222 Presidential Addresses 



Thrice fortunate is the court when it has as one 

 of its members a man who has played a great part 

 in other spheres of our composite national life. Mr. 

 Justice Harlan came from Kentucky, a State in 

 which the patriotism of the people was put to so 

 peculiarly a severe test in the Civil War. In the 

 States of the further North it was easy for the 

 man to make up his mind on which side he would 

 unsheathe his sword. In the States of the further 

 South it was equally easy. In Kentucky the task 

 was a difficult one. I remember, Mr. Justice, being 

 told by a Kentuckian, who was a stanch friend of 

 yours and one of the greatest lawyers and most pa 

 triotic citizens whom this country had John Mason 

 Brown that he came back from a trip from the 

 West as a young man of twenty-one, just at the 

 time of the outbreak of the Civil War, just after 

 Sumter had been fired upon, and his mother brought 

 down to him the sword that his father had carried 

 in the Mexican War, and said to him : 



"My son, this is the sword your father carried. 

 I hope you will draw it on the side that defends the 

 flag for which your father fought, but, for one side 

 or the other, draw it you must." 



In any audience in any State of the Union, take 

 it as far north as you wish, I can appeal with confi 

 dence to the people I address when I say that next 

 to the homage we pay to the men who proved the 

 truth of their endeavor as they battled in the blue 

 uniform is the homage we pay to the men who, with 

 equal sincerity, with equal devotion to the right as 



