A MEMORIAL ADDRESS.

Address of Mr. Field, on the occasion of unveiling the monument to the graduates and undergraduates of Williams College who fell in the civil war. Deliv. ered at Williamstown, Mass., July 28, 1868.

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The statue which we this day uncover to the sun is a tribute and a memorial. It is the tribute of this generation to patriotism, fidelity, and heroic virtue. It is the memorial to future generations of a great war and a great peace.

Patriotism has its roots deep in the instincts and the affections. Love of country is the expansion of filial love. If you ask me why I bear affection to my native land, I answer that I bear it to her for the same reason that I bear it to my mother. As it is in my nature to love the one, so it is in my nature to love the other. My country is in name and in fact my fatherland.

Self-love, pride, gratitude, memory, and hope contribute to the patriotic sentiment. I am a part of my country, and, loving myself, I love her; I am proud of her achievements, and I take to myself a portion of her honor. I am grateful for her protection. As her flag over me is a mark of my distinction, so it is a pledge of my defense. The nation is the largest political society to which I can belong. It is my legislator and governor. The hill upon which I first opened my eyes, the brook in which I played, the hearth by which I sat in the long winter evenings, the roof beneath which I listened to the pattering rain, the trees before the door, the birds which sang between the eaves, the river in the distance; as these came first into my mind, there they remain after many a greater thing has been seen and forgotten. My memory is filled with pictures of the land and people of my childhood. My personal fortunes are blended with the fortunes of my country. I hope to prosper in her prosperity, and, if she falls, I expect to fall with her.

resource.

An indescribable charm follows nativity. Wander where you will, your heart turns instinctively to the place where you were born. Expatriation is an extreme measure, and the last Of all the innumerable company who, in the hope of better fortunes for themselves and for their children, leave the Old World for the New, how few are they who do not continue still to dream of the fatherland and its people, to tell its tales, and to sing its songs at their new firesides! I have seen the emigrant returning from his home in the West, to revisit his native land, watching with the stars through all the night to catch the first glimpse of her shores; and I have seen him, as the morning light revealed the dim outline of the distant coast, rush to the ship's bow to salute it with a loud huzza, and an "All hail, my country!"

It is not strange that patriotism, always a sentiment of preponderating power, should, when excited by national peril, sweep everything before it. He who witnessed the excitement of the country upon the fall of Sumter must remember the fire with which every heart was kindled. Who that recalls that April day, when the news came of the parricidal and insane assault, does not also recall the horror and indignation which it created; and when at last it was known that the stronghold had fallen, and the flag of so many memories and hopes had been lowered, that then the minds of men were swayed and lifted as by a divine impulse? Differences of opinion and of party were lost in the great swell of human hearts. Then uprose the whole people, not in passion or in fear, but with a common will and purpose to avenge the insult, and defend their national unity to the last extremity. Then were flags flung out from window and tower; the streets waved with summoning banners, and the air seemed filled with voices calling the sons of the republic to battle.

The lowering of the flag at Sumter smote the hearts of the people. For what is the flag? It is more than a streamer of bright colors dancing in the wind; it is more than a picture, however beautiful it may look as it lies across the green of the landscape, flashing its light among the trees. It is a sign. A sign of what? Of this broad land and its people, and their institutions-as they have been, as they are now, and as they

will be hereafter. It is an opened scroll, on whose ample folds is written, in characters visible to the inward eye, all the past history, and in characters not now visible, but coming into light day by day, all the future history of this people. It went with Washington and his brave continentals through the dark days of the Revolution; it went with the pioneers in their march toward the ever-receding sun; it floated at the mastheads of triumphant ships; it emerged bright and beautiful as ever from the smoke and fire of battle; and it now floats over ship, and tower, and fortress, wherever the American has carried his spirit and his power. No true child of this land has ever looked on it at home without a feeling of reverence, or looked on it abroad without wafting a blessing toward his country.

No wonder that, when it fell for a moment at Sumter, the spirit of the people waxed fierce; and no wonder that, when the hour of deliverance and of retribution came, the same flag was raised again by the same heroic hand which was forced to lower it; and that it was saluted, not as then, with fifty, but now with a hundred guns, amid all the pomp of civic and martial glory.

