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 ADDRESS 
 
 Hon. WILLIAM C. LOVERING 
 
 MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 31, 1897 
 
 NORTON, MASS. 
 

 BY TRANSFER. 
 
 JUN 3 '910 
 
\ From Sumter to Appomattox marks a period in the history 
 ^ of our country that must forever challenge the interest of all 
 mankind. Tlie most exalted principles of liberty and human- 
 ity were on trial and at stake. All the world held its breath, 
 and watched for the result of that fateful struggle between 
 the people of this great American Nation. The circum- 
 stances that led up to the War of Secession are familiar to 
 all who have reached or passed middle life, but as that gen- 
 eration is rapidly disappearing, and as an audience, like this 
 to-day, is made up largely of those who have come on to the 
 field since the Civil War, it may not be out of place to devote 
 some of our time to a review of the history that led to that 
 war. 
 
 To those of us who lived through the terribly vivid scenes 
 of the irrepressible conflict, it is difficult to realize that it 
 has all passed into history, and is hardly more a reality to the 
 3'outh of to-day than the War of the Revolution. And when, 
 perchance, we hear the ill-informed child ask what is the 
 difference between the War of the Revolution and the War 
 of the Rebellion, our whole nature suffers a shock, and we 
 have a new and striking illustration of the healing power of 
 time, and of the forgetful ness that embalms one short gen- 
 eration with oblivion. 
 
 It is never agreeable to reflect that the lives we are living, 
 the history we are making, and the real things that are hap- 
 pening about us to-day, are so soon to be forgotten. The 
 lessons of our Civil War were so full of import for us all, 
 and had so much influence upon the human race, that it is 
 fitting once a year, in the floral month of May, that we should 
 meet together, heap garlands upon the graves of our nation's 
 preservers, recall those days when liberty hung in the balance, 
 and pledge our allegiance anew to our free American Republic. 
 
 It may be said that the first seeds of the War of Secession 
 were sown by the Declaration of Independence in 1775, 
 
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watered by the Articles of Confederation in 1777, and devel- 
 oped by the Federal Constitution in 1787. No ranker weed or 
 more noxious fungus ever grew in a nation's garden. 
 
 No more serious or momentous task ever confronted any 
 body of men, than was undertaken by those fifty-five represen- 
 tatives who assembled in Convention in May, 1787, to revise 
 the Articles of Confederation, and to draft a new Constitution 
 for the union of the thirteen states. There was everything 
 to prevent a consummation of such union, and to disrupt the 
 feeling of interdependence that had sprung up under the 
 Confederation. Indeed, so grave was the responsibility felt 
 by every delegate, that even an atheist, who was a dis- 
 tinguished member, suggested that the Convention be opened 
 with prayer, and the only reason the suggestion was not 
 adopted, was lest the people should be led to realize how 
 desperate the cause really was. So long as the Colonies 
 stood before a common foe, it mattered little how slender was 
 the tie that bound them together. So long as Britain's arm 
 was raised to enslave and oppress them they paid but little 
 heed to internal or interstate differences. No price seemed 
 too dear to pay for American liberty. But after the treat}' 
 of peace was signed, and the foreign enemy had sailed away 
 from our shores forever, our forefathers found themselves face 
 to face, living under Articles of Confederation at once flimsy 
 and indeterminate. The varied and diverse interests of the 
 thirteen states found an early and vigorous expression in the 
 Continental Congress and public assemblies. 
 
 The thirteen states had thirteen different constitutions, 
 each jealously guarding some peculiar and individual interest. 
 It is not strange under the circumstances that the flames of 
 popular feeling threatened to burst forth at any time and 
 overthrow tlie government. 
 
 The Continental Congress had practically no greater power 
 than to recommend and entreat. It remained for each state 
 to make requisitions and grant appropriations. 
 
 It was legarded as more of an honor to be a representative 
 in the State Legislature than a representative in Congiess. 
 
