blood, as so many inarticulate words, pleads for
fidelity, for law, for liberty!

--HENRY WARD BEECHER.

_THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY_

The event which we commemorate is all-important, not merely in
our own annals, but in those of the world. The sententious
English poet has declared that "the proper study of mankind is
man," and of all inquiries of a temporal nature, the history of
our fellow-beings is unquestionably among the most interesting.
But not all the chapters of human history are alike important.
The annals of our race have been filled up with incidents which
concern not, or at least ought not to concern, the great company
of mankind. History, as it has often been written, is the
genealogy of princes, the field-book of conquerors; and the
fortunes of our fellow-men have been treated only so far as they
have been affected by the influence of the great masters and
destroyers of our race. Such history is, I will not say a
worthless study, for it is necessary for us to know the dark
side as well as the bright side of our condition. But it is a
melancholy study which fills the bosom of the philanthropist and
the friend of liberty with sorrow.

But the history of liberty--the history of men struggling to be
free--the history of men who have acquired and are exercising
their freedom--the history of those great movements in the
world, by which liberty has been established and perpetuated,
forms a subject which we cannot contemplate too closely. This is
the real history of man, of the human family, of rational
immortal beings....

The trial of adversity was theirs; the trial of prosperity is
ours. Let us meet it as men who know their duty and prize their
blessings. Our position is the most enviable, the most
responsible, which men can fill. If this generation does its
duty, the cause of constitutional freedom is safe. If we
fail--if we fail--not only do we defraud our children of the
inheritance which we received from our fathers, but we blast the
hopes of the friends of liberty throughout our continent,
throughout Europe, throughout the world, to the end of time.

History is not without her examples of hard-fought fields, where
the banner of liberty has floated triumphantly on the wildest
storm of battle. She is without her examples of a people by whom
th