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42 KiB
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911 lines
42 KiB
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14 page printout
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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Contents of this file page
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DECORATION DAY ORATION -- 1882 1
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DECORATION DAY ORATION -- 1888 7
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**** ****
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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DECORATION DAY ORATION.
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1882.
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THIS day is sacred to our heroes dead. Upon their tombs we
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have lovingly laid the wealth of Spring.
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This is a day for memory and tears. A mighty Nation bends
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above its honored graves, and pays to noble dust the tribute of its
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love.
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Gratitude is the fairest flower that sheds its perfume in the
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heart.
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To-day we tell the history of our country's life -- recount
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the lofty deeds of vanished years -- the toil and suffering, the
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defeats and victories of heroic men, -- of men, who made our Nation
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great and free.
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We see the first ships whose prows were gilded by the western
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sun. We feel the thrill of discovery when the New World was found.
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We see the oppressed, the serf, the peasant and the slave, men
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whose flesh had known the chill of chains -- the adventurous, the
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proud, the brave, sailing an unknown sea, seeking homes in unknown
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lands. We see the settlements, the little clearings, the blockhouse
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and the fort, the rude and lonely huts. Brave men, true women,
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builders of homes, fellers of forests, founders of States.
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Separated from the Old World, -- away from the heartless
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distinctions of caste, -- away from scepters and titles and crowns,
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they governed themselves. They defended their homes; they earned
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their bread. Each citizen had a voice, and the little villages
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became republics. Slowly the savage was driven back. The days and
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nights were filled with fear, and the slow years with massacre and
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war, and cabins' earthen floors were wet with blood of mothers and
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their babes.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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DECORATION DAY ORATION.
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But the savages of the New World were kinder than the kings
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and nobles of the Old; and so the human tide kept coming, and the
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places of the dead were filled. Amid common dangers and common
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hopes, the prejudices and feuds of Europe faded slowly from their
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hearts. From every land, of every speech, driven by want and lured
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by hope, exiles and emigrants sought the mysterious Continent of
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the West.
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Year after year the colonists fought and toiled and suffered
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and increased. They began to talk about liberty -- to reason of the
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rights of man. They asked no help from distant kings, and they
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began to doubt the use of paying tribute to the useless. They lost
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respect for dukes and lords, and held in high esteem all honest
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men. There was the dawn of a new day. They began to dream of
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independence. They found that they could make and execute the laws.
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They had tried the experiment of self-government. They had
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succeeded. The Old World wished to dominate the New. In the care
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and keeping of the colonists was the destiny of this Continent --
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of half the world.
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On this day the story of the great struggle between colonists
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and kings should be told. We should tell our children of the
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contest -- first for justice, then for freedom. We should tell them
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the history of the Declaration of Independence -- the chart and
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compass of all human rights: -- All men are equal, and have the
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right to life, to liberty and joy.
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This Declaration uncrowned kings, and wrested from the hands
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of titled tyranny the scepter of usurped and arbitrary power. It
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superseded royal grants, and repealed the cruel statutes of a
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thousand years. It gave the peasant a career; it knighted all the
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sons of toil; it opened all the paths to fame, and put the star of
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hope above the cradle of the poor man's babe.
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England was then the mightiest of nations -- mistress of every
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sea -- and yet our fathers, poor and few, defied her power.
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To-day we remember the defeats, the victories, the disasters,
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the weary marches, the poverty, the hunger, the sufferings, the
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agonies, and. above all, the glories of the Revolution. We remember
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all -- from Lexington to Valley Forge, and from that midnight of
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despair to Yorktown's cloudless day. We remember the soldiers and
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thinkers -- the heroes of the sword and pen. They had the brain and
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heart, the wisdom and courage to utter and defend these words:
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"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
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governed." In defence of this sublime and self-evident truth the
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war was waged and won.