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There was really no National Government. It was simply 
 a League of Sovereign States banded together for purposes 
 offensive and defensive, and yet it was sufficient to carry our 
 country through to a successful termination of the Revolu- 
 tionary War. 
 
 In the language of Washington, " Success had but afforded 
 the United States the opportunity of becoming a respectable 
 nation." Alexander Hamilton wrote as follows: " A nation 
 without a National Government is an awful spectacle. The 
 establishment of a Constitution in a time of profound peace, 
 by the voluntary consent of the whole people, is a prodigy to 
 the completion of which I look forward with trembling 
 anxiety.'* 
 
 So when the Convention assembled representing all of 
 the thirteen states except Rhode Island, the work seemed 
 well nigh hopeless. To smelt, mould, and weld all the dis- 
 cordant elements into a complete and concordant Constitution 
 was an undertaking worthy the wisest and truest patriots 
 that ever lived. 
 
 No state was willing to surrender any rights or privileges 
 that it had hitherto enjoyed as a separate Commonwealth. 
 
 Slavery had been forced upon the Colonies by British 
 avarice, and when the war broke out, it existed in all of the 
 states and was strongly entrenched in six of them, while in 
 the other seven there had already grown up an antipathy to 
 the institution, which never diminished nor lost any of its 
 force until the final abolition of slavery in bloodshed. 
 
 The African slave trade was in full force and was caiTied 
 on under the law. Full recognition was demanded both of 
 slavery and the slave trade. The Constitution thus became 
 a patchwork of claims, concessions and compromises. Strong 
 men and staunch patriots had labored with all their might to 
 arrive at a safe and peaceful conclusion. They felt that they 
 had done the best they could. Still in their minds was a 
 lurking consciousness that there remained in the work a sup- 
 pressed or hidden spark that might some day burst into flame 
 .and threaten the existence of the Republic. 
 
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The Constitutional Convention assembled in May, 1787, 
 and tinished its work in September of the same year. It 
 adjourned to await the adoption of the Constitution by the 
 State Conventions. 
 
 By its own provision the Constitution was to be established 
 when nine of the thirteen states should adopt it. Delaware, 
 the smallest state in population in the Union, was the first to 
 adopt it, Dec. 7th, 1787, and on June 21st, 1788, New Hamp- 
 shire, the ninth state, had accepted it. So that it became the 
 great Common Law of the land from that date. The other 
 states ratified it in due time, the last to signify its adherence 
 being the smallest state in territory, Rhode Island, May 29th, 
 1790. 
 
 It was a critical period in the history of the country during 
 those months in which the adoption of the Constitution hung 
 in the balance. Predictions were freely made that it would 
 never be accepted by the states, or, if accepted, it would fail 
 of its purpose. 
 
 The French Revolution had broken out. The mob had 
 beaten down the Bastile. France was drifting into a sea of 
 human blood. The reign of terror had begun. What won- 
 der then that Americans hesitated to commit themselves and 
 their fortunes to a great general government of the people, 
 whose interests were so diverse and whose homes lay in 
 latitudes so wide apart. 
 
 In 1790 the United States emerged from a semi-chaotic 
 existence to that of a fuU-fledged nation. At first the Con- 
 gress of the United States addressed itself to the financial 
 questions that were the legacy of the Continental Congress. 
 For some years it found enough in these and in our foreign 
 relations to occupy its attentions and best thoughts. 
 
 France, our Revolutionary ally, had sought to exact her 
 reward for services rendered, and harrassed our commerce 
 whenever she could. Napoleon viewed us with a jealous eye, 
 and there is little doubt that had he succeeded in establishing 
 an empire in Europe he would have sought conquests ia 
 America. 
 
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England arrogantly maintained her right to impress our 
 seamen into her service, and it took a second war to establish 
 our independence on the high seas as well as on land. 
 
 All questions that touched upon State Rights were care- 
 fully avoided. These only forced themselves upon public 
 attention when new states came knocking at the door of 
 Congress for admission to the Union. 
 
