[Declamation] “The Stars And Stripes,” by John A. Andrew (from Student and Schoolmate, July 1861; pp. 268-269)
[instructions for making the speech]
From house, from fort, from fireside, our hearts are called away to remember those, our true and brave representatives, who on the tented 3field bear up our honor and our cause. But dearly as I am wedded to a life of peace, and to the arts of peaceful life, I 7thank my God that I have 4lived to see this glorious day. No longer reposing on the memory of the traditional glory of the 1past, we are surrounded and bathed in the present glory now. No lust for mere personal 5+renown, no coarse 5+bravado, no professional taste for 5arms, have led our citizen soldiers to the field. No unworthy motive inspires out hearts today, and nerves the arms of 4twenty thousand of our brave citizens of Massachusetts, reclining in their tends, now eager for the fray. But the conviction of 6duty and love of country, the certainty of future and deserved success; a love which rests upon all we know and all we feel of a heroid past, and upon all that inspires to our immortal 2future. It is our work— standing by the Presi-
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p. 269
dent of the United States, his Cabinet and Congress, which arms and hopeful courage—to defend and march behind our 4flag wherever it leads the way, and though difficult and dark the way it may conduct us, still to follow over the tented field— whether of victory or temporary defeat—still to follow, and wherever it goes, to follow on until at last—by France and England, as now and in the past—it shall be 5honored on every sea. From every 7Mountain top it shall wave, from the 3Alleghanies to the 1Rocky Mountains, and down every river it shall float, from the Penobscot to the Mississippi; respected and reverenced in 5+Charleston and 3Savannah as in Boston and New York; the symbol of 5+one people, of 5+one language, of 5+one history, of one past, one present, and one future— the symbol of 4United America.
If we were silent to-day, our fathers 10bones would rattle in their graves. They braved stormy seas and savage shores, and barbarous men to make a home for civilization and liberty. And if nothing is left for us but to 4maintain these rights by force, I shall die 9willingly as I shall die 4gloriously if, with the last breath, I can again repeat, as did the first martyr of the Massachusetts soldiery of 1861: “All 8HAIL to the stars and stripes!”