The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-04-26
SUGGESTIONS OF THE TwgSIY-sIxrH.

By common consent, II would seem, the
Goth of April has been adopted for the annual
commemoration of the Confederate dead; that
being the DAY which consum mated the mill
tary overthrow Of their cause, and dismissed
the survivors of this woful catastrophe of the
bloodiest of dramas to another, but scarcely
a less gloomy and ominous stage of struggle,
trial and suffering 1t is meet that such an
anniversary tribute should be rendered. A
people cannot afford to be Indifferent even to
their dead who expired peacefully. Much
less can people afford to be Indifferent to
their heroic dead, who fell on the impetuous
edge of battle, even though it should be
deemed that they persisted in vain. Where
such indifference exists, there can be no
manly virtue, no lofty aspiration, no true
feeling of the mysterious and vital relations
of the living to the dead, of the future to the
past, of humanity to God. Impiety towards
the grave and towards ancestry argues the
presence Of all other impieties. And hence
its manifestation is one of the dreariest tokens
of general deprayity and hopeless degenera-
ton. The Southern people would dishonor
themselves, the age, the American name, if
they did not honor the glorious dust of their
countrymen who, unqualing, on so many
fields, met the iron storm of death and died
that the South might live. If they failed to
this duty, they would add shame to the mis-
fortunes of their subjugated land.
But let it not be supposed that the occasion
calls for doleful reflections on the fate of
those to whose commemoration this day is
dedicated. They are not to be pitied. Death
was churlish and niggard towards thousands
who would infinitely rather be now sleeping
with the comrades whom, with loving parti-
atty, he laid to rest at Shiloh and Chicka-
manga, at Gettysburg and the Wilderness,
than to drink the cup of humiliation and con-
tumely which cowardice and vengeance
have brimmed for conquered survivors. If.
perchance, some of them, with the instincts of
young and lusty natures were fain to cling to
life. and repined at the stroke which cut its
thread at time when the future seemed rich
with possibilities of happiness. only one
glimpse of the realities which that future had
in store would have caused them to turn to
death with rapturous content And if, per-
chance, some spectators of the contest which
they waged were not clear and decided as to
the ethics and the logic of their cause, the
course of the dominant party who have ad-
ministered conquest over the surviving adhe-
rents of that cause has been such as to prove
that it was as righteous in effort as it was
their justification is more complete, there
fore, than it would have been had they lived
and triumphed.
Nor let it be supposed that the dead who
are to-day commemorated, died in vain. And
y
shape, unquestionably was lost, and lost be-
yond the possibility of restoration. We may
look back upon them as men of another era,
for the precise social arrangement and the
precise political organization, by which
they were moulded, are to be hereafter
matters of history, but never more
of human experience. In so far as war de-
stroyed these conditions, it destroyed their
cause But what it contained of universal truth
and justice is immortal. Nothing perishes
permanently which is worthy to survive. 1t
is absurd and impious to talk of a right and
wholesome principle subjected to the hazards
of war, and then abolished by the uutoward
issue of battle. 1t can no more
be put to the sword than the Infinite
reason and Divine justice can. The
condition of American politics at this
moment, is most conclusive proof that the
war established nothing but the temporary
supremacy Of brute force. The repose upon
fixed principles which the human reason
seeks, and which society needs as much as
the human reason. is still wanting; and until
this is attained there will be no assurance Of
liberty without license, of order without
tyranny, of progress without sanguinary revo-
luton.
special freight train was recently started
from Concord, n. H., for Salt Lake City, dis.