Year: 1877

From the New Orleans Times.


The following remarks were made
by Hon. Jefferson Davis to the
Lee Association of Mobile, on the
occasion of the recent excursion to
New Orleans:


.lI'. Chairman and Members Of the


Lee association:


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Il am
deeply sensible of the honor you
have conferred upon me by this
visit and gratefully recognize the
kindness which has prompted the
complimentary expressions of your
orator. Not the less so because [
feel that they very far exceed any
merits which the unprejudiced
would ascribed to me.


Believe me, / am the more proud
of this, as it is the manifestations of
more rare virtue in the people /
have served to the best ofmy ability.
Never before in the history of man
has there been, so far as | know, an
instance in which fallen chief was
followed with more affectiOnate de
votion than his associates had felt
towards him in the days of his pow
er. For people capable of such
magnanimity, his would indeed be a
tame spirit who did not feel it to be
a glory to have suffered.


We have passed through terri
BILE ordeal of deprivation, of wrong
and Injustice; and you have borne
it with fOrtitude only eGualled by
the gallantry displayed in your
desperate efforts to maintain cause
which has been crushed. but not
destroyed for it was the cause of
truth, which is eternal; and with all
these memories clustering around
you, you come, not to upbraid me as
responsible for your disasters, but to
shield me in the depths of my adj
versity with the warm covering of
your hearts best affections. Cold
indeed would be the nature which
did not find in this sOlace for all
its disappointments, and cOnsola-
ton for its ruined hopes.


From the bottom of my heart I
thank you. Though the silver lin
ing of the cloud be but family dis
cernible, yet be not dismayed. But
that | need not say to men who
never feel any other fear than that
of doing wrong. Then let me say
rather, "Be not without hope" The
cause for which you struggled was
that of justice and of truth. The
triumphS of these may be post
poned, but in the ordering of Prov
idence must come at last. Your
motives must be appreciated, sooner
or later for your sacrifices were made
for constitutional liberty; and those
who died bravely, though they fell
vainly, are not to be reckOned as the
most unfortunate; for, whether
bearing a sabre or musket, Wheth-
er on the battle field or upon the
vessels deck, the proper place for
man to die, is where he dies for man.


For the honor of the comrades
whose untimely deaths you mourn,
for the respect due to the cause you
loved, for the pride you feel in your
for the hopes you cherish
for your posterity, let not your eyes
revert constantly to the past; but,
confronting the present and looking
patriotically on the future, let your
efforts be made to repair what has
been injured, and to build again
higher and broader, on a more solid
foundation, the temple of human
liberty, after the model left you by
your fathers.


You engaged in no war for sec
tional aggrandizement; you fought
no battles for personal advantage;
you were prompted by no malice
and your knightly escutcheon is tar
nished by no sordid hate or desire
for mean revenge. The war left you
stripped of all save honor, and your
chivaIry was as incapable of infiict-
ing wrong as it was of submitting to
it tamely. The past demands, then,
knightly generosity and faithful
devotion to the principle you inher-
it from revolutionary sires, and
which you will best bless mankind
by transmitting unchanged to your
pOsterity. Thrice and four times L
am thankful for the indications
which the day brings to us of the
revival of peace and liberty.