Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1888 — A GREAT ORATION. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A GREAT ORATION.

Patrick Henry's Historical • Speech in Philadelphia That Secured the Signatures to the Declaration of American Independence.

THE following account of the proceedings of the convention that adopted the Declaration of Independence is taken from the : Boston Journal o f 1776. It was at this session that Patrick Henrv, the fiery ora-

tor, made his immortal address, and which carried his hearers along the path of conviction until every one stood ready to sacrifice all that the colonies might be free from the hated yoke of England. The Journal says of this famous gathering: It is the old hall of Philadelphia, on July 4, 1776. There is a silence in this hall; every face is stamped with a deep and awful responsibility! Why turns every glance to that door? Why is it so terribly still ? The committee of three who have been out all night planning a parchment are about to appear. That parchment, with the signatures of these men, written with the pen Iving on yonder table, may either make tfie world free, or stretch these necks on the gibbet yonder in potter’s field, or nail these heads to the doorposts of these halU. That was the time for solemn faces and deep silence. At last, hark! The door opens, the committee appears. Who are these men who come walking on to John Hancock's chair?

The tall man, with sharp features, the bold brow and sand-hued hair, holding the parchment, is the Virginia farmer, Thomas Jefferscfn. The stout-built man, with resolute look and sparkling eye —that is a Boston man, one John Adams. And the calm-faced man with hair dropping in thick - curls to his shoulders, the one dressed in a plain coat and such odious home-made blue stockings—that is a Philadelphia printer, one Benjamin Franklin. The three advance to the table. The parchment is laid there. Shall it be signed or not ? Then eusues a high debate; then all the faint-hearted cringe in corners, while Thomas Jefferson speaks out his few l>old words, and Jolm Adams pours out his whole soul. The soft-toned voice of Charles Carroll is heard undulating in syllables of deep music. But still there is doubt, and that pale-faced man shrinking in one corner speaks out something about axes, ' scaffolds, and a—gibbet. “Gibbet!” echoed a fierce bold tone, that startled men from their seats—and look yonder, a tall, slender form rises, dressed, although it is summer time, in a faded red cloak. Look how his white band trembles, as it stretches slowly out; how that dark eye burns, while bis words ring through the hall. It is Virginia’s fiery orator, Patrick Henry. Gibbet! They may stretch our necks on all the gibbets in the land; they may turn every rock into a scaffold, "every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave, and.yet the words of that parchment can never die.

They may pour blood upon a thousand scaffolds, and yet from every drop that dyes the ax, or drops on the sawdust of the block, a new martyr of free•dom will spring into birth! The British King may blot out the stars of God from liis sky, but he cannot blot out the words written on the parchment there. The works of God may perish; His word, never! These words will go forth to the world when our bones are dust. To the slave in bondage they will speak bope; to the mechanic in his workshop, freedom; to the coward kings these w r ords will speak, but not in tones of flattery. They will speak like the flaming syllables on Belshazzar’s wall: “The days of pride and glory are numbered! The days of judgment draw near!”

Yes, that parchment will speak to kings in language sad and terrible as the trumpet of the archangel. You have trampled on the rights of mankind long enough. At last, the voice of human woe has piferced the ear of God, and called his judgment down. You have waded on the throne through seas of blood; you have trampled on the necks of millions; you have turned the poor man’s sweat and blood into robes for your delicate forms; into crowns for your anointed brows. Now, kings! Now, purpled hangmen of the world! For you comes the day of axes, and gibbets and scaffolds; for you the wrath of man; for you the lightnings of God. Look! How the light of your palaces on fire flashes up into the midnight air! Now, purpled hangmen of the world, turn and beg for mercy! Where will you find it ? Not from God, for you have blasphemed His laws! Not from the people, for you stand baptized in their blood! Here you turn, and lo! a gibbet! There, and a scaffold stares you in the face! All around you —death— but nowhere pity! Now, executioners of the human race, kneel down; yes, kneel down on the sawdust of the scaffold; lay your purpled heads upon the block ; bless the ax as it falls —the ax sharpened for the hangman’s Beck. Such is the message of the declaration of the kings of the world. And

