The Farmville herald. [volume] (Farmville, Va.) 1890-1934, 1900-10-19

shaken fidelity Of the Neronese.
PRO sUMMA FIDE sUMMUs AMOR.
p Even so let US write on our heart
the vow Of supreme love for suprem
loyalty. Let us build in the mem0rie
Of our children and our children
children monument of reverence an,
devotion not less stable than thi
granite, not less lasting than thi
bronze.
Indeed, | think that the heart Of TN,
Virginian will never cease to swell Will
noble pride when he recalls thi.
heroic epoch in the history of our com.
monwealth. We cease to argue the
outworn questions Of past politics. We
care not what may he the judgment
of friend or foe on the abstract principle
OF secession or the constitutional rights
of the States. We see only those men
face to face with dread alternative.
Ii they stay in the union, which they
loved, ii must be with hands redeemed
In fraternal blood. If they cut loose
from its sacred and perpetual bond
they must be the first to breast the
storm of impending war. Surely they
chose the nObler, if not the safer part.
We reverence them for the unselfsh
loyalty, which asked no question as to
personal loss or gain, but freely pledged
life and fortune IN defence OF freedom
and of right. We reverence them for
the unflinching courage, which faced
with open eyes the vast disparity of
domestic resources and the cold aversion
OF foreign governments, entering upon
the well nigh hopeless conflict with a
smiling valOr and a knightly grace.
We reverence them for the deathless
fidelity, which disdained disaster and
deiied defeat, which endured hunger
and nakedness and wounds and death
with a smiling scorn of ills, which
owned itself vanquished only when
the Army Of Northern Virginia was
crushed into fragments 10y the pressure
of uncOunted numbers and ground INTO
powder between the millstones of want
and WEAKNESS.
Believe me, my friends, it is not the
SOutherner alone who reads their story
with pity and pride and love. Even
in the heat Of the conflict the more
generous Of their foes were stirred to
admiration 10y "A courage which never
counted odds nor computed dangers.
AS time has healed the bleeding
wounds of that tragic struggle, bring
ing new occasions and new duties into
the current Of our national life, the old
animOsities have been forgotten and
the men Of the North, Of the East, Of
the West. feel "a growing pride in the
story of Southern valor, in the martial
genius of Southern men. The dawn oil |
an age begins to appear when courage |
and fidelity in the soldiers of both |
sides in that great struggle will be |
cherished memories to all true Ameri- |
cans. Each mOnumet reared To conf
memorate the bravery and devotion Of |
men, who stood in defense Of what |
they felt to be right, will be sacred |
shrine, at which all may offer true
hearted worship. Loyalty to the pres
ent is no more at war with fidelity to
the past.
And after all who shall say that the
real cause for which the South strug-
gled and suffered is or will eyer be
lost cause? Its practical alliance with
the defense Of slavery discrediled the
South in the eyes Of civilized nations
and held back from her support the
Of Europe The forms
under which she strove to establish
truth and justice seemed perverted and
to men, who were ignorant Of
her true aims, deceived as TO her real
and forgetful Of her inalien-
able rights. But the real cause for
which she shed her blood and poured
out her treasure is as sacred and as
vital now as it was forty years ago. 1t
was the cause Of local self-gOvernment
fighting against the usurping grip Of
the central power. 1t was the protest
Of the State against the threatened
tyranny of the nation. That protest is
heard afresh on every hand today.
That conflict must be renewed with
other weapons and on other fields, if
the American Republic is not to perish
in the fatal embrace Of the new Ameri-
can Empire. The struggle seems world
wide and endless. Its history is the
history of human freedom. The sacred
task of establishing government of
the people, for the people, by the peo-
pie must never be surrendered. I'm all
ages men have laboured for il, fought
for il, died for it. And so they must
continue to labOuT, 10 fight To die un-
tll that cause is everywhere triumph
ant. Human history teaches nothing
If il does not teach the slow but steady
of this political and social
deal. To misread its lesson is to de
,pair of humanity. Local and tenn
porary defeats have served simply to
nerve men to renewed efforts. The
.tnru of the Snnfhls heroic fhnnph IN