Time in its rapid flight tests many things. Thirty years ago the Southern
Confederacy, like a dark cloud full of storm and thunderings, covered the
Southern heavens. Statesmen planned, preachers prayed, women wept, and
armies as brave as ever formed in line fought, for its establishment. Blood
flowed freely, and the roar of battle filled the whole land. Many wise men
thought it would continue for ages, but lo! it has disappeared. Nothing
remains to its adherents but a memory--mournful, pathetic, and bitter.

How different with the Old Flag that we love. It had been tested before,
but this was its supreme trial. It had been victorious in several wars. It
had sheltered new and expanding States, it had fostered higher forms of
civilization, and represented peoples and interests that were complex and
varied; but in our Civil War it was assailed as never before. The test was
crucial, but nobly was it borne. Men died in ranks as the forest goes down
before the cyclone. What sharp agony in death, and what long-continued
suffering and bereavement this implies. But the result was decisive--a
strengthening of the power and grandeur of the nation that sometimes seems
to be only too great and unquestioned.

We have no wish by any word of ours to revive bitter feeling or stir up
strife. This hallowed day has been from the first a peacemaker. Men,
standing with uncovered heads in the presence of the dead, do not care to
utter words of reproach for the irrevocable past. We, wearing the blue, can
say to the scarred veteran wearers of the gray: "You fought well for the
lost cause. But the case was fairly tried in the awful court of war. It
took four years for the jury to agree, but the verdict has been given--a
verdict against your cause--and there is no higher court and no appeal.
There is no resurrection for the dead Confederacy; but we can offer you
something better--an equal part in the life and destiny of the most