Franklin Repository

Insurance is a thoroughly mastered science. It is reduced to a mathematical certainty how many buildings will be burned in a given number of years; at what age sound men and women will die; what number of travelers will be killed and maimed out of every thousand, and how many days, weeks and months hearty people must devote to sickness or curing broken limbs or bruises from accidents. True, they cannot calculate just when any particular individual will die, or take sick, or suffer a fracture of the leg, or when any particular house or barn will take fire; but it is ascertained to a reasonable certainty the average life of healthy men and women; the average number of accidents inflicted upon a thousand travelers, and the average per centage of property destroyed by fire. Years of patient toil have been devoted to research on these points, and the result is that any soundly established and judiciously managed Insurance company cannot but make money unless it fails in securing adequate patronage, or meets with some most uncommon misfortune before it has attained a good footing.

While the great science of Insurance has been thoroughly mastered by men who have devoted their energies to the establishment of profitable Insurance companies, the wisdom, indeed the necessity of insurance is very far from being properly appreciated by the people generally. Most persons have learned that when they have erected good houses, barns and places of business, it is but the part of wisdom to protect themselves from total loss by insuring them in one or more companies; but beyond that the question of insurance is as yet in its infancy. The time is past when men are entitled to sympathy who suffer serious loss by fire because they have, from parsimony or neglect, failed to effect insurances; and the principle is a correct one. There is no excuse whatever for the neglect to insure property when it can be done without fear of swindling almost at their doors. Any one who can afford to build can well afford to insure, and those who can barely afford to build, cannot afford not to insure, for the reason that in case of loss by fire, they cannot replace that which they have lost, while if insured, they can rebuild and none feel the loss materially.

But insurance is steadily ramifying into every channel that opens the way to afford protection against accident or the loss of the source of living by death. Each year life insurance is widening its sphere of usefulness until it is now very generally adopted by judicious business men. One-half of the active men in Chambersburg who have families have their lives insured. We know of two of our citizens who have each an insurance of thirty thousand dollars on his life, and there are very many who have ten, five, and as low as one thousand to protect their families from want in case of their death. It is regarded by well informed business men as the best investment that can be made. We have well-established companies--such as the American, the Penn, and the Girard, each of which have agents here,--which have stood all the financial convulsions of the last twenty years without impairing their credit, and it is a well ascertained fact, that unless their assets are stolen, they must not only remain solvent but increase in wealth for an indefinite period. Insurances can be taken in every conceivable way. You can insure your own or any other's life--can insure in favor of your own estate or in favor of your wife, child, creditor or any one else; and you can pay the whole in ten years; pay semi-annually, or take a non-forfeiture policy, which will remain good for any proportion of the policy that is paid for even if the payments are discontinued. By life insurance every family can be made secure against want. Two-thirds of the families in every community depend wholly or measurably upon the efforts of the head of the family for support, and suffer either absolute want or grievous curtailment of the comforts of life when the avenging angel strikes at the father and husband. We know of hundreds of widows and orphans who have experienced sad changes in life because of the failure of their natural protector to resort to life insurance; and we know of a few whose sole dependence now is upon the income derived from the money received on a life insurance policy. There are few industrious and thrifty men who cannot afford to set apart a portion of their income to provide a certain revenue for their families in case of death; and we commend the subject to every careful and affectionate parent and husband.

