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the whole lump. They may be poor; they are growing old, we know, but they have a love for their country which seems intensified by the lapse of years, and they seem to love the Nation more from the fact that its soil has been enriched and sanctified by the blood of their kindred. One of the most impressive pictures to me is that very common one which represents a turbulent sea-no land visible, no friendly light to guide the mariner to port; nothing save in the foreground a rock rising in its granite majesty to Heaven, and at its base a suffering mortal clinging to it for refuge and for safety-the Rock of Ages. Label that rock "The Constitution," and you have typified the sheet-anchor of this Nation's hope. Men may assail it; it may be misinterpreted, as incompetent or designing men have hitherto misinterpreted it, but it will stand there still illumined by the glorious declaration which gives it tone and meaning as the beacon-light of civilization throughout the world. [Applause.] And there shall come, my friends-why, there has already come-that time mentioned by Abraham Lincoln, the time when the mystic chords of memory stretching from every patriot grave to every heart and every hearth-stone all over this broad land, vibrate with the blessed music of a preserved and happy Union. [Cheers.]

The President:-Now we come to the second regular toast. Your committee expected Colonel D. P. Dyer, of St. Louis, to be here with us to-night. He is not here to-night, and I am very sorry for it, for he is a very eloquent man. Nevertheless, we have with us a comrade, once of Missouri, but now of New York City, General Clinton B. Fisk, and I want the reporters to enter his name, General Clinton B. Fisk, as the party to respond to the

SECOND TOAST.-"The President of the United States.-A ruler who, if the voice of the people be indeed the voice of God, more truly than King or Emperor governs by Divine right."

Response by General CLINTON B. FISK.

GENERAL SHERMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

It is indeed exceedingly kind in General Sherman to give me the slightest recognition, for I really deserve to be court-martialed and shot. [Laughter.] I have been a deserter for nearly a dozen years from the Army of the Tennessee. Something has always intervened between my purpose to come and the day of

meeting. Ten days since, Mrs. Fisk said to me in our home down by the seaside: "I am going to Chicago to the army reunion." [Laughter and applause.] That is right; it always cheers me when you applaud Mrs. Fisk. [Cheers and laughter.] She belonged to our old army. She literally fought her way from Shiloh to the Yazoo; the best soldier in the family. [Laughter and applause.] Everybody has said that who knew us. [Laughter.] So she commanded me to put six days rations in the haversacks, and come to Chicago with her. I would as soon have thought of disobeying an order of General Sherman before Atlanta, as to have debated that order a moment. [Laughter.] So I packed the rations, putting in an extra one for the banquet, and we came on, and we are glad we came. Every hour has been a happy one until about ten minutes before we convened for this banquet. [Laughter.] Then Captain Tuthill, Chairman of this glorious Committee on Banquet, poured vinegar in my soup. [Laughter and applause.]

He said: "Colonel Dyer is not to be here and we want you to take his place."

I said: "Oh! I can't do that. I can't make a speech."

"Well," he said, "We don't want much of a speech [laughter] and in looking over the list of the comrades, we thought you would come as near to making that sort of a speech as any one here." [Laughter and applause.]

"Well," I said then in reply, "But I know nothing about the subject, the 'President of the United States.'"

"Well," said he, "That don't make any difference. [Laughter] Our banquet orators never speak to the toast." [Laughter and applause.] Nobody knows better than General Fallows, that the text is often nothing but a pretext. [Applause and laughter.] I said: "I can't make a long speech."

"So much the better for that," he said. [Laughter.] And he told me confidentially, not to be spoken of outside of this banquet room, that the comrades who spoke to the toasts usually spoke too long, [laughter] and he would be glad if I would set an example of short speaking. [Laughter.] That is just what brought me here to afflict you. They gave me this great toast, "The President of the United States." This is a nice platform to make such a speech from. [Prolonged laughter and applause.] Did you ever see a platform on which there were more possible, and

some very probable Presidents than this platform. [Laughter and applause.] The Army of the Tennessee gives notice to this great Union that they can fill the Presidency for a long time to come. [Applause and laughter.] It is something to be President of such a Nation, as the Governor of Dakota (Colonel Pierce) has just said to you-a country, comrades, for which you drew your sword in victorious battle. Did ever men march out with better thought and heart than this old Army of the Ternessee? Was there ever a conflict that summoned so many men from all ranks, who believed that the true and Christian principles on which government ought to rest, was what they were battling for; the men who marched from the lakes to the Ohio, with prayer, as did the legions of Cromwell, with song, as sung the army of Gustavus Adolphus, Luther's grand hymn,

"Ein fester burg ist Unser Gott."

