GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS THE PURITAN PRINCIPLE: 1 THE LAW LIBERTY UNDER Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society: It was Isaac Walton, in his Angler, who said that Dr. Botelier was accustomed to remark "that doubtless God might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but doubtless he never did." And I suppose I speak the secret feeling of this festive company when I say that doubtless there might have been a better place to be born in than New England, but doubtless no such place exists. And if any sceptic should reply that our very presence here would seem to indicate that doubtless, also, New England is as good a place to leave as to stay in, I should reply to him that, on the contrary, our presence is but an added glory of our mother. It is an illustration of the devout missionary spirit, of the willingness in which she has trained us to share with others the blessings that we have received, and to circle the continent, to girdle the globe, with the strength of 1 Curtis gave this address before a group of three hundred representative men in the city of New York, December 22, 1876. His words led men to believe that some sort of court must settle the election issue between Tilden and Hayes. For the effect of this speech see Edward Everett Hale's account in the Boston Commonwealth of September 10, 1892. The speech is reprinted from Essays and Addresses by G. W. Curtis, Vol. I, p. 243. Used by permission of and by arrangement with Harper & Brothers, publishers. New England character and the purity of New England principles. Even the Knickerbockers, Mr. President in whose stately and splendid city we are at this moment assembled, and assembled of right because it is our home even they would doubtless concede that much of the state and splendor of this city is due to the enterprise, the industry, and the genius of those whom their first historian describes as "losel Yankees." Sir, they grace our feast with their presence; they will enliven it, I am sure, with their eloquence and wit. Our tables are rich with the flowers grown in their soil; but there is one flower that we do not see, one flower whose perfume fills a continent, which has blossomed for more than two centuries and a half with ever-increasing and deepening beauty a flower which blooms at this moment on this wintry night,. in never-fading freshness in a million of true hearts, from the snow-clad Katahdin to the warm Golden Gate of the South Sea, and over its waters to the isles of the East and the land of Prester John the flower of flowers, the Pilgrim's Mayflower. Well, sir, holding that flower in my hand at this moment, I say that the day we celebrate commemorates the introduction upon this continent of the master principle of its civilization. I do not forget that we are a nation of many nationalities. I do not forget that there are gentlemen at this board who wear the flower of other nations close upon their hearts. I remember the forget-me-nots of Germany, and I know that the race which keeps "watch upon the Rhine" keeps watch also upon the Mississippi and the Lakes. I recall - how could I forget? — the delicate shamrock; for “There came to this beach a poor exile of Erin,” and on this beach, with his native modesty "He still sings his bold anthem of Erin-go-Bragh." I remember surely, sir, the lily too often the tigerlily of France and the thistle of Scotland; I recall the daisy and the rose of England; and, sir, in Switzerland, high upon the Alps, on the very edge of the glacier, the highest flower that grows in Europe, is the rare edelweiss. It is in Europe; we are in America. And here in America, higher than shamrock or thistle, higher than rose, lily, or daisy, higher than the highest, blooms the perennial Mayflower. For, sir and gentlemen, it is the English-speaking race that has moulded the destiny of this continent; and the Puritan influence is the strongest influence that has acted upon it. I am surely not here to assert that the men who have represented that influence have always been men whose spirit was blended of sweetness and light. I confess truly their hardness, their prejudice, their narrowness. All this I know: Charles Stuart could bow more blandly, could dance more gracefully than John Milton; and the Cavalier king looks out from the canvas of Vandyck with a more romantic beauty of flowing lovelocks than hung upon the brow of Edward Winslow, the only Pilgrim Father whose portrait comes down to us. But, sir, we estimate the cause beyond the man. Not even is the gracious spirit of Christianity itself measured by its confessors. If we would see the actual force, the creative power of the Pilgrim principle, we are not to look at the company who came over in the cabin of the Mayflower; we are to look upon the forty millions who fill this continent from sea to sea. The Mayflower, sir, brought seed and not a harvest. In a century and a half the religious restrictions of the Puritans had grown into absolute religious liberty, and in two centuries it had burst beyond the limits of New England, and John Carver of the Mayflower had ripened into Abraham Lincoln of the Illinois prairie. Why, gentlemen, if you would see the most conclusive proof of the power of this principle, you have but to observe that the local distinctive title of New Englanders has now become that of every man in the country. Every man who hears me, from whatever State in the Union, is, to Europe, a Yankee, and to-day the United States are but the "universal Yankee nation." Do you ask me, then, what is this Puritan principle? Do you ask me whether it is as good for to-day as for yesterday; whether it is good for every national emergency; whether it is good for the situation of this hour? I think we need neither doubt nor fear. The Puritan principle in its essence is simply individual freedom. From that spring religious liberty and political equality. The free State, the free Church, the free School these are the triple armor of American nationality, of American security. But the Pil |