OCR Text |
Show JACKSON'S DAY. To-day is or Eb.ou.ld be a great festival festi-val day to every true democrat, to every man -who values the liberty of the citizen and the safety of the nationit na-tionit is Jackson's day. Seventy-nine Seventy-nine years since Jackson won imperishable imper-ishable fame at New Orleans, closing with a clap of thunder the second war with Great Britain. It is true the treaty of peace had been signed before the battle but the news had not j et reached the brave general and his army, so that when Fackenham advanced ad-vanced upon Jackson's lines in front of the city, he found the immortal old hero ready for the desperate conflict which ensued and in -which no less than ' three EngliEh generals went down before the vuerring rifles of the frontier soldiers intrenched behind their cotton bales. . Jackson had vindicated his leputa-tion leputa-tion often before in the presence of the armed enemies of the young republic, but this fierce struggle ran his name up to the top of the column of fame. The trained men of w ar, their world-famed leaders with all the advantages of their discipline, improved engines of battle, their glittering uniforms and waving silken banners, weie no match for the hardy veterans of the west fighting under the eye of the hero himself. Volley after volley rattled against the odd-looking ramparts constructed of cotton bales. Silent stood the brave spirits behind until, as Jackson had commanded, the eyes of the foe were yisible. Then came the lead from the muzzles of the unerring rifles before whose pitiless precision ihe savages of Florida as well as the trained veterans of Britain in heT wars against Napoleon, Na-poleon, went down, like the over-ripe grain before the sickles of - the reapers. This was a fitting close to a war which was characteristic of the two nations engaged in it. Heroism Hero-ism graced every step of the struggle. Gallant and true men led .both armies. Some of England's choicest fighting men had been Eent over here to regulate regu-late the "half savage" American frontiersmen, fron-tiersmen, but these had no terrors for Jackson and his brave men. So the 8th of January 1815, saw the real birth of American piowess on the battlefield. battle-field. In addition to this, the bloodshed at New Orleans settled the question of the final independence of the nation in the eyes of mother England. York-town York-town to the apprehension of the British public represented only a resting place, a pause as it were, but after New Or leans, England buried her last hope of ever restoring her revolted colonies to their Bundered allegiance to the government gov-ernment of England. Indeed should this day ever be one of the most sacied festivals of this great nation. It was won by one iof the typical democrats of the age.by the man whore hand but executed the wise decrees of his master, Jefferson and Jackson, how their gacred names go gliding down the river of time, indissolubly linked together, although of different epochs in the nation's history. The one fashioned the national government govern-ment and its policy, the other defended both right 'gallantly. Although a southerner by birth and sympathy, yet when it becama a question between loyality to nation or section, Jackson hesitated not a moment, and out-rang the immortal words: "The Government, Govern-ment, by the Eternal, it must and shall be preserved." Let us not in the hurry of modern improvements forget that to the sacrifices and labors of such heroes as Jackson we owe all that the nation h?s today of value. |