St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1910-10-08
OPELOUsAs, LA, SATURDAY, OCTOBER s, 1910.
PATRIOTIC ADDRESS BY
LOUlSIANA'S GOVERNOR
Governor Sanders Speech Feature of the Reunion
Of the Confederate-Ve .---Also
Speaks to Sons
Speaks to Sons
ice a breathing. living fact.

P6HueHC6 d breathing, 1VlDR IdGt,
Almost without interruption from
the beginning of this country of
ours down to 1860 her destinies we're
guided by Southern men, her policies
were shaped BY Southern Statesmen,
and the principles of government of
those days stand in clear and con-
crete forms showing justice and equal
rights to all. They were the prod
ucts of the men who guided the coun-
try in that day and generation. and
they were Southern men. This was
the confederacy Of Sovereign States.
The States went into the Union vol
unfairly, and under the law t h e
States had the right TO 60 out when
ever they saw fit to do so. That is
a principle Of law no man ever re-
futed nor can ever refute. When in
1860 you gentlemen, you men Of the
South, went out of the Union follow
ing the action Of Louisiana, you did
that which you had both moral and
legal right to do. That question was
submitted to the arbitrament Of the
sword, and the battles we're decided
against the Gonfederates, but no
where is it written in the morals Of
mankind that might made right. And
because 100000 Southern men wore
themselves out against world in
arms, that does not argue that the
cause for which you fought was not
just, neither does it prove that the
Constitution gave you no right to do
what you did do. Be that as it may,
The brightest page of American his
tory is that page devoted to the vaior
and the bravery and the fortitude of |
Southern men and women from 81
10 '65.
There is nothing in all the annals
# time that challenges the admira-
lion of the impartial reader as the
struggles of those graY-cIad figures
Who for four years followed the stars
md bars under the leadership of Lee
md Jackson, Forrest and Beauregard,
lntil their very victories brought
lefeat. 1t is ever written in human
,lood, and as | have said to my
7oung friends a thousand times, Git is
lot necessary to say it to you who
ought and bled and died for the
'outh) We who belong to the younger
generation ought to approach the
question Of that struggle with un-
covered heads and with barred feet as
n the presence Of holy ground, be-
ause whatever our actions are in
be matter we must write ours and
ur fathers deeds by what their sons
tink and feel. And my father was
ne of the men who answered the
all and shouldered his musket and
larched forth to battle beneath that
ag, and | say that when he did it,
e did it because he thought it was
light and not because Of any ques-
ion whether his State should or
bould not have stayed in the Union.
nee Louisiana left there was no :
curse open to my father save to join !
be Confederate army and fight to
laintain what our and his State had
one, and in the doing Of it he was ,
Q traitor. When he Joined the army
I'D fought for his State he fought !
or that which he had a right to
ght for.
When the war was over, when you
ame back home crusded beneath
7erwhelming numbers, when Presi-
ent, and Court, and triumphant bay
let alike were on the side Of the
orth, there was not a single mani
the South convicted Of rebellion
yainst the Union, for they could not
} it. There was no rebellion, no 7
eachery, and the Supreme Court of :
le United States would have dis
larged any man upon any writ Of
ror that any jury in the North
ould have convicted, therefore nat
al it would be this solemn thought
yer to forget that your father
ught for what was right. He went [
the war because he had the legal v
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