Malvern Hill, of James's Island, of Baton Rouge, of Cedar Mountain, of Bull Run again, of Chantilly, of Washington in North Carolina, of South Mountain, of Antietam, of Fredericksburg and Goldsborough,-through all the capricious fortunes of the war the regiments of Massachusetts have borne her flag by the side of the banner of the Union. And, beyond the Atlantic slope, every battle-field has drunk the blood of her sons, nurtured among her hills and sands, from which in adventurous manhood they turned their footsteps to the West. Officers and enlisted men have vied with each other in deeds of valor. The flag, whose standard-bearer, shot down in battle, tossed it from his dying hand nerved by undying patriotism, has been caught by the comrade, who in his turn has closed his eyes for the last time upon its starry folds as another hero-martyr clasped the splintered staff and rescued the symbol at once of country and of their blood-bought fame.

How can fleeting words of human praise gild the record of their glory? Our eyes suffused with tears, and blood retreating to the heart, stirred with unwonted thrill, speak with the eloquence of nature, uttered, but unexpressed. From the din of the battle, they have passed to the peace of eternity. Farewell! warrior, citizen, patriot, lover, friend,

whether in the humbler ranks or bearing the sword of official power, whether private, captain, surgeon or chaplain, for all these in the heady fight have passed away,-Hail! and Farewell! Each hero must sleep serenely on the field where he fell in a cause "sacred to liberty and the rights of mankind."

Worn by no wasting, lingering pain,
"No cold gradations of decay,

Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way."

Massachusetts-Union-Liberty.

Massachusetts, limited in territory, aiming to cultivate and develope the capacities of both man and nature, given to no one distinctive pursuit, but devoted to many, is at once an agricultural, commercial and manufacturing Commonwealth. The individual citizen, adapting himself to the seasons and the market, is not unfrequently an expert in divers callings. In the winter he cuts ice on Crystal Lake for Calcutta, and he goes fishing in the summer on the Banks of Newfoundland. He carries on his father's homestead in the growing season, and makes boots for Boston market in the intervals of farming. He scours the Pacific in a New Bedford whaler while he is young and fond of adventure, and settles down at last the keeper of a country

1

vacation.

store on Nantucket. He goes to college for his own education, and teaches school himself in the college He manufactures ploughs and reapers in Massachusetts, and puts his earnings into railroads in Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Massachusetts buys material from all who have it to sell, and vends her wares in every State. Her sons have been found pursuing their way in every opening of the West and South, while her own narrow but hospitable borders afford a prosperous home to tens of thousands honest sons and daughters of toil, from every nation in Europe.

Peaceful, rural, and simple in their tastes, her people, never forgetting the lessons learned by their fathers, not less of War than of Religion, are found in arms for their fathers' flag wherever it waves, from Boston to Galveston. The troops of Massachusetts in Maryland, in Virginia, in the Carolinas, in Louisiana, in Texas; the details from her regiments for gunboat service on the southern and western rivers; her seamen in the navy, assisting at the reduction of the forts from Hatteras Inlet to the city of New Orleans, or going down to that silence deeper than the sea, in the Monitor or the Cumberland,-all remember their native State as a single star of a brilliant constellation, the many in one, they call their country. By

the facts of our history, the very character of our people, and the tendencies of their education, industry and training, Massachusetts is independent in her opinions, loyal to the Union, and the uncompromising foe of treason.

Geographically on one side of the continent, her soldiers come from the Golden Gate of California to encamp by Dorchester Heights, that they may serve under the white flag of the Pilgrim Commonwealth. We proudly count our brethren in public station and in all the honored walks of private life, in Oregon as well as in Barnstable. Her sons have sent from around the world their benefactions for the relief of the families of her braves. Though no drop of the "Father of Waters" laves our shores, or descended on any hill top which sheds into our streams; yet, narrowed by no policy of sectional or territorial jealousy, we would gladly and proudly contribute through the National treasury, in the interest of our National defences, for the connection by Ship Canal of the Mississippi with Lake Michigan, and of Lake Erie with the Hudson.

Unionists in no double sense, we have held from the beginning that the Government, greater than any class of men or of interests, has an original and imprescriptible right to the devoted and hearty service of

every subject of its protection and power. We deny the rightfulness of the rebellion, and we are in arms against it; and we have equally denied that the rebel States could rightfully be allowed to impose their treasonable will upon any human being whose interest or desires would make him loyal. While our wives surrender their husbands and our fathers their sons to all the perils of a dreadful war waged by rebellion, we have never discovered a reason why the rebels should retain their slaves, and compel them to be rebels too. Supporting always the government, without conditions as to its policy, we rejoice with unutterable joy that its policy is that of human nature, and not that of human sophistry; and we hail the returning day of the civic virtues, which our national departure from the practice of Justice and the principles of our fathers, had discouraged in the North and had overthrown in the South.

GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE AND

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

Practical questions of grave and important moment are before the government and the people of the United States. A large number of poor persons, without capital save their ability to labor, with new motives to industry, subordination and good conduct,