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To-day we remember all the heroes, all the generous and
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chivalric men who came from other lands to make ours free. Of the
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many thousands who shared the gloom and glory of the seven sacred
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years, not one remains. The last has mingled with the earth, and
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nearly all are sleeping now in unmarked graves, and some beneath
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the leaning, crumbling stones from which their names have been
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effaced by Time's irreverent and relentless hands. But the Nation
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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DECORATION DAY ORATION.
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they founded remains. The United States are still free and
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independent. The "government derives its just power from the
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consent of the governed," and fifty millions of free people
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remember with gratitude the heroes of the Revolution.
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Let us be truthful; let us be kind. When peace came, when the
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independence of a new Nation was acknowledged, the great truth for
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which our fathers fought was half denied, and the Constitution was
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inconsistent with the Declaration. The war was waged for liberty,
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and yet the victors forged new fetters for their fellow-men. The
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chains our fathers broke were put by them upon the limbs of others.
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"Freedom for All" was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by
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night, through seven years of want and war. In peace the cloud was
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forgotten and the pillar blazed unseen.
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Let us be truthful; all our fathers were not true to
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themselves. In war they had been generous, noble and self-
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sacrificing; with peace came selfishness and greed. They were not
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great enough to appreciate the grandeur of the principles for which
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they fought. They ceased to regard the great truths as having
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universal application. "Liberty for All" included only themselves.
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They qualified the Declaration. They interpolated the word "white."
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They obliterated the word "All."
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Let us be kind. We will remember the age in which they lived.
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We will compare them with the citizens of other nations. They made
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merchandise of men. They legalized a crime. They sowed the seeds of
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war. But they founded this Nation.
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Let us gratefully remember.
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Let us gratefully forget,
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To-day we remember the heroes of the second war with England,
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in which our fathers fought for the freedom of the seas -- for the
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rights of the American sailor. We remember with pride the splendid
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victories of Erie and Champlain and the wondrous achievements upon
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the sea -- achievements that covered our navy with a glory that
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neither the victories nor defeats of the future can dim. We
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remember the heroic services and sufferings of those who fought the
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merciless savage of the frontier. We see the midnight massacre, and
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hear the war-cries of the allies of England. We see the flames
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climb around' the happy homes, and in the charred and blackened
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ruins the mutilated bodies of wives and children. Peace came at
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last, crowned with the victory of New Orleans -- a victory that
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"did redeem all sorrows" and all defeats.
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The Revolution gave our fathers a free land -- the War of 1812
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a free sea.
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To-day we remember the gallant men who bore our flag in
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triumph from the Rio Grande to the heights of Chapultepec.
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Leaving out of question the justice of our cause -- the
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necessity for war -- we are yet compelled to applaud the marvelous
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Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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DECORATION DAY ORATION.
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courage of our troops. A handful of men, brave, impetuous,
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determined, irresistible, conquered a nation. Our history has no
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||
record of more daring deeds.
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Again peace came, and the Nation hoped and thought that strife
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||
was at an end. We had grown too powerful to be attacked. Our
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resources were boundless, and the future seemed secure. The hardy
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pioneers moved to the great West. Beneath their ringing strokes the
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forests disappeared, and on the prairies waved the billowed seas of
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wheat and corn. The great plains were crossed, the mountains were
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conquered, and the foot of victorious adventure pressed the shore
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of the Pacific. In the great North all the streams went singing to
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the sea, turning wheels and spindles, and casting shuttles back and
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forth. Inventions were springing like magic from a thousand brains.
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From Labor's holy altars rose and leaped the smoke and flame, and
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from the countless forges ran the chant of rhythmic stroke.
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But in the South, the negro toiled unpaid, and mothers wept
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while babes were sold, and at the auction-block husbands and wives
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speechlessly looked the last good-bye. Fugitives, lighted by the
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Northern Star, sought liberty on English soil, and were, by
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Northern men, thrust back to whip and chain. The great statesmen,
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the successful politicians, announced that law had compromised with
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crime, that justice had been bribed, and that time had barred
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||
appeal. A race was left without a right, without a hope. The future
|
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had no dawn, no star -- nothing but ignorance and fear, nothing but
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work and want. This was the conclusion of the statesmen, the
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philosophy of the politicians -- of constitutional expounders: --
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this was decided by courts and ratified by the Nation.
