The National tribune., 1903-01-29
LEE AT GETTYsRuRG.


back upon duty well done, say, as did the
Hero OF Calvary, 1t is finished
| -
| LEE AT GETTYSBURG.
When the New York Sun lapses into the
morasses of yacuous unreason it is n mel.
archoly sight, for the Sun is SO preten-
tious and critical, that when it founders
it founders lamentably. For example, see
how it tears its tender skin on the sharp
thorns of the relentless logic of facts,
when it attempts to lecture Grand Army
Post for the very proper expression of its
views. Thus:
Ezra S. Griffin Post. of Scranton, @
the Grand Army of the Republic, is
struggling against tide that cannot be
| stemmed i'll its erdeavOr TO prevent the
erection of a monument to Lee at Gettys-
burg. The longing and the purpose Of the
American people that the civil war shall
| ultimately he remembered, not as an at
tack upon the American flag and an effort
to disrupt the Federal Union, hut as the
means chosen by an inscrutable Providence
| for determining and aboising the dis
| tracing issue of secession, and of placing
the Republic on n foundation of Nation
| alism that shall endure forever, have been
| unmistakable for many years. This pur-
pose was born with the malice toward
none of Abraham Lincoln's at Washing
ton. Its triumph, though incomplete, was
certain when William Mckinley, at At
lanta, after tie war with Spain, declared
| that the time had come when the Unions
restoration in spirit as III fact should be
| written across the sky
AT each new step toward the goal the
old embers of the glorious passions that
carried the war to its conclusion glow
| again, but only to be cooled by the breath
of a brotherhood in whose hope for the
future there is no spark Of enmity and
which eherishes in its memory only the
heroism Of the past.
"As a war. ours of the last century was
matchless in the history of civilized peo-
pie; but still more wonderful is the Amer
| lean chapter in politics, in which is re-
| corded the reunion of the two warning sec
lions with their political relations I'M
changed and their political vitality unim-
paired.
ct is to celebrate that result of the
great conflict that the foremost figures of
the Southern Confederacy have begun to
be coupled with those of the North. A
shaft dedicated to Lee at Gettysburg will
be but an expression of the Americanism
of today and tomorrow"
Could anything be more logically absurd,
more officially ridiculous! The Southern
| conspirators who brough. on, absolutely
without reason or provocation, the most
terrible war that the world ever saw, and
| which cost more than 100000 lives, were,
| according to the Sun, perfectly guiltless
because they were ''the means chosen by
an inscrutable Providence for determining
and abolisliing the distracting issue of Sc
cession." According to this vicious illOgic
of the Sun, no man, 10 matter how vile
4 criminal he may be, nor how heinous his
offense, is morally irresponsible for his
acts. He is merely the means chosen by
| something which for some inscrutable rea-
son Providence wants done. For some rea-
son, which we may not be nDIe to COM
prehend, Providence may want some man,
some great, glorious man, whose life is a
| psalm of good deeds. removed. There
for his money becomes the agent of Provi-
dence to accomplish some end which we
cannot understand, but which may appear
when we have fuller light. Henry tine
Eighth was not to be blamed for behead-
| ing his wives, because, possibly, that was
Providence's way of teaching conjugal sub
mission to the sometimes rebellious wives
of England. The Duke of Alva was prob
ably carrying out the same "inscrutable
Providence's" methods of teaching the
Dutch patriotic fOrtitude. Benedict Ar
mold was entirely guiltless OF treason, be-
cause through him an ''inscrutable Provi-
dence" was demonstrating to the country
lessons of loyalty and adherence of trea-
son. John Wilkes Booth was not to blame
| for killing Abraham Lincoln, because this
same Providence wanted to place the
| crown of martyrdOm upon Lincoln, and
embalm him forever in the hearts of
Americans as incomparably the greatest of
the sons of the soil.
Was there ever anything more atrocious
put forward with a brazen pretense of
| logic? Il. L. Lee, and the men who were
| associated with him in the conspiracy to
| establish Southern Confederacy with the
corner stone of human slavery, deliberate
| ly, designedly, and with malice prepense
and afOrethOught, being Instigated by the
devil and not having the fear of God be-
fore their eyes, invoked the demon of in
| ternecine war upon peaceful and pros
porous land, set 100000 young men.
sword in hand, at one another's Threats.
and maintained the cruel struggle until L.
100000 of them We're in their graves, and
| another million SO wrecked in body that
their lives forever after were filed with
pain and unhappiness. To honor Lee, or
| any of his accOmplices, is therefore to put
a premium upon rebellion, and offer the
highest inducements for any young man to
achieve distinction by setting himself and
his deluded followers in array against the
Government which the people have created
and all desire. The more desperate he can
make the struggle, the more lie can dis.
turb the country, the more lives he can
compel to be sacrificed in order to restore
peace and harmony, the greater will be his
fame and the swifter will be mushy senti-
mentalists to erect monuments to Linn, and
extol him among the princes of the earta.