Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of the republic, with patriotism as taintless as the air, battled for the rights of others; for the nobility of labor; fought that mothers might own their babes; that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring States, but a Nation, sovereign, great and free. Blood was water; money, leaves, and life was common air until one flag floated over a republic without a master and without a slave.
138. Let us Drink to the Living and the Dead
The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the North. They made us a Nation. Their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon volcano lips. And now let us drink to the volunteers, to those who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved and left--of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at want--to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue, to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives--to all the living and all the dead--to Sherman, to Sheridan and to Grant, the foremost soldiers of the world; and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war.
139. Will the Wounds of the War be Healed?
There is still another question: "Will all the wounds of the war be healed?" I answer, Yes. The Southern people must submit, not to the dictation of the North, but to the nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. They were wrong, and the time will come when they will say that they have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes.
They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and found therein two angels clad in shining garments--nationality and liberty. The soldiers were the Saviours of the Nation. They were the liberators of men. In writing the proclamation of emancipation, Lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air,--when reapers sing 'mid gathered sheaves,--copied with the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote with swords.