Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1880-06-02

town an empty parade: When Jefferson
and Hancock signed that masterly deciara
ton of the rights of man and pledged thei
lives, their property and their sacred honol
in its defence, was it a piece of school bo,
rhetoric! Was it for this that Old Hickory
fought behind the Gotten bales at New Or
leans and stransled the second attempt OF
English aristocracy TO DESTROY the growing
child of liberty: Was il nothing but an in
sane raving when that same old hero said in
substance in -. -.'lf John c. Calhoun de.
fes the national government I'll hang him ms
a traitor.
You know the response. MANY of YOU
know the sad story but too we'll. Sad it is,
but haloed with noble glory. Leigh Hunt
an English author, had said that America was
but vast counter stretching from Maine to
Texas. with half the people on either side
bartering for the goods and merchandise OF
| the other. BIT those shop keepers could faint
| They fought for National unity. From all
climes and all nations the oppressed had
| gathered here to draw the sweet breath of
liberty denied them by despotism in their
native land. They looked across the waters
and their hearts ached to see the foreigner
ruling over the land that was not his own.
National unity. 1t had been their dream at
home; could they fail TO fight for the reality
here? In the Union ranks were Huns
Perhaps they had fought with Kossuth in the
wilds of the Danube, that Hungary might
free itself from the yoke Of the hated
Austrian. The Pole, who remembered Pu-
laski. Dismembered Poland, parted and d-
vided among the robbers like stolen booty,
cried out in agony. Could her sons refuse to
fight for National unity in America? The
swarthy Italian marched in those Union
| L.. hal al :
countrymen in the contest for Nationality
Perhaps he had been at Solferino, where the
liberator of Italy, Victor Emanuel, first
dreamt pf Italian unity. The sturdy Ger
mans came in thousands. Perhaps they had
fled with Schurz from the revolutions in As
Their adopted country they loved; could
they see it die2
The warm-hearted sons of Ireland do you
wonder that they focked to the Union ranks?
Driven from their homes by English tyranny
where think you would they be found, fight
ing for National unity. or not? Deep in
their hearts they carried the awful story of
English tyranny. They knew Ireland was
theirs by right. They knew centuries ago
Ireland held n race of kings. The day must
come when down-troddcn Ireland, that gem
of the sea, shall hold her head high among
the nations of the earth. Nightly her sons
uTeaiIit oI HeT tutuTci ud1iy tHty louSnt lot
National unity here.
None but towards will equivocate upon the
justice of our cause. Soft generalites are
no substitute for principle. Men may say
God knows which was right. Yes God
knows. and yoH know. 1t would be dishonor
to their memory to concede one jot or title
of the justice of the cause in which they
fell. We can forgive, but while blood flows
in our veins and reason reigns upon her
throne, we can nereT forget God forbid
Our hearts are open; we pray that the heal
ing wings of time may bring peace and
plenty to the desolate South, but our princ-
Piles are fixed, immutablc, Interchangeable.
We were right, or we were wrong. There is
no halfway station for halting sous. A
| sickly sentimentality can devise no mawkish
judgment. We can forgive the parrcdal
thrust, the horrors of Andersonvile. the suf-
locating cells of Libby and Castle Thunder,
the shooting of defenceless prisoners as they
staggered in blind, sick delirium across the
fated dead line, the starving victims of Wirz,
the cruelty that sent from those prison pens
thousands of wrecks to Northern homes, for.
give it all, but forget it--nerer, so HELP US
COP. Those poor victims suffered for the
right.
Upon that bloody arena of '6l, was fought
this question 'Is this nation or league !
Which is supreme. the Nation or the State?"
In 80, Jackson stamped upon the poisonous
| serpent of notification with the words
''This is government, not a league" 4
part cannot be greater than the whole. The
State cannot be greater than the Nation. Man
is social animal: when he congregates
with his fellows, he surrenders itrevocably a
portion of his natural rights. Society,
philosophcally considered. is but a volunta, y
| sacrifice of small portion of our individual
| ity; in the great whole, we lose portion OF
ourselves. When the States entered the
| Union, each surrendered a portion Of its
| rights. Each became supreme within hs
own sphere, and the surrender was irrevoca-
| BILE.
| Face to face we met the problem
and fought the battle of nationality. Mill.
ions of treasure and oceans Of precious
blood were given that the great question
might be settled. Centuries past and to
come gazed upon the conflict with breath
less interest. Napoleon said to his sol
diers drawn up in battle line beneath the
shade Of the Pyra mids, "Soldiers. forty cen
turies look down upon you from these Pyra
mids' But sixty centuries watched the ebt
| and flow of the contest upon those Southern
| fields. History is dark with tales of blood,
wars; wars Of ambition, wars Of conquest
| Alexander weeping for more worlds to con
quer and dying in a drunken fit: Caser with
his legions wreathing laurels for persona
fame. and murdered by the assassins hand
Napoleon shifting kings and nations with til,
fiery sword Of Ambition and dying upon tin
rocks of ST. Helena. But here was the tri
tumph Of popular power fighting for an idea
for unity and the rights Of man From tn
martyred Lincoln, that embodiment Of Pope
grand line, can honest man, the mobiles
work Of God" Of whem we might say will
Ariosto, "Nature made him and threw ava,
the die, /" to the humblest private in the ranks
there was a spirit Of consecration, rivallin,
the story of the Crusaders. The sun Of rebel
lion went down in sea Of blood and libert,
smiled again.
Another grand result was the elevation o
labor. The blood of Gettysburg not onl,
rusted on the manacies of four million slaves
but it baptized the dignity of labor in tn,
North Free labor had been debased by it
contact with slavery. A false aristocrae,
was growing like fostering sore upon tn,
body polite. Petty tyranny, class distinc
ton, caste, social ostracism, the few rulini
the many, labor disgracefnl, gradually thes,
false ideas we're permeating society. On th'
floors Of Congress Northern laborers wer'
tanntingiy sneered at as "mudsilIs" am
.greasy mechanics" At Shiloh, at Donel
son, and above the clouds on Lookout Noun
tain, those ..mudsills" fell with their faces {,
the foe. At home brains had guided thei
/ skiilful hands At the front their brain