"These silent graves are more eloquent than the tongues of the living. Their deeds commemorate their fame and their names do live after them.
"As we meet year after year to perform this ceremony of love and gratitude to our fallen comrades, new graves will be added and new obligations will rest upon us, until the last soldier of the Army of the Union is laid to rest.
"When that day comes, let us trust that the national life and prosperity that has cost so much to maintain and defend, will be inestimably dear to our children, and that they may fully realize all the hopes and aspirations of our forefathers and the second Defenders of the faith. If we shall not be disappointed in this, the 30th day of May will be as sacred as the 4th of July.
"But new trials and new perils await us. Poverty is the home of virtue, and riches the abode of vice. The Republic has passed the age of poverty, and is approaching the age of wealth—always the sure accumulation of generations. Rome withstood all her enemies from without and within, but the corruption following in the train of her conquests overcame her.
"If Heaven permits departed heroes still to know and watch over our beloved country, what anxious prayers are being made now, lest the blessing which the hand of their forefathers have left shall be wasted by the political dissension, frauds, corruptions, and wealth of coming generations! It is not fitting that I should name here and now what you all know so well and deplore. But may I not ask that we consecrate ourselves anew over these sacred graves, and resolve that our remaining days shall add something to the purity, patriotism, and lustre of our country that has been vouchsafed to us through the blood of these martyrs of liberty.
"But whatever of adversity or misfortune may be in store for us as a nation, the fault in no way rests upon these graves. Their services and their fame are secure.
"And today also the graves of the Confederate dead are decorated and strewn with flowers. It is a deserved tribute to their valor and patriotism. They had been educated to believe that the South alone was the nation. We believed and knew that the nation was from ocean to ocean and from the gulf to the lakes. But it was half slave and half free.
"Today it is all free, and fifty years hence, if our hopes of the future of the Republic are realized, the South and North will rejoice in a common joy, that 'Union and Liberty' have been so signally preserved to them and their posterity forever.
"And while we wreath flowers for these graves, let us not forget to return thanks and give honor to the brave seamen who guarded our coasts, and let the 'Father of Waters go unvexed to the sea.'