E 649 .W31 Copy 1 ^U/c ^C , /^^^C a u^ ^ (Ut . CO'*^^^^—^ 'r- ONE-AND-TWKNTY YEARS FROM SUMTER ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE FRANCIS WASHBURN POST NO. 92 G, A. R. BY JOHN D. WASHBURN ONE-AND-TWENTY YEARS FROM SUMTEK AN ORATION DELIVKRED BEFOUE FRANCIS WASHBURN POST NO. 92 G. A. R. AT BRIGHTON ON SUNDAY JUNE 4tii 1H8 2 JOHN D. WASHBURN \Y O R C E S T E R PKESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON 1882 OXK iniNDUKI) AND FIFTY COPIES. 61608 •••.5 ^ ^ AlLOQUAR ? AUDIERONE UNQUAM TUA FACTA LOQUENTEM ? NUKQUAM EGO TE, VITA FRATEU AMABILIOK, AdSPICIAM POSTIIAC ? AT CERTE SEMPER AMABO, Semper m(esta tua carmina morte canam. > ** i 9 Catullus. ORATION. Twenty-one years ! Twenty-one years of grow- ing change from infant helplessness to full effective manhood ! The boy whose eyes first opened to the light of heaven on a summer morning, months after the cannon of rebellion began to echo through the land, comes of age to-day. To what a heritage of blessing does he succeed ! Peace, whose tones were silent at his birth amid the din of arms, now fills the air with sweet harmonious voices. Plenty, from golden overflowing horn, scatters through all the land abundant stores. Prosperity, unprece- dented in the world's history and measureless, has multiplied the nation and increased its joy. Educa- tion, whose dominion and primacy, early gained, were always maintained in the North, now begins to spread the area of her conquests over the cotton plantations and rice-fields of the South. Freedom, no longer sectional, confers her great franchise on every member of the human race throughout the length and breadth of our country. No knee is bent, except to God; no neck is bowed beneath a servile yoke. And amid the freemen of an 6 Oration. enfranchised land, this boy takes his place to-day, and assumes with proud exultant pi-oclamation the role and dignity of an American citizen. What was the glory of the Roman youth, though of noble rank, whose lofty boast and ample shield of protection throughout all the woi'ld it was that he was a Roman citizen, compared with that this boy partakes to-day? For it is in the sum of blessings of mankind that the emblems and evi- dence of true glory are to be found; and what was the sum of mankind's blessings in imperial Rome ? Colossal empire; golden speech, at once rich and epigrammatic, which the world has, alas, let die; great villas by blue waters; great conquests over barbarous hordes; for the few, regal magnificence and state ; for the many, oppression, ignorance, the extortions of Verres, the proscriptions of Sulla, the exterminations of Ca3sar, the glorious light of Christianity denied to all ! Rejoice then, young man, in all the strength and dignity of this new manhood. Welcome to the glorious freedom of which you are to-day made free ! Justly may we here congratulate you upon your birthday, and mingle those congratulations with our memorial, for they are kindred, and their source and foundation are the same. But what sa}'^ you of your memories of war, and of the cries that i*ent our hearts as they came to us Oration. 7 on every Southern breeze, from bloody field and groaning hospital and crowded prison pen ? He is dumb. Memory tells him nothing of all these things. For him they live in tradition and history alone. Born North or South, he never saw a man in arms against our country. Born North or South, he cannot remember that he ever saw a slave. The slave, outraged and oppressed, although in shallow plantation mirth his hollow laugh at times rang out as if in mockery of his wrongs, the slave, guiltless of all but enduring, yet cause of all that sacrifice and bloodshed, is a myth to him. The last chain had fallen before he left his cradle. The lash, the fetter, the auction-block, revive in him no more of active remembrance than do the rack, the thumb- screw or the pillory. The great wave of advancing civilization has rolled over all alike. Without those, there would have been no war, no sacrifice, no memorial; but the memory of this child, this youth, this man and sovereign now, goes not back to one of them. But to us who can remember, in what crowded, mingled, endless succession, do these memories come ! Great deeds of valor — alternate hoj^es and fears — long days of hardship in field and camp — long nights of watching and prayer in homes no earthly comforter could cheer — the wasting march — the starry bivouac — the prison pen — the eman- 8 Oration. cipation of a race — the welcome home of the returning- brave whom victory crowned — the tears which ceased at length to flow not because sorrow had waned but theii- fount was dry — thanksgivings to the Loi'd of Hosts whose arm of power had ovei--ruled, for the triumph which waited on his will and for the ai'my of patriot martyrs He had received and welcomed to the everlasting towers ! Yet, even for us who