Chapter I: HAVE sometimes wondered whether our country was to be forever governed (5)

And let me implore all the young men here not to join that party. Do not give new blood to that institution. The Democratic party has a yellow passport. On one side it says "dangerous." They imagine they have not changed, and that is because they have not intellectual growth. That party was once the enemy of my country, was once the enemy of our flag, and more than that, it was once the enemy of human liberty, and that party to-night is not willing that the citizens of the Republic should exercise all their rights irrespective of their color. And allow me to say right here that I am opposed to that party.

We have not only to choose between parties, but to choose between candidates. The Democracy have put forward as the bearers of their standard General Hancock and William H. English. The Democrats have at last nominated a Union soldier. They nominated George B. McClellan once, because he failed to whip the South; they nominated Mr. Greeley, when they despised him, and now they have nominated General Hancock. Do they think the South loves him? At Gettysburg they say he fought against them, and that is one great reason why he should be President--that he shot rebels. Do the men that fought at Gettysburg still believe in State Sovereignty? Wade Hampton says, "We must vote as Lee and Jackson fought." They fought for State Sovereignty. Has the South changed? Hancock went to kill them then; they want to vote for him now. Who has changed? [A voice: "Hancock."] I think so. They are using him as a figure-head. They have dressed him in the noble blue, with the patriotic coat and Union buttons, and they do not like him any better than they did at Gettysburg. It would be just as consistent for the Republicans to have nominated Wade Hampton. Did General Hancock believe in State Sovereignty when he was at Gettysburg? If he did, he was a murderer, and not a Union soldier--he was killing men he believed to be in the right, and a man cannot fight unless his conscience approves of what his sword does, and if he was honest at that time, he did not believe in State Sovereignty, and it seems to me he would hate to have the men who tried to destroy this Government cheering him. All the glory he ever got was in the service of the Republican party, and if he does not look out he will lose it all in the service of the Democratic party. He had a conversation with General Grant. It was a time when he had been appointed at the head of the Department of the Gulf. In that conversation he stated to General Grant that he was opposed to "nigger domination." Grant said to him, "We must obey the laws of Congress. We are soldiers." And that meant, the military is not above the civil authority. And I tell you to-night, that the army and the navy are the right and left hands of the civil power. Grant said to him: "Three or four million ex-slaves, without property and without education, cannot dominate over thirty or forty millions of white people, with education and property." General Hancock replied to that: "I am opposed to 'nigger domination.'" Allow me to say that I do not believe any man fit for the presidency of the great Republic, who is capable of insulting a down-trodden race. I never meet a negro that I do not feel like asking his forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted on his. I remember that from the white man he received for two hundred years agony and tears; I remember that my race sold a child from the agonized breast of a mother; I remember that my race trampled with the feet of greed upon all the holy relations of life; and I do not feel like insulting the colored man; I feel rather like asking the forgiveness of his race for the crimes that my race have put upon him. "Nigger domination!" What a fine scabbard that makes for the sword of Gettysburg! It won't do!

What is General Hancock for, besides the presidency? How does he stand upon the great questions affecting American prosperity? He told us the other day that the tariff is a local question. The tariff affects every man and woman, live they in hut, hovel or palace; it affects every man that has a back to be covered or a stomach to be filled, and yet he says it is a local question. So is death. He also told us that he heard that question discussed once, in Pennsylvania. He must have been eavesdropping. And he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will continue as long as Nature lasts. Then Senator Randolph wrote him a letter. I do not know whether Senator Randolph answered it or not; but that answer was worse than the first interview; and I understand now that another letter is going through a period of incubation at Governor's Island, upon the great subject of the tariff. It won't do!

They say one thing they are sure of, he is opposed to paying Southern pensions and Southern claims. He says that a man that fought against this Government has no right to a pension. Good! I say a man that fought against this Government has no right to office. If a man cannot earn a pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. [A Voice--"How about Longstreet?"] Longstreet has repented of what he did. Longstreet admits that he was wrong. And there was no braver officer in the Southern Confederacy. Every man of the South who will say, "I made a mistake"--I do not want him to say that he knew he was wrong--all I ask him to say is that he now thinks he was wrong; and every man of the South to-day who says he was wrong, and who says from this day forward, henceforth and forever, he is for this being a Nation.

I will take him by the hand. But while he is attempting to do at the ballot-box what he failed to accomplish upon the field of battle, I am against him; while he uses a Northern general to bait a Southern trap, I won't bite. I will forgive men when they deserve to be forgiven; but while they insist that they were right, while they insist that State Sovereignty is the proper doctrine, I am opposed to their climbing into power.

