Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1866-11-01

like meaningless defamation. But now,
you, my comrades, you who have seen
death
----''by sudden blow,
BY wasting plague, by fortunes slow,
by mine or breach, by steel or ball,
Known all his shapes, and seorned them all.
and still more you, parents and widows,
brothers and sisters, who wear the weeds
of mourning, and bear In your bosoms
broken and bruised hearts that time
cannot heal, for the valiant son, or hus-
band, or brother whose life went out In
the noble defense; you, say, can feel,
II not tell, something OF the fearful depth
OF meaning which those words embrace,
That this was, and is, duty, a solemn
duty, none here will deny, and none but
traitors ever did deny. To fail in this
duty would be depth Of degradation to
which loyalty could not descend. To
fail in 1t would be treason.
In the Declaration Of Independence
the fathers planted themselves upon two
fundamental principles; first, the equal
ity of man; second, the right OF people
under certain circumstances to cast on
their allegiance to the government. A
revolution based upon these principles
resulted in success. From this revolu-
tion emerged the great political event of
history-our Representative Federal Re-
public. With love Of liberty intensi-
fed by the fires of the revolution, and
fully confident that liberty was safe only
in the complete recognition of the prin-
ciple that men are equal, the
fathers FASTENED to bind their country
men to this truth by placing it foremost
in their bills of rights. Thence onward
it has stood, recognized in all the full
ness of its meaning by portion of the
country denied in its application to
certain race by the remainder. Thence
arose the unhappy struggle, the"irrepres-
sible conflict"
On the one side was arrayed selfinter-
est and the prejudice OF race-on the
other consistency and justice. The un-
paralleled prosperity OF the nation, lts
giant strides to power, our own conceit,
at times well nigh closed our eyes to
Justice. Then the conflict would tenn
porarily subsde. Our ears were contin-
ually soothed by the lullaby of compro-
mise. At first all acknowledged the in
consistency of slavery with equality. At
length portion, blinded by self interest,
became the friends of slavery, and neces-
sarly in the same degree, the enemies Of
equality. As q nation we proclaimed
equality, we practtced injustice. The
constant encroachments of slavery nat
urally consolidated the power OF liberty.
The equality, which slavery denied to its
victims, it al length denied to the friends
of freedom. Constitutional rights be-
came sacred only as construed in favor
of slavery; and the first successful as
sertion of these rights in behalf Of free
dom, in a contest precipitated by slave
nv, became to the latter power the apol-
ogy for treason.
Forgetting in the deirium OF treason
| able intoxicatiOn, the consecrated blood
of the revolution, forgetting the injunc-
| lions of the fathers of the Republic, for
| getting the blessings of a benign govern.
ment, forgetting the vows plighted tC
liberty and loyalty, the petted children
of the Republic,
with ingratitude more strong than traitor
arms,
raised their hands with hellish fury t.
strike down free government and civil
/ liberty. From the recoil of that blow
we date not only the freedom of a race
of human beings, but the disenthrallmen
} Of liberty itself.
When the fathers fought for Independ
encQ it was with protestations of loyal
! ~, aud because denied the usual priv
leges of loyalty. Had their efforts prov
ed unaYailng, it would not have bee
, considered fatal to liberty. But afte
i our long experiment of free governmen
!, under circumstances so favorable to 1t
| development, if liberty could not exis
l here in her own chosen home, amid
people whose genius is hostility to or
. preston, whose early history is success
G full resistance to tyranny, whose Will
/ notmore the subject than the governo
2 of the law, well might mankind ask i
: despair, where can the experiment agai
e be made?
t Fortunately for humanity this que$
: ton needed no answer for here in ht
own citadel, liberty found her defens
z in the stout hearts and strong arms {
a millions of freemen. 1t was rare fol
: tune, my comrades, that God raised 20
/ up to when He made you a part of tn
t grand uprising of 81. When the CO
; ossus of France aroused his assemble
|, hosts under the pyramids of Egypt t
i the full intensity OF enthusiasm, by IT
l minding them that forty centuries wei
looking down upon their deeds, the Ms
tions of earth applauded the scene.
t was the breath of genius inspiring tb
: machinery Of its creation with the fer
life Of heroism. Yet in grandeur au
!, Importance how trifing the scene
comparison with the rush of the host
of freedom in America to resist the rebel
onset upon civil liberty. No gaze c
forty centuries from towering pyramids
nor the magnetic influence of the lips c
genius, inspired the northern heart; bu
: when the clash of resounding arms cam
8 sweeping up on the Southern breeze,
1 was to the Northman's ears the warnin
note of liberty echoing through tn
| vaulted heavens and he was transform
ed from the peaceful citizen to the rug
gcd soldier by an influence within, NOR
irresistible than the appeals of oratory
or the magnetism of genius.
4 Feeble would be my lips to describ
I the warlike attitude Of our own gallan