Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1875-05-21
CENTENNFALS AND RECONCILIA-
TION

The meeting together of our people
around the shrines of liberty, erected
one hundred years ago, to renew their
vows upon the affairs of their country,
is having a marked effect upon the
sentiment of the people. And long
ere we assemble at Yorktown to cele-
brate the centennial of that GROWING
glory of the war of the Revolution we
may fully expect to see reunited peo-
pie and prosperous country. Already
the happy influences of Concord and
Lexington, Charleston and Ticonde-
roga are felt. The anticipation of
Mecklenburg and Bunker Hill makes
the popular heart throb with patriotic
emotions, with q common pride and in
behalf of common cause. These in
fuences in, changing the current of
mems thoughts, in bringing together
those long estrauged, and in restoring
good feeling and fellowship among
our people, cannot fail of the happiest
results.
The patriotic sentiments of General
BARTLETT at Concord, AID General
VoDGEs at Charleston, whose swords
cleaned in the front ranks of the
Federal columns during the war, find
responsive echoes from Vice President
WILSON and Judge KELLEY, whose
services in the civil councils of the
country have been heretofore --~IAed
bv bitterness >1-4u5I Unparalleled. A
TOW years ago general orders prohibit
ted the decoration of Confederate
graves at Arlington, and grim senti-
nels stood ready to arrest and punish
offenders. Now, North and South,
friends of both armies unite in the
hallowed work of honoring their dead
comrades and sharing each others
sorrow:
'Tears and love for the blue,
Love and tears for the gray
Formerly the proceedings of the
meetings of the Grand Army of the
Republic We're characterized by de-
nunciations of the Confederate cause
and its chosen leaders, and no story
of Southern outrages was too improba-
bic to find ready belief in hearts
filled with animosity and hatred
to those who had lately met them
in battle. Last week this same
organization signaljzed its meet
ing by extending full and cordia in
vitation to all who fought in the Great
War, on either side, to Join in the
solemn commemoration of illustrious
dead; in rejoicing over peace returned.
And, too, we much more seldom see
and hear opprobrious epithets applied
by Northern papers and speakers to
the South and its people. The rapid
occurring centennials of successful
rebellion" seem to make the dtcen-
dents of the TRAITORS of ITS careful
OF epithets, and possibly bring them
to consider why the "rebels" of one
hundred years ago are ''patriots," and
the ''rebels'' of 1861, their grand
children, are ''traitors''
Treason doth never prosper, what the res
fonp
Why ii it prosper none dare call it treason"
If then the memories of 1775, which
mad Tor nearly century, bound togeth-
er CUR people in sisterhood of States
with government which claimed and
received allegiance through affection
aud not from fear, and rendered the
United States of America the freest.
happlest and one of the most powerful
governments on earth, it is we'll that
they are being revived. Upon these
affairs OF hber.y let us rek:ndle the
fires of patriotism and renew the
pledges which our fathers made and
for which thev laid down their lives,