Such was the sentiment and such the impulse that affected our brethren whose names are inscribed upon this monument. They loved their fatherland, and loving, they died for what they loved.

They were faithful to their convictions. By their acts they set forth, better than any words can express, the great virtue of fidelity, devotion to duty, and steadfast adherence to that for which they plighted their faith.

A man is pledged by his convictions and relations not less than by his words and acts. Our moral nature prompts us to follow our convictions. Our relations to others impose upon us duties which we can not neglect without self-condemnation. As a citizen, a man has obligations independent of his will. He is a member of the State, and is pledged to obedience and assistance. He has personal relations to father, mother, brethren, and is bound to their defense, and thence to the defense of the country which shelters them. This fidelity to his pledges, this loyalty to his family, friends, country, distin

guishes the true man. Faith once plighted by him does not falter. Difficulties embarrass but do not dishearten him. False friends fall away, he remains firm; disasters occur, he strives to repair them; defeat comes, he stands up as resolutely as before. Steadfast in that to which he is pledged, he presents the same heart and the same will to adverse as to favoring fortune.

They to whom we raise this monument were thus faithful. Their country was threatened with disruption and anarchy; they were bound to it, and they defended it. Everlasting honor be given to the brave men who sealed this their fidelity by heroic death!

Heroism, in which I include courage, fortitude, and selfdenial, is an essential element of a great character: courage, which leads a man forth to meet danger whenever thereto called by duty; fortitude, the power and practice of endurance, which renders him superior to pain, and makes him accept with cheerfulness whatever fate comes; and self-denial, the subordination of the material to the spiritual, of the lower to the higher nature of man, which renders his will master of his appetites and passions, and causes him to forego every personal benefit for the sake of honor and conscience. That nobleness of soul which declines no danger, shrinks from no pain, and counts life itself as nothing compared with the fulfillment of duty, distinguished the greatest men of antiquity. In a still higher form it was displayed by the Christian martyr. He exhibited above all men that superiority to pain which is better than stoicism, that courage which advances to meet danger, that fortitude which accepts it when it comes, and that selfdenial which thinks nothing worthy to be weighed against the right. It was not passive insensibility to danger, but an active moral sentiment, which sustained him, and impelled while it sustained. Nor was it physical strength, for the weakest man and the feeblest woman have accepted the crown of the martyr.

These, our brethren, had much of the heroic Greek and Roman; they had more of the Christian martyr. Not only was the integrity of their country involved, but the moral and political life of four millions of human beings. For, though

the war was not waged by the North for the emancipation of the slaves, but for the suppression of the rebellion, yet this rebellion, begun in the interest of slavery and for its perpetuation and extension, soon made it evident that the victory of the Government would be the advent of freedom, immediate and universal. Four millions would then be raised to the dignity of men, endowed with civil rights, gladdened by the light of knowledge, and admitted to participation in all the benefits of Christian civilization. Thus, to the other motives which affected the patriotic citizen, were added the sanctions of religion.

This monument is the affectionate though insufficient tribute that we pay to the patriotism, fidelity, and heroism of our brethren whose names are inscribed on this pedestal. There were thirty of them, of different ages, from the fair-haired youth not yet graduated, to the gray-headed man who looked back through many years to his leave-taking here. I wish I could give the story of each one's life, and could tell you how he looked and lived in college, how the world received him as he passed into it from the doors of these halls, what he was doing when the great war broke out, and how he went into the struggle, and struggling, died. The simple story would be more affecting than anything I could say. But time would fail me to speak of all, and, if I were to distinguish any, I might do injustice to the rest. The biographer will do justice to all.

Their work is accomplished. They have no more responsibilities to bear, no more duties to perform. Whatever responsibilities and duties remain devolve upon us. As the motives I have described led our brethren to the sacrifice of their lives, so the same motives should lead us to whatever sacrifice we in our turn may be called to make. To take up arms for your country's deliverance is one form of manifesting your devotion to it, but it is not the only one. Peace, like war, has its sacrifices. There are other dangers besides those of disruption and anarchy, and other honors besides that of victory over insurgents. Whatever would discredit our country, or weaken it in material or moral power, must be resisted, as we would resist an attack upon its territorial integrity. The per