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orations-第1部分

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Orations



by John Quincy Adams







〃The Jubilee of the Constitution; delivered at New York; 

April 30; 1839; before the New York Historical Society。〃







Fellow…Citizens and Brethren; Associates of the New York

Historical Society:



Would it be an unlicensed trespass of the imagination to

conceive that on the night preceding the day of which you now

commemorate the fiftieth anniversaryon the night preceding

that thirtieth of April; 1789; when from the balcony of your city

hall the chancellor of the State of New York administered to

George Washington the solemn oath faithfully to execute the

office of President of the United States; and to the best of his

ability to preserve; protect; and defend the constitution of the

United Statesthat in the visions of the night the guardian

angel of the Father of our Country had appeared before him; in

the venerated form of his mother; and; to cheer and encourage

him in the performance of the momentous and solemn duties

that he was about to assume; had delivered to him a suit of

celestial armora helmet; consisting of the principles of piety;

of justice; of honor; of benevolence; with which from his

earliest infancy he had hitherto walked through life; in the

presence of all his brethren; a spear; studded with the self…

evident truths of the Declaration of Independence; a sword; the

same with which he had led the armies of his country through

the war of freedom to the summit of the triumphal arch of

independence; a corselet and cuishes of long experience and

habitual intercourse in peace and war with the world of

mankind; his contemporaries of the human race; in all their

stages of civilization; and; last of all; the Constitution of the

United States; a shield; embossed by heavenly hands with the

future history of his country?



Yes; gentlemen; on that shield the Constitution of the United

States was sculptured (by forms unseen; and in characters then

invisible to mortal eye); the predestined and prophetic history

of the one confederated people of the North American Union。



They had been the settlers of thirteen separate and distinct

English colonies; along the margin of the shore of the North

American Continent; contiguously situated; but chartered by

adventurers of characters variously diversified; including

sectarians; religious and political; of all the classes which for

the two preceding centuries had agitated and divided the people

of the British islandsand with them were intermingled the

descendants of Hollanders; Swedes; Germans; and French

fugitives from the persecution of the revoker of the Edict of

Nantes。



In the bosoms of this people; thus heterogeneously composed;

there was burning; kindled at different furnaces; but all

furnaces of affliction; one clear; steady flame of liberty。  Bold

and daring enterprise; stubborn endurance of privation;

unflinching intrepidity in facing danger; and inflexible

adherence to conscientious principle; had steeled to energetic

and unyielding hardihood the characters of the primitive

settlers of all these colonies。  Since that time two or three

generations of men had passed away; but they had increased

and multiplied with unexampled rapidity; and the land itself

had been the recent theatre of a ferocious and bloody seven

years' war between the two most powerful and most civilized

nations of Europe contending for the possession of this

continent。



Of that strife the victorious combatant had been Britain。  She

had conquered the provinces of France。  She had expelled her

rival totally from the continent; over which; bounding herself

by the Mississippi; she was thenceforth to hold divided empire

only with Spain。  She had acquired undisputed control over the

Indian tribes still tenanting the forests unexplored by the

European man。  She had established an uncontested monopoly

of the commerce of all her colonies。  But forgetting all the

warnings of preceding agesforgetting the lessons written in

the blood of her own children; through centuries of departed

timeshe undertook to tax the people of the colonies without

their consent。



Resistance; instantaneous; unconcerted; sympathetic;