Accidental policies are also issued now by responsible companies, and they are worthy of the attention of business men, particularly those whose families depend upon their daily labor for support. Travelers can, for an additional ten cents paid when purchasing a rail-road ticket, get an insurance for three thousand dollars, which will be valid for twelve hours. If death ensues within that time by accident, the sum is paid in full, or if by any casualty the person insured is prevented from attending to his usual business, he is paid fifteen dollars per week for a period not exceeding twenty-six weeks. Similar policies can be taken for a year, at the rate of five dollars for every thousand insured, and if any accident prevents active employment during that time, five dollars per week is paid for every thousand insured, and in case of death from any accident, the whole sum is paid. This feature of insurance is especially adapted to mechanics who work upon buildings or about dangerous machinery, and to persons who travel frequently upon railroads. It is very cheap as the number of accidents in proportion to the amount of travel and the use of machinery is being reduced each year because of the vast increase and perfection of both. It is not uncommon for families dependent upon daily labor to suffer serious want because of accident, preventing their father from pursuing his calling, and the pittance of less than two cents per day will secure five dollars per week for the support of the family, while the disability continues. The same principle applies to health insurance; but it is fast fading away before the progress of life insurance, though some companies still incorporate it with the insurance upon life.

The whole subject is worthy of the careful consideration of all classes, for there are none so opulent and none so poor that they cannot find a system of insurance adapted to their wants and circumstances. There are three agents of Life Insurance in Chambersburg--W. G. Reed, of the American; S. S. Shryock, of the Penn, and John Mull of the Girard; and Mr. Reed is also general agent for a number of Fire Insurance companies, and the only agent, we believe, for Accidental insurance.

The emphatic declaration of Hon. Montgomery Blair, in his Hagerstown speech last week, that our government must promptly demand the surrender of the Mexican throne by Maxamillian and enforce the demand at every hazard, has a peculiar significance. Upon the face of the address it seems to be a mere ebullition of petty spite against Messrs. Seward and Stanton, two fellow cabinet officers who retained their portfolios while Mr. Blair reluctantly retired; but as a political manifesto, considering the relations of the author to the powers that be, and the military movements in Texas, we regard it as foreshadowing important events. That it assaults Mr. Seward is no indication that Mr. Seward will surrender the Premiership, nor that he is in the way of the new policy apparently to be inaugurated. Mr. Blair would doubtless prefer that Mr. Seward should resist the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine, and fall in the effort; and the labored argument that he has antagonized it and means to persist in it, proves simply that Mr. Blair wants Mr. Seward out of the cabinet or intends to strip him of all credit for the inauguration of the new policy.

It is true, as charged by Mr. Blair, that Mr. Seward has not insisted upon the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine. Mr. Lincoln wisely adopted the motto--"One war at a time," and Mr. Seward faithfully carried it out. Both would doubtless have preferred to restrain Napoleon from interference in Mexico and to declare the usurpation of the Mexican throne by Maxamillian as an act of hostility against the United States; but inasmuch as they found quite enough to do to enforce the laws within the territory of the United States, they allowed the question to remain in abeyance. According to the settled policy of the government, the declaration of Congress and the platform of the Baltimore Convention, they were bound to protect Mexico from French and Austrian domination, just as they were bound to maintain the sovereignty of the general government in all the States; but it required over four years to discharge the last duty, and it was but the part of prudence and the certain road to success in both, to overlook the lesser evil until the greater was overcome. Now the authority of the government is confessedly re-established, and the question of French interference in Mexico becomes a legitimate issue, and we must prepare to meet it as becomes a great nation.

Mr. Blair has not spoken at random in the important enunciation of our true foreign policy. He is known to sustain the most intimate relations with President Johnson, who was the guest of F.B. Blair Sr. from the time of his inauguration as Vice President, until his shattered health was entirely restored; and when he appeared before Chief Justice Chase to qualify as the chief ruler of the nation, the two Blairs, father and son, with Preston King, were by his side as friends and counselors. Since they have been tireless in their attendance upon the new President, and he could have few more sagacious advisers on all public questions in which their personal prejudices and disappointments do not enter. Besides Mr. Montgomery Blair is a politician, sagacious and tireless, and not wanting in ambition. He has already been a cabinet officer, and looks confidently to a seat in the Senate. Cordially as he hates Seward and Stanton, he would not proclaim a policy not likely to be accepted by the administration and the people, merely for the sake of making mouths at two cabinet ministers who have been more fortunate than himself. He proclaims the Monroe doctrine and demands its immediate and earnest enforcement because he believes in it; because it is right; because it will be the policy of the administration, and because it will meet the approval of the people generally and Maryland in particular. So much we learn from Mr. Blair's Hagerstown speech.