Hancock says that he will not pay these claims; he agrees to veto a bill that his party may pass; he agrees in advance that he will defeat a party that he expects will elect him; he, in effect, says to the people, "You can not trust that party, but you can trust me." He says, "Look at them; I admit they are a hungry lot; I admit that they haven't had a bite in twenty years; I admit that an ordinary famine is satiety compared to the hunger they feel. But between that vast appetite known as the Democratic party, and the public treasury, I will throw the shield of my veto." No man has a right to say in advance what he will veto, any more than a judge has a right to say in advance how he will decide a case. The veto power is a distinction with which the Constitution has clothed the Executive, and no President has a right to say that he will veto until he has heard both sides of the question. But he agrees in advance.

I would rather trust a party than a man. Death may veto Hancock, and Death has not been a successful politician in the United States. Tyler, Fillmore, Andy Johnson--I do not wish Death to elect any more Presidents; and if he does, and if Hancock is elected, William H. English becomes President of the United States. No, no, no! All I need to say about him is simply to pronounce his name; that is all. You do not want him. Whether the many stories that have been told about him are true or not I do not know, and I will not give currency to a solitary word against the reputation of an American citizen unless I know it to be true. What I have against him is what he has done in public life. When Charles Sumner, that great and splendid publicist--Charles Sumner, the philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of his time and to the history of the future--when he stood up in the United States Senate and made a great and glorious plea for human liberty, there crept into the Senate a villain and struck him down as though he had been a wild beast. That man was a member of Congress, and when a resolution was introduced in the House, to expel that man, William H. English voted "No." All the stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that public act. That is enough for me, and whatever his private life may be, let it be that of an angel, never, never, never would I vote for a man that would defend the assassin of free speech. General Hancock, they tell me, is a statesman; that what little time he has had to spare from war he has given to the tariff, and what little time he could spare from the tariff he has given to the Constitution of his country; showing under what circumstances a Major-General can put at defiance the Congress of the United States. It won't do!

But while I am upon that subject it may be well for me to state that he never will be President of the United States. Now, I say that a man who in time of peace prefers peace, and prefers the avocations of peace; a man who in the time of peace would rather look at the corn in the air of June, rather listen to the hum of bees, rather sit by his door with his wife and children; the man who in time of peace loves peace, and yet when the blast of war blows in his ears, shoulders a musket and goes to the field of war to defend his country, and when the war is over goes home and again pursues the avocations of peace--that man is just as good, to say the least of it, as a man who in a time of profound peace makes up his mind that he would like to make his living killing other folks. To say the least of it, he is as good.

The Republicans have named as their standard bearers James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. James A. Garfield was a volunteer soldier, and he took away from the field of Chickamauga as much glory as any one man could carry. He is not only a soldier--7-he is a statesman. He has studied and discussed all the great questions that affect the prosperity and well-being of the American people. His opinions are well known, and I say to you tonight that there is not in this Nation, there is not in this Republic a man with greater brain and greater heart than James A. Garfield. I know him and I like him. I know him as well as any other public man, and I like him. The Democratic party say that he is not honest. I have been reading some Democratic papers to-day, and you would say that every one of their editors had a private sewer of his own into which has been emptied for a hundred years the slops of hell. They tell me that James A. Garfield is not honest. Are you a Democrat? Your party tried to steal nearly half of this country. Your party stole the armament of a nation. Your party was willing to live upon the unpaid labor of four millions of people. You have no right to the floor for the purpose of making a motion of honesty. James A. Garfield has been at the head of the most important committees of Congress; he is a member of the most important one of the whole House. He has no peer in the Congress of the United States. And you know it. He is the leader of the House. With one wave of his hand he can take millions from the pocket of one industry and put it into the pocket of another; with a motion of his hand he could have made himself a man of wealth, but he is to-night a poor man. I know him and I like him. He is as genial as May and he is as generous as Autumn. And the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors, the men whom he had pity enough not to destroy with an argument, the men who, with his great generosity, he has allowed, intellectually, to live, are now throwing filth at the reputation of that great and splendid man.

Several ladies and gentlemen were passing a muddy place around which were gathered ragged and wretched urchins. And these little wretches began to throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, "If you don't stop I will throw it back at you." And a little fellow said, "You can't do it without dirtying your hands, and it doesn't hurt us anyway."

I never was more profoundly happy than on the night of that 12th day of October when I found that between an honest and a kingly man and his maligners, two great States had thrown their shining shields. When Ohio said, "Garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in the cabins of Ohio a grander man"--and when Indiana held up her hands and said, "Allow me to indorse that verdict," I was profoundly happy, because that said to me, "Garfield will carry every Northern State;" that said to me, "The Solid South will be confronted by a great and splendid North."

I know Garfield--I like him. Some people have said, "How is it that you support Garfield, when he was a minister?" "How is it that you support Garfield when he is a Christian?" I will tell you. There are two reasons. The first is I am not a bigot; and secondly, James A. Garfield is not a bigot. He believes in giving to every other human being every right he claims for himself. He believes in freedom of speech and freedom of thought; untrammeled conscience and upright manhood. He believes in an absolute divorce between church and state. He believes that every religion should rest upon its morality, upon its reason, upon its persuasion, upon its goodness, upon its charity, and that love should never appeal to the sword of civil power. He disagrees with me in many things; but in the one thing, that the air is free for all, we do agree. I want to do equal and exact justice everywhere.