inflexible resistance; like an electric shock; startled and roused

the people of all the English colonies on this continent。



This was the first signal of the North American Union。  The

struggle was for chartered rightsfor English libertiesfor the

cause of Algernon Sidney and John Hampdenfor trial by jury…

…the Habeas Corpus and Magna Charta。



But the English lawyers had decided that Parliament was

omnipotentand Parliament; in its omnipotence; instead of trial

by jury and the Habeas Corpus; enacted admiralty courts in

England to try Americans for offences charged against them as

committed in America; instead of the privileges of Magna

Charta; nullified the charter itself of Massachusetts Bay; shut

up the port of Boston; sent armies and navies to keep the peace

and teach the colonies that John Hampden was a rebel and

Algernon Sidney a traitor。



English liberties had failed them。  From the omnipotence of

Parliament the colonists appealed to the rights of man and the

omnipotence of the God of battles。  Union! Union! was the

instinctive and simultaneous cry throughout the land。  Their

Congress; assembled at Philadelphia; oncetwicehad

petitioned the king; had remonstrated to Parliament; had

addressed the people of Britain; for the rights of Englishmen

in vain。  Fleets and armies; the blood of Lexington; and the

fires of Charlestown and Falmouth; had been the answer to

petition; remonstrance; and address。。。。



The dissolution of allegiance to the British crown; the

severance of the colonies from the British Empire; and their

actual existence as independent States; were definitively

established in fact; by war and peace。  The independence of

each separate State had never been declared of right。  It never

existed in fact。  Upon the principles of the Declaration of

Independence; the dissolution of the ties of allegiance; the

assumption of sovereign power; and the institution of civil

government; are all acts of transcendent authority; which the

people alone are competent to perform; and; accordingly; it is in

the name and by the authority of the people; that two of these

actsthe dissolution of allegiance; with the severance from the

British Empire; and the declaration of the United Colonies; as

free and independent Stateswere performed by that

instrument。



But there still remained the last and crowning act; which the

people of the Union alone were competent to performthe

institution of civil government; for that compound nation; the

United States of America。



At this day it cannot but strike us as extraordinary; that it

does not appear to have occurred to any one member of that

assembly; which had laid down in terms so clear; so explicit; so

unequivocal; the foundation of all just government; in the

imprescriptible rights of man; and the transcendent sovereignty

of the people; and who in those principles had set forth their

only personal vindication from the charges of rebellion against

their king; and of treason to their country; that their last

crowning act was still to be performed upon the same

principles。  That is; the institution; by the people of the United

States; of a civil government; to guard and protect and defend

them all。  On the contrary; that same assembly which issued

the Declaration of Independence; instead of continuing to act in

the name and by the authority of the good people of the United

States; had; immediately after the appointment of the

committee to prepare the Declaration; appointed another

committee; of one member from each colony; to prepare and

digest the form of confederation to be entered into between the

colonies。



That committee reported on the twelfth of July; eight days

after the Declaration of Independence had been issued; a draft

of articles of confederation between the colonies。  This draft

was prepared by John Dickinson; then a delegate from

Pennsylvania; who voted against the Declaration of

Independence; and never signed it; having been superseded by

a new election of delegates from that State; eight days after his

draft was reported。



There was thus no congeniality of principle between the

Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation。 

The foundation of the former was a superintending Providence…

…the rights of man; and the constituent revolutionary power of

the people。  That of the latter was the sovereignty of organized

power; and the independence of the separate or dis…united

States。  The fabric of the Declaration and that of the

Confederation were each consistent with its own foundation;

but they could not form one consistent; symmetrical edifice。 

They were the productions of different minds and of adverse

passions; one; ascending for the foundation of human

government to the laws of nature and of God; written upon the

heart of man; the other; resting upon the basis of human

institutions; and prescriptive law; and colonial charter。  The

cornerstone of the one was right; that of the other was power。。。。



Where; then; did each State get the sovereignty; freedom; and

independence; which the Articles of Confederation declare it

retains?not from the whole people of the whole Unionnot

from the Declaration of Independencenot from the people of

the State itself。  It was assumed by agreement between the

Legislatures of the several States; and their delegates in

Congress; without authority from or consultation of the people

at all。



In the Declaration of Independence; the enacting and

constituent party dispensing and delegating sovereign power is

the whole people of the United Colonies。  The recipient party;

invested with power; is the United Colonies; declared United

States。


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