THE BOSTON LIGHT INFANTRY. A SPEECH MADE AT FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, JUNE 16, 1858. MR. COMMANDer and GentlEMEN OF THE BOSTON LIGHT INFANTRY,- In rising to renew at somewhat greater length the welcome which I have been commissioned to offer you on this occasion, in behalf of those who have preceded you in the posts you so honorably fill, I am sure I shall not be misunderstood when I say, that it is not the mere fact that you have just returned from a brief but brilliant military excursion to New York, which has prompted such a manifestation of our sympathy and regard. You went forth from your peaceful homes a few days since, 1 hardly need intimate, upon no service of peril or privation. You have visited no enemy's country. You have been called to endure no tedious marches by day, no weary watches by night, no stinted soldier's fare. You have encountered no hostile reception, and brought back no serious list of killed and wounded. Even the pelting of the pitiless storm, which followed your departure and has again preceded your return, has only furnished an opportunity for showing that you were something more than mere sunshine soldiers, and that, like your fathers in the Revolution, you were not prepared to lay down your arms in the face of a tyrannical and oppressive reign. Your trip has been one, I am sure, of recreation and enjoyment. You have been among friends, fellow-citizens, and brother soldiers, who were eager to meet you beneath the folds of a common and glorious flag,—-floating in peace and beauty over almost half a hemisphere, and who rejoiced to welcome you to those sumptuous hospitalities which are never wanting in the great metropo lis of the Union. You have been the guests of that proud commercial emporium, which witnessed the original organization of our federal government, under him who is ever first in the hearts of his countrymen, and which is in itself the noblest illustration of the prosperity, the progress, and the power which such a government, with such a Constitution, and such a Union, could alone have developed. You will hardly expect us, then, to sentimentalize or sympathize with you very deeply, on account of any little disappointments or dampers which may have attended such experiences as these. We have observed with the highest gratification and pride the distinguished attentions which you have everywhere received, and have felt that any fatigues or hardships which may have been occasioned by wind or weather, have been far more than counterbalanced by the hospitalities and honors which have been so abundantly showered upon you. Mr. Commander and gentlemen, the experiences of an encampment or military excursion have been greatly changed since I was an officer in your corps. I remember one of them, certainly, not far from thirty years ago, which was commenced by a rapid afternoon march to Lynn, and thence the next day, under the blaze of a midsummer sun, to Salem, and which ended on the fourth day (for we were always careful to be at home on Saturday night), by a march the whole way from Salem to Boston, by the longest road, between noon and nine in the evening. A wisp of straw for our bed, and a bit of thin bunting above our heads, through which we could see the sentinel stars keeping their watch in the sky, more vigilant than any sentinels we could station, were our only and all-sufficient accommodations; and a little molasses and water and ginger-a switchel I think it was called-was our best drink. Indeed, our commissariat was so economically organized, that I never remember eating any thing in my life with more of the ravenous hunger which proverbially belongs to the halffamished animal, by whose name we are sometimes called, than an ear of hot corn, which I bought for a fip from a child's basket on Salem Common, soon after the hour when the sun ought to have risen, and probably did rise, on a foggy morning of July or August, somewhere about the year 1829. I have "acknowl edged that corn" most gratefully ever since. But what a contrast does such a picture as this present to your comfortable conveyances by railroad and steamers, and to your luxurious accommodations and banquets at the Lafarge or the Astor! No, gentlemen, it is not any thing you have done or suffered during the New-York expedition, which we have come here especially to commemorate by this festival. Some of us, perhaps, may even have been led to doubt the value or expediency of such expeditions altogether. Few of us would regard them as experiments to be very frequently repeated, considering all the exposure and expense which they necessarily involve. And one of us, at least and I am sure you will pardon the frankness with which I say it notwithstanding the habitual excellence and eloquence of Dr. Higby's sermons would prefer to see every variety of volunteer military service not even excepting military funerals -included and terminated within the six secular days of the week. -- But your return has presented an opportunity for offering you a deserved acknowledgment for what you have done, and what you are doing, at home. We are here to assure you of our interest in witnessing the condition of unprecedented and unparalleled prosperity into which you have recently brought the old corps with which we have all had, and still have, so many happy and cherished associations. We are here to manifest the pride we all feel in beholding its full ranks, its exact and excellent