I'emember, how vague and indistinct and shadowy with lapse of time have many of memory's ])ictures grown. How hard it is sharjily to define the outlines I'ecollection draws of all but histoi-ic facts and deeds that live in the record of the material page ! Try to review the long procession of those early dead. Can yon read the features right, when on the gloom you strive to paint the face you knew ? Just as you seem to have fixed them clearly on the canvas of memory, the ways in which they walk ai-e shaded, and they melt and fade away. You see the picture, but the hues are faint and mix with hollow masks of night. — Yet shall we know them when we meet and see once more that look of love with which even now they watch us from the quiet shore. And bless we kind Natui'e that she lets these pictures fade. Who could endure their brightness if it shone undimmed thi'ongh all* the years which divide us, granting our sorrow no eclipse ? Whose heart Oration. 9 would not fail in looking back, save that the path we came by is shaded ever by the growing hour V But the recollection of glorious deeds, heroic sacrifice, manly devotion, lofty patriotism, must not die or fade. Bright examples must ever be cited to our ingenuous youth. The restless activities and multitudinous industries of the nation well may pause on each succeeding Memorial Day, and the voice of grateful thanksgiving for the patriot dead be raised by all the living. And here upon this sacred day, fit place and hour, we add our voices of devout thanksgiving and praise as well as of tender memorial, to those of the past week whose plaintive echoes have hardly died away. We keep the day in memory of all the mighty host of patriot martyrs. Yet I could not if I would, nor if I made the attempt would your hearts commend it, divorce fi-om this occasion its personal and affectionate associations. What a stony heart were mine could I fail to remember in this solemn memorial hour that the youthful patriot in whose honor you have named your Post was the brother of my love and the pride of my early home; that not for any merit or eloquence of my own but simply because I was and am his brother, you have asked 'me to add my voice to these harmonious notes of requiem and reverent tones of prayer ! Once I could not have 10 Oration. done this, nor calmly stood in 3^onr presence in the early years of sorrow, some of you his fellow- soldiers mingling your tears with mine in personal bereavement, all grieving over sorrows of your own or filled with tender pity for some breaking heart. I should have stood mute before you, and the clear utterance of the lips would have been lost amid the heavings of the laboring breast. Yet, not even then should I have stood ashamed before you, as conscious of too much of human weakness. For we were three brothers and in the closest bonds of brotherhood united. Separation, which comes to all in this changing life of ours, had never tdienated us HI affection, nor dimmed the brightness of fraternal love. The sun-light of a pure and edu- cated New England home was always shining for us, and to it from the laboratory, the counting- room, the university, we were always returning. In it almost together our happy days began; the same gentle influences surrounded us and kept us ever in harmonious sympathy and accord. So were we truly '' one in kiiul, As moulded like in Nature's mint; And liill and wood and field did print The same sweet forms in either mind. " For us the same cold streamlet curled Through all his eddying coves; the same All winds that roam tlie twilight came In whispers of the beauteous world. Oration. 1 1 " At one dear knee we proffered vows, One lesson from one book we learned, Ere childhood's flaxen ringlets turned To black and brown on kindred bi-ows." And one had fallen in those fiery lines before Port Hudson; together we had laid him by the pleasant shore and in the hearing of the wave, amid the sombre glories of the autumn leaves; and now the other, the youngest of our house and remnant of our hope, had passed, in all the glow of youth and manly beauty, through glory's morning gate, in that triumphant and immortal hour when the last and central towei's of the great Rebellion came crashing down. I ask you not to pardon me, nor fear unkindly criticism as though I made undue parade of person- al sacrifice, and came jarring in upon the hai-mo- nies of consecrated public memorial with private sorrow's barren song. These words of mine have forced themselves into utterance, because it is I who speak and you who listen. Yet should even these have been repressed, but that such sorrows are representative of those of a hundred homes of New England, nay, typical only of loftier sacrifices and more crushing griefs. What claim had I to human sympathy, though by the fate of battle left for the time desolate and alone, compared to the widow who gave her only son whom stern conscrip- tion could not have torn fi-om her maternal arms ? 