The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-31

less comrades, who sleep in lonely ceme-
teries throughout the land; where, per-
chance, single monumental shaft is the
ghosuy sentinel keeping watch over the
bivouac of the dead
1T is fve-and-thirty years since the
Confederate war was closed and about
thirty-nine years since it was begun and
it is sometimes asked why we should stir
the ashes of that ancient feud; why we
should not bury the past in its own grave,
and turn 10 the living issues of the pres
ent and the future. To this question,
comrades, we return the answer with a
voice loud as seven thunders, because
il is history; because it is our history and
the history of our dead heroes, who shall
not go without their fame. AS long as
there are men who wear the grey, they
will gather the charred embers of their
old camp-fres, and in the blaze of these
reunions tell the story of the martyrs
who fell in the defense of country and of
truth.
Fellow Citizens: 1t is simply follyNto
suppose that such a spontaneous uprising
as that of our people in 1860 and 1861 could
be effected through the Vaccinations of
politicians alone. A movement so sudden
and\so vast, instantly swallowing up all
minor contentious, would only spring from
some great faith deeply planted in the hui
man heart, and for which men were Will
ing to die. Whatever may have been the
occasion of the war, its cardo causae',
the hinge on which it turned, was this old
question of state sovereignty as against
national supremacy. As there could be
no compromise between the two the only
resort was an appeal to the law of force,
the ultima ratio regum The surrender at
Appomatox when the tattered remnant
of Lees great army stood guard for the
last time over Southern liberties and
rights, drew the equatorial line dividing
between the past and the future of Amer
lean history. When the will of the strong
est instead of the consent of the gov
erned' became the base of our national
structure, radical transformation took
place. The principle of confederation
gave wey to that of consolidation, and the
American nation emerged out of the
American republic.
1T is not my design, however, to dis
cuss these issues. On the contrary,
have traced the remote origin of the Con-
federate war for a purpose which is en-
tirely conciliatory; and to explain some
things which may appear contradictory
1t enables both parties to this
struggle to give full credit TO
each other for patriotic motives, though
under a mistaken view of what that
patriotism may have required. II shows
why no attempt was ventured to bring
attainder of treason against the Southern
chiefs, which could nor afford to be venti-
lated before any civil court under the
terms of the American constitution. 1t
explains how, through a noble forbear-
ance on both sides always excepting the
infamies of the reconstruction period the
wound has been healed in the complete
reconciliation of a divided people. 1t ex-
plains how we of the South, convinced of
the rightfulness of our cause, can accept
defeat without the blush of shame
mantling the cheek of a single Confederate
of us all And while accepting the issues
of the war as a decree of destiny, openly
appeal to the verdict of posterity for the
final vindication of our career. In making
this appeal, veterans, in your name, l am
brought to the subject of this days dis
course, which is to set before you the
tribunal of history, before which all the
issues of the past continue to be tred;
and which, in the view of many sound
thinkers, is rendering a proximate juds-
ment in what is occurring before US in the
immediate present.
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