The weekly clarion., 1881-05-26
THE LOST CAUSE.
Speech Of Col. ". H. Luse ON the Oeca.
sion Of the Decoration OF the Confed.
crate GraVeS in YaZoO City Cemetery.
May 4th, 1881.

on which We are Assem- bled Is replete Wi
thoughts and sentiments both varied al
striking. 1t suggests heroism amountir
TO devotion which is 10 practical life VIII
genius, religion and inspiration are to Il
moral and intellectual, producing the grea
est manifestations of human excellence an
) the grandest stretch of human effort.
) suggests at once the magnitude of man
aspirations and the intinitesimal littlene
OF individuals in the great workings
Providence; but with these thoughts ais
comes to mind the priceless consolatio
that these fallen comrades, buried here
| unmarked graves, seemed 10 fall like spa
rows fall to the ground, yet their peopI
| love TO honor their memories, and th
world, with its broad philosophy and light
ming flashes of quick intelligence, will i'm
| but due place in its great heart for the dea
| Confederate, and that is next to the plac
! 1t gives to martyrs.
| With these thoughts comes also hurryip,
| TO mind the cause in which these men fej
its vastness overwhelming deScriptiv,
| power, and the fierceness of its struggle
| scarce less than Internal. In speaking o
| this cause, and those who gave their lives il
| its defence, let no utterance, flowing from
! the depth of sentiment or the ardor of eulo-
| gy, be taken IN any political sense, for tn,
day Is sacred from such thoughts. We but
refer to their cause to yindicate the homo
and cherish the memory of those who fel
maintaining it, and we speak for them. a,
from their standpoint, in the serried rank.
and tented field of twenty years ago Tim,
would not permit, were it proper to the
occasion, to dwell on the motives, the rea
sons, the policy of this great cause; We
have to-day to do only with the feats the
faith, the sacrifices, the honor, the memo
rIes of these men. Nor can We more than
compare theirs with few of the great
causes in which overwhelming national fer
vor has prompted multiplied thousands of
men to pledge life, fortune, and sacred hon
or, and in so doing We shall find that these
lone sle6pers here deserve to be peculiarly
honOred and distinguished as those only
can be who have paid the principle, the
sacrifice of their lives-the last, the greatest
sacrifice.
These men fought not as those of France,
who followed at once national idol and a
master To punish the insults of a neiohbOr-
ing nation, and then fought on and on un-
til nation after nation was beaten down in
its blood to spread the power of France and
grow their idol greater; for though they
are justly honored, and for century bore
the palm for chivalry and valor yet they
had not stood for century like these men
and their ancestors, defiant of all dicta 5ion
save lIdG Vi IGdSOu anu CODoCiGDCt. 1ney
did not go, as these, in simple resistance to
what they believed a great danger and a
great wrong, the voluntary representatives
of a great confederate uprising standing
true to the death, each double fealty OBJ
serving, true to his State and true to his
each striving as if to do his
double share of duty.
When our noble ancestors and mother
some two hundred years ago,
fought at once in four quarters of the globe,
they fought not so nobly as these silent
sleepers here. They were sent by king
and led by mobiles to aid the late hnmble
Margrave, since called Frederick the Great
the infdel, the tyrant, the spollator, in
peaceful province from the
realm of a noble and virtuous empress,
whose title he was pledged to defend, aud
to-day the praises of Maria Theresa are
read by every Enghgh speaking people, in
the glowing language of one of England's
greatest historians and philosophers. Those
fought at the same time among
the golden sands of India, where the supple
Bengal was learning and violating the
English law. They fought their longtime
enemies, the French, from the Ohio to the
Gulf of Mexico, and were busy with arms
At home, securing the bonds of their Island
realm.
But who can imagine the future historian,
and Statesman, as he refers
to the noble deeds of these lone sleepers and
heir leaders, with the conquests of the iron
hearted Frederick and his self-shamed allies?
)r the great, lone, noble Jefferson Davis
with the brusque and relentless Frederick
)r the pure, devoted, monumental charac-
Ter of Il. f. Lee with Warren Hastings, the
olunderer of defenceless princesses and the
etter-out-to-hire of English soldiers in the
eighteenth century?
1t has ever been noble thing to die for
'ue's country, right or wrong, but those are
he noblest, most glorious heroes and exem |
Dlars to their countIymen, whose voices |
DIN in the fiat that pronunces war neces- |
aty, and then prove their faith by the sac
'ifice of their lives Voices such as these |
which sounded the alarm of war in our sun |
~ land and lives such as these which went |
'ut in the glorious struggle are not found IN |
many lands They were sovereign voices |
md happy lives. They sechoed no man
late from the heralds of power, but spoke
traight out from the source of power, aud |
vent forth with this motto emblaZoned upon |
heir banners and burning in their carts
Our impulse to action Is our peoples dam
.er." Lives such as these were never hired
r driven to be the destroyers ofother lives,
nd were as priceless to their country as
hey dee med their country's liberty.
How well do We remember the brightness
nd promise of some, and the fullness and
randeur of others who fell : The fair
aired boy, in his early teens, was there,
bringing through the ties that bound him
0 a happy home, away from the sweets of
luxury and the long laid schemes OF future
appiness as if some overrullng destiny had
eized him and devoted him to a holy cause.
fresh Young manhood and gray-haired
&I, Nv of fbpnsanHz
rom the great commonwealths as If some
reat spirit moved them in common, and
heir reason told them there great
anger and a great wrong, which manhood
ould not shirk, nor could endure. They
lad seen one king of their ancestors violate
he charter OF English rights, wrung from
he king by English barons, for the protec-
ion of English liberty. They had seen
mother violate the great petition OF rights
olemnly granted and sealed by their own
and, ruthlessly setting aside every pledge,
nd all honor chat could bind king. They
ad seen their ancestors, time and again,
iumblv petitioning where their laws, thejE
'recedents, and their kings own pledges
authorized them to demand until driven
" the Haunting insolence of the tools OF
ower, to stand up like men and say : mus
ar shalt thou go and no farther Ihey
ad seen a Pym, a Hampden, an Elliott, and
heir compatrots, for near a quarter OF a
painfully struggling to guide their
eople through the mad wreck of treach-
rous tyrant's foIlies, to a safe adjustment
etween their king and their people, and at
sst forced to battle their king and part OF
heir people to save-tEeir noble government
nd their liberties They had seen at a
luch later day, and nearer home, the in
idious advances of political power upon
oe rights of their revolutionary fathers,
ntil the tax on tea and the stamp act were
esisted III America, the same principle
nat Hampden resisted the payment of tom
age and poundage in Buckinghamshire,
ngland, both lawless aggressions of power,
nd though sorrowfully, must be firmly re-
sted.
1t is needless to say whether these fallen
Dmrades and their noble leaders were right
wrong in the course they took to avert
le danger threatened and the insults Of ,
red them we have naught to do with that |
1estion to-day, but leave it to the historian !
I'd statesman. Sufficient to know that the !
-oud record of those men shows that they
fought they were right, and so believing, ,
ey stood out superior TO the dread Of
4 | 1