Address, at Topeka, April 27, 1885, at a celebration held in honor
of the birthday of General Grant.
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: The felicitous concurrence of the
birthday of a great American soldier and a great American civic society
at the same date, has, perhaps for the first time, been generally noted
within the past week or so. But hereafter, and especially in the distant
future, it will afford a happy opportunity for a blending of military
and civil celebrations.
The very general and spontaneous celebration of the birthday of a living
man—of a man, too, who occupies no high office, but is simply one of
fifty-five million American citizens—is something unique and remarkable
in this country, if, indeed, it is not in the history of the civilized
world.
But everything in the career of Ulysses S. Grant has been phenomenal.
For years, during the war, thousands doubted whether he had any military
genius. Yet in every position in which he was placed, he succeeded where
others had failed. From Donelson to Vicksburg, from Vicksburg to
Chattanooga, from Chattanooga to the Potomac, and from the Potomac to
Appomattox—everywhere that this grave, silent, self-controlled man went,
he inspired confidence and organized victory.
He is the only man of our day and generation—perhaps the only man of any
age—who has lived to read the judgment of impartial history concerning
his career and achievements. The receptions given him, the great honors
paid him by princes, potentates and people in every civilized country
during his voyage around the world, voiced the verdict, not alone of the
present, but of the future, concerning Ulysses S. Grant. What the
historian of a hundred years hence may say of Thomas, or Sherman, or
Sheridan, or Meade, we cannot predict; but what he will say of Grant is
determined already by the universal assent of the civilized world.
I have now and then heard the cynical sneer, “There is nothing so
successful as success,” applied to the achievements of General Grant. It
was fashionable in some quarters, a few years ago, to refer to him as
“an accident of the war.” But I believe that to act with common sense at
all times and under all circumstances, is the very highest and grandest
development of human genius. And this was what Grant, as a soldier,
always did. Read his dispatches, his orders, his directions to his
subordinates, and through them all, in a strong and steady current, runs
the force of an inflexible, well-balanced purpose, of lofty devotion to
duty, of unconquerable courage, of unselfish patriotism, of dignity
without arrogance, of patience, confidence, and conviction. If this is
not greatness, where has there been a clearer development of the results
of greatness?
It is fitting and appropriate, therefore, that this great American
citizen should receive, during his life, such honors and such kindly
remembrance as the celebrations that are taking place to-day throughout
the length and breadth of the land, give expression to. He has outlived
detraction and survived partisan malice and sectional hate. For weeks
the whole country has watched, with moistening eyes, the bulletins from
his sick-room. And now, when a gleam of hope survives, and there seems
to be a chance that the great soldier may live for years, his countrymen
gather by thousands in every hamlet, town and city throughout the land,
and the universal hope and prayer that goes up from their hearts is:
“Long live Ulysses S. Grant.”