does it signify to us? Your chairman has said that we have
had an hundred years of national history. It is a little less than an
hundred years since we inaugurated our first President. The Fourth of
July does not celebrate the establishment of the independence of the
United States; it marks but the beginning of the strife instead of its
successful close. It was at the outset of the Revolutionary struggle
that the Colonies threw down that gauge which defied all tradition,
which stamped upon all past history, which mocked at ancient dogmas and
hoary traditions, which introduced upon earth an entirely new and
distinctive doctrine! Before that time men had fought for the
realization of noble purposes and high aims; they had fought to win
succor from distressful conditions; they had fought for relief against
oppression; but they had fought for these only as the gaining of a boon
and a privilege from powers that were; and everywhere it was conceded
that there was upon earth a class of men ordained by Providence to rule,
and that the vassal's obedience was the inheritance of the many. And
when men rose up in their might to fight upon the plains of Runnymede,
in earnest contest, for ancient rights, for ancient privileges, it was
after all only asking something of the grace of the sovereign, and no
one denied his absolute power to withhold or to grant it as he would.
But the colonies threw down this defiance to earth--that there was no
heaven-ordained class to govern men; that man, by virtue of his
existence, by reason of his creation, was a sovereign in his own right;
and that in these latter days all just rights in government were
derived, not from the will of the ruler, but from the consent of the
governed. [Applause.]

It was a new doctrine, I repeat, and if it could be successfully
maintained there was no foundation strong enough for a throne to rest
securely upon! And so all the startled nations rose up to oppose it,
this innovation of all that had been in the preceding centuries; but
guided by that star, led on by the resolute courage, the steadfast
integrity of Washington, our fathers went on and on in pursuit of this
doctrine, in quest of this precious boon, on through blood and toil, on
when the struggle seemed like the very madness of despair, on and on
when hope seemed to have fled, but patriotism remained; on over
trembling dynasties and crumbling thrones, until they wrested that jewel
of their love from the relucta