hey did away forever with the
theological idea of government.

And what more did they say? They said that whenever the rulers abused
this authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the
people. How did they come to say this? I will tell you. They were pushed
into it. How? They felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man
feels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and
wrong is wonderfully quickened.

Nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ
of _habeas corpus_. Nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly
having ideas of justice.

And they began to inquire what rights the king of Great Britain had.
They began to search for the charter of his authority. They began to
investigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be
founded, and when they got down there, forced there, too, by their
oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they
found at the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not
thrones, but humanity and the rights of men.

And so they said, we are men; we are _men_. They found out they were
men. And the next thing they said, was, "We will be free men; we are
weary of being colonists; we are tired of being subjects; we are men;
and these colonies ought to be states; and these states ought to be a
nation; and that nation ought to drive the last British soldier into the
sea." And so they signed that brave declaration of independence.

I thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing
that sublime declaration. I thank them for their courage--for their
patriotism--for their wisdom--for the splendid confidence in themselves
and in the human race. I thank them for what they were, and for what
we are--for what they did and for what we have received--for what they
suffered, and for what we enjoy.

What would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? What
would we have been to-day? Nobodies,--ready to get down on our knees
and crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to
have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed
marauder--that royal robber, William the Conqueror.

They signed that declaration of independence, although they knew that it
would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. They looked forward and
saw poverty, deprivation, gloom and death.

But they also saw, on the wrecked clouds of war, the beaut