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We had been successful in three wars. We had wrested thirteen
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colonies from Great Britain. We hid conquered our place upon the
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high seas. We had added more than two millions of square miles to
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the national domain. We had increased in population from three to
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thirty-one millions. We were in the midst of plenty. We were rich
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and free. Ours appeared to be the most prosperous of Nations. But
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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
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enslaves another cannot be free. He who attacks the right, assaults
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himself. The mistake our fathers made had not been corrected. The
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foundations of the Republic were insecure. The great dome of the
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temple was clad in the light of prosperity, but the corner-stones
|
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were crumbling. Four millions of human beings were enslaved. Party
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cries had been mistaken for principles -- partisanship for
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patriotism -- success for justice.
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|
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But Pity pointed to the scarred and bleeding backs of slaves;
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Mercy heard the sobs of mothers raft of babes, and justice held
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aloft the scales, in which one drop of blood shed by a master's
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lash, outweighed a Nation's gold. There were a few men, a few
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women, who had the courage to attack this monstrous crime. They
|
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found it entrenched in constitutions, statutes, and decisions --
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||
barricaded and bastioned by every department and by every party.
|
||
Politicians were its servants, statesmen its attorneys, judges its
|
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menials, presidents its puppets, and upon its cruel altar had been
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sacrificed our country's honor. It was the crime of the Nation --
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||
of the whole country -- North and South responsible alike.
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|
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Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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4
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DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
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To-day we reverently thank the abolitionists. Earth has no
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grander men -- no nobler women. They were the real philanthropists,
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the true patriots. When the will defies fear, when the heart
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applauds the brain, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate,
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when honor scorns to compromise with death, -- this is heroism. The
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abolitionists were heroes. He loves his country best who strives to
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make it best. The bravest men are those who have the greatest fear
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of doing wrong. Mere politicians wish the country to do something
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for them. True patriots desire to do something for their country.
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Courage without conscience is a wild beast. Patriotism without
|
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principle is the prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to
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place. These men, these women, had courage and conscience,
|
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patriotism and principle, heart and brain.
|
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|
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The South relied upon the bond, -- upon a barbarous clause
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||
that stained, disfigured and defiled the Federal pact, and made the
|
||
monstrous claim that slavery was the Nation's ward. The spot of
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||
shame grew red in Northern cheeks, and Northern men declared that
|
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slavery had poisoned, cursed and blighted soul and soil enough, and
|
||
that the Territories must be free. The radicals of the South cried
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No Union without Slavery! The radicals of the North replied: "No
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Union without Liberty!" The Northern radicals were right. Upon the
|
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great issue of free homes for free men, a President was elected by
|
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the free States. The South appealed to the sword, and raised the
|
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standard of revolt. For the first time in history the oppressors
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rebelled.
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But let us to-day be great enough to forget individuals, --
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great enough to know that slavery was treason, that slavery was
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rebellion, that slavery fired upon our flag and sought to wreck and
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strand the mighty ship that bears the hope and fortune of this
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world. The first shot liberated the North. Constitution, statutes
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and decisions, compromises, platforms, and resolutions made,
|
||
passed, and ratified in the interest of slavery became mere legal
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lies, base and baseless. Parchment and paper could no longer stop
|
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or stay the onward march of man. The North was free. Millions
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instantly resolved that the Nation should not die -- that Freedom
|
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should not perish, and that Slavery should not live.
|
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Millions of our brothers, our sons, our fathers, our husbands,
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answered to the Nation's call.
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The great armies have desolated the earth. The greatest
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soldiers have been ambition's dupes. They waged war for the sake of
|
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place and pillage, pomp and power, -- for the ignorant applause of
|
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vulgar millions, -- for the flattery of parasites, and the
|
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adulation of sycophants and slaves.
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Let us proudly remember that in our time the greatest, the
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grandest, the noblest army of the world fought, not to enslave, but
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to free; not to destroy, but to save; not for conquest, but for
|
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conscience not only for us, but for every land and every race.
|
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|
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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
|
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|
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Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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5
|
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DECORATION DAY ORATION.
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|
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this Nation, for the destruction of slavery, these soldiers, these
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sailors, on land and sea, disheartened by no defeat, discouraged by
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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
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absolutely free.
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|
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The great victory for human rights -- the greatest of all the
|
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years -- had been won; won by the Union men of the North, by the
|
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Union men of the South, and by those who had been slaves. Liberty
|
||
was national, Slavery was dead.
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|
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The flag for which the heroes fought, for which they died, is
|
||
the symbol of all we are, of all we hope to be.
|
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|
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It is the emblem of equal rights.
|
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It means free hands, free lips, self-government and the
|
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sovereignty of the individual.
|
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|
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It means that this continent has been dedicated to freedom.
|
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|
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It means universal education, -- light for every mind,
|
||
knowledge for every child.
|
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|
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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
|
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town, his county, his State and his country.
|
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|
||
It means that the ballot-box is the Ark of the Covenant; that
|
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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
|
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every sea.
|
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|
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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.
|
||
|
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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
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
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 but. 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 ORATION.
|
||
|
||
1888.
|
||
|
||
THIS is a sacred day -- a day for gratitude and love.
|
||
|
||
To-day we commemorate more than independence, more than the
|
||
birth of a nation, more than the fruits of the Revolution, more
|
||
than physical progress, more than the accumulation of wealth, more
|
||
than national prestige and power.
|
||
|
||
We commemorate the great and blessed victory over ourselves --
|
||
the triumph of civilization, the reformation of a people, the
|
||
establishment of a government consecrated to the preservation of
|
||
liberty and the equal rights of man.
|
||
|
||
Nations can win success, can be rich and powerful, can cover
|
||
the earth with their armies, the seas with their fleets, and yet be
|
||
selfish, small and mean. Physical progress means opportunity for
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
doing good. It means responsibility. Wealth is the end of the
|
||
despicable, victory the purpose of brutality.
|
||
|
||
But there is something nobler than all these -- something that
|
||
rises above wealth and power -- something above lands and palaces
|
||
-- something above raiment and gold -- it is the love of right, the
|
||
cultivation of the moral nature, the desire to do justice, the
|
||
inextinguishable love of human liberty.
|
||
|
||
Nothing can be nobler than a nation governed by conscience,
|
||
nothing more infamous than power without pity, wealth without honor
|
||
and without the sense of justice.
|
||
|
||
Only by the soldiers of the right can the laurel be won or
|
||
worn.
|
||
|
||
On this day we honor the heroes who fought to make our Nation
|
||
just and free -- who broke the shackles of the slave, who freed the
|
||
masters of the South and their allies of the North. We honor
|
||
chivalric men who made America the hope and beacon of the human
|
||
race -- the foremost Nation of the world.
|
||
|
||
These heroes established the first republic, and demonstrated
|
||
that a government in which the legally expressed will of the people
|
||
is sovereign and supreme is the safest, strongest, securest,
|
||
noblest and the best.
|
||
|
||
They demonstrated the human right of the people, and of all
|
||
the people, to make and execute the laws -- that authority does not
|
||
come from the clouds, or from ancestry, or from the crowned and
|
||
titled, or from constitutions and compacts, laws and customs -- not
|
||
from the admissions of the great, or the concessions of the
|
||
powerful and victorious -- not from graves, or consecrated dust --
|
||
not from treaties made between successful robbers -- not from the
|
||
decisions of corrupt and menial courts -- not from the dead, but
|
||
from the living -- not from the past but from the present, from the
|
||
people of to-day -- from the brain, from the heart and from the
|
||
conscience of those who live and love and labor.
