The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume IX Part 19

Gen. Hanc.o.c.k was the first arrival of importance. The Governor's Island band accepted this as a signal for the overture. The Academy was tastefully decorated. The three balconies were covered, the first with blue cloth, the second with white and national bunting, studded with the insignia of the original thirteen States, and the family circle with red. Over the centre of the stage the national flag and device hung suspended, and was held In its place by flying streamers extending to the boxes. The latter were draped with flags, relieved by antique armor and weapons-- shields, casques and battle axes and crossed swords and pikes.

At 8.05 the curtain slowly rose, and discovered to the view of the audience, a second audience reaching back to the farthest depths of the scenes. These were the fortunate holders of stage tickets, and comprised a great number of distinguished men.

Among them were noticed Gen. Horace Porter, Gen. Lloyd Aspinwall, Gen. Daniel b.u.t.terfield, Gen. D. D. Wylie, Gen.

Charles Roome, Gen. W. Palmer, Gen. John Cochrane, Gen. H.

G. Tremaine, the Hon. Edward Pierrepont, Dep't. Commander James M. Fraser, the Hon. Carl Schurz, August Belmont, Henry Clews, Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, Charles Scribner, Jesse Seligman, William Dowa, Henry Bergh and George William Curtis. Gen.

Bamum came upon the stage followed by President Arthur, Gen's. Grant and Hanc.o.c.k, Secretaries Folger and Brewster, ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling, Mayor Grace and the Rev. J. P.

Newman. Gen. Hanc.o.c.k's brilliant uniform made him a very conspicuous figure, and he served as a foil to the plain evening dress of Gen. Grant, who was separated from him by the portly form of the President.

Gen. James McQuade, the President of the day, rose and uncovering a flag which draped a sort of patriotic altar in front of him, announced that It was the genuine flag upon which was written the famous order, "If any man pull down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.' * This was the signal for round after round of applause, while Gen. McQuade waved this precious relic of the past. The time had now come for the introduction of the orator of the evening, Col.

Robert G. Ingersoll. Col. Ingersoll stepped across the stage to the reading desk, and was received with an ovation of cheering and waving of handkerchiefs.

After the enthusiasm had somewhat abated, a gentleman in one of the boxes shouted: "Three-cheers for Ingersoll."

These were given with a will, the excitement quieted down and the orator spoke as follows '.--The New York Times. May 31st, 1883.

New York City.

1882.

THIS day is sacred to our heroes dead. Upon their tombs we have lovingly laid the wealth of Spring.

This is a day for memory and tears. A mighty Nation bends above its honored graves, and pays to n.o.ble dust the tribute of its love.

Grat.i.tude is the fairest flower that sheds its perfume in the heart.

To-day we tell the history of our country's life--recount the lofty deeds of vanished years--the toil and suffering, the defeats and victories of heroic men,--of men who made our Nation great and free.

We see the first ships whose prows were gilded by the western sun. We feel the thrill of discovery when the New World was found. We see the oppressed, the serf, the peasant and the slave, men whose flesh had known the chill of chains--the adventurous, the proud, the brave, sailing an unknown sea, seeking homes in unknown lands. We see the settlements, the little clearings, the blockhouse and the fort, the rude and lonely huts. Brave men, true women, builders of homes, fellers of forests, founders of States.

Separated from the Old World,--away from the heartless distinctions of caste,--away from sceptres and t.i.tles and crowns, they governed themselves. They defended their homes; they earned their bread. Each citizen had a voice, and the little villages became republics. Slowly the savage was driven back. The days and nights were filled with fear, and the slow years with ma.s.sacre and war, and cabins' earthen floors were wet with blood of mothers and their babes.

But the savages of the New World were kinder than the kings and n.o.bles of the Old; and so the human tide kept coming, and the places of the dead were filled. Amid common dangers and common hopes, the prejudiced and feuds of Europe faded slowly from their hearts. From every land, of every speech, driven by want and lured by hope, exiles and emigrants sought the mysterious Continent of the West.

Year after year the colonists fought and toiled and suffered and increased. They began to talk about liberty--to reason of the rights of man. They * t asked no help from distant kings, and they began to doubt the use of paying tribute to the useless. They lost respect for dukes and lords, and held in high esteem all honest men. There was the dawn of a new day. They began to dream of independence. They found that they could make and execute the laws. They had tried the experiment of self-government. They had succeeded. The Old World wished to dominate the New. In the care and keeping of the colonists was the destiny of this Continent--of half the world.

