The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-31

 Is highest and best in this world l would be Greek in its origin. Again, Caesars fall consolidated as by an electric shock the new forces of Rome and ensured mighty empire to his
 successors. Napoleon might have died st q fuckier moment, at Wagram
 say, or on the advance into Russia.
 but surely for his fame 1t was better he should fret his life away on
 barren rock than as State prisoner ! in Europe spying upon the amours of Marie Louise, Asleep now on the | banks of the Seine. from his urn he rules France through the institutions with which hts genius endowed her: I Byron, we may well believe, had written himself out before the squa1id l tragedy of Missolonghi. And Shell 1 ley? dare not say. But the appeal is l made by the drowned figure swept 1 ashore In spezzia Bay. Keats? An! let the worlds regrets be assembled
 when we mourn the untimeiy dead
 and be bestowed upon Keats. the Ly- cidas or the race.
 With ourselves Lincoln died happily much as we of the South and wisely may deplore him Mckinley died hap oily, too. avoiding an encounter, the l certain fierceness and desperation of which may be judged of when we re- 1 fleet that his agitated and agitating
 
 renew the challenge against entrench- | ed wealth that was delivered by Me- Kinley on the day of his assassination. Despite reason. however. tragic death makes It's appeal Hamilton re-emerg- ing after his period of obscurity has 1 profited by the appeal implicit in the violence of his end
 | You will, though. and very properly, deny, any great weight to such a con- i sideration and I call your attention | at once to the attitude of New Eng. | land toward Hamilton and his success ful rival, Jefferson. For nearly a | hundred years past New England has I held the pen of this country. During many years of the same period the | South held pre-eminence In the Union | quite out of proportion to It's wealth and numbers. But we were never a reading people and produced few books. In the great rivalry between the sec lions, Hamilton was fixed upon by New l England as the titular champion of l her policies, for no one else was to i be had; surely not Roger Sherman. Ol- i iver Ellsworth or either of the Ad- | amses. So Hamilton was as steadily written up; Jefferson as steadily writ ten down. Practically the whole of American literature illustrates while it embodies New England's partiality | for the one, it's profound contempt for | the other. Believe me, put thts forth I in no sectional spirit, but as the bare ' record of a fact. One of the best ex- amples of this bias I know of is to be i found in the uniform treatment by New England of Poe. In a standard | and excellent Manual of English Lit- erature. there is, or used to be. an ap- pendix on American literature by an accomplished Bostonian Poe is dis. 1 patched in less than line and where7 In an obscure footnote. Look then to the partial pen of literary New Eng land as one of the causes of Hamil- I toms new renown.
 Lastly. for a related and the commanding reason, Hamil- i toms name has attached itself to l the most prolonged and bitter contro- versy of our political existence. the struggles over slavery and the prob- lems resulting from or accompanying the overthrow of that institution. Ham, ilton was the great exponent of the idea of a consolidated, energetic, cen tral state. His precise notions seem | absurd to us now and wholly imprac- | ticable and they are--but in the say. | age. conflict waged between slavery sheltered by the States and anti-slav- cry which would wield and did wield, l the whole power of the nation to de- stroy that institution, the bold, fear less, outspoken, fanatical exponent of 1 national power came naturally to the | fore in mems minds at the North, and we behold the adventurer from the | West Indies, asleep in oblivion, disen- tombed and crowned with what were meant to be unfading laurels. After l the war his contempt for States as l States was readily participated in by | the several Congresses. backed by pub l lie opinion at the North, that then pro- ceeded to dragoon the South. That war. too, fastened the protective sys- | tenn once more upon us--it was dying by unanimous consent at the begin ning of the civil war-and the per- l petuation of this system has contrib uted--he being its earliest formal de- | fender--to lift to a high plane the | fame of Hamilton. Protection being so l gross an extension of governmental power. has been the prolific breeding ground of many other socialistic ideals 1 amongst us and now ever sciolist who would tinker with the frame of the Government, and still further advance
 the national standard, cloaks himself in what he ignorantly boasts are the
 garments of Hamilton.
 I do not--I cannot believe his mere
 tricious fame is secure. Already stu dents like Sumner of Yale,
 and Schouler of Johns Hopkins. are
 preparing for us a better tempered
 and saner judgment of the man and his achievements. If he Is to suffer 1 another downfall, 1t is easy to foresee
 1t will be brought about at the North.
 The North Is now making a more can
 did study of our history than any in
 sight by ourselves. Regret 1t we
 must. but admit 1t we must, the young
 lions of our own slight Southern lit-
 erature keep an appealing eye on the
 North. There Is the reward in recog-
 milton and applause. We are not a
 reading people: we come not of race
 of students. Our young men will con-
 tinue. fear. to beseech favors at
 Northern hands. That young man. a
 professor in a Southern college, Is too
 typical. who a few years ago discover
 ed and proclaimed that the greatest
 man after Robert E. Lee. born in the
 South during the nineteenth century. is
 Booker T. Washington. That South
 erner, If mistake not, now warns a
 college presidential chair in New Eng
 land. and diffuses there at a higher
 salary no doubt and in more congenial
 surroundings that inoomparable sweet
 ness and light that must in fancy for
 ever invest one who despises the in-
 stincts and traditions of its own people.
 And now for a final word in truth.
 Our Union is securely and unquestion-
 ably established. By a glad acquies-
 cence it stands in it's own sphere su-
 preme Tn the past it has proved itself