John Philip Newman

“ And we have been equally favored in our population, whether we take the Puritans who landed in New England, the Dutch who landed in New York, or the English who crowded Maryland and Virginia. They were first-class families. Especially do we trace back with pride that glorious genius for liberty, for intelligence, for devotion manifested by those heroic men and women who, amid the desolations of a terrific winter landed on a barren rock to transform a vast wilderness, through which the wild man roamed, into a garden wherein should grow the flowers and the fruits of freedom. ”

“ Surely these great facts call upon the President of the United States to convoke the freemen of this country around their religious altars to offer their gratitude and praise to Him from whom cometh all these blessings; for in His hand are the resources of national wealth. With him are the ministers of good and the ministers of evil. He can marshal the insect. He can excite the malaria. He can call forth the tornado. He can put down his foot and wreck the earth with earthquake throes. ”

“ South of this zone are Egypt and Arabia and India, and other nations that have lived in splendor. But the peoples that have given direction to the thought of mankind, that have created the philosophy for the race, that have given jurisprudence and history and oratory, and poetry and art and science, and government, to mankind, have been crowded, as it were, within this zone of supremacy, within this magical belt of national prosperity. Examine your globe, and there is Greece, that gave letters to the world; Rome, that gave jurisprudence to mankind; Palestine, that gave religion to our race. ”

“ It should not be a day of recreation to be spent in riotous living and in brawls, but a day peaceful, in harmony with the institutions of religion and the dominant sentiment of the country. Our fathers consecrated the Sabbath, and had you the patience to hear and I, the time to read from Franklin, from Jefferson, from Washington, touching the Sabbath, in recognition of it as indispensable to the welfare of our body politic, you would be confirmed in this great truth. The danger to-day is that we are becoming un-American in cutting loose from the Sabbath-day as a day of rest and of worship. ”

“ And if we turn our eyes over the great deep to the most favored nations beyond the Atlantic, the contrast inspires grateful emotions, and we are equally led to contemplate the causes which have brought about a condition so favorable to us. The most venerable nations in Europe, countries that have lived through more than a millennium, are to-day shaken by internal disturbance. Those institutions which have come down from the hoary past, which have been considered pre-eminent in the affections and faith of mankind, now topple to their fall. ”

“ But rather we shall live on, and gifted with immortal youth, America shall ascend the mountain tops of the oncoming centuries with the old flag in her hand, symbol of universal liberty, the light of whose stars shall blend their radiance with the dawn of the millennium. ”

“ They have added to the wealth of the nation. But while I make this concession, and I do it cheerfully and proudly, yet I must affirm that there are three classes of Americans: the native-born, the foreign-born and the typical American. The native American has the advantage of birth, out of which flows one supreme advantage—he may be the President of the United States. This is a wise provision, as nativity is a primary source of patriotism, and time is necessary to appreciation. But the native may be a worthless citizen. He should be the typical American, but he has too often failed to be. ”

“ Religion shall be free. Here the Mohammedan may rear his mosque and read his Koran. Here the Brahmin may rear his pagoda and read his Shasta. All religionists may come and worship here, but their worship shall not infringe upon the worship of others nor work injury to the body-politic. The Typical American should set his face against all seeming alliance of Church and State. We say to the Holy Father, live in peace. Stay in Rome. Live on the banks of the Tiber. If you come here, you must be an American citizen, rejecting your doctrine of temporal power. ”

“ Let the tocsin of war be founded; let a foreign foe invade our shores; let an insurrectionary body arise in our midst, and a million of freemen, armed to the teeth, will "Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again." [Vociferous applause.] It is difficult for immigrants coming to this country to appreciate this fact. They pass through the land and see no gens d'armes, no standing armies, and rarely a policeman. [Laughter.]
The true American stands forever on duty, a soldier of the Republic in the disguise of a citizen, the custodian of the Republic's life. ”

“ I cannot invoke the civil law to do more than to say that it shall be a day of rest. I cannot invoke the civil law to say that that man shall worship here or worship there, or worship at all, but I can invoke the civil law to say that it shall be a non-secular day ”

“ As God is the center of the universe, and Christ the center of the church, so the citizen is the center of this Government. All its laws, all its administrations, all its soldiers in the army, all its guns in the navy, are for the protection of the American citizen. Wherever he wanders, whether in Africa, or Europe, or Asia, or Germany, or Ireland, or Cuba, or Mexico, the American citizen must and shall be protected. [Applause.] It is difficult for men coming from Europe, where men are contemplated in masses, to realize the potency of individuality; but it underlies our free institutions. ”

“ Although on the side of the equator destined to be the great receptacle of human life, yet it is too far from the belligerent powers of the old world to fall a victim to their corruption or to the weight of their combined forces. With a shore line equalling the circuit of the globe, and with a river navigation duplicating that vast measurement, our national domain is only one-sixth less than that of the sixty states—republics, kingdoms, and empires—of Europe. ”

“ I would be glad to know what judge takes the pains, when a hundred of these foreigners apply just on the eve of the election, that they may qualify themselves to vote, what judge inquires whether they are men of good moral character? Yet such is the provision of the law of the land. We have assumed the authority to limit suffrage. We say that women shall not vote, which is a great mistake. ”

