Anniversary of American Independence
Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser: Honolulu. Saturday,
July 9, 1870
A characteristic feature of life in Honolulu has always been
the observance of the Fourth of July. As far back as the memory of the oldest
inhabitant can refer, it was observed with the same patriotic enthusiasm as has
been shown in more recent times. Some years ago, we published an interesting
account given to us by the venerable Captain Adams, of the first public
celebration of the fourth of July, which took place in 1814- fifty-six years
ago, and under the auspices of KAMEHAMEHA FIRST. It included a feast, which was
given on or near the premises now occupied by Sheridan Peck, Esq., on
Beretanian Street, and is said to have been witnessed by over ten thousand
people. From that day to this, and under the reign of five of the Kamehemehas,
it has been each year observed with more or less public demonstration.
Captain Adams, we may remark in passing, is still living. We
called on him a few days ago, and found him enjoying comfortable health for an
old man. He is now 90 yars of age, only four less than that of the American
Republic! Though his sight has failed, he still retains the active memory and
speech which he has always had, and appears to delight in narrating events of
the olden time.
The fourth occurred this year on Monday, and was as pleasant
a day as could be desired. Salutes were fired from the head of Emma street a
sunrise and sunset. At 12 o’clock, the American Minister Resident received the
officers of the Hawaiian Government, the diplomatic corps, and citizens
generally, and entertained them at a bountiful collation, spread under the
shady trees which ornament the grounds of the Legation. The following toasts
were given on the occasion:
1-
The President of the United States.
2-
King Kamehameha V.
3-
The memory of Washington-first in war, first in peace, and
first in the hearts of his countrymen.
At half past 1 o’clock, the American Consul and his lady
received the visits of their friends, which included ladies as well as
gentlemen. This is a new feature of national anniversary receptions, and a very
special innovation on the old-established custom, which restricts visits to the
male sex. There is every reason why it should become a permanent custom, and it
will surely be a most popular one is established. About 2 o’clock, in response
to a call from his guests for a toast of something else, the Consul addressed
them in the following remarks:
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FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: -This spontaneous meeting is an
evidence that you feel as I do, that on this day Americans should meet together
to celebrate another anniversary of the Independence of that great nation, the
name of which calls up so many cherished remembrances of loved homes and about
friends of a country endeared to us by a thousand tender ties and patriotic
recollections, and to many of us made doubly dear by her recent baptism in
blood-from which I thank God, our own America has emerged with her garments purified
as is the cloth of asbestos after having passed through the fiery furnace.
It is moot that we should thus assemble on the baptismal day
of our motherland to offer up our tribute of thanks to the Supreme Ruler of the
Universe for the blessings which our country has so long enjoyed, to refresh
our memories with the history of the struggles of that noble band of heroes
who, under the leadership of the immortal Washington, fought for the great
principles of the universal brotherhood of man, for that vital truth that
governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and in
defense of the inalienable right of man to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.
Ninety-four years ago this day our patriot sires gave to the
world that immortal declaration, based on the self evident truths which I have
just quoted, and proclaimed the advent of a nation. In defense of these
principles our fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor. Three millions of people stood forth as the sponsors of the infant
republic and baptized it in the rivers of their best blood. I have called this
the baptismal day of the Republic-and such it is in truth. It was the tardy
announcement that the child, born on the 5th of September, 1774, was
henceforth to be known as the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, for it was on that 5th
of September, by the delegates of the good people of the colonies, at
Philadelphia, in Continental Congress assembled, that the Union was virtually
formed.
Then it was that the gifted Patrick Henry gave a distinctive
name to the people of the nation just entering into existence. He said,
“oppression has effaced the boundaries of the several colonies: the distinction
between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more.
I am not a Virginian but an American.” It was soon apparent that the mother
country would not recede from the position she had assumed with regard to the
colonies, although we now know that many of the wisest statesmen were in favor
of acceding to the just demands of the American people. The signs of the
impending crisis were unmistakable and the people commenced to prepare for
conflict. In march, 1775, the clarion voice of the patriot Patrick Henry again
sounded forth resistance to tyranny, in words that will live as long as the
noble language in which they were uttered.