I want the world of thought to be without a chain, without a wall, and I wish to say to you, [turning toward Mr. Beecher and directly addressing him] that I thank you for what you have said to-night, and to congratulate the people of this city and country that you have intellectual horizon enough, intellectual sky enough to take the hand of a man, howsoever much he may disagree in some things with you, on the grand platform and broad principle of citizenship. James A. Garfield, believing with me as he does, disagreeing with me as he does, is perfectly satisfactory to me. I know him, and I like him.

Men are to-day blackening his reputation, who are not fit to blacken his shoes. He is a man of brain. Since his nomination he must have made forty or fifty speeches, and every one has been full of manhood and genius. He has not said a word that has not strengthened him with the American people. He is the first candidate who has been free to express himself and who has never made a mistake. I will tell you why he does not make a mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. Because he was guided by the glittering Northern Star of principle. Lie after lie has been told about him. Slander after slander has been hatched and put in the air, with its little short wings, to fly its day, and the last lie is a forgery.

I saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pretend he wrote upon the Chinese question. I know his writing; I know his signature; I am well acquainted with his writing. I know handwriting, and I tell you to-night, that letter and that signature are forgeries. A forgery for the benefit of the Pacific States; a forgery for the purpose of convincing the American workingman that Garfield is without heart. I tell you, my fellow-citizens, that cannot take from him a vote. But Ohio pierced their centre and Indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel line cannot re-form with a forgery for a standard. They are gone!

Now, some people say to me, "How long are you going to preach the doctrine of hate?" I never did preach it. In many States of this Union it is a crime to be a Republican. I am going to preach my doctrine until every American citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote as he may desire in every State of this Union. I am going to preach my doctrine until this is a civilized country. That is all.

I will treat the gentlemen of the South precisely as we do the gentlemen of the North. I want to treat every section of the country precisely as we do ours-. I want to improve their rivers and their harbors; I want to fill their land with commerce; I want them to prosper; I want them to build schoolhouses; I want them to open the lands to immigration to all people who desire to settle upon their soil. I want to be friends with them; I want to let the past be buried forever; I want to let bygones be bygones, but only upon the basis that we are now in favor of absolute liberty and eternal justice. I am not willing to bury nationality or free speech in the grave for the purpose of being friends. Let us stand by our colors; let the old Republican party that has made this a Nation--the old Republican party that has saved the financial honor of this country--let that party stand by its colors.

Let that party say, "Free speech forever!" Let that party say, "An honest ballot forever!" Let that party say, "Honest money forever! the Nation and the flag forever!" And let that party stand by the great men carrying her banner, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. I would rather trust a party than a man. If General Garfield dies, the Republican party lives; if General Garfield dies, General Arthur will take his place--a brave, honest, and intelligent gentleman, upon whom every Republican can rely. And if he dies, the Republican party lives, and as long as the Republican party does not die, the great Republic will live. As long as the Republican party lives, this will be the asylum of the world. Let me tell you, Mr. Irishman, this is the only country on the earth where Irishmen have had enough to eat. Let me tell you, Mr. German, that you have more liberty here than you had in the Fatherland. Let me tell you, all men, that this is the land of humanity.

Oh! I love the old Republic, bounded by the seas, walled by the wide air, domed by heaven's blue, and lit with the eternal stars. I love the Republic; I love it because I love liberty. Liberty is my religion, and at its altar I worship, and will worship.

ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.

* This is only a fragment of a speech made by Col. Ingersoll
at Peoria, 111., in 1866, to the 86th Illinois Regiment, at
their anniversary meeting.

PEORIA, ILLS.

1865.

THE history of the past four years seems to me like a terrible dream. It seems almost impossible that the events that have now passed into history ever happened. That hundreds of thousands of men, born and reared under one flag, with the same history, the same future, and, in truth, the same interests, should have met upon the terrible field of death, and for four long years should have fought with a bitterness and determination never excelled; that they should have filled our land with orphans and widows, and made our country hollow with graves, is indeed wonderful; but that the people of the South should have thus fought--thus attempted to destroy and overthrow the Government founded by the heroes of the Revolution--merely for the sake of perpetuating the infamous institution of slavery, is wonderful almost beyond belief.

Strange that people should be found in this, the nineteenth century, to fight against freedom and to die for slavery! It is most wonderful that the terrible war ceased as suddenly as it did, and that the soldiers of the Republic, the moment that the angel of peace spread her white wings over our country, dropped from their hands the instruments of war and eagerly went back to the plough, the shop and the office, and are to-day, with the same determination that characterized them in battle, engaged in effacing every vestige of the desolation and destruction of war. But the progress we have made as a people is if possible still more astonishing. We pretended to be the lovers of freedom, yet we defended slavery. We quoted the Declaration of Independence and voted for the compromise of 1850.