On this day the story of the great struggle between colonists and kings should be told. We should tell our children of the contest--first for justice, then for freedom. We should tell them the history of the Declaration of Independence--the chart and compa.s.s of all human rights:--All men are equal, and have the right to life, to liberty and joy.

This Declaration uncrowned kings, and wrested from the hands of t.i.tled tyranny the sceptre of usurped and arbitrary power. It superseded royal grants, and repealed the cruel statutes of a thousand years. It gave the peasant a career; it knighted all the sons of toil; it opened all the paths to fame, and put the star of hope above the cradle of the poor man's babe.

England was then the mightiest of nations--mistress of every sea--and yet our fathers, poor and few, defied her power.

To-day we remember the defeats, the victories, the disasters, the weary marches, the poverty, the hunger, the sufferings, the agonies, and above all, the glories of the Revolution. We remember all--from Lexington to Valley Forge, and from that midnight of despair to Yorktown's cloudless day. We remember the soldiers and thinkers--the heroes of the sword and pen. They had the brain and heart, the wisdom and courage to utter and defend these words: "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." In defence of this sublime and self-evident truth the war was waged and won.

To-day we remember all the heroes, all the generous and chivalric men who came from other lands to make ours free. Of the many thousands who shared the gloom and glory of the seven sacred years, not one remains.

The last has mingled with the earth, and nearly all are sleeping now in unmarked graves, and some beneath the leaning, crumbling stones from which their names have been effaced by Time's irreverent and relentless hands. But the Nation they founded remains. The United States are still free and independent. The "government derives its just power from the consent of the governed," and fifty millions of free people remember with grat.i.tude the heroes of the Revolution.

Let us be truthful; let us be kind. When peace came, when the independence of a new Nation was acknowledged, the great truth for which our fathers fought was half denied, and the Const.i.tution was inconsistent with the Declaration. The war was waged for liberty, and yet the victors forged new fetters for their fellow-men. The chains our fathers broke were put by them upon the limbs of others. "Freedom for All" was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, through seven years of want and war. In peace the cloud was forgotten and the pillar blazed unseen.

Let us be truthful; all our fathers were not true to themselves. In war they had been generous, n.o.ble and self-sacrificing; with peace came selfishness and greed. They were not great enough to appreciate the grandeur of the principles for which they fought. They ceased to regard the great truths as having universal application. "Liberty for All" included only themselves. They qualified the Declaration. They interpolated the word "white." They obliterated the word "All."

Let us be kind. We will remember the age in which they lived. We will compare them with the citizens of other nations. They made merchandise of men. They legalized a crime. They sowed the seeds of war. But they founded this Nation.

Let us gratefully remember.

Let us gratefully forget.

To-day we remember the heroes of the second war with England, in which our fathers fought for the freedom of the seas--for the rights of the American sailor. We remember with pride the splendid victories of Erie and Champlain and the wondrous achievements upon the sea--achievements that covered our navy with a glory that neither the victories nor defeats of the future can dim. We remember the heroic services and sufferings of those who fought the merciless savage of the frontier.

We see the midnight ma.s.sacre, and hear the war-cries of the allies of England. We see the flames climb around the happy homes, and in the charred and blackened ruins the mutilated bodies of wives and children.

Peace came at last, crowned with the victory of New Orleans--a victory that "did redeem all sorrows" and all defeats.

The Revolution gave our fathers a free land--the War of 1812 a free sea.

To-day we remember the gallant men who bore our flag in triumph from the Rio Grande to the heights of Chapultepec.

Leaving out of question the justice of our cause--the necessity for war--we are yet compelled to applaud the marvelous courage of our troops. A handful of men, brave, impetuous, determined, irresistible, conquered a nation. Our history has no record of more daring deeds.

Again peace came, and the Nation hoped and thought that strife was at an end. We had grown too powerful to be attacked. Our resources were boundless, and the future seemed secure. The hardy pioneers moved to the great West. Beneath their ringing strokes the forests disappeared, and on the prairies waved the billowed seas of wheat and corn. The great plains were crossed, the mountains were conquered, and the foot of victorious adventure pressed the sh.o.r.e of the Pacific. In the great North all the streams went singing to the sea, turning wheels and spindles, and casting shuttles back and forth. Inventions were springing like magic from a thousand brains. From Labor's holy altars rose and leaped the smoke and flame, and from the countless forges ran the chant of rhythmic stroke.

But in the South, the negro toiled unpaid, and mothers wept while babes were sold, and at the auction-block husbands and wives speechlessly looked the last good-bye. Fugitives, lighted by the Northern Star, sought liberty on English soil, and were, by Northern men, thrust back to whip and chain. The great statesmen, the successful politicians, announced that law had compromised with crime, that justice had been bribed, and that time had barred appeal. A race was left without a right, without a hope. The future had no dawn, no star--nothing but ignorance and fear, nothing but work and want. This, was the conclusion of the statesmen, the philosophy of the politicians--of const.i.tutional expounders:--this was decided by courts and ratified by the Nation.

