MONTPELIER, VERMONT, AUGUST 26.
A great throng greeted the President's arrival at the Vermont capital. He was met by a Reception Committee consisting of 15 prominent citizens: Col. Fred E. Smith, Hon. Charles Dewey, Prof. J. A. DeBoer, J. C. Houghton, M. E. Smilie, L. Bart Cross, G. H. Gurnsey, T. C. Phinney, H. W. Kemp, D. F. Long, C. P. Pitkin, J. W. Brock, George Wing, F. W. Morse, and Thomas Marvin. The First Regiment N. G. V., commanded by Adjutant-General Peck, with the Sons of Veterans, escorted the President and Governor Page to the State House, the former walking the entire distance with uncovered head, surrounded by a guard of honor detailed from George Crook Post, G. A. R. From the Governor's Room they were conducted to the hall of the House of Representatives, where the Legislature of Vermont was assembled in joint session. The members arose and remained standing until the Chief Magistrate was seated between Governor Page and Lieutenant-Governor Fletcher.
After the applause subsided the Lieutenant-Governor introduced President Harrison, who addressed the legislators as follows:
Mr. President and Gentlemen, the Legislature of the State of Vermont—I am grateful to you for this cordial reception, which crowns a series of friendly demonstrations which began with my entry into this good State and have continued to this interesting and important occasion. I am glad to meet the chosen representatives of the towns of Vermont, appointed to the discharge of functions of legislating for the general good. The wisdom of our fathers devised that system of governmental division for the general Government which has found adoption or adaptation in all the States—the division of the powers of the Government into three great co-ordinate departments, each independent, and yet having close and important relations one with the other, and each adapted in the highest degree to secure the liberty of the individual, the welfare of our community, and the national honor and prosperity. [Applause.] It has been fortunate for us as a people that no serious clash has occurred to these great departments. The constitutional balance and counterbalance have preserved with marvellous exactness, with the perfection of the most perfect machinery, the relations of these several departments, each doing its appropriate work and producing the great result which had been intended. Surely there is no other country where the springs of government are higher than here. The impulses of our people are drawn from springs that lie high in the hills of duty and loyalty. They respect and obey the law, because it is the orderly expression of their own will. The compact of our Government is a rule by the majority.
The sanction of all law is that it is the expression by popular election of the will of a majority of our people. Law has no other sanction than that with us; and happy are we, and happy are those communities where the election methods are so honestly and faithfully prescribed and observed that no doubt is thrown upon the popular expression and no question of the integrity of the ballot is ever raised. [Applause.] If we shall ever or anywhere allow a doubt to settle into the minds of our people whether the results of our elections are honestly attained, whether the laws made are framed by those who have been properly chosen by the majority, then all sanction is withdrawn from law and all respect from the rulers who by a false ballot are placed in public office. [Applause.]
I am glad to congratulate you upon your constituencies, intelligent, devoted and patriotic. I am glad to congratulate you that the State of Vermont, from its earliest aspirations and efforts for liberty and self-government, which developed into your Constitution in 1777, down through all the story of toil and the struggles which have beset you as a State, and the vicissitudes which have beset the country of which you are an honored part, that the State of Vermont and her sons in the councils of the Nation and on the blood-stained battle-fields of the great war have borne themselves worthily. [Applause.] Will you permit me now to thank you again for this demonstration and for the opportunity to stand for a moment in your presence? I am sure that we may each, from this occasion, in the discharge of public duty, draw some impulse to a more perfect exercise of our powers for the public good. [Applause.]
The Public Reception.