From servility and slavishness we have marched to heroism. We were tyrants. We are liberators. We were slave-catchers. We are now the chivalrous breakers of chains.

From slavery, over a bloody and terrible path, we have marched to freedom. Hirelings of oppression, we have become the champions of justice--the defenders of the right--the pillar upon which rests the hope of the world. To whom are we indebted for this wonderful change? Most of all to you, the soldiers of the great Republic. We thank you that the hands of time were not turned back a thousand years--that the Dark Ages did not again come upon the world--that Prometheus was not again chained--that the river of progress was not stopped or stayed--that the dear blood shed during all the past was not rendered vain--that the sublime faith of all the grand and good did not become a bitter dream, but a reality more glorious than ever entered into the imagination of the rapt heroes of the past. Soldiers of the Eighty-sixth Illinois, we thank you, and through you all the defenders of the Republic, living and dead. We thank you that the deluge of blood has subsided, that the ark of our national safety is at rest, that the dove has returned with the olive branch of peace, and that the dark clouds of war are in the far distance, covered with the beautiful bow.

In the name of humanity, in the name of progress, in the name of freedom, in the name of America, in the name of the oppressed of the whole world, we thank you again and again. We thank you, that in the darkest hour you never despaired of the Republic, that you were not dismayed, that through disaster and defeat, through cruelty and famine, through the serried ranks of the enemy, in spite of false friends, you marched resolutely, unflinchingly and bravely forward. Forward through shot and shell! Forward through fire and sword! Forward past the corpses of your brave comrades, buried in shallow graves by the hurried hands of heroes! Forward past the scattered bones of starved captives! Forward through the glittering bayonet lines, and past the brazen throats of the guns! Forward through the din and roar and smoke and hell of war! Onward through blood and fire to the shining, glittering mount of perfect and complete victory, and from the top your august hands unfurled to the winds the old banner of the stars, and it waves in triumph now, and shall forever, from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific!

We thank you that our waving fields of golden wheat and rustling corn are not trodden down beneath the bloody feet of invasion--that our homes are not ashes--that our hearthstones are not desolate--that our towns and cities still stand, that our temples and institutions of learning are secure, that prosperity covers us as with a mantle, and, more than all, we thank you that the Republic still lives; that law and order reign supreme; that the Constitution is still sacred; that a republican government has ceased to be only an experiment, and has become a certainty for all time; that we have by your heroism established the sublime and shining truth that a government by the people, for the people, can and will stand until governments cease among men; that you have given the lie to the impudent and infamous prophecy of tyranny, and that you have firmly established the Republic upon the great ideas of National Unity and Human Liberty.

We thank you for our commerce on the high seas, upon our lakes and beautiful rivers, for the credit of our nation, for the value of our money, and for the grand position that we now occupy among the nations of the earth. We thank you for every State redeemed, for every star brought back to glitter again upon the old flag, and we thank you for the grand future that you have opened for us and for our children through all the ages yet to come; and, not only for us and our children, but for mankind.

Thanks to your efforts our country is still an asylum for the oppressed of the Old World; the arms of our charity are still open, we still beckon them across the sea, and they come in multitudes,'leaving home, the graves of their sires, and the dear memories of the heart, and with their wives and little ones come to this, the only free land upon which the sun shines--and with their countless hands of labor add to the wealth, the permanence and the glory of our country. And let them come from the land of Luther, of Hampden and Emmett. Whoever is for freedom and the sacred rights of man is a true American, and as such, we welcome them all. We thank you to-day in the name of four millions of people, whose shackles you have so nobly and generously broken, and who, from the condition of beasts of burden, have by your efforts become men. We thank you in the name of this poor and hitherto despised and insulted race, and say that their emancipation was, and is, the crowning glory of this most terrible war. Peace without liberty could have been only a bloody delusion and a snare. Freedom is peace; Slavery is war.

We must act justly and honorably with these emancipated men, knowing that the eyes of the civilized world are upon us. We must do what is best for both races. We must not be controlled merely by party.

If the Government is founded upon principle, it will stand against the shock of revolution and foreign war as long as liberty is sacred, the rights of man respected, and honor dwells in the hearts of men.

We thank you for the lesson that has been taught the Old World by your patriotism and valor; believing that when the people shall have learned that sublime and divine lesson, thrones will become kingless, kings crownless, royalty an epitaph, the purple of power the shroud of death, the chains of tyranny will fall from the bodies of men, the shackles of superstition from the souls of the people, the spirit of persecution will fly from the earth, and the banner of Universal Freedom, with the words "Civil and Religious Liberty for the World" written upon every fold, blazing from every star, will float over every land and sea under the whole heavens.

