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VOL. XXX. PERRY, HOUSTON COUNTY, GA, THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1901. NO. 19. HONOR TO WHOMilT IS DUE. Memorial Address Delivered at Perry Aoril, 26th, 1901, by Prof. W. W. ' Driskell, of Perry Public School. Ladies of the Memoriae Association; Ladies and Gentlemen:— Poor indeed is that nation that forgets its heroes, or that fails to give expression to its gratitude for the lustre of their achievements. Among the marked characteristics of the great nations of the world, are those that let live in poetry and song, in marble and bronze, the patriotism that proved itself in sanguinary sacrifices. Histo rians tell us that far back in the distant past, blind Homer wander ed from village to village, singing praises to the names of Grecian gods and of Grecian heroes. Even Bsypt still speaks in the everlast ing pyramids that hold the sleep ing dust of her Pharaohs. Eome raised a monument to the valor of her Constantine to commemorate his triumph over the enemies of Christianity. Pursuant to a custom first prac ticed by Georgia women, the peo ple of the South to-day bring, in affectionate remembrance, their floral offerings to the graves of heroes who fought to a finish the good fight of faith in a cause that was dearer to them than life. They battled for principle; and, taking into account the adverse circum stances under which they fought, history holds nothing' comparable to the war they waged. Their matchless valor was a wall of fire that for four years stood and blaz ed and burned and destroyed the overwhelming numbers of invad ers sent against it. It is said of the early defenders of the Christian faith that, after the destruction of their bodies, their indomitable spirits seemed to continue the struggle in mid air. So every Confederate soldier that fell in battle seemed to bequeath his courage to surviving comrades, for the fierceness of their martial spirits seemed to increase in pro portion to the destruction of their ranks by shot and shell. Had not the southern soldier been of the bravest blood that ev er coursed through warrior’s veins, he could not have withstood so long and so successfully the my riad cohorts from the north. As he was a product of that civ ilization now called “the Old South”, I consider it not out of place on this occasion to attempt a renewal of our acquaintance with some of the characteristics and achievements of that civiliza tion, and to offer, a few reflections concerning the circumstances that led to the war, and that justified our fathers in the course they pur sued. Should this brief retrospect prove tedious to you older ones familiar with the facts, let us hope that it may not be without profit to the young. Tht, people who established the thirteen original colonies in Amer ica were as different in their make up as the climatic and physical conditions of the colonies them selves. Those who settled in the North were for the most part re ligious zealots. Their principal object in seeking new abodes was that they might worship God ac cording to their desires. They were not disposed to tolerate any beliefs or opinions contrary to their own. And, like Saul of Tar sus, they sometimes thought it God’s service to put to death those who differed from them in their religious practices. On the other hand, the south ern settlers early turned their at tention to the development of the country and the acquisition of wealth. If their technical isms and sensitive creeds were fewer in number than those of the North, it was due to their, superior intel ligence and to their | concern for the weightier matters of the law. “The inhabitants of the southern colonies were the strongest strains of many stocks—Saxon, Gelt, and Teuton, Cavalier and Puritan.” They could proudly prove their claims to an honorable lineage, which was held at high value. Their political, religious,and civil faith was the product of the wis est conservatism that England had produced. Hence, the civili zation which flourished under their energies was as unique as it was distinct. “It combined elements of the three great civilizations which since the dawn of history have enlightened the world. It partook of the philosophic tone of the Grecian, of the dominant spir it of the Roman, and of the guard- fulness of individual rights of the Saxon civilization. And over all brooded a softness and beauty, the joint product of Chivalry and Christianity. That civilization flourished for two hundred and. fifty years, until its vitality, af ter four years of invasion and war, expired in the convulsive throes of reconstruction.” “Its distinctiveness, like others of its characteristics, was refera ble to its origin, and to its subse quent environing conditions. Its tendency was towards exclusive ness and conservatism. It tolera ted no invasion of its rights; it admitted the jurisdiction of no other tribunal than itself. The result was not unnatural. The wojld, barred out, took its revenge, and the Old South stands to-day charged with sterility, with at- temptifig to perpetuate human slavery, and with rebellion.” But let us consider some of the Old South’s contributions to the greatness of this Union, and let their undying glory stand as a monument to her consistent course all along her blood-stained path- way. The