Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1882-06-13

al, but you nave 1oilowed the promPIiHss VI
that law which the Almighty-the God Of ma
tions and of peoples-has implanted and nur-
tuled in your very being.
But my countrymen and countrywomen.
while we are here this day to do homage TO the
memory of men who fought for us and d1ed Tor
us, who shed their blood and gave their lives
passing breeze, in the rustling Of every leaf in
the ripple OF every brook-whose eternal rest
ing places are ever sacred-sacred at morn
at noon when the shades cast their sombre
mantle. sacred at eve when the dove SENDS
forth its plaintive melody, sacred at n1ght wnen
vault OF Heaven to light the footsteps of the
pilgrim who comes to invoke blessings at these
shrines of devotion to principle, steadIast 10
member that all was not lost when they fell
all was not lost when our cause went down In
to the gloom eff eternal night at Appomattox,
and while they did their duty in life, on the
living sons and daughters OF Virginia had
duty left to us.
Old Virginia had been rent and torn-the
red no. plough of war had furrowed deep
her bOsom-the charred ruins Of once happy
homes filled every landscape-her fields laid as
desolate as though they had been visited by the
sons were in prison or their voices were st11ed,
while all were disfranchised and disqualified.
hung over mountain and valley, obscuring the
| bright sunlight of constitutional liberty In
whose splendOr Virginians had ever walked.
and moved and lived.
They had been tried in the fiery furnace of
war. but as the Hebrew children walked forth
| from the fiery furnace of Scripture unscathed,
| so they came forth from the fiery furnace OF
| war unscathed in their honor and manhood
and with no faint of dishonor upon their gar
ments. Then they were subjected to another
| trial. more trying, perhaps, than even war,
! for it required more patience endurance. and
self-control. But from this trial. too. Virginia
| was led by her sons without a leaflet plucked
| from the wreath that had adorned her brow from
the time she was a maiden until she had be-
come the mother of states and of Statesmen,
SyI~r Dcky hnrr, To- fa
the constellation of the UniOn-her voice. ON.
nipotent, was heard again in the national
| council and she became again an integral part
of that Union whose magma charta was prepar-
ed by her Jefferson, whose life and vitality was
| breathed into its nostriis by her Henry, and
whose success was secured by her Washington
Yes, the very work of her own hands-the ed1-
flee she had erected herself. and from which
she had been driven with bowed head and in
tears after eighty-dve years by usurpation of
power and the infringement of constitutional
| rights. am but repeating, briefly. history,
not in the light of partisan bias. but in the
suager of passion, has appeased the animosi-
ties engendered, and that survived the terrible
conflict. and while the beautiful lines of the
ny ear and thrill me with their pathos:
Yes, give me the land where the ruins are
| spread,
| Yes, give me the land that has legends and
That tell of the story of long vanished days
| Yes. give me the land with grave in each
| spot,
| And names in those graves that can meier be
| forgot;
Yes, give me the land where the battles red
Has flashed on the future the form Of the
Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the
There's grandeur in graves. there's glory in
For out OF the gloom future brightness is
AS after the night looms the sunrise of
And each single wreck in the war-path of
Shall Yet be rock in the temple of right.
say that while those words quicken my
pulsations, make my heart beat faster and my
| blood flow freer, can say that put the past
behind me, stand in the present and reach
out for the future.
1 put the past behind me with its roseate
hues Of glory. put the past behind me with
out any pang of shame or acknowledgment of
| wrong. put the past behind me freighted
| though it be with fond memories crushed
hopes, care-furrowed cheeks. widows and or
hind me because manhood. patriotism and
christianity teach me to do it.
| Manhood teaches me to be magnanimous. 1t
teaches me to be liberal. 1 remember that tn e
causes which led to a conflict of arms origina-
ted before the participants in that conflict, or
seeds were sown In the earlier days of the Re-
public that they terminated and sprang up
under the heat Of passion. and were watered
and nurtured by the cOpious showers of parti-
san rivalry that difference in soil and eli
mate led to different pursuits and products.
