The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-04-10
PATTERSON TO REPUBLICANS The Kentuckian Addresses Hamilton Club. ADVICE AS TO THE NEGRO Appeals to the North to Keep
 Hands Off. Evolution Only Can Make the Black Race an Integral and Recog- nized Part of the Body a Polite.
 

Chicago, April s.-The annual banquet of the Hamilton Club, which is held each year on the anniversary of the surrender of Appomattox, transpired tonight in the Auditorium Hotel
 A large number of local guests were present and many came from distant States. Former Congressman Francis w. Cushman of Tacoma, Washn., was to have delivered an address, but was unable to be present because of the death of his father. The other addresses were by Henry Watterson of Louisville, Ky. Thomas P. Green, Cedar Rapids. Ia.. and Edward L. Hamilton of Michigan. MT. watterson said in part:
 want to talk to you tonight. not as a Democrat to Republicans, but as an resisted and resented the Idea that party lines are lines of battle; that party issues are proclamations of war. Our govern ment rests upon the theory that we are equal shareholders in a common property. Touching the administration of this property there will always exist honest differences of opinion. Good citizenship imposes upon each of us the duty tf entertaining his own convictions and of living up to them; but he becomes little other than bigot who thinks more of himself on this account. and loves his neighbor less. because that neighbor. ex- ercising the same right, does the same thing.
 A Very Fair Tale.
 The 18th of April 1881. Sumter fell. The 9th of April, 1885. Lee surrendered. The four years intervening between those dates, marking the beginning and the end of the most moment0us struggle Of modern times. witnessed such an outpour- ing of blood and treasure, such displays of courage and endurance. such sacrifices
 rf tx4n nnfm aotF a at a roa ra- duiity and beggar alike the powers of computation and recapitulation. Never in any preceding war was there so little Of public wrong. so much of private gener-
 war so complete and final. Elesewhere upon the surface Of the earth traces may yet be seen, sometimes yet lurking in the hearts of men sensibilities may be found. of etrifes, religious. or racial. internatio1- al or civil, one, two and three centuries agone; in America not vestige except what springs from associated charities and reciprocal ministrations of patriotism and benevolence. Northedn men and wo- men mark and decorate the last resting place of Southern soldiers who died in Federal prisons. Confederate officers sit in both Houses of Congress and upon the bench of the National Judiciary, and have repeatedly served in Presidential cabinets and represented the country abroad. At least two Confederate Generals wear the uniform of the United States army, glad to he assured that the flag which waved over their cradles shall wave ever their graves. The Chief Magistrate of the United States is half Southerner and all a rebel; God bless him. and may the Lord keep him in the path of wisdom and virtue! Already over the ftreside of many a home hangs the swords of the grand father who wore the blue and the there by pious hands as pr43sl-ss memo rials of love and valor, crossed at last in the everlasting peace If reunited family.
 All of Us Are Yankees.
 To what do we owe these miracles of enlightened progress? J1ainly to the good sense and good feeling. the rich. red blood of American manhood; partly to the recognition by refecting and gener- ous minds that neither J,a-Sy to th.at great sectional conflict had all the right of 1t. its antagonist all the wrong. On this point can speak with tolerabie assur- ance belonged to the segm snt of con- servative men in the South v'no loved the Union and did not accept either the gospel of African slavery CT the dogma of battle invoked to settle 1hat had in- deed proved an irrepressible conflict, we went with our own side. But four years later. when in 1885, all that we had feared in 1881 was actually come to pass, we needed no act of Congress either for our redemption or reconstruction.
 The better to illustrate the situation let me relate an incident that happened in Tennessee toward the close of the war. The Union General, Lowell R R)usseauN of Kentucky. found himself encampsd on the farm of Meredith Gentry, a famous orator of the old Whig party Gentry had been Rousseau's file-leader, his political tcol, a Whg of Whigs. Unionist of Union ists; but swallowed by the movements of the time, he had allowed his district early in 1882 to elect him to the Confed- crate Congress. He went to Richmond, found himself out of place there. did not his books, under his vine and fig-tree. he awaited the inevitable. Rousseau. his heart overfiowing with unquenched ar- lection. thought he would have bit of to be prepared, invited all the good fel- lows he could reach and sent a file of soldiers, with a sergeant and an order of arrest to fetch Gentry into camp. It was all real to the imaginary captive. Brought into the presence of the Fed eral General. and what appeared to be a court-martial, the old states man drew himself to his full height and In sonorous but broken tones he said; General Rousseau. you know that l loved the Union. Upon the altars of the Union 1 poured out the dearest aspira- tions of my young manhood. l grew gray in the service. Finally, the stern- wheel steamboat, Secession came along. I saw first one neighbor. then another l neighbor, get aboard, and. when all were aboard except me. and stood alone upon the shore and they were about to haul In the gang-plank. 1 cried: Hold on, boys: I will go with you, if you go to hell!'
 l chanced to be in Europe a little while after the war. Such trifiing dis tinctions as Federal and Confederate were unknown. All of us were Yankees. Then and there. took a bee line in the direction of the bunting. and have been smuggling beneath its folds from that day to this. I did not believe in slavery. I did not believe in secession. Heavens, if had! But what is the use speculating about inconJectural possibilities? The doctrine of secessl )n dld not originate in the South, but at lhe North; 1t was not the South that brought the negro from Afri;a, but the North. In the very be- the seeds of dissolution were sown. The makers of the Constitution left the exact citations of the Federal to the, States and of the States to the Federal Government open to a double construction. In claiming thence the right to secede. Yancey followed af- ter Pickering. Jefferson Davis after Gou- Veneur Morris. curioaslZ enough. this