THE HEROIC.

The following oration was delivered by Hon. W. B. Arms, of Fenton, at Fentonville, July 4, 1865:

The eighty-ninths anniversary of our national independence comes to us, thrice battled for, through a fresh baptism of fire and blood. And while today we commemorate the heroic sacrifices and glorious achievements of the noble men who, amid perils and dangers, amid storms and darkness, founded this beautiful and admirable system of free government, which, by the blessings of god, we trust will continue to live on in the ages to come, enduring, strengthening and advancing until it shall have clothed with dignity and made regal and universal the sacred principle that men are capable of self-government, let us not forget the costly sacrifice of anguish, suffering and blood, which secures to us the priceless blessings of today; that the leaves of the trees of liberty have grown and spread only as its roots have been water and fertilized with blood; that for these, men in every age have become exiles, outcasts and languished in loathsome dungeons.

Need I further remind you of the horrors, the desolation and anguish which our own generation has been subjected to, in crushing out this, the bloodiest, ghastliest rebellion of all times?--that to enable us to look upon an unbroken nationality today, the continent has shaken with the tread of armed men, the earth has been made red with the blood of the slain, and sorrow, mourning, and tears have been carried into thousands of homes all over this land, so that we ourselves by our own experience have learned as our fathers did before us the price of liberty and nationality. And while today we rejoice as never before, this goodly heritage of our fathers is doubly dear to us, as its title deeds are sealed with the mingled blood of the fathers and their children. Today we can look over this broad land, from Plymouth Rock to the east, to the mountains in the west, from the northern lakes to the gulf, and can say of these lakes and mountains, of these mighty rivers and plains, they are ours, and over them waves in peaceful triumph, that blessed flag which has won forth from the smoke of battle without a stripe erased and every star bright and beautiful upon its folds.

But, while our hearts are thrilled with patriotic impulses, there is a sadness mingled without joys. There are tearful eyes, and aching hearts here and elsewhere, for every community has furnished its heroes and its martyrs in this war. I see those before me today who have lost cherished friend by rebel bullets on the battlefield. They sleep on southern soil, lone and solitary; no gentle hand will strew sweet flowers over their graves, and the low moan of the sighing wind is their only requiem; or, those who, far worse, have been clearly starved in loathsome prisons, famishing, starving thinking of home and friends, but with no kind hand to give then even a crust of bread or pass a cup of cold water to their parched and burning lips; no sound but the ceaseless tramp of the sentinel and the wild ravings of unfortunate victims around them. Fathers have lost sons, sisters have lost brothers, wives have lost husbands, who have gone forth in the strength and glory of manhood to return no more forever, until the trumpet of the Archangel shall wake the sleeping nations of the dead.

But you weep not as others weep. They have fallen martyrs for a nation's life, for a nation's liberties, and, with the martyred heroes who have gone before them their names shall live, ever bright and enduring, in the memories of succeeding generations, through all time to come. But terrible as has been the ordeal of fire and blood through which we have been passing, let us with the great Apostle, "forgetting those things which are behind us, press forward," rejoicing that god has given us the victory over all our enemies and brought upon them confusion and disgrace; that we have a country where traitors cannot live, where slaves cannot breathe, where the inspiration of liberty, infusing itself into the masses, shall build up in industry and wealth, intelligence and power, the mightiest people of earth. Cannot we all say wit the great Scottish bard:

'Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land?'

Previous to the sixteenth century, what little of republicanism there was in Europe was formed centered in the free cities of Italy and among the villages and smaller towns of the brave and hardy Swiss, along the valleys of the Alps of Switzerland. Our forefathers at Plymouth rock on the 22^nd day of December, 1620, knelt down upon the rugged rock, with no eye but their father's God to witness the imposing ceremony, and laid the foundation of that immense temple, dedicated to human liberty, whose granite pillars crown the shores of either ocean, and beneath whose ample dome we, with millions of other worshippers, are permitted to congregate and renew and rebaptize the vows made by our fathers.

The story of English aggression and the heroic struggles of the colonies is patent in history, until a few hundred chests of tea settled the question of peace or war. The tax was small, the love of tea was strong, but principles triumphed, and those stern old patriots made the largest dish of tea that day ever brewed on the continent, as they rolled up their sleeves and tumbled it into Boston Harbor.

