The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

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.