The record-union., 1897-06-01

stead of one mighty prosperous and re-
spected nation, lour land would have
been broken into numerous petty Gov
ernments. each with its army, each
with it's proscriptive and restrictive
measures, each filled with jealousy and
animosity, each fearful lest the others
were watching an opportunity for con-
quest Civil liberty among us would
have been crushed; peace and prosper
ity made uncertain and precarious, and
slavery most firmly and indefinitely
perpetuated.
God in His wisdom willed that sla-
very and disunion should for all time
be crushed out, and that freedom and
union should prevail.
To-day even those who, during the
rebellion. wore the gray, clearly see the
divine wisdom which guided the hand
of Providence in the critical period so
happily passed. It is doubtful whether
the strongest pro-slavery advocate of
ante-be1lum days would wish TO bring
back to the South it's former condition.
If the South suffered disastrous
and humiliating defeat; if she found
herself crushed and crippled and bleed
ing; her slaves gone her lands laid
waste, the bodies of her brave sons
scattered on more than 1000 battle
| fields, her fair daughters homeless and
| impoverished; if she found herself
ready to sit and mourn in sack-cloth
and in ashes, she also found that she
| had been conquered not by enemies, but
| by most magnanimous brethren, who
stood ready freely to forgive; brethren
! who exacted no humiliating conditions;
/ who felt within their hearts no resent
ment, whose soldiers. after the surren-
der of Lee, gladly shared their rationS
with the conquered, who recognized,
respected and admired the undaunted
bravery, the heroic courage of the van
quished: who stood ready to lend a
helping hand and to sympathize sin
cerely with the sorrows and the mis-
fortunes of their unhappy fellow citi-
zens and brethren.
AS they look back upon it all, the
people of the now happy and prosperous
South cannot fail to recognize, that the
outcome of the Rebellion was to them
a great blessing in disguise; blessing
which grows more and more apparent
as the wealth and prosperity of the
/ South continue to increase.
/ The slave-owner was largely an idler
and a pensioner on the unpaid labor
of his fellow beings; a pensioner who
was taught to despise trade and indus
| try, and to look upon labor as fit only
| for slaves. To-day this former slave
owner has become an active worker, a
producer, a self-reliant, self-helpful
man.
The people of the South now clearly
see that slavery, which they had re-
garded as a Divine blessing, was really
a curse and crime; crime for which
| they have dearly paid; and curse
which could be removed only by the
! loss of rivers Of innocent and precious
blood.
You who were with Mcclellan at An
tietam, with Hooker at Charlottesville,
| with Burnside at Fredericksburg, with
Meade at Gettysburg, with Sherman on
] his march to the sea, with Sheridan in
| the wilderness and in the Valley of the
Shenandoah, with Grant at Fort Donel-
| son, at Shiloh and at Vicksburg, and
with the many other gallant comman-
/ ders on land and water who fought so
nobly and heroically in the cause Of the
Union you who suffered and hungered,
fought and starved: who not alone
stood ready to give life itself but even
more than life, health and reason; who,
perhaps, have lived years of misery and
pain and suffering as the outcome of
exposure and wounds received on your
countrys battlefields, you who are to-
| day the remnant of that grand army