But how we love to think of those noble men as they net in Independence Hall and settled the question of independence forever! Bold and defiant, as one after another they signed the deathless charter of our liberties, John Hancock seized the pen and with a dashing hand wrote his name, exclaiming, "There, King George, you can read that over the Atlantic Ocean, three thousand miles away." Such were the fathers. No wonder, then, the immortal deeds of their children.

During the last year a lady collecting supplies for the soldiers, called at the house of a farmer in the Green Mountain state. He gave liberally for the object, and said, "I have four sons in the army; one of them has been killed. My youngest son is now at home; if Grant can't whip Lee without him, he is ready to go any time." Jackson once threatened to hand Calhoun; if he had done so, the war would have been averted, but unfortunately the cockatrice's eggs of treason were allowed to hatch out. Calhoun, to unite southern men in his schemes of nullification, instituted what they termed the observance of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson. No norther member of congress was invited, but they knew Jackson's eagle eye was watching them and dared not do less than invite him. After the cloth was removed from the table, Calhoun arose to propose the first toast. It was "Liberty first, the Union afterwards;" before it could be drunk to, Jackson was upon his feet, his eyes flashing fire, his gaunt frame drawn in to hits full height. "I propose," he said, "as the first toast, "Union and Liberty, one and inseparable, now and forever." It was silently drunk; the company dispersed, never to meet upon such an occasion again. Mr. Clayton, of Delaware, came to Calhoun and told him that Jackson said unless he retracted at once he would have him arrested for treason, tried for treason, and, if found guilty, by the eternal, he would hang him as a traitor. "Then," said Calhoun "he will do it," and he was not long in retracting.

Treason culminated in the crime against Sumter. All day long eight thousand men trained shot and shell against the fort with its little garrison, but the band of heroes never quailed until the magazine was fired. Then they quietly took down the flag and rolled it up, to be preserved until that fort should again come into our possession. How different on that Palm Sunday when twenty thousand people gathered at that fort, and, taking out the flag which has been four years laid away, unfurled it to the breeze amid the wild and deafening shouts of loyal men and women! Of those eight thousand traitors, how few are left to tell the story of their shame! Edward Ruffin, who begged the privilege of firing the first shot, committed suicide the other day, and gave as his reason for the act, in a letter written before his death, that he could not live under such a government as the United States. Like Judas, he has gone to his own place, and would that all traitors would go and do likewise.

How changed the scene now, from these last four years of trial! Then the lurid flames of war lighted up the continent with their ghastly glare; a thousand cannon sent forth their desolating fires; hundred of thousand of men confronted each other in hostile lines, for purposes of butchery and slaughter; the descendants of the men who fought side by side at Brandywine and Yorktown for independence were found confronting each other like fierce gladiators thirsting for each other's blood, tens of thousands hurrying on to take the vacant place of the slain. The people of these Northern states, although, heartsick and weary of the strife at times, yet never lost their faith not tired in the work. But now, how changed! Peace, radiant, luminous smiles upon us and spans the very heavens above us with the bow of promise to celebrate the golden marriage of liberty and union. The rebel cannon at Charleston and Richmond, once used to batter down this government, now send forth salvos of artillery, welcoming its return. South Carolina says to Massachusetts: "We are conquered, we submit; your ideas have triumphed; ours are lost forever." Lee's great army, where is it? Scattered like the autumn leaves; himself, with Jefferson David and many others, feeding upon United States rations, which they seem to relish well; and the chances are that we shall be obliged to furnish hemp for some of them or they will never get their dues.

The London Times said we could not carry on the war, because they would not let us have the money to do so. Now we have the best financial system in the world and Europe take our bonds freely. The English put an Armstrong gun in every rebel fort; we paid them off by sending shipload after shipload of provisions to her starving operatives at Manchester. Louis Napoleon supposed republican ideas had collapsed surely. So inspired was he with a missionary spirit, he thought he would Christianize the Mexicans; but they don't take his kind of Christianity easily, and they seem to begin to think that their chances of salvation are about as good as his. Maximilian will undoubtedly return home impressed with the truth that providence never designed him for missionary work.

