Excerpt from The Nation and the Soldier: An Oration, Delivered Before the Indiana Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, at Indianapolis, July 4, 1890

This is a holy day; but surely we may be par doued if while we remember that it means a na tion's birth, some of us shall recall that it means also Vicksburg's famous victory, and the river that fiowed unvexed to the sea. Nor can a Union soldier be blamed if he remembers that once he kept the day on the field of Gettysburg, knowing at last that the Fourth of July was not a dream, but a living and majestic reality. Such memories as these, lingering fondly in the sol dier's heart, are the true sanctions of this order to which we belong, and of every organization in which the veterans of the war have gathered themselves. In the due adjustment of rights and interests; the establishment of those great equities that mark the true relation of a citizen to his Government, the soldier of the Union has no right to claim that the Nation belongs to him. But he has a right to think that in a peculiar sense he belongs to the Nation. Whatever weakness may dwell in his heart, whatever sorrows may darken his life, Whatever temptations have been too strong for his will to resist, nevertheless nothing can rob him of the dignity that belongs to every man who can say, I helped to save the United States of America, one and indivisible.

The Loyal Legion signifies, to us at least, thatloyalty is a virtue which should never go out of fashion. Love of country is not, and should not be, a sentiment that responds only to the bugle and the drum. It is indeed true that the finest impulses may lie dormant, waiting the call that shall transmute them into vital convictions. But yet it is also true that a nation is best endowed when it has the common every-day affection of its people, in peace as well as in war.

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