 In 1819 Missouri was admitted after a sharp contest in 
 Congress as to whether she would have the right to hold 
 slaves or not. Nearly all of the Northern Representatives 
 voted No, and the Southern Representatives Yes. The result 
 was what was known as the Missouri Compromise, which was 
 enacted in 1820, permitting slavery in Missouri, but restrict- 
 ing it thereafter to territory lying south of latitude 36*^ 30". 
 From the beginning violent disagreements had been averted 
 by a provision to admit two states at the same time, one 
 Southern Slave State and one Northern Free State. 
 
 But the day came when this equilibrium was disturbed. 
 More Northern than Southern territories became qualified 
 for statehood. 
 
 In 1854 the Missouri Compromise was practically repealed 
 by what is known as the Kansas and Nebraska Act, which 
 provided that slavery might exist in the territory if it was so 
 decided by a vote of the people. From this moment political 
 history was made rapidly. 
 
 The Ship of State was encountering a stormy sea which 
 was fast driving her upon the rocks of civil strife. So long 
 as the Democratic party was in power, no overt act was com- 
 mitted and any outbreak was delayed. 
 
 The slave power was aggressive and would broke no 
 restraint. It was jealous of any move that contemplated 
 interfence with slavery, or that tended to restrict its extension. 
 
 In 1856 the Republican party came into existence, whose 
 chief tenet was opposition to the extension of slaverj^. There 
 and then was the gage thrown down, and the South was not 
 slow to take it up. 
 
 The new party failed to elect its president in its first cam- 
 
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 paign. Had it been successful there is little doubt that the 
 war would have come a few years earlier, and there is also 
 a chance that it would have been a year or two shorter, as 
 the four years of Mr. Buchanan's administration were utilized 
 to put the South into fighting order, thereby giving them an 
 unequal advantage at the start. 
 
 The Republican party, however, lost none of its political 
 advantage, but rather gained in its influence with the people, 
 so that in 1860 it elected its president. 
 
 This was the signal for the uprising that had long been 
 contemplated by the slave states, which were determined 
 never to submit to Republican rule. 
 
 The day that the Republican party was born, the South 
 took fright. It foresaw at once that the restriction of Slavery 
 meant its final extinction, and from that moment it left no 
 stone unturned to undermine the power of the National Gov- 
 ernment. A weak president, who, in his paradoxical two-fold 
 manifesto, declared that secession was unconstitutional, but 
 that coercion was illegal, and a Secretar}' of War, who was 
 a traitor to his heart's core, readily lent themselves to the 
 fiendish purposes of the nation's destroyers. 
 
 Northern armories were stripped of their arms and muni- 
 tions. Northern forts were dismantled and left defenceless. 
 So that when the war broke out, it was found that the South 
 was nearly a year ahead of the North in its armaments and 
 general preparedness for active hostilities. 
 
 There is no more pathetic chapter in the liistory of our 
 country then that which relates the events between the elect- 
 ion of Lincoln in November. 1860, and his Inauguration in 
 March, 1861. Pity that it should ever be written. It would 
 be a farce if it were not a tragedy. There was treachery 
 in high places among avowed secessionists. A truckling and 
 cowering spirit on the part of Congress. Offers of con- 
 cessions on all hands to the slave power which were met only 
 with derision. Cowards, dough-faces and mercenaries, were 
 the epithets applied to Northerners. All this was endured 
 with a desire to avoid an open rupture, but it was not, — as 
 
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has been frequently represented, — in a pusilanimous spirit, for 
 in a moment as if by magic all was changed. 
 
 One gray morning in April, 1861, the news came flashing 
 over the wires up from the South, that the rebels had opened 
 fire on Fort Sumter. All the patriotic blood was roused to 
 action. The spirit of Lexington, Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga, 
 Saratoga, and Trenton, animated the whole North. 
 
 Party spirit vanished and all moved forward as with one 
 accord to meet the rebellious host. In a few short hours, the 
 tramp of loyal legions was heard throughout the North. The 
 keynote was sounded by General Dix, whose brave words 
 rang out as with a trumpet tone, and were taken up and 
 repeated from one end of the country to the other, " If any 
 man hauls down the American Flag, shoot him on the spot." 
 