We thank you for the glorious past, for the still more glorious future, and will continue to thank you while our hearts are warm with life. We will gather around you in the hour of your death and soothe your last moments with our gratitude. We will follow you tearfully to the narrow house of the dead, and over your sacred remains erect the whitest and purest marble. The hands of love will adorn your last abode, and the chisel will record that beneath rests the sacred dust of the Heroic Saviors of the Great Republic. Such ground will be holy, and future generations will draw inspiration from your tombs, courage from your heroic examples, patience and fortitude from your sufferings, and strength eternal from your success.

I cannot stop without speaking of the heroic dead. It seems to me as though their spirits ought to hover over you to-day--that they might join with us in giving thanks for the great victory,--that their faces might grow radiant to think that their blood was not shed in vain,--that the living are worthy to reap the benefits of their sacrifices, their sufferings and death, and it almost seems as if their sightless eyes are suffused with tears. Then we think of the dear mothers waiting for their sons, of the devoted wives waiting for their husbands, of the orphans asking for fathers whose returning footsteps they can never hear; that while they can say "my country," they cannot say "my son," "my husband," or "my father."

My heart goes out to all the slain, to those heroic corpses sleeping far away from home and kindred in unknown and lonely graves, to those poor pieces of dear, bleeding earth that won for me the blessings I enjoy to-day.

Shall I recount their sufferings? They were starved day by day with a systematic and calculating cruelty never equaled by the most savage tribes. They were confined in dens as though they had been beasts, and then they slowly faded and wasted from life. Some were released from their sufferings by blessed insanity, until their parched and fevered lips, their hollow and glittering eyes, were forever closed by the angel of death. And thus they died, with the voices of loved ones in their ears; the faces of the dear absent hovering over them; around them their dying comrades, and the fiendish slaves of slavery.

And what shall I say more of the regiment before me? It is enough that you were a part of the great army that accomplished so much for America and mankind.

It is but just, however, to say that you were at the bloody field of Perryville, that you stood with Thomas at Chickamauga and kept at bay the rebel host, that you marched to the relief of Knoxville through bitter cold, hunger and privations, and had the honor of relieving that heroic garrison.

It is but just to say that you were with Sherman in his wonderful march through the heart of the Confederacy; that you were in the terrible charge at Kenesaw Mountain, and held your ground for days within a few steps of the rebel fortifications; that you were at Atlanta and took part in the terrible conflict before that city and marched victoriously through her streets; that you were at Savannah; that you had the honor of being present when Johnson surrendered, and his ragged rebel horde laid down their arms; that from there you marched to Washington and beneath the shadow of the glorious dome of our Capitol, that lifts from the earth as though jealous of the stars, received the grandest national ovation recorded in the annals of the world.

DECORATION DAY ORATION.

* At the Memorial Celebration of the Grand Army of the
Republic last evening the Academy of Music was filled to
overflowing, within a few minutes after the opening of the
doors.

Gen. Hancock was the first arrival of importance. The
Governor's Island band accepted this as a signal for the
overture. The Academy was tastefully decorated. The three
balconies were covered, the first with blue cloth, the
second with white and national bunting, studded with the
insignia of the original thirteen States, and the family
circle with red. Over the centre of the stage the national
flag and device hung suspended, and was held In its place by
flying streamers extending to the boxes. The latter were
draped with flags, relieved by antique armor and weapons--
shields, casques and battle axes and crossed swords and
pikes.

At 8.05 the curtain slowly rose, and discovered to the view
of the audience, a second audience reaching back to the
farthest depths of the scenes. These were the fortunate
holders of stage tickets, and comprised a great number of
distinguished men.

Among them were noticed Gen. Horace Porter, Gen. Lloyd
Aspinwall, Gen. Daniel Butterfield, Gen. D. D. Wylie, Gen.
Charles Roome, Gen. W. Palmer, Gen. John Cochrane, Gen. H.
G. Tremaine, the Hon. Edward Pierrepont, Dep't. Commander
James M. Fraser, the Hon. Carl Schurz, August Belmont, Henry
Clews, Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, Charles Scribner, Jesse Seligman,
William Dowa, Henry Bergh and George William Curtis. Gen.
Bamum came upon the stage followed by President Arthur,
Gen's. Grant and Hancock, Secretaries Folger and Brewster,
ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling, Mayor Grace and the Rev. J. P.
Newman. Gen. Hancock's brilliant uniform made him a very
conspicuous figure, and he served as a foil to the plain
evening dress of Gen. Grant, who was separated from him by
the portly form of the President.

Gen. James McQuade, the President of the day, rose and
uncovering a flag which draped a sort of patriotic altar in
front of him, announced that It was the genuine flag upon
which was written the famous order, "If any man pull down
the American flag, shoot him on the spot.' * This was the
signal for round after round of applause, while Gen. McQuade
waved this precious relic of the past. The time had now come
for the introduction of the orator of the evening, Col.
Robert G. Ingersoll. Col. Ingersoll stepped across the stage
to the reading desk, and was received with an ovation of
cheering and waving of handkerchiefs.