shall we falter now? And shall we start back appalled when our free people press the very threshold of freedom? Do you see quailing faces around you when our wives have been butchered; when the heartlistones of our land are red with the blood of little children ? What! Are there shrinking hearts or faltering voices here, w hen the very dead of our battlefields arise and call upon us to sign that parchment or be accursed ? Sign! If the next moment the gibbet’s rope is around your neck. Sign ! If the next moment this hall rings with the echo of the falling ax. Sign! By all your hopes in life or death, as husbands, fathers —as men with our names to the parchment, or be accused forever 1 Sign, net only for yourselves, but for all ages; for that parchment will be the text-book of freedom—the Bible of the rights of man forever. Sign, for the declaration will go forth to American hearts like the voice of God. And its work will not be done until throughout this wide continent not a single inch of ground owns the sway of privilege of power. Nay, do not start and whisper with surprise. It is truth. Your own hearts witness it; God proclaims it. This continent is" the property of a free people, and their property alone. God, I say, proclailns it. Look at this strange history of a band of exiles and outcasts suddenly transformed into the people. Look at this wonderful exodus of the old world into the new, where they came weak in arms, but mighty in god-like faith. Nay, look at the history of your Bunker Hill, yonr Lexington, where a band of plain farmers mocked and trampled down the panoply of British arms, and then tell me, if you can, that God has not given America to be free. It is not given to our poor human intellect to climb the skies to pierce the councils of the Almighty one. But metliinks I stand among the awful clouds which veil the brightness of Jehovah’s throne. Metliinks I see the recording angel—pale as angel is pale, weeping as an angel can weep—come trembling up to the throne, and speaking his dreadful message. Father! The old world is baptized in blood. Father! It is drenched with the blood of millions who have been executed, in slow' and grinding oppression. Father, look! With one glance of Thine eternal eye, look over Europe, Asia, Africa, and behold everywhere a terrible sight—man trodden down beneath the oppressor’s feet, nations lost in blood, murder and superstition walking hand in hand over the graves of their victims, and not a single voice to w hisper hope to man. He stands there (the angel), his hand trembling with the human guilt. But hark! The voice of Jehovah speaks out from the awful cloud : Let there be light again. Let there be a new world. Tell my people, the poor, downtrodden millions, to go out from the old world. Tell them to go out from wrong, oppression and blood. Tell them to go out from the old world to build up my altar in the new.

As God lives, my friends, I believe that to be his voice. Yes, were my soul trembling as the wing of eternity, were this hand freezing to death, were my voice choking with the last struggle, I would still, with the last gasp of that voice, implore you to remember the truth. God has given America to be free. Yes, as I sank down into the gloomy shadows of the grave, with my last gasp I would beg you to sign that parchment. In the name of the One who made you, the Savior tvlio redeemed you, in the name of the millions whose very breath is now hushed, as, in intense expectation, they look up to you for the awful words, you are free !

Many years have gone by since that hour. The speaker, his brethren, all have crumbled into dust, but the records of that hour still exist, and they tell ns that it would require an angel’s pen to picture the magic of that speaker’s look, the terrible emphasis of his voice, the prophetic-like beckoning of his hand, the magnetic flames Shooting from his eyes, that fired every heart throughout the hall. He fell exhausted in his seat, as the work was done. A wild murmur thrills through the hall. Sign ? Ha! There is no doubt now. Look! How they rush forward! Stouthearted John Hancock has scarcely time to sign his own name before the pen is grasped by another, another and another. Look how their names blaze on the parchment, Adams and Lee and Jefferson and Carroll, and now Roger Sherman, the shoemaker. And here comes good old Stephen Hopkins; yes, trembling with palsy, he totters forward, quivering from head to foot. With his shaking hand he seizes the pen and scratches his patriot name. Then comes Benjamin Franklin, the printer. And now the tall man in the red cloak advances—the man who made the fiery speech a moment ago. With the same hand that waved in fiery scorn, he writes his name—Patrick Henry. And now the parchment is signed; and now let the word go forth to the people in the streets, to the homes of America, to the camp of Washington; t 6 the palace of George, the idiot king; let the word go out to all the earth. And, old man in the steeple, now bare your arm and grasp the iron tongue, and let the bell speak out the great truth. Fifty-six farmers and mechanics have this day struck at the shackles of the world.

Don’t be afraid of getting hurt on the glorious Fourth, Our fathers got hurt to produce the great day, and their children should keep on getting hurt to keep tha day in all its pristine glory-