Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-08-12
AN ADDRESS TO THE UNION SOL.
DIERS or THE WAR.
The Hero OF Gettysburg the Man for
the Time.

citation of Hancock Veterans met in
their headquarters, in the Westminster
Hotel, yesterday, and adopted the fol-
lowing address to the Union veterans
of the late war Of the rebellion
VETERANS OF THE UNIoN-Near-
ly twenty years have passed since d
bloody civil war began in which you
took part in order 10 preserve the
integrity Of the Union and main
tain the supremacy of the Federal
laws. After four years Of alternate
defeat and victory, actual fighting
ceased but peace nevertheless, did
not follow. The dominant political
party, assuming the merit of success
achieved by your tolls and your courage,
by keeping alive the sectional bitter
ness between the victors and the van
quished, attempted to make your deeds
the foundation of their own permanent
power. In the South this was done
by the harassing course of the carpet
baggers, by the inquisitions of provost
marshals, and by means of United
States soldiers who were used TO in
timidate citizens at the polls and TO
to lock the doors Of Legislatures
against legally elected representatives
of the people. In the North it was
done by persistent misrepresentation
of the acts and attitude of the South
ern people, by the surveillance of su-
pervisors of elections, by the arbitrary
authority of marshals who dragged
orderly and innocent men from the
polls to prisons to prevent their free
exercise Of the elective franchise, and
by blatant charges of disloyalty against
the one-legged and one-armed soldiers
who had dared to assert that in the
war for the Union they had not fought
for four years to strike the schackles
from the slaves and weld them into
manacles for freemen. A reaction
from this condition of things was in
evitable among people who inherited
liberty, and the eyes Of the North and
South have at length been opened.
The North has proposed to settle the
sectional feeling which the dominant
political party has wantonly and self
ishly kept alive, by taking as candi-
date for President one of our own Gen
erals-a man whose loyalty to the
Union has been shown in four years of
march and battle, and in shedding his
blood amid the clash of crossing bayo-
nets whose capacity as a ruler has
been shown in his orders and in the
administration of complicated civil du-
ties. When invested with vast and
arbitrary power he refused to be the
tool of tyranny and TO use it against
the people who were crushed a man,
in short, whose moderation is known
unto all men" The South likewise.
to show that it accepts all the legitimate
results of the war and desires that true
fraternal feeling be re-established, has
asked us with a single voice to give
them for President the sturdiest fighter
among our Union Generals a man
on whose justice they can rely and
who places the rights of freemen above
the exercise of despotic military pow
er. In this crisis of the nation Provi-
dence has given US the man who COM
bines in himself all these requirements.
General Winfield Scott Hancock, our
candidate for the Presidency, is the
man for the hour. Under his lead lie.
all Union veterans again "touch ell
bows" and, the bloodiess battle won,
true liberty and true peace will he
ours once more. Let those boast of
patriotism who have reveled in power
and the spoils of office for twenty
years. yet never heard the sound of
hostile bullets on the battle field: but
do you, whose tolls and wounds best
prove your love of the republic, put
the seal to your labors by placing your
gallant and skillful leader in the Ex-
ecutive chair Of the nation, so that the
bones Of your comrades, who died for
liberty, unity and peace, may not in
vain whiten the battle fields of the
country. To do this, ignore the lines
of party, and let the blue and the gray
forever fade from our sight as colors
of opposing forces. Our own loved
banner gives us all the colors we need.
and over us hereafter may the
Flag Of freedom and Union wave
Peace and order aud beauty dawn
Round its symbols Of Hight and Law,
And ever the starr above look down
On the stars below In our bAnHera erewE.
And We shall then know that the
stars which represent the States of the
Union, like the stars of the heavenly
consultations. will be forever and in.
separately united, although each shines
with its own light. Comrades, let our
music be "of the Union" and our step
"the charge" and with us shall rest at |
last the enduring victory.
A CLERGYMAN in Pittsburg lately |
married lady with whom he received |