This view of the great issue is fully sustained by the military movements in Texas. When Gen. Sheridan was ordered to Texas, Kirby Smith still defied the government, and declared his purpose by proclamation to his soldiers to maintain rebellion indefinitely; but before Gen. Sheridan had reached his new field, the entire rebel forces in the Trans-Mississippi department were surrendered, and no armed forces remained any where to resist the proper authorities. It was generally supposed that Gen. Sheridan's mission was ended before he reached his head-quarters; but instead of returning or disbanding his troops, his army has been steadily strengthened until he has fully 100,000 men in his department, and an army of 80,000 men ready to take the field for active operations. The President has not sent a fighting soldier like Sheridan to amuse himself by putting 80,000 men through the evolutions on dress parade every few days, nor would so strict an economist as President Johnson incur such a vast expense for naught. He keeps an immense army there and there are no rebels to fight; no internal disturbances to quell; no point of our southern frontier or coast is threatened by any foe, and yet Sheridan is daily strengthened instead of mustering his men out and sending them home, as has been done every where else. He evidently has a most important mission to fulfill, and the government manifestly expects the bloody arbitrament of the sand to be necessary to its solution. The first step taken is the formal demand made by Gen. Steele, one of Sheridan's lieutenants, upon the Imperial General for the surrender of the rebel ordnance and arms sold the French by the rebels, and we regard that as but the beginning of the end. Unless the signs of the times, both political and military, prove singularly deceptive, it cannot be long until Napoleon and Maximillian will be notified that Mexico must be allowed to adopt and maintain her own form of government, and Sheridan stands in waiting for enforce it. It may result in war with France; but we think it will not. If it should, it would be best to accept it now than hereafter when France and the Empire in Mexico shall have become much better prepared to meet us in the field. It is evident that this government cannot be secure while the Monroe doctrine is insolently defied by the governments of the old world; and it will be the part of wisdom to grapple with the foe before he has attained the full measure of his power. Maximillian must leave Mexico, or this government must confess its inability to maintain its own dignity by enforcing its long settled policy of non-interference with the sister governments of the continent; and if the administration shall determine that now is the time to act, the nation will cordially sanction it and cheerfully bear every necessary sacrifice to sustain it.

To the Editors of the Franklin Repository:

I have observed that several of the leading citizens of our State have been publicly recommended by their friends as suitable persons to be presented to the Union Convention, as candidate for its nomination for Governor.

Among the claims urged in behalf of those gentlemen, that of locality is prominently set forth. I accept it as having much force, and assert it as peculiarly our own.

This section of the State is strangely overlooked in making selections for the bestowment of State or National honors. That it is important enough in the Commonwealth need not be argued.

But something else is wanted than locality to commend a candidate to the people of Pennsylvania at this momentous period. Never before was it so important to hunt out carefully a man fitted to the high position of administering the affairs of this great Commonwealth, burdened now with debt and groaning with unavoidable taxation. Locality has its claims, public service in the cabinet or the field has its claims, but these alone are insufficient. Locality may lack every other qualification; public service may not be accompanied with integrity, industry or capacity. But honesty, energy, ability are requisites demanded imperatively by the financial conditions of the State, and by the influence which she is to exert over the councils and policy of the nation. A mere politician won't answer, lest his orthodoxy be never so pure and his intellect never so brilliant. Wisdom and good management in our Executives are more needed now than the more shining but less substantial qualities, which often mislead us in the choice of our rulers, but seldom do so in our private concerns.

I believe, while we have special claims as to locality, that we have also most fortunately the man. One who has had ample experience in public affairs, who is well known throughout the State, who had ample experience in business affairs; whose ability is conceded by political friend and foe, whose honesty is without spot or question; a gentleman of industry, of excellent business habits, of firmness, who would administer affairs of the State prudently, economically, wisely. I refer to Col. Francis Jordan, of Bedford, and am confident that the people of this Congressional district will endorse my declarations, and labor to secure his nomination. FRANKLIN

Chambersburg, July 18, 1865.

