The Portland daily press., 1896-02-12

Carolina today stood as loyal and as true
to the flag of the United States as any
State in the United States, and that the
circumstances and conditions that existed
when South Carolina seeded can not
and never will exist any more and am
GLAD of it. (Applause..) And when
spoke of the question OF secession, sir,
while South Carolina seeded, as she
thought it to be her duty with the light
before her then, it is quite different to-
day; and did not say that l wished to
violate the thirteenth amendment of the
Constitution by advocating secession
now, because those circumstances and
conditions can not and never will exist
again.
That great question of secession, Mr..
Speaker, has been submitted to the arbi-
tramant of the sword, the only place that
1t could have been settled, and has been
settled and settled forever, and am glad
of it. Applause on the Democratic side. J
And 1 stand here ready and willing, as
the right hand of fellowship to the men
who wore the blue, whom had met un.
der tho red blaze Of battle, and to tell
them now that that war of thirty years
ago is over, and let us stop waving the
bloody shirs fill the open ohasm, and be
| once more united people with one flag,
| one country, one aspiration, and ons
we were right in 1861 and actuated by
patriotic motives. did not want to be
put in the ridiculous attitude thirty
years after the war had ended, and the
| question of secession had forever been
| settled, to be held up as an ignorant fool,
| advocating secession today, and meant
| no such thing; and my language has
that is my position; and I am ready to-
day-while look with pride upon my
past life as a Confederate soldier, look
down with contempt upon any Southern
| man who would apologize for his action
as soldier; while as gallant today, and
while he and are ready to take up arms
in the defense of our common country,
the greatest. grandest nation on the face
OF the earth, it i'll becomes man from
| the South to bemean the people he rep
resents, and that is the sentiment I
| wished to reiterate, and not anything
| that was unfriendly to the Government
of the United States. 1t is not in me.
With that explanation, Mr.. Speaker, I
am done.
That explanation ought to have been
satisfactory, and as matter of fact was.
to the House. What earthly use is
says he believes his State was right in a
certainscourse it pursued thirty years ago
when he says he does not believe it would
| be right to pursue it today; and that the
question of secession is settled forever
and he is glad of it. We suppose if one
should go through the South today and
make the, test of loyalty willingness
to confess that the South was wrong III
1861 he would find very few loyal persons,
and yet the. recent war scare disclosed
that the great.mass of the Southern people
were thoroughly loyal and were as ready
as the North to come to the support of the
government in any contro gersy with
England that might arise. 1t is admit
ted that all these people who were living
thirty years ago we're disloyal II
they are loyal today and propose to
remain so,-and NE. Talbert is ex-
plioit enough on that point-that is
sufficient and no possible good, but
very much harm, can come from rak-
ing over the almost dead embers of a
strife that closed thirty years ago and the
results of which nearly everybody is
disposed to accept apparently with
out murmuIing and even with
satisfaction. There are plenty of
weighty questions for Congress to
settle, plenty to occupy the time of the
House, plenty for men to make reputa-
tions out Of without fighting the war
over again. Let us have peace