[322] to complete the establishment of our rights and liberties; and that our weapons are the spelling book, the Bible, the press, and the implements of industry; and our impregnable fortifications are schoolhouses and the Church of Christ; and our watchwords are unconditional loyalty to God and our country.As soon as the great cheering died away Senator Lyman Trumbull spoke: “I am here to-day to rejoice with you in this anniversary of your freedomfreedom from the most abject bondage ever visited upon any portion of the human race-freedom that makes you masters of yourselves, protects you in the enjoyment of the family relation, secures to you your children, prevents the father from being torn from his child, and the mother from being torn from her infant. (Amen and applause.) Secured not without a struggle, not without time, and not, I may say, by human instrumentality alone. Whatever credit any of us or any man may claim for the freedom enjoyed to-day by four millions of American citizens, that credit belongs to Omnipotence, who has so molded events that some of us have been instruments merely in bringing about this greatest and grandest result in the history of the human race.” Mr. Trumbull closed with these words: “Henceforth, no matter who makes the law, it must be equal, and if it is a law that deprives you of a right, it must deprive us white men of the same right. Equality before the law belongs to you from this time henceforth, and, by the blessing of God, I trust forever.” Henry Wilson followed Mr. Trumbull with a strong voice and effective utterance: “As I have gazed to-day upon this mighty throng in the capital of my country, as I have looked upon these banners, listened ”
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
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