for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that the Nation shall, under God, have a new birth of Freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

2. THE PATRIOT DEAD.

BREATHE balmy airs, ye fragrant flowers,
O'er every silent sleeper's head;
Ye crystal dews and summer showers,
Dress in fresh green each lowly bed.

Strew loving offerings o'er the brave,
Their country's joy, their country's pride;
For us their precious lives they gave,
For freedom's sacred cause they bled.

Each cherished name its place shall hold,
Like stars that gem the azure sky;
Their deeds, on history's page enrolled,
Are sealed for immortality.

Long, where on glory's fields they fell,
May Freedom's spotless banner wave,

And fragrant tributes grateful tell

Where live the free, where sleep the brave.

SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH.

3. THE GREAT QUESTION SETTLED.

From Address of Hon. GEORGE W. CURTIS, at Gettysburg, July 3, 1888.

THE great question is settled. Upon this field, consecrated by American valor, we meet to consecrate ourselves to American Union. In this hallowed ground lie buried not only brave soldiers of the blue and the gray, but the passions of war, the jealousies of sections, and the bitter root of all our national differences, human slavery. Other questions, indeed, remain which will sternly try our patriotism and our wisdom; but they will be appealed to the ordeal of battle no longer. They will be settled in those peaceful, popular, and parliamentary contentions which befit a patriotic and intelligent republican people. Even the Civil War has but quickened and deepened our prosperous activities. Those mighty armies of the blue. and the gray, marshalled for the warfare of a generation, if such had been decreed, swiftly and noiselessly disappeared; and all that military energy and discipline and skill, streaming into a thousand industries, are as beneficent in peace as they were terrible in war.

Can we wrest from the angel of this hour any blessing so priceless as the common resolution that we shall not have come to this consecrated spot only to declare our joy and gratitude, nor only to cherish proud and tender memories, but also to pledge ourselves to Union, in its sublimest significance? Then, indeed, in the field of Gettysburg as we now behold it, the blue and the gray blending in happy harmony, like the mingling hues of the summer landscape, we may see the radiant symbol of the triumphant America of our pride, our hope, and our joy!

4. GETTYSBURG.

A MECCA FOR THE BLUE AND GRAY.

From Address of General JOHN B. GORDON, Governor of Georgia, July 3, 1888.

OF all the martial virtues, the one which is perhaps most characteristic of the truly brave is the virtue of magnanimity. That sentiment, immortalized by Scott in his musical and martial verse, will associate for all time the name of Scotland's king with those of the great spirits of the past. How grand the exhibitions of the same generous impulses that characterize this memorable battle-field! My fellow-countrymen of the North, if I may be permitted to speak for those whom I represent, let me assure you that in the profoundest depths of their nature, they reciprocate that generosity with all the manliness and sincerity of which they are capable. In token of that sincerity they join in consecrating, for annual patriotic pilgrimage, these historic heights, which drank such copious draughts of American blood, poured so freely in discharge of duty, as each conceived it, a Mecca for the North, which so grandly defended, a Mecca for the South, which so bravely and persistently stormed it. We join you in setting apart this land as an enduring monument of peace, brotherhood, and perpetual union. I repeat the thought with emphasis, with singleness of heart and of purpose, in the name of a common country, and of universal liberty; and by the blood of our fallen. brothers, we unite in the solemn consecration of these hallowed hills, as a holy, eternal pledge of fidelity to the life, freedom, and unity of this cherished Republic.

5. NO CONFLICT NOW.

From Address of General CHARLES DEVENS, at the Bunker Hill celebration, June 17, 1875, Charlestown, Mass

THE conflict is over! Day by day the material evidences of war fade from sight; the bastions sink to the level of the ground which surrounded them; scarp and counterscarp meet in the ditch which divided them. So let them pass away, forever!

To-day it is the highest duty of all, no matter on what side they were, but, above all, of those who have struggled for the preservation of the Union, to strive that it become one of generous confidence, in which all the States shall, as of old, stand shoulder to shoulder, if need be, against the world in arms. Towards those with whom we were lately in conflict, and who recognize that the results are to be kept inviolate, there should be no feeling of resentment or bitterness. They join with us in the wish to make of this regenerated Union a power grander and more august than the founders ever dared to hope. All true men are with the South in demanding for her, peace, order, good and honest government, and encouraging her in the work of rebuilding all that has been made desolate. We need not doubt the issue. With the fire of her ancient courage, she will gird herself up to the emergencies of her new situation. Standing always in generous remembrance of every section of the Union, neither now nor hereafter will we distinguish between States or sections, in our anxiety for the glory and happiness of all. Together will we utter our solemn aspiration, in the spirit of the motto of the city which now encloses within. its limits the battle-field, and town for which the battle was fought: "As God was to our fathers, so may He be to us."

6. SEPARATE AS BILLOWS, BUT ONE AS THE SEA.

From Address by Senator ALEXANDER STEPHENS, at Washington, upon the unveiling of Carpenter's picture representing President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation.

BEFORE the upturning of Southern society by the Reconstruction Acts, the white people there came to the conclusion that their domestic institution known as slavery had better be abolished. During the conflict of arms, I frequently almost despaired of the liberties of our country, both North and South. When secession was resorted to as a remedy, I went with my State, holding it my duty to do so, but believing all the time, that, if successful, when the passions of the hour and of the day were over, the great law which produced the Union at first, "mutual interest and reciprocal advantage," would reassert itself, and that at no distant day a new Union of some sort would again be formed.

And now, after the severe chastisement of war, if the general sense of the whole country shall come back to the acknowledgment of the original assumption that it is for the best interests of all the States to be so united, as I trust it will, the States being "separate as billows, but one as the sea," this thorn in the body politic being now removed, I can perceive no reason why, under such a restoration, we, as a whole, may not enter upon a new career, exciting increased wonder in the Old World by the peaceful and harmonious workings of our matchless system of American federal institutions of self-government. All this is possible, if the hearts of the people be right. It is my earnest wish to see it. Fondly would I gaze upon such a picture of the future. With what rapture may we not suppose the spirits of our fathers would hail its opening scenes, from their mansions above! But if instead