“There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our
chains are forged! Their clankings may be heard on the plains of Boston. The
next breeze that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms… I know not what course others may take; but as for me-give me
liberty, or give me death!” In the following month came the news of the
massacre at Lexington and the battle at Concord bridge. In may of the following
year the second Continental Congress assembled at Philadelphia and took
measures to carry on the war.
In June the battle of Bunker hill was fought, in which the
loss of the patriots was 449 to 1,054 on the side of the enemy. The various
engagements of the year inspired the colonists with confidence, and greatly
increased their desire for independence. On the 4th of July, 1776,
the representatives of the people gave a tongue to that desire by the
announcement that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free
and independent States.”
The preparation of the Declaration of Independence had been
entrusted to a committee, of which Thos. Jefferson was chairman, and, when it
was adopted on that day by the unanimous vote of the Continental Congress, then
assembled at the State House in Philadelphia, the glad tidings were heralded
forth by the pealings of that sacred bell on which, by some mysterious
Providence, had been cast the prophetic words, “Proclaim liberty throughout all
the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Of the long years of bitter
warfare, of privation and sacrifice, which followed until at length the mother
country acknowledged our Independence, I do not now propose to give you a
detailed account. It is well for us, however, to frequently refresh our
recollections with some of the incidents of that eventful struggle, and to
strengthen ourselves in our efforts in behalf of right by contemplating the
sacrifices which our fathers made for a grand principle.
As a boy, I have frequently wandered over the hills of
Valley Forge, on which were encamped the army of Washington, during that
memorable winter of 1777-78, one of the darkest periods of our nation’s
history, and have listened with eager interest to the touching recital of the
trials of that heroic band. Standing on a bank, once a part of the principle
redoubt of that entrenched camp, my imagination has again peopled those fields
and chesnut groves with that ragged collection of barefooted men whose bloody
tracks in the snow attested their devotion to the cause of freedom, and whose
sufferings caused our sensitive French-American-the noble Lafayette- to shed
tears of sympathy.
Their rude huts and miserable canvas tents appeared to be
before me. I seemed to see the barefooted sentinels pacing their rounds on the
frozen crust of the snow and the Father of his Country- his great heart filled
with anguish for the sufferings of his faithful soldiers-moving amongst them
exhorting to constancy, or seated in the council room of that unpretentious
house which served as his head quarters, devising, with the aid of his faithful
lieutenants, the measures which were to lead to victory.
I charge you to impress upon your own minds and on the minds
of your children, a deep sense of what we and they and humanity at large owe to
those heroic men. The success of the principles underlying that revolution was
as a gospel and a revelation to all mankind. It was the breaking up of that old
idol worship which taught that sovereigns govern by divine right, and that the
will of the people is not to be considered. Not to keep up old feelings of
animosity toward that great race from which we sprung would I teach our
children to remember the sufferings of that winter camp at Valley Forge, or the
blood shed on the fields of Monmouth, of Trenton, of Brandywine, Yorktown, and
a hundred others, but to impress their minds with the great truth that he who
struggles for the success of a righteous principle has not labored in vain. In
the stirring words of one of our choicest ports:
“Who braves the battle wins the
bride;
Who dies the death for truth
shall be
Alive in love eternally;
For never yet beneath the sun
Was battle by the devil won;
For what to thee defeat may be,
Time makes a glorious victory.”
That the lessons of constancy, self-sacrifice and all the
qualities which go to make up the most exalted patriotism, taught us by the
revolutionary fathers, have not been lost, we have had recently most abundant
proofs.
That perfect wisdom is not the attribute of any man or body
of men we know full well. Our fathers laid down their arms when a virtual
recognition was given to the great truths they had proclaimed, trusting that
the lapse of a few years and the fixing of a period, at which should end one of
the evils introduced under the reign of the parent government- would eradicate
the one blot upon our escutcheon- the one sore of the body politic.
