What the Revolutionary statesmen urged upon the people as fundamental truths were endorsed7 as such for more than a century, yet if they were mere8 phrases or visionary theories, the eloquence9 and statesmanship of all the great statesmen before our day or in our day, until within a few years, goes for nought10.
Rufus Choate, to be sure, in the stress of a political campaign urging the claims to the Presidency11 of James Buchanan, termed the Declaration “glittering and sounding generalities of natural right;” but this was looked upon as exuberant12 rhetoric13, and the expression was never taken seriously by the country, nor accepted as a matured opinion in contravention of the main doctrines of the Declaration.
More recently men of standing14 and character have apparently15 adopted and even extended Choate’s theory,—it has been maintained that governments rest upon the consent of some of the governed, and this is true and not apart from the Declaration if it means that governments rest upon the will of the majority, for that carries with it the right of all to be heard,—but it is absolutely foreign to the Declaration if by “some of the governed” is intended only the more enlightened part of the people,—that is, the minority,—for[14] then it upholds a theory differing not at all from that of an oligarchy16, or even a despotism, and does not represent popular government as we have understood it.
It has been said also that the Declaration applied17 only to civilized18 peoples, intelligent enough to maintain Republican government, or to those of sufficient capacity to govern themselves and to better themselves by such self-government, or even farther, that the Declaration is untrue as a general proposition and only applied to the existing situation in America in 1776.
No such qualifying phrases can be found in the Declaration itself, and if such were in the minds of the statesmen of the day it is passing strange that men who had the power to express themselves in so lucid19 and straightforward20 a way never hinted then or thereafter at any such limitations.
It certainly was not the view of the Continental21 Congress when at the end of the war it said, “Let it be remembered that it has ever been the pride and boast of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature,” and the historic glory of the American Revolution is immensely lessened22 if we accept the Declaration with qualifications, for on such a theory nothing was established by that war except the ability of the Revolutionists, with the aid of France, to bring the rebellion to a successful conclusion, and to establish here a Republic, the Declaration becoming to the rest of the world of academic interest only as a skilfully23 worded statement of provincial24 grievances25. We all must desire to ascertain26 if possible whether those who hold the theories I have stated are correct, and whether our predecessors27 have been cherishing illusory and transitory principles or eternal truths, for if the former are right our compass now points in a new direction, and we may as well change our course to correspond, even though we reach the well-worn track that European nations have been following since we originally steered28 away from them.
[15]
There is a prevalent belief, and with some it accounts for the novelty of recent views, that the Declaration prescribed a Republican form of government as essential for every people, but such is not the fact, as is evident from these words in the document:
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (referring to the rights and liberties of the people), it is the right of the people to alter and abolish it, and to constitute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence29, indeed, will dictate30 that long-established governments should not be changed for light and transient causes.”
Washington expressed this in brief and cogent31 form as follows: “Every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it may live most happy.”
The equality before the law asserted in the Declaration never implied equality of intelligence or opportunity, nor did it necessarily imply universal suffrage32 as a fixed33 principle. Between 1776, when the Declaration was issued, and 1789, the time of the adoption34 of the Constitution, there were in the thirteen States various forms of government, and none of them with universal suffrage. A free people may see fit to restrict or enlarge their own rights; they may confer extreme power upon appointed rulers, or retain all power to themselves,—whichever course is pursued, if it be the people’s unrestricted action, it is in no way inconsistent with the Declaration. Of course this excludes absolutely and forever any idea of a controlling influence by an outside power, or that there can be any such thing as self-government, unless a people are left free to determine for themselves the form and methods of their own government. To those who wrote the Declaration self-government and independence were interconvertible[16] terms, and the burden is upon those who would now distinguish them to invent new definitions. The Declaration did not proclaim that every people in the world were fitted for a Republican form of government,—that form was unquestionably the ideal of the fathers, but the essence of the document was that each nation must determine for itself what form it preferred, and so long as the people were freely consulted, and reserved the right to change when their interests were not properly served, the principles were not infringed35 upon. This was to be entirely36 independent of the form adopted; it might be a limited monarchy37 like England, an armed Republic like France, a Greek, Roman, or South American Republic, a military dictatorship like Mexico, or even a popular despotism like the early days of the Napoleonic empires. The modern idea that fitness was to be determined38 by some foreign superior nation had not been thought of in 1776.
Take a concrete case like the England of to-day, excluding, of course, her colonies—her ideals may not be the same as ours, but it would be a hazardous39 statement to make that the rights of the people as set forth in our Declaration are not preserved in England in their full significance quite as well as in our own boss-ridden states and cities. England has a monarchy in form, but a people’s monarchy, and subject to the people’s will, and it may well be questioned whether the people there do not express their will with quite as much facility as here. In many places in this country we have a practical and vulgar despotism under the forms of a Republic,—the people can and do assert themselves when thoroughly40 aroused, but they are long suffering, and only when the bossism becomes too flagrant and offensive can they be led to enforce that equality before the law and to exhibit that latent power which is necessary to prove that genuine Republicanism still exists.
[17]
In dealing41 with our Indian tribes the government has proceeded upon the theory that they were nations, they have not been taxed, and although our treatment of them has not been creditable, our theories have been consistent; still, I have no idea that the framers of the Declaration believed that these tribes, or Oriental nations, or any semi-civilized peoples were fitted for a Republic, or that for them such a form would be wise or safe; but they did not lose sight of it as the ultimate for every people, and believed that it could only be attained42 by every people working out their own salvation43 and by that governmental evolution which through struggle and hardship alone leads to a higher and more stable form. Secretary Hay once incisively44 expressed it thus: “No people are fit for anything else than self-government,” and it was an eminent45 Frenchman who truly said, “You cannot have a Republic without Republicans.”
Given the capacity to form some government and you have all the conditions necessary for improvement, and in the Providence46 of God a people can better be trusted to improve itself than it can to gain in self-government under the subjection of others.
Applying these principles as our fathers stated them, and as they applied them, unless in the case of slavery, and remembering that their sin in that case, however, much forced by their situation, was atoned47 for from 1861 to 1865 in blood and treasure, the problems relating to inferior races become greatly simplified, for the “white man’s burden” ceases to be war and subjection and becomes a Christian48 principle in recognizing as the sole right of the stronger his duty to assist and encourage the weaker in the struggle to preserve such government as suits him best and for which he deems himself best fitted.
Abandoning the principles of the Declaration, the white man’s burden means to the black or yellow man political slavery and wrong.
[18]
Even the Anglo-Saxon, with all his success in many respects, as a colonist49, has utterly50 failed to lead an inferior race up to self-government—he may have carried with him some material advantages, but his assumed and vaunted burden cannot be separated from his love of power and soaring ambition.
His dominating superiority makes him a hard master of another race, and he fails utterly in sympathetic appreciation51 of racial differences and characteristics.
No one can dispute his marvellous capacity, the forcefulness of his dealings, and in many cases his patient, earnest attempt to better the conditions of those whom he rules; but he never has accepted nor understood the peculiar52 natures of his subjects nor enlisted53 their sympathies or affections. Without intending to be cruel, his cool assumption of the power to remake people and force them into his own mould has led him into errors which have caused great hardship and have ended in estrangement54 and hatred55.
Neither material prosperity nor orderly government wins the hearts or permanently56 changes the habits of peoples whose traditions have been interfered57 with and whose imaginative and fickle58 natures have not been taken into account. A foreign government remains59 forever foreign to a people whose love has not been gained, and who are made to feel that they are inferior and never to be on terms of full equality with their masters.
No more conspicuous60 instance can be found than in the condition of India after a century and a half of English rule, much of it by excellent men of great capacity and strength, and of honest intention. It began with the rule of the sword, and to-day it is nothing else,—it has not led the people towards self-government, nor has it succeeded in inspiring confidence and affection,—stripped of the thin veneer61 of civilization which has been spread over the land, the conqueror62[19] and the conquered still face each other as ever alien and hostile races, the conquered hating their masters, and sullenly63 biding64 their time for revolt, and the conqueror holding them down by force and fear only. The gulf65 between the races is as broad as ever, and everything indicates that a withdrawal66 of British power would be followed by a temporary return to much the former conditions of semi-barbarism, until something better was evolved by struggle and experience, aided now by the bright example of a neighboring power.
