they were worth to the common country of us all, and recked not of
empty words. Was the man true, was he brave, was he earnest, was all
we thought of then;--not, did he vote or think with us, or label
himself with our party name? This lesson let us try to remember. We
cannot give to party all that we once offered to country, but our duty
is not yet done. We are no longer, what we have been, the young guard
of the Republic; we have earned an exemption from the dangers of the
field and camp, and the old musket or the crossed sabres hang harmless
over our winter fires, never more to be grasped in these hands
henceforth devoted to more peaceful labors; but the duties of the
citizen, and of the citizen who has received his baptism in fire, are
still incumbent upon us. Though young in years, we should remember
that henceforth, and as long as we live in the land, we are the
ancients,--the veterans of the Republic. As such, it is for us to
protect in peace what we preserved in war; it is for us to look at all
things with a view to the common country and not to the exigencies of
party politics; it is for us ever to bear in mind the higher
allegiance we have sworn, and to remember that he who has once been a
soldier of the motherland degrades himself forever when he becomes the
slave of faction. Then at last, if through life we ever bear these
lessons freshly in mind will it be well for us, will it be well for
our country, will it be well for those whose names we bear, that our
bones also do not molder with those of our brave comrades beneath the
sods of Gettysburg, or that our graves do not look down on the
swift-flowing Mississippi from the historic heights of Vicksburg?



JOHN ADAMS (1735-1826)