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THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, Memorial Address Delivered at Mar sh allvi Lie, tia , April 26th. 1901, by Hon. J. P. Duncan of Perry, Ga. Ladies and Gentlemen; and Ladies oy the Memorial Association of Mae SHALLVILLE, Ga: I thank you for the honor you have conferred upon me, and the privilege you thus give the son of a Confeder ate soldier of expressing in simple but heartfelt words his pride in such a priceless heritage and his love for the cause to which we are here to do reverence. To he youth of co-day the term “States’ Rights” has practically no significance, but to those who found ed our government and their imme diate successors it was of the great est importance. In the formation of our government the states acted as independent sovereignties, and vol uatarily united themselves into general government, with restricted and limited powers. This government had hardly been formed before contentions arose as to its powers, and the force and ef fect of its laws, in the several states Threats of secession were first heard from the northern states, and in few years the idea of nullification was advanced by one of the south ern. Concessions and compro mises we.e made from time to time, but disruption and conflict vjere in evitable. It is not my purpose, Dor do I con sider it proper to present to you up on this occasion, an argument in be half of the cause for which so many of our bravest and best gave their property, their lives, their all. Their bodies lie buried from the Potomac to the Rio Grande—from the Pacif ic to the Atlantic. Thousands perished in the prisons of the far north, and lie buried there The cause for which they suffered and died needs no defense or apolo gy. But we are graciously permitted on occasions like this to do ourselves the honor of showing our reverence for their memory. And of all the seasons of the year, this is the most appropriate, for spring now stands smiling in our midst, and while with one hand she holds out to us Gar lands of beautiful flowers,with which to crown our heroes’ graves, with the other she holds forth to the coming glorious summer the burst ing buds of prom'se, which she seems to see with prophetic eye, al ready ripening into a glorious har vest of such rich fruitage as our southland has never seen before. Emblematic in her attitude may she be to us, of the future which awaits our noble land. Yet even while we stand in the dawning roseate light of a new cen tury, with spring .holding wide its portals and'bidding us take to our Jiearts the optimistic views which ^siie reveals to us, a remembrance of the past sweeps over us as we think with grief-stricken hearts of the he roes whose memory we are here to day to crown. But as from their memory has ris en a chorus of praise, a paean of glory, whfbh has a charm e’en for angels’ ears, so from out the winter of desolation, which the war be queathed to us, has sprung a gener ation of which any nation might well be proud. And ’tis through the presence of the living we feel so sen sibly the virtues which have sprung from every lowly soldier’s mound. Wherever a monument is erected to the brave Confederate dead an altar should be raised beside it, on which to bum incense to the memo ry of those who, surviving the war, rescued us from a political despot ism worse than death: Then no man sought preferment; but each strove for the public good. _ It was a time when men broaden ed their shoulders, for the burdens of others. And those who, reared ih the lap of luxury, had in the time past dispensed with lavish hospitali ty all the luxuries which their homes afforded, now shared with each oth er what sometimes meant the chil dren’s bread. And to-dav, if it were in my power, I would see those who, through their labors in the Mays oi reconstruction, made it possible for their children and their children’s children to claim as their birthright the high positions in their land?'giv en the greatest gifts of office and crowned with highest honors arms. , save Rome. A crew of Confederate The sacred rights of home and j mariners went down in a torpedo fireside had been invaded. And nev- ; boat off Charleston to sink a war- er was braver defense put up for, ship of the enemy, knowing that them than when our brave-hearted 1 success was death and to fail was to Confederate soldiers marched forth die. But a lifetime would not suffice to battle. ' me to mention the many heroes of Thinking on these truths, the ques-j our gallant army of Confederate sol- tion comes home to us to-day: Are f diers. we of this generation seeking to in- To the women of the south I still into the minds and hearts of | would pay a separate tribute of ho- the coming the principles' mage and devotion. It was their for which our fathers gave them selves a willing sacrifice? As the true metal sounded on its touch stone in the troublous times of war, so must we ring true in time of peace, and at the fireside let the lit tle ones listen as to a fairy tale of loyalty, their constancy, which ran like a bright golden thread through all the vicissitudes of war, making its horrors bearable and its dark night of final loss supportable.. Iu the days before the war how regally did our womanhood look forth upon 'the true stories of unparalleled valor | the world and claim it as her foot- God’s 'touch-stone for his nations is in their,, hearthstones. Never did gold Ting: truer than when the man hood of pur. dear southland “shot to the core” with