2 mighty flexures' along the American coast, and returned to Europe with tidings of the everlasting breakwater which had stopped their way. 4. But the fullness of time had not yet come. Egypt and Assyria, and Tyre and Carthage, and Greece and Rome, must flourish and fall, before the seals are broken. They must show what they can do for humanity before the vail which hides its last hope is lifted up. The ancient civilization must be weighed in a balance and found wanting. 5 5. Yes, and more. Nature must unlock her rarèst mysteries; the quivering steel' must learn to tremble to the pole; the ǎs'trolabe' must climb the arch of heaven, and bring down the sun to the horizon; science must demon'strate the sphericity' of the earth, which the ancients suspected, but could not prove; the press must scatter the flying rear of mediæval' darkness ; the creative instincts of a new political, intellectual, and social life, must begin to kindle into action; and then the Discoverer may go forth. EDWARD EVERETT. III. G 168. THE RESTORATION OF THE UNION." REAT disasters are upon us and upon the whōle country, and without inquir'y how these originated, at whose door the fault should be laid, let us now, as common sharers of common misfortunes, on all occasions consult as to the best means, under the circumstances as we find them, to secure the best ends toward future amelioration. Good government is what we want. This should be the leading desire and the controlling object with all, and I need not assure you, if this can be obtained, that our 1 Flexures, (flèk `shörz), windings. 2 Break water, any mole, mound, er wall, raised in a river or harbor to break the force of the waves and protect shipping; any thing that stops or changes the current of water. 3 The magnetic needle, or mariner's compass. * As' tro lābe, an instrument formerly used for measuring the height of the sun or stars at sea. ' Dē mon' strate, to prove to a certainty, or with great clearness. "Sphericity, (sfè ris' i tl), round. ness in every direction; the shape of a ball. 'Mē`di æ' val, relating to the Middle Ages, that is, from the latter part of the fifth to the fifteenth century. From a speech made before the Georgia Legislature, Feb. 22, 1866. desolated fields, our barns, our villages and cities, now in ruins, will soon, like the Phoenix, rise again from their ashes, and all our waste places will again, at no distant day, blossom as the rose. 2. Wars, and civil wars especially, always menace libertythey seldom advance it, while they usually end in its entire overthrow and destruction. Ours stopped just short of such a catastrophe. Our only alternative now is either to give up all hopes of constitutional liberty, or retrace our steps and look for its vindication and main'tenance in the forums of reason and justice, instead of on the arena of arms; in the courts and halls of legislation, instead of on the fields of battle. 3. I have not lost my faith in the virtue, intelligence, and patriotism of the American people, or in their capacity for selfgovernment. But for these great essential qualities of human nature to be brought into active and efficient exercise for the fulfillment of their patriotic hopes, it is essential that the passions of the day should subside, that the causes of these passions should not now be discussed, that the late strife should not be stirred. 4. The most hopeful prospect to this age is the restoration of the old Union, and with it the speedy return of fraternal feeling throughout its length and breadth. These results depend upon the people themselves, upon the people of the North quite as much as the South. The masses everywhere are alike equally interested in the great object. Let old issues, old questions, old differences, and old feuds be regarded as fossils of another epoch. 5. The old Union was based on the assumption that it was for the best interest of the people of the United States to be united as they were, each State faithfully performing to the people of other States all their obligations under a common compact. I always said that this assumption was founded on broad, correct, and statesmanlike principles. I think so yet. 6. And now, after the severe chas'tisement of war, if the general sense of the whole country shall come back to the acknowledgment of the original assumption, I can perceive no reason why, under such restoration, we may not enter upon a new career, exacting increased wonder in the old world by grander achievements hereafter to be made, than any heretofore attained, by the peaceful and harmonious workings of our American institutions of self-government. ALEX. H. STEPHENS. IV. 169. THE FLAG RESTORED ON SUMTER.' AIL to the flag of our fathers and our flag! Glory to the tempèsts of war, to pilot the nation back to peace without dismemberment! And glory be to God who, above all hōsts and banners, hath ordained victory and shall ordain peace! 2. At a cannon shot upon this fort, all the nation, as if it had been a trained army lying on its arms awaiting a signal, rose up and began a war which for awfulnèss rises into the first rank of bad eminence. The front of battle going with the sun was twelve hundred miles long, and the depth, measured along a meridian, was a thousand miles. In this vast a'reä more than two million men, first and last, for four years, have in skirmish, fight, and battle, met in more than a thousand conflicts, while a coast and river line, not less than four thousand miles in length, has swarmed with fleets freighted with artillery. 