their posterity, they gave to the wheels of progress and civilization an accelerated motion never known before. The light of liberty carried with it every where the light of intelligence. Under the protection of freedom's sword the schoolhouse was erected, and to day we have fortyone millions of educated people, something that no other nation has or ever had. The statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World" is but emblematic of what the principle of freedom, embodied in our Constitution and laws and inspiring our people, is doing for mankind. France is free, and stronger, richer, and happier than at any other period of her existence; Brazil has thrown off the panoply of monarchy and put on the robes of a republic; the Governments of the Old World are growing more liberal, and there is hardly a people within the pale of civilization which has not been impregnated with the leaven of liberty by the inspiration which they have received from the salutary and impressive example of free and progressive America. Then, young men, we pray that you, who have been educated to be peculiarly the guardians of the Republic, may never forget that liberty is the soul of our institutions and our laws, and that fidelity in maintaining them is the first duty of both the soldier and the citizen. This les son has been most faithfully taught you here. Let no negligence cause you to forget, and no temptation induce you to disregard it. Let your patriotism be as firm as the giant mountains which surround you, and as enduring as the broad river of beauty which runs at their base. Let the escutcheon of your country be the dearest of all emblems to your hearts. Think of all that it signifies, and the stirring memories which it must arouse in the minds of all true soldiers and good citizens of the nation. Why, young gentlemen, who can look upon that grand old banner of the Republic, whether it flaunt its gay colors in the sunlight, or hang, bullet pierced and battle worn, at the masthead, there, the record of brave deeds upon many a heroic field of battle? who can remember its history-the exploits and achievements of our countrymen which it has witnessed; what a grand story it could tell if it had consciousness and a tongue; what perils it has encountered; how it has passed them all and floats more proudly in the face of the nations to-day than ever before-without a prayer in his heart that it may never be trailed in the dust of defeat and dishonor, but in the future, as in the past, yet for thousands of years to come still victoriously brave the battle and the breeze. Love of country, pride in the achievements which have shed luster upon it, is an attribute of every civilized people which has or has had a country to love and revere. I will venture to say that among all the immigrants which have come to our shores you have rarely found one whose eye has not kindled and his heart quickened at the mention of his native land. When the heather of Scotland, its rocks and its cairns, its friths and its lakes, its glens and its mountains, its great men and its heroic his tory cease to live in the heart and animate the soul of every Scotchman, wherever he may be, then the nature of that people will have radically changed. Just call his attention to them and see how quickly he will manifest his feeling of affection for them, and he will not let you go before he has sensibly betrayed his pride in his heritage in the fame of the sweet songs of Burns, the exploits and achievements of Wallace and of Bruce. The Frenchman will tell you that there is no laud like beautiful France, no history like her history, no record of heroic achievement like that which she has displayed from the days of Charles Martel and Charlemagne to the last great battle of the mysterious and wonderful Napoleon. The Dutchman will point to the dikes and canals and many monuments of his country with patriotic pride. And the Irishman-yes, the Irishman, whatever be his condition, whether he be carrying a hod, digging a ditch, or living in prosperity and wealth-is ever ready, upon the smallest provocation, to throw up his cap for his own green isle of the ocean. And so they all do. They love their country because it is their country; because it is the place where they first saw the light of existence; because it is the land of their lineage and language and the scene of all great and glorious effort in which they can claim a heritage. We love our country for all this. We love it for its grandeur; for its great rivers, its broad prairies, its gigantic mountains, its splendid scenery, its fields of fertility, and its mines of wealth. We love it for its institutions of learning and beneficence, for its unprecedented spirit of enterprise and unparalleled progress in all that a people desire and a nation should be proud of; but above everything else, we love our country because it is the land of liberty, the asylum of the oppressed— the one great home and fortress of freedom upon all the face of the globe-and on this account, not for ourselves alone, not alone even for our children and our children's children, but for mankind, we will fight for its existence, labor for its prosperity, and contend for its honor and glory. Indeed, we know that to maintain our institutions is necessary, in order to uphold the exalted position of our country, insure its advancement, and conserve the manhood of our people. For while men make institutions, the latter reciprocate in turn and make the strength. Russia, that before the days of Peter the Great, was a nation of poltroons, and in the early campaigns of that monarch saw its armies driven like scattered sheep before the columns of Charles XII, of Sweden, by training and discipline under the influence of strong institutions, has become one of the solidest and bravest nations upon earth. Rome, once the mistress of the world; the land of heroes; she who by her intrinsic, manly stamina could cope with the blazing genius of Hannibal; could produce her Caesars and Scipios and Catos by the swarm, after the overthrow of the grand old republic and the destruction of her institutions, while still, to be sure, gathering up for a few generations the splendid fruits which the republic had ripened, began to decay, and ceased not the process till she became a land of bigotry and of beggars. Greece, yes, classic Greece, in the rich halo of whose hallowed memories we so much delight to linger, her physical powers excelled only by her mental conceptions which may almost with truth be said to have been divine, saw the deathblow to her manhood in the destruction of her institutions, and she has been dying all down through the ages, like the expiring dolphin, showing in her transition the varied colors of beauty with which genius in her lifetime had endowed her. Why, to-day the sun gilds her marble mountains and warms the green sides of her valleys as in days of yore, but the stout hearts which once defended them and the quick spirits which caught their impressions and transferred them into language or upon chiseled stone are gone. The river of her sacred nine still flows, but no more do the muses frequent it. The place of her Delphic oracle still remains, yet none presides or worships at it. There is the same beauty scenery, the same hills and streams, the same blue sea, the same gorgeous sun to shine upon it, and the same kind heavens to bend over it all. And it is all as lovely and impressive as ever. Yes, beautiful and inspiring it is still, but it is the beauty of splendid ruin, the inspiration of the great, brave, regretted dead who, even from their ancient tombs, can effect our spirits. "Tis Greece, but living Greece no more." Her institutions have departed and the manhood of her people has decayed. Oh! let us hope, and let it be our effort, too, so far as within us lies, and especially your endeavor, young soldiers of the Republic, that vice, corruption, and want of patriotic feeling may not ripen our institutions for destruction's scythe, so that the friends of humanity shall one day here lament over the sad spectacle of an effete people walking among the ruins of a once great and glorious nation, but let them rather look up to behold and admire its still standing columns of strength and beauty shadowing a brave, virtuous, sturdy race. To this end you have been educated at the nation's expense in this most excellent institution. Its thorough discipline and instruction in all that goes to develop the brave and patriotic elements of your natures must have prepared you to be your country's steadfast supporters and gallant defenders in every future emergency whenever your services shall be demanded. Indeed, I can not but feel assured, while looking upon your manly bearing and knowing something of the training which you have received here, that in the career which is before you you will not disappoint the highest expectations and fondest hopes of your countrymen. WAR 95-VOL I—52 |