The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-09-03


en- age of the South, and Georgia was
the greatest of the cotton States. She
was conspicuous for her public men
Toombs, Cobb, HILL Brown, Stephens
and soon she was to show herself
as gallant in the field as she was bril-
liant i'm the forum. Intellectually,
Toombs had no SUPERIOR possibly no
equal in Senates that knew Douglas,
Chase, Seward Sumner. Benjamin,
and Green. Cobb was the wisest
statesman of the South and not the
least mistake the South made was
the failure to make him president of
the Confederacy Hill was giant,
but his fame was not yet national. Ar
ter the war he was the first debater
of his time in either House of Con-
greSs. Brown was an executive, one
of the great war governors of the
South and second only to Isham G.
Harris. Stephens was q great thinker
and wise statesman. Had the South
followed his counsel it would have
escaped unnumbered woes.
There is a philosophy that every
generation has it's crop of great men.
and that one crop would be as good
as another if opportunity afforded.
Thomas Gray expressed the idea in
verse:
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with ce-
lestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might
have Swayed,
Or walked to ecstacy the living Tyre.
Some village Hampden, that with
dauntlcss breast.
The it'll tyrant of his fields with
stood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may
rest
Some Cromwell guiltless of his
country's blood
| doubt it. Nature does not work
i'm vain. She does not make Hamp-
den for a village, but for a nation,
and when she makes a Milton she
gives him song to sing, and he is
never mute, never ingloriOus. 1t takes
centuries to mako a Cromwell, and
when once he is made there is blood
for him to spill. No; when nature
makes a great spirit, fate weaves the
opportunity for him and sends it to
accompany him in his journey through
life, and man is immortal till his job
is finished. And that was true of
William tho Silent and Don John of
Austria; it was so of Castor de Folk
and Gabriel dc Mirabeau. Stonewall
Jackson and Abraham Lincoln also
serve to illustrate that when nature
makes Il great man she sets him a
task to do. and when he has served
her purpose she takes him to herself
1t is matter Of remark that America
does not send her great statesmen to
the national councils, as she did in
FORMER times. Perhaps there is a
great scarcity of great statesmen. If
Georgia had a Toombs or a Hill or a
oh III,
Senate. If Louisiana had q Benjamin.
he would be a Senator. If Missouri
had a Green. he would be the first
man in the company of Lodge and
Carmack, Hale and Bailey Foraker
and Deniel. If Illinois had a Douglas,
he would be the leader of the Senate.
If Indiana had a Morton. he would
be the greatest living American
statesman. If Ohio had a Thurman,
there would be some hope of the
Democratic party. Such men as these
are not in public life, simply because
such men as these are no longer
among the living.
Alexander II. Stephens was never
hated at the North as was jefferson
Davis. and it is one Of the whimsical
tiles of human nature tilt he was not.
Both believed in the right of seces-
sion. Davis believed i'm it's wisdom;
stephens saw the folly of it. Both ac-
cepted it. one cordially. the other re-
iuctantly One became the head of
the Confederacy, the other the second
parsonage of it. One was as criminal
as the other, if either was criminal
Davis did no violence to any convic-
ton: Stephens followed the multitude
TO do evil--for he believed it was a
very great mistake to secede.
The Southern Confederacy was born
of mistake and died of faction 1t
would not have lasted ten years if the
hayward sisters had been permitted
TO depart in peace" 1t was a fatal
mistake to secede without IN overt
act of hostility by the new admins
tration. though years before many of
our wisest statesmen admonished tho
country that disunion would follow
me election of a President by the
votes of on section only. Lincoln was
the first of our Presidents who did
not receive electoral votes on both
SIDES OF Mason and Dixon line. 1t was
also fatal mistake to fire on the
FLAG. That set the Northern heart
afire. and until that was done the
Lincoln administration was as i'm
potent as Buchanan's had been. and
had not changed the Buchanan policy.
Had not the flag been fired on. Lin
coin could not have recruited an army.
was content to let it be war of at
triton, which ever terminates in favor
OF the side with the most men and
monc.,.
But faction did it's deadly work.
The Southern Senate directed more
eloquence and more craftsmanship to
criticisms of the Davis administra ton
IMAM it did to anything else. Ben Hill
ana William l.. Yancey had a fight
about it. Wigfall wasted his splendid
abilities in that quarrel Davis him
SER was not without fault. Toombs
should have been Secretary of Treas
ury; that would have insured an i'm
mense sum of money. and lack of
money was one of the things, if not
the chief thing, the Confederacy died
Oh. But then, the Confederacy died
or scores of things-two of them the
p''+lets that killed Albert Sidney john
sion and Stonewall Jackson.
me grandfather of Alexander H.
SteHhens was an English Jacobite,
ana was out in the Forty-five," the
last serious effort the house of Stuart