Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Oration by Henry a Gildersleeve, Delivered on the Battlefield of Gettysburg, September 17th, 1889, on the Occasion of the Dedication of the Monument Erected to the Memory of the Soldiers of the Dutchess County Regiment (150th New York Volunteer Infantry)
Battlefields are epochal steps in the grand stairways of the Earth constructed of the lives of men. Steps by which altar and throne have often been established and overturned. Steps that have led to the destruction of existing governments and the birth of new.
A careful study of the history of the world, shows that war has been the only final arbiter of nations; and mankind, even under the benign in?uences of Christianity, in an enlightened age, have not found a substitute for this terrible tribunal. Our fathers, renowned for wisdom no less than courage, did not stop to estimate the price of human life, when they began the great structure of our national existence, and, laid in blood, the sure foundations of liberty and justice on which it rests. We should have proved degenerate and unworthy sons had we failed to follow their noble example when secession lifted its heretical head, and threatened the destruction of our National Government. The Constitution of the United States of America was ordained and established in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
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