Norwich bulletin., 1921-05-31

realize that the interval between Ply
 mouth Rock and Bunker Hill was the |
 prenatal period of this country, we shall better understand the crudity of it's life. | It was the period of beginnings in which the unborn child was gaining strength | for it's birth hour the first throes of which i
 were realized at Lexington and Concord. 1 In the Providence of God the way was | being paved for the advent of Washing ! ton and his compatriots who were to es- tablish a mighty republic on foundations l l laid by these early settler and strength |
 ened by their successors. The Revolu- l tioni1Ty war was simply the putting into
 definite shape the developed colonialism
 of Bradford. Brewster and Winslow. l This little nation was brought to light | through grit, sacrifice and holy fighting 1 by the sturdy farmers of Massachusetts i at Bunker Hill and the heroic planters of Virginia at Yorktown, just as it's pres
 ervation was secured nearly a century
 later by you at Newburn, Fair Oaks and 1 Gettysburg. These are the permanent
 things that belong to the organic life of a l people Patriotism, loyalty. self sacrifice
 are the threads of gold running through
 the fabric of our national life. Without
 these great human characteristics no na-
 ton can long survive.
 l have spoken of the assertion of fun | damentals during the Colonial period, and
 the founding of a nation upon them in the war of the Revolution. Now l come to the period of Emancipation in which
 you had an active part. But what were those agencies that made emancipation necessary l. will be remembered that
 two different currents have been run
 ming along the stream of our political
 life without mingling. The one. and the the most dominant one was the principle
 of democracy started at Plymouth and
 swept westward the other was spirit and practice of aristocracy started at
 Jamestown and swept south and south
 westward. The latter was subversive of
 the very foundation of a republican form of government. It repudiated the doc
 Urine that all men are born free and equal; it believed in triumphant might
 that has been the supreme curse of the
 ages; it believed that if ones blood was
 blue, it had wealth. power, worldly i distinction he might lord it over the less
 fortunate and hence the sharp class dis tnctiors that prevail in the south. But he carried his aristocracy a step farth- CT and said that the black man. the lea ast , fortunate of all. shall be my chattel, my slave. And in making the black man his [ slave, he justified Wendell Phillips awful arraignment of slavery as giving the lie ) 70 the Constitution of the United States
 W ttS ltL N-ltlittt I IlilllpS tiillltlA tpt ? rect in his criticism? The Virginia
 planters fought England in order that 7 they might be free men. But at the same time they clutched the black man [ by the throat and said You shall be my slave Was not this directly opposed
 to the provisions of the Constitution? But slavery proved itself an awful in- l cubus on the life of the south. Although = 1t gave the south free labor it did not % br-f7oc- yrpaT-b Era1 IahQ1- or pres . has never yet made any nation rich. At o length slavery got such a strang.c hold s on the life of the south. that far sighted t southeruers saw that the time was com y ing for the curb bit. But they were SC 9 hampered by family u ss and other con. d alterations that they lacked the mora It courage to act At length the great Je . hovah acted in sending us the second It Moses, Abraham Lincoln. And Lincolr 1t heard just as clearly as Moses did thu q voice of God saying, Let My people go :! e It was Lincoln who touched the nerv, d center of the problem when he said: IN, l. nation can exist half slave and hal 10 free :" And that was the birth of th l. Emancipation, But to make emancipa g tign forever after an organic part of tn le republic. eight hundred thousand me- n bled. sickened and died. It was in thi IT noble cause Gentlemen of the Gran le Army of the Republic, that you enlisted y and for your comrades who fell in battle le and have since fallen in the battle o life, that we hold these impressive ser n vices And the magnitude of this devo lI tiCn to the memory of the dead soldie 2. may be fainUy grasped when we realiz that services like these are held in ever
 city and town of any considerable sig oI from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Cat CT The nation as whole recognizes. tn t. value of the services you rendered i 2. the preservation of the Union in the dar ne days Of the sixties. when our country wa 90 nearer the verge of the precipice than W an realized at the time
 e. There are two reasons which justif Ig the great Civil war in which you enGa, ld cd. One was to put down the rebellion In The South seeded and red upon one UT the country's forts, One of two thing n- had to happen, either the rebellion na ed to be suppressed or the Union dissolve on all know that was Lincoln's sole moti7 ne there was no other alternative. As V n2 all know that was LincoIn's sole mott, os in his first call call for troops. At fir CT he had no idea of the larger problem tn ar was ultimately thrust into his hands, | ne had to feel his way along, dictated I re- the trend of cuTr mt events. At the D 'eS ginning of his great administration Il n- country was in too great a turmoil
 lay ub VII st lbl- teICitlllS pOllCS cOfeTu ne his term of office. But Lincoln was ma velousiy accurate in interpreting t1 or voice of the times, and the great idea b ey gan to glow upon him that the Unit ger would not be preserved by merely crus o-n ing the rebellion with slavery still in e ire istence. Hence the second reason whi an justified the Civil war was the exterr seI nation of slavery. This was the logic IT. and ultimate conclusion of the act of in cession. It took a man of rare coura hS to attack so powerful an institution
 slavery. But Lincoln cut the cancer c act of our body politic and in so doing pc ry, old Columbia bled nearly to death. las was either the knife or extinction as tal democracy.
 al- The result of that operation. as md al lknow, is one of the great outstandi re- facts of human history. It is quite Q the dent that an overruling Providence h ars some high destiny in store for this I ein public, for she lived through the criti, the hour but the cost in precious hum and treasure was something awful. Becal
 in America puts a just estimate upon ven terrible price that was paid for f res country as proclaimed in our Consti ent- ton, services of this character are h ,rld
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