Year: 1868

bhe unreturnlng brave whose graves, nameess and
unknown, ridge all our land. They rest in valley
and on mountain aide, by river and gulf and sea-
they rest well, and


g The night davis that weep


en brighten with Ferdus The graves where they sleep


Side BY side. the blue and the gray, they rest
those who died to save our land-those who died in
the msd effort 70 destroy it. We pay this day our
honors TO the one tears for both for both were
our brothers. and both were brave Over the cold
ashes Of the dead let the lips that cannot bless be
silent.


Not one of all those rich lives. would we have
parted with TO add continent to our territory But
now that the storm Of war has passed and its last
mutseriugs have scarce died away, and we stand
lace TO face with the desoatoas it has caused-even
while we gaze on the wrecked hopes, and crushed
hearts, and desolated homes, and ruined communi-
ties, that this most secursed rebellion has wrought
we can still see that all this is not unuixed evil


Already as the skirts of the storm cloud lift and the
sun breaks through, we breathe purer air Foul
mIssma that elung around us have been burnt up
by the lightning OF war and healthier tone per-
vades the community. When this rebellion broke
out, the whole air was clammy with treason and
I " faint perplexing dread filed every heart and
palsled and helpless government seemed sinking
with the weight of its own rottenness, corruption
and imbecility.


To-day perpexing problems are before US, and
difficulties and perhaps dangers are along our path
but we stand nation redeemed, strong in fact and
more than all strong in the CONSCIOUSNESS of strength
We are to-day stronger than before the war in our
faith in humanity, eur belief in the American peo-
! pie, and our trust in God. Old political hereses
have been swept away, and our people taught many
/ essons of wisdom. We have looked once into the
fearful gulf of disunion and no American will dare
gaze there again. Our institutions have been on
I trial, and they have triumphed. We had sailed
prosperousy through four score years of peace but
many nation with institutions less perfect than
ours had done the same 1t remained to see whether
we could ride out the tempess as well and the world
held its breath while the test was made We have
done It, Through those fearful years Of civil war
the machinery of government rolled quietly on, and
quietly without tumult or tyranny pursued its one
grand object of quenching the flames of civil war
The government provided by the constitution of our
fathers that simplest and most grand of human ef-
forts, was proved sufficient in its calm reliance on


the virtue Of the people alike for all the exgences
of peace and Of war


The conflict of ages was here being fought out
conflict that sooner or later must have come and
that no human power could avert The old centu-
ries of gloom, old feuda systems of wrong marshall
led their forces on this dread Armageddon From
the SUBMITS OF the pyramids forty centuries looked
down on the battling hosts of Napoleon All the
ages to come gased this fight for the battle was
/ theirs The victory on the side Of humanity,
truth and God; and the great bell, whose strokes
tell the cons Of eternity, peaed in a era when
the work was done. IL was revolt Of darkness
against light Of the deed past against the glorious
future of slavery, mad with rage at its shortening
time, against freedom. It was as il the uncouth
forms Of dead monsters petrifed and imprisoned for
ages in the rocks of EARTH had burst their granite
bars, and waged horrid warfare with the living II
was in vainG Let the weak mortal who would stand
upon The track, prepared where the coming ages are
TO roll and strive with the rage Of his punv arm TO
push back the mighty wheels, know that he must be
crushed in his attempt. The world moves on and
will move, for God has decreed it, and TO those
who shall stand in the way The conflict and the
fearful price of victory ours but our children
and childrels children shall reap the fruits and the
coming centuries join in the pean.


Our standpoint to-day has its look the fu-
ture and on the past, and in the midst of hope
and triumph We turn TO mourn our dead.


