reads those names, realizing the grandeur and power of a country which, thanks to them, is still his, will exclaim, "These men fought for my salvation as well as for their own. They died to preserve not merely the unity of a nation, but the destinies of a continent."

5

V.

G. W. CURTIS.

The Puritan Principle: Liberty under the Law.1

A Speech made at the Dinner of the New England Society of the City of New York, December 22, 1876.

["The following account, by the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, of the circumstances attending the delivery of the speech, and of the effect produced by it, appeared in the Boston Commonwealth, Sept. 10, 1892.

'I have said a hundred times, and am glad here to put on record my opinion, that at a great moment in our history George William Cur- 10 tis spoke the word which was most needed to save the nation from terrible calamity. It was at the annual dinner of the Forefathers' Society of the city of New York, at Delmonico's Hotel, in 1876. That society embodies some of the very best of the leaders of business and of social life in New York, and it is the pride of its managers to assemble on 15 Forefathers' Day the very best of the leaders, who are not of New England blood, who represent the highest and most important interests in that city. On the anniversary of 1876 I had the honor and pleasure of representing at their dinner party Boston and the New Englanders who had not emigrated. It was at the moment when the Hayes- 20 Tilden difficulty was at its very worst. Intelligent men and even decent newspapers spoke freely of the possibility of civil war. The deadlock seemed absolute, and even men perfectly loyal to the principles of American government turned pale as they looked forward to the issue. In the distinguished company of perhaps three hundred representative 25 men, at Delmonico's, about half believed to the bottom of their hearts

1 Reprinted by permission from Essays and Addresses. G. W. Curtis, Vol. I, p. 243. Copyright, 1894, Harper & Brothers.

that Mr. Tilden was chosen President. The other half believed with equal certainty that Mr. Hayes was chosen. I myself had no more doubt then than I have now that Mr. Hayes was fairly chosen. I sat by a mayor of New York, a man of high character and level head, who 5 told me that he had postponed his journey to Cuba that he might be present at Mr. Tilden's inauguration. He was as sure of that inauguration as he was that he lived.

'Before such an audience Mr. Curtis rose to speak. Instantly as always he held them in rapt attention. It would have been per10 fectly easy for a timid man or even a person of historic taste, to avoid the great subject of the hour. Mr. Curtis might have talked well about Brewster and Carver, Leyden and Delfthaven, and have left Washington and the White House alone. But he was not a timid man. He was much more than a man of delicate taste, well-trained and elegant. 15 And therefore he plunged right into the terrible subject. Terrible is the only word. He passed from point to point of its intricacies, of which he did not underrate the difficulty. He then used the privilege of the occasion, citing the common-sense of the conscientious statesmen of our race; and he came out with his expression of his certain confi20 dence that the good sense of the sons of such an ancestry would devise a tribunal impartial enough and august enough to determine the question to the unanimous assent of the nation.

'He said this so clearly and certainly that he carried with him every man in the assembly. Almost on the moment every man was on his 25 feet, cheering the sentiment. I know that the Mayor of New York and I, who had but just before been absolutely at cross-purposes in our talk, were standing side by side, each with one foot in his chair and the other foot on the table, cheering and waving our handkerchiefs. was every other man of the twenty guests at the table.

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So

'Those three hundred men of mark in New York went home that night, and went to their business the next day, to say that a court of arbitration must be established to settle that controversy. In that moment of Mr. Curtis's triumph, as I believe, it was settled. This is certain: that from that moment, as every careful reader may find to-day, the whole tone of the press of all parties in the city of New York expressed the belief which he expressed then, and which that assembly of leaders approved by their cheers. And from that moment to this moment there has been no more talk of civil war.'"

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENG40 LAND SOCIETY: It was Isaac Walton, in his Angler, who said that Dr. Botelier was accustomed to remark "that doubtless God might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but