|
||
|
||
The history of this world for the most part is the history of
|
||
conflict and war, of invasion, of conquest, of victorious wrong, of
|
||
the many enslaved by the few.
|
||
|
||
Millions have fought for kings, for the destruction and
|
||
enslavement of their fellow-men. Millions have battled for empire,
|
||
and great armies have been inspired by the hope of pillage; but for
|
||
the first time in the history of this world millions of men battled
|
||
for the right, fought to free not themselves, but others, not for
|
||
prejudice, but for principle, not for conquest, but for conscience.
|
||
|
||
The men whom we honor were the liberators of a Nation, of a
|
||
whole country, North and South -- of two races. They freed the body
|
||
and the brain, gave liberty to master and to slave. They opened all
|
||
the highways of thought, and gave to fifty millions of people the
|
||
inestimable legacy of free speech.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
They established the free exchange of thought. They gave to
|
||
the air a flag without a stain, and they gave to their country a
|
||
constitution that honest men can reverently obey. They destroyed
|
||
the hateful, the egotistic and provincial -- they established a
|
||
Nation, a national spirit, a national pride and a patriotism as
|
||
broad as the great Republic.
|
||
|
||
They did away with that ignorant and cruel prejudice that
|
||
human rights depend on race or color, and that the superior race
|
||
has the right to oppress the inferior. They established the sublime
|
||
truth that the superior are the just, the kind, the generous, and
|
||
merciful -- that the really superior are the protectors, the
|
||
defenders, and the saviors of the oppressed, of the fallen, the
|
||
unfortunate, the weak and helpless. They established that greatest
|
||
of all truths that nothing is nobler than to labor and suffer for
|
||
others.
|
||
|
||
If we wish to know the extent of our debt to these heroes,
|
||
these soldiers of the right, we must know what we were and what we
|
||
are. A few years ago we talked about liberty, about the freedom of
|
||
the world, and while so talking we enslaved our fellow-men. We were
|
||
the stealers of babes and the whippers of women. We were in
|
||
partnership with bloodhounds. We lived on unpaid labor. We held
|
||
manhood in contempt. Honest toil was disgraceful -- sympathy was a
|
||
crime -- pity was unconstitutional -- humanity contrary to law, and
|
||
charity was treason. Men were imprisoned for pointing out in
|
||
heaven's dome the Northern Star -- for giving food to the hungry,
|
||
water to the parched lips of thirst, shelter to the hunted, succor
|
||
to the oppressed. In those days criminals and courts, pirates and
|
||
pulpits were in partnership -- liberty was only a word standing for
|
||
the equal rights of robbers.
|
||
|
||
For many years we insisted that our fathers had founded a free
|
||
Government, that they were the lovers of "liberty, believers in
|
||
equal rights. We were mistaken. The colonists did not believe in
|
||
the freedom of to-day. Their laws were filled with intolerance,
|
||
with slavery and the infamous spirit of caste. They persecuted and
|
||
enslaved. Most of them were narrow, ignorant and cruel. For the
|
||
most part, their laws were more brutal than those of the nations
|
||
from which they came. They branded the forehead of intelligence,
|
||
bored with hot irons the tongue of truth. They persecuted the good
|
||
and enslaved the helpless. They were believers in pillories and
|
||
whipping-posts for honest, thoughtful men.
|
||
|
||
When their independence was secured they adopted a
|
||
Constitution that legalized slavery, and they passed laws making it
|
||
the duty of free men to prevent others from becoming free. They
|
||
followed the example of kings and nobles. They knew that monarchs
|
||
had been interested in the slave trade, and that the first English
|
||
commander of a slave-ship divided his profits with a queen.
|
||
|
||
They forgot all the splendid things they had said -- the great
|
||
principles they had so proudly and eloquently announced. The
|
||
sublime truths faded from their hearts. The spirit of trade, the
|
||
greed for office, took possession of their souls. The lessons of
|
||
history were forgotten. The voices coming from all the wrecks of
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
kingdoms, empires and republics on the shores of the great river
|
||
were unheeded and unheard.