We remember that man who. under God, led us
for four years through that red see of blood and
tears, whose sympathizing heart made each drop in
that red sea its own, who met the assassin at the
gateway Of the Promised Land his patient eye had
sought and died martyr there. No attending
angels bore him TO secret burial, but nation wept
around his bier and world stood sad and reverent-
y by as the sacred clay was borne 10 its final rest
He came TO the seat Of government like fugitive,
when the of the republic seemed setting forever
That sun Ehone bright over land redeemed, when,
his work all done, bis fe's mission accomplished,
he rode conqueror crowned, in slow triumph TO his
! long home.


What triumph was his No captives in chains
wept behind his chariot wheels but the blessing of
those ready to perish went up TO heaven, and the





By the pale wreaths that decked his car all laurels
fade. nations heart pulsed in slow throbs
as he passed along. The voice Of people in tears
was his triumphal hymn.


In the midst Of his people let him rest while our
monumental mountains stand guard, and all winds
that blow 8 reunited land, and our rivers roll
ing "unvexed TO the sea tell the story of his fame
No monuments with cold marble lips can tell the
gratitude and pay to the great departed, and
TO ali that army of martyrs whose liVes have been
given for US, but their memory shall be kept while
marbles crumbe and the pyramids sink to dust
| And TO those surviving, who have come back to
us SCARED and batte-worn, TO them we tender ma
| tion's gratitude and love. Worthy sons of noble
sres their names shall be honored while the nation
they have saved grows Old Side by side on many
homestead wall hang the blades that pointed the
way through our mountains in 63, and those that
cleaned in '76, Strong arms are ready to WELD
them again whenever their country shall call, and
if in the future the darkening clouof invasion or
rebellion, shall dart its lightnings acrossenr sky,
swords their sleep their cabbards shall leap
And conduct with their points fash to the deep
! We are proud of our country; we believe in the
American people, and that they will prove IN the
/ future what they have been In the past. We OF
| East Tennessee are proud of her. The men who
| fought at Kings Mountain and the Cowpens live
still in her valleys and her rugged mountain
sides, and from the days of 76 10 the present the
/ free instincts of the mountaineer have led him
! u.
the world began her home has benin the hills and
her native air, the imprisoned breath that sweeps


the cool mountain top and rings ~ the panthers cry
and the eagles scream. Whatever may come in the
| future-whatever community or State may prove
/ false we here amid the everlasting hills that sem
| tinel our land for ourselves and for our children
pledge East Tennessee Sor loyalty and freedom for
| ever. -e


We accept the conditions Of our destiny, and the
discipline Of difficulty and trial that is given TO edu
cate the nations. Not shutting our eyes TO the df-
fculties and burdens still before and upon us
cheerfully and hopefully meet the one and take up
the other trusting in the God who has through the
past ages prepared our high destiny and has been
training us TO fulfill il. On this day sancti6ed by
the deeds Of fathers, and rebaptised n blood by
oar brothers-the one Sabbath Of our land, mem o.
ralizng alike our nations birth ard her bloody re-
denlption we turn or eyes in waiting hope TO that
sure time, for which during eternity the way has
been preparing, TO which al earths storms and tu-
| muts have tended, when war shall cease, and the
nations, bound by the iron threads of commerce and
intelligence, shall be as one, and earths long, sad
mserere shall give place 10 the loud universal Al
! leluiah, whose echoes shall roll into eternity.
/ Already faint prophecies of that coming time
whisper on the sir--eYen now tho eastern sky red
dens with the Millennial dawn, and far of noun
tain tops catch the glow that shall deepen into eter
nal day.


Yet not the less for them lheu,
| The eternal step Of Progress heats
! 70 that great anthem, calm and slor,
] Which Gcd repeats.


| Take heart the Wsster builds again


a charmed .H s Ss O.q so0qnisi INT ibe nss ep
Is not for death


| God works in all things; all obey
His FIRST propulsion from the night
/ No wake aud watch the world is gray
With morning light.


Let the words OF the great dead be ours With
malice towards mona with charity for al, with firm
ness in the right God gives US to see the right
II. a. ~. IN q