you

Coming from shop and field; coming from office and countingroom, from press and pulpit, with their lives bearing testimony to the rights of mankind. They were the descendants of Jonas Parker and his associates, who blood-reddened the village green of Lexington on that glorious morning a century and more ago, when the shot was fired that echoed around the world. And it has been well said, that the light that led them on, and led on, is the combined rays from the history of all the past, from the oldest traditions of the Hebrews, when, in the gray of the world's morning, Moses reached his arm across the gulf of the centuries and rocked the cradle of American liberty; [applause and cries of "Good! good!"] from the heroes and sages of Republican Greece and Rome, from the religious creeds that proclaimed the Divine presence in man, and in that truth, as in a life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the dark floods of the Middle Ages; [applause] from the customs of Germany, transferred out of her Saxon forests to the councils of England, from the example of Him who laid down His life on the Cross for the life of humanity -all the past bowed itself from its recesses to cheer you, you men of the Army of the Tennessee, in your great sacrifice, for which your children this day rise up and call you blessed. [Applause.] Yes, to be President of such a Nation is more than to be king or potentate of any other nation on the face of the earth. [Applause.] It was my good fortune, eight years ago last summer, to stand, with other American gentlemen, as a committee at the re

ception given to our dead Commander at the American Legation in London. Standing a little apart in that great multitude was Mr. Gladstone and Mrs. Gladstone, and John Bright. We were looking upon that wonderful scene-that man who had just been eight years President; that quiet, silent man standing there with all the royalty of England at his feet-we saw him as calm as we ever saw him. Mr. Gladstone said to me:

"Was he always this quiet man? always this modest man?"

"Yes sir," said I, "always. I knew him before the war; I knew him when he was a wood-chopper, and he was the calm, quiet man then, as he is now."

“And was this great man ever a wood-chopper?" said he. "Why, indeed he was," said I.

"Well, then," said he, “I must go and grasp his hand again, for I, too, am a wood-chopper." [Cheers.]

There would be no trouble with the country, if in all the future we could have such a President as the Army of the Tennessee gave it for eight years. [Applause.] In these days, no matter what the toast, no matter what the theme, the talk in every home and in every pulpit is about this dead Commander of ours. During the last two months, as I have traveled far and wide in the land, that is the theme everywhere. In the remote places of the Republic, where the woodman swings his ax in the forest shades, he stops and brushes away a tear with his sleeve as he thinks of the awful day with Grant at Shiloh. The miner beneath the earth, rending the rocks that stand as sentinels over the precious vein, stops in his work and remembers the shock of battle at Vicksburg and Chattanooga. The herdsmen out on these golden prairies, kissed by the golden sunsets, as he rounds up his charge, forgets all else as the bloody conflict in the Wilderness breaks in upon his vision, and he sees Grant with lifted sword and wavering crest leading on to conquer at Spottsylvania, at Cold Harbor and at Petersburg, and he tosses his hat in the air and shouts: "Hurrah for Grant!" And so all over this land, as the comrade has just said, "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every patriot grave and battlefield to every loving heart and hearthstone in all this broad land, vibrate with the chorus of the Union, swelling with greater power. And when we saw Sherman and Johnston, saw Buckner and Sheridan, with clasped hands, around the dead, calm form of our old Commander, mingling their

tears and their prayers with all the tears and prayers of the Nation, we felt like crying:

"Lord of the Universe, shield us and guide us,

Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun.

Thou hast united us, who shall divide us?

Keep us, oh keep us, the many in one."

"Then up with our banner bright, sparkling with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,

While through the sounding sky loud rings the Nation's cry,
'Union and Liberty, one evermore.'

We place this old commander of ours as a model president for the Republic, as a model ruler for all the world. Let his great example stand colossal, seen in every land to keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure, until in all lands, and through all human story, the path of duty be the way to glory. I can express no better wish for us than that long, long years may go before we shall part with this honored president of ours who sits with us tonight. [Applause.] Sixty millions of people, General Sherman, in their homes and at their family altars, are this night praying that Sherman's march down the slopes of sunset to the jasper sea may be bright and happy, that having here fulfilled the highest duties of christian citizenship, he and we may by and by come into citizenship in that better country that is heavenly. [Applause.]

SONG.-"Unfurl the Glorious Banner," by the Quartette. General Sherman said: Ladies and Gentlemen, we now come to the

THIRD TOAST.-"Our Dead."

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all the wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

In compliance with the request of General Sherman, the company drank the toast standing and in silence.

General Sherman:-We now come to the fourth regular toast, and I will call the attention of the reporters to the fact that we have changed that somewhat. I will read it, and I wish you to record it as I have written it. Strike out what you find printed

in the lists of toasts and make it

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