The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-06-26

qulre knowledge, to seek truth, and
to learn virtue, as disciples of old,
attracted by the fame of its teachers,
hocked to the school of Athens to
listen to the words of Socrates, of
Plato and of Aristotle, are soon to
have committed to your charge the
fame, the honor the welfare of your
native land, and you will be held ac-
countable, through oil succeeding
time, for the manner in which you
fulfil this momentous trust. You
enter upon the great arena of life at
time of fearful peril to the coun-
try, and under circumstances of a
most anomalous character. Short as
have been your lives, you have been
spectators of mighty events. You
have seen ancient and time-honored
constitutions swept away by the
storm of O fierce fanaticism which
"fears not God nor regards man" :"
You have eeen government framed
by the highest intellect, guided by
the loftiest patriotism, torn down by
arbitrary power, which has set up in
their stead others that, like the gourd
OF the prophet, have sprung up in q
night. You have seen great States
blotted out of existence aud stripped
even of their names-names which
they had made illustrious. And you
have seen all these things done in
the name of God and liberty! These
grave scenes which have passed be-
fore you in such rapid and startling
succession, may well'arouse you to a
sense of the solemn duties you are
soon to assume as citizens, and may
we'll inspire on earnest desire to dis
charge these duties so as to promote
the welfare of your country, or at
least tc rescue it from the ruin that
seems impending. Destiny has
placed you upon the stage in the
midst of a mighty revolution, which
threatens to sweep away and oblite-
rate forever all that has been
achieved by the courage, the wisdom
and the patriotism of your fathers,
and it will be yours to arrest and roll
back this fearful avalanche, or to be
crushed into the earth as it sweeps
on in its direful and relentless pro-
gress. It will be yours to repair the
shattered fortunes of your State, to
heal the wounds inflicted on her by
savage war, and to build up and
maintain new social and political sys-
TENS. These are the grave duties
forced upon you by inexorable ne
cessity ut the very threshold of your
career, and to meet them as becomes
men, sprung from the noble stock
you are, may well demand all your
patience, your fortitude, your wis
dom and your patriotism. Rome,
while mistress of the world, was
wont to give her sons, as q solemn
charge, to "see that the Republic
suffers no detriment." When You
assume the duties of citizenship, let
this order of the great Republic be
the maxim to govern you in all your
relations to your State. Determine
firmly that whatever may be your
future position, whether q public or
private station, by no word, or
thought, or deed, to work detriment
to your State. Be true to her, come
veal, come woe; true to her material
interests, her spotless fame, her un-
sullied honor, her grand traditions.
You owe this duty to the memory of
those immortal men who made Vir-
ginia what she was; you owe it to
those who are to come after you; you
owe it to yourselves, you owe it to
your State.
She cannot now address her sons
in the proud language of naughty
Rome, and order them to see to it
that the Republic suffers no detri-
ment; for her voice-that of old was
so potent-is stifed, but in mute
agony she points to her heroic sons
she has borne to teach her younger
born how to live for her and, if need
be, how to die for her. AS she calls
up her mighty dead to stand before
you, methinks I see coming at her
summons an illustrious host of he
roes, sages and patriots. I see as
sembled the sons of the Old Domi-
nion-men of heroic mould-and
from their midst I hear the voice of
''the forest born Demosthenes" as he
exclaims, in tones that reused Ame-
rica, and still find an echo in the
heart of every lover of freedom,
"Give me liberty or give me DEATH"
[ see Jefferson, as with impressive
solemnity he presents to the patriots