12 Oration. The sister gave her only brother. The poor and patriotic household accepted a future of bereave- ment, poverty and privation, that their contribution to the defence of free institutions might not be withheld. " What is my life without my country V " exclaimed the philosophic statesman of the ancient world. And in kindred strain the philosophic bard of the present, just now summoned to the heavenly rest, " What avail the plough, or sail, or land, or life if Fi-eedom fail ? " But these gave more than life. Yet had you still reserved, when you offered your beloved this willing sacrifice, the hope of immunity for them from wounds and death. The chances were with you when you sent them forth. Even in the imminent deadly breach, the flower of safety bloomed for some and perchance for yours. You could not have given them to certain death, even for your country's salvation. The heart of Brutus could not have steeled itself against his son but for the crime already committed against his country, and the hearts of men have not hardened since the stei'n, nay, savage justice of Brutus shocked semi- barbarous Rome. You could not have made this sacrifice had you known. Would you unmake it now ? Mother, will you discrown your darling and drag him from the stars to these daily prosaic uses of ours, to pursuits of gain which must be dropped Oration. 13 on the brink of the grave before the eager hands are full, to strivings foi- i)etty distinctions whieh shrink and shi-ivel into nothingness in ihe light of the triumph of his patriot death ? For the joy of his companionship, dear as it was and would be, would you rob him of his glory V Or call you that life unfinished and a fragment which answered life's great end ? Or has that summer's sun shone too briefly which has fringed with gold the ripened sheaves of autumn ? Nay, counting not the wi-ong you would do him should you wrest from his brows the crown he weai's for ever among the martyi-s' noble host, are you willing-, now that the yeai-s of keenest sorrow have passed by, to barter away your honoi-able pride in what he did and dared, for all the possibili- ties that the earthly futui-e closed ? What is your chiefest pride to-day ? The saintly harp of Olney's band was tuned to higher strains than praise of wealth or earthly honors, of pomp of state, or noble birth. Such trifling claims to distinction his lofty soul disdained, but based his proud pretensions simply upon this, that he was " the son of parents passed into the skies." And you are the mother of a patriot martyr, and from your loins has sprung a lineage of the stars ! Nay, once again, leaving out his glory and your pride, will you give up all and take all back? Take 14 Oration. back his life, his hope, his aspirations, his compan- ionship, and give up all that the tem])oral sacrifice of these contributed to gain ; take back a distracted country and the rule of slavery's blighting sceptre; take back that night of wrong and oppression, give up the light of Freedom's moi*ning star ? By the decrees of that Power whose judgments in the end are merciful, it was ordained that this life should perish with others that the nation might live. Will you let the nation perish, that the life which was dearer to you than your own may live again here ? Will you let this hope of humanity be extinguished or even abated, that for the remnant of your earthly days that deai- companionship may be vouchsafed you here once more ? I know your answer though unspoken. Your tears may fall again, and the full heait rain through your sight its over-flow. Yet, though with the Psalmist your eyes gush out with water, with him you forget not God's law. For all of pain and sacrifice you shall have double, and thi'ough all of deprivations to which his loss has doomed your earthly days, there will always breathe the whisper- ed consolation, " The country lived." And almost while I am speaking a voice of plaintive yearning for consolation like yours comes to us in tender accents across the sea. It is the utterance of that loving wife, widowed, not in the noble strife of Oration. 