Let us rejoice again that we have come out of this crucible of affliction so strong, so mighty in all material resources; that the American name is such a tower of strength abroad--so honored and feared that even out enemies say that we are the strongest people in the world, because we conquered the rebellion when they wished it to succeed; and they were more surprised that we would not become bankrupt, as they predicted. Let us praise God from whom all blessings flow, that , though the storm has spent its fury upon us and the tempest lashed us with its waves, and clouds and darkness have been around us, yet through all the wild tumult He has brought us forth in victory and peace at the dawning of a brighter day.

The student of history need not now go back to classic times in search of the heroic. The name of the gunner of the "Cumberland" will live to the latest time. With both legs shot off, as he found she was sinking to the water's edge, he drew the blessed stumps upon the breach of the cannon, and, seizing the lanyard, applied the match and as the fated steamer went down in the gurgling waves the last broadside of the "Cumberland" yelled forth the note of defiance to the foe. A noble color sergeant ina new York regiment was shot down and mortally wounded; as he was taken from the field he held fast his grasp upon the colors, and they were carried with him to the hospital; in the wild delirium of death he was still clinging to the flag. It is related of Napoleon that when he swept the field with his glass and saw the white plume of Murat dancing to and fro in the sunlight as he moved on at the head of his legions, he knew the victory was safe. Was not Grant equally certain of victory when he heard the thunder of Sheridan's cannon as he swept like a hurricane upon the enemy's lines?

It is not too much to say that the record of Michigan during this war is gratifying to her citizens and one of which their children will be proud, indeed. We have put nearly one hundred thousand men into the field--about one-eighth of our entire population--and of the character of Michigan soldiers for endurance, courage, and daring, as well as every soldierly quality, I an not her to speak. Their fighting qualities are known from Washington to the Rio Grande. At Chickamauga, they saved Rosecrans from annihilation; at Five Forks they scattered the chaff the serried columns of Lee's grand army. The bones of her slain mingle with the soil of every great battlefield from the Wilderness to Mobile. The brilliant Sheridan and the dashing Custer have made her fame as imperishable as granite; but, as if that were not enough of glory, it was reserved as a crowning act for Michigan to capture Jeff Davis and the whole Southern Confederacy, boots, hoops and all. Much as Michigan has to be proud of in her vast mineral and agricultural resources, her sparkling lakes, her admirable system of public school, the wealth, intelligence and culture of her people, yet more than all these does she prize the fame of her citizen soldiery. And from her soil there shall arise a polished shaft pointing heavenward, upon whose enduring surface shall be engraven the heroic deeds of her honored dead.

But there are other heroes whom I cannot pass--the white refugees of the South, driven out from home, outcasts and wanderers, mercilessly shot down, and butchered , starved and plundered, living in caves and dens, secreting themselves by day, wandering upon the mountains by night. Oh, who shall tell the horrors of their sufferings? And can we forget today those true and tried friends at the South, although dark skinned, who have never failed to greet our flag with cheers; whose acts of kindness, constancy and faithfulness to our officers and soldiers, fleeing for life from Southern prisons, is part of the noble record of this war? Secreting them by day, supplying then with food, acting as trusty guides by night, they have piloted thousand from Southern hells to the Union lines. Nor can we forget the sable warriors of Port Hudson and Oloustee; nor those who made breastworks of their bodies as they fell thick and fast around the heroic Colonel Shaw, at Fort Wayne, seizing the flag of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts and bearing it aloft in triumph amid that wild carnival of death. Their fame was justly earned. And who would be mean enough to try and steal it from them? Who has not heard of Robert Small, the slave pilot, who, when the rebel captain of the steamer "Planter" was intending to hand her over to the rebels, coolly took her out to Charleston harbor and put her in the possession of the United States authorities? A noble act, which has made him into a hero the world over. Justice, terrible and retributive, has overtaken the chiefs and plotters of all the guilt and criminality of this odious rebellion. They have found but too true the startling words:

Traitors! This bolt shall find and pierce you through,
Though under hell's profoundest wave thou divest
To find a sheltering grave.

The opening future of our country looms up to us with a grandeur and magnificence which is dazzling to the beholders. Coming out of the mighty conflict with unshaken faith in the genius of our institutions, purified, chastened and strengthened with the inspiration of liberty animating all hearts, there rise up before us the radiant glories of an empire, teeming with free, industrious, thriving millions, where culture, intelligence, refinement and moral heroism are the only rivals.