|
||
|
||
If the foundation is not justice, the dome cannot be high
|
||
enough, or splendid enough, to save the temple.
|
||
|
||
But above everything in the minds of our fathers was the
|
||
desire for union -- to create a Nation, to become a Power.
|
||
|
||
Our fathers compromised.
|
||
|
||
A compromise is a bargain in which each party defrauds the
|
||
other, and himself.
|
||
|
||
The compromise our fathers made was the coffin of honor and
|
||
the cradle of war.
|
||
|
||
A brazen falsehood and a timid truth are the parents of
|
||
compromise.
|
||
|
||
But some -- the greatest and the best -- believed in liberty
|
||
for all. They repeated the splendid sayings of the Roman: "By the
|
||
law of nature all men are free;" -- of the French King: "Men are
|
||
born free and equal;" -- of the sublime Zeno: "All men are by
|
||
nature equal, and virtue alone establishes a difference between
|
||
them."
|
||
|
||
In the year preceding the Declaration of Independence, a
|
||
society for the abolition of slavery was formed in Pennsylvania and
|
||
its first President was one of the wisest and greatest of men --
|
||
Benjamin Franklin. A society of the same character was established
|
||
in New York in 1785: its first President was John Jay -- the
|
||
second, Alexander Hamilton.
|
||
|
||
But in a few years these great men we're forgotten. Parties
|
||
rivaled each other in the defence of wrong. Politicians cared only
|
||
for place and power. In the clamor of the heartless, the voice of
|
||
the generous was lost. Slavery became supreme. It dominated
|
||
legislatures, courts and parties; it rewarded the faithless and
|
||
little; it degraded the honest and great.
|
||
|
||
And yet, through all these hateful years, thousands and
|
||
thousands of noble men and women denounced the degradation and the
|
||
crime. Most of their names are unknown. They have given a glory to
|
||
obscurity. They have filled oblivion with honor.
|
||
|
||
In the presence of death it has been the custom to speak of
|
||
the worthlessness, and the vanity, of life. I prefer to speak of
|
||
its value, of its importance, of its nobility and glory.
|
||
|
||
Life is not merely a floating shadow, a momentary spark, a
|
||
dream, that vanishes. Nothing can be grander than a life filled
|
||
with great and noble thoughts -- with brave and honest deeds. Such
|
||
a life sheds light, and the seeds of truth sown by great and loyal
|
||
men bear fruit through all the years to be. To have lived and
|
||
labored and died for the right -- nothing can be sublimer.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
History is but the merest outline of the exceptional -- of a
|
||
few great crimes, calamities, wars, mistakes and dramatic virtues.
|
||
A few mountain peaks are touched, while all the valleys of human
|
||
life, where countless victories are won, where labor wrought with
|
||
love -- are left in the eternal shadow.
|
||
|
||
But these peaks are not the foundation of nations. The
|
||
forgotten words, the unrecorded deeds, the unknown sacrifices, the
|
||
heroism, the industry, the patience, the love and labor of the
|
||
nameless good and great have for the most part founded, guided and
|
||
defended States. The world has been civilized by the unrewarded
|
||
poor, by the untitled nobles, by the uncrowned kings who sleep in
|
||
unknown graves mingled with the common dust.
|
||
|
||
They have thought and wrought, have borne the burdens of the
|
||
world. The pain and labor have been theirs -- the glory has been
|
||
given to the few.
|
||
|
||
The conflict came. The South unsheathed the sword. Then rose
|
||
the embattled North, and these men who sleep to-night beneath the
|
||
flowers of half the world, gave all for us.
|
||
|
||
They gave us a Nation -- a republic without a slave -- a
|
||
republic that is sovereign, and to whose will every citizen and
|
||
every State must bow. They gave us a Constitution for all -- one
|
||
that can be read without shame and defended without dishonor. They
|
||
freed the brain, the lips and hands of men.
