Chapter XIII: Oratoric Reading and the Art of Public Speech (2)

On the 2d of August, 1786, as the king was alighting from his carriage at the gate of St. James, an attempt was made on his life by a woman named Margaret Nicholson, who, under pretense of presenting a petition, endeavored to stab him with a knife which was concealed in the paper. The weapon was an old one, and so rusty that, on striking the vest of the king, it bent double, and thus preserved his life. On the 29th of October, 1795, whilst his majesty was proceeding to the House of Lords, a ball passed through both windows of the carriage. On his return to St. James the mob threw stones into the carriage, several of which struck the king, and one lodged in the cuff of his coat. The state carriage was completely demolished by the mob. But it was on the 15th of May, 1800, that George the Third made his narrowest escapes. In the morning of that day, whilst attending the field exercise of a battalion of guards, one of the soldiers loaded his piece with a bullet and discharged it at the king. The ball fortunately missed its aim, and lodged in the thigh of a gentleman who was standing in the rear. In the evening of the same day a more alarming circumstance occurred at the Drury Lane Theater. At the moment when the king entered the royal box, a man in the pit, on the right-hand side of the orchestra, suddenly stood up and discharged a large horse-pistol at him. The hand of the would-be assassin was thrown up by a by-stander, and the ball entered the box just above the head of the king.

Such were the public manifestations of affection for this royal tyrant. He was finally attacked by an enemy that could not be thwarted, and on the 20th of December, 1810, he became a confirmed lunatic. In this dreadful condition he lingered until January, 1820, when he died, having been the most unpopular, unwise and obstinate sovereign that ever disgraced the English throne. He was forgotten as soon as life left his body, and was hurriedly buried with that empty pomp which but too often attends a despot to the grave.

The mind, in passing from the unhonored grave of the prince to the last resting-place of the peasant boy, leaps from a kingdom of darkness to one of light.

Let us now return to the career of Washington. Throughout the Revolutionary War he carried in his hand, like Atropos, the destinies of millions; he bore on his shoulders, like Atlas, the weight of a world. It is unnecessary to follow him throughout his subsequent career. Honored again and again by the people of the land he had redeemed from thraldom, he has taken his place in death by the side of the wisest and best of the world’s benefactors. Assassins did not unglory him in life, nor has oblivion drawn her mantle over him in death. The names of his great battlefields have become nursery words, and his principles have imbedded themselves forever in the national character. Every pulsation of our hearts beats true to his memory. His mementoes are everywhere around and about us. Distant as we are from the green fields of his native Westmoreland, the circle of his renown has spread far beyond our borders. In climes where the torch of science was never kindled; on shores still buried in primeval bloom; amongst barbarians where the face of liberty was never seen, the Christian missionary of America, roused perhaps from his holy duties by the distant echo of the national salute, this day thundering amidst the billows of every sea, or dazzled by the gleam of his country’s banner, this day floating in every wind of heaven, pauses over his task as a Christian, and whilst memory kindles in his bosom the fires of patriotism, pronounces in the ear of the enslaved pagan the venerated name of WASHINGTON.

Wherever tyranny shall lift its Medusan head, wherever treason shall plot its hellish schemes, wherever disunion shall unfurl its tattered ensign, there, oh there, sow his deeds in the hearts of patriots and republicans. For from these there shall spring, as from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus of old on the plains of Heber, vast armies of invincible heroes, sworn upon the altar and tomb at Mount Vernon, to live as freemen, or as such to die!

THE LESSONS OF THE TRAGEDY

(_The Murder of President McKinley_)

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN

We meet to-day under the sway of a number of different emotions. We would express our sorrow at the untimely death of a good man. We would show our regret that our nation has lost the Chief Magistrate of its choice. We would express our sympathy with the gentle woman who has been suddenly bereft of the kindest and most considerate of husbands. We are filled with shame that in our Republic, the land where all men are free and equal wherever they behave themselves as men, the land which has no rulers save the public servants of its own choosing, a deed like this should be possible. We would express our detestation of that kind of political and social agitation which finds no method of working reform save through intimidation and killing. We would wish to find the true lessons of this event and would not let even the least of them fall on our ears unheeded.

And one plain lesson in this: Under democracy all violence is treason. Whosoever throws a stone at a scab teamster, whosoever fires a shot at the President of the United States, is an enemy of the Republic. He is guilty of high treason in his heart, and treason in thought works itself out in lawlessness of action.

