The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-18
THE NATIONS GHOST.

mare of rebellion, still glides about the earth,
ing. With an influence no greater than that
of a disembodied spirit, he momentarily
chills the beholder, and again mysteriously
disappears. Few men seem to know where
he lives, how he lives nor why he lives. But
he does live in some eerie way, and once a
year his former adherents seek him out to
recall the ghostly past. The reunions he
graces with his presence bear singular re-
semblance to the bi-centennial of the land
ing of Sir Walter Raleigh, or the 4OOth an
niversary of the discovery of America by
Columbus, at which the antics of
bygone centuries are reproduced
with grotesque gravity. Once each
year this peculiar man lays aside the cere-
ments that enshroud him and comes forth.
Not having lived for nearly score of years,
he knows nothing of the rushing energy of
the times. He murmurs as one asleep, and
imagines that the phantom of 1861 is still
tangible reality. The ghostly old dude How
strange it would all appear to him, if the
scales should fall from his eyes and he could
look out over this Nation as it is-solidly
walled along each ocean coast and fast
Emitting together in what was once the west
What would he think of the South-stronger,
BETTER drawer and freer than ever before
Suppose he could see the old plantations d-
10 Of wi
factories, and the cities grimy with the
smoke OF rolling mills, all rafting away in
the grand chorus OF commerce. Two de-
cades have nearly passed away since Mr.. Da-
Wis wound his solitary way up among the
mountains where he drank the drowsy po-
ton. A new people has sprung up in the
South, with new purposes and new pros
poets. Were new Confederacy to be born
to-day, it would be strangled in its cradle by
Southern hands, The nation is a solid unit
from border to border. No sane man, not
warped by fanatical prejudice cares to stul-
tify himself by denying that the American
people are one, to all intents and purposes
There are exceptions, of course. There
are still some who foster old-time
feuds, and who perpetrate outrages in
the interest of party. But all the better
classes, the intelligent and enterprsing, are
loyal to one common country. Yet, in the
midst of this scene of financial prosperity
up his feeble voice and pipes his little piece
written in the "buckwheat' notes OF the for
gotten long ago At the Confederate re-
union dinner at New Orleans, he gave utter
ance to his customary Quixotic speculations
He said:
81 am pleased to see the representatives of
the Army OF Virginia united with those of
the Army of the Tennessee to do honor not
only TO the cause of the past but of the
future. How are these associations to be
preserved The time must come when the
members of the Army of the Tennessee and
the Army of Virginia shall pass from the
earth. Is there any obstacle to introducing
into these organizations the sons of those
who were true TO the cause of truth eternal
which l trust will yet prevail?"
1t is a pitiable sight to see an old man,
broken in mental perception, thus driveling
over issues long dead. But he does 10 harm.
The government that was charitable enough
to condone his overt treason is great enough
to ignore his babbling folly. He will be
allowed to die in peace and to disappea~ for
ever in that obscurty from which he now
but momentarily emerges To where there
is one man in tine South who cares about Mr.
Davis, there are ten who regard him as a
mild form of nuisance, sufferable because
harmless. He and the cause he would re-
vivify are as dead as the empire of Maximil-
ian and its unfortunate founder. But, when
another twelvemonth shall have rolled away,
he will again come out of his cover, with the
''cause" busted carefully, will speak of it
fondly, and will again take it away with
INN.