Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1868-09-17
An Eloquent speech by Gen. sherman


Contrast the following extract from
Lieut.. Gen. Sherman's speech at the
annual reunion of the Army of the
Tennessee, at St. Louis, last November,
with Frank Blair's revolutionary letter
How has this punishment been par
titioned by the result of the war? We
OF the North have to mourn the loss oi
fathers, brothers, sons, and friends, and
are burdened with vast national debt.
binding on US in fact, in law in honor,
never, l hope, to be questioned by any
American till every cent is paid.
Look to the South, you who went with
me through that land can best saw if
they, too, have not been fearfully pun
ished. Mourning in every househould {;
desolation written in hard characters
across the whole face of their country /:
cities in ashes, and fields waste their
commerce gone; their system of labor
annihilated and destroyed ruin, power
ty, and distress everywhere, and now
pestilence adding the cap-sheaf to their
stock of misery; her proud men begging
for pardon; and appealing for permission
to raise food for her children her A. .OOO.-
900 of slaves free and their value lost to
How any Southern gentlemen, with
these facts plain and palpable everywhere
staring him in the face and recorded
forever in the book of history, can still
boast of his lost cause" or speak of it
in language other than that of shame
and sorrow, passes my understanding;
and instead of being revived, 1 know
that their lost cause will sink deeper and
deeper into infamy as time more keenly
probes its hiden mysteries and reveals
them to the light of day.
Now that slavery is gone, and gone
forever, with its unhappy wreck left be-
hind, and all danger is passed of any set
of men again appealing to war when
they have courts to secure their rights
and redress their wrongs, / would trust
our national destiny again to those grand
old natural laws which raised our coun-
try through the long, tedious vassalage
of colonization which carried US safely
through the ordeal of our Revolutionary
war, made our flag famous on the high
seas in 1872, led our conquering army TO
the gates of Mexico in IS47, and has
born US gloriously through four years
of as hard war as ever tested the man.
hood of any people.
Let us revive as far as lies in our in
dividual power, that system which |
Bancroft. tells, guided our fathers before |
the Revolution" the system which has |
been revealed in Judean-the system |
combines and perfects the symbolic |
wisdom of the Oeient, and reflective /
genius of Greece-the system cenforRn-
ing to reason, yet kindling with enthu-
siasm always hasting reform, yet always
eproclaiminga absolute equali-
ty among men, yet not suddenly abol-
ishing the unequal institutions of
society: guaranteeing absolute freedom,
yet involving the inexorable restric-
tions Of duty; in the highest degree
yet in the highest degree
practical; awakening the inner man
to consciousness of his destiny,
and yet adapted with exact harmony
TO the outer world; at once divin
and human. This system was professed l.
in every part of our widely extended
country, and cradled our freedom. {
With such spirit pervading all our
country once more with eur population
increasing thirtythree per cent. every
.en years with. our national wealth de-
in even greater ratio; with
BUR frontiers pushing back in every di- :
'ection; with farms and villages and
titles rapidly covering our vast domain
With mines of gold and silver and iron
md coal, pouring out wealth faster than
,ver did the cotton fields OF the South
With 10000 miles of finished roilroads
md other thousands in rapid progress
AN any one doubt our present strength !
,r calculate our future destiny? If cur
riends at the South will heartily and {
heerfully join with us in this future
areer, | for one would welcome 1
hem back our equals, but not superiors
and lend them a helping
land but if, like spoiled children, they e
will cling to the dead past, and shut I
heir eyes to the coming future, would
My call their attention to that wave {
f emigration that has over run our land S
rom the Atlantic to the Pacific, and
nustturn back and flew South. Zap /,
lause.l They may oppose, but their !
pposition will be as vain rs it was for y
hem to try to stop the Army of the :
'ennessee, which swept the length and =