The Republican journal., 1914-06-04
Memorial Day in Liberty.

one of the finest addresses ever given here
A new feature of the exercises was the march
ing at 180 p. m. of the pupils Of the villsg
schools, with the superintendent of school
and the teachers, to the upper bridge. wher
they cast flowers upon the water in memor!
of those who gave their lives for their countr!
when in the naval service. Capt. John
johnson in q brief address explained the oh
servance of this custom. This duty perform
ed the children, with the members Of E. H
Bradstreet Post, G. A. R., marched to tht
church. where the following program wal
carried out. Opening remarks by Commander
Hon. L. G. Morse; prayer by Mr.. Charles S
Adams of Searsmont; singing of America BY
the choir and audience; reading Of genera
orders by Capt. J. o. johnson. Adjutant Of
Bradstreet Post; solo, columbia. the Gem Of
the Ocean," Mrs. C. M. Hurd; reading Of Lin
coins Gettysburg address. very impressively
done by Ralph I. Morse, Esq, of Belfast
Then Mr.. Phillips. the orator of the day, was
introduced and spoke as follows, holding the
close attention of his audience until the close
Fifty-three years ago the 18th day of last
month broke over these peaceful hills and into
the lovely vale of our Georges River the news
| that civil war, the most remarkable in cause
and significance known in human history. had
rent our Federal Union in twain. and arrayed
citizen against citizen. friend against friend,
| brother against brother, in the horrors of
strife and blood that in course of four years
| dyed red zone of our freedom-boasted United
States of America We schoolboys had read
and dreamed of wars, of the conquests of Cyrus
the Persian and Alexander the Greek. of Han
nibal. the Scipios and Caesar, of Charlemagne
and Napoleon; but in their motive, appeal to
the worlds judgment. and ultimate effect on
the destipies of mankind. they have no parallel
with the War of the Rebellion of 81 to '65, in
the century of the birth of the adult citizens
who observe the solem tiles of this day.
The world had wearied of vainglorious and
self -enriching conquest. the helmed-headed
mail-fisted militarism of spoIiation. The al
legged divine right of kings had been rebuked,
and human slavery in the western half of the
Old World had quite completely broken its
fetters by inherent causes; the teaching of the
philosophers, the benign influence OF Chris
| tianity, many a monk, even. rebuklng the Inn
perial entertainment of the slave gladiator in
the arena and advocating the release of all
slaves passing with realty to monastic instltu.
tions: and when crowned heads, wearled Of
ducal coronets fashioned into rival crowns.
have sought for props to their thrones. they
have always bowed to the great sub stratum
0um8nlLys
villains and vassals, the hard historic UNDER
graduates of freemen.
While the best blood of the Huguenots. the
Puritans and the Quakers on both sides of the
Atlantic was wrestling with principalities and
powers for suppressing the heinous African
slave trade, started by the Portuguese before
Columbus had discovered this western world,
had fairly succeeded, and had well nigh sue
ceeded in stamping out slavery itself, that ac-
cd inst ifJfin n n
same British, French and Dutch descent
was planted anew in the new colonies of
America. In the Southern States of the
United States of America. dedicated to freedom
and the inalienable rights of man, the last
great g. and for human slaverywas made-made
as a bold bluff of democratic, republican insti-
tutions, bolder even, than the bluffs of the
Republics Of Genoa and Venice in the middle
ages.-made in arrogance, as every arrant
wrong is made.
| Men W no cry down our National heroes, some
thoughtful men, quote Abraham Lincoln as
saying, off it were necessary to save the
Union with slavery existing, l would so save
the Union;" but Mr.. Lincoln knew, too sadly
knew that he must face a cause array led
against a cause sphere arrayed against
sphere, that the cause and the sphere were
inseparable from the seeding States. and as
surely as he faced and crushed secession, so
surely would come the opportunity to hit
slavery, even as in earlier days he had said,
"By Heavens, if the opportunity ever comes to
me, I'll hit it hard"
The Fathers of the American Union looked
with aversion on the slave system, but had
they not tolerated it at that stage of our his
tory, the Union could not have been formed,
and we might have continued to this day
part of the British Empire. Washington in
his will provided for the emancipation of his
slaves. He said to jefferson that it was among
his first wishes to see some plan adopted by
which slavery in his country might be abolished
by law; and again wrote that to this subject
his own suffrage would never be wanting.
John Adams declared his adherence Of slave
holding, and said that every measure OF pru
dence ought to be assumed for the eventual
total extirpation of slavery from the United
States Franklin, Madison, Hamilton and
Patrick Henry reprobated the system. Jeffer-
son declared that, in the presence of the insti-
tuition. he trembled for his country when he
remembered that God was just.
In the contemplation of that monstrous aber-
ration. fraught with evil to both master and
slave, and for deliverence from it. whence and
to whom was our fair Columbia to turn Let
the imagination follow her through marts an d
halls of learning and military posts IN quest OF
a wise and brave leader for the conquest of
that supreme peril. eventually turning to q
log cabin in a lonely wilderness. Within the
smudge and odor of pine pervade. A boy lies
sleeping on a couch. His limbs are uncouth:
his raven locks are tangled: half dried tear
for his dead mother is on his bony cheek.
scrap of bark, tackled on the wall, shows that
he has essayed to write his name-name for the
high rolls Of destiny- name that will live when
names of emperors are forgotten.
Did thus the age Of mirth high heaven mark
With melancholy's cast of shadows dark.
Willing that guileless youth might SO begin
To bear the burden of the Nations sin
Was this, indeed, wilderness lone cry,
hot EHao min nCf
die?
Must wealth and genius. flower Of all the land.
Call this sad lad, and kiss his oil-cramped
hand,
Invoked the bond of Union to maintain,
When iron storms rivers of blood should rain?
Persons of the same parentage, reared in the
same household, but differing in mood and
temperament, may digress from harmony to
hostility, and that too Of the most bitter type
The same is true of public sentiment. the per-
sonaity of the aggregate thought Of different
sections of common country. The original
States OF the Union subordinated all local diff
ferences in the interest of common cause of
offense toward and defense against an external
oppression. Sue cessful in that the men of the
northern States nurtured the principles of free
labor and popular rights. while class of men
| in the southern States, some of them from the
north, built up system of slave property and
oligarchc rule under the forms of democracy,
tolerant of the rest of the country so long, and
only SO long.cs there was subserviency to their
local conditions. The territorial expansion of
the Nation and the limitation of slave territory
spelled doom to the dictatorial political supre-
<nf fhn f0nV tn Atf koo