The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-08-10
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Copperhead Love for Union soldiers.

COpperheRu Love for Union Soldiers.
In concluding his speech recently de-
livered at South Bend, Ind, Speaker
Colfax thus referred to the newborn
love of the democrats for the soldiers,
"Lincoln hirelings,'' as they used to
call them during the war, and said:-
We must remain true to those great
principles for which the soldiers great
sacrifices were made. We cannot but
remember these three hundred thousand
graves, ridged all over the South, where
the warrior sleeps waiting the morning
of the resurrection; we remember, too,
how willingly they went forth to per-
ish for their country, and with these
things we also remember how their
memories are reYiled and their graves
insulted in that traitorous land. There
flowers are strewn by fair hands upon
the graves of the rebel dead, but the
gates of the cemeteries in which sleep
Union heroes are barred, that no lowly
cOlored man, or the loyal Union man
of the South, may enter to lay his hum
bic tribute upon the nameleSS grave of
the despised dead. Who thus dishonor
our dead but the men who now strike
hands with the democracy of the North,
and who are coming to sit in council
with them in the Philadelphia conven-
ton? If we forget all these things
we are dastards and towards,
worse even than the traitors
who lifted their hands against our ma
tiOn's life. We cannot, the people can
not, the brave returned soldier cannot,
and they will pronounce such a ver-
dict against them as never before was
pronounced against any party. A few
Sundays ago went over to Arlington
Heights, to the former home of the
traitor Lee, and saw there the long
lines of graves of Union soldiers. II
was sad to look upon them, especially
upon those which covered the unknown
dead, and to think "here lies one who
has given his all, his life, for his cOun-
try, and not even his name could be
known, that it might live in the CRATE
tul remembrance of posterity." AS
gaZed upon those eleven thousand
graves, which over the undulating hill
side lay regular as a line of battle, as if
the dead had been mown by the des-
trOying angel from their places in the
line, heard from the superintendent
of the cemetery that Mrs. Lee declared
she would have her own again, but she
would not come back to live there un-
til every Yankee bone was taken away,
and swOre then that If ever my voice
and power could keep that traitor fam
lily from treading on that sacred soil,
hallowed by the graves OF the patriotic
againstit. (Applause.) Isaw and cop
led from one of the head-boards, near
the grave of an unknown soldier, the
following beautiful tribute:
REST on, embalmed and sainted dead,
Dear as the blood ye gave,
No traitors footsteps e'er Shall tread
Ihe herbage DER your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot,
While Fame her record KEEPS
For Honor mOurnS the halloWed SPOT
Where loyal NalOr sleeps"
The silent admonitions from the quar-
ter million graves of Union dead come
to us never to surrender the interests of
this great land to the hands of the men
against whom they warred, and who
shot them down. 1t seems to me that
argument is useless in a case like this.
This treason tore from you, your hus-
bands, fathers, brothers, sons; it tor
tured them with even fiendish cruelty;
Immersed them in the filth of prison
pens; starved them to skeletons! con-
signed them to untimely graves; and
yet these men. the leaders of that trea.
son, come back to us and clamor about
their rights. Every religious creed in
the civilized world declares three things
essential to forgiveness for sin-first,
repentance, hearty and sincere; second
faith and fidelity to prove that repent
ance; and, third, good works as an eyi-
dence of that repentance. When I see
these, my arms will welcome back these
men from the South; but while 1 see
this spirit of hate still existing, and
while see this naughty arrogance and
impudent, unrepenting disIoyalty, I
say, when we reconstruct, let us build
on the immortal principles of the Dec
laration of Independence, on the solid
granite of indisputable loyalty, rather
than the treacherous quicksands of un-
rePentant disloyalty, and all will be
we'll. (Applause.)