Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1869-05-08

dreds OF those who, when living, were
identified with us by common hopes and
interests and sympathies, and endeared
to us by Thousand tender ties as our
kindred and our conntrymen. Ia defense
of what they believed to be our common
rights aud liberties, they put their lives
in jeopardy, and many OF them sealed
their faith in our cause with their hearts
warm blood. Standing As they did in
1.-THE imminent aud deadly breach" we
regarded them as the valiant defenders OF
our hearth-stones and our all; and there
are none of US who do not love to cherish
grateful recollection of their services
and their sacrifices. But, on the other
hand, there are those not of as who profess
to believe that these martyrs in our cause,
and the thousands and ten thousands
more of their companions in arms who
crimsoned with their blood hundred
battle-felds, were but the victims of o
baleful and parricidal ambition; that
they died the death of traitors, and filling
now the graves of felons, that their
memory is deserving only of obloquy and
execration.
How, then, is it possible 10 vindicate
the character Of our fallen braves against
these aspersions, or to place ourselves
right at the bar of public opinion through.
out the world, aud in after times without
some consideration, brief aud cursory
though it be, of the motives which actu-
ated them aud us, and of the circum-
stances that, in their judgment and ours,
exonerate the Southern people from the
imputation of guilt for the part they bore
in the late direful contest2
There never was, l presume, civil
war in which one of the contending
parties did not denounce the other as
rebels; but if it be true, as a standard
writer on International law declares, that
the term rebellion is applied only to
such an instruction against lawful au-
thority as is void of all appearance OF
Justice" then surely it will not be
maintained that in the attempt, on the
part of the Southern States to withdraw
from the Federal Union, and which at
tempt resulted in the recent fratrieidal
strife, there was "no appearance of JUS
tice," since the right so to withdraw was
persistently claimed by some ofthe purest
and wisest statesmen, who we're members
of the Convention that framed the Fed
eral Constitution, and to whom the South
was accustomed to look as her great
teachers in the science of government.
But as it is not my purpose In the hur-
ried glance shall bestow upon this mat
ter to touch upon ground that is in any
wise debatable, / will pass by all those
questions pertaining to the relative rights
and powers Of the State and Federal gov.
ern ments, involving the abstract right of
Of secession, and will refer only to those
rudimental principles as to which there
has never been among US contrariety OF
opinion; which antedate the organization
IF our government, and have been uni
versally received as axioms in American
politics.
1t certainly is not my intention, upon
his occasion, either to advocate or 10
.ssail this or that conflicting theory of
but simply to shield from
gnominy or reproach that which should
De held dearer than life, and of which
sven a vsnquished people cannot be de-
Drived except by their own act-our
honor And shall we not, when con-
iemned at the bar of prejudice and pas
non, be allowed our appeal to the higher
Drum of justice, and to invoke the aid
If reason and the support of the unim-
Descheble evidence Of history?
Recurring, then, briefly to the record by
which the unbiased world and pos,erity
will try us, and by which we are willing
% stand or fall, does not that record show
hat those of our countrymen who tax US
With the crime of rebellion do but reiter-
rte the charge once made against their
ancestry and ours; that we trace our
common origin as people to the sever.
.nce of the political ties that bound us,
not as independent States, but as depend
ant colonies to the parent government;
hat for this act Of separation our fathers
we're denounced as rebels and traitors,
subjected to ali the calamities of q long
and bloody war, and preserved from ex-
or subjugation only By for
sign interposition and the billowy ex-
panse of waters that interviewed between
hem and the mother country?
Does not that record further show thGt
refusing to recognize the justice of the
Judgment of condemnation rendered
against them by those whom they re-
yarded as their oppressors, our fathers
made their solemn appeal ito candid
world" in which they repudiated the
European dogma Of the divine right to
rule, and laid down, as the great corner
stone of American constitutional liberty,
The proposition that" government is
made for man, and not man for govern
ment;" that it is but an organism
deriving its authority from the consent
Of the governed, and subject to be modi-
fed or abolished as the exigencies o So
cieiy may demand; and that of the right
to make these changes and alterations,
the people by whom they are made are
the exclusive judges2
Does not the record also show that this
great fundamental idea of government
has been made the test and touchstone
of political faith in the organic law Of
every State composing the American
Union; that upon each recurrence of our
national anniversary it has been pro-
claimed to the world in strains Of i'm
FASHIONED eloquence from ten thousand
rostrums, whilst the minds Of our people
have been indoctrinsted with the idea,
and their throbbing hearts have re-
sponded to the ferVid language of the
Declaration Of Independence
Aud do not both hemispheres bear
witness to the fact, that from the time
we achieved our own independence,
whenever and wherever the attempt has
been made by any body Of people con-
stituling a community sufficiently popu-
lous and powerful to organize and main
tain separate government, their right
to do so has been recognized by "the
Great Republic" and that without in.
curing as to the suiiicioncy ofthe causes
BY which they we're Influenced, or az to
the character and structure Of the gov