We have been forced to again learn the lesson that there can
be no safety in compromising with sin. How well the nation has shown that it
was sound at heart-although into some of its members crept the insidious poison
infused by the demon slavery- let the bloody fields of Gettysburg and the
Wilderness and a hundred others attest. Forever dear to our memories will be the
names of Grant, Sherman, Thomas Sheridan, and of all the other noble leaders of
our victorious legions, who faced the leaden hail to defend the eternal
principles of right on which our national existence is founded.
Not less sacred to all true Americans will be the sweet
memories of the nameless hosts who perished on countless bloody fields to
preserve the beautiful structure reared by patriot hands and cemented by their
blood:
“On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents
are spread;
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivosac of the
dead.
Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood
ye gave!
No impious footstep here shall
tread
The herbage of
your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her
record keeps
Or Honor points the hallowed spot,
Where Valor
proudly sleeps.”
While we drop a reverent tear to their memory, we may also
rejoice that they have not died in vain.
Perhaps they did not all realize the importance of the cause
for which they contended, but never in the history of the world did contending
armies meet in the chock of battle, where the importance of the results to be
achieved was so well understood, or devotion to the cause so much the result of
a deep conviction of duty, as in the case of the men who fought for the
preservation of that glorious Union whose corner stone is inscribed with the
words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free
and equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, amongst which are life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
A brave Christian soldier, who fought through all the late
terrible struggle, told me that when marching to the conflict he frequently
repeated these inspiring words from the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
In the beauty of the lilies Christ
was borne across the sea,
With a glory on his visage that
transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us
die to make men free,
His
truth is marching on.
That His truth is marching on we cannot doubt. The
proclamation of the sainted Lincoln –so reverently recognized by the dusky
victims of oppression as the second father of his Country, Father Abraham- has
been nobly ratified by the seals of our brothers, stamped with the hilts of
their sabers, and enforced by their blades. We have added to our confirmation
by attaching to the Constitution the Fifteenth Amendment, and now who shall
gainsay us when we proudly boast that ours is “the land of the free and the
home of the brave.” Well then may
we rejoice on this festal day of the Republic.
In the eye of history it is but a little while since we were
but three millions of people, now forty millions claim the proud name of
American citizens. But a few years ago- in fact within the memory of some of
us- the United States were virtually enclosed between the Alleghanies and the
Atlantic. I remember, when a child, of hearing of our neighbors immigrating to
the back woods of ___ . Now a band of sister states, united under one firm
government, stretch in unbroken line from the great ocean on the east to the
great ocean on the west, bound together by bands of iron and cords of toughened
wire.
But a few years since the enemies of freedom said that our
form of government was an experiment, that it was being weighed in the balance
and would be found wanting in the elements of vitality and strength. Now
throughout the civilized world the oppressed gather courage and inspiration
from the proofs we have given them of the capacity of man for self government.
Constitutional governments are everywhere becoming the rule, the rights of the
people are constantly being enlarged, the elective franchises widened, and
serfdom and slavery are rapidly hastening to extinction.
Steam and electric telegraph are dissipating those foolish
antipathies between nations and races which were of old so carefully cherished,
and the schoolmaster is abroad educating the people into a better acquaintance
with themselves and their fellows.
A larger and more comprehensive statesmanship is taking the
place of the old fashioned diplomacy. Americans may well point with pride to
the honorable course pursued by our own Seward in the delicate questions with
which he had to deal, and also t the not less wise and just policy of the
present administration.
We have abundantly proven to the world our ability to cope,
if necessary, with any power, however great, and can therefore well afford to
be magnanimous and to show our faith in the right by acting towards other
governments if we think they should, under similar circumstances, act toward
us.
I think that the instinctive love of justice of the people
of one great nation and the nice sense of honor which is the boast of another,
will lead, in both cases, to a satisfactory solution of any questions now
pending between us and them.
