The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-05-31

stirring appeals and victorious leader
ship of that sloven the peoples battle cry
of victory, and Oliver Cromwell became
the hero of liberty and the rights of man.
In 1920 small company of men, believ-
ing and deeply feeling that the individual
man is everything, left the expressions of
the old world and founded a government
in this new world on the exalted principle
or civil and religious liberty and equal
rights for all men.
We know what masters laid the keel,
/, What workmen wrought the ribs of steel,
Who made each mast and sail and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers stroke y
1t is true that the seeds of liberty were
waited TO US from Holland and from
England, but it took root under our free
sky, pure air and virgin soil, and we
sent back and sowed through all Europe
the same blessed truths which emanci-
pated US England, Russia, Austria.
Italy, ireland are now feeling the power
of that idea. There are governments that
lstill say that men are not born equal,
that the people have no rights which
crowns should respect. But the cry OF
the masses thunderS round the world to-
day: Not the king, not the priest not
the royalty not the nobility, not the
president, not the money power, but the
people are the masters.
/ OF the same character of this long line
of historic events in that sublime declar-
therefore, the representatives of the
: United States of America, in general
Congress assembled, appealing to the Su-
prefne JuQSe OF the WOflQ Tor tne recIl-
tude of our intentions, do, i'll the name
and by the authority of the good people
of these colonies, solemnly publish and
declare that these united colonies are,
!. and of right ought to be, free and in
dependent states
There is one more act in the develop
ment of this wonderful philosophy of his
tory to which l want to refer. The great
rebellion Of 1861 is the elimination OF the
working out by mighty forces of the
problem of self-government 1t was the
lac
for liberty and the rights of the people
1t was the contamination of eighteen cen
turies-the full fruition of hopes long de-
ferred.
1 propose to turn back the telescope of
memory today over that great period of
our history with which some of US are
too familiar, but which must not be for
gotten, lest the lesson which 1t teaches
should also perish. l am apprehensiVe
that such review may provoke criti-
cism. But the occasion of the hour and
the perilous condition of our country to-
day impel me 10 speak plainly of the
past, earnestly of the present, and hope
fully of the future. For when the sons
of God came to present themselves before
the Lord, Satan came also among them. -
In the wonderful growth of the Ameri-
can republic two antagonistic types of
civilization We'd with each other for SUI
premacy. They were born antagonists
and conflict between them was irrepres-
sible. The one type started from James
town and spread along the Southern
:
of the south, bearing upon its aristo-
!; cratic coat of arms the emblems of the
imperious cavaliers of Charles l., from
; whom they delighted TO trace their orr
gin through the first families of Virginia,
; and yoked to their slow car Of progress
! was the growing engine of slavery
The effect of slavery was the corrupt
ing of morals and conscience and the
paralyZing of the life blood OF public en-
terprrise. Under its influence the whole
!; south went wrong, and the pioneer spirit
for the APValOnmp0t n f M tarritO1-U
: opposed and finally crushed to the death.
The other type of civilization leaped from
the. Mayf1ower to Plymouth Rock, I'M
furled its banner of freedom, and began
its conquest of the battle-cry. 1t swept
along the coast of the Northern Atlantic
to Manhattan island where among the
Dutch settlers the spirit of William the
Silent had been planted.
: See the rapid growth of freedoms dom
ination. Under the mighty impulse of a
! CINE of free labor it rolled onward
through New England and the middle
states, swept over the heights of the AL
leghenies, down the great. valleys of
and Iowa, hurrying and laughing over
desert and plain, hating not in the pres
ence of the Wasatch, Sierra Nevada or
last in exultant joy under Italian skies
and on the golden fields of the Pacific
slope.
This triumphant host carried as their
coat of arms the peoples inalienable
! rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. Their political gods were free
thought, free speech, free press, free la
Dor, free school and free ballot They
bore as their credentials the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man.
Their number increased so rapidly that
had reached over 100000, while that of
the slave states had less than 100000
The leaders of the south had sought to
meet this overwhelming flood of free
dom's host. First they clothed themselves
with a representation in Congress based
upon a ratio of their slaves.
!, Then they passed the fugitive slave law,
1.-The most cruel insult that was ever Of
fered by men given over by fate to fatu-
ity." Then came the Kansas struggle and
the repeal of the Missouri compromise,
and finally the contemplated changes in
the constitution by which slavery should
be as national as liberty. Dark times
were upon us from 1856 to 1860, when 1t
; looked as if God intended to break this
; nation in pieces to teach the world the
terrible guilt of human bondage. l was
only boy of from ten to fifteen, but
day that my mother gave me birth, and
H. do not remember an hour in those
dark days in which my soul was not on
fire for the rights of man.
: My parents were antl-slaVery ana our
country home was a refuge for many
/; a fleeing slave. In the great contest that
seated Stephen a; Douglas, in the United INIT ed
was a summons to battle. "a house di-
vided against ITSELF he said, cannot
stand. l believe this government cannot
:! endure permanently half slave and half
free. l do not expect the union to be
dissolved. 1 do not expect the house to
fall, but do expect it will cease to be
divided" On this issue he fought the
presidential campaign of 1860. Memora-
BILE year, The nation had been march
ing up to it for nearly century IN
November the people asserted their Will
at the ballot box and by 1870 votes out OF
3O3 in the electoral college, freedom
!, placed the invincible wand OF power IN
the hands of that Incompatible and in
icorruptible American patriot and states
man. Abraham Lincoln.
, '0Those whom the Gods would destroy
they first make mad
!, The south recl1lessly attacked the funda-
mental principles OF popular government;
that the majority must rule. Again ana
again the slave power had elected the
president by the same, processes, ana me
iaw-abiding people of the north had cheer-
fully accepted the will of the people But
when the descendants of the yeoTnan, OF
Cromwell and William of Orange, elected
a man who would do the right as God
gave him to see it. come what would,
they madly began to FIRE upon the stars
and stripes that waved above the grim
walls of brave old Fort Sumpter. Xividly
recall that Sunday morning, April T. 1851,
when the news reached me that the nag
had been fired upon. [ had been. taught
that my countrys flag of stars repre-
sented the past, the present and the flu
ture of my country itself What? What
flag fred upon?
/ President lincoln in his first call to the
| loval people of the north for $4,000 troops
clearly set forth the issue of the inpend-
ing Struggle. Il appeal" he said Ito
all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and
aid this effort to maintain the honor, the
integrity and existence of our national
union and the perpetuity of popular gov
eminent, and to redress mTonSs 4lre -. d4
I call some of you responded, and the muster
in song was taken UP all over the north.