The Mayor then gave:
The heroes who have fought our country’s battles: may their services be appreciated by a grateful people.
Loud calls being made for Col. Jefferson Davis, that gentleman arose and said:
The sentiment to which he was called to respond excited memories which called up proud emotions, though their associations were sad. He could not reply to a compliment paid to the gallantry of his comrades in the war with Mexico, without remembering how many of them now mingle with the dust of a foreign land, and how many of them have sunk after the day of toil was done by reason of the exposure endured in the service of their country. The land has mourned, and still mourns, the fall of its bravest and best, and truly are our laurels mingled with the cypress, ’tis well, and ’tis wise, ’tis natural and ’tis proper, that in looking on the laurels of our glory we should pause to pay a tribute to the cypress which weeps over them, and having paid this tribute to the gallant dead, the memory of whose service can never die, we pass to the consideration of their acts, and the beneficial results which their sacrifices have secured. When that war begun, our history recorded evidence only of the power of our people for defence. The Fabian policy of Washington, admirably adapted to the condition of the Colonies, achieved so much in proportion to the means, that he would be rash indeed who should attempt to criticise it. The prudent, though daring course of Jackson, fruitful as it was of the end to be attained, did not yet serve to illustrate the capacity of our people for the trials and the struggles attendant on the operations of an invasive war. Hence it was commonly asserted that the American people, though they might resist attack, were powerless to redress aggression which was not connected with the invasion of their territory. The idea of reliance upon undisciplined militia was treated with contempt and derision. To borrow a simile from the pit, we were regarded as dung-hill soldiers, who would only fight at home. In the war with Mexico our armies carried their banners over routes hitherto unknown, through mountain passes where nature had almost completed the work of defence, and penetrated further into the enemy’s country than any European army has ever marched from the source of its supplies. Not to prolong the comparison by a reference to events of a remote period, he would only refer to the last campaign in European war. The combined armies of France and England, after preparation worthy of their great military power, advanced through friendly territory to the outer verge of the country, against which they directed a war of invasion, and after a prolonged siege by sea and by land, finally captured a seaport town which they could not hold. Before them lay the country they had come to invade, but there, at the outer gate, their march was arrested, and in sight of the ships which brought them supplies and reinforcements, they terminated a campaign, the scale and proclaimed objects of which had caused the world to look on in expectation of achievements the like of which man had not seen. Why was it so? was it not that they were unable to move from the depot of supplies, though a distance less than half of that over which our army passed before reaching a productive region would have brought the allied forces to a country filled with all the supplies necessary for the support of an army. Is it boastful to say that American troops, and an American treasury, would have encountered and have overcome such an obstacle? He did not forget the complaints which had been made on account of the vast expenditures which had been made in the prosecution of the war with Mexico; but he remembered with pride the capacity which the country had exhibited to bear such expenditure, and believed that our people had no money standard by which to measure the duty of their government, and the honor of their flag. We bear with us from the wars in which we have been engaged no other memory of their cost than the loss of the gallant dead. To the printed reports and tabular statements we must go when we desire to know how many dollars were expended. The successful soldier when he returns from the field is met by a welcome proportionate to the leaves which he has added to the wreath of his country’s glory. Each has his reward; to one, the admiring listener at the hearthstone; to another, the triumphal reception; to all, the respect which patriotism renders to patriotic service. To the soldier who, in the early part of the Mexican war, set the seal of invincibility upon American arms, and subsequently by a signal victory dispersed and disorganized the regular army of Mexico, his countrymen voted the highest reward known to our government. Twice before have the people in like manner manifested their approbation and esteem. Thus has the military spirit of the country been nursed; to-day it needs not the monarchial bundles of ribbons, orders and titles to sustain it. Thus has the American citizen been made to realize that it is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country; and to feel proudest among his family memories of the names of those who successfully fought or bravely died in defence of the national flag. Often he had had occasion to feel, and to mark the mingled sensation of pride and of sorrow with which friends revert to those who gallantly died in the field. Even at this now remote day he could not travel in Mississippi without having the recollection of his fallen comrades painfully revived by meeting a mother who mourns her son with the agony of a mother’s grief; a father, whose stern nature vainly struggles to conceal the involuntary pang, or tender children who know not the extent of their deprivation, though it is indeed the sorest of all. Let none then be surprised that he could not see thee laurel save through the solemn shade of the cypress. Time, however, softened the shadow long before it withers the leaf. On his way to this place he learned that it was possible, and he seized the occasion to visit the residence of Gen. Knox, of revolutionary memory. His own desire to see something which had been identified with a patriot soldier who had so largely contributed to the success of the revolution, and the establishment of the institutions we inherited, was but an indication of the military sentiment which lives in the American heart. It turns the step of the traveller from his direct path, it attracts the boy in his first reading, it fires the ambition of the youth, and encircles the veteran with the kindness of his neighbors, and swells the train which follows his bier when, his duty to his country performed, he answers the summons of his God, and is translated to a better sphere. It is that same military enthusiasm which calls you from the avocations and the pleasures of home to the duties and discomforts of the camp, that you may prepare yourselves whenever your country needs it to render her efficient service. On the militia of the country the rights of its citizens, and the honor of its flag, must mainly depend in the event of a war; they only need to be organized and instructed to render them a secure reliance. Mingled with the great body of the people, identified with their feelings and their interests, proud of the prowess of their fathers and jealousy careful of the country’s honor, if properly instructed and prepared, the first trumpet call should bring from plain and from mountain a citizen soldiery who would encircle the land and check the invader with a wall of fire. Your plan of encampment seems best suited to the purposes of practical instruction. A pilgrim in search of health, his steps had been fortunately directed to Maine, the courtesy of the commander of this encampment had induced him to visit it and to review the troops. In all respects it had been to him most gratifying. The appointments, the movements, the stern faces, and stalwart forms of the men, spoke of the power to do, and the will to dare whatever it was needful and proper to perform. This day to manifest respect to a citizen of a distant State, whose only claim upon them is that he has been an American soldier, and is an American citizen, they had cheerfully marched through heavy mire. So much had they given to so small a demand on their natural sentiment, he could not doubt they would with equal alacrity, and with the same firm step, march over a field miry with the blood of comrade and of foe, where opposing causes make to men a common fate.