Egypt, which on the surface shows good results, has done little but exchange a Turkish for an English ruler, so far a gain, for it has been followed by an apparent advance in material prosperity and a lightening of the burdens, but it is not easy to ascertain how far the prosperity has really benefited the people; and remembering that Egypt was once the centre of advanced civilization, it is by no means proved that as a free people they would not have been further on the road towards a hopeful self-government.
If we look to the Dutch colonies in Asia, we find at best a condition of peonage and political servitude and a war that has had little cessation in fifty years. There again it is force and fear and not self-government. In German, French, or Russian colonies no one seeks for self-government, and the hopelessness of their situation is that neither fraternization with the people exists nor improvement of conditions by emigration from the ruling countries.
To point the contrast, and to evidence the truth of the principles of the Declaration, we may well consider the rising empire of Japan, inhabited by a people differing but little from the neighboring races, a century ago not far removed from barbarism, pagan in religion, though tolerant, Asiatic in habits and thought, self-governed and independent because it has been left to work out its own problems, yet now by its own energy[20] advancing towards civilization and Christianity, and rapidly becoming a great power in the East. No stronger exemplification can be found of the principle that a people is better fitted for self-government than any other, and that its own experience and efforts offer better tutelage than the wisest and most beneficent rule of foreign masters.
The plans of statesmen, the ambition of nations may come into conflict with the doctrines of the Declaration, but they are of no concern as compared with the truth or falsity of the principles it contains. If it is not to be followed as a standard of governmental ethics67, and is a visionary statement of unpractical theories, we seem somehow to have lost our bearings, and to have parted with our guiding lights. No true American, whatever his party allegiance, can avoid or lightly treat these important questions, nor can the right solution come from a consultation68 of his interests or prejudices, nor from any source other than the experience of the years since 1776, and a careful consideration of the wisdom or folly69 of the teachings of those who have made this country what it is. No day can better emphasize these thoughts than this anniversary, and if in avoiding anything of a partisan70 nature I have willingly laid myself open to the charge of triteness72, let us remember that the trite71 things of this world are often of the most importance, and the more familiar they are, the more apt they are to be disregarded or forgotten. They cannot be foreign to the purposes of this meeting, for although the original parchment of the Declaration at Washington has faded out, the principles of this most important and startling of State Papers will always be living light, and if the day should ever come when it would be unbecoming to discuss them here, one of the great purposes of this Association would have been lost, and the nature of our people and our theory of government changed.
When Daniel Webster with his masterly eloquence evolved[21] from his imagination the great speech of John Adams upon the Declaration, he could have had in his mind no qualifying phrases, no doubts as to the eternal truths which were proclaimed, and no question but that independence was the ideal for and the right of every nation of the earth; otherwise his words failed to ring true, and he never could have closed with such statements as these:
“Read this Declaration at the head of the army, every sword will be drawn73 from its scabbard and the solemn vow74 uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit, religion will approve it and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it; send it to the public halls,—proclaim it there,—let them hear it who first heard the roar of the enemy’s cannon,—let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill and in the streets of Lexington and Concord75, and the very walls will cry out in its support.”
The End
The End
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1
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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impugned
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| v.非难，指谪( impugn的过去式和过去分词 )；对…有怀疑 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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endorsed
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| vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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oligarchy
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| n.寡头政治 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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cogent
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| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
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suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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infringed
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| v.违反（规章等）( infringe的过去式和过去分词 )；侵犯（某人的权利）；侵害（某人的自由、权益等） | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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incisively
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| adv.敏锐地，激烈地 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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49
colonist
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| n.殖民者，移民 | |
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50
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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51
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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52
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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53
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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54
estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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55
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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56
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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57
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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58
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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59
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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60
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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61
veneer
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| n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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64
biding
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| v.等待，停留( bide的现在分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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66
withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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67
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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68
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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69
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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71
trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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72
triteness
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| n.平凡，陈腐 | |
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73
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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74
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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