States of America.  There is scarcely a man born in the South who has lifted his hand against this banner but had a father who would have died for it.  Is memory dead?  Is there no historic pride?  Has a fatal fury struck blindness or hate into eyes that used to look kindly towards each other, that read the same Bible, that hung over the historic pages of our national glory, that studied the same Constitution?  Let this uplifting bring back all of the past that was good, but leave in darkness all that was bad.  It was never before so wholly unspotted; so clear of all wrong, so purely and simply the sign of justice and liberty.  Did I say that we brought back the same banner that you bore away, noble and heroic sir?  It is not the same.  It is more and better than it was.  The land is free from slavery since that banner fell.

When God would prepare Moses for emancipation, he overthrew his first steps and drove him for forty years to brood in the wilderness.  When our flag came down, four years it lay brooding in darkness.  It cried to the Lord, “Wherefore am I deposed?” Then arose before it a vision of its sin.  It had strengthened the strong, and forgotten the weak.  It proclaimed liberty, but trod upon slaves.  In that seclusion it dedicated itself to liberty.  Behold, to-day, it fulfills its vows!  When it went down four million people had no flag.  To-day it rises, and four million people cry out, “Behold our flag!” Hark! they murmur.  It is the Gospel that they recite in sacred words:  “It is a Gospel to the poor, it heals our broken hearts, it preaches deliverance to captives, it gives sight to the blind, it sets at liberty them that are bruised.”  Rise up then, glorious Gospel banner, and roll out these messages of God.  Tell the air that not a spot now sullies thy whiteness.  Thy red is not the blush of shame, but the flush of joy.  Tell the dews that wash thee that thou art as pure as they.  Say to the night that thy stars lead toward the morning; and to the morning, that a brighter day arises with healing in its wings.  And then, O glowing flag, bid the sun pour light on all thy folds with double brightness while thou art bearing round and round the world the solemn joy—­a race set free! a nation redeemed!  The mighty hand of government, made strong in war by the favor of the God of Battles, spreads wide to-day the banner of liberty that went down in darkness, that arose in light; and there it streams, like the sun above it, neither parceled out nor monopolized, but flooding the air with light for all mankind.  Ye scattered and broken, ye wounded and dying, bitten by the fiery serpents of oppression, everywhere, in all the world, look upon this sign, lifted up, and live!  And ye homeless and houseless slaves, look, and ye are free!  At length you, too, have part and lot in this glorious ensign that broods with impartial love over small and great, the poor and the strong, the bond and the free.  In this solemn hour,