The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-10-17
NUMBER 80.
GETTYSBURG OCT. o, 1880.
Senator Edmunds's Magnificent Address
to the Assembled Veterans.

dETI1SbUhG OCT. 4s 1851.
Senator Edmunds's Magnificent Address
to the Assembled Veterans.
To-day, on battlefield in the great
State founded by William Penn, the
fOl lemost man of peace, we dedicate the
monument our small and distant State,
the child of war, erects to the memory
of her soldiers who shared, somewhat
conspicuously, IN the great and decisive
battle that in 1868, very near the ami.
versaIy Of the founding of the Republic.
was fought to victory for liberty and
law along the now sunny and silent
wales and hillsdes where it stands,
among many similar memorials, pdrS
inter pdreS.
In the great success of the worlds
progress scenes and characters change
rapidly. The time is not far pasta
mere span in the history of civilization
when the fair landscape we now be-
hold filed with homes Of an intelligent,
free and prosperous people, were part of
vast wilderness Of forests, desolate in
everything save the untouched exuber-
ance Of nature and the presence of the
savage and nomadic Indian. A little
later the Anglo-Saxon came and the for
ests and the Indian gave way to the slow
advance Of farms and shops, of churches
and of schools. A little later these
young societies were engaged in a NOR
tai struggle OF arms to relieve themselves
from tyranny and oppression and to es-
tablish for themselves and their posterity
forever a Government in which the
security of private property, personal
liberty and freedom of thought and
speech should be the corner-stones
commonwealth of equal rights in union
with other commonwealths, and union
Of the people of all in a Nation. All
these traditions were, though rapid when
seen in the perspective of history, slow,
painful and costly in detail; the hard
ships OF immigration and pioneer life,
the dangers and disasters from hostile
savages, the jealousies and feuds of per
sonal ambition and discomfort touched
somewhere, almost daily the life of the
colonial period the struggles of mex
perienced, ill-clothed, and ill-fed and
poorly armed soldiers made still more
difficult by the want of real unity and
confidence between the newborn States
of the Confederation characterized the
war period Of the revolution; and the re-
formation of the Government, when in
dependence of the British crown had
been achieved, into Government of the
people as well as of the States, with the
adjustment of boundaries, debts and tax
alton, marked the period Of the early
years of our established republic as one
of the most critical that had yet ap-
peared in the history of the Continent,
AT last the hopes of patriots began to be
realized, and the several States of the
perfected union entered upon career of
development and prosperity in the pro-
portion-and no other-to the tunda-
mental principles and practice upon
which the State governments were
founded and carried on.
The States in which equal laws were
equally administered for the preserva.
tion of the just liberties and equal rights
of all the people far outstripped those in
which slavery was feature of the socia
and political system. in every element
and step of civilized progress.
The inevitable elimination of these
politically but hostile social SYSTEMS
came in the Rebellion of 1861. 1t lasted
long enough, under the providence oi
God, to enable the friends of liberty fol
all the human race to eradicate by JUS
and lawful means the crime and curse o.
slavery from its place-secure before
in the governmental systems of all tn;
States that still continued it, and to pu
all the people of all the States upon the
common footing of equal, civil anC
political rights. Thenceforth there mus
be in law, and might and ought to be II
practice, one people, and a union o
States, whose laws in respect of intrinsic
human rights, which our Declaration o
Independence asserted were everywher,
slike.
The immediate origin of the Rebellion
is familiar to us all. The slave-holdinl
States repudIated the confessedly fai
and constitutional election of a Presi
dent who believed in liberty for all, anC
who, it was certain, would not promot,
the interest of a slave system, or defenC
them beyond such clear line Of duty a
the constitution imposed upon him. o.
this ground and this alone the rebellion
under the false name of secession
which Gen. jackson had obliterated 81
years before-was Inaugurated and car
ried on. 1t was unique. believe sucl
rebellion was without precedent o.
parallel in any country at any time. Ii
the abundance Of struggles against th,
constituted authority of States anC
kings, am sure none can be found il
which the effort was to overthrow |
Government devoted to lawful liberty
and to build one whose chief corner
stone and whose sole reason to be wa
the preservation and maintenance of hu
man bondage.
1t was to defend and maintain the Ma
tional Government against such an as
sault that our citizen soldiers-as well Al
the brave and patriotic of other States
left their avocations of peace in farm
and shop and store, in school and offic,
and pulpit, and came to this and many
other fields of conflict, and gave thei
lives to a cause that can never become
unworthy or obsolete, and won wreatt
of honor that can never fade.
But even now, after a quarter of cen
tury,i is apparent that the full and fina
benefit and beneficence of the great sac
ritice is not yet reached. In many o.
the old slave-holding commonwealth
there has existed, and continues to b,
methodically practiced a systematizeC
repression of the liberated race, and o.
those white citizens who defend it
rights OF free speech and lawful voting
and which not only robs the citizens oI
all other States of the full weight o.
their just and lawful influence in the
legislation OF the country. but which
in it's various forms of fraud, tyranny
violence and cruelty, sets at naught thost
essential principles of social order an6
morality, without the practice of which
no free and Christian society can exist
These things affect the welfare and the
true life of every part Of the Republic
and 1t is the duty of every citizen ol
whatever race, creed or party, to exerl
himself to bring them to an end. Until
secure and peaceful freedom and equali
ty, both political and civil, come tC
every citizen of every State, these mon
uments will not have shown their full
and true significance.
am not reviving what flippant and
willy politicians are so fond of calling
1.-THE bitterness and hatreds of the war.
There never have been any such senti
ments in the hearts of the citizens who
stood for the unity of their country 9th