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 MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. PHILANDER C. KNOX 
 
 ON THE 
 
 BATTLEFIELD 
 OF GETTYSBURG 
 
 MAY 30, 1908. 
 
 / <3 
 
am 
 Author 
 
 to Mr'09 
 
 ,5-3 
 
My Friends and 
 
 Fellow Citizens of the Republic: 
 
 In the last days of June, 1863, the 
 Confederate forces, raiding on the North and 
 East and advancing from the West, were 
 recalled arid concentrated towards this spot 
 under the pressure of the Union forces com- 
 ing up from the South. On the afternoon 
 of June 30th, the weary and dusty troopers 
 of Buford's vanguard rode through the village 
 and threw out their picket lines in readiness 
 to touch the advance from the West of the 
 Army of Northern Virginia. 
 
 On the morning of July 1st, at nine 
 o'clock, an officer of another staff came 
 clattering up to Buford and was sharply 
 questioned and , ordered to return immedi- 
 ately to his command. Just as he pro- 
 tested — "Why, what's the matter. General?" 
 
— the far-off sound of a single cannon shot 
 was heard, Buford's signal to his skirmishers 
 to open on the enemy, and Buford said, 
 " That's the matter P^ The battle of Get- 
 tysburg had begun. At the close of that 
 pitiless and terrible July day, the Union 
 forces, repulsed but not beaten, fell back 
 to Cemetery Ridge, and the brave antag- 
 onists waited for the morrow and fought, 
 and again waited for the morrow and 
 fought with the result that all the world 
 knows. 
 
 Let us leave the battle now, leave the 
 recital of its details of valor to the tongues 
 of those whose proud memories of their past 
 achievements qualify and entitle them to 
 speak. Let us rather seek to find the real 
 reason for Gettysburg; discover, if possible, 
 its fundamental cause; find what indeed 
 was the matter; why it was necessary that 
 
 Gettysburg should be; what law had the 
 
 4 
 
 aj 
 
American people broken that they should 
 receive this baptism of fraternal blood and 
 how such crises in National life are to be 
 averted. 
 
 We know^ that the lavs^s of the mate- 
 rial universe, if observed, so govern and 
 control matter that it continues to develop 
 until it results in perfection of form and 
 strength, but if those lavv^s are disturbed de- 
 struction follows: 
 
 We also know that in the spiritual 
 world the laws promulgated by the Cre- 
 ator, which are to govern men in this 
 world, if observed by man, either con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, make him to 
 grow in spirit and in righteousness. 
 
 So it is with the nations of the earth. 
 They are subject to ethical laws, the ob- 
 servance of which means life for the na- 
 tion, and the rejection of which means 
 death. 
 
 5 
 
As in the natural world there is con- 
 tinual war between the evoluting forces of 
 nature and the opposed forces of dissolu- 
 tion, and as in the spiritual world there is 
 continually strife between the spiritual laws 
 and the forces of evil, so there is in the 
 history of every nation this continual strife 
 and war, which ultimately must reach a 
 crisis where, face to face, good and evil, 
 justice and injustice must fight until either 
 the right prevails or evil survives. 
 
 Nations have passed through such crises 
 and have survived or perished, just as moral 
 laws have prevailed or been overthrown. 
 
 Sometimes men are conscious of the 
 
 real nature of the struggle in which they 
 
 are engaged. They realize just what 
 
 forces are contending. They appreciate the 
 
 exact issue involved, follow the causal 
 
 sequence of events and can foresee the 
 
 nature and effect of the result. At other 
 
 6 
 
times, "God moving in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform," hides from the 
 mind and vision of men a real apprehen- 
 sion of the causes and consequences of 
 their most vital acts. 
 
 "Man proposes, but God disposes," and 
 His dispositions are controlled by His own 
 immutable and inexorable laws and in- 
 scrutable purposes. 
 
 Speaking of Napoleon and Waterloo, 
 Victor Hugo says: 
 
 "Was it possible that Napoleon 
 should win this battle? We answer 
 — no! Why? Because of Welling- 
 ton? Because of Blucher? No! 
 Because of God. 
 