I trust that the day is far distant when we shall be engaged
in any struggle, either with foreign nations or between different portions of
our own people, other than a friendly rivalry as to which shall excel in those
things that tend to make mankind wise and happy.
Our future is in our own hands, if we are true to the
principles bequeathed to us by our patriot sires, it will be a glorious one.
The vast extent of our territory, which stretches from the frozen regions of
the north to the milder latitudes where winter is nknown, the great range of
its productions, embracing the most valuable articles of commerce; its untold
mineral wealth, manufacturing advantages, “rivers that move in majesty and the
complaining brooks that make the meadows green,” its noble bays and secure
harbors, make it second, in natural resources, to no other country in the
world. But to wise and far-seeing
statesmen these are not all that are required to make a great nation.
I have traveled over the fertile plains of the valleys of
the Mississippi, the Missouri and the Ohio, where if the husbandman tickles the
bosom of the earth with a spade it laughs with a harvest, through the
inexhaustible deposits of coal of my native Pennsylvania, where black diamonds
spread riches over the mountain and through the valleys of that noble State. I
have stood at night by the side of the streams of molten iron, flowing in
rivulets of wealth from the furnaces, but until I saw but little more than a
year ago, bleak barren New England, I never fully realized what it was that
constituted the true wealth of a nation:
“What constitutes a State?
Not high raised battlements and labored mound,
Thick walls or moated gates,
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned,
Not bays and broad armed ports,
Where laughing at the storm rich navies ride.
No; men, high minded men,
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain.”
I heard recently an anecdote of a stranger, traveling for
the first time through New England, who, struck by the general appearance of
sterility in the soil and at the same time by the signs of prosperity in the
homes of the people, asked a boy what they produced on this barren land, where,
as he was told, they shot the corn into the ground with a musket and sharpened
the noses of the sheep that they might feed among the rocks. The boy said that
it was true that it was a poor country for corn, but they used the rocks for
building churches and school houses, in which they cultivated a good crop of
men.
Let us then, being stimulated by what we have seen of the
good results of such a crop, foster carefully our educational institutions, and
impress on the minds of our children the great truth that “Righteousness
exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any great people.” So shall we go
conquering by the might of truth, and our posterity shall rise up and call us
blessed.
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Notice having been given on the previous Saturday that there
would be a picnic at 3 o’clock P.M., at the residence of Mrs. Paty, in Nuuanu
valley, thrither could be seen wending their way flocks of gaily-dressed
children, and carriages filled with older people. The Honolulu brass band
reached the grounds soon after three, and was met at the gate by the children,
marching in twos. The procession, headed by the band, returned to the grove
playing national airs, and continued some ten or fifteen minutes marching and
counter-marching, till they surrounded the tables, which were loaded with
cakes, sandwiches, cookies, candies, fruits and lemonade, in great abundance.
After the lunch was over, the juveniles forms into line again, headed by the
band, and marches to the verandah of the cottage, where they listened to an
extract or two from the Declaration of Independence, read by His Honor Judge
Hartwell. His Ex., the American Minister then addressed them in a few words,
when three cheers were given for President Grant, and three more for King
Kamehameha V. Here the band struck up the national air, “God save the King;”
after which Rev. Mr. McCully made some very appropriate remarks to the
children. It was near sunset before the juveniles could be induced to leave the
pleasant grove, which for several hours had resounded with their merry shouts,
with music and fire crackers, and which had been made still more attractive
with a liberal display of flags and evergreens.
There must have been at least three hundred persons present,
half of whom were children; and it is surprising what an amount of enjoyment to
old as well as young can be compressed into three short hours, and with so
little outlay of money judiciously expended. The ladies who assisted, with
contributions or otherwise, will accept the thanks of the juveniles and others.
Besides this, there were other picnics, at Waikiki, Waialae,
Kalihi, Ewa, and in the valleys near the city; and though there was no general
public celebration, the fourth of July, 1870, will be remembered as a pleasant
incident in our life in the tropics.
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