The central fact of all democracy is agreement with law. It is our law; we have made it. If it is wrong we can change it, but the compact of democracy is that we change it in peace. “The sole source of power under God is the consent of the governed.” This was written by Cromwell across the statute books of Parliament. This our fathers wrote in other words in our own Constitution. The will of the people is the sole source of any statute you or I may be called on to obey. It is the decree of no army, the dictum of no president. It is the work of no aristocracy; not of blood nor of wealth. It is simply our own understanding that we have to do right, shall behave justly, shall live and let our neighbor live. If our law is tyrannous, it is our ignorance which has made it so. Let it pinch a little and we shall find out what hurts us. Then it will be time to change. Laws are made through the ballot, and through the ballot we can unmake them. There is no other honest way, no other way that is safe, and no other way that is effective. To break the peace is to invite tyranny. Lawlessness is the expression of weakness, of ignorance, of unpatriotism. If tyranny provokes anarchy, so does anarchy necessitate tyranny. Confusion brings the man on horseback. It was to keep away both anarchy and tyranny that the public school was established in America.

Three times has our nation been called upon to pass into the shadow of humiliation, and each time in the past it has learned its severe lesson. When Lincoln fell, slavery perished. To the American of to-day human slavery in a land of civilization is almost an impossible conception, yet many of us who think ourselves still young can remember when half of this land held other men in bondage and the dearest hope of freedom was that such things should not go on forever. I can remember when we looked forward to the time when “at least the present form of slavery should be no more.” For democracy and slavery could not subsist together. The Union could not stand—half slave, half free.

The last words of Garfield were these: _Strangulatus pro Republica_. (Slain for the Republic.) The feudal tyranny of the spoils system which had made republican administration a farce, has not had, since Garfield’s time, a public defender. It has not vanished from our politics, but its place is where it belongs—among the petty wrongs of maladministration.

Again a president is slain for the Republic—and the lesson is the homely one of peace and order, patience and justice, respect for ourselves through respect for the law, for public welfare, and for public right.

For this country is passing through a time of storm and stress, a flurry of lawless sensationalism. The irresponsible journalism, the industrial wars, the display of hastily-gotten wealth, the grasping monopoly, the walking delegate, the vulgar cartoon, the foul-mouthed agitator, the sympathetic strike, the unsympathetic lockout, are all symptoms of a single disease—the loss of patriotism, the decay of the sense of justice. As in other cases, the symptoms feed the disease, as well as indicate it. The deed of violence breeds more deeds of violence; anarchy provokes hysteria, and hysteria makes anarchy. The unfounded scandal sets a hundred tongues to wagging, and the seepage from the gutter reaches a thousand homes.

The journal for the weak-minded and debased makes heroes of those of its class who carry folly over into crime. The half-crazy egotist imagines himself a regicide, and his neighbor with the clean shirt is his oppressor and therefore his natural victim. Usually his heart fails him, and his madness spends itself in foul words. Sometimes it does not, and the world stands aghast. But it is not alone against the Chief Magistrate that these thoughts and deeds are directed. There are usually others within closer range. There is scarcely a man in our country, prominent in any way, statesman, banker, merchant, railway manager, clergyman, teacher even, that has not, somewhere, his would-be Nemesis, some lunatic, with a sensational newspaper and a pistol, prepared to take his life.

The gospel of discontent has no place within our Republic. It is true, as has often been said, that discontent is the cause of human progress. It is truer still, as Mr. John P. Irish has lately pointed out, that discontent may be good or bad, according to its relation to the individual man. There is a noble discontent which a man turns against himself. It leads the man who fails to examine his own weaknesses, to make the needed repairs in himself, then to take up the struggle again. There is a cowardly discontent which leads a man to blame all failure on his prosperous neighbor or on society at large, as if a social system existed apart from the men who make it. This is the sort of discontent to which the agitator appeals, that finds its stimulus in sensational journalism. It is that which feeds the frenzy of the assassin who would work revenge on society by destroying its accepted head.

It is not theoretical anarchism or socialism or any other “ism” which is responsible for this. Many of the gentlest spirits in the world today call themselves anarchists, because they look forward to the time when personal meekness shall take the place of all statutes. The gentle anarchism of the optimistic philosopher is not that which confronts us to-day. It is the anarchy of destruction, the hatred of class for class; a hatred that rests only on distorted imagination, for, after all is said, there are no classes in America. It is the hatred imported from the Old World, excited by walking delegates whose purpose it is to carry a torch through society; a hatred fanned by agitators of whatever sort, unpractical dreamers or conscienceless scoundrels, exploited in the newspapers, abetted by so-called high society with its display of shoddy and greed, and intensified by the cold, hard selfishness that underlies the power of the trust. All these people, monopolists, social leaders, walking delegates, agitators, sensationalists, dreamers, are alien to our ways, outside the scope of our democracy, and enemies to good citizenship.