 "For Bonaparte to be conqueror 
 at Waterloo was not in the law of 
 the nineteenth century. Another series 
 of facts were preparing in which Na- 
 
 7 
 
poleon had no place. The ill will of 
 events had long been announced. 
 
 "It was time that this vast man 
 should fall. 
 
 "The excessive weight of this man 
 in human destiny disturbed the equi- 
 librium. This individual counted of 
 himself alone more than the universe 
 besides. These plethoras of all hu- 
 man vitality concentrated in a single 
 head, the world mounting to the brain 
 of one man would be fatal to civiliza- 
 tion if they should endure. The mo- 
 ment had come for incorruptible su- 
 preme equity to look to it. Probably 
 the principles and elements upon which 
 regular gravitations in the moral order 
 as well as in the material depend, be- 
 gan to murmur. Reeking blood, over- 
 crowded cemeteries, weeping mothers 
 — these are formidable pleaders. When 
 
 8 
 
the earth is suffering from a surcharge 
 there are mysterious moanings from 
 the deeps which the heavens hear. 
 
 "Napoleon had been impeached 
 before the Infinite and his fall was 
 decreed. 
 
 "He vexed God. 
 
 "Waterloo is not a battle; it is 
 the change of front of the universe." 
 
 And so at the battle of Waterloo, 
 Napoleon on the one side in opposition to 
 the incorruptible and supreme equity must 
 go down before the great ethical law, 
 which destroyed him because by his ambi- 
 tion and his power he was disturbing the 
 equilibrium of the moral world. Napoleon 
 and the despotic empire were crushed to 
 liberalize monarchy and to establish consri- 
 tutional order through the counter-revolution 
 which followed Waterloo. 
 
 9 
 
Just such a crisis forty-four years ago 
 came into the life of this nation upon this 
 field, and it was just as inevitable and 
 necessary as Waterloo. 
 
 Our forefathers had set forth in the 
 Declaration of Independence in 1776 that: 
 
 "All men are created equal, that 
 they are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain inalienable rights, that 
 among these are life, liberty and the 
 pursuit of happiness." 
 
 Fighting for the establishment of this 
 principle the Revolutionists were successful 
 and the nation was born. 
 
 In 1 787, forgetting this principle of 
 universal liberty, the founders and the peo- 
 ple of this nation, while they declared in 
 the Preamble to their Constitution that their 
 purpose was to secure the "blessings of 
 
 10 
 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity," rec- 
 ognized and permitted the enslavement of 
 human beings. 
 
 The germ of disunion w^as in the 
 organic law^ and the nation for three 
 quarters of a century continued to oppose 
 and thwart the eternal lavv^s of justice, the 
 incorruptible and supreme equity, until 
 Providence caused the righteous laws of 
 freedom to prevail, and m the crisis of this 
 field of battle eternal justice met, overcame 
 and destroyed the evil principle of slavery 
 so that the nation survived, pure and 
 cleansed of its disease. 
 
 The soldiers of the Union met the 
 
 forces of disunion for almost two years on 
 
 many battlefields and because the guiding 
 
 minds of the nation were endeavoring to 
 
 save the nation and at the same time save 
 
 the favored institution of those who were 
 
 in rebellion against the nation, God so pre- 
 
 11 
 
vented the triumph of the Union arms that 
 the cause of the Union was well nigh lost. 
 
 Man in his weakness thought that this 
 government, founded on the eternal princi- 
 ple of freedom to all, could exist half free 
 and half slave. 
 
 But the Almighty, guiding the desrinies 
 of the narion, frustrated the weak plans of 
 man, and as the God of battles brought those 
 entrusted with the narion's life to see that 
 the narion could only survive wholly free. 
 And so Abraham Lincoln, realizing that 
 the rime had come to bow to the Supreme 
 will — to that Divine power which had been 
 so ordering the affairs of this nation that 
 the crisis must come, issued the Emancipa- 
 rion Proclamarion, declaring that all should 
 be free. 
 
 Then the narion took on new life, 
 then her warriors, "thrice armed because 
 they had their quarrel just," inspired by 
 
 12 
 
their holy cause, that of union in which 
 every man was free, fought on the side of 
 eternal justice and supreme equity and be- 
 came an invincible host. 
 
 What inspired the four score and ten 
 thousand men of the Union Army to meet 
 in the dreadful shock of battle the hosts of 
 disunion ? 
 
 What inspired them to rush into the 
 "imminent deadly breach?" What sustained 
 them as they met the onrush of the enemy? 
 What but that love of country that made 
 it glorious to die, that love of liberty that 
 made the patriot's grave his country's 
 shrine ? 
 
 And so there died upon this field 
 of battle many thousand defenders of 
 the Union — many thousand patriots — many 
 thousand heroes, who offered up their 
 lives a willing sacrifice that this country 
 might be in fact, as in theory, wholly free. 
 
 13 
 
The great victory was won. Eternal 
 justice prevailed. Supreme equity reigned. 
 
 Today we survey this field and see 
 with clarified vision all that its tragedies 
 meant. We see the Union saved, the 
 nation established upon the immovable rock 
 of freedom. 
 
 The penalty for the transgression of the 
 divine law of human liberty was paid by 
 the nation as a whole because the whole 
 nation was the transgressor. Victory and 
 peace came only when it was certain that 
 the preservation of the Union meant uni- 
 versal freedom. Responsibility for the pri- 
 mary causes of the nation's woes makes 
 her whole people partners in the resultant 
 griefs and glories. No loyal heart discrimi- 
 nates today between the graves of those 
 who died that the supreme equity of free- 
 dom should prevail and no geographical 
 lines circumscribe the gratitude of a nation 
 
 14 
 
cleansed of its original sin by the blood of 
 its devoted sons. 
 
 Splendid and terrible were the con- 
 comitants of the mighty struggle. They 
 were fit accessories to the stupendous issues 
 involved. 
 
 The pomp, the glory and tragedy of 
 war do not, however, environ every event- 
 ful and critical period in a nation's history. 
 Liberty and justice may survive or perish 
 amidst the scenes of peace as well as those 
 of war. Eternal vigilance to maintain a 
 nation's institutions is quite as important 
 and necessary as martial valor in establish- 
 ing them upon firm foundations. 
 
 It may seem at times that the over- 
 throw of some particularly vicious manifes- 
 tation of evil threatening the national life 
 marks the ultimate victory. 
 
 This is not true. The conflict never 
 ends. It is going on now. We are in 
 
 15 
 
the ranks and shadowy hosts and forces 
 are contending all about us. On one side 
 or the other of these bloodless battles all 
 of us must be. We are either supinely 
 submitting to, or courageously combatting, 
 insidious assaults upon our national life. 
 Armageddon is a present fight which will 
 be waged until the end of this world and 
 then will culminate. Athens and Greece 
 won the glories of Salamis and Marathon 
 and perished miserably and enslaved be- 
 cause Hellenism no longer meant vigilance, 
 patriotism and righteousness. 
 
 It may be said with truth that for a 
 nation the dangers of peace may be worse 
 than the dangers of war and this is pecu- 
 liarly true of our nation. 
 
 Our governmental system has secured 
 certain advantages which could not have 
 been obtained without making it complex, 
 and for that reason more liable to become 
 
 16 
 
disarranged than are simple democracies 
 and simple monarchies or autocracies. 
 
 If we are to retain these advantages 
 and prevent dangerous disarrangements of 
 our plan we must jealously guard its dis- 
 tinctive characteristics against the natural 
 tendency towards their elimination and a 
 reversion to the rejected but simpler types. 
 The simplest form of government is absolute 
 autocracy and it is the worst. All power 
 is centred in one man, his will is the su- 
 preme law, he rules with undisputed sway. 
 
 Our governmental plan was constructed 
 so as to resemble in a way the solar sys- 
 tem where the finger of God spins the 
 planets in perpetual harmony; but our sys- 
 tem is the work of human wisdom and 
 must depend upon human wisdom for its 
 success. 
 
