Excerpt from Address

The colonists entered upon the great revolutionary strug gle with a common purpose and a united effort. There was an amalgamation of distinct tastes and divergent opinions into an homogeneous Whole. The three millions of people who established their right to self-government, drew their inspiration from Plymouth Rock, the banks of the James and the mouth of the Hudson, and represented the auster ity, the chivalry and the steadfastness of our early American ancestry. Fugitives from religious intolerance in the land of their nativity, a little band of pilgrims, bringing firm convictions and a dauntless courage, sought in the new world freedom of worship. They realized the fruition of their hopes as to religious freedom, but long enslaved by hereditary narrowness they failed to extend it to others. Time, however, with its changes and compensations'has finally established, at the very base of Plymouth Rock, a liberalism that scarcely exists elsewhere upon the continent. Whether this be the outgrowth of the early professions which seem inconsistent with the practice of the puritans, it is not our province to inquire. The spirit of independ ence that caused them to be dissenters in the Church would naturally lead them to rebel against injustice in the State. The colonists upon the James were led by the spirit of adventure, and the anticipated gains of commerce, to the wilds of the West. They never complained of religious intolerance at their old home, nor exercised it at the new.

They were satisfied with a monarchy in Great Britain, and did not seek a republic in America. Their system of home government could neither partake of the nature of a hier archy, nor be civilly oppressive to a people surrounded by all that was free. Midway, both in location and in doctrine, between these two extremes were the Dutch settlers of the Hudson river valley. Their phlegmatic temperament would enable them to endure a monarchy or enjoy a republic. Prudent and industrious, they made the strip of country which they inhabited a territory of unexampled prosperity. Thus, from three small settlements between the years 1607 and 1620 - 7tuolei of the renowned cluster that dotted the land - sprang colonists that, after one hundred and fifty years of rapid increase, notwithstanding the frequent deci mation of their ranks in the aboriginal and French wars, wrested constitutional liberty from one of the most formid able military powers on the globe. They had, however, received the severest discipline in the school of actual expe rience. Their muscles had' been hardened by toil to great endurance. Their minds, not enervated through excesses, had been stored with facts and principles. Their Spirits had been nurtured to bravery by the necessary tutelage of their surroundings, so that in personal qualifications they could compensate for the lack both of military drill and the most approved equipments of war. They could look back to history and learn from example that an intelligent people struggling for right always outnumber a much larger force of aggressors and they felt that through the righteousness of their cause the battle was half won.

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