The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-02
 , DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON 
 DEWITT TALMAGE, D. D.


 conditions would they ever attempt to get their slaves back again. These great facts were the mighty means of weld Ing the hearts of the American people together even more strongly than they were united before.
 Now, let us impartially consider the slave question, which was indirectly the cause of that civil war. Way back in the time of Thomas Jefferson the Sage of Monticello advocated the emancipa- ton of the negro slave. But. though Thomas Jefferson was in many ways the strongest statesman the south ever produced all the planters rose up in arms 'Absurdl Absurdr' they cried. You free the slaves and the cotton plan. tations will be ruined. We must have the slaves or die" This was the stand of the south. Most of the southerners deprecated the holding of slaves, but they did not see how the plantations could be cultivated without them. Yet . no sooner were the slaves emancipated than the planters rubbed their eyes and awoke to the fact that the plantations were better off with hired labor than when cultivated by slaves. They could make more money out of their cotton crops by hiring field hands than by own ing them. The result was that, whereas be-ore the war ninety y-nine southern men out of a hundred wanted slavery to exist today if put to the southern vote ninety-nine men out of hundred would refuse to take back their slaves even if they could. This is a sociological fact of the southern labor problem with which every intelligent American student Is well conversant.
 A Dead Issue.
 Second fact: When the god of battles decided the civil strife the southerners almost to a man were ready to accept that decision. When Finland was con q.oted by the Russians in 1909 and AL sace and Lorraine were conqured by Germany in 1871 and Spain and Italy and Holland and Naples and Westpha- lla were conquered by France in the Napoeonic wars these people were com pelled to bend the knee at the stroke or the sword, but they and their con- querorE never became one Finland to- da. is no more Russian than 1t is Japan csc. Alsace and Lorraine may pay their taxes to Germany, but their hearts are In the Tuileries. No sooner did Napoleon abdicate than the kings and queens whom he had deposed were gladly welcomed back by their people to their vacated thrones. Not thus was the ending of tn, civil war. The southern people are not a subiugated people. They are not a people trembling at the sound of the cannon's explosion. They are a people
 
 decide this issue once for all at the can non's mouth." And when the god of battles decided against them these peo- pie said, "The issue is forever dead" The northerner said: Here, men of the south, here are your flags. We have no differences today. Take them back as heroic embems of your glorious deeds on many battlehelds. Take them and keep them for your children to look upon with reverence and awe. They are yours and not ours. We are all brothers. of one race and one nation" Oh, today thank God that these questions are all settled and that all the old heartburn ings are over. The returning of the southern flags proves 1t.
 There was still another reason why those cid flags were returned. No sooner was the war over than the southern men began to work side by side with their northern countrymen for the upbuilding of the nation. They dropped the sword for the blow. the gun for the moving machine. But they did more-they began to work for the seneht of the north as well as for the south, for the west as well as for the east. And as in the Span ish-American war IT. S. Grant Jr served upon the staff of Fitz-Hugh Lee and Joe Wheeler fought under the stars and stripes by the side of Lawton so side by side in congressional halls and on
 
 lishment the southerners worked with the northerners for the development of our whole nation. You could not find any difference in these mems patriotism by the place of their birth
 Like a BugIe Gall.
 was very much struck with this fact when my mind ran over the names prominent in our national legislative halls thirty years ago. great army of statesmen had entered Washington from our southern states. Nearly all of these men had worn the Confederate gray or been prominent In Richmond. There were Alexander Stephens and Lamar and Harris and Gordon and Pugh and Morgan and Wade Hampton and Zebulon Vance and r. NJ Cockrell and M. c. Butler and Berry and great number of others too numerous to men, ton. My, what a list there was. When we read their names it seems as though we hear the bugle call and the rattling of arms and the yelling of the cavalry charge When we look into the United States senate of thirty years ago it seems as though the field officers of a great Confederate army had been col lected for council of war. But though those southern statesmen assembled in Washir gton, they were not assembled for council of peace Those ex-Confederate soldiers were planning and contriving for the prosperity of the whole United States and not for part. They were working hand and glove with their northern col leagues for the success of our reunited land. And, though the north, as a whole in the early seventies did not have con fldence In the loyalty of the new south. tho northern statesmen in Washington who came in touch with those southern statesmen learned to trust the south
 When such true leaders as Charles Sumner, from Massachusetts, and I.u- cius Lamar. from Mississippi, and hun dreds and thousands of men like them could strive as soon as the civil war was over to weld this broad country together, Is 1t any wonder that after awhile the rank and file should fall into line and cry. My countrymen, know one another and you will love one another. Oh. yes, the return of the Confederate flags by the north was natural se- quence to such a patriotic love as that No sooner was the Appomattox treaty signed than the true spirit of the north and the south started in to obliterate sectional strife
 Lastly, I remark that the north gave back the Confederate flags because the two sections of our country by travel and intercommunlcation, got acquainted and learned to know each other The northerners travelled south, and they had a taste of southern hospitality including the hot breads and the tohnnycakes, and they liked them. And the south erners travelled north and learned that there were chivalry and warm, loving hearts among the New England snows as well as among the Georgia flowers.