The Aberdeen examiner. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1866-current, 1883-02-08

JeHerSoH LEWIS ny majority OF only
one vote in the provisional congress
had been elected President over Robt.
Toombs.
Surrounded by unexampled diff
culties, moral and physical, isolated
and alone, with the prejudices of the
entire civilized world against them,
and confronted in battle with over
whehming odds, the Confederate Con-
gress was called upon to meet not
only the ordinary questions and emer-
gencies attending the formation of a
new government, but to grapple also
with the exigencies and demands Of a
great war, a war not for conquest or
policy, but for existence.
Mr.. HILL had earnestly opposed
secession up to the last moment, but
finding that the people of Georgia
were determined to separate from the
Union, he surrendered his personal
opinion,and pledged himself fully and
unreservedly to the cause of the Con-
federacy.
Opposed to secession, with habits
of thought and education utterly
averse to revolution, the strange
vicissitude of this stormy period soon
found him the leader of the admins
tration party in the Confederate Con-
gress.
With the limits of an address like
this it would neither be impossible or
proper for me to attempt an analysis
Of the cause which placed Mr.. Hill
in this position; but chief among them
was the fact that having once pledged
himself to the Confederacy he could
see no hope of success except in sup
porting the President chosen by the
people; and having so declared him
self, his great ability naturally made
him the exponent and defender of the
policy of the administration.
Although surrounded by Difficult
ties and dangers almost without par
allel, and confronted by common
peril, it was very soon evident that
personal rivalry, the attrition of diverse
opinion, and the fierce passions of
revolutionary era had built up most
determined opposition to Mr.. Davis
among The leaders of the South.
That the President of the Confed-
crate States was loyal to the people
he led, in every fiber of his nature,
can not be doubted save by the
blindest prejudice; and this being
granted, whether he was mistaken in
the conduct of the war or in the poll
cy of his administration should be
sealed book to all those who sympa-
thized and suffered with him. 1t is
enough to say now that never was
any public man assailed by opponents
so formidable as those who attacked
the President of the Confederate
States.
Toombs, the Mirabeau of the revo-
ton; Yancey,whose lips were touched
with fire, now the honey of persuasion
and then the venom of invective,
Wigfall, brilliant, aggressive, and
relentless-this was the great trium-
virate which assailed Mr.. Davis's
administration. No power of descrip-
ton can do justice to the ability,
eloquence, or bitterness of the debates
in which Mr.. HILL,single-handed but
undaunted, met his great opponents.
AS the war progressed and the for
tunes of the Confederacy became each
year more desperate, the bitterness
and violence of this parliamentary
conflict ceased, until scenes of actual
personal collision occurred on the floor
of the Confederate Senate.
The participants have passed be-
You'd this worlds Judgment, and the
issues which stirred those fierce pas
sions are dead with the government
they affected, but the few who heard
these debates can never forget the
matchless eloquence and logic that
mingled with the roar of hostile guns
around the beleaguered capital of the
Confederacy.
Reluctant to embrace the Confed-
crate cause, Mr.. HILL was the last to
leave it, and we'll remember that on
my way from Richmond, after prepa-
rations had been made to abandon the
capitol, and it was well known that
the cause was lost, | met him in Co
lumbus, Georgia, engaged in the
task of rallying the people of his
State in what was then hopeless
struggle. When | told him of recent
events, of which he had not heard, he
said' "All then is over, and it only
remains for me to share the fate Of
the people of Georgia"
How well he redeemed this pledge
the hearts of his people will answer.
Thrown into prison, stripped of all
except life, his courage never failed,
and in the darkest hour, when the
wolves were tearing the victims of
the war as the coyote the wounded
deer, his eloquent voice was never for
one instant silent until Georgia, torn
and bleeding but yet splendid and
beautiful, once more stood erect in
the sisterhood of sovereign States.
Nor did he ever under any temptation
so far forget his manhood and honor
as to
Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawuing.
Accepting fully and without reser-
walton all the legitimate consequences
of defeat, and resolutely turning to
the future with its dutuies and obi
cations, he still retained his self-res-
pect.
/ knew Mr.. HILL well, and under
which enabled me to
Judge accurately his attributes and
qualities. Like all men of great
he was often accused of
inconsistency because he absolutely
refused to be governed by the routine
thought of others, and had always
The courage to change an opinion if
ne believed it erroneous. His courage,