After the enthusiasm had somewhat abated, a gentleman in one
of the boxes shouted: "Three-cheers for Ingersoll."
These were given with a will, the excitement quieted down
and the orator spoke as follows '.--The New York Times. May
31st, 1883.

New York City.

1882.

THIS day is sacred to our heroes dead. Upon their tombs we have lovingly laid the wealth of Spring.

This is a day for memory and tears. A mighty Nation bends above its honored graves, and pays to noble dust the tribute of its love.

Gratitude is the fairest flower that sheds its perfume in the heart.

To-day we tell the history of our country's life--recount the lofty deeds of vanished years--the toil and suffering, the defeats and victories of heroic men,--of men who made our Nation great and free.

We see the first ships whose prows were gilded by the western sun. We feel the thrill of discovery when the New World was found. We see the oppressed, the serf, the peasant and the slave, men whose flesh had known the chill of chains--the adventurous, the proud, the brave, sailing an unknown sea, seeking homes in unknown lands. We see the settlements, the little clearings, the blockhouse and the fort, the rude and lonely huts. Brave men, true women, builders of homes, fellers of forests, founders of States.

Separated from the Old World,--away from the heartless distinctions of caste,--away from sceptres and titles and crowns, they governed themselves. They defended their homes; they earned their bread. Each citizen had a voice, and the little villages became republics. Slowly the savage was driven back. The days and nights were filled with fear, and the slow years with massacre and war, and cabins' earthen floors were wet with blood of mothers and their babes.

But the savages of the New World were kinder than the kings and nobles of the Old; and so the human tide kept coming, and the places of the dead were filled. Amid common dangers and common hopes, the prejudiced and feuds of Europe faded slowly from their hearts. From every land, of every speech, driven by want and lured by hope, exiles and emigrants sought the mysterious Continent of the West.

Year after year the colonists fought and toiled and suffered and increased. They began to talk about liberty--to reason of the rights of man. They * t asked no help from distant kings, and they began to doubt the use of paying tribute to the useless. They lost respect for dukes and lords, and held in high esteem all honest men. There was the dawn of a new day. They began to dream of independence. They found that they could make and execute the laws. They had tried the experiment of self-government. They had succeeded. The Old World wished to dominate the New. In the care and keeping of the colonists was the destiny of this Continent--of half the world.

On this day the story of the great struggle between colonists and kings should be told. We should tell our children of the contest--first for justice, then for freedom. We should tell them the history of the Declaration of Independence--the chart and compass of all human rights:--All men are equal, and have the right to life, to liberty and joy.

This Declaration uncrowned kings, and wrested from the hands of titled tyranny the sceptre of usurped and arbitrary power. It superseded royal grants, and repealed the cruel statutes of a thousand years. It gave the peasant a career; it knighted all the sons of toil; it opened all the paths to fame, and put the star of hope above the cradle of the poor man's babe.

England was then the mightiest of nations--mistress of every sea--and yet our fathers, poor and few, defied her power.

To-day we remember the defeats, the victories, the disasters, the weary marches, the poverty, the hunger, the sufferings, the agonies, and above all, the glories of the Revolution. We remember all--from Lexington to Valley Forge, and from that midnight of despair to Yorktown's cloudless day. We remember the soldiers and thinkers--the heroes of the sword and pen. They had the brain and heart, the wisdom and courage to utter and defend these words: "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." In defence of this sublime and self-evident truth the war was waged and won.

To-day we remember all the heroes, all the generous and chivalric men who came from other lands to make ours free. Of the many thousands who shared the gloom and glory of the seven sacred years, not one remains. The last has mingled with the earth, and nearly all are sleeping now in unmarked graves, and some beneath the leaning, crumbling stones from which their names have been effaced by Time's irreverent and relentless hands. But the Nation they founded remains. The United States are still free and independent. The "government derives its just power from the consent of the governed," and fifty millions of free people remember with gratitude the heroes of the Revolution.

Let us be truthful; let us be kind. When peace came, when the independence of a new Nation was acknowledged, the great truth for which our fathers fought was half denied, and the Constitution was inconsistent with the Declaration. The war was waged for liberty, and yet the victors forged new fetters for their fellow-men. The chains our fathers broke were put by them upon the limbs of others. "Freedom for All" was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, through seven years of want and war. In peace the cloud was forgotten and the pillar blazed unseen.

Let us be truthful; all our fathers were not true to themselves. In war they had been generous, noble and self-sacrificing; with peace came selfishness and greed. They were not great enough to appreciate the grandeur of the principles for which they fought. They ceased to regard the great truths as having universal application. "Liberty for All" included only themselves. They qualified the Declaration. They interpolated the word "white." They obliterated the word "All."

Let us be kind. We will remember the age in which they lived. We will compare them with the citizens of other nations. They made merchandise of men. They legalized a crime. They sowed the seeds of war. But they founded this Nation.

Let us gratefully remember.

