The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1892-06-02
MEM ORAL ADDRESS
BY SENATOR SPOONER.

other people an annual obs ervance in all
things the counterpart of this. lis music is
both the exquisite minor of mourning and a
gladstone song of thanksgiving and praise.
Il is at once a funeral and festival. II is
not in the order of nature that it should
speak in the same language to all who wit
ness it. To those of US who face the sun
set sky 1t touches the numberlesS chords Of
with eager eyes to the reckoning angel up
on the summit it is a wonderful page of his
tory. To those who muster among these
graves in the old faded uniform tits loving,
soTrowing tribute of comrades to those who
have gone into camp over the river. To
those, alas that there are SO many, who loan
ed precious jewels from the household, never
more to be returned, it brings the white rose
into the cheek and the old keen pain into
the heart, that pain which the years may
soften but cannot cure. To all who appre-
bend its full signifc ance it is the full blown,
perfect blossom of peoples gratitude.
Against the flood ofmemories which surge
down upon US from that marvellous epoch
memories of hope and fear, OF anger and pity,
of JOY and sorrow, Of farewells and greetings,
of triumph and defeat-we are as powerless
as child in a storm al sea.
The tumult and passion which blinded US
are gone. The dark clouds which then
sometimes lay between US and the truth are
passed away and with the keener sight and
vantage ground Of spectators we look with
calmer judgment upon the pageant Of which
we formed part. Time, the solvent of doubt
and the corrector OF error, throws the great
fash light of truth upon it all. How vain
seems to US now the hope, so earnest in
those days, that profferS of compromise, car
ried even to the outward verge of humilia.
ton and cowardice, could turn away the
gathering storm; or that the pathoS of Lin
coins inaugural, appealing, aye praying,
to the men of the South, by their love of the
old flag, by the common heritage of glorious
memories, and by all the hopes of the future,
10 return again into their fealty to the Union,
and, keeping step to its music, 10 march on
ward and upward as one people until govern
lllCll Oii lIlC Cdl LII SHOuIu (SdSC. SOtIu
other answer than insult and defiance. 1t
was conflict between ancient enemies, in
no wise peculiar TO our time or to our peo-
pie, quarrel which from the beginning has
narshaied in hostile array against each other
the men of every aye and of every cline.
TWAS already as far beyond the reach Of
human adjustment. save in Gods own way
as is the order of me seasons in their coming
and their going. 1t was a trial of all issue
joined before our time, and projected into
the future by those who long preceded us.
The men out of whose patriotism and wis
dom came the constitution under which we
live (the most nearly perfect instrument of
government ever wrought out by the mind
of man, as well adapted to the sway of
numbered prosperous states as to the young
republic to which it was first given) them
selves placed in that instrument the poison
which was to work corruption of blood in
the body of polite, but, unwittingly, they
placed by its side the slow working ant,dote.
They found with fixed habitotion among us
the system OF human slavery, with its natur-
al home in the sunniest, if not the fairest,
section of our domain. You will remember
it was demanded as a condition OF emer-
genCe from the weakness OF the Confedera-
ton and of the formation of "a more perfect
union,' not simply that the ownership of
man by man should be recognized in the
constitution, but that there should be coup
led with slave ownership political power.
And thus came with the birth of the Union
and as part of its fundamental law, the
compulsory but disgraceful discrimination
that in the North the people should be repre-
scented in the congress and in the electoral
college, while to the southwark of US the
people and their human property, men and
women and children, owned and shackled,
bought and sold, should enter into the basis
of representation. Here, you will observe,
was linked with a recognition of human
slavery, as an institution TO be protected,
weighty premium upon its preparation and
extension. And so the children Of Africa
were not simply to toll without rccompense
in the cotton field and the canebrake, under
the burning sun and under the blisteling
lash, but their trembling bodies were 10 be
the dark corduroy ofan everlengthing high
way, over which the master, whip in hand,
was to ride to the throre Of sovereignty in
the land.
As hunger for power grows with what it
feeds upon, the oligarchy builded upon OPP
preston, waxing fat and insolent, demand
ed not alone that slavery be left unassaied
where it was, but that its black banne.
might be carried wheresoever the master
willed into the territory of the United states
This it was which brought upon US the long
continued and bitter struggle for the extern
sion of that institution. This it was which
forced upon the free man of the North the
repulSive function of the slave catcher 1t
was but the philosophy Of history that the
aggression of slavery should beget the resist
ance OF liberty, and out of this critical but
peaceful conflict Abraham Lincoln, who, all
unknown to him and to us, was to become
the quaint apostle of human liberty, the
messenger of new evangel upon this CONT
nent, was chosen to be the chief magistrate
of the United States, ard out of this conflict,
too, was born the scheme of secession, the
attempt to form an independent slave gov
eminent out of a fragment of the Union, and
the war of resistance and rebellion which
followed. We cannot fail to see, and it is
worth noting and worth remembering, that
in the progress of events the very safeguard
inserted in the constitution by the friends of
slavery for its protection became in their
own hands the weapon which was to do it to
death. True, with sincerity we denied that
II was any purpose of the war 10 make men
free. True: the apparent and primary strug
gle on the one hand was to enforce the law,
and to protect the prosperity of the Union,
and on the other the pretext of resistance to
tyranny, but to-day il is known of all men
that the pivotal ground for revolt and war
was the irrepressible conflict between free
dem and slavery. The muse Of the Quaker
poet in those days sung the truth, albeit to
unwilling ears and 10 incrcdulous minds:
What gives the wheat fields blades of steel?
What points the rebel cannon:
What sets the roaring rabbles heel
On the old star spangled pennon!
What breaks the oath
OF the men of the South!
What whets the knife
For the Unions life?
Hark to the answer: Slavery"
And out of the agony and bloody sweat
we learned the bitter but rever 10 be forgot
en- lesson that ''the moral law is written on
he tables of eternity" and ''for every false
word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and
oppression, the price has to be paid at last ;"
Il IS as true OF nations as it is of men that |
,ume against liberty or against honor or
against conscience, in its own way and in |
Is own time, brings its adequate punish
TPDf