our blood. Three weeks before, in the middle days of June, a captain of cavalry, had taken the field at the head of one hundred n.ounted men, the joy and pride of my life. Through twenty days of almost incessant conflict the hand of death had been heavy upon us,and now, upon the eve of Gettysburg, thirty-four of the hundred only remained, and our comrades were dead on the field of battle, or languishing in hospitals, or prisoners in the hands of the enemy. Six brave young fellows we had buried in one grave where they fell on the heights of Aldie. It was late on the evening of the first of July, that there came to us rumors of heavy fighting at Gettysburg, near forty miles away. The regiment happened then to be detached, and its orders for the second were to move in the rear of Sedgwick's corps and see that no man left the column. All that day we marched to the sound of the cannon; Sedgwick, very grim and stern, was pressing forward his tired men, and we soon saw that for once there would be no stragglers from the ranks. As the day grew old and as we passed rapidly up from the rear to the head of the hurrying column, the roar of battle grew more distinct, until at last we crowned a hill, and the contest broke upon us. Across the deep valley, some two miles away, we could see the white smoke of the bursting shells, while below the sharp incessant_rattle of the musketry told of the fierce struggle that was going on. Before us ran the straight, white, dusty road, choked with artillery, ambulances, caissons, ammunition trains, all pressing forward to the field of battle, while mixed among them, their bayonets gleaming through the dust like wavelets on a river of steel, tired, foot-sore, hungry, thirsty, begrimed with sweat and dust, the gallant infantry of Sedgwick's corps hurried to the sound of the cannon as men might have flocked to a feast. Moving rapidly forward, we crossed the brook which runs so prominently across the map of the field of battle and halted on its further side to await our orders. Hardly had I dismounted from my horse when, looking back, I saw that the head of the column had reached the brook, and deployed and halted on its other bank, and already the stream was filled with naked men shouting with pleasure as they washed off the sweat of their long day's march. Even as I looked, the noise of the battle grew louder, and soon the symptoms of movement were evident. The rappel was heard, the bathers hurriedly clad themselves, the ranks were formed, and the sharp, quick snap of the percussion caps told us the men were preparing their weapons for action. Almost immediately a general officer rode rapidly to the front of the line, addressed to it a few brief energetic words, the short sharp order to move by the flank was given, followed immediately by the "double quick," the officer placed himself at the head of the column, and that brave infantry which had marched almost forty miles since the setting of yesterday's sun,which during that day had hardly known either sleep, or food, or rest, or shelter from the July heat,-now, as the shadows grew long, hur

ried forward on the run to take its place in the front of battle and to bear up the reeling fortunes of the day.

It is said that at the crisis of Solferino, Marshal McMahon appeared with his corps upon the field of battle, his men having run for seven miles. We need not go abroad for examples of endurance and soldierly bearing. The achievement of Sedgwick and the brave Sixth Corps, as they marched upon the field of Gettysburg on that second day of July, far excels the vaunted efforts of the French Zouaves.

Twenty-four hours later we stood on that same ground,—many dear friends had yielded up their young lives during the hours which had elapsed, but, though twenty thousand fellow creatures were wounded or dead around us, though the flood gates of heaven seemed open and the torrents fell upon the quick and the dead, yet the elements seemed electrified with a certain magnetic influence of victory, and, as the great army sank down overwearied in its tracks, it felt that the crisis and danger was passed,-that Gettysburg was immortal.

May I not then well express the hope that never again may we or ours be called upon so to celebrate this anniversary? And yet now that the passionate hopes and fears of those days are all over,-now that the grief which can never be forgotten is softened and modified by the soothing hand of time,-now that the distracting doubts and untold anxieties are buried and almost forgotten, we love to remember the gathering of the hosts,-to hear again in memory the shock of battle, and to wonder at the magnificence of the drama. The passion and the excitement is gone and we can look at the work we have done and pronounce upon it. I do not fear the sober second judgment. Our work was a good work,-it was well done, and it was done thoroughly. Some one has said "Happy is the people which has no history. Not so!-As it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, so it is better to have lived greatly, even though we have suffered greatly, than to have passed a long life of inglorious ease. Our generation,-yes! we ourselves have been a part of great things. We have suffered greatly and greatly rejoiced; we have drunk deep of the cup of joy and of sorrow; we have tasted the agony of defeat and we have supped full with the pleasures of victory. We have proved ourselves equal to great deeds, and have learnt what qualities were in us, which, in more peaceful times, we ourselves did not suspect.

And, indeed, I would here in closing fain address a few words to such of you, if any such are here, who like myself may have been soldiers during the war of the Rebellion. We should never more be partizans. We have been a part of great events in the service of the common country, we have worn her uniform, we have received her pay, and devoted ourselves, to the death if need be, in her service. When we were blackened by the smoke of Antietam, we did not ask or care