|
||
|
||
All that could be done by force was done. All that could be
|
||
accomplished by the adoption of constitutions was done. The rest is
|
||
left to education -- the innumerable influences of civilization --
|
||
to the development of the intellect, to the cultivation of the
|
||
heart and the imagination.
|
||
|
||
The past is now a hideous dream.
|
||
|
||
The present is filled with pride, with gratitude, and hope.
|
||
|
||
Liberty is the condition of real progress. The free man works
|
||
for wife and child -- the slave toils from fear. Liberty gives
|
||
leisure and leisure refines, beautifies and ennobles. Slavery gives
|
||
idleness and idleness degrades, deforms and brutalizes.
|
||
|
||
Liberty and slavery -- the right and wrong -- the, joy and
|
||
grief -- the day and night -- the glory and the gloom of all the
|
||
years.
|
||
|
||
Liberty is the word that all the good have spoken. It is the
|
||
hope of every loving heart -- the spark and flame in every noble
|
||
breast -- the gem in every splendid soul -- the many-colored dream
|
||
in every honest brain.
|
||
|
||
This word has filled the dungeon with its holy light, -- has
|
||
put the halo round the martyr's head, -- has raised the convict far
|
||
above the king, and clad even the scaffold with a glory that dimmed
|
||
and darkened every throne.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
|
||
To the wise man, to the wise nation, the mistakes of the past
|
||
are the torches of the present. The war is over. The institution
|
||
that caused it has perished. The prejudices that fanned the flames
|
||
are only ashes now. We are one people. We will stand or fall
|
||
together. At last, with clear eyes we see that the triumph of right
|
||
was a triumph for all. Together we reap the fruits of the great
|
||
victory. We are all conquerors. Around the graves of the heroes --
|
||
North and South, white and colored -- together we stand and with
|
||
uncovered heads reverently thank the saviors of our native land.
|
||
|
||
We are now far enough away from the conflict -- from its
|
||
hatreds, its passions, its follies and its glories, to fairly and
|
||
philosophically examine the causes and in some measure at least to
|
||
appreciate the results.
|
||
|
||
States and nations, like individuals, do as they must. Back of
|
||
revolution, of rebellion, of slavery and freedom, are the efficient
|
||
causes. Knowing this, we occupy that serene height from which it is
|
||
possible to calmly pronounce a judgment upon the past.
|
||
|
||
We know now that the seeds of our war were sown hundreds and
|
||
thousands of years ago -- sown by the vicious and the just, by
|
||
prince and peasant, by king and slave, by all the virtues and by
|
||
all the vices, by all the victories and all the defeats, by all the
|
||
labor and the love, the loss and gain, by all the evil and the
|
||
good, and by all the heroes of the world.
|
||
|
||
Of the great conflict we remember only its glory and its
|
||
lessons. We remember only the heroes who made the Republic the
|
||
first of nations, and who laid the foundation for the freedom of
|
||
mankind.
|
||
|
||
This will be known as the century of freedom. Slowly the hosts
|
||
of darkness have been driven back.
|
||
|
||
In 1808 England and the United States united for the
|
||
suppression of the slave-trade. The Netherlands joined in this holy
|
||
work in 1818. France lent her aid in 1819 and Spain in 1820. In the
|
||
same year the United States declared the traffic to be piracy, and
|
||
in 1825 the same law was enacted by Great Britain. In 1826 Brazil
|
||
agreed to suppress the traffic in human flesh. In 1833 England
|
||
abolished slavery in the West Indies, and in 1843 in her East
|
||
Indian possessions, giving liberty to more than twelve millions of
|
||
slaves. In 1846 Sweden abolished slavery, and in 1848 it was
|
||
abolished in the colonies of Denmark and France. In 1861 Alexander
|
||
II., Czar of all the Russians, emancipated the serfs, and on the
|
||
first day of January, 1863, the shackles fell from millions of the
|
||
citizens of this Republic. This was accomplished by the heroes we
|
||
remember to-day -- this, in accordance with the Proclamation of
|
||
Emancipation signed by Lincoln, -- greatest of our mighty dead --
|
||
Lincoln the gentle and the just -- and whose name will be known and
|
||
honored to "the last syllable of recorded time." And this year,
|
||
1888, has been made blessed and memorable forever -- in the vast
|
||
empire of Brazil there stands no slave.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
Let us hope that when the next century looks from the sacred
|
||
portals of the East, its light will only fall upon the faces of the
|
||
free.
