niversary of some important event in the course of our
struggle for national independence. This series of centennial
celebrations, which has been of great value in stimulating American
patriotism and awakening throughout the country a keen interest in
American history, will naturally come to an end in 1889. The close of
President Cleveland's term of office marks the close of the first
century of the government under which we live, which dates from the
inauguration of President Washington on the balcony of the Federal
building in Wall street, New York, on the 30th of April, 1789. It was on
that memorable day that the American Revolution may be said to have been
completed. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 detached the American
people from the supreme government to which they had hitherto owed
allegiance, and it was not until Washington's inauguration in 1789 that
the supreme government to which we owe allegiance to-day was actually
put in operation. The period of thirteen years included between these
two dates was strictly a revolutionary period, during which it was more
or less doubtful where the supreme authority over the United States
belonged. First, it took the fighting and the diplomacy of the
revolutionary war to decide that this supreme authority belonged in the
United States themselves, and not in the government of Great Britain;
and then after the war was ended, more than five years of sore distress
and anxious discussion had elapsed before the American people succeeded
in setting up a new government that was strong enough to make itself
obeyed at home and respected abroad.

It is the story of this revolutionary period, ending in 1789, that we
have here to relate in its principal outlines. When we stand upon the
crest of a lofty hill and look about in all directions over the
landscape, we can often detect relations between distant points which we
had not before thought of together. While we tarried in the lowland, we
could see blue peaks rising here and there against the sky, and follow
babbling brooks hither and thither through the forest. It was more
homelike down there than on the hilltop, for in each gnarled tree, in
every moss-grown boulder, in every wayside flower, we had a friend that
was near to us; but the general bearings of things may well have escaped
our notice. In climbing to our lonely vantage-ground, while the familiar
scenes fade from sight, there are gradually unfolded to us those
connec