Oh, tell me not that they are dead—that generous hosts that airy army of invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?
Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. It was your son: but now he is the nation's. He made your household bright: now his example inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sister's, he is now brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to all. Before he was yours: he is ours. He has died from the family that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgot ten or neglected: and it shall by-and-by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his whole life.
Neither are they less honored who shall bear through life the marks of wounds and sufferings. Neither epaulette nor badge is so honorable as wounds received in a good cause. Many a man shall envy him who henceforth limps. So strange is the transforming power of patriotic ardor, that men shall almost covet disfigurement. Crowds will give way to hobbling cripples, and uncover in the presence of feebleness and helplessness. And buoyant children shall pause in their noisy games, and with loving rererence honor them whose hands can work no more, and whose feet are no longer able to march except upon that journey which brings good men to honor and immortality. Oh, mother of lost children! set not in darkness nor sorrow whom a nation honors. Oh, mourners of the early dead, they shall live again, and live forever. Your sorrows are our gladness. The nation lives because you gave it men that love it better than their own lives. And when a few more days shall have cleared the perils from around the nation's brow, and she shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty, with justice upon her forehead, love in her eyes, and truth upon her lips, she shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to her heart, and whose life, given to her, shall live with her life till time shall be no more.
Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and every lake shall cherish its honored register; and till the mountains are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow, till the clouds are weary of replenishing springs, and the springs forget to gush, and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are inscribed upon the book of National Remembrance. H. W. Beecher.
CCCXIV.
ON THE CONFISCATION BILL.
Few of those engaged in this rebellion will ever be made to suffer in their persons; and if they are to be left in the full possession and enjoyment of their cotton, their lands, and their negroes, the innocent will have been made to suffer while the guilty will go unpunished. Shall the fathers of the gallant sons whose mangled bodies have been borne back to Illinois by hundreds, from the bloody fields of Belmont, of Donelson, and Pea Ridge, be ground down by onerous taxes, which shall descend upon their children to the third and fourth generations, to defray the expenses of defending the Government against traitors, and we forbear to touch even the property of the authors of these calamities, whose persons are beyond our reach? Suppose ye that the loyal people of this country will submit to such injustice?
I believe I represent as loyal, as patriotic and as brave a constituency as any other Senator. I claim nothing more. While I am proud of the part which the soldiers of my own State took in defeating the enemy in the West, I do not claim for them any superiority over the other soldiers of the Republic. The brave men who besieged Donelson, and who, after fighting through the day for three consecutive days, lay each night on the ground without shelter, exposed to the rain and sleet, were chiefly Illinoisans. It was there that rebellion received the heavy blow which has staggered it ever since. Forty dead bodies were borne from that bloody field to one small town in my State, and buried in a common grave. The Union forces at Pea Ridge were also largely made up of soldiers from Illinois. Suppose ye that I can go back to Illinois, among the relatives of those who have been cruelly destroyed, and propose to levy taxes upon them in order to conciliate and compensate the murderers, for that is really what exempting rebel property from confiscation amounts to? Sir, I know not if they would submit to such injustice; and yet there are those who not only talk of an amnesty to the men who have brought these troubles upon the country, but oppose providing the mild punishment of confiscation of property for those who shall continue hereafter to war upon the Government, and whose persons are beyond our reach. Do gentlemen regard it as conciliatory to oblige us to lay taxes upon those whose habitations have been consumed, to reward those who have burned them? upon those whose whole property has been stolen, to reward the thieves? upon those whose relatives have been slain, to compensate the murderers? In my judgment, justice, humanity, and mercy herself all demand that we at once provide that the supporters of this cruel and wicked rebellion should henceforth be made to feel its burdens. When the rebels, whose hands are dripping with the blood of loyal citizens, shall have grounded their arms, it will be time enough to talk of clemency; but to have our sympathies excited in their behalf now, when fighting to overthrow the Government, is cruelty to the loyal men who have rallied to its support. L. Trumbull.