Daily Los Angeles herald., 1882-05-31

with no other thought, i call your at
tention to our country's history, his
tory without parallel and one of which
any nation should be proud.
We were thirteen Colonies at first
Colonies of Great Britain n-independent
of each other as brothers are of brothers,
as sisters are of sisters, but acknowledge
ing common parentage. When the
struggle came they all united, but united
only under one management for the good
of all, for greater strength. The strug-
gle over they reunited because COM
mon danger had endeared them to each
other; but this confederation, this partial
union, was thought to be not close
enough, and those who looked forward
into coming time and remembered how
few people, settled in foreign land,
had founded a Roman Empire, thought,
as they looked westward over country
so vast that none had traversed it to the
great ocean, that they might be the
founders of another empire greater and
grander than Ancient Rome; and that in
order to meet the future all the States
should be united under one government,
with constitution and laws ensuring a
form or government where all should
have an equal chance in life. And it was
with this object that the people of the
thirteen States, through their represent
atives in convention assembled, by their
agreement one with the other, delegated
certain powers to the General Govern
ment and framed the Constitution of the
United States. But it was not the in
tention to grant all power to central
government. All powers not granted,
either expressly or by necessary impli
cation, were reserved to the people of the
States. In other words,
LOCAL sELF-GovERNMENT
In the interest of liberty was to be re-
tanned as it always has been from the
beginning in those little New England
towns, where almost pure Democracy
existed. So States right, local self
government you may call it, had a prop
er sound at that time and was a watch
word of liberty and nothing more 1t is
unnecessary for me to call in support of
this the early history of the Republic,
the resolutions of Virginia and Ken
lucky and Acts of Massachusetts ON the
Embargo Act, and other New England
States in regard to the Fugitive Slave
Law and the acts of those assembled at
the famous Hartford Convention.
That the rights of the States should
ever be maintained even as the rights of
the Federal Government should be re-
spected, and that those rights should be
so adjusted as to never conflict but
always remain, each harmonious with
the other, was what our early statesmen
had in view. But at length the crisis
came. The question of slavery in one
portion of the Union gradually creating
different ideas of our relations, brought
the question to an issue. What is local
self-govemment? What are the rights
of the States? Is the Constitution q
compact? Is it contract? Is it mere
ly treaty between former independent
sovereignties Can it be abrogated at
the will of any Or of all the contracting
parties? Those were some of the ques-
tions on which those of the South diff
fered with those of the North. They
would not be reconciled. There was
| ONLY ONE TRIBUNAL
To which they would refer. 1t was
very sad for those whose forefathers had
done so much in common for the public
veal, who had done so much together
for humanity and for the world, for the
defendants of Washington, revered as
much North as South, of old patriotic
| Tnhr, A 1o,n,e, hra
of Jefferson whose far reaching mind
saw the future so prophetically, of Ham
ilton and Madison, how shall | recount
them all or call their names, so many
more illustrious men; founders of free
Republic worshiped at the North as at
the South, and the descendants of these
men and those like them could not
agree as their fathers had agreed, and il
was left to the only tribunal that could
settle it-that of war. | have thought
sometimes that if we had had Raphael
and he had lived when this great con
fiict threatened, what picture he
could have painted? What sad ex.
preston he could have given to the
faces of that old patriotic brotherhood
who stood so long together for common
country and for the common good.
Those of the old thirteen States, occupy
ing so high place in Heaven among
those of this world who had been good
and brave and true, they sitting there
crowned among the bravest and truest
and the best, if there be comparisons
among heavenly things. How pale
those brave old faces; what unhappiness
there depicted, there in Heaven where
all is Joy and gladness, as they looked
each at the other. What looks of sup
plication and of earnest entreaty to the
Throne of Heaven to save their handi-
work, work so in the interest of man.
kind "a picture such as this should have
been placed in the National Capitol and
there it should remain as a perpetual
warning; so it was comrades that
| THE WAR BEGAN;
| A war i'm which those of common ori-
gin, with the same traditions, worshiping
the same God, speaking the same Ian
guage, and honoring the same great men,
fought and destroyed each other. What
shall | say about it? Will you expect
| ih0 w lCJoiOS' hHOW YOU VIII uOt uO
that for you do not do that yourselves.
Will you expect me to denounce those
who fought against us? l know you will
not do that, because the watchword of
your order is noble charity. Will you
expect me to render praise to you? You
will not do that, because you only did
your duty, and praise bestowed for
doing that which is your duty you do
not want and do not need; but, if you
expect me to say that the Grand Army
of the Republic should be supported and
maintained, and respected and beloved
as it now exists, because it does hourly
and daily and yearly dispense holy char
ity quietly and unostentatiously to the
suffering poor, and hourly, daily and
yearly performs those acts which a
Christian charity dictates, l will say it,
with full and earnest heart and earnest
hope and faith, that it will produce a
feeling of kindness and charity and
brotherly love among all, whatever their
opinion, twenty years ago or now, be-
cause it is right to do these things and
right to show veneration for the dead;
| and when as in different nlacas M fba