484 Presidential Addresses 



dered to the support of a division commanded by 

 another New York soldier, the gallant General 

 Greene, whose son himself served as a major-gen- 

 eral in the war with Spain and is now, as Police 

 Commissioner of New York, rendering as signal 

 service in civil life as he had already rendered in 

 military life. 



If the issue of Antietam had been other than 

 it was, it is probable that at least two great Eu- 

 ropean powers would have recognized the indepen- 

 dence of the Confederacy; so that you who fought 

 here forty-one years ago have the profound satis- 

 faction of feeling that you played well your part 

 in one of those crises big with the fate of all man- 

 kind. You men of the Grand Army by your vic- 

 tory not only rendered all Americans your debtors 

 for evermore, but you rendered all humanity your 

 debtors. If the Union had been dissolved, if the 

 great edifice built with blood and sweat and tears 

 by mighty Washington and his compeers had gone 

 down in wreck and ruin, the result would have been 

 an incalculable calamity, not only for our people 

 and most of all for those who, in such event would 

 have seemingly triumphed but for all mankind. 

 The great American Republic would have become a 

 memory of derision; and the failure of the experi- 

 ment of self-government by a great people on a 

 great scale would have delighted the heart of every 

 foe of republican institutions. Our country, now so 

 great and so wonderful, would have been split into 

 little jangling rival nationalities, each with a his- 