To the Editors of the Franklin Repository:

In 1862 the ministers of Chambersburg, at a weekly ministerial meeting, called up the subject of intemperance, and resolved to take a financial view of the great evil. They appointed a committee of two to inquire of the proper authorities to obtain facts and report. Their report was as follows--allowing three-fourths expended by the county for Jail, Poor House and criminal courts as the results of intemperance, which is below the real result:

EXPENDITURES
Poor House....................$5,297
Prison.............................. 1,713
Criminal Courts..................2,626
_____$9,636
LICENSE INCOME
Taverns...........................$1,360
Restaurants...........................250
Distilleries.............................200
_____$1,810
$7,826

$7,826 expended over the gain, or in other words, the taxpayers of Franklin county are paying that much in taxes to afford the sellers of strong drink the privilege and profit to supply strong drink; to make men drunkards; to tempt young men and boys into the snares of intemperance; to destroy the peace and quiet of families; to [illeg] a class of men for business and usefulness, and finally to fill scores of graves with drunkards. Can the working and business men of this county afford to pay $7,826 in addition to their other high taxes!

Can it be financially or humanely wise, or good policy, to give their influence by legislation or by petition to keep up such a useless expenditure of money! Surely every financier will say nay.

JUSTICE.

Delivered on the 4th of July, 1865, to the Returned Soldiers,

By W. S. Everett, Esq.

SOLDIERS AND CITIZENS:--I have never received an invitation, to address a meeting of my fellow countrymen, with so much pride, as the one I received a few days since, from a committee of war-worn veterans who entered the war at its commencement and remained in the army fighting our country's battles until its close.

You soldiers have marched under the flag of your country, and wherever you went you unfurled that flag to the breeze, and so bravely did you vindicate it, that no ruthless hand has dared to take it down, or even disturb it.

By your bravery and heroism, that flag now waves over the capital of every State, and floats from the rampart of every fort along the entire coast, and has by you been planted in triumph upon the soil of every State in rebellion, so securely that none has even dared to disgrace it.

Some of you were among the first to go into battle, and among the last to come out. You have nobly stood by your country's flag, always true to it, carrying it, on many occasions, through the hottest of the battle, the proud emblem of your country's glory, and as the shout of victory went up, planting it upon the field of honor, the glorious symbol of freedom to all mankind.

"A shout as of waters, a long withered cry
How it leaps, how it leaps from the earth to the sky
From the sky to the earth, from the earth to the sea
Hear the chorus re-echoed 'The people are free'

It is always right to celebrate the heroism of our brethren in the field, and the splendid victories of their arms.

Looking over this concourse of delighted people in the presence of our grand old flag, of the heroes of many a hard fought battle, who carried it to victory, and amidst the loud bursts of applause that deafens the ear, it seems to me the lips of the most eloquent orator are as dumb and meaningless.

We all rejoice in our country's prosperity, and now after four years terrible war with a giant foe, when golden success has crowned our arms with victory, and peace with its benign influence is supplanting the bloody red-hand of war, it is eminently proper that we should assemble together on this our National Sabbath, to welcome home and do honor to those bold and brave spirits who achieved so much for the government we love. Pericles, the most celebrated Athenian orator, once said, "that the citizen who sorrowed not in his country's disasters, and rejoiced not in her triumphs, was unworthy to live, and unfit to die."

This day then, is one of rejoicing in our country's triumphs, and to those who labored to achieve those triumphs, and those who supported and sustained our government when the dark clouds of war overhung our national horizon, who contributed to its strength when to do so required a loyal heart and a patriotic spirit, this Fourth of July is one of exultation, joy and national pride. To-day the whole nation feels as with one heart the glorious achievements which have immortalized our arms.

