The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1896-06-04
FLOWERS AND T0IMBS
Continued from First page,


with such eloquence and pathos as did
athe mighty host Of patriot dead who
sleep their last sleep in the national
cemeteries, which was privileged to
visit at Knoxville, Nashville, and
Chattanooga. In these three GENE
terles are buried almost fifty thousand
soldiers. Some of them beneath the
very sod upon which they yielded up
their lives that the nation might live.
Most of them died in the vigor of early
manhood. Many OF them were the
boys who before treason fired upon
Sumpter filed the homes of the North
with JOY and hope, but who at the first
call OF duty forsook their peaceful
aVocatlons, left their quiet homes, and
under the starry flag cheerfully
marched away to encounter all the
trials, priyations and hardships of a
soldiers life. With a spirit of self
sacrifice which few can hope to emu
late they built wall of human hearts
around the Temple of Freed ON, that
it might be saved to us and to GUN
children, but they themselves, alas!
persisted.
Their blood has enriched and hal
lowed even the soil OF treason and to-
day they sleep far from the homes of
their CHILDHOOD, in serried columns.
under the flag they loved, and with
but a simple headstone to tell their
fame. In the eight cemeteries estab-
Hshed by the national government
more than three hundred thousand
who wore the blue, lie buried, and of
this mighty host, almost one-half are
nameless. Not only their lives but
their names were blotted out that the
nation might live.
The dead, they yet speak, and with
far more eloquent voice than can be
uttered by the living. The death of
these patriots proclaims and empha-
sizes, especially on day like this, the
odiousness Of treason. Treason is the
worst of crimes, and we should never
speak Of it, but with the deepest de-
testation. Pestilence, famine, fire and
Hood may become national calamities.
but neither one, nor the other, nor all
combined have so much power for evil
as treason. Treason drenches a land
with blood, thrusts men into
untlmely graves, fills the land
with widows and orphans. Treason
turls the sails of commerce, palsies the
arm OF trade, and brings poverty and
bankruptcy upon a people. People
should teach their children, orators
the people, and statesmen the nation.
that treason is a cruel crime. And
what can give us a more deep seated
horror OF this worst of political sins,
than to heed the voice which comes. to
us from the graves of our sacrificed
soldiers. What caused their sufferings
from hunger and thirst, from scorch-
ing sun and biting frost? What,
opened their gaping wounds? What
heaped upon them such unutterable
wrongs as prisoners of war, and finally
cast them into unknown graves? But
one answer can be given. It was
treason, causeless treason, and all who
died from the work of it's bloody hand,
testify to the enormity of that crime.
l would therefore, do injustice to the
living and dishonor the dead, if [
should class together those who fought
for the Union and those who fought
against it. The observance of this day
would be meaningless, if I should make
no distinction between those who
fought to save the Union, and those
who died to destroy it. [ cannot ig-
more the distinction between patriot
ism and treason between the highest
political virtue and the lowest political
crime. Those who fought for the
preservation Of the Union were right,
and those who fought to destroy it,
were wrong, and this truth can never
be falsified by any sickly sentimental
ity.
It was heroic, but heart breaking to
fight so long under the stars and bars,
and to sacrifice so much, when the only
government that could have been es-
tablished under the flag of the ''Lost
Cause" had the ''Lost Cause"
triumphed, would have been govern
ment based upon the principle that
labor should henceforth exist in
shackles, while on the other hand, to
those who fought for freedom and the
flag of their fathers, it was the most
soul inspiring contest in the annals of
time
have sometimes thought, that, if
the erring states, when they ATTEMPTED
to withdraw from the union, could have
taken with them the old flag, they
might have succeeded, but with the
stars and stripes in the hands of loyal
men of the nation, the union was.inde-
ctp,1cti h1o