Old South made this peo ple. One hundred years ago this nation, like Athene, sprang full panoplied from her brain. It was the South that planned the first co-operation of the colonies, then their consolidation, and finally their establishment as free and in dependent states. It was a south ern colony, under the leadership of the fiery Bacon, that fought the first revolution for independence. And though, after two centuries, his name still bears the stigma of “Bacon, the Rebel”, “he and his followers shall yet be known to posterity as patriots pure and lofty, whose motives and. deeds shall evoke the admiration of all succeeding time.” It was a southerner, Patrick Henry, who first struck the key note of independence when he said, “Give me liberty or give me death”. It was a ; southerner, Nelson, who first moved and the Convention of Virginia which first adopted the resolution that the United Colonies should be free and independent, absolved from all allegiance to or dependence on the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain. It was a southern colony which first emblazoned on her standard the emblem of her prin ciple, “Virginia for Constitution al Liberty’ ’. It was a southerner, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the declaration of independence—that plea for liberty that thrilled the world I These acts created revolution, and a southerner, George Wash ington, led the armies ot the revo- lutionists to victory; and when victory had been won it was south ern intellect and southern patriot ism which created the Federal Con stitution and made this grand Un ion of republics known as the Uni ted States. It was a southerner,.George Ko- o-ers Clark, with his brave follow ers who beat back the French on the Northwest, and secured to this Union that vast, territory out of which have since been carved the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, aud Minnesota. To the south is due the fact that Lousiana is not now a French re- public. To the South is due the fact that the Mississippi, wafting ;on its bosom half the commerce ! of North America, rolls its whole I length through the free land of the | United States. To . the South is ; due the fact that Texas is not a hostile government. To the South is due the establishment of this Union in its integrity, and of the doctrines upon which it is main tained. In 1808, when the Lousiana purchase was made and a state carved from the acquisition, it ex cited such violent opposition at the North that warnings came from New England threatening to dissolve the Union. In 1819. when an attempt was made to annex the state of Missouri, the existence of the Union was again imperilled by the menace on the part of the northern states to destroy it. Their disposition to destroy the Union was again exhibited upon the ac quisition of California and New Mexico from Mexico. And in 1812, New England, her trade be ing injured by the war with Great Britain, again threatened to se cede from the Union. And while her delegation, representing the voice of the Hartford Convention, were on their way to Washington to announce their intentions of secession, Old Hickory Jackson, a southern general, followed by southern soldiers, hurled back the British at New Orleans, and brought the war to a close. Thus in the war of 1812 and in that with Mexico, it was southern gen eralship and southern heroism that brought victory to American arms. In the councils of the na tion, in the forum or on the field of battle, the representatives of that contemned civilization al ways took the lead. “And in the great Civil War the two greatest men that stood for the Union, and to whom its preservation was due, were in large part the produce of this civilization. Both Grant and Lincoln-the great general and the still greater President-sprang from southern loins I know that many statements are now being made which belit tle all attempts to resurrect sec tional sentiment, and such teach ing is wholesome. Still we ought to tell the children that secession and slavery were the product of northern soil. That they may know the truth, we ought to tell them that the people of the South were the first to oppose slavery; that Georgia was the first state to protest against the slave traffic; that Virginia protested against it to the Crown of England twenty- three times. We ought to tell them that slavery was forced up on us, contrary to the' wishes of the best people of the South; that it was not profitable to the people of the North, and for that reason the North sold the bulk of its ne groes to the South. We ought to tell them also that the North con tinued the slave traffic long after the supposed /mti-slavery senti ment had taken root there; that it imported hither slaves from Af rica, subjecting the negroes to the indescribable horrors of “the Mid dle Passage”, which, according to the records, was a for more dire ful treatment of the negro than he afterwards received at 'the hands of any southern master. All of which goes to prove that the personal love which the North had for the negro was at no time half so ardent as its love for the fabu lous gams realized from the sale of him. We Have Opened Again AFTER THE FIRE X’sT’itlh. a Bran SiTe'w Stools: of MEN’S AND BOYS’ If slavery was wrong—as many of us now admit—it was a * Consti- j tutiohal defect that permitted its : existence, rather than a crime chargeable to the southern slave holder, for the Constitution rec ognized it, without~which recogni tion the Constitution itself would not have been ratified. » SUITS, HATS m FURNISHINGS. 