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. 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. There 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, and 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, the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the window-less 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 the soldiers living and dead—cheers for the living and tears for the dead.
EPIGRAMS.
It is not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one.
Houses makes patriots.
A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul of the child.
Free speech is the brain of the Republic.
A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field.