The real Americans, trying to live their lives in their own way, saving a little of their earnings and turning the rest into education and enjoyment, have many grievances in these days of grasping trusts and lawless unions. But of such free Americans our country is made. They are the people, not the trusts or the unions, nor their sensational go-betweens. This is their government, and the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. This is the people’s President—our President—who was killed, and it is ours to avenge him.

Not by lynch law on a large or small scale may we do it; not by anarchy or despotism; not by the destruction of all that call themselves anarchists, not by abridging freedom of the press nor by checking freedom of speech. Those who would wreak lawless vengeance on the anarchists are themselves anarchists and makers of anarchists.

We have laws enough already without making more for men to break. Let us get a little closer to the higher law. Let us respect our own rights and those of our neighbor a little better. Let us cease to tolerate sensational falsehood about our neighbor, or vulgar abuse of those in power. If we have bad rulers, let us change them peacefully. Let us put an end to every form of intimidation, wherever practiced. The cause that depends upon hurling bricks or epithets, or upon clubbing teamsters or derailing trains, cannot be a good cause. Even if originally in the right, the act of violence puts the partisans of such a cause in the wrong. No freeman ever needs to do such things as these. For the final meaning of democracy is peace on earth, good-will towards men. When we stand for justice among ourselves we can demand justice of the monopolistic trust. When we attack it with clear vision and cool speech we shall find the problem of combination for monopoly not greater than any other. And large or small, there is but one way for us to meet any problem: to choose wise men, clean men, cool men, the best we can secure through our method of the ballot, and then to trust the rest in their hands. The murder of the President has no direct connection with industrial war. Yet there is this connection, that all war, industrial or other, loosens the bonds of order, destroys mutual respect and trust, gives inspiration to anarchy, pushes a foul thought on to a foul word, a foul word on to a foul deed.

We trust now that the worst has come, the foulest deed has been committed, that our civil wars may stop, not through the victory of one side over the other, the trusts or the unions now set off against each other, but in the victory over both of the American people, of the great body of men and women who must pay for all, and who are the real sufferers in every phase of the struggle.

_Strangulatus pro Republica_—slain for the republic. The lesson is plain. It is for us to take it into our daily lives. It is the lesson of peace and good-will, the lesson of manliness and godliness. Let us take it to ourselves, and our neighbors will take it from us.

All civilized countries are ruled by public opinion. If there be a lapse in our civic duties, it is due to a lapse in our keenness of vision, our devotion to justice. This means a weakening of the individual man, the loss of the man himself in the movements of the mass. Perhaps the marvelous material development of our age, the achievements of huge coöperation which science has made possible, has overshadowed the importance of the individual man. If so, we have only to reassert ourselves. It is of men, individual men, clear-thinking, God-fearing, sound-acting men, and of these alone, that great nations can be made.—From “The Voice of the Scholar,” by kind permission of author and publishers, _Paul Elder & Co._, San Francisco.

WHAT IS TO BE THE DESTINY OF THIS REPUBLIC

BY JUDGE STORY

When we reflect on what has been and what is, how is it possible not to feel a profound sense of the responsibilities of this republic to all future ages! What vast motives press upon us for lofty efforts! What brilliant prospects invite our enthusiasm! What solemn warnings at once demand our vigilance and moderate our confidence!

The old world has already revealed to us, in its unsealed books, the beginning and end of all its marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty.

Greece! lovely Greece! “the land of scholars and the nurse of arms,” where sister republics, in fair processions, chanted the praise of liberty and the good—where and what is she? For two thousand years the oppressors have bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad relics of her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery; the fragments of her columns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruin. She fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermopylæ and Marathon; and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions. She fell by the hands of her own people. The man of Macedonia did not the work of destruction. It was already done by her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions.

Rome! republican Rome! whose eagles glanced in the rising and setting sun,—where and what is she? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has traveled in the parts won by the destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of the empire. A mortal disease was upon her before Cæsar had crossed the Rubicon; and Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of the senate-chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the north, completed only what was begun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions were bought and sold, but the people offered the tribute-money.

