Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-06-04
H0N0RING THE DEAD.

HON0klNG The DEAD.
A Perfect Day and Large Num-
Der of People Assembled to
Pay Tribute to the
Memory of our Country's Heroes
Beautiful Flowers and Flo.
quent Speeches.
The custom of meeting annually on the
S0th of May to decorate the graves Of
those who lost their lives that our country
might be preserved, was very fittingly
observed in this place last Friday. This
custom was inaugurared about twenty
years ago, and has spread until today it
is the most generally observed and the
most sacred of all our holidays. The
strewing of flowers, the patriotic
speeches and the sermons of the ministers,
are the strongest forces we have for in
culcating spirit of loyalty and patriot
ism in the rising generation.
The speaker of the day, Ex-Governor
A. r. McGill, arrived on Thursday
evening accompanied by Judge Hicks
and Comrade Merchant, and reception
in the form of camp fire at the Grand
Army Hall was held in the evening. 1t
was most enjoyable affair, participated
in by members of the Post, w. R. c..
and Sons and Daughters of Veterans.
Remarks were made by Ex-Governor
McGill, Judge Hicks and Comrade Mer-
chant, after which refreshments were
served and the balance of the evening
gwen over to stu-y telling and recount
ing the experiences of 81 to IS.
At 10 o'clock Friday morning the pro-
cession was formed in front of the Grand
Army Hall. headed by the Austin Cornet
Band with Company G. as escort to the
veterans, and marched to the cemetary,
where the following address was de-
liverep by Ex-Governor McGill:
The causes which led up to the great rebel
lion of 1861 and the terrible war which followed,
have been so frequently and exhaus1ively dis
but repetition - the lhreshingover of old
straw-for.me to repeat them here. The real
cause was human slavery. 1t was the primal,
intermediate and final cause, and no argu-
ment however ingenious can get away from
this fact. Goaded to madness at what they
regarded as eucroachments on their peculiar
institution, as slavery was termed, the south
ern people rebelled against the government,
and by force of arms attempted to free them
selves from all governmental partnership with
the northern states and to set up new gov
ernment of their own-a southern confederacy
composed only of slave states.
In justification of this overt act of treason,
this wicked attempt to break down and
destroy q government at once the most
equitable, enliRhted and just, and at the same
time the least restrictive of the rights and
privileges of its citizens. of any government
known to civilization-our southern friends
have pleaded the first law of nature, self-pre-
servarion-or rather. which was tantamount
with them. the preservation of slavery. The
status of public sentiment in the northern or
non-slaveholding states at the beginning of
1851 was by no means one of violent opposition
to slavery. There was a strong and growing
sentiment in favor Of restricting it to the
territorial limits it had then attained. but
within those limits it is no: too much to say
the people Of the north would have voted by
a very decided majority not to laterfer with
it. In the light of public sentiment to-day on
the question oflhuman slavery this may seem
strange Observation-Disclosures it is true
To avert war many concessions were proposed
by leading statesmen of the north, in the halls
of congress and OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES which,
by reason of the advanced and more enhght-
ened public sentiment would at this period be
pronounced dishonorable. But our southern
friends would hear to no concessions-listen
to no compromises. The abolitionists, whose
strength lay rather ia the justice and right
eousness of their convictions, than in num-
bers, had frightened them to that degree that
nothing but complete separation from all the
free states would satisfy them.
The election of Abraham Lincoln to the pre-
sidency in November 1850 was made the pre-
text for secession, and his Inauguration in the
following March the justification for war.
How strange this seems to us now! This great
man-now so noted the world over for his
goodness. patience, justice, mercy and wis
dom-Wickedly set up as the cause of the
greatest war known to civilizatIon! The pre-
tense Vas false and cruel-neither secession
nor the rebellion which followed ever had any
ground of right, law. equity or humanity to
| stand on. And while there could be no ade-
auate compensation-no o6setting gain-for
the hundreds of thousands of noble lives
sacrificed to sustain and maintain the govern
ment against the rebellion-for the agonies of
grief suffered, the untold sorrows, and heart
aches-nevertheless the benefits derived from
it to humanity and civilization in the uplftiLg g
of man, in the quickening of his intellectual
activity, the expanding of his abilities, and
the awakening of his latent, sleeping powers
have been simply yimmeasurable. Slavery was
abolished by the war. 1t had proven blight
and curse to the country. Why it should
ever have taken root in the free soil of this
free land, is one of the paradoxes of history.
But like dark cloud 1t settled down over the
southern states, apparently as q fixed and
permanent institution. The war swept it
away root and branch forever, and while the
whole country bas been relieved of vile
stigma by its extinguishment, the south itself
is the greatest gamer. No state or country
| could permanently prosper while perpetuat-
ing SO great wrong against humanity. IN