"_Pallida Mors[e] pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres_,"
"Pale Death, impartial, walks his round; he knocks at cottage-gate And palace portal."
I have found both pleasure and profit in reviewing these associations, especially the memories of our wise and friendly teachers, and of fellow-students who were soon to be entrusted with the grave interests, the sacred issues of life, liberty and property. As experience and observation widen, one realizes how thin is the crust which separates civilized society from the elemental fires below, and comes more and more to value influences which preserve and institutions which stabilize. Such an influence, such an institution is the Harvard Law School. Such an influence, such an institution is the Brotherhood of the Bar, indissoluble save by death or dishonor.
[1] Fourth of July Address at the Church of Saint Mary's-by-the-Sea, Northeast Harbor, Maine. Published herein by request of the Editor of the Law Journal. See "Editorial Notes."
The exercises of to-day are a revival, temporary perhaps, but still a revival, of the good old custom of celebrating the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by public meetings, with prayer and song, the reading of the Declaration, and a patriotic address. It was a good custom, though it tended to foster some erroneous ideas, particularly that England as a nation was blameworthy in Revolutionary times, rather than the political machinations of George III, the politician king. But it was a good custom for all that, and it is regrettable that it gave place to noise and fireworks.
In the more recent years the date has been significant of other great crises in our history than that of Revolutionary times. That was, of course, the greatest of all, and never to be forgotten, as it marks the definite transition of thirteen colonies into thirteen States, organized for war purposes as a nation. There had been over a year of war, beginning with the skirmish at Lexington and the British retreat, followed quickly by Ticonderoga, Bunker Hill, and the investment of Boston. During the fall and winter there were the episodes of the burning of Portland; the capture of Montreal (later relinquished); the capture of Norfolk in December; Arnold's heartbreaking expedition to Quebec through Maine forests in the dead of winter; the battle of Moore's Creek, N. C., early in 1776, called the "Southern Lexington," and, to crown all, the evacuation of Boston. These events and their concomitants, say the historians, made inevitable the Declaration of Independence, though the struggle began only as one for greater colonial self-government and modification of the taxing system. It was our first "birth of Freedom," which has been re-born more than once since.