doubtless he never did." And I suppose I speak the secret feeling of this festive company when I say that doubtless there might have been a better place to be born in than New England, but doubtless no such place exists. [Applause and laughter.] And if any sceptic should reply that our very pres- 5 ence here would seem to indicate that doubtless, also, New England is as good a place to leave as to stay in [laughter], I should reply to him that, on the contrary, our presence is but an added glory of our mother. It is an illustration of the devout missionary spirit, of the willingness in which she 10 has trained us to share with others the blessings that we have received, and to circle the continent, to girdle the globe, with the strength of New England character and the purity of New England principles. [Applause.] Even the Knickerbockers, Mr. President-in whose stately and 15 splendid city we are at this moment assembled, and assembled of right because it is our home. even they would doubtless concede that much of the state and splendor of this city is due to the enterprise, the industry, and the genius of those whom their first historian describes as "losel 20 Yankees." [Laughter.] Sir, they grace our feast with their presence; they will enliven it, I am sure, with their eloquence and wit. Our tables are rich with the flowers grown in their soil; but there is one flower that we do not see, one flower whose perfume fills a continent, which has blossomed for 25 more than two centuries and a half with ever-increasing and deepening beauty a flower which blooms at this moment, on this wintry night, in never-fading freshness in a million oftrue hearts, from the snow-clad Katahdin to the warm Golden Gate of the South Sea, and over its waters to the isles of the 30 East and the land of Prester John the flower of flowers,

the Pilgrim's Mayflower. [Applause.]

Well, sir, holding that flower in my hand at this moment, I say that the day we celebrate commemorates the introduction upon this continent of the master principle of its 35 civilization. I do not forget that we are a nation of many

nationalities. I do not forget that there are gentlemen at this board who wear the flower of other nations close upon their hearts. I remember the forget-me-nots of Germany, and I know that the race which keeps "watch upon the 5 Rhine" keeps watch also upon the Mississippi and the Lakes. I recall how could I forget?- the delicate shamrock; for "There came to this beach a poor exile of Erin,"

and on this beach, with his native modesty

"He still sings his bold anthem of Erin-go-Bragh."

10 [Applause.] I remember surely, sir, the lily-too often the tiger-lily-of France [ laughter and applause] and the thistle of Scotland; I recall the daisy and the rose of England; and, sir, in Switzerland, high upon the Alps, on the very edge of the glacier, the highest flower that grows in Europe, 15 is the rare edelweiss. It is in Europe; we are in America. And here in America, higher than shamrock or thistle, higher than rose, lily, or daisy, higher than the highest, blooms the perennial Mayflower. [Applause.] For, sir and gentlemen, it is the English-speaking race that has 20 moulded the destiny of this continent; and the Puritan influence is the strongest influence that has acted upon it. [Applause.]

I am surely not here to assert that the men who have represented that influence have always been men whose spirit 25 was blended of sweetness and light. I confess truly their hardness, their prejudice, their narrowness. All this I know: Charles Stuart could bow more blandly, could dance more gracefully than John Milton; and the Cavalier king looks out from the canvas of Vandyck with a more romantic beauty 30 of flowing love-locks than hung upon the brows of Edward Winslow, the only Pilgrim Father whose portrait comes down to us. [Applause.] But, sir, we estimate the cause beyond the man. Not even is the gracious spirit of Christianity itself measured by its confessors. If we would see the actual 35 force, the creative power of the Pilgrim principle, we are not

to look at the company who came over in the cabin of the Mayflower; we are to look upon the forty millions who fill this continent from sea to sea. [Applause.] The Mayflower, sir, brought seed and not a harvest. In a century and a half the religious restrictions of the Puritans had grown into 5 absolute religious liberty, and in two centuries it had burst beyond the limits of New England, and John Carver of the Mayflower had ripened into Abraham Lincoln of the Illinois prairie. [Great and prolonged applause.] Why, gentlemen, if you would see the most conclusive proof of the power of 10 this principle, you have but to observe that the local distinctive title of New Englanders has now become that of every man in the country. Every man who hears me, from whatever State in the Union, is, to Europe, a Yankee, and to-day the United States are but the "universal Yankee 15 nation." [Applause.]

Do you ask me, then, what is this Puritan principle? Do you ask me whether it is as good for to-day as for yesterday; whether it is good for every national emergency; whether it is good for the situation of this hour? I think we need neither 20 doubt nor fear. The Puritan principle in its essence is simply individual freedom. From that spring religious liberty and political equality. The free State, the free Church, the free School these are the triple armor of American nationality, of American security. [Applause.] But the Pilgrims, while 25 they have stood above all men for their idea of liberty, have always asserted liberty under law and never separated it from law. John Robinson, in the letter that he wrote the Pilgrims when they sailed, said these words, that well, sir, might be written in gold around the cornice of that 30 future banqueting-hall to which you have alluded, "You know that the image of the Lord's dignity and authority which the magistry beareth is honorable in how mean person soever. [Applause.] This is the Puritan principle. Those men stood for liberty under the law. They had 35 tossed long upon a wintry sea; their minds were full of