the East from the West is abolished, and there is now no citizen at one of its abutments who is a foreigner at the other. [Applause.]

Comrades, when we aided to establish by force of arms the supremacy of the national government, we made of all the people of all the States one nation with one supreme law, one government, one allegiance, one hope, one interest and one destiny.

Warm as my love and admiration is for the men of my own State, whose patriotism and valor made historic its hills and valleys in defense of the Union; tenderly as I cherish the memories of those who fell in the conflict to uphold the national authority within her borders, my pride and my boast is not that I am a Missourian. Just as the pride of the people around us to-night may be in the heroic bravery and splendid record of the Iowa troopsthey do not glory alone in the fact that they are citizens of Iowa; but they, as well as all of us, are proud above all other things that we are citizens of the Republic which looms up with growing strength and splendor among the nations of the earth.

When the men with whom we marched upheld the fabric of the Federal Government upon the points of their bayonets, the statesmen of the time secured it there by pillars of strength to support it forever. What we had written in lines of glittering steel, and graven in fire upon the land, they wrote in fundamental law, and wrote the title of "Citizen of the Republic" above all the other titles an American can possess, and made it the foundation and security of all his dearest rights.

Though the men of the South failed to establish and maintain their confederacy of States, and though their pride in their States may have been diminished, they are compensated by being admitted to fully share the nationality we achieved by the war.

If the statesmen of the period, who wielded the pen while we wielded the sword, failed to write so distinctly in enduring law, that this is a republic and a government by the people and of all the people, and not a government by the states and a part of the people, in words that may never be misunderstood, then it was their omission and not ours. Richelieu is not made to say unqualifiedly that the pen is mightier than the sword, but that "beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword." If they failed to write it in law, the historian will not the less fail to write that it was carved on the very pillars of the Republic by

the swords which hewed out the way for the advancing column of our American civilization.

Comrades, you have lived history. This generation will gather the facts upon which the people of all coming time will form their estimate of the men and events prominent in that history. Upon that higher plane of intellectual development, and in that broader view of liberty toward which the progress of the ages is leading, there will be clearly discovered the causes and results of the war and the growth of our nationality, and a just estimate be made of the men who commanded in the field as well as those who stood in the forum. Gather them as they may, we feel the assurance that the facts will forever light up the fame of the great captains under whose commands we marched-as pronounced by the men themselves who have lived that history, and who have sent it resounding down through the centuries. [Applause.] As for ourselves, comrades, the results of the war were not to us or our generation, or our country alone, but upon the battle-fields of this Republic were won the liberties of man, and given the nationality that now leads on and up the men of all the nations of the earth. For us there will be written in history, in words so plain that they can not be obscured by time, but will glitter and glow brighter and broader as the ages lead the nations onward and upward to that higher and better destiny to which human progress is unerringly tending, till they shall glow with the effulgence of the blazing sun of heaven, only the words, "That we were right." [Rounds of applause.] For one, I ask nothing more of history; and for one, I will not tamely submit to receive from any man or party of this generation anything less. [Continued applause.]

Comrades, at each succeeding meeting we are reminded that the war with the dreaded enemy with whom there can be no enduring peace, and before whom we must all sooner or later fall, is constantly going on, and will continue to go on until our numbers shall be so decreased, that without transmitting our membership to our descendants, a few years more would close the existence of the Society. I have no fears but that it will continue while life endures with us. Soon a few old men only will meet and represent all the survivors of those who once composed our Society, and as age grows upon them, and death thins their ranks, they will journey to the place of meeting less frequently, till at last there will be no survivors of them left. The journey of life is daily

shortening with all of us. How forcibly the thought is illustrated by Victor Hugo in the description of the close of the life of the old man whose daily walk was every day made a little shorter, till at last he came only out into the sunshine and slowly returned. The next day he came only to the threshold, looked out and went back and never came forth again.

Comrades, if God lengthens out our walk in life till we are too old to journey to the places of our meetings, we will still enjoy the recollections of the sunny past, which will glow like gems upon the iron links of life, lightening up in our memory the hours spent together in the days of our better manhood. While we do