And where are the republics of modern times, which cluster around immortal Italy? Venice and Genoa exist but in name. The Alps, indeed, look down upon the brave and peaceful Swiss, in their native fastnesses; but, the guarantee of their freedom is in their weakness, and not in their strength. The mountains are not easily crossed, and the valleys are not easily retained. When the invader comes, he moves like an avalanche, carrying destruction in his path. The peasantry sink before him. The country, too, is too poor for plunder, and too rough for a valuable conquest. Nature presents her eternal barrier on every side, to check the wantonness of ambition. And Switzerland remains, with her simple institutions, a military road to climates scarcely worth a permanent possession, and protected by the jealousy of her neighbors.

We stand the latest, and, if we fall, probably the last experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the oppression of tyranny. Our constitutions never have been enfeebled by the vice or the luxuries of the world. Such as we are, we have been from the beginning, simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-government and self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and a formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude, we have the choice of many products, and many means of independence. The government is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches or may reach every home. What fairer prospects of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is necessary than for the people to preserve what they themselves have created?

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of the north, and, moving onward to the south, has opened to Greece the lesson of her better days.

Can it be, that America, under such circumstances, can betray herself? That she is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription upon whose ruin is: “They were, but they are not!” Forbid it, my countrymen: forbid it, Heaven!

I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by the dear ashes which repose in this precious soil, by all you are, and all you hope to be, resist every project of disunion; resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.

I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love of your offspring, to teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never forsake her.

I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are—whose inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in defense of the liberties of our country.

MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS

(_An oration delivered in San Francisco, May 30, 1901._)

BY SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE

This day is consecrate to the nation’s dead and living soldiers. Uncovered beside the hallowed graves of those who fought and fell in the sacred cause of Union and Liberty, a people of brave men and loyal women stand with hearts oppressed with gratitude, and listen to the story of their heroes’ deeds and death. We come in thankfulness—matron and maid, sire and lad—to scatter fragrant flowers on the honored dust, and for the martyrs who sleep unknown but not unwept. We come to grasp the hands of the surviving heroes who responded to their country’s cry of anguish when the temple of liberty was assailed and her sacred altars desecrated; who endured the long, weary march, the cruel deprivations of the camp, the fevered heat of noon and the chilling cold at night; who stormed the frowning heights where treason was intrenched, and met upon an hundred fields the brave but misguided hosts that in madness and folly sought to destroy the edifice dedicated with the prayers and consecrated by the valor and blood of the patriot fathers; who carried the tattered but dear flag of their country through fire and flood and the “valley and shadow of death,” and paused not until it waved victorious in every state and was respected on every sea. We come to shed proud and happy tears for those who gladly gave up all for their imperiled country, in order to preserve the precious fruits of the Revolutionary struggle and to keep the flag of Washington triumphant in the sky. We come to welcome and to dower with our love the loyal and self-sacrificing men who left the plow, the forge, the desk, to rescue from the jaws of death the greatest, best, and truest republic that ever blessed the earth.

A common thought pervades all hearts. This is not a day for vainglorious boasting, but for gratitude and praise. We come in sorrow, not in anger, and our hearts are filled with sadness, not revenge. We are not here to upbraid, to accuse, to exult over the defeat of brethren and brave men, to denounce what is no more, to open wounds by the healing touch of Time made whole. No, no; Heaven forbid that this sacred day should stir our hearts to other than feelings of forgiveness, of gratitude, of pride, and of love. Rather let it be said we come to—

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain.

For those who died to save the republic, I have tears and eulogy; for those who died to overthrow it, I have tears and silence.

Not as citizens of a torn and discordant Union, not as blinded partisans, but as children of a common and reunited country, we gather to give expression of our gratitude to those who by their sacrifices and their martyrdom made this land the home of freedom, and the banner of the stars the symbol of one people, one constitution, and one destiny.

We are gathered here—the multitude has put on a suit of woe and stands beside the graves where heroes sleep—not to revive bitter memories, not to cause heartaches or awaken animosities, dead, let us fervently hope, forever, but for a better, worthier, and more patriotic purpose: to teach the rising generation that the dead fell not in vain; to impress upon their youthful hearts that America does not forget the travail through which, by the inscrutable wisdom of Heaven, she has passed, that she loves her loyal sons and daughters with more than Cornelian affection, and treasures them now, and will treasure them forever, as her unfading glory.