“ Then there is the foreign-born American, who is such by naturalization. He may be worthy of our free institutions, as many are; he may be unworthy, as many have proved themselves to be. But, rising above these, is the typical American, without regard to place of birth. He is the possessor of the seven great attributes, which, in my humble judgment, constitute the true American:
I. That our civil and political rights are not grants from superiors to inferiors, but flow out of the order and constitution of nature. ”

“ Let us to-day proclaim to the world that he is an American, whether native-born or foreign-born, who accepts seven great ideas which shall differentiate him from all other peoples on the face of the globe. I am bound to say, and you will agree with me, that in proportion there are as many intelligent foreigners (that is, foreign-born) in this congregation, in our city and in our country, who are in full accord with this utterance as there are of those to the manor born. ”

“ There is another attribute that belongs to the true American citizen—the recognition of Christianity as the religion of our country. Webster, our greatest expounder of constitutional law, did not hesitate to declare that Christianity—not Methodist Christianity, not Roman Catholic Christianity, not Presbyterian Christianity—but Christianity as taught by the four Evangelists, is the recognized religion of this land. ”

“ It is one of those marvels that we should recall of which we have a right to be proud; but in our pride we should not fail to ascertain why the Almighty should start us as a nation at the very acme of humanity—redeemed, educated, and made grand by the influences of a divine Christianity. ”

“ In other words, that we are determined by all that is honorable in law, by all that is energetic in religion, by all that is dear to our altars and our firesides, that this country shall not become un-American. ”

“ The fathers ventured the assertion that a government of the people and by the people and for the people should be supported, not by physical force, but by a moral power, an astounding fact in the national history. The power that conquered in the war for independence was a moral force. ”

“ Say to all persons who come to this country from foreign lands, that after 1890 they shall remain here fifteen years to become indoctrinated in our free institutions, learn the seven attributes of the American citizen, and then be prepared to love America for America's sake. ”

“ This enormous national wealth exceeds the wealth of Great Britain by two hundred and seventy-six millions of dollars. England's wealth is the growth of centuries, while our wealth, at the most, can be said to be the growth of one century. Nay, the fact is that most of ours has been created in the last twenty years. In 1860 our national wealth was estimated at sixteen thousand millions of dollars. But from 1860 to 1880 our wealth increased twenty-eight thousand millions of dollars—ten thousand millions more than the entire wealth of the Empire of Russia. ”

“ In other words could I call the roll, I would find as many intelligent foreigners who came here, not for selfishness, but for liberty and for America's sake, who would be in accord with me in declaring that America is for the Typical American. ”

“ Look forward to the time when our place among the nations shall be the umpire of the world. When England and Germany and France shall refer their international questions to us for adjudication which otherwise would be adjusted on the field of carnage; when we shall dictate to the world by moral suasion, what shall be the rights of citizens and what shall be the duty of the Government over them. ”

“ England may plant commercial colonies around the globe, and so may Germany and so may France, but let it be the mission of this country to plant colonies of moral ideas wherever the sun shines, and transform the political sentiments of the world until all men shall be recognized as created free and equal by the Father Almighty. ”

“ It is proper for us to inquire the divine purpose in placing us among the nations of the earth, and what is our great mission. There are certain facts which prophesy—for facts are as eloquent in prophetic announcement as are the lips of prophet or seer. ”

“ And, my countrymen, it is equally significant that we stand above all nations in our origin. We started where other nations left off. Unrivalled for luxury and oriental splendor, the Assyrians sprung from a band of hunters. Grand in her pyramids, and obelisks, and sphinxes, Egypt rose from that race despised by mankind. Great in her jurisprudence, giving law to the world, the Romans came from a band of freebooters on the seven hills that have been made immortal by martial genius ”

“ A third attribute is the individuality of the citizen, out of which comes the collective man, our national life. We have exalted the individual; the American citizen is a republic of one. Whether we have fifty millions, or ten millions, or a million, whatever may be the ratio of our population, the Government recognizes the individuality of the citizen as paramount. ”

“ If chastisements have come to us as individuals, families, communities, and as a nation; if the earthquake, and the tornado, and the conflagration, have combined to teach us our dependence on the Supreme Being—all these should be esteemed as ministers of the Highest to teach us that we are pensioners upon the infinite bounty of the Almighty ”

“ The universal approval by every loyal, liberty-loving American citizen who listened to your Thanksgiving sermon yesterday, together with the philosophic and fearless manner with which the great themes therein discussed were treated, prompts a desire to extend its influence by a wider circulation than even that large congregation can give. ”

“ So also around His throne stand the angels of plenty, in whose footfalls rise the golden harvest; who quicken human genius on the land, on the ocean, the artificer, the artisan, the scholar, the philanthropist, and the patriot. ”

“ We sometimes deprecate the cosmopolitan character of our population. It is a fact, however, that the best blood of the old world came to us until within ten years—not the decrepit, not the maimed, not the aged; for over fifty per cent. of those who came were between fifteen and thirty, and have grown up to be honorable citizens in the composition of our constitutional society. They came not as paupers. Many of them came, each bringing seventy dollars, some $180 dollars, and in the aggregate they brought millions of dollars. ”

“ It is evident to the most casual observer that the past year has been significant in the manifestations of divine guidance [Pg 2] and goodness. To-day peace reigns throughout our vast domain. No foreign foe invades our shores. How superior our condition by way of contrast with our neighbors on this side of the globe. ”