The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1903-06-02

4
one finds the statue of the great COM
mander, of the loyal public leader, but
the monument seen everywhere in both
North and South, the one most en-
blematic of the actors and the tragedy
of Civil War; is that of the private
soldier. In that stern and simple fig
ure, without plume or epaulet, is proof
of the republics impartial gratitude; a
gratitude which also shines in the bene-
| flee of pensions and flows in the tide of
nations sympathy on each Memorial
| day.
But after all, the heroes of the Civil
War on either side need no shape, of
granite nor of bronze to make their
fame survive. Great deeds are more
lasting than the rock. The monument
reared to them receives more immortal
| ity than it confers. There was once a
stone lion set up in the narrow pass
where 300 Spartans fell in defence of
native land. For twice a thousand
years no lion has been there, but who
1 has forgotten Leonidas of Thermopylae
and his little band of fighting men?
There Is today lion of stone on the
! field of Waterloo, but long after 1t shall
! have crumbled into dust, men will re-
call what happened there to make the
| lion typical. Bunker Hill needs no
carven epitaph, nor does Gettysburg
nor Appomattox. What was done there
lives in history, in the pride Of men, in
the everlasting grip Of English speech.
in the common human love of great
deeds and of brave men.
| The full debt of America to you, vet
Grams of the Civil War, has not yet
been written on stone nor revealed by
voice, nor inscribed by prophecy. No
one has cast it up and no one can do so
in this age. He must have a long
perspective who sees the Civil War in
all it's phases; perhaps centuries will
have to pass before the full meaning
and effect of that conflict will appear.
But few things we may set down now
in the record of your deeds which time
is not needed to attest, and which have
already fixed their place in history.
1 You saved the Union;
You saved the South from itself;
You saved the republican idea to
humanity. This much is yours forever.
In saving the Union you made pos
sibe the world power which the Union
has become. You made it continental
and the arbiter of this half of the globe.
It's peaceful gain in wealth was greater
in the twenty years succeeding Lees
surrender than in the previous eighty
years; and that gain dates back, in
large degree, to the feeling of business
faith and national pride which your
victories conferred. Out of the military
virtues shown on both sides of the war
has come a special and peculiar
strength to the restored Union; and
this has done much to raise the nation
ha nd TO ha
Union you preserved has become
more widespread and powerful state
than was the empire of Julius
Caesar.
You saved the South from itself. The
Confederacy wagered it's hope of life
on the idea of secession. on the right of
political suicide. The edifice of it's civil
power had a corner stone of dynamite,
it's frame work was of matchwood and
it's tenants had the vested right, IL
things went wrong, to set the place on
fire. Had the South won, it's victory
would have spelled defeat; the Confed-
eracy must have finally been broken
into smaller ones by the working of it's
own principles-by sovereign States
seeding from it; and in the end there
would have been a group of little slave
holding oligarchies, without strength at
home or respect abroad BY keeping
the South in the Union in spite of it
self, you made it great and rich; and
it's chidren's children will yet rise up
to bless you for it.
You saved the republican idea to the
world Had it been proved that a re-
public is only a rope of sand; had it
been shown that it could not be held
together under the strain of its own po-
litics; had it been made clear that peace,
order or continuity, must have the
strong arm of empire behind it-then
every liberal appeal in the politics of
the world must have been stifled and
every king would have been stronger
on his throne. Now there is not a
country on the map-not even Russia
or China-where the success of this re-
public in war and peace does not weak
en- the grip of one-man power; where it
does not inspire the hope and raise the
spirit and mark the future of democ-
racy.
But veterans of the Civil War, such
success begets envy, such prestige
rouses fear and the republic must be
ready at all times to defend itself and
its mission in the world. We begin to
hear the mutter 30 trade conspiracies
against us; there is picking at the
Monroe doctrine; there is an effort on
the part of one eager and surly rival
to outclass our naval strength: there
is a spirit of unrest which BODIES no
good to peace. While General Grant
was writing his great book, in his last
days. he said: Growing as we are in
population, wealth and military power,
we may become the envy of nations
which led us in all these particulars
only a few years ago; and unless we
are prepared for 1t we may be in dan
ger of a combined movement being
some day made to crush us out" /
turn from Grant to Bismarck and find
this comment made in the last days of
Germanys man of Blood and Iron:
'In estimating future events we must
keep an eye on the United States of
America, for they may develop into