Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1874-07-09

| great but man. and to the highest development
of every man.
| These are the eternal rocks upon which our
| fathers laid the foundations and upon which
we must build. These truths must crop out
everywhere in the superstructure. Constitu-
| tons and human eRactments are frequently as
| fieeting as the shadows of the clouds, as the
waves of a starmy sea- and frequently as dam
| gerous Equality of rights are as enduring
as lovely as the great Creator himself Con-
| st buttons huye now and then established
wrong. England's, conceded to be the best Of
those in the old world, Is more fiction than
a reality 1t gives as Pickering and uncertain
light the Jack with lantern, and like
| Jack with the lantern occasionally leads its
/ followers into qaagmires and quicksands. Ours
! has been construed to mean that one class had
no rights that another was bound to respect
| The Israelite CONSTRUED the law of Moses to
mean that the Israelite was the chosen one
and that he alone was made in the image Of
God. The Athenian, proud of Athens. proud
of her literature, learning and liberty, had no
clearer conception of the idea "that God had
made of one blood all the nations of the earth"
| than he had of the unknown God" whom he
ignorantly worshiped
Paul first proclaimed that idea. jefferson
first incorporated it into a legal document
| That document IN many countries it would be
| treason to print, treason to read. 1t is the
evil genius, the terror of the tyrant and task
master, wherever he may be. 1t is not a It's
sue of errors, as Calhoun said; not compound
of glittering generalities, but is Gods holy,
higher law, that is destined to revolutionize
the world The ten commandments were
| written by the finger of God on tablets OF
stone. Equality of rights were written by the
same finger on the heart of man when He ere
ated him in his own image. War, pestence.
fire, famine and flood have not, can not erase
it. The grassy mounds everywhere, the va
cant chairs at our tiresides and tables, the in
scriptions all over abe country that tell where
they fought and where they tell, the wounded
the widow and orphan on every hand, the tear
that comes in the eye when some one sings,
'Do They miss me at home, do they miss me,
At morning, at noon, OF at night"
tell us how deeply engraved upon the heart
are these truths We are not ashamed of
them. Let them he inscribed on the folds of
our flag. Let that flag float in every breeze,
on every ocean, i'll every lAnd. In that decla-
ration the tyrant as surely sees his doom as
did Belshazar in 'naeas meme tekel aphor0e7t"
written By the hand of God on the walls of his
palace.
That flag torn in battle, rent with cannon
shot pierced with musket balls baptized with
human blood, but With every star all the bright
err for the fiery ordeal has become an emblem
of the idea Of the equality of the brotherhood
of all men.
AS McDermot carried it at Prairie Grove,
through the rage of battle, as it was carried
amid Kissing, screaming grape and canister,
shot and shell, over the lines of Notifications
encircling St. Mary's heights as 10 Hooker
carried it through the storm and smoke of 200
cannon above the region of the clouds on
| Lookout Mountain, so, too, has it been carried
above the fog, smoke and deep gloom of nc
and '6l, that overshadowed the land, away
above the dark cloud of Slavery into tho sun
light of a higher lovelier civilization.
Wherever it floats it is loved by the Cypress
ed and feared by the oppressoI, no less for the
armies and nayies the monitors and peace
makers that back it and the bloody fields over
which it has triumphcd, than for the ideas it
represents These ideas have freed the serfs
of Russia have secured cons titutional rights
to the Hungarian, the Bohemian and the Ger
man-extended the elective franchise in Eng
land and established religious liberation and
Republican fornls of government in Spain and
4 France.
We need not send forth armies with banners
to make proselytes. That flag and that Dec
laration are our missiona les. Let us not only
preach but practice. Let US not only proclaim
but enforce the idea of the equality of all men
before the law; that that the poor man, though
ignorant and in rags, is man for all that, and
we will win victories, victories over ourselves,
victories more valuable, more enduring than
though we stormed the bastiles or annihi--
lated the armies and armadas of the monarchs
of the world.
{ The purest diamonds, the brightest gems
are dug from mother earth. The highest in.
tellects, the highest type of manhood that God
has given US have bsen found in the humber
walks of life. Joseph and Moses, one stands
out ON the page of history pure man and a
great minister, the other the greatest leader
and law giver the world ever knew, were of a
| servile race, and so on down the long line Of
ages, through Christ, himself born in manger
"who died to make men holy" to Abraham
Lincoln who died because he made men free,
including the bard of Avon. who sang
| 'sWhat tho on homely fare he dine
Wear hoddn gray and ali thot,
Give fools their silks and knaves their wines,
mans man for all that
, | For all that, and all that
| Their tinsel show and all that,
Tho honest man, though e'er so poor
| Is king of men for all that
} Ny friends, be of good cheer, be not dss-
pondent. Though vice and ignoronce prevail
J among Us to an alarming extent, still when
! compared with the monarchies of the old world
more especially the republics Of antiquity, we
maintain proud pre- eminence No nation in
ancient or modern times can for moment
J compare with ours. And this has ever been
, the case from the commencement of our nation
J al existence. Under what different auspices
did our nation and our government arise? I'm
J der what different ideas from those of the Me-
dean and the Persian, the Greek and the Ro-
man? Aye even from those of the German,
! the French and the English?
Age after age, in all those countries, rolled
away, developing not the masses, exhibited no
} | a, has
} ed. Their early existence was amid fables
and poetry and the day dreams of and wild fan
ciful mythology; ours was distinguished com
paratiyely for equal lnws, solid learning and a
! pure religion.
J Here the sun rose bright and full uncloud-
ed by aristocracy and priest craft to she'd its
beams on those who were laying the founda-
tons of a mighty republic,
} There millions toiled age after age, in dis
J astrous twilight, and centuries did not disclose
upon their lands the light that shot from the
very beginning across the bosom Of this west
ern world.
Their characters, their civilization, their in
stitutions, were entirely different from ours.
Rome, in her palmiest days. was less repub-
lie than military oligarchy, where the many
were pressed down beneath the iron heel of
the despotic few. Ignorance on the one hand
on the other vice and superstition in their
most disgusting forms, prepared the way for
her downfall. True, she could boast of few
noble spirits who exerted their best efforts 'to
stem the wild torrent Of downward age but
their voices were lost amid the shouts of be
nighted and degraded populace She could
boast of few stern patriots, who, rather than
bow the knee to despot, dared battle their
swords in his hearts blood; but they were
] overpowered by the soldiers of venal and dis
olute oigarchy. She could boast of victorious
generals who planted her standards on every
| shore and exacted tribute from every people;
but the mighty fabric they thus erected was
founded not in the hearts and affections of the
people, was cemented not with virtue, not with
intelligence, not with pure, unselfsh patriot
ism, but with the blood Of conquered millions
and speedy dissolution was the inevitable
result,
Nor were the republics of Greece and Of the