Before continuing the
onward march let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen our
faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along which our
people have traveled.
It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption of the
first written constitution of the United States--the Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new Republic was then beset with
danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of
nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose
centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown,
had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against
the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of
mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority
of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the
people themselves.
We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent
courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the
great experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short
trial, that the confederacy of States was too weak to meet the
necessities of a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it
aside, and in its stead established a National Union, founded directly
upon the will of the people, endowed with full power of
self-preservation and ample authority for the accomplishment of its
great object.
Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged,
the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the
growth of our people in all the better elements of national life has
indicated the wisdom of the founders and given new hope to their
descendants.
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