15 battle, but by Assassination's cruel hand. "I would never grudge the sacrifice of my darling's life," hear Lady Frederick Cavendish say, "if it only leads to putting down this frightful spirit of evil in Ireland. He himself would never have grudged it, if thereby death could do more than life." See then, how we are not bowed down. See even, and think it not unseemly, how we stand erect in honorable pride that it was our lofty privilege to make such conti-ibutions to the welfare of our race. Nor of our race alone ; — forsaken and prostrate Ethiopia stands up and sti-etches out her thankful hands to God, blessing us also who gave, but next to God those whom we gave. We were stricken ; our heai'ts were oppressed ; we sank like lead in the mighty waters of affliction; all their waves and storms swept over us, even over our soitl. Yet came we forth from all our sorrows, came up from dark- ness into the glorious day, and bear again the bur- dens of life in sunshine and with joy, because we never lost the whisper of that consolation, " The country lived." But if so much of comfort had been denied us ; if these loved ones of ours had died and our country perished with them, where then could we have look- ed for that sustaining consolation, in the strength of which we are now so confident and strong ? Let the generous heart, on this day which we have set 16 Oration. apart for the commemoration of our own beloved, forg-et not those who have mourned without our sohice, nor the kindly eye refuse to let fall for them one sympathizing teai*. No unrelenting voices from the chambers of the dead forbid us to remember, in Christian charity and sympathy, that the parents and brothers, and sisters and children of those who died in the service of " the lost cause," mourn those whom they loved as dearly as we loved ours, and who died in vain. How touched was my heart when but a few weeks since, in the early days of spring, I stood among the memorials of the Confederate dead, in the beautiful cemeteries of Richmond ! Here grief that was denied our consolations had raised its monuments to the memory of those who died in vain. How moving those inscriptions which told of valor in a cause which never had a rational hope, of lives laid on the altar of fruitless sacrifice. " In memory of sixteen tiioi'sand Conkkdekatk SOLDIERS FROM THIRTEEN StaTES." " Memoria in AETEUNA." "The EPiTATii OF THE soldip:r who fai.i.s with HIS COUNTRY IS WRITTEN IN THE HEAIITS OK THOSE WHO LOVE THE RiOIIT AND HONOR THE Brave." Let not the generous heart proclaim a rude dis- sent, noi- those who honor the brave refuse to honor Oration. 17 these. Let even those who love the right drop a tear for them, for though we can never admit that they were right, and the God of battles by his sub- lime arbitrament proclaimed that they were not, He only knows it if they did not think they were; and for this opinion they hesitated not to die. But alas, how futile and illusory the consolation! They fell not with their country. It was a myth and dreary phantasy that they had a country which fell. The great Republic, which was their country though in wild and strange delusion they had repudiated their allegiance, fell not, and the country which in piti- able eri'or they thought they were dying with, was never born. No harsh vindictive judgments could find a harbor in my breast as I stood sadly by these monuments. Even Nature seemed to join in sor- rowing pity for those who had so little of consola- tion, not less than for those who bravely died in fruitless struggle against legitimate authority, and the tears of April dropped through the slanting sun- light on the graves, and stretched the bow of prom- ise across the clouds. Not as criminals and outlaws could I think of them in that tender hour, gallant, heroic, as so many of them had jji'oved themselves on so many a field of renown, but rather as those whom a giant and overpowering delusion had swept along (m its resistless flood. And when, a few weeks later, but under like con- 3 18 Oration. ditions of the opening year, the soft airs of spring- time breathing round me, the gentle watei's of the Nashua murmuring by, I stood where m}^ soldier bi-others he side by side under the simple inscription " Pi'o Patria," the strength of this mighty consola- tion, all the more from the fresh and impressive contrast, sustained m}"^ heart. Not with but for their country they fell and laid down the bright pi'omise of their glowing years. A living country is their monument, and utters its myriad voices of gi-atitude and remembrance on each successive Memorial Day. A living country, one, undivided and indivisible, peace throughout its borders, the authority of its government undisputed and absolute, from Atlantic to Pacific, from Supei'ior to the Gulf, the results of the war accepted everywhere, its primal cause for ev^er ended ! Not without a purpose did I remind you that men are to-day exercising the I'ights of sovereignty in our land, who were not born when the South committed itself to the fatal policy of re- bellion, and within the period of whose intelligent consciousness no slave has trod the territory of the Republic. For questions of statesmanship arise and even now are pending in the legislature of the country, to the broad and generous solution of which these considerations are material, and to which I cannot think it inappropriate to I'efer, even Oration. 