Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730–1805: In Two Volumes

41. An Oration in Commemoration of the Independence of the United States of America [1793]

- 4 1 AN ORATION IN COMMEMORATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Enos Hitchcock PROVIDENCE I 7 9 3 ENOS HITCHCOCK (I745-I8o3). A I767 graduate of Harvard College, Hitchcock was a minister in Beverly, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island. He saw extensive action as chaplain during the Revolution . He was first appointed chaplain in I776 to serve with the Third Massachusetts Continentals on their way to Crown Point and Ticonderoga . The following year he was at Ticonderoga and Saratoga when, just after the defeat of Burgoyne, captured Tories wearing Indian war paint were driven through the streets. He spent much of I778 with his brigade at Valley Forge. At West Point the following year, the circumstances were nearly as bad as they had been at Valley Forge. And so it went through the rest of the war. He had been home in Beverly off and on between campaigns, but finally he resigned his post there in I78o and moved to the First Congregational Church in Providence, where he remained. His theology moved from Arminian to Unitarian over the years, but in the many disputes over doctrine, he always took a reconciling line; he would, for instance, baptize by immersion those who asked for it. He apparently had wealth, independent of his minister's salary, perhaps from his wife's family's property in Maine. He raised a fine parsonage and lived well. He was a friend of Dr. Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who conferred an M.A. on him in I781. He received a D.D. from Brown University in I788, where he had been a trustee since I782. He campaigned for the abolition of slavery and, advocating free public education , he warned: "What will be the state of American government, if they are not nurtured by general education, and strengthened by public virtue, let the fate of many fallen republics tell!" (A Discourse on Education [Providence, 1785], p. Io). Hitchcock was a popular participant in patriotic events, was first chaplain of the Society of the Cincinnati in Rhode Island, and went to Philadelphia in I787 for the constitutional convention. He campaigned for Rhode Island's ratification of the Constitution, which he regarded as the plan for a perfect government, while the alternative to federalism was anarchy. These views can be seen in the Fourth of July, I793, oration reprinted here, delivered at the Baptist meeting-house. Hitchcock kept extensive diaries during the war, the surviving ones being in the hands of the Rhode Island Historical Society and largely published in their Collections (vol. 7). He published a number of sermons and pam1170 AN 0 R A T I 0 N, IN COMMEMORATION OF The INDEPENDENCE of the UNITED STATEs of America. DELIVERED In the Baptifl Meeting-Houfe in PROVIDENCE, 1«/y 4th, I793• By ENOS HITCHCOCK, D. D. Printed by J• C A R T E R. 1!72 ENOS HITCHCOCK phlets on patriotic themes and two large works on domestic matters: Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family (2 vols., r790); and The Farmer's Friend, or the History of Mr. Charles Worthy (r 793). The former work, dedicated to Martha Washington, addressed the problems of childrearing (some of it not quite to modern taste, perhaps, such as punishing children by dipping their little heads in ice water.) · he return of this anniversary hath reminded us, my respected fellow-citizens, of an event full of wonders, and pregnant with consequences important, not to this country only, but to mankind. Called again to felicitate you on this memorable day, I feel myself secure m your candour to those sentimental effusions which the occasion may suggest. There is a pleasure in the idea of addressing a free and an enlightened people, on the blessings they enjoy, and on the happiness of their condition. Americans! this day recognizes your emancipation. It is your jubilee. It is the birth-day of your independence , of your national existence! Let it never be forgotten, that, on the fourth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six, forth issued from the illustrious and patriotic Congress the following magnanimous declaration: "We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority of the good...