 When the arch traitor Ruffin pulled the lanyard on that 
 first gun in Charlestown harbor, he brought down about his 
 ears the very bulwark of Slavery, — State rights, — and sealed 
 forever its doom on the American Continent. That he after- 
 wards perished by his own hand rather than live under the 
 American Flag, shows the intensity of bitterness that existed 
 in the hearts of secessionists. 
 
 How the people flew to arms is perhaps better remembered 
 than any particular events or battles of the war. To those 
 who took part there was nothing more impressive than the 
 answer to that first call to arms. 
 
 Men who had left home in the morning with no thought of 
 war, shouldered their muskets and never saw their homes 
 again. 
 
 Men left their business, their professions, their studies, their 
 work of every kind, dropped their books and tools right 
 where they were, took up the sword and musket, and never 
 put off their uniforms nor laid down their arms until the sur- 
 render of Lee at Appomattox. 
 
 Some went forth as to a holiday, but most of them went 
 with a firm purpose to put down the rebellion and save the 
 country, or to perish in the attempt. 
 
 No thought of danger, no thought of privation, no thought 
 
of pa}^ held them back. Only one thought tugged at their 
 heartstrings, the leaving of wife, children, mother and sister, 
 but God be praised, the women, never less brave than the 
 men, bade their dear ones Godspeed, and then turned to take 
 up the doubled work of their home life, with a new prayer 
 upon their lips, that a Merciful Providence would spare their 
 own. 
 
 The object and the limit of an address like this, makes it 
 in vain to recall the particular incidents of the Civil War, or 
 to go over the battles by land and sea that won renown for 
 our arms, and peace and liberty for all our people. Honor 
 and glory belong alike to those who carried the sword and the 
 musket. 
 
 In New York City is reared a monument which has just 
 been dedicated with fitting ceremony, and entombs the ashes 
 of our great leader, the invincible, the magnanimous, the 
 silent warrior, who won victory, and even admiration from his 
 enemies. 
 
 Though this monument marks a great hero's grave and 
 stands for achievements unsurpassed in the world's history, it 
 is none the less a memorial sacred to those brave men who 
 stood with him at Fort Donelson, at Chattanooga, at Vicks- 
 burg, and in the Wilderness. Could his silent lips have 
 spoken on the day of dedication, would they not have said, 
 " Remember my comrades too" ? 
 
 Our own Boston to-day is paying tribute to that brave 
 white officer who led to war a regiment of colored comrades, 
 though he knew that they and he would be shining marks for 
 rebel bullets. They stood together, they fell together, they 
 were buried together, and their bones mingled in a conmion 
 grave. 
 
 No armored knight, in mail of steel, ever went forth to meet 
 a foe so panoplied with all that was true and loyal, as Col. 
 Robert G. Shaw, who perished with his sable comrades about 
 liim. Though black their skins in the sight of men, their 
 souls are white in the sight of God. 
 
 My comrades, it has been your privilege to relight and 
 
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keep burning the real camp fires of American liberty. It was 
 not alone that you saved the Union and freed the slave, it was 
 not alone that you established the greatest and freest govern- 
 ment in all the world. You did even more than this. By your 
 ready answer to a country's call, by your sacrifice of yourselves, 
 by your privations and sufferings, and by your many deeds 
 of valor, you showed to the nation and the world what 
 a patriot was willing to do. Had your efforts been futile, the 
 spirit with which you made them was worth the price and 
 terrible experience of the war. 
 
 So when the historian is summing up the cost and results 
 of the war, let not this be left out of the account ; that your 
 prompt and patriotic action not only saved the country, but 
 gave an example of devotion that will not be forgotten and 
 will forever be a safeguard against another internal war. 
 
