Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1890-06-07

Persians, and The glories and tradi
tiols of history would have been dis
persed and separated like the trivial
assets of an insolvent partnership.
| The sacrifices and the achievements
of the pioneers of our civilization
would have been IN vain. Bunker
Hill and TiconaSroga and Yorktown
the heroes of all our wars, the elo-
quence of all our sages: the achieve
ments of the fathers; all that is in
spring in our history, all that is re-
splendent in our example, would be
sentences to-day in the schoOl-books,
legends of all that is dead.
Had these comrades whose graves
we have decorated with flowers to-
day not died for the flag,
LIBERTY UPON THIS PLANET
would have been an epithet, and pop
ular government would have been a
definition; freedom of thought, of
conscience, would have been empty
phrases, whose meaning would have
been sought in the dictionaries and
not in the statute books of free
people: our past would have been a
catastrophe contemplated by ty-
| rants with derision and by their vic
tins with despair; our present would
have been an armistice, with stand
ing armies in every capital and gar
rison, and fOrtresses and custom
houses upon every frontier; our flu
ture would have been an abyss
which no foresight could predict and
against which whose dangers no safe
guard could have been found.
"Other wars, MIR. President, and
comrades of the Grand Army OF the
Republic, have been fought for con-
quest; they have been fought for
ambition; they have been fought for
revenge; they have been fought for
dynasties and for the thrones; but
no such passions animated the souls
of the soldiers of the Republic They
went to battle for ideas; they endur-
ed the march, the bivouac, hospitals,
wounds, diseases, hardships and
death to save our cities from sack
} our homes from spoliation, our flag
from dishonor and our country from
destruction, in order that all men ev-
erywhere might be free, that the
States might be understandable, that
the Union might be indissoluble and
J that this nation might be perpetu-
al.
Ideas, comrades of the Grand Ar
0 my of the Republic, are immortal
they never die; they cannot be ami
? hilated; foes do not destroy them
1t may sometimes be made inconven-
, lent or uncomfortable to express
them, but they never become extinct
4 and have sometimes thought what
would have been my emotions, what
would have been your emotions, had
the endeavors of
I THOSE WHO HEADED THE REBELLION
4 in 1861 been finally and fully accom-
e plished.
/ Suppose the dome of the Capito
e had stopped to its base, and it,
y ruins been mirrOred in the placid
II wave of the Potomac that flows n
;. the foot of it's declivity, suppose thai
:, Robert Toombs and those who fol
: lowed him had fulfilled his insOlven-
q menace and called the roll of hi,
/ slaves in the shadow of Bunker Hill
II suppose that slavery had been tn,
8 fundamental law of the Republic
, suppose that the glorious Stars anC
e and disgrace and defeat before tn
Is Stars and Bars; suppose that tn
u Union had been held to be but a rOp
q of sand depending upon the within o
u the caprice OF any member of thecon
federation, what would have bee
is our emotions, what would have bee
n your emotions, had that prevail
3 ed?
ii 81 confess for myself that l shout
Is never have ceased to implore tina
} all men everywhere might be free
ne should never have ceased to hope
III struggle, that sometime, as the re
20 suit OF some desperate battle in til
d. future, the Union, glorious and re
splendent, would have been restored
| should not have failed to have keI
he inIsOme sacred repository, the star
re and stripes, which were the symbt
IT. of the honor and the emblem of I'll
in glory of my country-which | shout
e have taught my children to retail
he with endless sOlicitude and with a
fectionate veneration.
g. 81 said, fellOw-citizens, that ides
d. were immortal and | am willing I
cir cOncede TO our adversaries the san
IN, rights, the same privileges, the san
OF beliefs that claim for myself, al
le- in view of the occurrences of the la
va few days in the extinct capital of tt
TN Confederacy, am inclined to belle
on that the only regret that our adve
OF saries felt in that great controYerl
IN is that they failed to succeed.
lily have no desire upon this sacred c
es- casion, upon this Sabbath day of o
We institutions, to revert to any su
nd ject, to refer to any occasion, to de