And so, my countrymen, we come to sorrow and to rejoice,—to sorrow over the loved and lost, to rejoice over their magnificent achievements and a Union saved and disenthralled by their devotion. As in the Roman days the wives and mothers went out upon the Appian Way to meet the home-returning legions,—some to fall upon the bosoms of husbands, fathers, or sons, and shed tears of joy, and some to search in vain for dear ones amid the broken, decimated ranks, but wept not, because they had died bravely in defense of Rome, her altars, and her fires,—so we welcome to-day the scarred and wounded, the remnant of hard-fought fields; we stretch forth our arms to embrace them; we cover them with garlands emblematic of our love, and scatter flowers in their way to tread upon.

But for the ones who answer not, who sleep the dreamless sleep of death, who died with the face of mother near their hearts, the name of country on their lips, what shall we say? They cannot hear our words nor see the offering of our hands; they are past all battles, all marches, all victories, all defeats; “on Fame’s eternal camping-ground their silent tents are spread,” and the troubled drum disturbs their sleep no more. And yet, O sacred shades of the unreplying dead, we feel your presence now. We hear the shot of Sumter that wakened all the land; we see you coming down from the mountains, up from the plains, and marching away to battle, leaving behind, alas; forever, faithful wife, loving children, aged mother, venerable father; we see you by the campfires dimly burning; we see you in the cannon-smoke and hurricane of war; we hear the command to charge, which you obey, how bravely, with bosom bared and parched, thirsty lips; we see you wounded and bleeding; we see you in the hospitals of fever and pain; we see you again with your regiment, with courage undaunted, your love of home and flag intensified; we see your comrades fall around you like flowers of spring cut down; we see you captured and hurried away; we see you wasting in awful dungeons, languishing in prison-pens; we catch the faint accent of your tongues as you murmur a prayer for your country and for the loved ones that come to you in your dreams; we see you encounter death in the gaunt and hideous form of starvation and quail not; we see you die! Die for what? Die for whom? Die for Union and Liberty. Die for us and generations yet to be.

Dead and living soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic, you, you engaged in the holiest cause that ever received the approving smile of Heaven; you preserved the Union, “One and inseparable,” with all its blessed memories, with all its priceless benefits, with all its exalted and encouraging hopes. You carried the banner of your country, full high advanced through the darkest hour and wildest storm that ever overwhelmed a nation, until the returning and radiant morn of victory and peace blessed and hallowed it. Moved by the loftiest purposes, inspired by the sublimest sentiments, faithful unto death, you went forth, not to subjugate, not to enslave, not to tear down, but to rescue, to uplift, and to make the name of that liberty for which Warren died and to preserve which Lincoln gave the full measure of his devotion; in the name of all we are and hope to be,—the glorious present and the grander future,—we bow to-day and pay you the poor tribute of our love and tears.

All hail to the saviors of this beloved land! Humbly we lay our offerings on the dead. Reverently we invoke the blessing of Almighty God on the declining years of the living. Long may their eyes be gladdened by the flag they saved; long may their hearts be consoled by the assurance that, while the monuments reared to haughty pride and selfish ambition sink beneath the despoiling hand of time, the soldier’s humble grave, though unadorned by costly urn or marble shaft, will forever be his country’s hallowed ground, where future patriots shall come to rekindle the fires of their devotion and to renew and reaffirm their allegiance to the land by his sacrifices made truly, grandly free. And so we bow before the heroes who saved our country; we stand uncovered beside the graves of the martyrs who died in her sacred cause. Peace and honor to the living; honor and peace to the dead.

The Civil War, of the sad ravages and awful agony of which we are this day reminded, was the inevitable result of the “irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces,”—between freedom and slavery.

Removed sufficiently from those troublous days to look at facts calmly and to speak of them without anger, let us be just, let us be truthful. The courts had exalted slavery, had hedged it round by law, and nationalized it. In that most august tribunal—in that high place immortalized by the transcendent greatness of a Marshall and the unfathomed learning of a Story, which had witnessed the marvelous displays of oratory of Pinckney, Webster and Choate—in the Supreme Court of the United States—slavery met and vanquished freedom. The Dred Scott decision gave up this nation to bondage, and made it possible, under the law, to sell wives and babes in Faneuil Hall and to call the roll of slaves on the sacred spot where Warren fell! Thenceforth Congress could not interfere with slavery; states were powerless to prevent it. And thus it came to pass that in the land of Washington, Franklin, and Wayne, in the land of Adams, Henry, and Sherman, in the land whose sons died for liberty on a hundred fields—who stormed the walls of Quebec and left their blood on the snow at Valley Forge—in this our beloved land—in this republic—slavery was king. The time to gather the bitter fruit of the accursed upas tree planted at Jamestown in 1620 was near at hand.