whether those who stood shoulder to shoulder beside us,-whether he who led us,-whether those who sustained us, were Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or radicals; we asked only that they might prove as true as was the steel we grasped, and as brave as we ourselves would fain have been. When we stood like a wall of stone vomiting fire from the heights of Gettsburg,-nailed to our position through three long days of mortal Hell,-did we ask each other whether that brave officer who fell while gallantly leading the counter-charge -whether that cool gunner steadily serving his piece before us midst the storm of shot and shell,-whether the poor wounded, mangled, gasping comrades, crushed and torn, and dying in agony around us, had voted for Lincoln or Douglas, for Breckenridge or Bell? We then were full of other thoughts. We prized men for what they were worth to the common country of us all, and recked not of empty words. Was the man true, was he brave, was he earnest,-was all we thought of then,-not, did he vote or think with us, or label himself with our party name. This lessen let us try to remember. We cannot give to party all that we once offered to country, but our duty is not yet done. We are no longer, what we have been, the young guard of the Republic; we have earned an exemption from the dangers of the field and camp, and the old musket or the crossed sabres hang harmless over our winter fires, never more to be grasped in these hands henceforth devoted to more peaceful labors; but the duties of the citizen, and of the citizen who has received his baptism in fire, are still incumbent upon us. Though young in years, we should remember that henceforth, and as long as we live in the land we are the ancients,—the veterans of the Republic. As such, it is for us to protect in peace what we preserved in war,—it is for us to look at all things with a view to the common country and not to the exigencies of party politics,—it is for us ever to bear in mind the higher allegiance we have sworn, and to remember that he who has once been a soldier of the mother-land degrades himself forever when he becomes the slave of faction. Then at last, if through life we ever bear these lessons freshly in mind, will it be well for us,-will it be well for our country,-will it be well for those whose names we bear, that our bones also do not moulder with those of our brave comrades beneath the sods of Gettysburg, or that our graves do not look down on the swift flowing Mississippi from the historic heights of Vicksburg.

CENTENNIAL ORATION.

ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP.

Boston, July 4, 1876.

Our fathers were no propagandists of republican institutions in the abstract. Their own adoption of a republican form was, at the moment, almost as much a matter of chance as of choice, of necessity as of preference. The thirteen colonies had, happily, been too long accustomed to manage their own affairs, and were too widely jealous of each other, also, to admit for an instant any idea of centralization; and without centralization a monarchy, or any other form of arbitrary government, was out of the question. Union was then, as it is now, the only safety for liberty; but it could only be a constitutional union, a limited and restricted union, founded on compromises and mutual concessions; a union recognizing a large measure of state rightsresting not only on the division of powers among legislative and executive departments but resting also on the distribution of powers between the states and the nation, both deriving their original authority from the people, and exercising that authority for the people. This was the system contemplated by the declaration of 1776. This was the system approximated to by the confederation of 1778-81. This was the system finally consummated by the constitution of 1789. And under this system our great example of self-government has been held up before the nations, fulfilling, so far as it has fulfilled it, that lofty mission which is recognized to-day, as 'liberty enlightening the world."

Let me not speak of that example in any vain-glorious spirit. Let me not seem to arrogate for my country anything of superior wisdom or virtue. Who will pretend that we have always made the most of our independence, or the best of our liberty? Who will maintain that we have always exhibited the brightest side of our institutions, or always entrusted their administration to the wisest or worthiest men? Who will deny that we have sometimes taught the world what to avoid, as well as what to imitate; and that the cause of freedom and reform has sometimes been discouraged and put back by our shortcomings, or by our excesses? Our light has been, at best, but a revolving light; warning by its darker intervals or its sombre shades, as well as cheering by its flashes of brilliancy, or by the clear lustre of its steadier shining. Yet, in spite of all its imperfections and irregularities, to no other earthly light have so many eyes been turned; from no other earthly illumination have so many hearts drawn hope and courage. It has breasted the tides of sectional and of party strife. It has stood the shock of foreign and of civil war. It will still hold on, erect and unextinguished, defying, "the returning wave" of de

moralization and corruption. Millions of young hearts, in all quar ters of our land, are awakening at this moment to the responsibility which rests peculiarly upon them, for rendering its radiance pares and brighter and more constant. Millions of young hearts are resolv ing, at this hour, that it shall not be their fault if it do not stand for a century to come, as it has stood for a century past, a beacon of lib. erty to mankind! Their little flags of hope and promise are floating to-day from every cottage window along the road side. With those young hearts it is safe.

Meantime, we may all rejoice and take courage, as we remember of how great a drawback and obstruction our example has been disembarrassed and relieved within a few years past. Certainly, we cannot forget this day, in looking back over the century which is gone, how long that example was overshadowed, in the eyes of our men, by the existence of African slavery in so considerable a portion of our country. Never, never, however-it may be safely said—was there a more tremendous, a more dreadful, problem submitted to a nation for solution, than that which this institution involved for the United States of America. Nor were we alone responsible for its existence. I do not speak of it in the way of apology for ourselves. Still less would I refer to it in the way of crimination or reproach towards others, abroad or at home. But the well-known paragraph on this subject, in the original draught of the declaration, is quite too notable a reminiscence of the little desk* before me, to be forgotten on such an occasion as this. That omitted clause-which, as Mr. Jefferson tells us, was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia," not without "tenderness," too, as he adds, to some "northern brethren, who, though they had very few slaves themselves, had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others,"-contained the direct allegation that the king had "prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.' That memorable clause, omitted for prudential reasons only, has passed into history, and its truth can never be disputed. It recalls to us, and recalls to the world, the historical fact-which we certainly have a special right to remember this day-that not only had African slavery found its portentous and pernicious way into our colonies in their very earliest settlement, but that it had been fixed and fastened upon some of them by royal vetoes, prohibiting the passage of laws to restrain its further introduction. It had thus not only entwined and entangled itself about the very roots of our choicest harvestsuntil slavery and cotton at last seemed as inseparable as the tares and wheat of the sacred parable-but it had engrafted itself upon the very fabric of our government. We all know, the world knows, that our independence could not have been achieved, our Union could not

*The desk on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.