Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1854-05-25

| HHt From the Brandon Post
SPEECH OF HON. R. D. BARBER, OF MIDDLEBURY.
! ..e .. BRANDON, February 10, 1854.
T. D. BARBER, ESQ., Dear sr-Wil you please furnish
for publication copy your remarks delivered in the House
at its last session. the Bennington Battle Monument
citation Bill think they would be read with interest by
many. l am, respectfully yours, Il. j. Bliss.
The Bill from the Senate, incorporating the
Bennington Battle Monument Association, and
appropriating three thousand dollars for that
purpose, being under consideration Mr.. Barber
said
AS this Bill, Mr.. Speaker, appropriates large
sum of money, considering the resources Of our
State and the condition of our treasury, the OBJ
Ject which appropriation is intended to accom-
pllsh, should be one of public interest and con-
corn, and one which the tax-paying people will
be willing to favor, by putting their hands in
their pockets. And for what is this appropria-
ton asked To assist in securing the erection
Of monument, But whyexpend the money of
the people in the erection of a monument, Is
it because battle was fought where it is to
stand Because men there met in hostile array,
and engaged in the work of mutual destruction
There is nothing in the contemplation of such
work of strife and bloodshed, that, of itself
commands the homage of our hearts or the ap-
probation of our reason. Such work is a
work of woe, of misery Of horror Is it be-
cause uictory was there WONT A victory is no
evidence that the actors in it were impelled by
other motives than the qualification of the fell
passions of our nature, or of the pride and am
bition of corrupt rulers, or of the lust of do
minion and power over a weaker foe No, sir
before we can vote this money from the people,
we must have some other reason than that our
stern progenitors fought battle or achieved
victory at Bennington. A monument to COM
memorate such events, cannot make the spot
sacred ground, or consecrate it in the minds of
our posterity with any hallowed and noble as
sociations. From such monumental pile the
patriot and hero might turn with sorrow and
anguish, weeping that it brought to his mind
the desoated households, the bereaved widows
and orphans which the strife of that field had
made.
But, sir there is reason why this appropri-
alton should be made, and why that commemo-
ratve shaft should rise on the field of Benning-
ton. 1t is because battle was fought and q
victory won there, that were fought and won for
the liberties of our fathers, and for us, and for
those who shall como after us through all time.
and for those, also, who were then, and are
now, grinding in the prison-houses of dynastic
oppressors and tyrants. On that field did our
untitled and undisciplined fathers meet in stern
array and stern defiance, the disciplined battal-
ions of the tyrant oppressor, and give their
blood and their lives to the defence of their
homes and their thresholds, and to the estab-
lishment of those great principles Of political
freedom which had just then been given to the
world, in letters of light and fire, in the Great
Declaration, and which have secured to our
country an eminence among the nations of the
earth the proudest, because the most beneficial
to man. From out the smoke and strife and
carnage of the battle of Bennington, famed
up one Of the brightest and most glorious of
those beacon fires of liberty which are illumina-
ting the world and lighting groaning millions on
to the struggle and the triumph over oppression
Where that beacon fire famed, let monument
stand to tell our children of the battle and the
victory for mans right over tyrannic power!
But we are told, sir, that it is proper that the
battle should be commemorated and that the
monument should be erected, but that it is not
proper that we, the representatives of the peo-
pie, should tax the people to assist in defraying
the expense--that this should be whoHy, instead
of principally, done, as the Bill contempates,
by private munifcence, moved by the impulses
of generous patriotism. Sir, shall vote for
the Bill because wish to give every tax paying
inhabtant in the State an opportunity to throw
his mite into the treasury of patriotism, and to
feel, when that monument is erected, it is his
monument, in common with the rest Of his tel-
low citizens Let this be a matter of private
subscription alone, and you say that patriotism
and purses only go hand in hand; and that the
shaft which rises to mark the spot where was
fought our noblest battle for Freedom, is the
property of the rich-the memorial which
wealth alone gives to patriotism. would rather
that this should be, in part at least the peoples
monument-the peoples offering to the memory
of their sires, and the peoples homage to the
mouth and on the field of death And tell
you, sir, that there are as many bosoms beat
ing with the generous and lofty impulses of free
dom and devotion to the rights of man, under
the garb of the homely and the poor, as there
are under the costly habiliments of the rich,
and that the tax to meet this appropriation will
come more cheerfully from the scanty pockets of
our yeomanry and our citizens, than from the
plethoric purses Of the rich. 1t is only by ma
king such an appropriation as this, that you
can give every patriotic son of the Green Noun
tains chance to assist in the erection of this
monument. The gatherer of subscriptions will
heed not the offering of the humble ninepence
D from the hard-handed laborer, but will seek for
the dollars from the wealthy and yet that nine
pence would speak truer and nobler devotion
to the object than would the dollars of the af1u-
ent This Bill carries the subscription paper
t for the Bennington Battle Monument to the
0 door of every taxpayer, and will make more
acceptable the usually unpleasant visit of the
, tax-gatherer and each one should he ever visi,
the monument, will feel an honest pride in say
3 ing, " helped build it,"
But shall vote for this appropriation because