The Fourth of July before this called the young and ardent to join the public rejoicing; it now also speaks, in a touching voice, to the retired, to the gray headed, the old and infirm. It is no longer a day for a particular age or class to commemorate, but it calls together all classes, all parties, all associations, all orders, all conditions and all colors of men. It is a day in which all men everywhere have a common interest, for all are alike benefited by the dear bought blessings which it commemorates. The tribute we bring is not to the living alone, but also to the gallant dead, who dared and suffered upon land and sea, that we as a nation might live and grow in greatness and power.

To-day we stand a new people, with no stigma resting upon our national escutcheon. Our arms are triumphant upon land and sea, and the great problem of our institutions, that man is capable of self-government, fully vindicated and established.

To-day our nation stands disenthralled and re-generated, with the heaven-born principle proclaimed throughout the land, Universal freedom to all mankind, and equal civil and political rights. Liberty blesses a nation with its sweet influence; even the barren earth seems to pour out its fruits under a system where the rights of men and property are secure, while her fairest gardens are blighted by slavery and despotism. We now as a nation stand, where our charter of independence intended we should, throughout the area of our country, a truly free and independent people.

There can be no more interesting occasion than that which has called us together to day. To welcome home those who a few years ago went out from amongst us to roll back the swelling tide of rebellion and treason that had threatened our institutions and government with destruction, is a duty that fills every loyal heart with the warmest emotions. Yes, soldiers, in behalf of the people in our town and country, I welcome you home, the comforts of which your patriotism induced you to sacrifice, that you might lend a helping hand in the rescue of your country from the terrible danger that threatened its overthrow. We have watched you anxiously during the last four years, as you moved among the deadly missiles poured on you by the enemies of our government, or lay suffering from wounds and disease in the hospital.

Yes, you have filled us with exultant pride on many occasions, as we have read of the hard fought battles from which you nobly won the golden wreath of victory. From Gettysburg, where the tide was turned and the rebellion began to ebb, to the Wilderness, where wading through a sea of blood for forty days and nights; to Spottsylvania, then across the North Anna and South Anna rivers, pursuing the foe with an energy that threw fear aside, up to the very gates of Richmond and Petersburg, there struggling with death-like tenacity for the period of months, and then to the Weldon railroad and Hatcher's Run, on the glorious termination of the war, in the surrender of Lee with his entire force at Appomattox Court House, you have in all these hard fought battles of this terrible campaign, won for yourselves a glorious distinction, and for your country immortal honor.

And you, soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland, victors of a hundred battles, from Nashville to Chattanooga, from Chattanooga to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Savannah, and from Savannah to Edisto and Congaree, into the very heart and centre of treason and traitors, only stopping to linger lovingly over the battle fields where freedom's champions stopped to fight her battles and tell her victories; and then at Kenesaw Heights and Lookout Mountain, where immortality was found above the clouds and the starry flag was unfurled to the breeze, and waved the emblem of truth and glory. From this across the State of Georgia, through South Carolina and North Carolina, ever on the march under the sunlight of glory and honor, carrying terror and dismay to the very hearts of those most determined in the destruction of our government, until your triumph over the second army arrayed against law and order, commanded by General Johnston.

This war so triumphantly ended by the noble daring and bravery of our troops, has given us as a people, the most prominent position among the military nations of the earth. It has put beyond question the fact that the United States have more military resources, and can put into the field greater armies than any other government now in existence. When the war began four years ago, the people wished the trial to be made in the face of the civilized world. They asked no foreign intervention, they needed no foreign assistance. They had intelligence enough never to suffer a military despotism, nor to allow the seizure of their political rights and guarantees; but fully understanding their destiny, they have urged on the war, have fought bravely, subdued the rebellion, restored peace to the country and established the government strong enough and powerful enough to conduct us in our onward career, until we, as a people, shall be as Rome was when her imperial eagles hovered around the pillars of Hercules.