An awful storm, pregnant with death and woe, was gathering, and the people sought a leader. They were sore distressed with a multitude of counsel, and they cried:

God give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue,
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog,
In public duty and in private thinking!
For while the tricksters, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions, and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps!
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps!

In the midst of mingled doubts and fears, when weak and timid politicians masquerading under the name of statesmen hesitated to grapple with the monstrous evil that threatened to advance upon and overwhelm the last remaining bulwarks of freedom, when the right and true path was well nigh lost sight of, and lovers of liberty were ranged under different banners, waiting for a Moses who should lead them out of Egyptian bondage, the Great Captain came. He came, and thenceforth all seemed clear. Simple in speech, plain in manner, straightforward in action, tender as a child, bold as a lion, fearless as a hero, at once courageous and humble, lofty and lowly, he came to speak and to act. Born of Southern parents who had witnessed the depressing and blighting effects of slavery, and reared in the broad prairies of the West, whose very winds sang Liberty, he realized the curse of bondage and the blessing of freedom. From the unfelled forest, from the log cabin and the country store, from humble forum and obscure dwelling, from out the ranks of the people, the Leader came. He came, and statesmen bowed before him; he spoke, and a nation hearkened to his counsel. Devoted to truth and the right, opposed to falsehood and the wrong, scorning the tricks and subterfuges of the self-seeking, and abhorring with his whole heart and soul the mean and base, loving his country with a devotion that made him forgetful of all else save the preservation of the Union, the incomparable Leader rose. In judicial tribunal and halls of state, in capital and village, in mansion and log cabin, in crowded cities, and out on the boundless prairies of the West, men listened to his words, and saw, as they had never seen before, the darkness, the light, the path,—the wrong, the right, and the remedy. “You must be either all slave or all free.” These were his prophetic words. Who was this man that came unheralded out of the West? Who was this man that rose above the great statesmen of his day—who was as earnest as Phillips, as gifted as Baker, who was more profound than Seward, more learned than Chase, more logical than Douglas, more eloquent than Everett? Who was he that combined in one soul the simplicity of a child, the wisdom of a sage, and the foresight of a prophet? Need I utter his sacred name? Wheresoever among men there is a love for disinterested patriotism and sublime attachment to duty, wheresoever liberty is worshiped and loyalty exalted, his name and deeds are known. His image is in all hearts, his name to-day is on all lips. That grand and lofty man was the rail-splitter of Illinois,—beloved, sainted, immortal Abraham Lincoln, statesman, philosopher, and patriot, the greatest, noblest, purest soul that ever was enwrapped in clay, to walk the earth,—Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of a race; the savior of the Union!

Strangely enough, the election of the Presidency of this great and good and just man was the signal for revolt. “In your hands,” said he in his first inaugural address,—“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ it.”

But the blow was struck,—the blow that was ultimately to destroy slavery, and make our country free indeed,—“a land without a serf, a servant, or a slave.”

The war to preserve the integrity of the nation was marked by great battles, weary marches, long sieges, and splendid deeds of daring. Brave men met brave men, and gallant soldiers stormed forts and heights by gallant soldiers defended. If America wept for the folly and madness of some, yet was she proud of the courage of all her sons. We think to-night of the mighty struggle that ended with Appomattox’s cloudless day; of all the fields where saber flashed, and cannon roared, and patriot sons sealed their devotion with their blood. The world knows the result. Freedom triumphed. The Union was saved, Liberty survived, slavery perished and is dead upon our soil forevermore,—dead by the sword of immortal Grant, “dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, dead by the justice of Almighty God.”

Rejoice, O human hearts and human lips, that Liberty survived. Rejoice, O men of the North, that slavery is dead. Rejoice, O men of the South, that slavery is dead. Rejoice, O sons of the Republic, that the crown was restored to the brow of liberty, that, reunited and reconciled, loyal and true, we stand to-day, hand in hand, heart beating with heart, under the blessed and ever-triumphant banner of the Union.

And thus may we ever stand,—one people, one nation,—no North, no South, no East; no West,—one altar, one love, one hope.