discipline, its honorable and gentlemanly spirit, and the readiness it has uniformly exhibited to do its full share, and discharge its whole responsibility, in whatever service of duty or of ceremony the varying exigencies of the community in which we live - of our city, our Commonwealth, or our country-may have called for. Mr. Commander and gentlemen, I believe I express the views of all who are associated with me in this compliment to our old corps, I know that I express my own views, when I say that whatever else we may have lost in the lapse of years, we have not lost any thing of our respect and reverence for that article of our National Constitution which recognizes "a well-regulated militia as essential to the security of a Free State." And that, too, without any reference to the possible contingencies of foreign war. Foreign war is an event which, in a free country like our own, must in a great measure be left to take care of itself, when it comes; for no nation can be fully prepared for it without the maintenance of such a standing army as is the very bane of a Republican system. God grant that a foreign war may never again come in our day and generation! And I rejoice to be able to express my belief that such an event is still a great way off, much farther off, certainly, than some recent demonstrations might lead us to apprehend. For one, I have no fear that the flag of our country-its honor, its inviolability is soon to require any belligerent vindication either on land or on sea. If it should, there will be "hearts of oak" enough to do the needful. And all our hearts will be with them, and all our hands, too, whenever and wherever they may be wanted. But no foreign nation and certainly not our old mother Britain - will seriously and deliberately adventure upon the experiment of attempting to humiliate the banner of the American Union,- whatever provoking annoyances may have been perpetrated here and there by a few petty underlings who may be privileged to wear a button and a cockade. Great Britain has certainly enough to do at present in the jungles of India, without rendering herself responsible for "unchaining the Tiger" on this side of the ocean; and even if she had not, for I had always rather trust to her justice than to her fears, she is too sensible of what is due to us, and due to herself, and due to the cause of civilization, of international law and international love, to let slip her dogs of war wantonly and wilfully upon our commercial marine. We have already seen sufficient indications, I think, to assure us that all our grievances in this line will be redressed without any appeal to arms. Ah, my friends, the honor of our flag is always in more danger from ourselves than from anybody else. We are able to take care of it for ourselves, and we must take care of it for ourselves, on the sea and on the shore. Let us only preserve it in all its integrity and purity, untarnished and untorn, without spot or rent or wrinkle, in its old original, unsullied lustre, and all the nations of the earth will respect it, and we may repose beneath its folds with nothing to fear for its independence or its honor. Certainly, gentlemen, the danger which the citizen-soldier is emphatically called on to guard against, is a danger which is to be found at home. It is the domestic violence, the internal disorganization, incidental to a state of Republican freedom, which creates the necessity for the perpetual preparation of the Volunteer Militia of our land. How suddenly and how frequently, of late, have we witnessed such a necessity in all parts of our wide-spread country! But yesterday it presented itself at New Orleans. Not long before it had been manifested at Washington, at Baltimore, at Philadelphia. Just a year ago to-morrow, the noble regiment whose hospitalities you have so recently shared, was summoned out from that memorable march to Bunker Hill, with the Governor of New York at its head, to unite in preserving the public peace amid the very scenes you have so lately left. I need not say, too, that we have known such occasions among ourselves. Indeed, the whole history of our Commonwealth and country, from the days of Shay's Rebellion to the present day, bears continuous testimony to the vital necessity of a well-organized, well-disciplined, patriotic militia, as a part of our Republican system. Brave old John Adams, who once said of himself, "I am John Yankee, and as such I shall live and die," and who certainly knew as well as any man what constituted the ingredients of the Yankee character, that distinguished patriot and statesman, during whose Presidential administration, and in support of whose Presidential policy, this very corps was originally organized, just sixty years ago, and whose blood is at this moment to be found in your ranks and his inherited name upon your rolls, made a memorable entry in his diary while he was in London, as the first ambassador from the United States of America. When asked as to the origin of the peculiar characteristics of NewEnglanders, he reports himself as having replied, "the meetinghouse and school-house and training-field are the scenes where New England men were formed." And the remark is as true now as it was then. We must have them all, if New England men are to be formed, or if American institutions are to be sustained. There must be spiritual training, and there must be moral and mental training. But there must be physical and mili |