THE REVIEW OF A CENTURY; OR, THE FRUIT OF FIVE THOUSAND YEARS. A LECTURE BY VICTORIA C. WOODHULL, IN THE Boston Theatre, Boston, October 22nd, 1876. A HUNDRED years ago, in an upper room in Philadelphia, five men were gathered-men of noble bearing, of brilliant intellects, of undoubted character. Their faces wore a look of stern determination, as if the theme of their consideration were matters of grave import; were matters destined to be the beginning of the most important era that had ever dawned upon the earth. A century and eighty years before, a single shipload of men, women, and children had landed on this virgin soil at Jamestown in Virginia; and a few years later, another one at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. To these, additions had been made until the thirteen States then numbered full three million souls, over whom "the king" had placed obnoxious rulers, and upon whom he had imposed onerous taxation. The tea had been destroyed in Boston harbour, and the people were wrought up to the intensest pitch by their oppressions. They had come from their native lands to escape from tyranny, and were not disposed to brook it here. In this wild, free land, they had become pregnant of liberty, and were even then struggling in the throes of travail. These five men had met to find a way in which the delivery might be safely made, so that both the mother and the child should live to bless the world. THE EARLY FATHERS.-Washington, Adams, Franklin, Rush, Paine-every one of them immortal names-struggled with the task with which God had entrusted them. They felt the great responsibility, and their faces, as they looked into each other's eyes, spoke their anxiety. Each knew that every other as well as self had something in his heart that he dared not utter. They looked inquiringly again and again for some yielding in some face. But they hesitated all. And well they might; for it was not the fate of three million people merely that was in their hands, but the future destinies of the world. One of these men had said but little; but the set features of his face showed a stern resolve; showed that he was waiting for the proper time in which to speak. He knew it would fall to him to break the way to say the words that each one felt but dared not speak; and speak at last he did; and they were the words of mighty import that came forth from him; words that were to deliver the people who had come to their full time-a birth that should herald a new race of people to the world; and they came forth from him as if all his powers were concentrated in the effort; as if that effort were the last struggle of the mother to bring forth her child; and the "four" caught up the child and became godfather to it, and they bore it to the people. The people recognized it as their own; took it to their hearts, and at once adopted it. Its name was-revolution-independence; and the words rang up and down the wave-washed shores, and fired the people with their inspiration-revolution as the means-independence as the end. One hundred years have come and gone since that eventful day, great with the future's destinies. Its hundredth anniversary has passed, and forty million people have commemorated the work of those five men; of those three million people commemorated it by re-affirming the truths that then were uttered for the first time in the world; commemorated it by brilliant flights of oratory, by firing cannon, and by profuse displays of "stars and stripes" harmoniously blended with the flags of almost every other nation of the globe, whose sons and daughters were participating in the glory of the day; with feasting, fireworks, with general rejoicing everywhere. As if, with a universal assent, these swarming millions re-echoed with a will the words that that stern man had uttered on that never-to-be-forgotten day a hundred years ago. OUR COMMERCIAL GREATNESS.-But those three million people have expanded into forty; and the thirteen States to thirtyeight, besides ten territories and one district. The country now, excepting the stretch from the west shore of Lake Superior, and from the south-west point of Texas westward to the ocean, has a continuous water-front of not less than fifteen thousand miles, equal to that of the whole of Europe, available for commercial purposes. It is five thousand miles from east to west, and four thousand from north to south. It contains vast ranges of mountains, the longest river in the world, and the most fertile plains. Its climate is so varied and extensive that it produces almost everything that is grown anywhere in the world the fruits of the tropics as well as of the latitudes north and south; and it will be the granary from which the world must ultimately draw its bread. It has all the different forms of mineral wealth-gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, besides coal, oil, and salt. No other country on the globe can begin to compare with it in the variety of its products; it combines the utilities of them all. It is as if all others had contributed their choicest seeds, as they have their peoples, to fill up the variety with which this should be blessed. In what |