 Sometimes a portion of the people 
 strong by reason of their number or by 
 
 17 
 
reason of their zeal and activity, and inter- 
 ested in the accomplishment of laudable 
 aims become impatient and restive under 
 the checks and balances and boundaries 
 which control and harmonize our system 
 and may therefore oppose what they want 
 through the methods they propose. 
 
 Recently this tendency seems to me to 
 have threatened seriously to disturb the just 
 relations between the State and Federal 
 governments. Impatient of the difficulties 
 and delays which must attend the action of 
 separate States in the accomplishment of 
 their objects, some of the people have 
 seemed to feel that by an assumption of 
 Federal power, or by ignoring State power, 
 their aims could be speedily and fully 
 obtained. 
 
 But the genius of our Constitution, the 
 supreme equity of our form of government, 
 the balance wheel of our system is that 
 
 18 
 
each of the dual governments shall keep 
 within its own sphere, untrammeled and 
 uncontrolled by the other. 
 
 Let us guard against dangerous en- 
 croachments upon this system; let us stand 
 courageously, persistently and eternally by 
 our ancient rights. 
 
 In this way shall we show our grati- 
 tude to those who perished here and pre- 
 serve the principles for which they died. 
 
 If this Union is to survive it must be 
 mamtamed as constituted or as modified 
 in the way provided by those who consti- 
 tuted it. 
 
 If it is to survive it is just as necessary, 
 now and always, that wisdom, vigilance 
 and courage should abide in the halls of 
 legislation, the chambers of judicial decis- 
 ion, the centers of executive power and 
 with the dominating mass of the people 
 as that the sons of the Union should 
 
 19 
 
have bathed with their blood these fertile 
 fields. 
 
 The strength and power of this Nation 
 does not rest upon the fact that it is a 
 federation of States, but that it is a Union 
 of States, based upon a Constitution for- 
 mulated by the people, adopted by the peo- 
 ple, defended and preserved here by the 
 people. No object is so important that we 
 should sacrifice the very nature and glory 
 of our system to accomplish it. 
 
 It cost us nearly a million lives, untold 
 millions of treasure and unspeakable anguish, 
 to prevent the States from destroying the 
 Union created by the Constitution. 
 
 If unfortunately it should ever be nec- 
 essary, it is not to be presumed that the 
 people would not, at equal cost, prevent 
 the Union from destroying the States. 
 Such a crisis can only be avoided by the 
 people themselves and by them only by 
 
 20 
 
sternly rebuking and dismissing public serv- 
 ants who through motives of cowardly ex- 
 pediency, weakness of moral or mental 
 fibre or other cause fail to stand coura- 
 geously for the maintenance in their integ- 
 rity of our essential rights. Wise men es- 
 tablish governments ; brave men defend 
 and die for them ; weak, corrupt and ambi- 
 tious men destroy them. 
 
 This Government is not seriously 
 threatened by Anarchy, which is the 
 cause espoused by the wicked, malicious 
 and envious and by ignorance and per- 
 verted degeneracy. 
 
 Our peril is to be found in weak 
 or insidious acquiescence by our public 
 servants in specious demands for inroads 
 upon the established and tried institutions 
 of our country sometimes made in the 
 name of reform, sometimes masquerading as 
 justice. 
 
 21 
 
The highest and most patriotic ambi- 
 tion you and I can entertain is to seek to 
 understand the fundamental principles in 
 American National life and understanding 
 them to defend and protect them. Defend 
 them alike against those who would nar- 
 rowly restrict them and those who would 
 destructively expand them. 
 
 The individual skirmisher out along the 
 far-flung Union line beyond this crest served 
 the cause as well as the commander of 
 corps or army directing aggregate move- 
 ments from headquarters. And often the 
 private soldier has saved the day and re- 
 trieved a disaster due to a commander's 
 folly or perversity, dying an mconspicuous 
 hero. In that spirit of vigilance and devo- 
 tion, let us serve in this army of the 
 Union, which is always in the field. We 
 may not be able to make our service con- 
 spicuous, we can certainly make it useful. 
 
 22 
 
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