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equality. Over three-fourths of a century of unexampled prosperity followed. From three million the nation increased to over forty, and holding a high position among the sisterhood of nations. An irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom had, however, been going on with more or less bitterness all these years, and the conflict finally culminated in the great war for the suppression of the rebellion. In its effort to suppress that rebellion, inaugurated by the slave power, the government acted purely in self-defense. It raised its wail of peril; it proclaimed to its sons its danger and called upon them to come to its rescue. History will never fail to tell of the marvelous response to that call, so wide-reaching, so prompt, so determined. The world never before saw such an army, an army that contained so much of the best brain and muscle, and of the culture and skill of a great nation. In that terrible conflict was involved all that was dear to the lover of liberty. The noblest government ever reared by human ingenuity was thrown into jeopardy. The grand old ship of the Union was forced toward ruinous breakers. The winds were madly struggling to sweep it against the reef of disintegration. But the valorous men who heard the call of the nation's dauntless chief to come to the rescue, moved by the noblest impulses, flung themselves between the government and the dangers gathering thickly about it, and it was saved. This nation, once partly free and partly slave, emerged from the bloody conflict grandly and gloriously free-free from its center to its remotest bounds.

All the lessons which come to us from the past are valuable to us, and none more so than those which are connected with our late internal conflict. Renewedly are we taught that in complete union lies our greatest strength. If when divided we could accomplish so much, what may we not gain for liberty, humanity and right, when there is no discord within our borders.

We are taught, moreover, the mighty power which centers in a love of liberty. Our brave sons fought not from compulsion, but from free choice, because each had an interest at stake. Despotism forces its subjects to war. Liberty fascinates its friends to its defences. We know well the past of our country.

We know, too, its present. Proud as we are, and justly so, of our country's greatness, what shall be said of its future? We have unfaltering faith, and we believe that its future will be as its past, only

replete with all that can make a nation prosperous and truly great. And yet many earnest and patriotic men in the land feel to-day a deep solicitude for our country's future. At least three great dangers are believed to threaten it. The concentration of vast wealth in the hands of a few favored individuals. The rapid growth of gigantic monopolies, and the inevitable conflict between labor and capital in the near future, and I will add another: The lax and tardy administration of justice by our courts, especially by our criminal courts. These loom up like a dark cloud on the horizon, and it will require the united and earnest effort of the wisest and most patriotic men in the nation to avert these and other dangers, and carry the country intact-through them. Our hope lies in the incorruptible patriotism of the people. The great heart of the nation has been, is, and ever will be loyal and true to the principles that underlie the national fabric. Guided by the hand of a beneficent and all-wise Providence our ship of state will, we confidently believe, be borne across the perilous sea into a harbor of safety.

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Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee;

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant, o'er our fears, are all with thee.

The President:-Ladies and gentlemen, I now invite your attention to the

FIFTH TOAST.-"The men of 1776; their spirit inspired the men of 1861.”

This toast will be responded to by General Schuyler Hamilton, the grand-son of Alexander Hamilton.

General Hamilton responded as follows:-Mr. President, comrades of the Army of the Tennessee and ladies and gentlemen, allow me to trespass upon my ten minutes' time long enough to say to General Dyer that I have my manuscript.

Mr. President and brothers, with your wives, sisters, sweet

hearts and children, I want the chairman of the committee on toasts drummed out of society. He has left out the best part of Almighty God's creation, the woman. Man was invented first by the Great inventor, and the woman was the last invention, and must, according to our experience, be his best production, and they have been left out by the chairman. I cannot speak of 1776 and leave them out. How much of my ten minutes is up? Mr. President; please call time at the proper time. "What ye spect from this African citizen of American descent. Deres a suspect in de fence you bet. How to put the spirits of 1776 and 1861 in your brains and bring them out in ten minutes just passes dis yere dark colored brethren's understanding." Do you think he's a scholar or an orator like Davis, or an eloquent and earnest expounder like Major-General Fallows, Bishop by brevet, the apostle of liberty to the sanity of the Army of the Tennessee; do you think because he has been learned through and through he is a creator of Shakspeare, and like Puck can gridle thirty-five thousand and forty-seven days, allowing twenty-two days for leap years, in ten minutes. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin Butler-no, I mean Benjamin Franklin or Poor Richard, in his almanac, or "Le Bon Homme Richard," in France, put a serpent he had cut all up at the head of his newspaper with the motto, "Join or Die." The same Ben made the thirteen colonies into a serpent at the head of his paper, with the motto, "Union is Strength." In 1861 one of those wasp-waisted West Point vampires wrote a letter, way down on the Swanee river— I forbear any personalities-that motto, Union Esto Perpetua cut in stone over the door of his nest was engraved by the finger of God in his heart. He would die before he would join the confederacy. Do you see the point? If you do not, ask old "Cump" to point it out to you-William Tecumseh Sherman was intimate with the wasp-waisted vampires. He was living in the house of Louisiana. He had the spirit of '76, and the spirit of that old war Democrat, Old Hickory. The Union must and shall be preserved. The women of '76 tore up their scarlet cloaks to make red stripes for the new flag then, the old flag now. They melted their pewter plates into bullets and sent their boys to fight for the rights and liberties of British subjects. They were awfully religious. They had the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew in the bonnie blue union of their flags. To keep off possible mis