Let us gratefully forget.

To-day we remember the heroes of the second war with England, in which our fathers fought for the freedom of the seas--for the rights of the American sailor. We remember with pride the splendid victories of Erie and Champlain and the wondrous achievements upon the sea--achievements that covered our navy with a glory that neither the victories nor defeats of the future can dim. We remember the heroic services and sufferings of those who fought the merciless savage of the frontier. We see the midnight massacre, and hear the war-cries of the allies of England. We see the flames climb around the happy homes, and in the charred and blackened ruins the mutilated bodies of wives and children. Peace came at last, crowned with the victory of New Orleans--a victory that "did redeem all sorrows" and all defeats.

The Revolution gave our fathers a free land--the War of 1812 a free sea.

To-day we remember the gallant men who bore our flag in triumph from the Rio Grande to the heights of Chapultepec.

Leaving out of question the justice of our cause--the necessity for war--we are yet compelled to applaud the marvelous courage of our troops. A handful of men, brave, impetuous, determined, irresistible, conquered a nation. Our history has no record of more daring deeds.

Again peace came, and the Nation hoped and thought that strife was at an end. We had grown too powerful to be attacked. Our resources were boundless, and the future seemed secure. The hardy pioneers moved to the great West. Beneath their ringing strokes the forests disappeared, and on the prairies waved the billowed seas of wheat and corn. The great plains were crossed, the mountains were conquered, and the foot of victorious adventure pressed the shore of the Pacific. In the great North all the streams went singing to the sea, turning wheels and spindles, and casting shuttles back and forth. Inventions were springing like magic from a thousand brains. From Labor's holy altars rose and leaped the smoke and flame, and from the countless forges ran the chant of rhythmic stroke.

But in the South, the negro toiled unpaid, and mothers wept while babes were sold, and at the auction-block husbands and wives speechlessly looked the last good-bye. Fugitives, lighted by the Northern Star, sought liberty on English soil, and were, by Northern men, thrust back to whip and chain. The great statesmen, the successful politicians, announced that law had compromised with crime, that justice had been bribed, and that time had barred appeal. A race was left without a right, without a hope. The future had no dawn, no star--nothing but ignorance and fear, nothing but work and want. This, was the conclusion of the statesmen, the philosophy of the politicians--of constitutional expounders:--this was decided by courts and ratified by the Nation.

We had been successful in three wars. We had wrested thirteen colonies from Great Britain. We had conquered our place upon the high seas. We had added more than two millions of square miles to the national domain. We had increased in population from three to thirty-one millions. We were in the midst of plenty. We were rich and free. Ours appeared to be the most prosperous of Nations. But it was only appearance. The statesmen and the politicians were deceived. Real victories can be won only for the Right. The triumph of Justice is the only Peace. Such is the nature of things. He who enslaves another cannot be free. He who attacks the right, assaults himself. The mistake our fathers made had not been corrected. The foundations of the Republic were insecure. The great dome of the temple was clad in the light of prosperity, but the corner-stones were crumbling. Four millions of human beings were enslaved. Party cries had been mistaken for principles--partisanship for patriotism--success for justice.

But Pity pointed to the scarred and bleeding backs of slaves; Mercy heard the sobs of mothers reft of babes, and Justice held aloft the scales, in which one drop of blood shed by a master's lash, outweighed a Nation's gold. There were a few men, a few women, who had the courage to attack this monstrous crime. They found it entrenched in constitutions, statutes, and decisions--barricaded and bastioned by every department and by every party. Politicians were its servants, statesmen its attorneys, judges its menials, presidents its puppets, and upon its cruel altar had been sacrificed our country's honor. It was the crime of the Nation--of the whole country--North and South responsible alike.

To-day we reverently thank the abolitionists. Earth has no grander men--no nobler women. They were the real philanthropists, the true patriots. When the will defies fear, when the heart applauds the brain, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death,--this is heroism. The abolitionists were heroes. He loves his country best who strives to make it best. The bravest men are those who have the greatest fear of doing wrong. Mere politicians wish the country to do something for them. True patriots desire to do something for their country. Courage without conscience is a wild beast. Patriotism without principle is the prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to place. These men, these women, had courage and conscience, patriotism and principle, heart and brain.

The South relied upon the bond,--upon a barbarous clause that stained, disfigured and defiled the Federal pact, and made the monstrous claim that slavery was the Nation's ward. The spot of shame grew red in Northern cheeks, and Northern men declared that slavery had poisoned, cursed and blighted soul and soil enough, and that the Territories must be free. The radicals of the South cried: "No Union without Slavery!" The radicals of the North replied: "No Union without Liberty!" The Northern radicals were right. Upon the great issue of free homes for free men, a President was elected by the free States. The South appealed to the sword, and raised the standard of revolt. For the first time in history the oppressors rebelled.

