Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1876-02-02
The Centennial Bill.



Mr.. RoBBINs of North Carolina, in the
course OF his speech said that when the war
broke out North Carolina farmer had six
sons grown up to manhood, who, at the first
tap Of the drum, went 10 the field TO fight
the cause of the South. They had not
stayed to reason about it, and they fought
from Bull Run to Appomattox but not all
oi them, one was sleeping at Antietam. one
at Charlottesville. one at Chickahominy
and another in Kentucky; but two of them
were at Appomattox, batte-soarrod They
had seen the flag go down, which they hal
followed with unfaltering devotion. One of
these survivors was he who now addressed
The House, and who now said that he had
seen enough of war and wanted peace he
wanted reconciliation and brotherhood all
over the country. That was why he pro-
posed to vote for the bill, for he thought
that the tendency of the celebration was to
promote peace. Why was there not peace
The soldiers have fought out the war with
nuskets and cannon, and have now ceased
lighting. The reason why there was not
peace was, because few selfish restless.
political agitators still wanted to keep up
the fight, and their weapons were asses Jaw
bones. daughter and applauss.) lie was
opposed to participation in that kind of war
iare. lie wanted peace. His people had
sent him here TO talk peace aud to help TO
bring about reconciliation. lie would vote
Tor the bill as North Carolinian. North
Carolina bad some part in the glores to be
celebrated ON the Fourth of July next. 1t
was she who first said the word indepen-
dence" " at Mecklenburg; it was she who
fired the first bullet for liberty, at Alamance;
II was her sons, and those Of Virginia, who
had turned the tide of revolution toward vic
tory at Kings Mountain, and the sons of the
men OF Kings Mountain and Aamance
were going to Philadelphia TO shake hands
with the men of Brandywine, of Bunker
Hill and OF Monmouth (Applause.)
Mn. LAMAR, of Mississippi. favored the eel
ebration, in order that the people of the
North should become satisfied of the longing
desire of the southern people to live with
them in perpetual union, and before that
passion all others sank into insignificance.
(lie also deprecated an alusion made by
MIR. Townsend, of n. T., last week, to Pres
ton brooks, and intimated that the newt
able effect OF the allusion was TO excite pas
sion, to stir up animosity and to awake
the hatred of sectionalisin. lie quoted an
extract from one of Mr.. Summers speeches,
III reply to a similar allusion in which Mr..
Sumner said that no one had ever heard him
speak of Preston Brooks in unkindness, and
that his name should not be brought up to
aggrayate the passions OF political conflict,
and to arrest the longing for concord) IIo
advocated this scheme because it carried
out the spirit Of peace and Cancellation. II
was something like the image of the feeling
of the people who demanded that the alien
alton and distrast which have heretofore ex-
isted between the two sections of the Union
should no longer obstruct the glories of the
republic, or the prosperity and happiness of
the American people. As God was his
judge, he did not believe that that alien
alton existed any longer Never since JEFF
ferson was first inaugurated, had the entire
mass OF the American people been animated
by pnrer, intenser, broader, more universal
patriotism, looking TO universal brotherhood
aud affection. lie knew that the sentiment
had not found its full expression here that
it had been kept down and smothered in the
meshes of nm intolerent political organiza.
ton aud that its voice had not been heard
amid the clamors and appeals Of impassioned
partisans; but in the political, as well as in
the natural world, the agencies that were
most powerful were not the most noisy.
Violence, passion, fanaticism, animosty.
could always find voices and fill the air with
their factious clamors, while the deep and
earnest feelings of a great people lay un-
spoken in their hearts The currents of
passion and feeling might flow hther and
thither, lashed by extraneous agencies but
there was in the great sea OF unsounded
depth common humanity, common hope,
a common interest and common patriotism.
which lay unspoken.
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