 When honest pensioners are flounted as looters of the United 
 States Treasury, let this be their answer, " It was not for 
 money that we entered the service of our Country. When 
 we enlisted, we never asked what we were to receive. We 
 sprang to the Nations's defence, not asking for money, not 
 asking even for gratitude." 
 
 The impulse was patriotism. An}?^ other spirit than the 
 pure love of country would have led to disaster. Had the 
 war been a mercenary undertaking, it would have been a 
 failure. All the money in the world could not bu}^ patriotism, 
 and without that all would have been lost. 
 
 The lesson of to-day will be wasjted upon us and we shall 
 fail to realize its full significance if we do not contemplate 
 the results of the war in their relation to our whole country. 
 
 The contest was ended nearly a generation ago and there 
 is nothing to be gained by fighting its battles over again. 
 
 This is a day when the noblest emotions should be allowed 
 free play. 
 
 There is nothing more precious to us than that which we 
 have bought with our blood. Yes, and with our blood we 
 have bought a free country, free from Lake to Gulf, from 
 Ocean to Ocean, free, every foot of it, and it is ours, all ours. 
 
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And so I say let us love it all, not one State alone, not one 
 section alone. That is not patriotism in its full sense. To 
 love our country is to love it all. 
 
 This is the sentiment I would rouse within your breasts to- 
 day. This is the patriotism that I would stir within you. 
 Not that you should love your own State or home the less. 
 A poltroon indeed is he who will not stand by his own. But 
 this may only be when our own is assailed. 
 
 There is no longer any reason why we should array State 
 against State, or section against section. The plague spot of 
 human slavery is wiped from our escutcheon and all the state- 
 craft in the world cannot restore it. 
 
 The country is no longer living a lie before God and man. 
 All men are born free and equal. There is no National crime 
 that all the States do not share alike. 
 
 Therefore, now, no good reason exists why any State should 
 withhold the hand of friendship from all its neighbors. 
 Should not the old State of Massachusetts be always foremost 
 with the olive. 
 
 While we love our Commonwealth and believe in her, let 
 us not be blinded with vain glory. Let us bear in mind that 
 we are not without sin. Let us not forget that slavery once 
 dwelt within our borders, and was abolished only because it 
 was found unprofitable. Let us not forget that here we 
 once burned people alive on the superstitious charge of 
 witchcraft. 
 
 We can only know what real independence and liberty are 
 by obeying, ourselves, the first law of liberty, to respect the 
 rights of others. 
 
 American liberty exists only by the grace of God and the 
 good will and consent of the people. It is not gifted with 
 immortality. It is not an -^gis set up over heads to which 
 we may tly for protection. It may be torn down at any 
 moment and dragged in the dust. It ma}'^ be violated and 
 humiliated in the very citadel of its defenders. 
 
 The foundation stone of liberty lies in the character of the 
 people themselves, in that spirit of selflessness that counts the 
 
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rights of the whole people as paramount to those of the 
 individual, in that willingness to subordinate all personal 
 ambitions to the rights of others. 
 
 This is the essential virtue of patriotism and is stimulated 
 into activity whenever our common rights are in peril from 
 within or without. 
 
 It has been said that " To love our country with ardor, we 
 must sometimes have fears for its safety, our affections will be 
 exalted in its distress and our self esteem will glow in the 
 contemplation of its glory." 
 
 When we shall all realize and understand that the sover- 
 eignty^ of the people ruling the people, means that every 
 citizen shall act toward his neighbor upon the principles of 
 absolute truth, and justice, and humanity, then shall we know 
 the best form of government, and the highest state of civili- 
 zation of which mankind is capable. Tlien shall one Church, 
 one Creed, and one Commandment suffice for all. Then will 
 earth be raised toward Heaven, and Heaven be brought to 
 earth. 
 
 When the great clock of the universe shall point to the 
 millennial hour, and the everlasting bells of time shall ring 
 in that glorious morrow, then may it be found that all the 
 people of this American Republic shall stand ready to hail the 
 Messenger, who shall once more proclaim, " Peace on earth, 
 good will toward men." 
 
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