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Show 40 41 make for a world of organized justice instead of a world of war. To come here to Chicago, where the anti-slavery movement passed beyond the realm of a mere moral movement into the realm of a strong political movement and a successful political move- ment. I feel is a new augury of success. It marks a milcvstone in the way of a great advance that we gather here where the nomina- tion of Abraham Lincoln and the pasing of anti-slavery into successful politics is so pregnant with parable and its assurance. The mention of Lincoln makes me think of something else, and that is that by the happiest fatality in this notable centen- nial year we celebrated on the same day the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln and of the birth of Charles Darwin. Abra- to this cause which we have at heart. Emerson there says that history is a record of the decline of war. You and I were a little startled perhaps when we read that. As we turn over the pages ham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, February 12. 1809. Why do I here note that crmjnnction? Be‘ cause the name of Darwin is another name for the great doctrine of evolution, that commanding word in the vocabulary of modern science. Anti-slavery was an evolution; emancipation was an evolution. Emancipation was not completed by Abraham Lincoln; it was only just begun. A race is not emancipated when you simply strike the shackles from its ankles. It is only then first given a fair chance for emancipation: and the negro race in this country is not emancipated until it is emancipated in its mind, until every man in it has the opportunity for the fullest education, until every man in it has advanced to the position of equal opportunities and equal rights with other men. Therefore, it falls to you and to me to continue the evolution of the great work of emancipation which Abraham Lincoln began. And never was it truer than it is: of the great peace movement that that movement is an evolution. It has been movingr on and on through the centuries lt was only as men passed from the conditions of savagery and barbarism. only as men became moral beings and developed the talent and capacity for political organization. that the movement toward a world organization which is the onlv assur- ance of universal peace could have any Opportunity. The move- ment of history has been a movement towards the decline of war, l do not know how familiar you are with Emerson's impressive essay on war. it is the most philosophic brief essay on war ever written by an American, and it significant precisely for this, that it emphasizes the principle of evolution as applied of most of our histories, even our school histories, we are inclined to think not that they are the record of the decline of war, but for the most part the record of war and of battles; the pages seem to be filled with battles and wars and commotions. li'ut Emerson w; ‘ right. \Var is steadily declining in this world; and the decline of war is the measure of civilization. Many of you may have traveled over the countries of Europe. If you have done so, you remember that you were never far front some great battlefield. You remember that in Scotland a very few centuries ago as history goes every Scottish tribe or clan was fighting its neighbor, and when they were not fighting each other they were leagued together to fight the advancing hosts of E gland; that when England was not fighting Scotland, and often when it was, it was fighting France over the Channel. and France was fightingr the peoples further on. History was a record of seven years' wars and thirty years' wars and hundred years' wars. Peace was only an occasional respite in which men gathered their forces together for new wars. My friends. that is not true today. \Ve deplore the fact that wars come as often as they do. although there has not been a great war in Europe since 1370. We deplore the burdensome armaments of the world. lint war. my friends, is not any longer the main business of the gr‘at states of this world. \Var is not the business of the United States. or France, or England, or Germany, \\'e 'n'e getting over that sort of thing. There was not half so much war in Christendom in the nineteenth century as there was in the eighteenth centurywdo not forget that fact: and there will not be half so much war in the twentieth century as in the nineteenth century. There will not be a quarter so much if you and l in Chicago, Boston. New York and London and Berlin half do our duty. History. I repeat, quoting Emerson's word of sagacity and insightihistrtry is the record of the decline of war. Look at this thing alwaysitltat is what i am tryingr to enforce-in the light of evolution. :\ man said to me the other day (and I thought the more of it because l have the blood of :1 Lexington grandfather in my veins) : "Why, i suppose you peace |
