cognized rights in the New World. Upon this charter, as has been
truly said, 'Virginia erected the superstructure of her liberties.'

"The coming of this charter marked an epoch in the history of
the Jamestown colony, and set the pace for English-speaking
settlements yet in the future.

"It was in very truth the first step in the direction of the
establishment of the great Republic which was to be the enduring
beacon-light of self-governing people in all future ages.

"To a full appreciation of the supreme significance of the mighty event
we to-day celebrate and its results--now constituting so inspiring
a chapter of history--some account must be taken of conditions then
existing in the mother country. While obtaining the guarantee of a
large measure of self-government for the New World, Sir Edwin Sandys
and his co-patriots were unable to secure that which even savored of
liberal administration in the Old. James--the first of the Stuart
Dynasty--was upon the English throne. In narrow, selfish state-craft
his is possibly in the long list of sovereigns without a rival.
The exercise and maintenance of royal prerogative was with him the
'be all and end all' of government, and, abetted by the sycophants
about him, he unwittingly laid the train of inexorable events that
were to culminate in the execution of one and the banishment of
another of his line. His claim was that of absolute power, and
during a reign of twenty-two years--extending from the death of
Queen Elizabeth to the year 1625--he was the unrelenting foe of
whatever pertained to freedom in religion or in government. His
apparent indifference to the execution of his mother--the ill-fated
Mary, Queen of Scots--and his condemnation of the illustrious
Sir Walter Raleigh to the scaffold, are alone sufficient to render
the memory of this monarch forever infamous. It is a marvel,
indeed, that with James the First upon the throne, and popular
freedom in such a low state throughout his immediate realm, that
so large a measure of liberty should have been conceded to the
distant colony. The achievement is the enduring evidence of
unsurpassed courage in the men in whose immediate keeping were the
early fortunes of the Virginia colony, and sheds unfading lustre
upon their memories.

"Nor can it be forgotten that from the masterful hour that witnessed
the assembling of the first House of Burgesses until the abdication
of James the Second, the welfare of the Virgin