The Savannah morning news., 1902-04-27
BISHOP KEILEYS ADDRESS.
Had Some Things to Say About Pres
fdent Roosevelt

Had Some Things to Say About Pres
ident Roosevelt.
The Memorial Day address of Bish-
op Kelley, delivered at Guards
Hall last night was in many
aspects one of the most forcible,
eloquent and altogether remark
able productions of like character
the people Of Savannah have listened
to for many years. Its structures upon
President Roosevelt were incidental,
though striking features.
The issues that confronted the people
Of the United States at the outbreak
of the Civil War, the causes of that
dreadful conflict, the motives that ami
mated the people of the South, and the
eternal justice of their cause-these
were the themes of Bishop Keiley's
weightier discussion.
That slavery was the cause of the
war he dismissed as the idle vagary of
a vicious imagination. when I am
robbed of my purse or my land" said
he mo one would assert that the pos
session of these things was the cause
of theft"
The debates that preceded the adop-
ton of the constitution and the inter-
probation of that charter of American
liberties he discussed with easy famil-
iarity and the evidences of intimate ac-
quaintance. That the conception of the
meaning of the constitution held in the
South was that almost universally held
by the authors of that instrument and
by the people of the whole country for
more than a quarter of a century
thereafter he showed beyond cavil and
beyond doubt. That the states had a
right to secede from the union he
brought evidence to prove from the
written and spoken opinions of North
ern men.
The Bishops Address.
Bishop Kelley was introduced to the
large audience that greeted him by
Capt. Louis G. Young, president of the
confederate Veterans Association. In
his Introductory speech Capt. Young
alluded to the gallant services to the
Contederacy, through four years Of
blood and death, of the boy who is now
the Bishop of Savannah. Generous ap-
pause greeted the orator of the even
ing as he began.
Ninety-nine years ago a man. who
had been tried before a packed iury
IN court presided over by a notori-
ously corrupt and partisan Judge. for
what his accussers called treason and
what he, and we, know was patriotic
devotion to his countrys cause. was
asked what he had to say why sentence
OF death should not be passed on him.
his reply has passed into history and
mas thrilled thousands since With his
cause, Just and righteous as it was.
l am not concerned tonight. 1 give
his last words:
Let no man write my epitaph. No
man can write my epitaph. And as
no man who knows my motives dares
10 Vlndlcate them, so let no man who
Is ignorant of them, with prejudice
asperse Them
Defended the South.
II stand here tonight to vindicate
the motives and defend the action IF
my people, who. forty years ago. were
forced to carry their case and submit
their cause to the arbitrament of the
sword.
Moral issues may not be settled by
brute force Overwhelming numbers.
The road agent or burglar who. at pis-
tol point, relieves you of your purse
mas equal cause to allege, in defense Of
thefmorality of his means of livelihood
alike argument. And yet, by strange
fate, the accomplished fact of the burg
lars success gives him no valid and
recognized title to possessio nor does
the accomplished fact of success in
arms, gained by overwhelming maiori-
Ties OF men, and practically unlimited
means, against a struggling and gal
liant handful of men, prove that the
victor was right and the vanquished
wrong.
THE question of the Lost Cause, its
justice and its constitutional rights,
was and is moral question. Neither
bully nor braggart can settle it. God
pardon me if / dare venture the com
parison with proper reverence. The
victory won by Pontius PLATE and
those who urged him on over 1900 years
ago, when judicial sentence of death
was passed on the Savior, was the tri-
umph of brute force over innocence:
but for as many years has the cruel
verdict of the wicked judge been dis
credited and repealed.
ITO an awakened conscience, to an
unprecedented public mind, to right rea-
son, to justice itself do we make APP
peal from that tribunal where the
heavily mailed hand of the soldier
weighed down the balance and turned
the scales against us.
What the War Settled.
1--WE are willing to admit that the
war did settle that, under ordinary
circumstances 100000 men can defeat
100000. That was definitely decided by
the war of 1875; that and only that;
that and nothing more
Bear with me, while plead for my
people, that they were neither traitors
not anarchists Gas our accidental oc-
cupant of the presidential chair re-
Gently called them); that purer patriots
and of the initiartory causes of the
part of our common country was there |
deeper reverence for the constitu-
ton and a warmer love for the Union
of states, than in the South.
Let we speak awhile of the condi-
tons which obtained previous to 1860
and better men never lived that in no
Civil War.
Slavery was not the cause of the
war. That it was an incident leading
to it, or an occasion of the war may
be allowed. When 1 am robbed of my
purse or my land, no one would assert
that the possession of these things was
the cause of theft.
The Negroes Legal Status.
1.-THE proper legal status of the negro
in the South and the views entertain
ed and loudly proclaimed, as to the
powers of the Federal government over
the question was one of the reasons
why the South withdrew from the
Union. Her better protection and Sc
curity caused her TO enter it. Their
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