|
||
|
||
[NOTE -- By request, Col. Ingersoll closed this address with
|
||
his "Vision of War", to which he added "A Vision of the Future."]
|
||
|
||
The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the
|
||
great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation
|
||
-- the music of boisterous drums -- the silver voices of heroic
|
||
bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of
|
||
orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed farces of
|
||
men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we
|
||
have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are
|
||
with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see
|
||
them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time
|
||
in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the
|
||
whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly
|
||
part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that
|
||
are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are
|
||
parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts
|
||
again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and
|
||
kisses -- divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking
|
||
with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old
|
||
tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part.
|
||
We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms --
|
||
standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand
|
||
waves -- she answer, by holding high in her loving arms the child.
|
||
He is gone, and forever.
|
||
|
||
We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting
|
||
flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war -- marching
|
||
down the streets of the great cities -- through the towns and
|
||
across the prairies -- down to the fields of glory, to do and to
|
||
die for the eternal right.
|
||
|
||
We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the
|
||
gory fields -- in all the hospitals of pain -- on all the weary
|
||
marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the
|
||
quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood -- in
|
||
the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending
|
||
hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly
|
||
away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and
|
||
torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind
|
||
of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.
|
||
|
||
We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but
|
||
human speech can never tell what they endured.
|
||
|
||
We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see
|
||
the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered
|
||
head of the old man bowed with the last grief.
|
||
|
||
The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human
|
||
beings governed by the lash -- we see them bound hand and foot --
|
||
we hear the strokes of cruel whips -- we see the hounds tracking
|
||
women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of
|
||
mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite!
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
DECORATION DAY ORATION.
|
||
|
||
Four million bodies in chains -- four million souls in
|
||
fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother father and child
|
||
trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done
|
||
under our own beautiful banner of the free.
|
||
|
||
The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the
|
||
bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We
|
||
look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand
|
||
of progress touches the auction block, the slave pen, the whipping
|
||
post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books,
|
||
and where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear, we see the
|
||
faces of the free.
|
||
|
||
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty -- they died for
|
||
us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under
|
||
the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad
|
||
hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep
|
||
beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of
|
||
storm, each in the windowless Palace of Rest. Earth may run red
|
||
with other wars -- they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in
|
||
the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one
|
||
sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living;
|
||
tears for the dead.
|
||
|
||
A vision of the future rises
|
||
|
||
I see our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of
|
||
content, -- the foremost land of all the earth.
|
||
|
||
I see a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are
|
||
dust. The aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.
|
||
|
||
I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's
|
||
forces have by Science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and
|
||
wave, frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth
|
||
and air are the tireless toilers for the human race.
|
||
|
||
I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with
|
||
music's myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of
|
||
love and truth; a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner
|
||
mourns; a world on which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world
|
||
where labor reaps its full reward, where work and worth go hand in
|
||
hand, where the poor girl trying to win bread with the needle --
|
||
the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the
|
||
poor," -- is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death,
|
||
of suicide or shame.
|
||
|
||
I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the
|
||
miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid
|
||
lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.
|
||
|
||
I see a race without disease of flesh or brain, -- shapely and
|
||
fair, -- the married harmony of form and function, -- and, as I
|
||
look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and
|
||
over all, in the great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|