To point the contrast, and to evidence the truth of the principles of the Declaration, we may well consider the rising empire of Japan, inhabited by a people differing but little from the neighboring races, a century ago not far removed from barbarism, pagan in religion, though tolerant, Asiatic in habits and thought, self-governed and independent because it has been left to work out its own problems, yet now by its own energy advancing towards civilization and Christianity, and rapidly becoming a great power in the East. No stronger exemplification can be found of the principle that a people is better fitted for self-government than any other, and that its own experience and efforts offer better tutelage than the wisest and most beneficent rule of foreign masters. The plans of statesmen, the ambition of nations may come into conflict with the doctrines of the Declaration, but they are of no concern as compared with the truth or falsity of the principles it contains. If it is not to be followed as a standard of governmental ethics, and is a visionary statement of unpractical theories, we seem somehow to have lost our bearings, and to have parted with our guiding lights. No true American, whatever his party allegiance, can avoid or lightly treat these important questions, nor can the right solution come from a consultation of his interests or prejudices, nor from any source other than the experience of the years since 1776, and a careful consideration of the wisdom or folly of the teachings of those who have made this country what it is. No day can better emphasize these thoughts than this anniversary, and if in avoiding anything of a partisan nature I have willingly laid myself open to the charge of triteness, let us remember that the trite things of this world are often of the most importance, and the more familiar they are, the more apt they are to be disregarded or forgotten. They cannot be foreign to the purposes of this meeting, for although the original parchment of the Declaration at Washington has faded out, the principles of this most important and startling of State Papers will always be living light, and if the day should ever come when it would be unbecoming to discuss them here, one of the great purposes of this Association would have been lost, and the nature of our people and our theory of government changed. When Daniel Webster with his masterly eloquence evolved from his imagination the great speech of John Adams upon the Declaration, he could have had in his mind no qualifying phrases, no doubts as to the eternal truths which were proclaimed, and no question but that independence was the ideal for and the right of every nation of the earth; otherwise his words failed to ring true, and he never could have closed with such statements as these: