m of Orange, Tilly, Frederic the Great, Prince
Eugene, Napoleon, Wellington, and Von Moltke.

In a sense, of course, the cause for which Lee fought was "lost;" yet a
very great part of what he and his _confreres_ sought, the war actually
secured and assured. His cause was not "lost" as Hannibal's was, whose
country, with its institutions, spite of his genius and devotion,
utterly perished from the earth. Yet Hannibal is remembered more widely
than Scipio. Were Lee in the same case with Hannibal, men would magnify
his name as long as history is read. "Of illustrious men," says
Thucydides, "the whole earth is the sepulchre. They are immortalized not
alone by columns and inscriptions in their own lands; memorials to them
rise in foreign countries as well,--not of stone, it may be, but
unwritten, in the thoughts of posterity."

Lee's case resembles Cromwell's much more than Hannibal's. The _regime_
against which Cromwell warred returned in spite of him; but it returned
modified, involving all the reforms for which the chieftain had bled. So
the best of what Lee drew sword for is here in our actual America, and,
please God, shall remain here forever.

Decisions of the United States Supreme Court since Secession give a
sweep and a certainty to the rights of States and limit the central
power in this Republic as had never been done before. The wild doctrines
of Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens on these points are not our law. If the
Union is perpetual, equally so is each State. The Republic is "an
indestructible Union of indestructible States." If this part of our law
had in 1861 received its present definition and emphasis, and if the
Southern States had then been sure, come what might, of the freedom they
actually now enjoy each to govern itself in its own way, even South
Carolina might never have voted secession. And inasmuch as the war,
better than aught else could have done, forced this phase of the
Constitution out into clear expression, General Lee did not fight in
vain. The essential good he wished has come, while the Republic, with
its priceless benedictions to us all, remains intact. All Americans thus
have part in Robert Lee, not only as a peerless man and soldier, but as
the sturdy miner, sledge-hammering the rock of our liberties till it
gave forth its gold. None are prouder of his record than those who
fought against him, who, while recognizing the purity of his motive,
thought him in error in going from under the S