To be identified with a people so permeated with the principle of liberty, that they will not allow the meanest of God's creatures to suffer slavery, is to my mind a most glorious nobility. Yes, the loyal people of America will suffer not even the meanest Negro to remain in bondage. The vast amount of blood that has been poured out and treasure expended since this causeless rebellion commenced, establishes beyond doubt, the love our people have for that priceless boon, universal freedom. No sacrifice too great to vindicate it. No effort too vast to sustain it. It is the leading element in our nationality, the corner stone upon which is reared our beautiful fabric of government.

The government during all this bloody war has been faithful to all its constitutional obligations. For more than three-quarters of a century, it has maintained the national honor at home and abroad, and by its power, its wisdom, and its justice, has given the title of an American citizen an elevation among the nations of the earth, which the citizens of no government have enjoyed since the proudest days of the Roman Empire.

The rights of no States were invaded, no man's property despoiled, no man's liberty abridged, no man's life oppressively jeopardized by the action of the Federal government. On the contrary, our system of government is such that the sovereignty of the States in its limited capacity does not clash with the supreme sovereignty of the Federal government. Each in its respective orbit revolves independent of the other, yet not separate, but the one within the sphere granted and upheld by the other.

The wicked rebellion commenced four years ago for the purpose of destroying our system of government was the legitimate growth of two antagonistic principles contending for the mastery--slavery and freedom. In the very heart of our country, the element of the most haughty and intolerant aristocracy had been nurtured by the institution of human bondage. The most repulsive features of the old European feudalism had been transplanted to our Republic.

The war was simply a desperate struggle on the part of the slaveholders, to retain by force of arms that domination in the government of this Republic which they had so long held, and which by the natural operation of the ballot-box they were slowly but surely losing. It was simply a repetition of that great conflict, which for ages has agitated our globe--the conflict between aristocratic usurpation and popular rights. How nobly it has been resisted and crushed we all know. Since the days that crusading Europe threw its hosts upon the embattled plains of Asia, no deeper, or more earnest, or grander spirit has stirred the souls of men, than that which sent forth the mighty masses of citizen soldiery from the North, whose gleaming banners conquered the rebellion, and made bright again the earth and sky of the distracted south.

We come now to-day to applaud our own work and to welcome you, brave men, back from the fields of honor and glory, but also to pay a final tribute to the glowing deeds of our revolutionary fathers. It was for us, their posterity, that the heroes and sages of the revolution toiled and bled. It was not their own cause in which they were embarked. The most they could promise themselves was that, having cast forth the seed of liberty, having watered it with tears of waiting eyes and the blood of brave hearts, their descendants might gather the fruit of its branches, while those who planted it should moulder in peace beneath its shade. And so imbued were they with the principle of liberty, that in order to achieve it they hazarded homes, property and even life itself. On the score of interest, it perhaps might have been better for them to have endured the oppressive acts of the British Parliament, than to have plunged into the heavy expense of blood and treasure of the Revolutionary war. But they thought not of shuffling off on posterity the burden of resistance. They well understood their duty to their descendants. They perceived that they, under Providence, were called to strike the blow of resistance in the cause of civil and religious liberty, and it was this day eighty years ago that they, the mightiest among the mighty, stood forth, and in that immortal Declaration proclaimed the doctrine, which is the corner-stone of our Government, that to mankind belong certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nor should we on this occasion forget those who stood forth in their arms when the council was over to bravely contend for this hallowed principle. To them belong glory, honor and immortality. The brief space allotted me will not suffice to describe the thrilling incidents of sublimity and woe, agony and triumph, that were theirs to enjoy and endure through the eight long years of the Revolution. Time is bringing forward in glorious relief the men and the deeds of that high souled day, although the generation of Revolutionary heroes is gone, their deeds remain, and the fire which kindled in their hearts the spirit of patriotism still burns upon our National altars, and warms up the same feeling in the bosoms of the generation of men now living.

