The Hawaiian gazette., 1902-12-30
THE ERA or RECONCILIATION.

The authorities Of Mississippi. the
State In which jefferson Davis was
inaugurated as President Of the Con-
fcderate States of America, have placed
a portrait of Abraham Lincoln In their
Hall of Fame. Mr.. Rowland, director
Of the state Historical Department. in
soliciting the picture from Robert 7.
Lincoln, signalized the passing OF the
old order i'm the following words:
We Of the South now realize the
greatness and goodness and grandness
of the character of President Abra-
ham Lincoln, and would honor his
memory. our own Lee has been given
a place in the Temple OF Fame, situat-
ed on the other side of Mason and Dix
on's line, and his name stands with
that of Lincoln. Your father belongs
to the worlds immortals, and nothing
that we could do would add to his
fame. We can, however, show our re-
spect and love for him. Permit me,
therefore in the name of the State, 10
invite you to place portrait of Presi-
dent Lincoln in the new capitol of
Mississippi, that it may symbolic his
love for his country, his devotion to
duty. and his heartfelt sympathy for
the Southern people.
A calm survey of the Civil War,
such as men of this generation are
able to make, brings a conception of
the fact that the statesmen and sol
ders on both sides, by their intellect
ual power, their moral and physical
courage and by the great deeds they
wrought gave n new dignity to the
American name and a new strength
and prestige to the nation. Before the
Civil War the United states held a
small place in the estimation of the
world. 1t was regarded as a loose
confederacy-a group Of cousins-in
habited by Yankee traders in the
North and by strutting slave barons in
the South, so weak in the true nation
al spirit and in military resources that
as Captain Marryat wrote in 1853
"a foreign army 1000 strong, could
march from end to end of it without
opposition" Nor was the relative opin-
ion of the sections much higher.
North of Mason and Dixon's line the
coming invasion of the South by raw
levies was regarded as n holiday
promenade. Even VIM. ii Seward
thought three months would suffice to
bring the South to terms. In the
South itself it was said that zone
Southron could whip five Yankees"
Had either been right, the United
States today would have been a sec
Ond- class power. 1t needed four years
of bloody war and a gigantic outlay Of
physical resources on both sides, to
convince the world at large and at
/ home, that the United States had In 1t
! the material for first-class power;
and today, the surest confidence the
citizen has in the ability of this conn
Z try to hold its own, is in his remem-
! brance of the men whom both North
4 and South raised up to meet the crisis
/ OF 1861. AS Americans we are proud
of the way they did it; proud of the
! directing genius of Davis and Lee on
2 the one side and of Lincoln and Grant
on the other So 1t has been in all
/ history. No Englishman looks back
with shame or disfavor on Marston
Moore and Naseby and the descend
ants of those who fought on either
, side would not have had those battles
| turn out differently. They are satisfied
that those conflicts left no other heri-
~, tage than good to the common country.
Rupert and Cromwell, Bruce and Wal
lace. are accepted heroes of the Brit
ish race, not chiefs of ancient factions;
and the time is already here when the
Southerner looks with pride upon the
statues of Lincoln and Grant and when
the Northerner honors the names that
made the Southern half of the Ameri-
can people illustrious in the times that
tried mems souls.