Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1911-08-11
ADDRESS OF DR.. STOWE.
Delivered Before Colored
Students at Fisk University
SON OF AUTHORIZES uncle TOMS CABIN
Remarkable Utterance Called to
Attention By Staunton Citizen.

le dress delivered at Fisk Universit
re Nashville, by Charles E. Stowe, sc
of Harriet Beecher Stowe, famor
n, writer of fiction, on the hundredt
1t anniversary of his mothers birth. A
a tention was called to this article b
q a communication from a Staunto
e citizen, which appeared in Sunday
d Dispatch-News. In calling attentio
r. to the article the writer said:
r ''You would do well, 1 think, t
o give it space, together with the let
g ters which were read by DR.. Stow
1 from President Taft and ex-presiden
= Roosevelt. If read they might serv,
, as an antidote to very unwhole
some state of feeling which is beine
engendered in our midst at this time
, and which bodies ill to the commun.
ity. The worst enemies to the peace
and prosperity of any community
are those who for selfish ends seek
to reawaken race prejudices by in
stilling false ideas of present condi-
tions and the old animosities of re-
construction days in the minds of our
colored people,
Says the Confederate Veteran:
On the hundredth anniversary of
her birth Charles E. Stowe, the
youngest son of the famous writer
of fiction, made an address in Nash
vile both remarkable and interest
ing. He admitted some wholesome
fact->to a great gathering of negroes
at So University. Prominent on
| + ~ tform was Booker Washing
s JHe said in part:
eSSAraham Lincoln in his celebrat-
VGettysburg address spoke of our
,Ation as conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition. 'All
men are created equal This is the
great vague, central germinant idea
which lies at the very heart of our
national institutions. The fathers
of our republic, who propounded this
great principle, were neither Utop-
ians nor socialists, but men of pro-
found political wisdom acting under |
sober sense of political RESPONSE |
bility. They did not mean to OBJ
literate the past nor to abolish hui
man nature. They simply meant to
declare that in our nation there
should be fair chance for every
man to develop the best that there
is in him, irrespective of race, color,
or nationality. The idea was new
and untried. 1t was an experiment;
it was something that could be real
lied at once, but must be the slow
growth of ages.
This much must be conceded that
The Northern States were Just as re-
'ponsible for the existence of slavery
rs were the Southern States, and
hat slavery ceased to exist in the
Northern States because it was for
hem an economic failure, and it
sreW stronger in the Southern States
lfter the invention of Eli Whitney's
otton gin, simply because it was
profitable, and property
nd slaves corresponding valuable.
rs result the two sections of the
ountry grew up on two utterly ir-
econcilable and hopelessly antagon- i
site economic bases, that of slave D
nd free labor. S
1.-THE North, with free labor, was
harmony with the most enlight- Il
ned intelligence of the age as to Il
lavery, and advanced rapidly to- =
ard a conception of a national !"
republic in which the in "
lvldual should be the unit; while
le South, holding to the institution q
slavery when it had become an T.
nachronism, and the whole en- ~
intelligence of the world ai
as armed against it, was put upon "
le defensive, shut up within itself, ue
ID was hopelessly isolated from the u'
st OF the world as is China TODAY. VI
Now as slaves were property, ac- ~,
'rdlng to law, any attack upon this no
rm OF property was an attack in 80
rectly upon all forms of propertv. -
d an attack also upon the Consti- g.
ton of the United States. In the ~
nds, therefore, of pious, church. :,
1RSs orthodox Shareholders, and -,
my such there were, the abolition 49,
s of the North were looked upon as ~
today regard the bomb-throwing
of Chicago or the most r.
dlcal wing of the socialist partv -
as the enemies of society and the -
emles of God and his holy Word.
Bible, in which the pious slave
def OF the South found abundant t,,,
thority for his beloved institution. 60
so along these two points the die
ltiict ragged, and slavery, when it the
attacked, intrenched itself more tbe
more within the doctrine of car
tie rights, SO that at the last the old
became identical, and to attack vio
was to attack the other, to de- the
q one was to defend the other. q
lsequently, when it came to the s1a,
break of the Civil War, manv in
riotic Southern men who cared 6do
lie or nothing about slavery were mo
red with the deepest Indignation the
the suggestion of the national wer
ernment subduing a sovereign tba,
te by force of arms, and said that alsc
Union that could only be held9 me,
ether by bayonets had better be 8.
solved; and for the principle of two
Le rights and State sovereignity 49,.
Southern men fought with holy CO.,
Or and self-denying patriotism CO..,
have covered even defeat with t;on
erishable glory. -
And let us look at the matter
q the Southern Standpoint. The