256 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL. 



drawers of water for a favored class of money-changers. When the 

 happy time comes that sectionalism is dead and buried out of sight, 

 and is remembered only as a hideous nightmare ; when the toiling 

 masses of both North and South shall join hands and remember only 

 that they are brothers, children of a common father, citizens of a 

 common country, with one flag, one destiny, and that they are " Ameri- 

 cans all " ; and when patriots and not partisans shall rule in legislation, 

 then shall the brotherhood of man be acknowledged, and fraternity, 

 peace, and good-will will come among the people. 



When I think of the past, and contemplate the present, and anticipate 

 what may be in store for the common people in the future, if they will 

 be friends and act wisely and contend for, instead of against, each other, 

 I am constrained to quote again from the grand Roman, who, when he 

 found his beloved country ruined and desolate, and his fellow-citizens 

 ground down by the heel of oppression, cried out : " Rouse ye, Romans ! 

 rouse ye, slaves ! our country yet remains." 



Then he told them of that " elder day," when to be a " Roman was 

 greater than to be a king." Shall not we look back with a patriotic 

 longing to that elder day, when to be an American was greater than to 

 be a king? 



Though poor, though crouching at the feet of as arrogant and un- 

 scrupulous oppressors as ever robbed a widow or starved an orphan, let 

 us remember that our country yet remains. 



Brothers of 'the sunny South, after thirty years, is it not time that the 

 past should be buried? Grant is dead. Lee is no more. Stonewall 

 Jackson and William McPherson gave up their lives on the field of 

 battle, and fill soldiers' graves. Almost -the last one of the great com- 

 manders, and a majority of their followers, have gone where war is not 

 known ; and why should not we, in our memories, let them lie side by 

 side, and over their graves clasp hands and say to each of them, 



"Soldier rest, thy warfare's o'er; 



Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; 

 Dream of battle-fields no more : 



Days of danger, nights of waking "? 



Will not the proudest monument we can build to their memory be a 

 just and righteous government, that will protect the weak, do justice to 

 all, and be of, for, and by the people ? Shall we not build a temple of 

 liberty wherein the poorest and humblest shall have a seat, as well as 

 the rich and arrogant, and where he can feel that he is heir to all the 

 glories which the wisdom of the fathers and the unselfish patriotism of 

 our country can give us? " Let us have peace." 