Among the objects which were of interest to him and which he had hoped to visit, was the fortification at the narrows of the Penobscot. During the last session of congress he had endeavored to obtain an appropriation for the completion of the work which had advanced to the point which made it effective against shipping, but left still liable to be carried by land attack. He was not of those who thought it necessary to raise walls wherever an enemy might land and march, for he would say that henceforward there would remain to an invading army but to choose between captivity and a grave. To protect commercial ports against naval assault forts are needful and should be completed so as to render them defensible by small garrisons, and to save those garrisons as far as possible from the sacrifice of life. Our people require no wall to separate them from other countries, unless it be needful for our own restraint. Our policy is peace, and the fact shines brightly on the pages of our history that not one acre of its extensive acquisitions have been claimed as the spoil of the sword. Unpeopled deserts have been purchased, and on its own application a community has been admitted to our family of states. But we have offered to the world the singular example of conquered territory returned to the vanquished.
Permit me in this connection, whilst ever mindful of the just relation and necessity for concurrent action between the civil and military departments of government, to bear testimony to the value of the militia for the purposes of peace. The principle of self-government and the spirit of independence are so deep rooted in the American mind that our people would illy brook the enforcement of law by any extraneous power, and it is to be hoped we never will see a case in which the people of a State will not be able to maintain the civil authority, and vindicate offended law against all opposers whomsoever. To give energy and activity to such popular action the organization of the militia will be most convenient whenever force shall be needful. It is not a little remarkable that though the first Presidents in emphatic language from time to time recommended a thorough organization of the militia as one of the most important duties of the government, but little more has yet been done than to make provisions for supplying them with arms, and for calling them out when required for federal purposes. There is a moral effect arising from the spectacle of each State possessed of a body of instructed militia, ready not only to maintain its government at home, but to unite with the militia of other States and to form an army upon which all can rely whenever a common danger calls for a common defence. It has been thus that from time to time the fraternity of our revolutionary fathers has been renewed among their sons, and additional assurance has been given that the sentiment of nationality on which our Union was founded could never die. That the expansion of the circle did not weaken its cohesive power, nor the piling of arch upon arch endanger the foundation on which our political temple was built. It was not a structure of expediency; master workmen cleared away the surface where the errors and prejudices of ages had accumulated, dug deep down to the unmutable rock of truth, and with unchanging principles constructed the walls to stand till time should become eternity. Who is there, then, forgetful of his revolutionary descent, insensible to the pride which the name of the United States justly inspires, faithless to the duty which the bond of his fathers imposes, and reckless of all which the honorable discharge of that duty ensures, would unite with impious purpose to destroy that foundation, and strive, with sacrilegious hand to tear the flag under which we had marched from colonial dependence to our present national greatness. Away with speculative theories, and false philanthropy of abstractions, which tend to destroy one half, one third, aye, or a single star of that bright constellation which lights the pathway of our future career, and sends a hopeful ray through the clouds of despotism which hang over less favored lands.
Our mission is not that of propagandists—our principles forbid interference with the institutions of other countries; but we may hope that our example will be imitated, and should so live that this model of representative liberty, community independence, and government derived from the consent of the governed, and limited by a written compact, should commend itself to the adoption of others. We now stand isolated among the great nations of the earth; the opposition of monarchial governments to the theory on which ours is founded, points to the possibility of an alliance against us, by which what is termed national law may be modified and warped to our prejudice if not to our assailment. It needs the united power, harmonious action and concentrated will of the people of all these States to roll the wheel of progress to the end which our fathers contemplated, and which their sons, if they are wise and true, may behold. May the kindness and courtesy which have characterized the present occasion on which Mississippi has been greeted by Maine, be a type of the feeling which shall ever exist between the extremes of our common country. From Florida to California, from Oregon to Maine, from the centre to the remotest border, may the possessors of our constitutional heritage appreciate its value, and faithfully, fraternally labor for its thorough development, looking back to the original compact for the purposes for which the Union was established, and forward to the blessing which such union was designed and is competent to confer.
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