The Red Cloud chief., 1912-04-25

named this settlement Lexington.
Exactly three weeks following lex
lngton, the fortress Ticonderoga, was
surrendered to the command of Ethan
Allen, "in the name of the Great Je-
hovah and the Continental Congress-"
as ne led less than u hundred screen
Mountain Boys"
Remember that these things han
pened more than u year before the
great Declaration, but they were the
beginning: and the end was not to be
Tor eight long years of privation, star
walton, and sickness and death and all
the horrors and all the glory Of the
war.
Exactly eight years later, April 10.
1888, Washington proclaimed the war
at an end, eighteen months after the
surrender at Yorktown, and the first
great crisis in our national existence
was passed.
There grew then, for nearly seven.
! W nve years, a great new nation, ex-
panding, developing, progressing. The
great men, by whose courage and
wisdom, under the hand of God, the
nation had been clothed and fed, were
iaid aside as worn out tools, and a
new scene comes to us in the life of
tnis young hero country in which are
new people, new forces, new issues.
On the body Of the tree of liberty
nad grown two great blights-the
doctrine Of the supremacy Of the state
over the Union, and the practice Of
slavery. These had their advocates
and opponents and, as before, the ten
sion grew so great that it seemed the
house of the nation must divide
against itself.
! The rumblings and mutterings were
heard for many years.
ANA mere l want to pause to nav
some tribute to a character to whom
Tribute is, in my judgment, due, but
Is not generally given. We read of
MN as great General but not as q
great President. We know him as a
South Carolinian, but not as one who
ny his wise acts and decision, saved
the breaking of the bonds Of Union
for at least thirty years.
His native state, afterwards the
first to secede, had passed what was
called a Notification Act, declaring
certain acts of congress Of no force
or validity in that state. It was on
the occasion of the Jeffersonian ban
'quet, April 13, 1880, Just thirty-one
years before the surrender of Ft.
Sumter, when the toasts and speech
es, among them that of Calhoun, were
almost open advocacy of secession.
The president had been put in this
crowd for the purpose Of drawing
him out and, If possible, committing
him to q recognition Of the claimed
right Of secession.
And in the face of that wave of Sc
cessiOn, and the powerful influence
which had then drawn away three
members Of his cabinet, not forget
ting the state whose son he was, in
the dignity Of manhood, the majesty
OF greatness, and the spirit of proph-
ecy, he announced as his toast, 1.-THE
preserved"
Such was Andrew jackson, the man
of decision; and it is said that after
wards one approached him with the
remark that II am about to return to
the state" and enquiring whether the
President had any message to his
South Carolina friends:
"Yes; ! have q message for my
friends Of South Carolina. Their state
is part of the Union and part of
the Union it shall remian. You may
tell them that II one South Carolina
finger be raised in defiance Of this
government that shall come down
there; and once there, I'll hang the
first man ! lay hands on to the first
tree ! can reach"
Not for thirty years did South Car
olina recover from the presidential set |
back.
Meantime the issues frightened and |
the tension increased.
Slavery was the primary topic. The
great Lincoln and Douglas debates
had made, the rail splitter widely |
known, and he was elected president.
For an interesting history Of these
stirring tines, IN. just % interesting
crilis 81 Winston Churchill. XII "'
Each element held back from the
delivery Of the first blow, the she'd
ding Of the first blood. Before Lin
,oln was inaugurated South Carolina
had adopted its secession act, the first
If the states so to do.
Ft. Sumter was on an island in
Charleston Harbor, garrisoned by
about hundred men under the COM
nand of Major Anderson, the only
Union tree in that vast forest Of Sc
,essiOn. A vessel sent to carry sup
plies to the fort had been fired upon
and turned back. Yet the break had
not occurred. Seven states had left
he Union, and seized U. S. property
worth $30,000,000.
What task had Lincoln!
TT. Sumter was the key to the har-
,or Of the chief seaport of the south,
except New Orleans. The provisions
we're low, and if not relieved, Ander-
'on must abandon it. The North could
rot yield the fort without acknow-
edging the independence Of the Con-
'ederacy. The south intimated that
my attempt to supply the fort would
IN onncidonoI n u, nnt nf .Inn innoln |