Four years ago, O Illinois, we took from your midst an untried man, and from among the people; we return him to you a mighty conqueror.  Not thine any more, but the nation’s; not ours, but the world’s.  Give him place, ye prairies!  In the midst of this great Continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall make pilgrimage to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism.  Ye winds, that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem!  Ye people, behold a martyr, whose blood, as so many inarticulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty!

    —­HENRY WARD BEECHER.

    THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY

The event which we commemorate is all-important, not merely in our own annals, but in those of the world.  The sententious English poet has declared that “the proper study of mankind is man,” and of all inquiries of a temporal nature, the history of our fellow-beings is unquestionably among the most interesting.  But not all the chapters of human history are alike important.  The annals of our race have been filled up with incidents which concern not, or at least ought not to concern, the great company of mankind.  History, as it has often been written, is the genealogy of princes, the field-book of conquerors; and the fortunes of our fellow-men have been treated only so far as they have been affected by the influence of the great masters and destroyers of our race.  Such history is, I will not say a worthless study, for it is necessary for us to know the dark side as well as the bright side of our condition.  But it is a melancholy study which fills the bosom of the philanthropist and the friend of liberty with sorrow.

But the history of liberty—­the history of men struggling to be free—­the history of men who have acquired and are exercising their freedom—­the history of those great movements in the world, by which liberty has been established and perpetuated, forms a subject which we cannot contemplate too closely.  This is the real history of man, of the human family, of rational immortal beings....

The trial of adversity was theirs; the trial of prosperity is ours.  Let us meet it as men who know their duty and prize their blessings.  Our position is the most enviable, the most responsible, which men can fill.  If this generation does its duty, the cause of constitutional freedom is safe.  If we fail—­if we fail—­not only do we defraud our children of the inheritance which we received from our fathers, but we blast the hopes of the friends of liberty throughout our continent, throughout Europe, throughout the world, to the end of time.

History is not without her examples of hard-fought fields, where the banner of liberty has floated triumphantly on the wildest storm of battle.  She is without her examples of a people by whom the dear-bought treasure has been wisely