Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1871-06-07
ADDRESS OF HON. HORACE MAYNARD
AT THE
Decoration Services Held Yesterday at
Nashville.

NASHVILLE.
The following extract from the address
of Hon. Horace Maynard, delivered yes
terday at Nashville, we are sure will be
read with interest. 1t is classical, learned,
appropriate and eloquent, just such an eff
fort as might be expected from so learned
a man and distinguished an orator:
There are certain things connected
with human affairs which belong to no
one age; they are never old, nor yet are
they new. They are of all time. Such are
honors to the memory of the dead. At the
close of the late war, our fallen soldiers lay
scattered over the hundreds of fields on
which they fell. In obedience TO. the law,
their remains were diligently sought out,
and gathered into cemeteries convenient
for locality and adorned with various taste.
A common sentiment brought together
their relatives and surviving comrades to
offer tributes of respect in the place of
graves. 1t profits not to inquire by what
chance a day was selected for this purpose,
at the close of spring, when the flowers
were developing into the ripened growth
of summer; that coming at this season
they should bring flowers, roses, daffodlls,
violets, pansies and lilies with full hands,
was most natural. Equally natural and
obvious was it to select some one who, in
words aptly chosen and sentences well or
thoughts which were alive in the hearts of
all. And, as with the years, the season re-
turns, the safle observance has been re-
peated, until it seems likely to become a
custom, and the day to assume the dignity
of a national festival.
With no thought of copying and uncon-
scious of the repetition, we have closely
initiated the practice of q time long since
passed and people far remote. The GUS
tom of pronouncing funeral discourses over
such as had fallen in battle, is said to have
been first established among the Greeks,
in consequence of the remarkable defeat of
the Persian invaders. A person selected
by the State, highly esteemed for his wis
dom and of superior station and dignity,
pronounced suitable panegyric, though
forbidden by the express words of the law
from indulging in eithereXordium or perO-
ration. The Romans adopted the custom,
as they also did many other things after
the manner of the more cultivated and
polished Greek. Pliny declares Virginius
supremely happy in having Cornelius
Tacitus, who was so highly famous for his
eloquence, to pronounce his funeral ora
ton. Such discourses were considered as
not only highly useful to the living, but
were thought to be particularly acceptable
and gratifying to the dead. They were
accordingly repeated in the same public
manner once year. And how very es-
sentially ceremony of this kind must
have contributed to keep alive q martial
spirit and that patriotic feeling, so neces-
sary to the support of popular govern
ment, must be manifest.
This grand national ceremony attained
more imposing magnificence among the
refined and intelligent Athenians, than
in any of the States. The historian,
Thucydides, descends into some of the
more important details, Introductory to the
funeral Grafton of Pericles over those who
persisted in the first campaign of the
Peloponnessian war. The relatives and
friends of the deceased, women as well as
men, citizens and strangers, any one who
chose, brought offerings-the boughs of
trees, ribbons and howers-for the decOra-
ton of the remains, which were deposited
in the ceramicus, within public monu-
ment dedicated to the men who died in
war. In this all were constantly inferred,
except those who fell at Marathon. For
them, on account of their extraordinary
prowess, a tomb was erected on the spot.
To no more illustrious orator could the
memory of the nations dead have been
ntrusted than to Pericles, eminent alike
for eloquence, for statemanship, for con-
summate valor and military skill, under
whose administration the Athenian Com
monweath attained the higeet pitch of all
her greatness. The history of Athens and
the fame of her constitution are she prin-.
cipal topics of the discourse and to the
yalor and wisdom of the commemorated
dead are ascribsd the glory of the one and
superiority of the other. The profound
policy which perpetuated this observance
appears in the closing sentence: "For those
states which held forth to their subjects
the greatest rewards of valor, always pro-
duce the best citizens"
The orations of Plato and Lysias, COM
posed for this annual pageant, and also
preserved among the remains of Hellenic
letters, proved clearly the general rever-
ence for the men who shed their blood in
the service of their country.
Leaving the men who died their thou
sands of years ago, and whose deeds
have made forever glorious handful
of petty States by the shores of the Egean
sea, we turn to our own dead, who lie in
thousands before us, and whose graves are
hardly yet green. 1t is of little moment,
except to themselves and their families,
that they persisted. The race must all pass
away. Nor yet whether they met swift
destruction in the field, or succumbed TO
the piecemeal ravages of disease in the
crowded wards of the hospital. Less, or
more, the tale is always and everywhere
the same, suffering and the final agony.
Immeasurably above such CHASTITY con-
temptations, rises the inquiry Wherefor
died they? What was the cause, for the
defense or the defeat of which, in the
midst of dreadful carnage, with unparal-
leled bravery and matches feats of arms,
or with incredible fcrtitude, enduring the
prolongation of their torment, they sur
rendered their lives? For upon the ulti-