19 oil this consecrated day. How to administe-r the amnesty of the government towai'ds those who twenty-one years ago took up arms against it, is a question now before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate of the United States. The sohition is delay- ed ])artly, as was alleged in debate, that the views of the people of the North upon it might be made known. Suffer me then briefly to state in what foi-m the question rose, what is involved in it, some things that were said upon it, and, as one of the hum- blest citizens of the Republic, to indicate an opinion as to the solution to which a broad statesmanship not less than a generous Christian charity seems to me to point. A few words will suffice to state the question, nor will the argument be long by which I reach a conclusion as to the policy which, aftei- this lapse of years, it becomes a great, triumphant nation- ality to adopt towards the survivors of those who, its citizens then as now, revolted against its legiti- mate authority and defied its arms. A bill for the relief of Dr. A. Sidney Tebbs from a disqualification to serve as surgeon in the United States ai-my, having been previously referred to the Committee on Military Afl'airs, was reported by that committee with an amendment striking out all after the enacting clause and inserting " that Section 1218 of the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby repealed." The section 20 Oration. reads as follows : " Sec. 1218. No person who has served in any capacity in the military, naval or civil service of the so-called Confederate States, or of either of the States in insurrection during the late rebellion, shall be appointed to any position in the Army of the United States." This bill was, after a discussion which extended through portions of several days, referred to the Judiciary Committee. Its immediate passage was favored mainly by Democratic senators, who were apparently unanimous in its support. It was opposed by some of the Republican senators (indeed the majority of them seemed opposed to it), and on the question of reference the vote was a strictly party one. Some Republican senators, who would probably have favored the bill by their votes, if the question had come directly upon its passage, favored the reference on the ground that it was desirable to have it considered whether, in addition to relief from this special disability, other propositions might not be embodied in the bill looking to complete amnesty. The discussion was not free from bitter- ness ; no discussion probably ever will be, which involves the question of the permanence of these disabilities or their removal. And it is because of the constant renewal of this bitterness, which every discussion of bills for relief in special cases involves, that the question of complete and absolute Oration. 21 amnesty is not a sentimental one, as sometimes elaimed, but one preeminently praetical. Kepubliean senators said the North would never admit that the South was right. Senators from the South said that they did not repent noi- ask to be forgiven though they accepted the results of the war with- out reserve, and claimed a loyalty to the govern- ment as full and perfect as if they had never rebelled against it. Senator Edmunds said, "I think that the Rebellion being over, and over for good, it is better to preserve some everlasting monument, that there was a right side and a wrong side to it. There cannot be two right sides to such a question, and as the govern- ment turned out to be on the right side, I think it better that this perpetual statute book should hold some unextinguished memoiial that we knew the dijfference between one side and the other." Senator Vest said, "We simply ask for the legitimate consequences of what the senator and his colleagues say when they profess to admit that we are worthy to represent sovereign States upon this floor, as Senators of the United States. What inconsistency is it, when we are admitted here and our brain, such as it is, is given to the public ser- vice, and yet we are told that our hearts, our blood, our arms are unfit for the military or naval service of our common country." 22 Oration. Senator Sherman said, " I have intended when this subject was brought before the Senate to vote for the i-epeai of Sec. 1218 of the Revised Statutes which excludes from serving in the army in any capacity, persons who were engaged during the war in the rebel service, and also to vote to repeal all provisions of law in regard to test oaths, and to be liberal also in the construction of the third clause of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution. * * * All that is left of the provisions growing out of the war affecting any persons who had been engaged in the i"ebel service, are contained in these enactments to which I have alluded, most of which have spent their force. While I shall vote from time to time as I will, for properly framed bills to remove these disabilities, I want to impress upon the Senate, and if I can upon Senators from the South- ern States who fall within the description contained in those bills, that these laws were wise in them- selves, just, liberal, generous, more so than you can find in the records of any civil war in times past. While we remove their disabilities now, we do not repeal laws unjust when made, but laws that were wise when they were made, but which have ceased to be operative on facts as they now exist." Senator Beck said, " I have before that committee a bill to remove the political disabilities of all men. That bill was also recommended by General Grant, Oration. 