Adlai Stevenson

Attempts to tax the unrepresented colonies soon encountered concerted hostility. 'No taxation without representation' became the universal slogan.

Their allegiance, meanwhile, to the mother country had been unfaltering, and in her fierce struggle with France for the mastery of the continent, America had sealed her loyalty with the best blood of her sons.

Brave men from the early fringe of settlements upon the Atlantic--regardless of obstacle and danger--had pushed their way westward, and laid the sure foundations of future commonwealths.

It is a marvel, indeed, that with James the First upon the throne, and popular freedom in such a low state throughout his immediate realm, that so large a measure of liberty should have been conceded to the distant colony.

It was in very truth the first step in the direction of the establishment of the great Republic which was to be the enduring beacon-light of self-governing people in all future ages.

By this charter, representative government and trial by jury became recognized rights in the New World.

Its glamour is upon the early pages of colonial history; her witchery lingers upon stream and forest, and the firm earth upon which we tread seems to have been hallowed by her footsteps.

So long as courage and fidelity arouse sympathy and admiration, so long will the thrilling legend of Pocahontas touch responsive chords in human hearts.

It is not too much to say that the hour that witnessed these enactments witnessed the triumph of the popular over the court party; in no unimportant sense, the first triumph of the American colonists over kingly prerogative.

In this little assemblage of twenty-two burgesses, the Legislatures of nearly fifty commonwealths to-day and of the Congress with its representatives from all the States of 'an indestructible union' find their historical beginning.

It were impossible to overstate its deep import to the struggling colony, or its far-reaching consequence to States yet unborn.

And that here self-government--in its crude form but none the less self-government--had its historical beginning.