The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-06-12
Winchester's Memorial Day.

The imposing ceremony attending the
unwilling of the two memorial monu-
ments was telegraphed yesterday morn
ing. The exercises, more than on any
other similar occasion, seem to have in
spired double pleasure. On the one
hand, it was the tribute of noble peo-
pie to their soldier dead, whose lives had
passed into the history of heroism, and
whose deaths had been marked by the
gratitude of their country. But there is
another pleasing. reflection unfolded by
the matchless address of Gov. Holiday.
How striking q contrast to the partisan
utterances of Congressman Keifer, at
Arlington, when the Governor of Virgin
ia, at Winchester, said: within sight,
Just over yonder fence, lie the bodies of
thousands who fell upon these same
fields in the Federal uniform. Those
were, doubt not, as earnest as these, for
they died by each others hands. Think
you that it was in vain? God does not
so work. The death of a hero is the life
of State Just as the blood of a martyr is
the seed of the Church" How beautiful
the thought; how noble the sentiment /!
Nor could more fragrant flower from
the grave of the soldier have bloomed to
calm the bitterness of the statesman,
than the eloquent Holidays peroration {:
"Those died for the rights of the Union,
these for the rights of the States. From
tho monuments erected over either will
one day spring an arch in which the
hopes and memories of both shall be in
terwoyen with the golden threads Of
Gods eternal love and truth, and on
which the eyes of the people shall ever
read how Individual rights and local
government can live in harmony with
the central power and glory of the great
Republic" There is embodied in this
exquisite language a craftsmanship as
sound as its patriotism is pure. Side by
side stand two cenotaphs now; the one
erected to those who died "for the rights
of the Union" the other "for the rights
of the States" Their broad bases rest
upon the same soil; their marble tablets
tell of the same heroism; their pure
SUBMITS are bathed in the same sunlight,
toward the same heaven their marble
apices point, and if from such twin piers an
arch shall spring, joining the tomb of the
blue with the sepulchre of the gray, who
shallsay that the span will not be mightier
than any triumphal arch, and gilded with
characters brighter than the rainbow's
tints? If appropriate in sentiment, the
idea is capable Of realization; if worthy
OF the dead it is yet inspiring to the liv-
ing, and presses its moral upon the pol
iticians of the day. From it they can
learn that the opposite pillars OF our
Constitution and our country must stand,
each with the other, as representatives of
the composite character Of our Govern
ment. They were erected by the States
Rights believers and Union champions
of the fathers, and only when joined and
united, will form elements of support and
towers of strength. Springing from the
foundation soil of our common Govern
ment, surrounded with the bones of Sec
tions and the blood of heroes-they can
be united, but never consolidated; nor
will it be until the span is completed,
Joining section with section, and the pill
lars connected, linking element with ele-
ment, that the people will unite under
single faith and work for a single pur-
pose.-Augusta Chronicle and Constif"-
Honalist.