conception they put Qui transtulit sustinet, Nemo me empune lacessit "Appeal to heaven," and "Don't tread on me."

The women of 1861 would not let any of the stars which had burst out in the union of the flag first in combined crosses, as when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, afterward into a circle of thirteen stars, meaning union esto perpetua, be taken out of the flag. That old serpent slavery, who tarried with us a while after '76, cut and mauled, though finally arranged the stars in stripes. Oh, how it did love stripes. The stars in the union were in stripes. There were stripes in the field of the flag. There were stripes on the backs of the colored men and women all over the South. "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," was on the tombstone of John Bradshaw, president of the council which condemned Charles Stuart to death. That tombstone was a brass cannon. These words, Sir Thomas Hollis wrote, in 1776, were found scratched on the panes of glass in every inn in New England. They were carved in the granite rock, near the regicide's cave, New Haven, Conn.; they were engraved in the hearts of the women of the North in 1861. It was the spirit of '76. History is at fault. It was called the rebellion of the South. It was the rebellion of the North against the tyrants of the South, who counted so many negroes as equal to so many free men, though the negroes were slaves and not, as the declaration of independence has declared, free and equal before God and the law-and said the male children of the women of the North were mudsills and would not fight. God bless our country women now and ever. They did not put mottoes on the old flag. They were written there in the blood of the heroes of '76. They held a prayer meeting all over the North. Heart spoke to heart as the face of man to man in water. They resolved to give their most precious jewels to God for freedom. The mother-in-law said, "I will give my son:" the daughter-in-law said, “O, Naomi, I will be your Ruth; I will give my husband, the father of my unborn babe." As when the famous mythological teeth was sown, armed men sprung up from every hill and vale and basky dell. Even the waters gave them up. The spirits of '76 and '61 marched in with measured tramp. One poor mother, learning treason and tyranny had trampled on the old flag and fired upon it, unrolled the uniform in which her Benjamin had been drowned at Richmond while Monroe's ashes were being escorted there to rest in the sacred soil, and said

to another son: "It will fit you. It were better it were worn out defending the government we love so well, rather than be eaten by the moths." She blessed her gift with no tear, but with a smile of deep affection and a kiss. That mother is now dead. She was my mother. It was the spirit of '76 in 1861.

MUSIC by the Band.

FIFTH TOAST-"The Victories of Peace no less renowed than those of War."

Response by MGR. CAPEL.

The President:-Ladies and gentlemen, about ten years ago the Society sat in Toledo-many of you recall it. I presided on that occasion, and there sat among us a gentleman of strong and brawny form, a Mr. Waite, who was a lawyer of repute but of no great fame; he made it his task to answer this very toast, and therefore I recall both the sentiment and the language itself. Judge Waite is now the Chief Justice of the United States, as we all know, honored, respected and obeyed as such over this broad land and has a reputation co-extensive with civilization. The person. who is to respond to this toast to-night has a fame world-wide as an orator, as a scholar and as a gentleman; the associate of princes and of the best men of London and Paris and Rome-he is a Bishop without a diocese, a staff officer of the great Pope of Rome. [Applause.] He comes away here, to this far-off Minnesota and to the banks of the beautiful Minnetonka, to meet us in soldier array -rough soldiers, with our old soldier songs and our old soldier memories—which he appreciates as well as we do; but we are no longer soldiers, we are citizens-citizens of an honored country. We are descendants of Great Britain, and are proud of it, yet our flag floats over ten millions of her subjects; a large portion of our population is German and many are Irish; I believe Mgr. Capel is of Irish origin, and I assure him we have for the Irish a warm spot in our hearts. [Applause.] This gentleman is as welcome here as he would be in the east end of London, (and I know he is welcome there,) or in the highest social circles on the face of the globe. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, as the one to respond to this beautiful toast, Mgr. Capel, and bespeak for him your closest and most earnest attention.

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