The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-01-20
NATION PAYS TRIBUTE TO MEMORY OF LEE
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
 ADDS TRIBUTE TO GREAT
 CONFEDERATE CHIEFTAIN

Robert E. Lee was the embodiment of those conditions, the creature of that environment--a virginian of Virgin fans. To ask Lee to raise his hand against Virginia was like asking Mont rose or the MacCa1lum More to head a force designed for the subjection of the Highlands and the dstruction of the clans. Where such a stern elec- ton is forced upon a man as con- fronted Lee. the single thing the fair minded investigator has to take into account is the loyalty. the single mindedness of the election. Was 1t devoid of selfishness--was 1t free from any base and moro sordid worldly mo- tive. ambition, pride. jealousy. re- ton there can, in the case of Lee. be but one answer. Then. after long and trying mental wrestling. he threw in his fate with Virginia. he knowingly sacrificed everything which man prizes most--his dearly beloved home, his means of support. his pro- fessfonal standing, his associates. a brilliant future assured to him.
 Born a slave holder in @ race of slave-holders, he was himself no de- fender. much lees an advocate of slav- cry; on the contrary. he did not hesi- tate to pronounce 1t in his place. a moral and political evil Later, he manumitted his slaves. He did not be- Heve in secession; as a right reserved under the constitution he pronounced 1t idle taik:' but, as asa virginian, he also added, if the Government Is disrupted, shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people. and save in defence will draw my sword on none.'
 Appalled, at the Risk.
 Napoleon is alleged first to have remarked that Tn war. men are noth- ing; a man is everything As for mer soldier of the Army Of the Poto- mac now stand appalled, at the risk unconsciously ran anterior to July, 1888. when confronting the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded. as 1t then was, and as we were. The situa- ton was, in fact, as bad with us in the Army of the Potomac as it was with the Confederates in the Southwest. The unfortunate Pemberton there was slm- ply not in the same class as Grant and sherman, to whom he found himself opposed Results there followed ae- eordinEly. So, in Virginia Lee and Jackson made an extraordinary, most exception combination. They outciassed | them sometiEIss terribly. sometimes l ludicruusly; ais.ays hop lessly; and I resuits in that case 11so followed ao-
 
 -destroysd constitutes q flat and final refutal of the truth of Napoieans ap-
 The speaker sketched Lee's career | throughout the war between the States | and gave him high credit for his de- cision to surrender at Appomattox rath- | CT than proiong the inevitable by a | guerilla warfare. Mir. Adams then | concludod:
 'Speakingly advisedly and on fun re- l flection, I say that of all the great characters of the Civil War. and 1t was productive of many whose names and | deeds posterfty will long bear in recol- lection there was not one who passed | away In the serene atmosphere ana with the gracious bearing of Lee. From beginning to end. those parting years | of his will bear closest scrutiny. There was about them nothing venal, nothing querulous. nothing in any way sordid or. disappointing. In his case there was no anti-climax: for those closing years were dignified, patient, useful; sweet in domesticlty, they in all things com manded respect
 AnIictAdn of the south.
 1 'Because no blood flowed on the | scaffold. and no confiscations of houses or lands marked the close of our war | of Secession, 1t has always been as sumed by us of the victorious party | that extreme, indeed unprecedented, cIemencv was shown to the vanquished and that subsequently they had no good ground of complaint or sufficient cause | for restiyeneness That history will accord assent to this somewhat self complacent conviction Is open to ques- ton. On the contrary, it may not un- fairly be doubted whether people | prostrate after civil strife has often received severer measure than was in- fticted on the so-called reconstructed Confederate States during the years im- mediately succeeding the close of the | strife.
 l Adam Smith somewhere defined I Rebels and Hereties as those unlucky persons who. when things have come | to A certain degree of violence, have l the misfortune to be of the weaker party.' Spoliation and physical suffer ing have immemorially been their lot. The Confederate 1t Is true, when he 1 ceased to resist, escaped this visitation in It's usuaI and time-approVed form. Nevertheless, he was by no means ex- | empt from 1t. Tn the matter of cOnfis- cation it has been computed that the | freeing of the slaves by act of war swept out of existence property valued at some two thousand millions; while, over and above this, system Of simul- taneous reconstruction subjected the disfranchised master to the rule of the enfranchlsed bondsman. For com munity consplcuously masterful, and notoriously quick to resent arront. to be thus placed by alien force under | the civil rule of these of different and distinctly inferior race, only lately | their property, Is not phy sical torment, it Is true, but that 1t Is mild or con- siderate treatment can hardly be con- tended. Yet this-slave confiscatlon, and reconstruction under African rule was the war penalty imposed on the States of the Confectionery.
 That the policy inspired at the time q feeling of bitter resentment in the Couth was no cause for wonder. Upon Following the high precedent set at Appomattox it was distinctly sun worthy. Conceived In passion, it ig- nored both science and the philosophy of statemanshp; worse yet. it was ungererous. Lee, for Instance. again setting the example, applied formally for amnesty and a restoration of civil .riahts within two months of his sur render His application was silently ig- nored! while he died a prisoner on pa role, the suffrage denied him was con- ferred on his manumitted slaves. Verify. 1t was not alone the base Indian of the olden time who threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe.
 Among the audience were many of the former students who attended the University forty years ago under Gen. eral Lee.