The speech-making within doors being over, President Harrison entered a side room, where he received the Tippecanoe Club, shaking hands cordially with all. He was then conducted to the Governor's Room, where he received the members of the Legislature. Meanwhile a great crowd massed on the beautiful grounds and waited impatiently for the reappearance of the President. Finally he made his way from the interior to the front of the Capitol. Governor Page introduced him. The President spoke as follows:
Governor Page and Fellow-citizens—This sunshine is as warm as a Vermont welcome. [Applause.] It is of the highest quality. It has life in it. But too much of it is prostrating. [Laughter.] I have felt, in endeavoring to respond to these calls, that I was possibly overtaxing my own strength, and perhaps overcrowding the Press Association. [Laughter.] I am not naturally a gossip, I think I had some reputation as a taciturn man, but it is gone. [Laughter.] I have not given it up willingly. I have struggled to retain it, but it has been forcefully taken from me by kindness of my fellow-citizens, whom I have met so frequently within the last year. Perhaps, however, if I preserve other virtues I can let this go. [Laughter.] It is a great thing to be a citizen of the United States. I would not have you abate at all the love and loyalty you have for Vermont. But I am glad to know that always in your history as a State and a people you have felt that the higher honor, the more glorious estate, was to be a citizen of the United States of America. [Applause.] This association of States is a geographical necessity. We can never consent that hostile boundaries shall be introduced with all that such divisions imply. We must be one from Maine to California, one from the Lakes to the Gulf [applause], and everywhere in all that domain we must insist that the behests of the Federal Constitution and of the laws written in the Federal statute-book shall be loyally obeyed. [Applause.] A statesman of one of the Southern States said to me, with tears in his eyes, shortly after my inauguration: "Mr. President, I hope you intend to give the poor people of my State a chance." I said in reply: "A chance to do what? If you mean, sir, that they shall have a chance to nullify any law, and that I shall wink at the nullification of it, you ask that which you ought not to ask and that which I cannot consider. [Applause.] If you mean that obeying every public law and giving to every other man his full rights under the law and the Constitution, they shall abide in my respect and in the security and peace of our institutions. Then they shall have, so far as in my power lies, an equal chance with all our people." [Applause.] We may not choose what laws we will obey; the choice is made for us. When a majority have, by lawful methods, placed a law upon the statute-book, we may endeavor to repeal it, we may challenge its wisdom, but while it is the law it challenges our obedience. [Applause.]
I thank you for the kindliness of this greeting in this capital of Vermont. I wish for you and your gallant State and for all your people in all their good, God-fearing homes continuance of that personal liberty, that material prosperity, that love of the truth which has always characterized them. [Applause.]
The speech-making within doors being over, President Harrison entered a side room, where he received the Tippecanoe Club, shaking hands cordially with all. He was then conducted to the Governor's Room, where he received the members of the Legislature. Meanwhile a great crowd massed on the beautiful grounds and waited impatiently for the reappearance of the President. Finally he made his way from the interior to the front of the Capitol. Governor Page introduced him. The President spoke as follows:
Governor Page and Fellow-citizens—This sunshine is as warm as a Vermont welcome. [Applause.] It is of the highest quality. It has life in it. But too much of it is prostrating. [Laughter.] I have felt, in endeavoring to respond to these calls, that I was possibly overtaxing my own strength, and perhaps overcrowding the Press Association. [Laughter.] I am not naturally a gossip, I think I had some reputation as a taciturn man, but it is gone. [Laughter.] I have not given it up willingly. I have struggled to retain it, but it has been forcefully taken from me by kindness of my fellow-citizens, whom I have met so frequently within the last year. Perhaps, however, if I preserve other virtues I can let this go. [Laughter.] It is a great thing to be a citizen of the United States. I would not have you abate at all the love and loyalty you have for Vermont. But I am glad to know that always in your history as a State and a people you have felt that the higher honor, the more glorious estate, was to be a citizen of the United States of America. [Applause.] This association of States is a geographical necessity. We can never consent that hostile boundaries shall be introduced with all that such divisions imply. We must be one from Maine to California, one from the Lakes to the Gulf [applause], and everywhere in all that domain we must insist that the behests of the Federal Constitution and of the laws written in the Federal statute-book shall be loyally obeyed. [Applause.] A statesman of one of the Southern States said to me, with tears in his eyes, shortly after my inauguration: "Mr. President, I hope you intend to give the poor people of my State a chance." I said in reply: "A chance to do what? If you mean, sir, that they shall have a chance to nullify any law, and that I shall wink at the nullification of it, you ask that which you ought not to ask and that which I cannot consider. [Applause.] If you mean that obeying every public law and giving to every other man his full rights under the law and the Constitution, they shall abide in my respect and in the security and peace of our institutions. Then they shall have, so far as in my power lies, an equal chance with all our people." [Applause.] We may not choose what laws we will obey; the choice is made for us. When a majority have, by lawful methods, placed a law upon the statute-book, we may endeavor to repeal it, we may challenge its wisdom, but while it is the law it challenges our obedience. [Applause.]
I thank you for the kindliness of this greeting in this capital of Vermont. I wish for you and your gallant State and for all your people in all their good, God-fearing homes continuance of that personal liberty, that material prosperity, that love of the truth which has always characterized them. [Applause.]