Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1899-05-31

ly clear or noble. Ii has sometime.
degenerated into rant and boasting; i
has sometimes been obscured and cor
rupted by injustice; but | believe the
nation has never wholly lost the SENSE
OF peculiar duty and the hope of pc
culiar glory. When at last the
test came and the mother land sought tc
set up her long.neglected authority. a
nation was ready to be born, capable OF
government; capable because for q
hundred and fifty years it had been gov.
erning itself. Then how wonderful,
yet how natural too, the operation OF
those forces that united the colonies
scattered from the Penobscot to the
Savannah, bakers dozen of petty ma.
tions. sturdy and brave, but independ-
ent of each other, and jealous to main
tain that independence. See how the
heavy hand of oppression was laid upon
these separate and uncompromising peo-
pies with blow after blow that welded
them into fierce, united enemy And
then see how they learned to take coun-
sci together, and frame from the COM
mon wisdom measures for the common
defense. See how each was asked to
give up something of its own rights that
the dearer rights OF all might be secur-
ed. And when the war was over and
won, and peace returned to an impov-
erished people, and the old narrow con-
tentions and jealousies revivcd-through
that wellnamed Critical Period of Am
erican llistory,' between Yorktown and
1889, when more than ever in the perils
of war the future of the nation grew
dim-see how the great men born or
bred in that era, Washington as ever at
their head, trained by that conflict and
by fellowship in service to have faith
in one another, and to see the necessity
of union--see how they brought these
jarring and rebellious fragments of
war-worn continent into the indestruct-
ible bond of the Feueral Constitu-
ton.
OF that uprising, North and South, of
the stress and strain of that long strug-
gle. of the crucifictions of anguish, of
the splendors of heroism, of The wounds
even yet unhealed, it is not my wish to
speak today and if it We're. you little
lcssening band of veterans, center and
source of all these ceremonies. you
speak to us, and for us, Of all this. !
merely pause at this transcendent pas
sage in our annals to ask if that war,
with all its terrible, unparalleled cost,
was not the means of lifting this people
out of the slough of scltishness to the
broad highway of Il nobler national
life? Was it not like the blow that
st,ns the drunkard into sobrirty? Did
it not all work to a higher end than
soldier or statesman planned in the be-
ginning? Did you not enlist to save the
Union? Did not Lincoln assure the
South and North alike that he would not
lift a finger to unrivet The fetters of the
slave? And was not the highest utter
ance he ever rcuched, before the procla-
nation itself. this? 81 would save the
Union with slavery | would save the
Union without slavery; would save
the Union"
When man made a republic, he not
only made it unsafe to be unjust, he
made it impossible. When he based
his government upon the Declaration of
Independence, he turned the house Of
bondage into a tenancy IL: will. When
he mave ignorance the ballot, he staked
his own existence that he would bring
ignorance to the light. Wien he said,
"LabUr is lIonorable." he settled ii that
in the end labor should receive wages
that would enable it to live honorably.
When he said. "raXation without rep.
resentalion is tyranny" he gave bonds
that in the end woman should have the
ballot. Great truths are dangerous to
lyrants. When IL man has done one
noble deed, he has made it impossible
ever to be mean again without II blush.
\ In all The confusion of questions
that have arisen with and followed our
war with Spain, nothing is more clear
than that our first shot across the bows
of The Spanish merchantman opened Il
new chapter of international law.
"IIappy are all free peoples too strong to
lie dispossessed;
But blessed are those among nations who
dare to be strong for the rtst!''
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