Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1903-08-06

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Take him all in ALL he was the fore
most public man Of the South OF the
postbelliim period-a statesman and
patriot. a thinker and a poet a dream
ef and an orator; student and teach
ef; Lueius a. G. Lamar possessed
what few men are endowed with-gen-
Ills. Taught in the school of Calhoun,
he was follower Of Jefferson Davis,
and greater than Wise or Wigfall. He
was a gentleman OF the old South; and
her most eloquent champion in the
theater of polemics. He was second to
no man in the American Senate when
that body was exceptional for the
transcendent abilities of its members.
The Lamar family is French, the
French that were beaten at Jarnac,
and the French that were victorious at
Ivry-Huguenot French. Driven from
France by Richelieu or Maintenon, the
Lamars settled in the English Catholic
colony of Maryland. where religious
liberty first had birth, and whence
some of the family went to Georgia,
and 1t was in that State that L. @. G.
Lamar was born, September IL, 1925.
He was nephew of Mirabeau B. La
mar, whose name is forever linked to
He was bred to the bar, and settled
at Oxford, Miss, where he was teach
er. lawyer, planter and eminent cit
izen.
In 1857 Mr.. Lamar took his seat in
the Thirty-fifth Congress. He was very
young for so great place, but he was
soon to prove himself one of the first
men of even that day. He was no
apologist for slavery as it then existed
at the South, but its advocate, and he
looked upon Ii as a conservative factor
that was to save the people from des-
potism and preserve society from
chaos. He saw in the landed gentry
of England the prop and glory OF the
realm, and he saw in the planters of
the South the prop and glory of the
Union. His speeches were brilliant
orations and powerful arguments, and
will repay the reading even to this
day, though the issue upon which they |
were made is as obsolete as the Pelo-
ponnesus dispute of ancient story.
With the South holding to the views
it did, and the North asserting the
views it did, war was as certain to fol- !
low as effect follows cause. When 1t /
came Lamar was volunteer, but he
possessed none of the attributes OF
soldier except dauntless courage and
fervent patriotism. Soon he was or
dered from the field of arms to assume
a diplomatic mission to Europe. He
failed. and when the war was. over he
returned to his home in Mississippi, |
and, like Robert E. Lee, became |
teacher of Southern youth. In 1866 |
he was a professor of political econo-
my and social science in the Univer-
sity of Mississippi, and the following |
year he was law professor in that in
stitution. He continued this work un-
til elected to Congress in 1872 and the |
next year he took his seat as member |
~of the Forty-third Congress-.
The Republican party was in the |
saddle and riding rough shod over the |
PROSTATE South. Treason was odious |
Loyalty was profitable. Butler and |
Morton ruled Congress and forged ,
chains for the beaten section. No Re- |
publican put particle of confidence |
in any protestation of good faith on |
the part of any Southern man who re-
manned outside the Republican party. |
The work of reconstruction was in
complete until the South crawled on |
its belly, ate dirt and cried "Unclean! |
Unclean!"-that was Republican doc
trine.
Charles Sumner was of the very
aristocracy of Northern intellect and
Northern opinion. He was not Peter
the Hermit, and yet he was something |
like that fanatic; he was not Marcus
Cato, for he could forgive. The old
South had looked upon him as every
thing that was revolutionary every |
thing that was fanatical, everything
that was despicable, and hatred of him
drove brave men to condone brutal |
assault that was shame and dis
grace. Sumner was problem The !
ordinary man cannot understand him.
There never was a moment that he
would have inflicted the slightest
physical punishment on President
Brooks, even had opportunity offered.
He never bore one particle of malice
against the man who inflicted such
cruel humiliation upon him. and con-
tributed to greatly shorten his days.
Perhaps the most curious piece of po- |
litical literature in our annals is the |
letter of Sumner challenging James
G. Blaine for bringing the Brooks as
sault into the campaign of 1872. AS
a magnanimity il stands alone among
political transactions. If this was not |
Christian charity, who shall escape |
condemnation?
A greater son of New England than |
Sumner wrote, Never a magnanimity |
fell TO the ground" Nor did this. L. |
@. c. Lamar clasped il and took it to /
his heart. Sumner died in 1874 and !
in April of that year Mr.. Lamar de- !
livered an eulogy upon him in the |
American Congress that challenged |
the patriotism, the Americanism and |
the manhood of the whole country. 1t |
was wholly unexpected and it aston |
ished and electrified all America. For
the moment it drowned the morose,
churlish. brutal voice of discord that |
had been clamorous in Congress for
half a century, and from that day La
mar was the favorite son of the South |
and the most interesting public man
in the country.
Grant and Lee had made the SOL |
jiery of the North and the South ac-
quainted on stricken fields; Lamar
made the craftsmanship of the North |
and the South acquainted in this eu-
logy, worthy of Demosthenes or Cic-
ero Of ancient day. worthy Burke or
bOSSutA VI II was lAC
first and the loftiest plea for union,
the union of hearts The dying song
of Grady was but its echo. 1t awoke
a responsive chord at the North, and
even the bloody shirt was dipped in ad-
miration and applause.
In the succeeding Congress Lamar
was reinforced by Ben Hill-the for
mer the Athos, the latter the d'Ar-
tagnan-the heart and the brand of
the South These two faced Blaine
and Garfield of the North, and if one
would know what journalists mean by
field days" in Congress, let him read
the debates between these men that