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MICHIGAN, MY MICHIGAN MAJ. W. C. RANSOM, 1871
But when, in the course of the political changes incidental to all popular governments, her people withdrew their confidence from the party that had held the sway for so many years, they did not hesitate to turn upon it the guns of their batteries, until they drove almost the last show of organized resistance from the political field, and the banners of the victorious republicans tossed in triumph in every portion of the commonwealth. Nor are the political views of her people founded in theory alone. For, when the institutions of that great land of which she is an integral part, were ruthlessly assailed by the reckless hands of rebellious force, armed men sprang up from her soil as though the fabled dragon teeth had been sowed in their midst, and crowded upon the ensanguined field, until, from the Ohio to the Gulf, thousands of their manly forms had been laid low in the second great struggle for American liberty.
Such, my friends, are some of the crowning 'glories of the great State we are met this evening to commemorate. To perpetuate the memories of the years that we were proud to say, "I am a citizen of Michigan, " and of those of her sons whom she most delighted to honor, were alike creditable to the head and the heart of every member of our honorable association. Though
by the circumstances of life, those relations of friends, neighbors, and citizens, which in the pride of our patriotism we were wont to consider above all others, have been suspended, and that probably forever, yet at times, in the hours of pensive reflection, we shall again be wandering back by the banks of those beautiful rivers, where in other days we passed so many hours away; the home and the hillside; the cottage and the clustering vines that clambered on the porch; the dark recesses of the forests, where we played in the heat of the summer day, or when autumn had tinged with golden hues the trembling leaves, we shared with the chattering squirrel the treasures he claimed for his winter store; the church and the school; the altar, where, by the side of a heart's young devotion, were plighted the vows of eternal love; or that retired spot in the city of the dead, where the green grassy knoll
MY MICHIGAN
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