live, we may live in the blissful land of memory. When Daniel Boone was so old he could no longer go upon his annual hunt, at every return of the season in which he had been accustomed to start, he took his gun from the rack and cleaned and carefully put it in order, together with all his hunting accoutrements, then he looked out into the forest, and realizing the weight of years upon him, quietly returned his gun to the rack, and each article formerly used by him to its accustomed place, and without a murmur resumed his seat by his fireside, filled with glorious old memories of the hunts of the past, to dream them over again. Let us gather annually at the inviting gates of memory, and together enter, for at least a brief season, its enchanted sunshine. Here bright young morning comes up sparkling with the diamond drops of Heaven's dew, as radiantly and as rosily as it did upon the green velvet grass our childhood feet did tread. There noonday sheds the blissful calm of peace, and there twilight nestles in the stillness of Heaven, spreading its purple haze over the green and picturesque vales. Old age never grows in the blissful land of memory. The verdure of Spring-time and the glorious hues and rich perfumes of the flowers never fade, there the lines of mutability are not written upon it, the treasures once stored there are never lost. The eyes of old friends never grow dim there. The loved ones who marched away into the shadows, where silence sits forever, come trooping up there with tread as light and echoless as angel's footfalls. The tones of friendship's words, once uttered, will be echoed and reverberated there in music as sweet as Seraph song. [Applause.]

When taps are sounded by order of the Great Commander of the Universe, and the light of life shall be put out with us, one

by one, our great captains will be monumented in granite and statued in marble and brass. Generations yet to come will be familiar with the faces of the men who commanded the Army of the Tennessee, and from it, and by it, rose to higher position, from which they went on till they won the proud title of Generals of the armies of the Republic. [Applause.] Their deeds will be painted in statued halls, and sang through all the existence of governments of equal rights. In the halls of luxury and on the smoke-dried cottage walls will glow their pictures, emblems of patriotism never to fade.

Comrades, we will all have, in common with them, a monument too-one stupendous monument, commemorative not only of our services to the country, but also speaking to coming ages of the patriotism and noble heroism of every man of all the long lines of blue-coated heroes who bore a musket in the fight to establish the supremacy of the constitution and laws of the nation.

'Tis a monument, the base of which reaches across a continent and lifts its high summit up till it is bathed in the blue clouds of heaven-a monument, the shadow of which falls from the rising sun across one-half the world, and is thrown in lengthened lines by the setting sun across the other half-a monument standing as a beacon light before the eyes of the nations of the earth, glowing with the light of the star of the East, leading the nations up to the shrine of liberty and teaching them, with us, to worship and be free. The Republic as it stands to-day, and is to exist in its coming glory, is the proudest monument ever erected, or that was ever preserved from destruction. Though we did not erect it we did preserve it, and we did foster an idea upon it which lifted up our civilization, and finding its place in the system and history of governments will endure when granite and marble shall crumble to dust, and when even brass shall be corroded by time. We fought not to determine between opposing dynasties as to who should rule, nor to change the form of government, but to settle and fix forever a principle in government.

The men of the Revolution united in one great thought, and by their united blood and treasure won their liberty and made of themselves one people, to dwell together under one law. If the men of 1787, intent only on securing the liberty they had won, failed to so frame their supreme law as to secure nationality, and

if that omission cost the blood and treasure expended in construing that law by powder and ball, and sword and bayonet, let us hope that the statesmen of our day were not so intent upon securing liberty to the slave as to fail to so clearly write the decision of the battle that it may henceforth admit of no misconstruction, and that history may be clear and distinct in the annunciation that we went forth to establish the supremacy of the laws of the Republic and to stamp it with nationality.

We all alike rejoice in the proffered peace which reigns within. and without the nation in all its domestic affairs and foreign relations. May the swords of our chieftains rust in their scabbards for want of just cause in which to draw them. May they long live to enjoy the incense of great deeds, which Socrates called fame. May the people of the Republic so act toward each other, the people North and South, and East and West, as becomes men who have all alike their hopes in the same future of their common country. Demosthenes said that: "What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice." Let that image be shadowed forth in all our dealings with each other, in all our political action, and may the men of the Republic recognize and appreciate it wherever it may be seen, North or South, East or West, in the native as well as the naturalized, in the black as well as the white citizen. The old bitter memories of the war are being obliterated by the contact of business and pleasure, which bring the men who fought face to face, that they may see the same image of the same God in each of them. The South Carolina volunteer company was warmly greeted in Massachusetts, and a distinguished son of the Old Dominion was cheered and applauded in the Old Bay State. Robert Toombs, or any other enterprising Southerner, might call the roll of his slaves at Bunker Hill monument without the least fear of molestation, the only trouble would be that they would not answer, but the echo would come back to him from Charlestown Heights that no man now in the Republic recognizes any master but God. [Great applause.]

Comrades, since our last meeting the Pale Horse and his dreaded rider has thrown his cold and awful shadow upon our lines, and chilled in death some of the noble hearts once so warm beside us. Bluff soldier that he was, we all loved Morgan L. Smith. His cool, soldierly bearing and clear comprehension of his surroundings in the most trying hours of battle won him the