The Yale expositor., 1898-06-03
AN EXCELLENT
ADDRESS.
WAS THAT GIVEN BY DR.. SMITH, OF ST
CLAIR, AT THE M. E. CHURCH IN
YALE, MEMORIAL DAY.
COMMANDER, LADIES AND GENTLE
MEN AND COMRADES

lent address by Mr.. Tappan, to which,
we have just listened, it seems as if
nothing remained for me to say. Still
there are facts relating to our national
history which, though old, are forever
new and two days must stand pre-emi-
nent in that history: July 4, the birth
day of the Great Republic, and May
30th. the day on which we commemor-
ate the heroic self-sacrifice of those
whose valor preserved us nation. a
great poet has declared "Blow, blow
thou winter winds, thou art not so UNI
kind as mans ingrattude," and others
have asserted that "Republics are UNI
grateful" but today the grandest Re-
public that the world has ever known
by action more potent than words,
stamps that declaration as false. In
the days from 81 to 90 about 100000
men died that the Nation might live
and today more than 33 years since the
last gun was fired, the American peO-
pie from the Penobscot bay to Cape
MendOcino and from the Great Lakes
to the Gulf, true to the memory OF
these fallen heroes, with one accord,
turn aside from the busy avocations OF
life and with floral offerings make
their yearly pilgrimage TO do homage
at the shrnes of our hOnOred dead.
These ceremonies say that though
gone from us they are not forgotten.
Translated to the Nalhalla of heroes,
they are embalmed in our hearts and
garlanded in affection. No matter
whether they died on the field of bat
tie or 10y wasting disease as the years
rolled on. They perilled life that the
Nation might live, and today the peo-
pie of the ransomed Republic, with
faithful memory, loving hearts, tender
devotion and fadeless gratitude, offers
the tribute of unceasing veneration to
our lameuted loved and lost.
These men lived and made history in
times when the American people were
a nation of fighters. In those epic
days of our country's history they
truckled not TO Mammon, but in the
spirit of lofty manhood boldly stood
for principle. Their lives were a grand
epic of patriotism, liberty and love OF
man. Devotion to humanity, sealed
in blood, entitled them to the highest
honors. Some fell by the wayside in
the long wearisome march; some sue
cumbed to disease in the pestilence-
breeding swamps; some poured out
their hearts blood as they scaled the
enemy's ramparts in the very forefront
of battle: some fell where the REBEL
ion, reaching its high water mark,
dashed in pillows of steel and sheets
of flame against the adamantine wall
of their loyal hearts; some with souls
unflinching looked starvation in the
face in the prison pens of the South
and there far from home and friends,
exchanged their rags Of blue for robes
of white. rather than prove false to the
dear old flag; and some, fleeing for
their lives. were torn TO pieces by blood
hounds sent upon their trail by an UNI
feeling and relentless enemy. But in
whatever circumstances they were
placed whatever hardships and hor-
rors they were called upon to endure,
tried as by fire, they were ever true to
the flag OF our country.
How well do we remember those
fateful days of 81. a President had
been elected in conformity with law
The capitalists of the South, who claim
ed a right TO live by the sweat of other
mems brows, believing they could not
extend the institution of slavery into
the territories determined to break NJ
the government they could no longer
control. Under their guidance state
after state passed ordinances of seceS
sion: a new and hostile government
was instituted at Montgomery; oul
national arsenals, forts and other prop
erty were seized: the United States
officers were expelled from large par
of our domain and the steamer Star o
the West bearing supplies TO the nat
ional garrison i'll Fort Sumter wa
fired upon in Charleston harbor. Up
on all this the authorities at Washing
ton looked with complacence. Ma.
more the Secretary of the Navy scat
tered our fleets, not in the South, t
the remote parts of earth; defalcatlol
existed in the Department of the Inter
ior. while the head of the War Depart
ment exhibited the amazing spectacle
of q man publicly sworn to sustain tn
government, yet privately betrayin
it, by sending our arms and army int
the seeding states where they coul
easily be seized by the Nations foes
Stranger still was the position of on
chief executive who, while all this wa
TRANSPORTING, simply read the constitut
ion and found in it no power to coerc
Estate or that of the Attorney Genel
al who declared that "the Union mus
utterly perish at the moment whe
Congress shall arm one part of the pee
pie against another"
Under these circumstances the ne
administration came into power. l.
forts at Cancellation were tried an
failed The insurgents, emboldened b
their previous immunity, precipitate
the conflict by assailing the little Carr
son in Fort sumter. That shot fire
upon the old flag dispelled the North
illusory dream of peace, and whe
there followed, through her presiden
Columbias call to arms the Ian
awoke. In that hour of our Nation
peril the appeal came not to our lit
standing army, but to the logical cit
Zens OF our common country; not
those whose profession is war, but
those engaged in the pursuits of peac
Such an uprising followed as the wor
had never witnessed. The mechan
dropped his chisel and seized the swor
the farmer left his plow to carry mu
ket, and men of all pursuits, wheth
merchants, shOemakers, blacksmit
or tanners, left the implements al
-. l..Na