We had been successful in three wars. We had wrested thirteen colonies from Great Britain. We had conquered our place upon the high seas. We had added more than two millions of square miles to the national domain.

We had increased in population from three to thirty-one millions. We were in the midst of plenty. We were rich and free. Ours appeared to be the most prosperous of Nations. But it was only appearance. The statesmen and the politicians were deceived. Real victories can be won only for the Right. The triumph of Justice is the only Peace. Such is the nature of things. He who enslaves another cannot be free. He who attacks the right, a.s.saults himself. The mistake our fathers made had not been corrected. The foundations of the Republic were insecure. The great dome of the temple was clad in the light of prosperity, but the corner-stones were crumbling. Four millions of human beings were enslaved. Party cries had been mistaken for principles--partisanship for patriotism--success for justice.

But Pity pointed to the scarred and bleeding backs of slaves; Mercy heard the sobs of mothers reft of babes, and Justice held aloft the scales, in which one drop of blood shed by a master's lash, outweighed a Nation's gold. There were a few men, a few women, who had the courage to attack this monstrous crime. They found it entrenched in const.i.tutions, statutes, and decisions--barricaded and bastioned by every department and by every party. Politicians were its servants, statesmen its attorneys, judges its menials, presidents its puppets, and upon its cruel altar had been sacrificed our country's honor. It was the crime of the Nation--of the whole country--North and South responsible alike.

To-day we reverently thank the abolitionists. Earth has no grander men--no n.o.bler women. They were the real philanthropists, the true patriots. When the will defies fear, when the heart applauds the brain, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death,--this is heroism. The abolitionists were heroes.

He loves his country best who strives to make it best. The bravest men are those who have the greatest fear of doing wrong. Mere politicians wish the country to do something for them. True patriots desire to do something for their country. Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

Patriotism without principle is the prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to place. These men, these women, had courage and conscience, patriotism and principle, heart and brain.

The South relied upon the bond,--upon a barbarous clause that stained, disfigured and defiled the Federal pact, and made the monstrous claim that slavery was the Nation's ward. The spot of shame grew red in Northern cheeks, and Northern men declared that slavery had poisoned, cursed and blighted soul and soil enough, and that the Territories must be free. The radicals of the South cried: "No Union without Slavery!"

The radicals of the North replied: "No Union without Liberty!" The Northern radicals were right. Upon the great issue of free homes for free men, a President was elected by the free States. The South appealed to the sword, and raised the standard of revolt. For the first time in history the oppressors rebelled.

But let us to-day be great enough to forget individuals,--great enough to know that slavery was treason, that slavery was rebellion, that slavery fired upon our flag and sought to wreck and strand the mighty ship that bears the hope and fortune of this world. The first shot liberated the North. Const.i.tution, statutes and decisions, compromises, platforms, and resolutions made, pa.s.sed, and ratified in the interest of slavery became mere legal lies, base and baseless. Parchment and paper could no longer stop or stay the onward march of man. The North was free. Millions instantly resolved that the Nation should not die--that Freedom should not perish, and that Slavery should not live.

Millions of our brothers, our sons, our fathers, our husbands, answered to the Nation's call.

The great armies have desolated the earth. The greatest soldiers have been ambition's dupes. They waged war for the sake of place and pillage, pomp and power,--for the ignorant applause of vulgar millions,--for the flattery of parasites, and the adulation of sycophants and slaves.

Let us proudly remember that in our time the greatest, the grandest, the n.o.blest army of the world fought, not to enslave, but to free; not to destroy, but to save; not for conquest, but for conscience; not only for us, but for every land and every race.

With courage, with enthusiasm, with a devotion' never excelled, with an exaltation and purity of purpose never equaled, this grand army fought the battles of the Republic. For the preservation of this Nation, for the destruction of slavery, these soldiers, these sailors, on land and sea, disheartened by no defeat, discouraged by no obstacle, appalled by no danger, neither paused nor swerved until a stainless flag, without a rival, floated over all our wide domain, and until every human being beneath its folds was absolutely free.

The great victory for human rights--the greatest of all the years--had been won; won by the Union men of the North, by the Union men of the South, and by those who had been slaves. Liberty was national, Slavery was dead.

The flag for which the heroes fought, for which they died, is the symbol of all we are, of all we hope to be.

It is the emblem of equal rights.