reality. It was as much a fact as the connected land. Its behests were obeyed as though they were the law. On the flag of that day was the motto "Union and Liberty." It denoted forces working together. The feeling was union and liberty now and forever. That generation realized that there could be no union without liberty, and no genuine liberty without the power there is in union to protect it.

There was also the dawn of our nationality. It appears everywhere in the political utterances. It imbues the great proceedings that united all hearts in the ties of a common fraternity. It is seen in the pledges of fidelity to fundamental political ideas. It culminated in the great determination to support the people of Massachusetts in resisting by force the overthrow of her liberties. The hour for the use of

national power had come, and it found an American manhood prepared to meet the highest duties of the citizen.

During a period of ten months there was a continuous stream of donations flowing into Boston for the relief of its poor. The spirit that dictated this action is seen in the letters that accompanied the gifts. They remained in manuscript more than three-quarters of a century. They show how deep the conviction of that generation was that American liberty should have the protection of American law. This record is as a window admitting a view of their inner life; reveal

ing their thought, their hope, their faith, their passion, their love; showing how they felt as countrymen, and what they regarded as their country. Nothing could be more generous than the expression of admiration, or more tender than the offerings of sympathy, or more free from calculation than the enthusiasm for principle, or more solemn than the pledge of fortune or life, or more reverent than the trust in Providence. The noble record portrays the brotherhood that constituted the real union of the colonies. It admits posterity into the heart of the Revolution. It is a Christian prologue grandly spoken on the entrance of the United Colonies into the family of nations. This constitutes the rarity of the spectacle. The love and tenderness and sympathy were as conspicuous as the political action was sublime. This was the Union, this was our country, as it came from the hand of God.

Let all who 'would know our history pause long on this great year. Dr. Ramsay felt the luxury of the hour, and has described it simply and beautifully. He says that "A noble spirit spread from breast to breast, and from colony to colony, beyond the power of human calculation. The time having come for the people to pass from the control of the mother country, the Governor of the Universe, by a secret influence on their minds, disposed them to union." The same influence impelled them all to march on

one way, and to give to this Union the strength of law. In the stern resolves of the people before the Congress met, in the Association it matured, and in the ratification of it by the people, ideas and principles were marshalled into political order. It was made certain that the construction of a new foundation for Liberty and Law would go side by side with the dissolution of old ties. Anarchy was rendered impossible. It is not easy to overrate the importance of this result. It is safe to say that it influenced the whole future course of American history.

The Congress shrunk from the question of Sovereignty. The hour to deal with this profound question had not come, and this body stood in the attitude of loyal subjects petitioning the crown for a redress of grievances.

Six months of war passed, when the king by procclamation declared the parties in arms to be in rebellion. This forced on the popular leaders the question of Sovereignty. It was held to reside in king, lords, and commons. To question this, was the unpardonable offence. The definition of sovereignty by the jurists of the Old World was colored by customs, ideas, and prejudices which time had rendered venerable. It had sometimes been viewed as a star, which eluded our investigation by its immeasurable height; sometimes it had been considered as a sun, that could not be distinctly seen by reason of its in

sufferable splendor." It was regarded as something more than human, and held in mysterious and profound awe. As such, it had been the dispenser of political rights, and especially when a nation, however diversified as to race, was regarded as one community, and was ruled from a single central point. It was the tory theory, that the colonies, as bodies politic, held their privileges as a special grace from the sovereign. This view was substantially questioned in the discussions during the period from 1764 to 1776, and the "happy effects" of independence cannot be accounted for without taking into account these discussions. By them the people became familiar with the greatest questions in politics. In this way the public mind reached certain convictions. as to what should be made fundamentals in an American system. Then there was the training, in the municipality and in the general assembly, of the exercise of self-government. In this way, the people became qualified for the practical solution of the problem of Sovereignty. When they were obliged to grapple with it," to trace the dread and redoubtable Sovereign to his ultimate and genuine source, he was found, as he ought to have been found, in the Free and Independent Man." Sovereignty is in the people. In them are "those inherent powers of society, which no climate, no time, no constitution, no contract, can ever destroy or diminish." In them, as the

supreme power, resides the right of command, or the right to institute organic law, to establish public authority, and to compel obedience to it. On this foundation rose the American superstructure of gov

ernment.

The architects of this superstructure, however, did not feel themselves called upon to cut loose from the past, or to deal with man according to any untried theory of natural rights; but, regarding him as a political being, they dealt with him as he stood related, by the cumulative law of ages, to the institutions of family and society, and as related to the commonwealth by a polity which he had moulded. They regarded him as thus entitled to a great inheritance of order, but subject to correlative obligations of duty. Hence, instead of yielding to the demands of amiable enthusiasts, or of confident theorists, or of merciless iconoclasts, and trying to cast society into a new mould, on the flattering but deceitful promise that in the process every wrong should disappear, they dealt with man on the basis of existing facts. They concentrated their efforts to preserve what had been gained, in the faith that time would bring whatever was wrong in existing law nearer to that justice which is "the only true sovereign and supreme majesty on earth."

Thus, throughout their work, the founders of the republic recognized the fact that the people had not