23 President of the United States, as early as 187-5, in these words, ' I renew my previous recommendation to Congress for general amnesty. The number en- gaged in the kite rebellion yet laboi'ing under dis- abilities is very small, but enough to keep up a con- stant irritation.' " Senator George said, " Sir, we acknowledge no inferioi'ity, we confess to no crime, we profess no repentance, we ask no forgiveness. But we ac- knowledge oui' defeat and we acknowledge also that separation is no longer desirable. * * * ^e may have erred, sir. I shall not discuss that now, but if we eri'ed we committed the fault of freemen jealous of their rights. Our cause was just and holy to us, and it was defended with a courage, endur- ance, and self denial which brings honor, not shame, on American manhood. If fidelit}' to convictions of conscience, if courage and endurance in adverse foi'tune, if a heroic devotion to principle sincerely entertained, if love of country, if veneration for the memory and example of a great and glorious ances- try be titles to the respect and admiration of man- kind, the conduct of the Southern people in the late war is worthy to be recorded on the same l)right page of the history of the human race, on which are written the proud achievements of the Noi'th." Senator Maxey quoted Sumner's famous preamble ; " Whei'eas, the national unity and good will among 24 Oration. fellow-citizens can be assured only through oblivion of past difterences and it is contrary to the usages of civilized nations to perpetuate the memory of civil war" — and also, the letter, in which after the hasty censure which had followed this declara- tion, he says, " Never was I moi-e sure of any pro- position than that for which I am assailed. When well enough I will place it beyond all question, showing reason, history, and every civilized nation for it." Much more was said, other senators added their contril)utions to the debate, and some things were eloquently spoken ; yet after all it was but the dreary threshing over of the same old and worn out straw. What generous and all-powerful victor wants the vanquished to profess a wordy repentance, when the victory is complete, the foe disarmed and prostrate, the cause of quarrel removed, everlasting guarantees provided against its possible revival, and seventeen years of peace rolled over all ? For one, I do not desire to see the gallant though misguided and per- tinacious foe humiliated beyond the necessities which recent war imposed. I bow to those necessities while they last; I hail with joy the day when they may be truly said to have passed by. I would not, directly nor indirectly, require the fellow-citizens who by our compulsion laid down their arms so many years ago, in whose future co-oi3eration (and their children's) Oration. 25 in our common country's advancement I expect to take an honorable pride, to utter cringing language of apology, to assent to declarations that they were for ever wrong, nor longer to submit to political disabilities while claiming them as my fellow-citizens once more. I would have my coun- try, magnificent and irresistible in its power, as grand and universal in its amnesties, and were I the senator of a Northern State, partisan Republican though I am and representative of the personal sorrows of the war, I would, had I the intellectual ability, lead, not follow, the movement to repeal all disabilities, in full and confident faith that blessing would ensue. What need we fear ? The men who organized the Rebellion are passing down into and through and beyond the shadows of the dark valley. More than half of them are dead, and half the remainder falter- ing under the infirmities of age. More native citi- zens are now living in the country who have come of age since the war began than were of age and living in it at that day, and before the growing power of this fresh new life, old influences for evil fade away and die.^ Go through the South. Almost everywhere you ' I desire to express my obligation to Gen. F. A. Wallvcr, wlio, at my request, carefully examined the statistics, testing thereby the accuracy of this statement. He found it to be strictly correct, and that the excess cauuot be less than half a million. 4 26 Oration. will see manifestations of loyalty to the institutions of the country, and of content that the old things have passed away. Here and there it is doubtless true you will meet dissent, and the voice of discon- tent is raised, that the greatness and prestige of the South have departed, and occasionally are heard mntterings over the burdens that a tyrannous power has imposed on those who could not withstand. But these are not, it seems to me, representative voices. "The shallows murmur but the deeps are dumb." The great body of the people accept the situation as absolutely established, a part submis- sively, a part with cheei'ful and appreciative gladness. Still more are you impi-essed with their utter inabil- ity, had they the disposition, even to attempt any- thing against the Republic. Nay, the farther you extend your observation the greater is your wonder that these scattered tribes could ever, in their wildest moments of delirium, have dreamed that they could successfully defy the colossal power of the North. And the more, too, you are compelled to admire, whether you incline to do so or not, the cour- age and spirit of self-sacrifice which enabled them, against such an ovei'whelming preponderance of power, to maintain the unequal strife so long. Do you wish these disabilities maintained as guarantees of good behavior, and would you thus, as it were, hold part of the people as hostages for 0rati07i. 27 the rest ? But justice iind reason alike forbid to judge the future conduct of a new population for whom the light of free institutions has shone through all its life, by the past works of others who wrought them while they were stumbling in the darkness of the night of slavery. Do you want a lasting monument that the North was right and the South wrong, a monumental proof that treason is odious, and on grounds like these will you maintain disabling statutes ? But statutes are not permanent monuments. The breath ot an ephemeral party majority blows upon them and they vanish into empty air. A united country, which by its power in union and triumph over every foe illus- trates alike the odiousness and hopelessness of trea- sonable plots against it, is the most lasting and noblest monument ; the more noble and convincing monument and proof, in proportion as it justly boasts itself strong enough to grant to all its sub- jects an equal standing before the law. Shall we, by repealing these disabling acts, after this lapse of years, admit that we were wrong in passing them ? God forbid that a doctrine which is seldom invoked in the discussion of oi-dinary questions of repeal, should be laid down as a i*ock of stumbling in the path of a generous conqueror, hastening to raise a fallen enemy and release him from disabilities which are galling and humiliating, 28 Oration. and no longer needed for defence and protection ! Such repeal implies no confession of original error, wilful or undesigned. It says that lapse of time, change of circumstance, a new population substi- tuted for the old, enable us to dispense with further guarantees, and that is all. Do we need to fortify ourselves by the examples of the past, as though this new creation among the nations might not, in establishing the boundaries and defences of good will and renewed fellowship, be a law unto itself ? History is not wanting in examples, nor was our great senator at fault, in the enunciation of a general historic proposition, when he said that it is contrary to the usages of civil- ized nations to perpetuate the memory of civil wars. I spare you the recital of instances, yet permit me to summon before you one illustrious witness, who, by acts done before the coming of that divine Teacher the burden of whose lessons was love and charity to all men and especially our enemies, set a memorable example to Christian men throughout the ages. In the great civil war in which Caesar and Pompey contended for the possession of the government of Rome, Pompey was overthrown, his army put to utter rout in the battle of Pharsalia, and he himself driven an exile and fugitive to meet his tragic death beyond the sea. Caesar maintained himself in imperial power, and the destinies of the Oration. 29 entire Roman people were in his hands. Yet Sue- tonius tells us that before his sudden and unlooked- for death, an absolute amnesty was extended to all those who had been in arms against him, and every disability to hold civil or military office was re- moved. " Deyiique, temjjore extremo, etiam quibus nondum ignoverat, cunctis in Italiam redire jier- misit, magistratusque et imperia capered Yet Caesar died within four years after the battle of Pharsalia, and forty-four years before the Prince of Peace was born. Shall our Chi-istian generosity now shine less brightly than that of the heathen conqueror, or republican America dare less of charity than im- perial Rome ? LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS ■fill •^ W13 764 570 1 i