New Orleans Republican., 1868-11-14

Uayal'lne ,, of .Ao sta,.. at west Pol.

| The oration was delivered by George w
Curtis. We print such portions as oul
space allows:
In Europe, three centuries ago, the caus,
Of the people took form as the Protestan
Reform, and, transferred to the battlefield
was the thirty years war. In England
drawn to finer point in the sermena O
stern preachers, in the debates ia Parlia
ment, in the loud snarl of pamphlets
was known as Puritanism. But at lengtl
it was preaching and debating no longer
At Edgehill John Pym's speeches had be
come pixies, and Ohsrles's falsehood
swords. The Cavalier fought fer privilege
the Puritan for the people. The struggle
was fierce and long, and when the smoke
of battle rolled away, Puritanism remained
bivouacked upon the field. But its com.
plete victory was reserved for another cen
tury and another continent. The old Puri
tanism was doubtless gloomy and severe
the tree that bore the rosy and delicate
fruit of American liberty was knotted ant
gnarled. But while the Cavalier, the
Tory and the Aristocrat, here as every
where, have always derided Puritanism
remember that the greatest OF all English
rulers was Puritan--the greatest of al
England's poets but one was a Puritan
The Puritan policy abroad swept the Medi
teranean of pirates and protected the Pro-
testants of France and Savoy. The Puritan
policy at home defended civil and religious
liberty against despOtism, mitred as bishop
and crowned as a king. Crossing the sea
it planted the SHOWS and rocks OF New En-
gland with the seed Of popular liberty and
equal rights, The harvest is as vigorous
l L.. g g., -, L. H., 4
loves the cooler latitudes. In the auspi-
ciouS air of new continent the Puritan
spirit became modified, mellowed and en-
larged. Out of strength came forth sweet
ness. Government by church members be-
came government by the people. John
Pym became James Otis. The larger and
generous Puritanism of America inspired
the Revolution. They were Puritan guns
| whose echo is endless upon Bunker Hill.
1t was the Puritan spirit that spoke in the
| the Puritan will that shook the
goyne from the Hudson. 1t was to the Pu-
| ritan idea that CORVALLIS surrendered at
Yorktown, and eighty-three years later it
| was the Cavalier who again surrendered to
the Puritan under the Appomattox apple
tree. Those stern, sad men in peaked hats,
who prayed in camp and despfsed love
locks, and at whom quibbers in
| politics laugh and swear to-day, were
the indomitable vanguard of moral
and political freedom. If they smut
fled in prayer they smote in fight;
if they sang through their noses the hymn
they ehanted was liberty; if they aimed at
divine monarchy, they have founded the
freest, the most enlightened, the most pros
porous, the most powerful republic in
history.
As we look back to-day upon that tre-
mendous conflict, we see emerging from
the bitter smoke the grim champion of the
people, Oliver Cromwell. and by his side
there rides sturdy Puritan, Major General
Robert Sedgwick. When Cromwell be-
came Protector he sent his General as a
commissioner to Jamaica, and when the
King returned the Puritan decided to re-
main in America. "E'en in our ashes live
their wonted fires" And more than a
century after Naseby and Worcester, a
descendant of Robert Sedgewick, Major
in the Revolutionary Army, defended the
good old cause at Valley Forge. At the
end of the war he was made Major General
OF militia, and his house, which the Connec-
ticut Tories had burned while he was awav,
was rebuilt for him by his townsmen.
1t was in the little town of Cornwall,
In the pleasant Valley of the Housatonic,
IN the northwest part of Connecticut, the
State of Putnam and Wooster and there
his grandson, our General John, was born,
on the thirteenth of September, 1873. He
is remembered as quiet farmers boy,
going to the common school, and working
IN the peaceful fields of Cornwall Hollow. |
a generous, manly lad-a natural leader |
among his companions. But the spirit Of |
the lronslde trooper and of the Continental |
volunteer was in his blood, and as a little |
boy he called himself General John Sedg |
wick" Thus a soldier, born of soldiers, |
on the first July, 1888, when he was twenty |
years old, he came here TO the Military |
Academy, where, three years later, he was |
graduated, and was promoted Second |
Lieutenant OF the Second Artillery. He |
served Immediately in the Florida War
against the Indians, little later upon the
northern frontier during the Canadian
border troubles, and was engaged in Ie-
eruiting at various stations.
In your name, gentlemen, and in YOUR
presence here, in the school in which our
officers are trained, deny that to become
a soldier Is to cease to be citizen and a
man. l deny that soldier is moral
hermaphrodite for whom right and wrong
90 not exist. deny that in noble breast, |
whether in or out OF uniform, the sense of |
loyalty to flag will be deeper and stronger
than that Of loyalty to conscience and 10
manhood. And if our own Heayen-bcrn
stars and stripes should ever become the
black fiig of infamy and injustice, it is an
insult to you as to your fellow-citizens, 10
suppose that you or they would imagine il
to be an honorable duty to bear It. We
are citizens OF the world before we are
citizens of country; we are men before |
we are Americans, Hbi libertds ibi patrid,
and our duty as Americans is to |
make America the home of noble |
men, and that flag the flag of lib
erty for mankind. In our late war it was
not the resignation Of their commissions by
those who felt, however mistaken in our
Judgment, that they could not honestly fight
under the Tag which cast so deep an odi1m
upon them. 1t was not the conscience. II
was the want Of conscience. It was not the
honest conviction, it was the treachery that
was so despicable. If Benedict Arnold.
whose name is forever tragically associated
with this spot, had honestly resigned his
commission, the consequences might for a
time nave been deplorable; but his name
Woula mol De Infamous. 1t was the treaeh-
cry that dooms him to eternal execration.
1t was not that Twiggs wished to leave the
army, 1t was bis base surrender of men and
material that blaekens bis name, 1t was NOT
he esgnation Of Lee that for
sver marks him, it was his following
he flag Of a cause which he confessed he
Jaw no reason for unrolling. Rhe con-
lemnation of all West Pointers who re-