our city, was the birth- place. Runnymede itself can be more easily forgotten, and with less ingratitude be disregarded by the people of Eng- land, than can Philadelphia by the people of these United States. Shame upon any Congress, forty-second or forty- second hundredth, if heaven shall give the nation such, which shall dare by any slight to do irreverence to HER! It is not us that they offend but the heroes of '76; the statesmen of '87, the legislators of '91 to '99, the very image and spirit of Washington. For "here was his home; here he resided for a longer time than he did in any other place, his own Virginia excepted ; here six most important years of his life were passed; here, the house in which he lived is shown ; the seat in which he sat in church still pointed out; persons here yet survive who have felt the touch of his hand upon their childish heads; from our city he gave forth that great
* Rhode Island, the last of the old thirteen states to ratify the Constitu- tion, did not do so till May 29th, 1790; and no senators or representative, came from her till Congress had left New York.
t The first two sessions of the first Congress were held in New York. The third session of it, and all the sessions of all subsequent Congresses in the Presidency of Washington, here.
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paper in which he bade his countrymen 'farewell,' and this spot will be among the last where his memory will cease to be revered, and the last where the love of that Union and that Constitution which was so near to his great heart will ever be forgotten."*
Men and women of Philadelphia, if we expect that others shall not forget these things, we must see to it that we for- get them not ourselves. By that blessing of Heaven which is promised to thousands in the righteous, the glories of our state and city are not the glories of the past alone; the glories of Venice and Verona, of Pisa and Pavia; of Ra- venna and of Rome-" an existence gone by, where shadowy forms rehearse in silent show the deeds that once resounded or which elsewhere resound !" Our state and our city have been ever going onwards in wealth and fame. Gettysburg triumphs over Germantown. The power of our state has become that of an empire. The boundaries of our city have been enlarged till miles, unless by scores, can't measure them; our population has increased even beyond what Burke in a former century considered marvellous. The foreign commerce which he described, has been succeeded by manufactures which transcend it an hundred fold. The " eight or nine thousand wagons, drawn each by four horses," which brought the product of our provincial farms to the city markets, are as nothing in comparison of the mighty engines and the polished roads which lay at our doors the products of a continent; and, the city of William Penn is at this moment the seat and centre of a power which turns into very branches of its roads the railways which other states have vaunted as their mighty "trunks;" a power which amazes all around us by its sway.
But this is " the active," "the striving," and, of much that preceded it, " the forgetful," "the destructive." In this career of external prosperity, there is nothing that we revere. The home of William Penn has been levelled with
See Griswold's Republican Court, 2d edition, 1859, p. 253.
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the ground .* The ancient court-house, where Benjamin Franklin sat in judgment, and Andrew Hamilton poured forth his eloquence, has been torn, stone from stone.t The very highways pass over its foundations ; no man can define its site; nothing remains to tell so much as that it ever was, but the fading emblem of departed royalty which hangs on yonder walls.# These, indeed, were the monuments of very ancient times. But places which our own recollections should have hallowed, are reverenced as little. We have laid our sacrilegious hand upon the very home of Washing- ton.§ Even that sacred abode is degraded to pursuits of gain. Its front and rear walls gone, and little left remaining but portions of the interior work, the stairways, and the ceilings!
Our ancient Senate chamber remains, indeed, a spacious chamber still; but changed and turned to common use. Hundreds enter it daily ; but who in the crowds and con- flicts of a county court room is awed by any recollection that in that same hall-in the presence of an assemblage not less august than was convened for the first occasion-Wash- ington was a second time inaugurated President ; | that there
* I refer, of course, to the venerable house best known as Penn's, and where he long resided-built originally I think for his dear friend "Sam. Carpenter "-in Second Street, at the south corner of Norris's Alley. The house in Letitia Court which Penn owned still stands, though much de- graded. It at least ought to be secured.
¡ Dr. Franklin certainly sat as a judge of the Common Pleas of Phila- delphia in A.D. 1749, how long before and after I cannot affirm. He says that he withdrew from judicial duties in consequence of " finding that more knowledge of the common law than he possessed " was necessary to enable him to act " with credit" in that capacity. Works, Sparks's ed. Boston, 1840, vol. i, p. 162.
In Brown's Forum, vol i, p. 582, there is a bill of exceptions signed by him, Edward Shippen, Joshua Maddox, and other justices in the case of William r. Till, June Term, 1749.
¿ An ancient painting with the royal arms of England and the letters A. R. (Anna Regina), formerly hanging, as tradition attests, over the bench of our ancient Common Pleas, &c., in the old court-house which stood in the middle of Market Street, at the west line of Second, erected in 1707, and destroyed with the demolition of the old market houses some few years ago.
¿ No. 524 Market Street, now converted into a shoe store, and occupied by Conover, Dorff & Co.
March 4th, 1793. When President Washington was inaugurated at
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for eight years, in the apostolic era of our country, assembled the Senate of the United States; the Senate of Ellsworth and Cabot, and Schuyler and King, and Morris, and Ross, and Bingham, and Stockton, and Izard ; the patriotic White its chaplain ? Who, now entering it, bethinks him that in that same hall it was, and of senates there assembled, that John Adams has declared that he had been "an admiring witness of a succession of information, eloquence, and in- dependence which would have done honor to any senate in any age."*
And our ancient Hall of Representatives! how changed in form ! how marred in use and aspect ! divided into many pieces and used for everything! Who, in the scenes of a Quarter Sessions, amidst the trials of thieves and burglars, or in a Common Pleas, which has recently displaced the dis- gusting jurisdiction,-who among the petty wrangles of a tax collector's office-could believe, if he were told it, that he was within those same walls where Fisher Ames defended, in his memorable speech, Washington and the treaty of Mr. Jay; within those same walls where John Marshall vindi- cated the action of the Executive under it, in that conclu- sive argument which fixed the eyes of the nation at once upon him, and showed to all how fit he was for that highest honor with which he was afterwards adorned ; within those same walls where Dexter, and Sedgwick, and Trumbull, and Tracey, and Williams, and Benson, and Boudinot, and Sit- greaves, and Harper, and Smith of South Carolina, gave force and dignity to all around them; and the pious Ashbel Green invoked the guidance of Heaven upon their counsels and their acts ?
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