pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."

Then follow eighteen separate paragraphs, specifying the manner in which the aforesaid "self-evident" rights of the American colonists have been violated, all stated so simply, so strongly, that it is nine-tenths an argument.

After demonstration is completed then comes, dedi

cation:

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; . . . and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Signed by the thirteen colonies through their fiftysix delegates.

The reader will note the significant and orderly arrangement of this illustrious argument:

1. Declaration.

2. Demonstration.

3. Dedication.

And this afterward served as the strong, splendid model of Abraham Lincoln in substantially all of his legal and political addresses, as well as his masterly state papers.

CHAPTER XVI

GETTYSBURG ORATION

GETTYSBURG—a little village of less than four thousand people in southern Pennsylvania near the Maryland border-became world-famous in 1863 for two

reasons:

1. A great battle.

2. A great speech.

"The great battle" is pronounced by historians, especially by Creasy, as one of a class of fifteen decisive battles of the world's wars.

"The great speech" is unclassified. It stands alone as the greatest speech of its kind ever delivered by human tongue.

What made it great?

1. The situation.

2. The speaker.

3. The speech.

"The great battle" had taken place July 1-4, 1863. It was one of the most sanguinary struggles that warfare up to then had ever recorded. The city of the dead had become larger than the city of the living. The toll of life and limb, of sacrifice and of suffering had been appalling in that heroic struggle, but where "American met American." The side that stood for liberty and democracy had overwhelmingly triumphed.

A great national call went up over the land that some of this sacred soil should be set apart for a national cemetery for the honored dead.

The governors of the States conferred about it and the Honorable Andrew G. Curtin, the distinguished war governor of Pennsylvania, was given local charge and designated one David Wills as his agent to take care of the routine of the arrangements.

Wills wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, as President of the United States, inviting him to be present upon that occasion.

A very pertinent part of that letter reads as follows: Hon. Edward Everett will deliver the oration. I am authorized by the Governors of the different states to invite you to be present and participate in these ceremonies, which will doubtless be very imposing and solemnly impressive. It is the desire that after the oration, you, as chief executive of the nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks."

The ceremonies took place November 19, 1863. The presidential party arrived from Washington the day before, and was composed of the President, Secretary of State Seward, Postmaster-General Blair, Secretary of the Interior Usher, John G. Nicolay, and John Hay, the President's secretaries, and Captain H. A. Wise and wife, the latter a daughter of the Honorable Edward Everett, together with many newspaper correspondents and a military guard of honor.

The night before a public reception was held by the good citizens of Gettysburg, at which there was some speech-making.

The President, of course, was called on, but expressed a desire to reserve his remarks for the following day. Secretary Seward was also called on and delivered a brief address, which is as follows:

"I am thankful that you are willing to hear me at

last. I thank my God that I believe this strife is going to end in the removal of all that evil which ought to have been removed by deliberate counsel and peaceable means (good). I thank my God for the hope... that when that cause is removed simply by the operation of abolishing it as the origin and agent of the treason that it is without justification and without parallel, we shall henceforth be united, be only one country, having only one hope, one ambition and one destiny. To-morrow at least we shall feel that we are not enemies, but that we are friends and brothers, that this union is a reality and we shall moan together for the evil wrought by this rebellion. . When we part to-morrow night let us remember that we owe it to our country and to mankind that this war shall have for its conclusion the establishment of the principle of Democratic government . . . the simple principle that whatever party, whatever portion of the community prevails by constitutional suffrage in an election, that party is to be respected and maintained in power until it shall give place, on another trial and another verdict, to a different portion of the people. If you do not do this you are drifting at once and irresistibly to the very verge of universal, cheerless, and hopeless anarchy."

When placed in parallel columns with the "few appropriate remarks" of Lincoln, the day following, it can be confidently said that the "rail-splitter" of the new West does not suffer in comparison with his scholarly and distinguished Secretary of State.

We had had two awful years of war. No one ventured to see the end. The triumphs of Grant and Sherman had not yet come. The tremendous loss of life and treasure, suffering and sacrifice was to be endured for two years more until Appomattox.