The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-14

of the southerners in justification of slavery had been swept away by the irresistible logic of our northern ora tors. But the purpose to perpetuate slavery, night or wrong, still remained They, said: We will pass laws and change the constitution, and compel the northerners to become slave catch ers;' we will extend it into the territories and make a slave state for every free one" The north said: You shall not" and here the struggle to the death com- menced. Our boys dropped the peaceful instruments of industry, took up their rifles, left their homes to burroW on the plains of Kanses. They said to the southern rabble: "We have come here to live on Gods free sail, and no slave power shall be established within range of our rifles" The southern horde re- turned home, and Kansas, under the banner of freedom, marched into line with the free states of the Union. The first battle was won, and our boys came home flushed with victory to be crowned by friends and lovers of lib- erty. Did they lay down their arms? No; the battle for freedom had just commenced. The righteous appeals from the press, pulpit and our states men aroused the conscience of the north and reached the most distant plantations of the south. They could no longer endure the sting of truth which pierced their shields at every point. Goaded to desperation, they tore down the "Old Flag" and when we saw rebellion in arms and heard the boom of canno, without hesitation we leaped into line with that invincible army of patriots, who, undismayed, moved on- ward with the omnipotence of right, through shot and shell, by land and sea, piercing the heart of rebellion The thinnig ranks were filled until a mil lion men had left their northern homes to save the Union or die in it's defense. Our flag was unfurled on six hundred battlefields, armed rebellion was crush ed, the Union saved and slavery turned to freedom
 The ''old flag" with stars twinkling in a blaze of glory again threw out it's rippling folds to the breeze from the dome of every capitol, city and forti- fication of the redeemed south. The ter rible sacrifice of life, the vast expen- diture of six thousand millions of dol larE, were trivial compared with the magnitude and importance of the vic- tory achieved. Our trophies were not only honorable scars, empty sleeves, wooden legs, and itattered banners, years of sacrifice and broken constitu- tions, but a united country, and a mil qion chains plucked from the necks of brothers irI bondage, whom God and Lincoln and the heroes of the war have declared forever free.
 Tonight we are once again i'm sacred memory and affection with our com rades of thirty years ago. We marvel at their deeds of valor on those stub bornly contested battlefields, extending from ocean to ocean. We hear, again, the clash of arms and the roar of bat tile, the groans of the dying and the shouts of victory. We tread reverently upon the earth which drank the hot blood of our heroes and martyrs, we listen mounfully to the fife and muffled drum beat, as with said hearts we lay them tenderly away on the southern hillside, or under the pines, and bid them a last farewell. We remember the forced march, the camp fires, the bivouac, under the blue canopy of heaven, on fields and in forests. We watch and nurse them as they waste away in hospitals or starve in Ioath- some rebel prisons, rendering them a last kindness as they are dying of nor- tai wounds from which no human skill could deliver. Through weary days and nights of hardship and peril We hear no murnur or complaint. The object to be gained by the sacrifice was more to them than life.
 This is not an idle dream of fancy. but a faint shadowy outline of a terri- ble, but sublime, reality.
 Our nation placed a crown upon the head of the fair daughter of liberty, more magnificent than that of earthly potentates. She stands peerless in ma jesty; under her feet the fallen foe of liberty, her arms extended to the op- pressed 5f all nations, her crown above the storm clouds gleaming in the sun light or perpetual peace, SC long as time and immortality endure.
 LIVING PEN PICTURES OF CRoTO-
 MAN DAYS.
 Mir. President and Brethren Of L. s. o.