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- be considered _Americans_. It is we, their posterity, that are
Americans--we, the people, the sovereign American people, who from
English and European colonists have in process of time, and under the
special guidance of God, developed into _Americans_. And in view of all
this, does not Major Gentian’s Society, the Society of the Cincinnati,
lag among us as much out of place as would the old Spanish Order of the
Knights of the Holy Ghost.
‘I said just now that Major Gentian is vastly proud of his insignia, and
I will do him the justice of admitting that this is not altogether
because it is an aristocratic one, but in part because of its historic
significance. But ours is a practical age. Not altogether sentimentally
do we determine the relative greatness of events present and past. Into
such determinations, the elements of number, man, yea, and the no less
weighty element of cost, enter in. Well, then, there is Bunker Hill. A
famous good fight. Yes, indeed. But how much of a muster-roll? How much
of a pay-roll? Why, in Virginia we fought battles where a hundred
thousand and more would be engaged. While east, west, and south, our
files under arms fell not short of a million. And our war-debt, arising
in no small part from generous bounties and the regular army pay-roll,
soared aloft into two or three thousand millions. Then there is the
pension-roll. That, too, is on a scale commensurate with the colossal
magnitude of the Great Republic. Why is the blue ribbon of Major
Gentian’s badge bordered with white? Major Gentian will reply, very
likely, “That is in compliment to our revolutionary ally.” Indeed? But
is not white the heraldic colour of the Bourbons, one of whom still
preposterously advances his claim to the throne of liberated France?
What a fling, then, is this white border at the tricolour of our sister
the French Republic! Yes, and what a left-handed slur coming home to
ourselves. Men and brethren, for aught I know, an enlightened young
Englishman in superannuated old England may be at liberty to speak up
for democracy; but in energetic young America, much as we respect old
age, shall a hoary-headed old American be tolerated as an advocate of
monarchy, or, what is equivalent to that, parading under the Stars and
Stripes the craven _white_ of the monarchical Bourbons, the beggars? And
is such a man--I put it to your conscience--the sort of man to take
place with the law-makers of a people, the chosen people, the
advance-guard of progress, a friendly people, the Levite of the nations,
to whose custody Jehovah has entrusted the sacred ark of human freedom?
(Cries of “No, No,” and riotous applause.)
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