Four million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child, trampled beneath the brutal feet or might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen, the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books, and where all was want, and crime and cruelty, and fear we see the faces of the free. These heroes are dead. They died for liberty they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless, alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars--they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead. THE GRANT BANQUET AT THE PALMER HOUSE, CHICAGO, THURSDAY, NOV. 18th, 1879. TWELFTH TOAST: The Volunteer Soldiers of the Union, whose valor and patriotism saved the world "a government of the people, by the people, and for the PEOPLE." RESPONSE BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. WHEN the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our century, the question "Will the great Republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind. The North, filled with intelligence and wealth--children of liberty--marshaled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the Nation's first and last demand: "Unconditional and immediate surrender." From that moment the end was known. That utterance was the first real declaration of real war, and, in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received the final sword of the rebellion.