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324 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

all the malign elements of discord; when our great Republic, the hope of free-
dom and self-government throughout the world, had reached the point of
supreme peril; when the Union of these States was torn and rent asunder at the
center, and the armies of a gigantic rebellion came forth with broad blades and
bloody hands to destroy the very foundation of American society, the unknown
braves who flung themselves into the yawning chasm, where cannon roared
and bullets whistled, fought and fell. They died for their country.

"We are sometimes asked, in the name of patriotism, to forget the merits
of this fearful struggle, and to remember with equal admiration those who
struck at the nation's life and those who struck to save it,—those who fought
for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.

"I am no minister of malice. I would not strike the fallen. I would not
repel the repentant, but may my 'right hand forget her cunning, and my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,' if I forget the difference between the
parties to that terrible, protracted, and bloody conflict.

"If we ought to forget a war which has filled our land with widows and
orphans, which has made stumps of men in the very flower of their youth;
sent them on the journey of life armless, legless, maimed and mutilated;
which has piled up a debt heavier than a mountain of gold—swept uncounted
thousands of men into bloody graves, and planted agony at a million hearth-
stones; I say if this war is to be forgotten, I ask in the name of all things
sacred what shall men remember'?

"The essence and significance of our devotions here to-day are not to be
found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in
battle. If we met simply to show our sense of bravery, we should find enough
to kindle admiration on both sides. In the raging storm of fire and blood, in
the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or
on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal
soldier.

"But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been dis-
played in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion
meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who
rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's
destroyers. If to-day we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood like
France; if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black
system of human bondage; if the American name is no longer a by-word and
a hissing to a mocking earth; if the star spangled banner floats only over free
American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it
a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted