The most tolerant of men, the life of our dear brother was one of long protest against the narrowness of partisanship and sectional bigotry. He was the most independent of thinkers.
He demonstrated to the people of both sections of our once divided country, that we might love and honor the traditions of our Confederacy, and with absolute loyalty and devotion to the Union as restored. He made it plain to the minds of the Northern people that while it was impossible for an ex-Confederate soldier or the children of his blood, to recall without a kindling eye and a quickening pulse the swift march, the stubborn retreat, the intrepid advance, the charging cry of the gallant gray lines as they swept forward to the attack, the red-cross battle-flags as their bullet-torn folds were borne aloft in the hands of heroes along the fiery crest of battle. But he made it plain also that these are but the emotions and expressions of pride that a brave people cherish in the memories of their manhood, in the record of their soldierly devotion. Are we less imbued with the spirit of true Americanism on this account? No, forever, no! Are the sons of Rupert’s cavaliers, or Cromwell’s Ironsides less true to England and her constitution, because their fathers charged home in opposing squadrons at Edgehill and Naseby? Do not Englishmen the world over cherish the common heritage of their common valor? Have Scotchmen, who fought side by side with the English in the deserts of the Soudan, or the jungles of Burmah, forgotten the memories of Bannockburn, of Bruce, and of Wallace?
The time will come—aye, it is present—when the heroism of the gray and of the blue, is a common element of America’s military power. I repeat, it is now. There is not a war officer in the civilized world in comparing the power of his own country with that of ours, who does not estimate man for man as soldiers of the Union, the fighting strength of the Confederacy.
The statesmen of the Old World know that underlying all of the temporary questions of the hour—underlying all the resounding disputes, whether in the language of Emerson, “James or Jonathan shall sit in the chair and hold the purse,” the great patriotic heart of the people is true to the constitution of the fathers, true to republican government, true to the sovereignty of the people, true to the gorgeous ensign of our country.
In the presence of this knowledge, in the presence of that mighty mission which under the providence of God has grown and expanded day by day and century by century since Columbus, from his frail caravel, beheld rising before his enraptured vision the nodding palms and gleaming shores of another continent, the mission to confer upon humanity the power and privilege of government by the people and for the people, should be the chiefest care of our countrymen. Of this mission Grady spoke with an eloquence so elevated and so inspired that it seemed as if the voices of the waiting angels were whispering to his prophetic intelligence messages of peace, joy and gladness to his countrymen. He said:
“A mighty duty, and a mighty inspiration, impels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans—and we fight for human liberty! The uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth. France, Brazil—these are our victories. To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression—this is our mission! And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of His millennial harvest, and He will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until His full and perfect day has come. Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way—aye, even from the hour when, from the voiceless and trackless ocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendous day—when the old world will come to marvel and to learn, amid our gathered treasures—let us resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of a Republic compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in every heart as on every hill—serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and earthly glory—blazing out the path and making clear the way, up which all nations of the earth must come in God’s appointed time!”
We may imagine that this inspired utterance completed, there came to his glorious mentality another thought, another vision. Again he exclaims as once before to a mighty throng, and now to his own people:
“All this, my country, and no more can we do for you. As I look the vision grows, the splendor deepens, the horizon falls back, the skies open their everlasting gates, and the glory of the Almighty God streams through, as He looks down on His people who have given themselves unto Him, and leads them from one triumph to another until they have reached a glory unspeaking, and the whirling stars, as in their courses through Arcturus they run to the Milky Way, shall not look down on a better people or a happier land.”
Thus saying, his work was ended—his earthly pilgrimage was o’er. He went to sleep
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him