And thus may we ever stand,—brothers in peace, brothers in war,—and “highly resolved that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

And thus may we ever stand,—a Union of hearts and of states, and “teach men that Liberty is not a mockery, and a republic is not another name for feebleness and anarchy.”

And standing thus, the world cannot prevail against us in war or in peace.

Fellow-citizens, in this hour of mourning we may without impropriety indulge ourselves in feelings of pride over the glorious deeds of our heroes dead and living. Pittsburgh Landing, Chattanooga, and Vicksburg; Lookout Mountain, Gettysburg, and Antietam; the Wilderness, Atlanta, and Richmond,—all are eternal witnesses to the deathless valor and sublime courage of those upon whose graves we have tenderly laid our flowers and upon whose brows we have lovingly placed the laurel wreath of victory and peace. No poor words of mine can tell them of our love or add unto their fame; the one is unspeakable, the other as broad and all-comprehensive as the earth, as high and spotless as the stars.

Upon the hearts of many heroes who made our country free—who with their blood washed away the ebon blot on our country’s shield—inexorable death has laid his hand, and the high and the low, the mighty general and the humble private, repose alike in the equal grave. All-conquering “time, the tomb-builder,” is day by day mustering out the noble army that went forth to save, to make and to preserve us a nation. Halleck, Thomas, Meade, McClellan, Hancock, McDowell, Garfield, Logan, Sheridan, Sherman, Harrison, Porter, McKinley,—all have been gathered to their fathers, gone to grasp the hands of their comrades on the peaceful shores of Eternal Rest.

But of him, the simple, silent, steadfast man; of him that marshaled order out of chaos, gave direction to mighty armies and led them to final victory; of him who made the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln a glorious reality, and eternal fact which broke the chains that held a race in bondage; of him who bore his great honors so modestly and meekly in war and peace; of him who by his genius added to our arms a luster as imperishable as his fame, and left his countrymen the priceless legacy of an untarnished and immortal name; of him who was ambitious, not as a Cæsar, not as a Napoleon, but as a Washington, with no higher aim, no loftier purpose, than to serve his country, not to wear a crown; of him who stood before uncovered kings and was saluted by the emperors of the earth, but never forgot his humble origin nor lost his sympathy for the poor and lowly; of him whose deeds, from duty and necessity, not from choice, were war, but whose heart ever yearned, whose voice ever pleaded, for peace,—what human tongue can speak of the spotless, peerless General Grant? His mighty work is done, his triumphal march is ended, his name is for all time. Reverently and tenderly we lay our flowers upon his tomb to-day; gratefully and lovingly we breathe his sacred name. Calm, cool, and undaunted, victorious in war, magnanimous in peace,—

Nothing can cover his high fame, but Heaven;
No pyramids set off his memories,
But tie eternal substance of his greatness;
To which I leave him.

But of the rank and file, of the unknown dead, what can be said? Sleep on, O humble soldier boy, sleep on! No more shall the midnight attack, the fierce charge, or the bugle-call to arms rouse thee from thy rest. Sleep on in thy lowly sepulcher, guarded by thy country’s tenderest love and pillowed on her grateful heart. Whether it be beneath polished marble and sculptured alabaster reared by the hands of affection, or beneath the green sod watered by tears of love; whether it be beneath rich, fragrant flowers blooming in perennial freshness and cared for by dear ones left behind, or in the lonely, pathless woods where in darkness and thick gloom you laid down your life; whether it be in fertile valley where your life blood reddened the grass of the meadow, or in the intrenchment of death, facing the pitiless storm of shot and shell; whether it be in the prison-pen, where your heart-throbs grew faint, but your undying love for the Stars and Stripes could not be seduced into deserting your country, or in sultry mountain-passes where you wearied of the march, and, fever-stricken, fell down to die,—wheresoever it be, on land or in ocean depth, O humble soldier boy, sleep on! Thy cause was liberty; thy purpose, Union; thy object, a nation purged and purified of slavery. Thy great deeds are thy eternal monument. Written on the nation’s heart and in the everlasting Book of Life thy name shall live forevermore, fadeless to eternity.

Oh, the victory, the victory
Belongs to thee!
God ever keeps the brightest crown for such as thou.
He gives it now to thee.
Oh, young and brave, and early and thrice blest!
Thrice, thrice, thrice blest!
Thy country turns once more to kiss thy youthful brow,
And takes thee gently, gently to her breast,
And whispers lovingly, ‘God bless thee—bless thee now,
My darling, thou shalt rest!’

