Reply of Mr. Knox.
Mr. President:
I deeply appreciate the honor of being invited to appear before this Assembly in solemn session. It is another mark of the high consideration I have been shown since I entered the Republic. I profoundly realize the important relations which the legislative branch of your Government, like the legislative branches of all republics, bears to the national system and how important its functions are for the welfare of the people.
The real crisis in the history of any people who have by revolution freed themselves from tyranny and oppression is when the cohesive force of the perils of war have been released and the duty of the construction of a new government begins. A people may be liberated and their right to self-government established by the arbitrament of war; but liberty without efficient government is anarchy, and a true national government must be constructed. We found this true in the history of the United States, and the period that intervened between the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown and the establishment of the present Government of the United States was one of the most critical in its history. It was commonly asserted, and even by our most friendly critics, that we were incapable of establishing any species of government because we were disunited. It was thought that suspicion and distrust of the people of the different sections of our country would continue until the end of time, and that we would be subdivided into little commonwealths or communities, according to the physical conformation of the land.
Perhaps without the splendid service which the immortal Washington rendered to his country in its trying years this dire prediction might have proved true, but he roused the people to the appreciation of the fact that no permanent government was possible unless the people themselves would be willing, as he expressed it in his farewell letter, “to sacrifice, if need be, some of their local interests to the common weal; they must discard their local prejudices and regard one another as fellow citizens of a common country, with interests in the deepest and truest sense identical.” This communication was addressed to the people of thirteen different Commonwealths, each of which regarded itself as a sovereign power, and each of which was groaning under the burden it had assumed for the common cause now brought, as they believed, to a happy issue. They were in no humor for further surrender or sacrifice; they were quarreling among themselves over all sorts of real and fancied grievances. Our credit was failing at home and abroad; our relations with other countries as well as between ourselves were unhappy because of our lack of unity. As a result our citizens were insulted, kidnapped, impressed, and sold [Page 1121] into slavery, and all sorts of economic vagaries were abroad in the land. This pointed to an early condition of total wreckage of all that we had gained by our war for independence if a better understanding for the future was not soon reached.
Fortunately this opportunity came in the call for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Once again duty called Washington from the satisfactions of private life to preside over the destiny of his countrymen, and upon the very threshold of its labors his lofty character and noble eloquence inspired the members of the convention with a sense of their duties and responsibilities. It has been said by one of our great historians1 that—
At the very outset some of the delegates began to exhibit symptoms of that peculiar kind of moral cowardice which is wont to afflict free governments, and of which American history furnishes so many instructive examples. It was suggested that palliatives and half measures would be far more likely to find favor with the people than any thoroughgoing reform, when Washington suddenly interposed with a brief but immortal speech, which ought to be blazoned in letters of gold, and posted on the walls of every American assembly that shall meet to nominate a candidate, or declare a policy, or pass a law, so long as the weakness of human nature shall endure. Rising from his President’s chair, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, he exclaimed, in tones unwontedly solemn, with suppressed emotion: “It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted; perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God.”
This outburst of noble eloquence carried conviction to everyone, and henceforth we do not hear that any attempt was avowedly made to avoid the issues as they came up. It was a most wholesome tonic. It braced up the convention to high resolves, and impressed upon all the delegates that they were in a situation where faltering or trifling was both wicked and dangerous. From that moment the mood in which they worked caught something from the glorious spirit of Wasington.
The result of the labors of this convention was the Constitution of the United States; the result of its ratification by the States was the birth of a nation. The present unity, brotherhood, and intercitizenship of the inhabitants of the formerly discordant and jarring States of our Union attest the beneficence of the work of those upon whom the original responsibility was cast, and you people of Nicaragua may be assured of the certainty that under Providence great blessings will come to you as a result of the heroic fortitude you have displayed in the cause of liberty, if it is followed by wise, prompt, and beneficent action for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the institutions of your land. Mere politics, local differences, sectional strife, personal ambition, should be set aside, and the best thought and the best effort of the country given to the consideration and enactment of such economic measures as will open to the people of Nicaragua a new vista of hope and prosperity. This, supplemented by such measures as wall make permanent and enduring the equality of rights which is essential to the maintenance of republican institutions, will give Nicaragua her proper place among the family of American republics.
I note, Mr. President, what you have said in regard to the existence of some apprehension here and in other republics of Latin America as to the true motives and purposes of the United States toward them [Page 1122] under the Monroe Doctrine. I beg to assure you, and I am sure that what I say meets the approval of the people and President of the United States, that my Government does not covet an inch of territory south of the Rio Grande. The full measure and extent of our policy is to assist in the maintenance of republican institutions upon this hemisphere, and we are anxious that the experiment of a government of the people, for the people, and by the people shall not fail in any republic on this continent. We have a well-known policy as to causes that might threaten the existence of an American republic from beyond the sea. We are equally desirous that there shall be no failure to maintain a republican form of government from forces of disintegration originating from within; and so far as we may be able we will always be found willing to lend such proper assistance as may be within our power to preserve the stability of our sister American republics.
- John Fiske, “The Critical Period of American History, 1783–1789.”↩