tween the two sections of this great land. and
| that nation which in its inception and for
nation was one indivisible union, with one
e-blood through every artery alike to be re-
turned to the seat of life by the vein channels,
was severed INTO two bodies. designated North
half soon predominated, and instead OF the ma
tional head throwing out its blood as of yore
into every artery alike. it withheld its supply
from the southern hall, and 1t began to wither
But pardon this simle-let us not pursue it
further. Let us be little more practical l
have said that soil and climate bring variant
pursuits and products, ideas and interests be-
came variant. and those .variances led to a
= rivalry in the management. control, and di
!, rection of the government and its policy-the
boy of the north imbibed the ideas, principles
| and preiuGices of his father. while the boy OF
the south followed as Inevitably the teachings
of his father and drank In his prejudces
, There is no education as strong or which be-
| comes as deeply rooted as home educatfon-it
: becomes interviewer into our very nature
The child will ever repeat its little infant
prayer as its mother taught IT,. The farmer
boy when he grows to be husbandman will
plant and SOW and reap as his father before
e him planted and sowed and reaped, and SO the
t opinions and principles and prejudices of the
e father will be Abe opinions and principles and
prejudices of the sou:'
But apart from this direct home hearthstone
education, there was a sectional education
most potent and powerful. In the council
chambers, on the hustlngs, everywhere in
| every avenue and walk, his education was go
ing on-in the light of day, in the vigils Of the
night, amid the winters cold or summers
heat, with feet that never wearied. eye-lids
that never closed, and a will that never flag
ged, this education was progressing with one
aim, one object, one purpose-the thorough
imbuing cf the minds of the people with the
peculiar ideas and principles of the particular
section.
was educated in a southern home, in a
sout hern school, under a southern sum- and I
believed that to be right which was taught me
ana believe to-day that to be right which was
taught me.
The soldier who confronted me in his blue
jacket while l wore the gray, was educated in
/ northern home. in a northern school, under
northern sun, and while love still every
l shred of The old gray JACKET and my eye mois-
tens when think of it, my manhood prompts
! me to throw over him who wore the blue the
Of LIP 6eralty Put past differences be-
| man who had faced death in defence of what
| he had been taught was right, and which my
be right,
put the past behind me, because patriotism
: Patriotism! What is it? It is the noblest
passion that animates a man in the character
of citizen. I am a citizen of this great re-
public: Whatever y. ,n affects it's prosperity. Its
commercial 1nterests-its enterprises or its
industries-its greatness or power-affects me
AS citizen, imbued, trust, with patriotic
zeal, l am animated by desire to see her
standing forth in the sunlight of history upon
almost an utopian eminence. 1 want her sails
| to whiten every sea, and to follow whitherso-
| ever the trade-winds may carry them; her
ports open to every land that the riches of ev-
cry cline may be dropped into her lap. I want
| her to have the strength OF giant, yet the
gentleness of q child.
Only last year she commemorated the one
hundreqth anniversary OF the surrender at
| Yorktown; and there, on that memorable &C.
casion, on that consecrated ground where she
became a living reality an Independent re-
public, ii filed every patriotic soul with pride
as he contemplated the mighty strides she
had made in all that go to make up the strength
and power, material greatness and grandeur OF
| a nation.
Her national ensign now dips its pinions in
the waters Of two oceans. continent has
| been peopled. The hum of industry is heard
from the pebbly beach of the Atlantic to the
pillows of the Pacific. Science has unfolded
her spacious volums, in which are written
1 the secret principles of nature; and improve
ment and discovery crowd upon each other in
every walk of life.
1t Is tie very height of patriotism to lay aside
| and put out Of sight all that may cause bick-
erings and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and
Observation-Disclosures members o. the same
national household. Passion should have nc
place around this Unions festal board-sec
tional bias and prejudice should be torn up
like cancerOus sores by their very roots.
BigOtry-intOlerence- selflshness are the
| prime ministers Of the spirit of exclusiveness
J which is the spirit of destructiveness. There.