Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-04-04
VOLUME, XXXIII.
TrOw TT WILL Read.

as they seem to us the other as, in the
eyes of other generations, they viii then sp-
pear. Like the common soldier who sees
but the smoke and the gun-fash, the fall of
th,a individual comiade and the event Of
that particular spot on the line, the age that
does great things is but the poorest of sour
ces wherefrom 10 seek some general view Of
the whole days action. When the dead
lie mouldered and the scars are wholly
healed, when the trodlen earth re-blooms
and the air is freed from gapors, the traveller
comes upon the field, notes each position
and compares each tale, accepts this and re-
jects that, consults vita care and decides
with final truth. And so with the great
pages of peoples life. Passions must cool,
and evidence be strictly tested, one genera
ton must die and another spring into being
before just as things happen, 50 shall run
the record.
As with Others. SO with us. Sumner still
raves and Davis daily pines. The North is
yet hot with triumph, and the South is still
stung with shame ~ ounds are yet open
and tears are vet undred. The tragedy is
hardly over and the after-piece but scarcely
on the stage. Truth is but feebly evident
and, in our day, will never blaze in Its full
est lustre We must look to the future, and
so LET us suppose it.
Let US imagine that this generation has
passed away. That the oldest man now
living is gathered TO his fathers-that the
warm hearts are stilled and the facile
tongues forever silent. A new generation is
arisen that weeps not at Chickamauga, and
feels no vivid thrill at the tale of the red
Manassas to whom secession is as the old
French war unto us, and in whose eyes
Grant and Stonewall Jackson, Lee and Sber-
man, William III. Seward and Jefferson
Davis, are as Marlborough and Condo, Tur-
enne and Villiers Cardinal Mazarin and
William Of Orange in orr own. The history
of the United States Of America is TO be
written-written by pens that are in the
hands of rhadamanthine judges, and COM
piled from descended records that must pass
through the stern ordeal of a bribeless Are
opagus. No tear can sway the judgment, no
hate pervert the soul success cannot seduce
to the one side, or subugation repel to the
other.
Like Cato firm; like Aristdes just"
is the great tribunal of posterity, and, at
this bar let us paint is our feeble powers
permit, the transcription of the past. Ages
ago-will write some future Hallam-a
great land was discove cred beyond the sea.
Divers people sent their colonies to till it.
Aided by the parent country, the stronger
settlements overpowered the weak. All
within certain limits became the possessiono of
one nation. Against il they revolted, and
established, in the end, their own autonomy.
Having been separate colonies, they now
claimed 20 be independent States. They
were, in all, thirteen. In unity they sought
to find strength, and, for ofense and de-
tense, associated themselves into league.
Each for the part it did not surrender, was
sovereign. Each, for the powers it delegat-
ed to the league, was thereto in subordina-
ton. This league provided for the recep-
ton of new CONSTITUENCIES. They applied
and were admitted. From thirteen, the
States rose to twenty, to thirty, to beyond
thirty-to thirty-two. Then there came
trouble. Some Of them claimed that the
league, being for the convenience of those
confederating, could, when it seemed no
longer TO subserve that convenience, be
withdrawn from. Others considered that
the bond was indissoluble. On this quarrel
they had reucontre. Twenty stood upon
the one side, twelve upon the other. The
twenty took the old name, arms, the seal,
the flag, the organization of the whole.
They claimed to be the whole.
The twelve entered into into a fresh
league by themselves, and adopted new
name, arms, seal, flag, organization. I'm
der them they fought. God was with the
strongest battallions and they fell-great
was their fall. The twenty triumphed.
They claimed the twelve still as integral
portions of the league. They fought for
this stake and they won it. Then, being
Ii Faff
Some said the twelve were where they were
when the battle begun. Others that the
league Of the thirty-two still continued,
but that the twelve were Of, but not an, the
league. These mad the mastery. Wherev-
er the twelve owed duty to the league
they enforced its performance. Wherever
the league owed right to the twelve they
they withheld its rendition. They were Of,
but not in, tine league. But the Of should
give place TO the az, on certain conditions.
The twelve must renOunce the right OF
withdrawal, and they did so. They must
repudiate their anti-eague money obliga-
tions, and they did 40. They must free
their bondmen and they did so. They
must pass divers laws, and they did so. But
in vain. Every condition precedent was
complied with, and the resultant promise
10 be done. They must accede to the neu-
tralization of their every franchise. To
obtain re-admission 20 the league they
admittance of the slightest value. The
twelve refused. With proud humility
they declared they were beaten, were
helpless, were bound. That tyranny
they would submit to--since they must
but would never proclaim that tyranny was
either their merit or their choice. They APP
pealed 10 the whole twenty. They showed
them that despotism is like the barren
womb-like the wave IF the inrolling sea
like the spread of the cancer and the fight
of the locust swarm. That it never slept
and never rested, was never weary and new
er full, that il threatened 20 devour them,
and, in devouring them, would but whet its
appetite for the balance of the ancient
league. In the name of a common human
ity and for the sake OF a common interest,
that the plague might be stopped and the
pestilence arrested, they stretched out the
right hand Of fellowship that, in its recep-
ton, the twelve and the twenty might re-
store in its pristine beauty the confederation
of the common fathers Of bookkeeping it,
on the one hand, from the withdrawal of the
twelve and, on the other, from the noxious
innovations of some among the twenty.
And here the portraiture must stop. Cete-
"a de stunt, and the completion of the picture
is. for us, in the womb Of time. How futu-
rity shall fill il in, no man can now infalli-
bly determine whether in the mellow tints
of peace and prosperity, or the rugged hues
Of discussion and shame. Whichever way it
is, il viii be written with the inn
partiality of posteritys judgment, long and
long after we all 90 hence, when no mother
shall weep for her Rebel" boy, and no
maiden sigh at StonewalPs name.
"A singular FRct-Ihe Locality Of the