My countrymen, one and all,—if enemies in the dark days of estrangement, brothers now and forever,—let us rejoice that under God we have a reunited country, that the Union was preserved, that Liberty, crowned and sceptered, sits enthroned in the constitution; and with our eyes fixed on the one and only banner of the loyal heart, let us reverently resolve to show ourselves in some measure worthy of our ancestors and our brethren who fought and died to make this blessed land the home of freedom, free lips and free hands, forever.

The dead soldiers of the republic, the heroes of the Revolution, the heroes of 1812, the heroes of 1848, the heroes of 1861, the heroes of 1898,—they sleep in glory. But what of the living? O soldiers of the republic, wheresoe’er you are to-night, on land or sea, in frigid north or torrid south, on frontier guarding the outposts of civilization, or in far Luzon defending with sleepless vigilance the flag of our hearts, God bless you and keep you. Be of good cheer. Your country believes in you and loves you. If you return, she will clasp you close to her heart and bestow on you the rewards of peace; if you fall fighting her battles, she will be mother to your children and treasure you as she treasures those who preserved the flag you have lifted and hold on high.

My countrymen, the heroes of every battlefield of the republic—from Bunker Hill to Santiago—look down to-night from their portals of eternal light and beseech us to be true to the principles in vindication of which they died. Nay, more: from every land made sacred by heroism, from every dungeon of agony and death where truth has suffered on the rack for conscience’ sake, from Marathon and Thermopylæ, from Runnymede and Bannockburn, from the graves of Kosciusko and Hampden, from the scaffolds of Sidney and Emmet, comes a voice beseeching us to be faithful to our mission, to guard jealously the citadel of Liberty, and to vindicate by our wisdom and righteousness and justice the holy cause of Freedom.

Oh! can we stand unmoved when thus addressed? Let us heed these warning voices and hearken to these solemn admonitions, and here and now, on this Memorial Day, with all the memories and lessons of the past fresh in our hearts, let us renew our devotion and reaffirm our allegiance to the cause of Liberty and Union, let us rededicate and reconsecrate ourselves to the service of our Country.

How shall we fittingly commemorate the honored dead? When Greece was threatened by the Persian army, Athens sent out a handful of her bravest sons to meet the myriad hosts of Darius. Oh! the intrepid courage, the sublime patriotism, of that Grecian band as they advanced across the plain of Marathon with leveled spears to fall upon the heathen horde that came to plunder and destroy. To commemorate the splendid victory of Miltiades over Darius, of enlightened civilization over brutish barbarism, the Athenians erected a mound on that historic plain, and as a special and the highest mark of honor buried their heroes where they had fallen. The light of Athens has gone out forever; her glory has departed, never to return; her power has vanished, never to be regained; the voice of her sublime philosophers and peerless orators is heard no more; the language of Homer and Demosthenes lives only in immortal type, the priceless heritage of the human race; the matchless art of Phidias and Praxiteles is of the past, and the unapproached masterpieces of the Parthenon have been eaten away by the gnawing tooth of irreverent time; a melancholy gloom of utter desolation and departed splendor broods over the “City of the Violet Crown,” the once first and proudest city in the world. But, after a lapse of more than twenty centuries,—centuries which have seen the death of the old and the birth of the new civilizations, the rise and fall of dynasties, the creation and decay of empires,—after a lapse of more than twenty centuries the earthen mound at Marathon still remains, clad to-day in the flowers of spring, an eternal witness to the valor and heroism of Athens, a solemn reminder that those who die in defense of Liberty and Country shall not perish from the memory of men.

Let the monument to our heroes be the land they saved, domed and canopied by the heavens that smiled upon their cause. For so long as the sun in his coming kisses and glorifies that blessed banner, or, sinking, burnishes our mountain tops with crimson gold; so long as yonder waves roll inward to break and die upon the shore; so long as the American heart beats to the transports of a true and lofty patriotism, or man has aspirations of light and liberty; so long as the nation lives; so long as the flag of Washington and Lincoln is in the sky,—even so long will our heroes’ fame survive and be an inspiration to the Union’s sons forever and forever.

SENATOR VEST’S EULOGY ON THE DOG

“Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son and daughter that he has reared with loving care may become ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him when he may need it most. Man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees and do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend a man may have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is the dog.

“Gentlemen of the Jury: A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.

“When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast into the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws and his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death.”