The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-31


the South was in the lowest depths of its
poverty. While | am not able; at this mo-
ment to give its date the North soon after
ward originated our Decoration day.
hope that we shall soon take a new de-
parture and exchange orators. suppose to-
day you were listening to an old Confed-
crate soldier and hearing his side of the
case. and that our Northern speakers,
April 26. were i'm the habit of speaking in
the South. 1t would certainly be most
graceful and grateful exchange and would
tend TO draw the bonds of our union all the
closer
1T is a great blessing to-day to carry
as | do gray head. The time will soon
come when the days before the war, like
the days before the Revolution, Will only
be a tradition. Twenty-Five years hence
there will be no old veterans 10 attend
these meetings. One of the greatest pleas
urcs of my life Is TO look back and COM
pare the year lS47. or even 1857 with 1897.
of nationality rent in twain by a fiery
line in its midst. marked on either side by
hostile and irreconcilable social and in
oustlaI .lnstltutionS ana equaIiy nos
tile and irreconcilable theories of the ma
ture of both government and our
Union. II is now over thirty years since
we had any Mason and Dixon's line, and
although portions of this once-famous line
are in the historical museums and are still
written about yet ii is seldom or ever re-
called by even old people. Forty years ago
fully one-half of the people of the United
States belieVed-Daniel Websters great
speech in reply to Hayne to the contrary,
Observation-Disclosures a State had a right
to secede. The South was not the first to
attempt ii. In 1904 an effort was made
70 dissolve the Union, in which two mem
bers of Adams's Cabinet and the then Gov
ernOr of Massachusetts We're the leaders.
They proposed to elect Aaron Burr Presi-
dent, and make a confederacy out of New
YORK, New England and New Jersey. We
all remeber about the Hartford convention
Although Washington originated the term
an 1ndissoluble union to which splendid
term was added by Chief Justice Chase,
bic states still in 1851 not a man in the
South believed in il and in the North peo-
pie seldom thought about it.
LIKE A TRIP TO EGYPT.
Forty years ago, for one of us to jour
ney down the Mississippi and stop a week
at Natchez and Vicksburk and then spend
month in Louisiana Alabama, was like
to-day making a trip to Egypt or Turkey
The intending traveller first made his will,
then bought six-shooter, then a fat
pamphlet called Thompsons Bank Note
Reporter, and then removed from his bag
gage all Northern newspapers, and if he
happened to be from New England all evil
dence of his residence. Books were written
about the slave States, many of the titles
OF which distinctly remember, which were
cur1ously read if they had been about
q country in the heart of Africa or New
zealand 1t is amazing to recall how, five
bowed down and aiI6Wed the saye no, Morf IN
trample over 1t. In 1850 the cotton and
sugar planter was as great a social hero
as the Goulds, or Vanderbilts or Rookie
fellers now are. just forty years ago the
United States Supreme Court, a part of
one of the solemn Judgments said that a
black man had no rights which a white
man was bound To respect On the other
hand, the North was honey-combed with
stations upon the great underground rail-
way. Hundreds of runaway slaves We're
hurried over 1t to Canada. 1t is certainly
true tndl forty years ago d runaway Save
up here was Of a great deal more conse-
quence than white man.
While il is not to be denied that the
South forty years ago was full of brilliant
men. mostly given over to politics, still
they We're all dominated and poisoned by
the upas of slavery In 1860 Indiana or at
leafs the south half of ii, was a slave
State in all but name Probably no more
brilliant body of Hoosiers ever assembled
yention of 1851 yet it solemny provided
that no negro or mulatto should ever come
into or settle in Indiana, and that anyone
Who should employ negro or mulatto be-
came subject to costly fine 1 have
never yet found in any constitution a sec
ton like this, which was turned into
criminal and police statute. Such was our
fanaticism only six and forty years ago.
Forty years ago the air of Indiana was
sitting with this slavery miasma 1t per-
meated all 'departments of our activities.
The reports of our Supreme Court were
the laughing stock of the country. Our
schools and colleges were at their lowest
ehb. ,I1nadianapolis, our largest city, was a
sleepy Southern town Of about eighteen
not halt ". dozen buildings over two stories
high. The State itself had not one hundred
miles of gravel road or county drains, where
IS noVEssshas "a. hundred thousand There
was not a city within its borders, outside of
indianapolis, which excluded swine from its
Beginning with Tyler in 1s41 and ending
with Buchanan in 1851, our Presidents, elect
ed at the command of slavery, with the
possible exception of Taylor and Fillmore
were second and third-rate men. Political
morality was at its lowest ebb. so much so
that Senator Hoars best defense of the
present deteriorated United States Senate
is that its morals to-day are much bet
ter than they were in the old slave days
Notwithstanding the general Decentralization
caused by slavery in 1S50-60 1t cannot be
denied that there were then vastly superior
individuals over the present. Beside the
great triumvirate of Webster, Clay and Cal
houn Washington had galaxy of wonder
fully able men in politics-Seward, Sumner
Douglas, Marcy Teombs Stephens, Hun
enough while public conditions are amaz-
ingly improved. we lack the brilliant per-
sonalities of the old slave days. l do not
know of any State in the Union to-day
where a Northern man. especially if there
was money in him, would not be welcome
Even the teacher Of a negro school would
While some sore spots still remain where
the negro vote is suppressed, still negro
education, even there, is welcomed.
What has brought about these marvel
GUS changes? The mighty ideas represented
by the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments to our Constitution-liberty,
nationality and universal suffrage. Louis
lana last April furnished voters for the
Dingley tariff, Texas is building deep-water
harbors for the interocean trade. During
the last twenty-five years our Southern au-
thors have taken the lead over the North
at least in fiction. Kentucky and North
Carolina have Republican senators, and the
former Republican Governor The New
South is brilliant fact. 1t is difficult to
distinguish Atlanta from a Northern city.
1T has the hotels. Libraries and nerve of
Indianapolis Even Charleston, with it's
lagoons feels that the ancient order of
things is fast becoming a memory.
1T is not great power which makes
nation. 1t is its wise and great use of
power. Rome had enormous power,
but she used it to ACKNOWLEDGMENT
of few at the expense of many England
has enormous power Not SO great as Rome
the last 100 years has steadily eXerted ii
for the enfranchisement and happiness of
its people. 1t is not an undivided nation
ality which will save US. but nationality
whose Interchangeable purpose is equal rights
for all. special privileges for none.
OUR UNFINISHED WORK.
''And this brings me TO what Lincoln, in his
Gettysburg address. called our unfinished
work The great Republic. for whose re-
Mobilization the heroes whose graves we to-
day decorate, died, is by no means perfect
government. and by no means free from
great and present dangers. In 1888 our
United States Constitution embodied all the
political science then known, but in
trument for carrying out the will of the
people, II is to-day a lamentable failure. 1t
resembles the od-fashioned flint lock mus
ket with which our independence was