Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-06-05
Decoration Day Thoughts.

THIS custom of holding in the highest
honor those who have given their lives for
their country is not peculiar alone to this
nation. 1t has always been held and recog-
nized as the best proof of mans love and
devotion to his country to lay down his life
in defense of it.-Genern Mcclellan.
TnREE-oUARrERs of a century after the
death of Washington, and a decade after the
assassination of Lincoln, private American
citizen, retired from public life without
wealth or Office, stimulating no ambition and
exciting no fears, is received and honored
by the people of the Western and Eastern
world as no ruler has been welcomed in any
period of history.-Generai Banks.
| CANNOT omit to say that for one result
of what they did and endured, namely, the
extinction of slavery in this great republic,
they deserve the imperishable gratitude of
mankind. Their memory will survive many
thousands of the generations of spring flow
ers which men will scatter to-day on their
graves. Nay, they will not be forgotten
while the world has written history WI
liam C. Bryant
THERE are such things as abstract right
and abstract wrong, and when history is
written human actions must take their
place in one or the other category. We
claim that in the great civil war, we of the
National Union Army were right and our
adversaries wrong; and no special pleading,
no excuse, no personal motives, however
pure and specious, can change this, the YER
dict of the war.-Generdl Sherman.
WE must not be asked to say that the
South was right in the rebellion, or to say
the North was wrong. We must not be
asked to put no difference between those
who fought for the Union and those who
fought against it, or between loyalty and
treason. We must not be asked TO be
ashamed of our part in the war. That is
much too great strain upon Northern con-
science and self-respect to be borne in 81
lence.--F'red Douglass.
The soldier gained personal courage, be-
cause his whole duty reminded him that
there was something better than life, and
for that something he risked his own. In
our civilized communities that lesson was
not learned easily. Yet till one had learned
that lesson he was not man. The expert
ence that taught it TO him marked am epoch
in his regeneration. Equally valuable was
the indifference to comfort which the camp
taught our young men. 1t cured the selfish
ness which grows up where one has his pill
low made to his own measure, and his coffee
| burned TO his own taste. The selfshness
which at our comfort we played with was
no little devil, but the great master devil Of
them all. The self-reliance which campaign
ing brought was another valuable piece o.
education. The soldier found he could carry
his own baggage without a porter, spend day
well without companion, and pray TO Goo
without church or minister. 1t was to sucl
a solitary education, with the spirit Of Coo
for teacher, that we sent our sons to tn
Southern camps and battle-felds. Out o
that education grew another grace of char
acter-the humility and modesty of the tru
soldier. And finally, they learned in tina
stern school reliance upon God and on eacl
other, substituting hope for fear, cheerful
ness for complaint, high spirits for low
Rev. T.. 4. Hale.