The Portland daily press., 1874-04-29
lempOra Mutantur.

Among the many eloquent and heartfelt
vices of Senator Sumner, there was no one
so notable as that of Representative Lamar
of Mississippi, now a Democrat, and during
the late war confederate general. It indi-
Gates better than any dissertation on that
subject could do, the revolution which has
taken place in the minds of the better por-
tion of Southern men on question which
was the bitterest that was ever discU ssed in
Congress, and so intense and sharply Sec
tional as to involve the nation in civil war
OF such proportions as to astonish the world.
Twenty years ago, the general South, incud
ing the greater part of Gen. Lamar's party
associates, rejoiced that Senator Sumner had
been stricken down in the Senate by Preston
s. Brooks. Then there was no bound to the
malignity and revenge they expressed. Since
that time four years war with its barbara
ties, losses and defeats has followed, the con-
sequence, as the South believes, of the teach
ings of Mr.. Sumner. Monday, within ten
years of that war, Gen. Lamar, as one of the
prominent participants on the Southern side,
both in the conflict of arms and the conflict
of ideas which led to it, rose in his place, and
with evidences of genuine emotion said,
mississippi regrets the death of Charles
Sumner not for his intellectual greatness and
ripe culture, but because Of its admiration of
his high moral character, because of his in
stinciive love of freedom which was in him
"a grand intuitve truth inscribed in blazing
letters upon the tablet of his inner conscious
ness,'' because ''there were combined in him
the characteristics which have in all ages
given to religion her martyrs, and to patriot
ism her self-sacrifclng heroes" Nor did the
Southern representative stop with this appre-
ciative notice of Charles Sumner. He recog
nized in the fact that Mr.. Sumner believed
there was no cause for further estrangement
between the North and the South, a fitness
and an occasion for him 10 say that there are
many of us who believe the same thing, and
to plead that the resentments of the past be
buried with the past, and for the cultivation
ofthat tender sympathy and heavenly charity
which will make the union of this great peo-
pie something more than a name. 1t was fit
ting and appreciative in this representative
Southerner to assert his telief that the victo-
rious North ''cherishes a heart full of mag
unanimous emotions toward her disarmed and
discounted antagonist" and to close his
eloquent speech with an appeal which he
had doubtless found true in his own expert
ence: "My countrymen, know one another
and you will love one another" This ad-
dress OF Gen. Lamar is manly recognition
of the sentiment of the dominant party to-
ward the South as indicated in the policy of
President Grant toward that section and its
people. 1t is one of the most conspicuous of
the many evidences now seen daily that the
Southern leaders in the conservative party
recognize the good faith and hearty good will
of the President toward the South. We think
there cap be no doubt but that the President
represents the feeling of the entire North.
The causes of animosity have passed away,
the obstacles to perfect union have been re-
moved, henceforth let there be no sectional
strife.