of our republic looked beyond the transient sufferings and
miseries of a conflict with their mother-country, to the unbounded
resources which were sure to be developed on every river and in every
valley of the vast wilderness yet to be explored, and to the teeming
populations which were to arise and to be blessed by the enjoyment of
those precious privileges and rights for which they were about to take
up the sword. They may not have anticipated so rapid a progress in
agriculture, in wealth, in manufactures, in science, in literature and
art, as has taken place within one hundred years, to the astonishment
and admiration of all mankind; but they saw that American progress would
be steady, incalculable, immeasurable, unchecked and ever advancing,
until their infant country should number more favored people than any
nation which history records, unconquerable by any foreign power, and
never to pass away except through the prevalence of such vices as
destroyed the old Roman world.

With this encouragement, statesmen like Franklin, Washington, Adams,
Jefferson, Hamilton, were ready to risk everything and make any
sacrifice to bring about the triumph of their cause,--a cause infinitely
greater than that which was advocated by Pitt, or fought for by
Wellington. Their eyes rested on the future of America, and the great
men who were yet to be born. They well could say, in the language of an
orator more eloquent than any of them, as he stood on Plymouth Rock
in 1820:--

"Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in
your long succession to fill the places which we now fill.... We bid you
welcome to the healthy skies and the verdant fields of New England. We
greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We
welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty.
We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of
learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to
the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to
the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of
Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!"

John Adams, whose worth and services Daniel Webster, six years after
uttering those words, pointed out in Fanueil Hall when the old statesman
died, was probably the most influential member of the Continental
Congress, after Washington, since he was its greatest orator and its
most i