Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1885-06-10
DECORATION DAY ADDRESS OF GEN
JOHN Il, sANBORN.


DECORATION DAY ADDRESS OF GEN.
JOHN y, sANBORN.
COMRADES AND FELLOW CITIZENS -
We come in the spring time to visit the
tombs that contain the mouldcring ashes
of those patriotic and brave men, who
willingly gave up life and all its joys for
the welfare and happiness of their fellow
men, and calling them forth from the
night of the grave, we again behold these
immortals crowned with light and honor,
form in serried ranks and pass in review
before the present generation.
Look, and learn here the lessons of pa
trjotism and duty; consider and learn
here the cost and value of constitutional
government. Twenty years in regular sue
cession have marched by since the last
battles of the Rebellion were fought.
The war and its great events in which we
participated, and with which we are as
familiar as with our daily duties, have
become matters of history to the majority
of those now living. speak to-day to
generation of men, the greater proportion
Of whom existed only in the all creating
power of God, when the heroes whose
ashes sleep here, fell in the great conflict,
for the preservation of this government
and the perpetuation of human freedom.
On every page of the annals Of mankind
you will indeed find the record of con-
flicts and wars and read of heroic and
brave deeds, and great sacrifices, and
great efforts and great triumphs. But
through the history of the human race
you will look in vain for a record of eff
| forts so superhuman, of sacrifice Of pro-
perty, Of happiness, Of life almost with
out limit, made by an enlightened and
elevated race to give freedom to, and ex.
Avaricc and ambition in every period
of history have waged devastating wars
| against the inferior races and nations of
mankind; and revenge has brought back
those races in time to destroy their victors.
But to their glory, and as their chief
glory be it said, that in the great struggle
| in which our comrades fell, none Of these
! low passions or desires held sway. With
the soldiers in active service in the war of
| the Rebellion avarice had no place. The
nation was fighting for its life, and all
| that could be received must be received
from herself. There was nothing upon
which ambitions whitening breath could
| breathe.
The war in which our comrades fell
seemed to have had its origin in the realms
of the moral world, and to have been by
| decree of providence transferred to that
of the physical world for it's determi
nation, and these men whose virtues and
sacrifice you this day commemorate, fell
in great war waged on behalf of human
ity itself, and their names and memories
must be sacred to all men while humanity
endures.
Imperfection is stamped upon every
human institution, upon all sublunary
things. Our fathers left US written con-
stitution that blindly recognized property
in man, dominion of one man over
another, as the same was construed and
practiced for the first seventy years OF
our national existence. The nation could
not have been formed without this con-
ccssion to avarice and greed for gain, and
with obscure language, and many sad,
but hopeful hearts, the crime against
nature that had It's origin in the colonies
was engrafted into the constitution and
spread its slow and whitening virus
throughout the whole body polite, until
the CONFUSION Of war became the only
remedy that could purify it from this
deadly faint. The slightest concession
to error and sin must always lead to dis
moral world, that every man of ordinary
observation, who has lived half a century
has seen demonstrated in instances innum-
cradle, and until he has been compelled
torecognizc it as fixed and certain as any
law Of his physical being.
Man created in the image of his God
and but little lower than the angels, and
crowned with glory and honor, was de-
graded to a domestic animal Of the COM
mon sort, and bought and sold in the
market place like a beast of burden. The
mother did not have the control of her
child nor the father of his offspring.
Husband and wife, parent and child, were
liable at any moment to be separated for
ever at the mere whim or caprice of
another. Those human laws which exist
in nearly all civilized communities and
prohibit punishment beyond a certain
which are generally vigorously enforced,
were without any power to protect, and
were rarely, if ever enforced for the pro
lection of the persons of this class. The
conscience of the people in those states
where slavery did not exist became alive
to all these enormitles, and demanded al
last in the year 1860, forty years after
the denunciatiOn of the slave trade on
Plymouth Rock which trade was then as
always supported by slavery in Christian
States, and which trade in turn supported
the institution of slavery-that these
crimes against nature itself should be de-
nationalizcd in this nation. That if slav
cry of this type must exist, it should be
protected and maintained, not by tho
Federal governmental United States
of which the people Of all the States are
citizens, but should be confined in sucl
States as should choose TO support ane
foster such an iniquity.
| Tho nloofiOn nf Mr. Lincoln in 1891
was the first popular expression of the
determination of the people Of the lane
that the abomination of slavery, as il
existed in some States, should cease tt
grow outside of those States, and that i
should not exist in any territory or place
under the exclusive control of the Unitet
States. That freedom, and not slavery
should be the law of the land, as contem
plated by the fathers. The sequel show
ed that the owners of this slave property
disdained to have any part or lot in thi:
government, if in it's territories and al
places in its exclusive control, it woul(
not recognize and protect as property
whatever was property under the laws O
any State And seeing in the result O
the election of 1860 the decision of thu
question against them by the electors O.
this country. the slave holding State!
threw off the restraints of the Fedora
power and constitution, and waged wa
against It's authority. This was the crisis
The government was without an army
the yeomanry were unarmed; and tht
first question with all considerable ant
loyal men was, will the people rally t.
the support Of the government Finally
the immortal Lincoln announced official
" to the country that the forts and arsen
ais were attacked, and called upon tn
people and authorities to rally to it
support.
, it was for such a cause, and undc