enovation of public
sentiment, an animated revival of the spirit of Union, and, more than
all, of attachment to the Constitution, regarding it as indispensably
necessary; and if we would preserve our nationality, it is indispensable
that the spirit of devotion should be still more largely increased. And
who doubts it? If we give up that Constitution, what are we? You are a
Manhattan man; I am a Boston man. Another is a Connecticut, and another
a Rhode Island man. Is it not a great deal better, standing hand to
hand, and clasping hands, that we should remain as we have been for
sixty years--citizens of the same country, members of the same
Government, united all--united now and united forever? That we shall be,
gentlemen. There have been difficulties, contentions, controversies--angry
controversies; but I tell you that, in my judgment,--

"those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in th' intestine shock,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way."

[Mr. Webster, on closing, was greeted with the most hearty, prolonged,
and tumultuous applause.]

JOSEPH WHEELER

THE AMERICAN SOLDIER

[Speech of Joseph Wheeler prepared for the tenth annual banquet of
the Confederate Veteran Camp of New York, New York City, January
19, 1898. Edward Owen, Commander of the Camp, presided. As General
Wheeler was ill and unable to attend the banquet, his speech was
read by J. E. Graybill.]

History has many heroes whose martial renown has fired the world, whose
daring and wonderful exploits have altered the boundaries of nations and
changed the very face of the earth. To say nothing of the warriors of
biblical history and Homeric verse, as the ages march along every great
nation leaves us the glorious memory of some unique character, such as
Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar. Even the wild hordes of northern Europe and
the barbaric nations of the East had their grand military leaders whose
names will ever live on history's pages, to be eclipsed only by that of
Napoleon, the man of destiny, who, as a military genius, stands alone
and unrivalled: "Grand, gloomy, peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a
sceptred hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his awful originality."

The mediaeval ages gave us noble examples of devotedness and chivalry;
but it belonged to the American Republic,