Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-04-04
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the address of the Hon. B. II. Hill,
delivered before the Southern Histor
zeal Society otlAtlafa, Ga, February
18th, 1874:
I'm 1872. alarmed by what seemed
to be returning sense of justice at
the North, aided by most remarkable
concessions for peace and deliverance
at the South, Congress removed the
illegal disabilities imposed upon most
of our leaders, though upon many
even yet these disabilities remain. In
the meantime. most of our greatest
men who were most familiar with the
facts of the past, 50 essential to our
vindication, had passed away or were
rapidly passing away. A very few
of these were released from their
bonds upon the use of their intel
lects. But most minifestlya better
opportunity had returned at last to the
Southern people, and il was expected
by our enemies and the world that
this opportunity woald be improved
and our very ablest men everywhere
chosen to Congress. And now comes
the most curious chaperin our history.
1t will puzzle the future historian.
Not single man who was in full SYM
pathy and accord with the Confederate
administration, and who was intimate
in the councils, and daily, as it pro-
crossed, familiar with the policy of
that administration, has been called
by our own people to single promi-
nent position, State or national, while
many who gave encouragement to the
enemy by disaffecting our people to
that administration during the war of
coercion, and refused to give counsel,
or counseled consent, during the baser
war of reconstruction, have received
high marks of confidence from our en-
emies and high positions of honor from
our people. Crowds of intellectual
imbeciles, like hocks of noisy black
birds in harvest time, rush forward to
secure by personal scramble and trade
/ those positions of heaviest trust and
responsibility, and thus murder all
hope Of having any vindieatiOn of our
dead, or justice for our living, IN the
I councils of the nation. When such a
State as Virginia, in such crisis as
this, for such place as the Senate,
/ repudiates such statesman as Hunter,
/ familiar with every fact of the Federal
! history, intimately familiar with every
fact in Confederate councils, trained
! in debate. learned in constitutional
/ law, courteous in manner, accurate ID
statement, powerful in logic, and re-
spected even by our enemies, l think
it is time to despair of doing anything
in this generation to lift the South to
her former position of influence and
power in the Congress of the United
States. To feed our people on frothy
defamation now, however blown by
procured newspaper puffs, is like feed
ing a starving multitude on unsub-
stantial snow flakes, however piled up
by capricious winds. There never was
such field for real, profound, patriotic
craftsmanship. The very inferiority
of Northern representatives as COM
pared with those they sent to Congress
before the war but increased the
chances for Southern statesmen to re-
move, by proper debate in the national
councils, the false theories and i'm
pressions which have been crowded
into the minds of the Northern people,
aud thus return the government to its
constitutional limitations, restore to
the States the free exercise of their
reserved rights, and rescue from de-
struction, for our enemies as we'll as
for ourselves, those great principles Of
constitutional government which every
purpose of the Confederate sought to
maintain, and which every feature OF
coercion must logically tend to des-
troy" t