1 We will be -pleased to have you call. All Mail Orders Given Prompt Attention. <! !! (> As to our fight to secede, New England had been threatening to do that very thing for nearly sixty years before thb South thought of taking such action, which clearly implied that their understanding of the Constitution compact was to the effect that any state might withdraw from the Union when ever it was adjudged that its con nection with the Union had be come detrimental to any of its int erests. It was. generally understood that the states could seperate for cause when the cause came, and hundreds of the greatest writers, North and South, had no doubt about it. Jefferson had said; “The states may withdraw their delegated powers.” Madison said, ‘‘The states themselves must be the judges whether the bargain has has heen preserved or broken.” Chief Justice Chase said. “If a state should withdraw and resume her powers, I know of no remedy to prevent it.” Edward Everett said, “To expect to hold’ fifteen states in the Union by force is preposterous.” Horace Greely said, “The Declaration of Inde pendence justifies the states in se- ceding.”No,it was not treason,for when it was proposed to try Jeffer son Davis for high treason, the greatest lawyers of the North ad vised against it, and assured the government that he could not be convicted. That secesssion was a Constitu tional right is known to all that have tried to find out the truth. That the South maintained slav ery as a right to property under the sanction and protection of the Constitution is a fact which can not be contradicted. But strange it is that the Old South has been vilified through all the years be cause of its maintenance for awhile of the indefensible institu tion of slavery, as though it had never existed elsewhere, when in fact it had been in existence among the different nations of the world from the time of Abraham. In 1860, President Lincoln’s rela tives were still working slaves in Kentucky, and Gen. Grant him self was living off the labor of his slaves in Missouri. The foregoing considerations, my friends, are some of the rea sons that called for the material exercise of southern patriotism in 1861. The war was inevitable, it had to come. The North was arming the negroes and trying to incite them to riot and bloodshed. The South could brook such dia bolical insults no longer. It was natural that she should fight. She was not born to be domineer ed over. It was natural for her to rule. She had ruled this country for fifty years. In the national halls her statesmanship had swept her adversaries into speechless oblivion. The North was jealous of her growing greatness, as it had been eclipsed by the spleudor pf her past. For the Old South had given to the presidency of the Uni ted States Washington and Jeffer son, Madison and Monroe, Jack- son and Harrison, Tyler, Polk and Taylor; to the Supreme Bench she had given John Marshall and Ro ger B. Taney, and the cabinets had been filled with representa tives of the same civilization. “Marvellous constellation, bright er from moment to moment, radi ant as a tiara of celestial dia monds,” your light pierced the lowering clouds of the sixties and sent a ray of inspiration into the heart of the Southern Confeder acy! I would that I had the genius to present, in language suited to an occasion like this, worthy Ideals of the men who enlisted un der the banners of the Southern Cause. But the grandeur of their achievements is beyond the pow er of poet to paint, of orator to proclaim. They did what no oth er people have ever done, what no other people will ever do again. They seceeded from the Union, organized their armies, establish ed a government, and maintained it for four years against the as saults of the world. And so great was the death rate of the enemy and the number of wounds inflict ed upon him that now, forty years after the war, the government is paying pensions to an army of widows and cripples larger in unmber than the combined forces that fought on the Confederate side. But such is not tp be won dered at when we remember the havoc wrought by Johnston upon the Federals between Chattanooga and Atlanta, were Sherman would undoubtedly have surrendered his whole army had not Johnston been removed from the command. Such results are not to be wonder ed at when thought of in connec tion with Jackson’s Valley Cam paign in Virginia, where Banks, Fremont and Shields, command ing sixty thousand F-ederals, fled panic-stricken before the invinci ble Southerners numbering only fifteen thousand. I repeat, the Federal pension list • to-day has no surprising proportions when compared with the matchless val or displayed by Lee and his men in their defense of Richmond. Five times the northern host at tended to crush the great South ern commander and take the city, but five times it fell back in stag gering defeat, losing in killed and wounded, nearly three times as many as were defending the Con federate Capital. (CONTINUED ON EDITORIAL PAGE,) mm m is / 'i' mm. M&MM. 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