3. The very in'dustry of the country seemed to have been touched by some infernal wand, and with sudden wheel changed its front from peace to war. The anvils of the land beat like drums. As out of the ooze emerge monsters, so from our mines and foundries uprose new and strange machines of war, ironclad. And so in a nation of peaceful habits, without external provocation, there arose such a storm of war as blackened the whole horizon and hemisphere. 4. Since this flag went down, on that dark day, who shall tell the mighty woes that have made this land a spectacle to angels and men! The soil has drank blood and is glutted; millions mourn for millions slain, or, envying the dead, pray for oblivion ; towns and villages have been razed; fruitful fields have turned back to wilderness. 5. It came to pass, as the prophet said: The sun was turned to darkness and the moon to blood. The course of law was ended. The sword sat chief magistrate in half the nation; inʼdustry was paralyzed, morals corrupted; the public weal invaded by răpine and anarchy; whole States were ravaged by avenging armies. Extract from the oration delivered at Fort Sumter S. C., April 14, 1865. 6. The world was amazed. The earth reeled. When the flag sunk here, it was as if political night had come, and all beasts of prey had come forth to devour. That long night is now ended, and for this returning day we have come from afar to rejoice and give thanks. 7. We do not want your cities or your fields; we do not envy you your prolific soil, nor heavens full of perpetual summer. Let agriculture revel here; let manufactures make every stream twice musical; build fleets in every port; inspire the arts of peace with genius second only to that of Athens, and we shall be glad in your gladnèss and rich in your wealth. All that we ask is unswerving loyalty and universal liberty; and that, in the name of this high sovereignty of the United States of America, we demand, and that, with the blessing of Almighty God, we will have! 8. We raise our fathers' banner, that it may bring back better blessings than those of old; that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it may restore lawful government and a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it protected before; that it may win parted friends from their alienation; that it may inspire hope and inaugurate universal liberty; that it may say to the sword, Return to thy sheath, and to the plow and sickle, Go forth; that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new national life, compact our strength, purify our principles. ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and strong; not for aggression and quarrelsomeness, but for the peace of the world; giving to us the glorious prerogative of leading all nations to juster laws, to more humane policies; to sincerer friendship, to rational instituted civil liberty, and to universal Christian brotherhood. 9. Reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky, as of old the bow was planted on the cloud, and with solemn fervor, beseech God to look upon it, and make it the memorial of an everlasting covenant and decree, that never again on this fair land shall a deluge of blood prevail. 10. Why need any eye turn from this spectacle? Are there not associations which, overleaping the recent past, carry us back to times when, over North and South, this flag was honored ǎlike by all? In all our colonial days we were one; in the long Revolutionary struggle, and in the scores of prosperous years succeeding we were united. When the passage of the Stamp Act, in 1765, aroused the colonies, it was Gadsden, of South Carolina, that cried with presciënt' enthusiasm: "We stand on the broad common ground of those natural rights that we all feel and know as men. There ought to be no New England man, no New Yorker known on this continent, but all of us," said he, "Americans." That was the voice of South Carolina, that shall be again the voice of South Carolina! 11. Faint is the echo ; but it is coming; we now hear it sighing sadly through the pines, but it shall yet break in thunder upon the shore-no North, no West, no South, but the United States of America! There is scarcely a man born in the South who has lifted his hand against this banner, but had a father who would have died for it. Is memory dead? Is there no historic pride? Has a fatal fury struck blindness or hate into eyes that used to look kindly toward each other, that read the same Bible, that hung over the historic pages of our national glory, that studied the same Constitution? 12. To Thee, God of our fathers! we render thanksgiving and praise for that wondrous providence that has brought forth from such a harvest of war the seed of so much liberty and peace. We invoke peace upon the North; peace be to the West; peace be upon the South. In the name of God, we lift up our banner, and dedicate it to Peace, Union, and Liberty, now and foreverHENRY WARD BEECHER. more. ར. 170. THE FLOWER OF LIGERTY. WH so freshly born? HAT flower is this that greets the morn, be It kindles all the sunset land; 1 Prescient, (prẻ' shỉ ent), having knowledge of events before they take place; foreknowing. 17* |
