The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-09-02
Extract from Speech Of Hon. johnson
HagOod at the Lexington Survivors,
Association.


Hagood at the Lexington Survivors
Association.
To-day you are assembled to do honor
[ to these martyrs of lost cause. It is I'll
and proper that you do so. Recall their
deeds of valor and of endurance. Re.
count their triumphs and show how
grandly they bore themselves in defeat.
Tell your children tile story of the past
tell them to pray God that when trial
comes to them, they may meet it as un.
blenchingly and bear themselves as truly
as did the men in grey. Let monuments
arise all over the land to commemorate
the deeds of the dead; and let women
hang garlands upon them. For while
!the sons of the South in support of the
] Confederacy vindicated the blood they
had inherited, her daughters illustrated
all that is admirable in the attributes of
women. There arose among them. no
one to emulate those heroincs of history
who girded on the harness of war, or
drove dagger to tie tyrant's heart, for
there was no need for them to unsex
themselves; but it is scarce an exaggera.
tion to say that the voluntary efforts of
our women, themselves laboring under
Ecruel and unaccustomed privations,
clothed our armies and organized all of
the comfort that existed in our hospitals.
Devoted heart and soul to the cause, they
we're as ready to cheer with brave words
their champions in battle, rs to tend with
gentle ministrations the sick and wound.
ed; and many q Southern woman
checked the cry Of wailing over her
slaughtered husband, to prepare her first
born to take his place. Such was the
women of the Confejeracy; and when it
went down in blood and gloom, she re
manned as true to its memories, rs she
had been faithful in its performances.
Wherever q monum ent has arisen in all
our Southern land to the Confederate
dead, it has had its inspiration in wo-
mans heart, tender and true; and it has
owed its completion to her devoted and
unwearying zeal. 1t is mete that the
daughters of Lexington should raise q
special shaft To their own dead, for no
better troops marched and died with
Beauregard and Johnston and Lee, than
the ,byothers and husbands and fathers.
whom their prayers accompanied to the
war; and where can tenderer hearts be
found, or fairer hands to place yimmor-
telles upon q soldiers grave!
i The past is dead in the issues it en-
volved, but it lives in the teachings of its
heroisln. We stand now amid new sur
roundings; new issues are before us;
new duties upon lis. But if we are to
meet, us true men meet, the responsible.
tiles that await us; if we are to discharge
to the full, the obligations we owe to each
other, to the country, and to ourselves,
We must approach as near as may be to
the unael6sh devotion to principle of the
men OF the Confederacy, and emulate
their; fidelity-a fidelity even unto death.
We may bury the issues for which they
fought; We have done it, and done it in
reverence !; but we bury not the memory
of the heroic efforts and high motives of
the contest ). nor could we if we would
divest ourselves of their influences. The
laws of nature forbid it, The new South
is the daughter Of the old. The blood Of
the mother. flows in her veins and man.
ties in her cheeks, and with it she claims
by divine right an inheritance of the
mothers characteristics. On new field
of action and under the circumstances of
different civilization these characteris-
tics should be and are manifested. Look
at our history in the recent past. When
after the warIand asits consequences, our
people found themselves stripped at one.
blow of the accumulations of two hun
dred years of thrift, and deprived OF the
sclf.government which had descended to
them through the struggles for ten cen
turies of a free ancestry; when all that
was base and vile in our own society,
commingling in filthy scum with the
residuum of invading armies, aoated to
the top, and protected by the all power
full conqueror was regarded as the State;
when place, and power, and wealth how
ever ill-gottcn was the sure reward of
desertion, how few of our people, young
or old, were recreant to their convictions,s
and false to the right. With what forti-'
tude they submitted to the inevitable;
with what patient endeavor they sought
to redeem amid almost hopeless circum-
stances their broken fortunes; and when
the opportunity of relief came in 1876
how promptly they seized it, and how
boldly they worked out their redemption.
Ny friends, this record of the new
South Carolina approaches any thing in
the history of the old; aud for the last
four years theHecord has been continued
untarnished. Once more. in possession
of their State Government, our people
have shown wisdom in readjusting the
wreck, frmness in bringing itback to the
methods of good government, moderation
in pursuing their plunderers,. and fidelity
Iin~adeering to the constitutional require
ments Mhich embodied the accepted re-
suitsrpf tie war. These happy manifes-
tations have brought peace aud harmony
among us, and largely turned the
thoughts of all classes from the disturb
ing influences of angry political discus
sion to the advancement of that individ-
ual welfare, the promotion of which
should be the highest aim of all govern
ments.
Aud now, with the better elements Of
society in control of our local affairs
with the virtue, the intelligence, and the
property of the people once more exer-
cising an influence in their management;
and with the bed rock of financial de.
preston reached, the rebound has come.
Disciplined and chastened by adversely,
shorn Of some of her adventitious sur.
roundings, but of none of her fair pro.
portions, our old Palmetto State has
commenced anew an onward progress.
In the development of her abounding
resources, and with the advantages of her
favored cline, is seen for her in the near
future prosperity surprising that of her
happiest day. That it will COME |
know; that my eyes will behold it, ere l
am laid with my fathers beneath her sod,
l devoutly trust; but whatever the future
may have in store for her and her sisters
of the South, however prosperous or glo-
rious their history may hereafter be, no
chapter in it will ever compare in all
that dignifes and ennobles humanity,
Will, tlot ,vl,icI rorords fhn motives the