Of errors and defects we certainly have not less than our full share, enough to keep the reformer awake, the statesman busy, and the country in a pre… - Frederick Douglass

The sentiment that brings us here today is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart. It has crowned and made glorious the high places of all civilized nations with the grandest and most enduring works of art, designed to illustrate the characters and perpetuate the memories of great public men. It is the sentiment which from year to year adorns with fragrant and beautiful flowers the graves of our loyal, brave, and patriotic soldiers who fell in defense of the Union and liberty. It is the sentiment of gratitude and appreciation, which often, in the presence of many who hear me, has filled yonder heights of Arlington with the eloquence of eulogy and the sublime enthusiasm of poetry and song; a sentiment which can never die while the republic lives.

The control of events has been taken out of our hands...we have fallen into the mighty current of eternal principles-invisible forces-which are shaping and fashioning events as they wish, using us only as instruments to work out their own results in our national destiny.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.