Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/127

Rh young uprising cities, wont to carry quick projects into speedy execution, they have become regardless of obstacles and used to strenuous activity. The constant necessity to help themselves has developed their mental independence; and, inured to political strife by the continual defense of their colonial self-government, they have at last become familiar with the idea of introducing into practical existence the principles which their vigorous minds have quietly built up into a theory.

The first little impulses to the general upheaving of the popular spirit—the tea tax, the stamp act—drop into insignificance; they are almost forgotten; the revolutionary spirit has risen far above them. It disdains to justify itself with petty pleadings; it spurns diplomatic equivocation; it places the claim to independence upon the broad basis of eternal rights, as self-evident as the sun, as broad as the world, as common as the air of heaven. The struggle of the colonies against the usurping government of Great Britain has risen to the proud dimensions of a struggle of man for liberty and equality. Behold, five men are advancing towards the table of the president. First, Thomas Jefferson, whose philosophical spirit grasps the generality of things and events; then Benjamin Franklin, the great apostle of common sense, the clear wisdom of real life beaming in his serene eye; then the undaunted John Adams, and two others. Now Jefferson reads the Declaration of Independence, and loudly proclaims the fundamental principle upon which it rests: “All men are created free and equal!” It is said history tells you what it meant. The scepter of royalty is flung back across the ocean; the prerogatives of nobility are trodden into the dust; every man a king, every man a baron; in seven of the original colonies the shackles of the black men struck off; almost everywhere the way prepared for gradual emancipation. “No recognition