The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-05-18

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best %orations. In that speech our leaders of fifty
wears ago are characterized as 'F'arrogant }conspir-
ators against government 4'nighty "r1iscreants,,"
schief culprits of modern history" '~'guiltiest and
most remorseless traitors - 1.-The most accursed and
detested of all criminals that have drenched a con-
tinent in needless blood" Many more choice cpl
thets of the kind are applied to the men whom We
delight to honor.
Not withstanding the northern people have
~partison historians, novelists, and orators innum-
cradle, to transmit to posterlty their valorous deeds,
they nevertheless lose no opportunity, at their new
England banquets and elsewhere to glorify their
past. They seek at all times to get their version OF
the record in cold type knowing that When the llv-
ing witnesses shall have died, it will be impossible
to distinguish the false from the true. If we cannot
get our version of the record in print, let us at least
by iteration and re-iteration from every stump-b
tradition as it were impress upon our children what
the real record was.
That record shows that though our cause failed
it was the cause of right; that though after Apo
matox the sun went down on an overPowered people,
it did not 20 down upon a race OF traitors. The re-
cord shows that the principle for which we con-
tended is the principle upon which our government
was founded and without which our government
cannot be perpetuated viz: call governments derive
their lust powers from the consent of the governed.
1t was the same principle that caused our TORE
fathers to resist oppression and wrest from King
John at Runnymede the immoatal Magma Charta.
The record shows further that we were not at
fault in precipitating the conflict. Such being the
record it is a duty we owe to posterity to preserve
il. No better method can be adopted than that Of
celebrating memorial day. We are told by Dr.
Montgomery Buckner that the policy of memorial
cation was outlined by the al~l-knowing God when
he ordained for Israel her great feast days, and
caused to be written an imperishable record OF the
most thrilling events and daring deeds OF all her
history. Take from the Israelitish people their
Passovers and Pentacosts, silence their songs OF
Zion, burn their scroll of Holy Scripture and you
rob the world of one of her most ancient and most
useful peoples"
lust so, we say if you discontinue memorial occa-
sions like this if you stay the hand that would weave
garlands for the dead, if you silence the voice and
still the tongue that would recount the heroism OF
the dead, you rob the unborn of a priceless legacy
q legacy that we hold in trust for them, the true
record Of the heroic deeds of our fathers. Will we
be true to our trust, or will we rest supinely while
our friends the enemy write us down as traitors to
our country-mighty miscreants and chief culprits
of modern history?
In the limited time that should be allotted to me
in an address of this kind it would not only be out
of place but impossible to go very extensively into
the causes which brought on the war between the
States.
1t was at one time commended by the, people of
the North that the war was brought on because
the South insisted upon the right to secede-to
peaceably withdraw from the Union.
If the right to secede was really the point at issue,
who first asserted the right? Who fist asserted
that secession was an incident of the compact be-
tween the States. True history answers "Ihe
NORTH! Even a casual student of history knows
that secession was not preached for the first time in
the South That it was threatened in the North four
distinct and separate times before South Carolina
invoked the right. The first threat came from Pick
ering of Massachusetts,, opposing the acquisition of
Louisiana; the second from Josiah Quincy another
distinguished citizen of Massachusetts,, opposing the
admission of Louisiana as a State into the Union; the
thicd from the Hartford Convention on account of
dissatisfaction occasioned by the war with Great
Britain; thus it will be seen that while a Southern
man was attending to the British at New Orleans and
saving the Union New England was divising means
bv which she might secede from the Union. But
Iacksons victory over the British put an end to that
effort; and the fourth from the Legislature of Mass
achusetts opposing the annexation of Texas. Fur
thermore. a standard work on the Constitution, in
use at West Point when Jefferson Davis was there as