But let us to-day be great enough to forget individuals,--great enough to know that slavery was treason, that slavery was rebellion, that slavery fired upon our flag and sought to wreck and strand the mighty ship that bears the hope and fortune of this world. The first shot liberated the North. Constitution, statutes and decisions, compromises, platforms, and resolutions made, passed, and ratified in the interest of slavery became mere legal lies, base and baseless. Parchment and paper could no longer stop or stay the onward march of man. The North was free. Millions instantly resolved that the Nation should not die--that Freedom should not perish, and that Slavery should not live.

Millions of our brothers, our sons, our fathers, our husbands, answered to the Nation's call.

The great armies have desolated the earth. The greatest soldiers have been ambition's dupes. They waged war for the sake of place and pillage, pomp and power,--for the ignorant applause of vulgar millions,--for the flattery of parasites, and the adulation of sycophants and slaves.

Let us proudly remember that in our time the greatest, the grandest, the noblest army of the world fought, not to enslave, but to free; not to destroy, but to save; not for conquest, but for conscience; not only for us, but for every land and every race.

With courage, with enthusiasm, with a devotion' never excelled, with an exaltation and purity of purpose never equaled, this grand army fought the battles of the Republic. For the preservation of this Nation, for the destruction of slavery, these soldiers, these sailors, on land and sea, disheartened by no defeat, discouraged by no obstacle, appalled by no danger, neither paused nor swerved until a stainless flag, without a rival, floated over all our wide domain, and until every human being beneath its folds was absolutely free.

The great victory for human rights--the greatest of all the years--had been won; won by the Union men of the North, by the Union men of the South, and by those who had been slaves. Liberty was national, Slavery was dead.

The flag for which the heroes fought, for which they died, is the symbol of all we are, of all we hope to be.

It is the emblem of equal rights.

It means free hands, free lips, self-government and the sovereignty of the individual.

It means that this continent has been dedicated to freedom.

It means universal education,--light for every mind, knowledge for every child.

It means that the schoolhouse is the fortress of Liberty.

It means that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" that each man is accountable to and for the Government; that responsibility goes hand in hand with liberty.

It means that it is the duty of every citizen to bear his share of the public burden,--to take part in the affairs of his town, his county, his State and his country.

It means that the ballot-box is the Ark of the Covenant; that the source of authority must not be poisoned.

It means the perpetual right of peaceful revolution. It means that every citizen of the Republic--native or naturalized--must be protected; at home, in every State,--abroad, in every land, on every sea.

It means that all distinctions based on birth or blood, have perished from our laws; that our Government shall stand between labor and capital, between the weak and the strong, between the individual and the corporation, between want and wealth, and give the guarantee of simple justice to each and all.

It means that there shall be a legal remedy for every wrong.

It means national hospitality,--that we must welcome to our shores the exiles of the world, and that we may not drive them back. Some may be deformed by labor, dwarfed by hunger, broken in spirit, victims of tyranny and caste,--in whose sad faces may be read the touching record of a weary life; and yet their children, born of liberty and love, will be symmetrical and fair, intelligent and free.

That flag is the emblem of a supreme will--of a Nation's power. Beneath its folds the weakest must be protected and the strongest must obey. It shields and canopies alike the loftiest mansion and the rudest hut. That flag was given to the air in the Revolution's darkest days. It represents the sufferings of the past, the glories yet to be; and like the bow of heaven, it is the child of storm and sun.

This day is sacred to the great heroic host who kept this flag above our heads,--sacred to the living and the dead--sacred to the scarred and maimed,--sacred to the wives who gave their husbands, to the mothers who gave their sons.

Here in this peaceful land of ours,--here where the sun shines, where flowers grow, where children play, millions of armed men battled for the right and breasted on a thousand fields the iron storms of war.

These brave, these incomparable men, founded the first Republic. They fulfilled the prophecies; they brought to pass the dreams; they realized the hopes, that all the great and good and wise and just have made and had since man was man.

But what of those who fell? There is no language to express the debt we owe, the love we bear, to all the dead who died for us. Words are but barren sounds. We can but stand beside their graves and in the hush and silence feel what speech has never told.

They fought, they died; and for the first time since man has kept a record of events, the heavens bent above and domed a land without a serf, a servant or a slave.

DECORATION DAY ADDRESS.

* Empty sleeves worn by veterans with scanty locks and
grizzled mustaches graced the Metropolitan Opera House last
night. On the breasts of their faded uniforms glittered the
badges of the legions in which they had fought and suffered,
and beside them sat the wives and daughters, whose hearts
had ached at home while they served their country at the
front.

Every seat in the great Opera House was filled, and hundreds
stood, glad to And any place where they could see and hear.
And the gathering and the proceedings were worthy of the
occasion.

Mr. Depew upon taking the chair said that he had the chief
treat of the evening to present to the audience, and that
was Robert G. Ingersoll, the greatest living orator, and one
of the great controversialists of the age.

Then came the orator of the occasion Col. Ingersoll, whose
speech is printed herewith.