we see four millions of human beings
governed by the lash--we see them bound hand and foot--we hear the
strokes of cruel whips--we see the hounds tracking women through
tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty
unspeakable! Outrage infinite!

Four million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. All the
sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child, trampled beneath
the brutal feet or might. And all this was done under our own beautiful
banner of the free. The past rises before us. We hear the roar and
shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall.

These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and
children. The wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen,
the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and
books, and where all was want, and crime and cruelty, and fear we see
the faces of the free.

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty they died for us. They
are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag
they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the
tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows
of the clouds, careless, alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the
windowless palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars--they are
at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found
the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and
dead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.

THE GRANT BANQUET

AT THE PALMER HOUSE, CHICAGO, THURSDAY, NOV. 18th, 1879.

TWELFTH TOAST:

The Volunteer Soldiers of the Union, whose valor and
patriotism saved the world "a government of the people,
by the people, and for the PEOPLE."

RESPONSE BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

WHEN the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the
insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our century, the
question "Will the great Republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips
of every lover of mankind.

The North, filled with intelligence and wealth--children of
liberty--marshaled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil
life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth, and
with the lips of victory voiced the Nation's first and last demand:
"Unconditional and immediate surrender." From that moment the end was
known. That utterance was the first real declaration o