The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-14


 poet, a dreamer and ad orator, a student and teacher, Llcius Q. c. Lamar pos sessed what few men are endowed with genius. Taught in the school of Call houn, he was follower of Jefferson Da- wis, and a greater than Wise or Wigfan. He was a gentleman of the old South, and her most eloquent champion in the theatre of polemics. He was second to no man in the American Senate when that body was exceptional for the tran scendent abilities of its members,
 The Lamar family is French, the French that were beaten at Jarnac, and the French that were victorious at Ivry-Hu- guenot French. Driven from France by Richelieu or Maintenon, the Lamars set tied in the English Catholic colony or Maryland. where religious liberty first had birth. and whence some of the fam fly went to Georgia. and it was in that State that l.. Q. c. Lamar was born. September IT, lS25. He was nephew of Mirabeau B. Lamar, whose name Is for ever linked to the early and heroic history of Texas. He was bred to the bar and set : tied at Oxford, Miss, where he was teacher. lawyer, planter and eminent c'f- izen. &
 In 1887 Mir. Lamar took his seat in the Thirty-fifth Congress. He was very young for so great a place, but he was soon to approve himself one of the first men of that day. He was no apologist' for slavery as 1t then existed at the South, but its advocate, and he looked upon it as a conservative factor that was to save the people from despotism and preserve society from chaos. He saw in the landed gentry of England the prop and the 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were brilliant orations and powerful arguments Q fo hfn day, even though the issue .ipon which they were made is IS obsolete as the Eel opornesus dispute of ancient story.
 With the South holding to the views it did. and the North asserting the views 1t did, war was as certain to follow as effect follows cause. When 1t came Lamar was a volunteer but he possessed none of the attributes of soldier except dauntless courage and fervent patriotism. Soon he was ordered 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 Mis- sippi. and, like Robert E. Lee, became a teacher of Southern youth. In fS6s he was Professor of Political Economy and Social Science in the University of Mis- slssippi, and the following year he was law professor in that institution. He continued this work until elected to Con- gress, in 1872. and the next year he took his seat as a member of the Forty-third Congress
 The Republican party was in the saddle and riding rough-shod over the prostrate South. Treason was odious. Loyalty was profitable. Butler and Morton ruled Congress and forged chains for the beaten section. No Republican put a particle of confidence in any protestation of good faith on the part of any Southern man who remained outside the Republican party The work of reconstruction was incomplete until the South crawled on its belly, ate dirt and cried ''Unciean! Un- elean!''- that was Republican doctrine.
 Charles Sumner was of the very aris- tocracy of Northern intellect and North ern opinion. He was not Peter the Her init. and yet he was something like that fanatic; he was not Marcus Cato. for he could forigve The old South had looked upon him as everything that was fanat- cal, everything that was despicahie and hatred of him drove brave men to con done a brutal assault hat was shame and a disgrace. Sumner was problem: The ordinary man cannot understand him. There never was a moment that he would have inflicted the slightest physi- cal punishment on Preston Brooks, even had opportunity offered. He never bore one particle of malice against the man who inflicted such cruel humiliation upon him and contributed to greatly shorten his days. Perhaps the most curious piece of political literature in our annals Is the letter of Sumner challenging James c. Blaine for bringing the Brooks assault into the champaign of 1872. As mag naninnity it stands alone among political transactions. If this was not Christian charity, who shall escape condemnationT
 
 Sumner wrote: Never magnanimitX feli fo the ground Nor did this. l.. Q. C. Lamar cIasped 1t and took it to his heart; sumnsE died in lSa sna m Apl soRy SI upon him in the American Congress that chal- ienged the patriotism, the AmericanisIn It was wholly unexpected. and 1t aston ished and electrified all America. For the moment 1t drowned the morose; churlish, ciamorous in Congress for half a cen tury and from that day Lamar was the favorite. son of, the South and the most
 Grant and Lee had made the soldiery of the North and the South acquainted on manship of the North and the South ac- uuainted in this euiogy: worthy a Der Inosthenes or Cicero of ancient day, Ssv ft was the frst and the loftiest plea for union-the union of hearts: Ine oys Ing song of Grady was but it's eeno. Lt
 
 and even the bloody shirt was dipped in admiration and applause.
 Tn the succeeding Congress Lamar was re-enforced by Ben Hill-the former the Athos. the latter the d'Artagnan-the heart and the brand of the South. They two faced Blaine and Garfield of the North. and if one would know what Journalists mean by field days in Con- eress. let him read the debates between these men that January of 1876.
 As a specimen of Lamar's style. the fol- lowing may be aptly quoted:
 sir. the Southern people believe con nuest has shifted the Union from the ba- SIs of compact and consent to that of force. They fully recognize the fact that every claim to the right of secession from the Union is extinguished and eliminated from the American system and no longer constitutes a part of the apparatus of the American government. They believe that the institution of slavery, with all its in- cIdents and affinities. Is dead. extinguish- ed. sunk into sea that gives not up It's dead They cherish no aspirations nor schemes for its Fesuscitatfon With their opinions on the rightfulness of slavery unchanged by the events of the war, yet as an enlightened people accepting what ir inevitable, they would not if they could. again identify their destiny as a people with an institution that stands an- tagonized 90 utterly by all the sentiments and living forces of modern ctvilizatoin." '"
 Mfr Lamar was follower of Jefferson