valor and heroism, responded to the country’s' cali to and heroism. When old enough to lisp their earliest prayer at mother’s knee,teach them to hallow Lee’s im mortal name, fit synonym for all that is truest and best. Let your hall of fame be in your own home, and on its walls the first pic ture must hang that 6f a Confederate private, and in the salf-same frame that of our high-souled, pure-heart ed Robert E. Lee. This eulogy from the pen of the illustrious Ben Hill should/be engraven in the heart of every true southerner: “He was a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a soldier without cruelty, a victor without oppression. He was a public officer without vices. A pri vate citizen without wrong, a neigh bor without reproach, a Christian without hipocrisy and a man with out guile. He was Caesar without his ambition, Frederick without Jais tyranny, Napoleon without his sel fishness and Washington without his reward. He was obedient to author ity as a servant, and royal in author ity as a true king. He was gentle as a woman in life and modest and pure as a virgin in thought. Watch ful as a Roman vestal in duty, sub missive to law as Socrates and grand in battle as Achilles.” And from your schools spurn as you would a viper from your path the book which in one slight word reflects on the glory of our lost cause. Nay, say not lost. A great cause, a just cause, as ours most surely was, is never lost, but caught aloft and held in Heaven’s High Chancery until when, mellowed and perfected by the sorrow with which the seeming loss has wrung our hearts and anguished our brows, God, iu His own good time, will re veal to all that those who fought in so great a cause could never fail. Mere statistics, which as a rule are so many dry facts to be skipped in the reading,in our history are a ro mance in themselves which would fill the minds of the youth of our coun try with reverential awe. ‘ The re markable achievements of Generals Jackson and Forest will furnish thought for the pen of the historian and romanticist for ages to come, The heroic resistance of our army to that of General Grant in the battles from that of the Wilderness to Ap pomattox against the assaults of five times their number, will ever be held in military history as the most re markable and brilliant achievement recorded in any war. With a slender line meeting and hurling back fresh columns, always on the firing line, they stood like the phalanxes of Al exander, the legions of Caesar, the roundheads'of Cromwell, ever ready to obey their commander, and die, if need be,for their country. How well they fought, we have only to refer to the million of names on the pen sion rolls of the government, even at this late day. It is to the memory of such he roes that we are here to-day to p^y our tribute of respect. We need not go from home to find them. The deeds of bravery, and gallantry of the beloved Gen. Phil Cook are too numerous to men tionVf frotn lack of time. The neighbors who survive remember the gallant McMillan, who was killed at the head of his com pany in the bloody battle of Mc Dowell. I can stretch my arm across the Flint and almost in the sound of my voice call up^the spirit of Captain Carson, who, with 200 men, made a midnight attack on Fort Steadman, returning jo. our lines bringing the dead body of his brother on hisshoul- deijs. Not a day’s journey from where I .stand there lived less than a score of gallant spirits who charged and captured a regiment of 700 federals on the WUliamburg road near Rich mond and brought them into our lines. Turner Ashby, the chevalier Bayard of the south, slew' with his sword four of the enemy to save a private of his command. Marcus Curtius cast himself into a chasm to stool, where her admirers might kneel and do her homage. When adversity came, slipping her warm and tender hand into the soldier’s, she exclaimed, like Ruth of old: “Whither thou goest I will go. Thy people shall be my people, thy God my God.” Nobly did she redeem her promise—how nobly mere words cannot recall. "Untiringly, unceas ingly, with never-wearying hands, the worked on garments for the brave soldiers at the front. Over the wounded, the dying, she knelt and ministered to them with such tender love, such pitying hands. “O, woman! in our .hours of ease Uncertain, coy and hard to please, When pain and anguish wring the brow A ministering angel, thou.” And as she> bound the suffering wounds, so when the war was over she stood heart to heart with the brave survivors and helped to bind together the few poor remains of their shattered fortunes. To those who are here to-day who have descended from such noble parentage, I would say in all your thoughts of our Civil war “Remern ber to so honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be lcng upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” God-given, may it always be as holy kept as when our boys in gray through four long years fought with such intrepid val or for it, and so preserved to us spotless name, an untarnished sword and a memory which, God grant, we may preserve inviolate. ‘ TAILOR, 7 ' of MACON, GA., MAKES ALL THE SPsuslxiorLaftole Tailor-Made Clothes Worn by the .ZDr©ss3T of Central and Southern Ga. Artistic and High-Grade Work. Fashionable and Seasonable Fabrics. Tailor, 300 Second St. m x ooivr, ga. YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS ON POSTalN CARD MAILED to W.M.TAYLOR, Jackson, jA. AND I WILL DRIVE AROUND AND LEAVE . 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