Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1873-06-12

which now bears his name. Inc esLaDllsli'
nent is monument Of sharp practical bust
ness talent, and visit to the place and an ex.
animation of its details and intricacies will
amply repay the visitor. The factory gives
employment to about sixty persons, who are
kept busy supplying the demands Of a bust
ness that is increasing daily.
THE TURN OF THE TIDE.
HENRY WARD BEEcHER's NOBLE PLEA FOR
JUSTICE TO THE SOUTH.
From the Christian Unon edited by the Rev. Henry Ward
1t was announced from Washington, a week
ago, that on Decoration Day the friends Of all
soldiers, Union or Confederate, lying buried
at Arlington, might visit their graves and
adorn them with flowers. 1t seemed that the
era of good feeling had already dawned, and
all wise and tender spirits said "Amen." But
next day it was reported that committee of
the Grand Army Of the Republic had straight.
way hastened to the war department to en-.
quire who is to control the ground on that oc-
casion, and to beg that the "insult" might be
averted. Various journals Fastening also to
condemn this intended kindliness, it seems
worth while to enquire whether there is any
excuse for Withholding so simple courtesy.
We recognize, of course, in the protest OF
these gentlemen staunch loyalty to their no
ton Of patriotism which is in itself admira.
BILE. Their mistake, as it seems to US, is a
misapprehension of the conditions of the case
both past and present. They assert, and with
truth, that after victory so dearly bought as
ours there must be no tampering with the
spirit which so nearly overcame us. They
also assert, with error, that honor offered to
our enemies dead, or Cancellation extended
to them living, is such tampering. And here
we take issue.
There are two aspects of our late melan-
choly war which we of the North ought never
to forget, and which, practically, we hardly
ever remember. One is the fact that, as a
community, we did consent to the ever.grow-
ing encroachments of slavery, Of which war
was the logical and inevitable end. Ours was
baser sin than that of the South. For the
South had taught itself to believe that slavery
derived its strength from the Bible, and it
planted itself on the abstract right of the pat
riarchal institution. Supple doctors Of d.
vinity supplied it with scriptural arguments.
The churches, most of them at least, did not
hesitate to fellowship it. The whole South,
religiously, was as solidly orthodox as it was
solidly slaveholding. In an enormous agri.
cultural country, where the masses could
neither read nor write, and where, naturally,
the newspapers had almost no part in the edu-
cation of the people, it was inevitable that a
few orators and political managers should
control the community. So that slavery and
the consequent secession were, to a remarka-
BILE degree, the honest cause of the whole
people. And with asplendid courage and en-
durance they followed their disunion flag to
wounds and death, as simply and bravely as
if it had been the banner of the Cross and
they the old Crusaders. They we're very ig-
norant and wholly wrong, but they died for
the best cause they knew-their idea Of pat
riotism.
But we who believed slavery to be wrong,
who could not lure our conscience to justify
it, still accepted and encouraged it through
love of gold and desire of an ignoble peace.
We taug hit the South that it could not demand
what we should not be found ready to give,
and when, at last, slavery threatened our ma
tional life, it was the instinct of selfpreserva-
ton rather than any nobler sentiment which
prompted resistance. In that golden summer
of $780, we went on gathering and spending,
and living luxurious lives, careless Of the por-
tents in the sky. In the early spring of 1861,
it was not alone the enemies of the Union who
doubted its power to preserve its own integri-
ty. It was its friends, the secretary Of State,
the commander-in.c chief of its army, the great
merchants and great lawyers, alas, too often
the great preachers of the great cities There
was nothing in the attitude Of the North, al
most up to the moment of the firing on Fort
Sumter, to check the menace of the South.
There was everything to indicate that the
Union would quietly fall apart.
Because we are by no means innocent Of
the war, therefore it behooves US to speak
temperately of our fellow-sinners, however we
abhor our common sin. And we ought never
to have forgotten that, sharing their guilt, we
could notshut them out from the redemption for
which we fought If the object Of the war
were not a restored and regenerated Union,
but only the triumph of late-roused North
over an insolent and defiant South then their
cause was as much better than ours as honest
devotion to an ideal, however mistaken, is
better than pure vindctiveness. We have no
moral ground to stand upon, but are guilty Of
our brothers blood, unless we meant to make
an offering to God of our national sin, and to
free them, with ourselves, from the body of
that DEATH
We lose, then, the only harvest worth the
reaping from the tears and blood that both
sides so plentifully sowed, if we will not see
our brother in our enemy, and common
country in the alien sections. Sober and dis
Greet travellers in the South, men like Bryant
and the great chiefjustice, not easily deceived,
testify that they have found everywhere
kindliness of feeling which would be brother
illness ifany answering kindliness encouraged
it. If we are not yet lofty enough to forgive
the living, who themselves have something to
forgive in US, let US at least respect the hero
ism and the honesty of the dead. They were
of our race and of our kindred. They were
not greatly different from ourselves. Remem-
bering that We invited, through cowardice or
greed, the war that they plunged US into
through mad fanaticism remembering that
only a renited and noble Union can justify
the awful cost of blood and agony, shall We
refuse to lay flowers of kindness on the turf
that eight years of peace have nourished ?
Let us rather heap it high with blossoms, and
if we bring rue for bitter mourning, let US not
forget rosemary for sweet remembrance, and
pansies for generous thoughts.