The Fourth of July two years ago exemplified in golden characters the noble heroism of the brave descendants of a loyal ancestry. Then the rebellion had reached the highest point of its strength and power, and as our revolutionary ancestors proclaimed the doctrine of freedom on that memorable day, and stood forth ready to vindicate it, so too did the loyal Union armies, after hard fought battles, turn the tide at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, driving the enemies of freedom dishonored, dismayed, defeated and discouraged, back to the home of treason and slavery, there only to await in rags of beggary the entire surrender of their armies. Noble heroes, You have faithfully and well served your country. The marks of the campaign are still fresh upon your persons. They are marks of honor, and the scars of wounds you bear, are marks of glory brighter than the diamond, and more lasting than names engraven upon tablets of marble. As the fathers of the revolution are remembered with honor and admiration, so too will you stand forth the pride of posterity and the glory of your own day and generation. For you there is a page in history, a bright and honored page, upon which will be written the names and hard fought battles of the soldiers of the war of 1861. The glorious achievement you won amid the missiles of death, is not for your own countrymen alone, but for the oppressed of every land, of every color, upon the face of the earth. Whilst this is the eighty-ninth year of American independence, it is the first year of American freedom. Our Revolutionary fathers achieved our independence. You gave freedom to the oppressed and enslaved. The trial of adversity was theirs--the trial of prosperity is ours. Our position is the most enviable, the most responsible, which men can fill. If we now do our duty, the cause of universal freedom is safe. If we fail, we not only defraud our children of the inheritance which we received from our fathers, but we blast the hope of the friends of liberty throughout Europe, throughout the world, to the end of time.

You need not, Soldiers and fellow citizens, that I should dwell upon the incidents of the terrible war just closed. This very place: here in Chambersburg, a town that once nestled so beautifully in the rich and fertile Cumberland Valley, now sitting draped in mourning amidst her crumbling walls, was the scene of perhaps the most terrible act of fiendish atrocity.

Yes, Chambersburg stands a lasting monument to the firm and unyielding patriotism of her people. Her people might have saved their town; but rather than suffer the sacrifice of principle, they spurned with contempt the unjust tribute of M'Causland, and challenged him to an act, in the execution of which, they believed humanity would fail before it. But this was not all of our sufferings, our people endured three raids, and an invasion of Lee's entire army. Four times stripped of our horses, cattle and goods, and compelled to undergo the meanest of insults heaped upon us by those intent upon the destruction of our country, we were doomed at last to leave our homes, with all of our valuables, and relics around which fond memories clustered, only to see them disappear in a column of flame that licked the very clouds, the work of the rebel incendiary.

She two, like other towns and cities in the country can call the roll of her citizens--heroes, fallen in the desperate struggle for universal freedom. She has never faltered when the order came for more men, but in her enthusiasm for the glorious cause permitted but one draft, raising her quotas other times by volunteers.

But what shall I say of those gallant and brave men who went out from amongst us filled with patriotic devotion to their country and its cause, and who returned not again. These men who did so much to preserve our government are no more. These men who gave all they had on earth, their lives, for the holy cause of universal freedom, can now do no more for us, nor we for them. But their memory remains, we will cherish it; their example remains, we will strive to imitate it, and above all the fruit of their last noble act remains, we will gratefully enjoy it. They have gone to the companions of their cares, of their dangers and their toils. It is well with them. How long the list of our brave and good have assembled there. There is our Col. Ho--m, Capt. Easton, Capt. Sam McDowell, Capt. Stevens, Capt. McCulloh, Capt. Kearns, Pomeroy Oaks, Fisher, McGrath, Follesene and hosts of others who followed them in their country's confidence, are now met together in that land where there is no more separation forever. Their bodies lie mouldering in far off States. The faithful marble may preserve their epitaph, but the humblest sod of Independent America, with nothing but the dew drops of the morning to gild it, is a prouder mausoleum than Kings or conquerors can boast. The fabric of our government, like all things human, however firm and fair, may crumble into dust. But the cause of universal emancipation vindicated and achieved will stand forever.