Respect to the dead is an instinct of nature; and to leave the remains of
a fallen comrade upon the field, unhonored, is repugnant even to the red
men of the forest. How much more, then, does a civilized nation, of high
degree, owe to the memory of its brave defenders! Will it now forget the
noble sacrifice of its sons amid the debasing influences of commerce and
manufacture? Shall these sticks, which mark the nation's sacrifice,
moulder into dust, and with their brief inscriptions be swept away by the
winds of the world, and all traces of this heroism, this martyrdom, lost?
Here is something required more than brief, hollow, human gratitude, and a
sonorous, perishable epitaph.
Whatever rises above the level of this plain to commemorate for future
ages the devotion of the men who sleep beneath, should be of lasting
material, and as colossal as the gigantic proportions of the republic
itself: or the field should be levelled and swept, and every
distinguishing sign blended and effaced, and the true altar of memorial
erected in the hearts of all men who believe and revere those eternal
principles of love, justice, truth.
Liberty has but one inscription to offer, and that is the noble lines
which were traced on the dungeon wall in the blood of the noblest and
purest of the Girondins: "_Potius mori quam foedari_"--Death rather than
dishonor.