E 467 .1 .026 B6 t'opy 1 ADDRESS Delivered before Atlanta Camp No, 159, U. C. v., and the Atlanta Ch apt er U nit e d Daughters of the Confederacy JUNE 3, 1905 In the Hall of the House of Repre- sentatives, Atlanta, Georgia, on the Life and Character of JEFFERSON DAVIS BY HON. BENJ. M. BLACKBURN PUBLISHED FOR DISTRIBUTION BY ATLA.NTA CAMP No. 159 ======= u. C V. ^ A just tribute to the South's honored President and Spotless Patriot ADDRESS ^ Delivered before Atlanta Camp No. 159, U. C. v., and the Atlanta C h a pt er U n it e d Daughters of the Confederacy JUNE 3, 1905 In the Hall of the House of Repre- sentatives, Atlanta, Georgia, on the Life and Character of JEFFERSON DAVIS BY HON. BENJ. M. BLACKBURN PUBLISHED FOR DISTRIBUTION BY ATLANTA CAMP No. 159 ' U. C V. = A just tribute to the South's honored President and Spotless Patriot ^7 Atlanta, Ga. The Franklin Printing and Publishing Company (Geo. VV, Harrison, Manager) 1905 J <4 ^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. Mothers and Daughters of the Confederacy — Veterans of the Noblest Cause that Emblazons Patriotism — Ladies and Gentlemen: In what I may say to-day, I shall be governed by a feel- ing of reverential responsibility toward a cause and a lead- er that were nurtured in an atmosphere which should never be contaminated by suggestion of unholy compromise or cowardly apolog^^ I shall be directed by that deferential behavior that should always be evinced by the younger generation toward them that have kept the faith, rather than by any idea of presenting to you, who wear the snowy mantle of patriotic knowledge, an address that offers special intellectual entertainment. In this hour that is fraught with recollections of duty heroically performed, rhetorical display should be held in tender subjection to sincere estimate. On this occasion the truth, as I know it, will be delivered, without regard to the exactions of political compromisers, who would build industrial strength on the rotten sinews of dis- mantled manhood ; or the hysterics of editorial apologists, who see in every uncompromising Southern utterance evidence of restricted Americanism ; nor do I care for the patronizing commendation of that class of educators, competing for the donations of the wealthy, without re- gard to the moral sacrifices to be made. I stand, a man, at the shrine of imperishable manhood, claiming nothing less, asking nothing more, than the ap- proval of the enfeebled but unbending survivors of the most righteous cause that ever inspired the heart of man. I count it an honor, rarely conferred, to have been in- vited by the Confederate Veterans of Atlanta to address them the second time on the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of the most unselfish patriot that ever held the office of President since the Colonies rebelled against British oppression. By decree of the political fates Jeffer- son Davis was never President of all the States — but, by the blessings of God, he was incomparably superior, in lofty purpose, unselfish heroism and broad Americanism to any such official in the life of this Republic. The fact that this incorruptible patriot, whose career reflected a sublime civilization to which no Rough Rider ever aspired, has been wantonly slandered by one now in possession of the Presidential office, is the highest possi- ble tribute to the integrity and the patriotism of the South's untarnished and immortal Chieftain. In addition to slandering our leader this Africanized creature has said of the people of the Old South : ''Slavery is chiefly responsible for the streak of coarse and brutal barba- rianism which ran through the Southern character." He who would perpetrate so deliberate a slander upon the people from whose ranks sprang the mother of his being, is too irreverent to be brave, and too vulgar to be truth- ful. It would be sacrilege to mention such a dastard's name on this sacred day. There are editors, politicians and educators in the South whose stock in trade seems to be to exploit breadth of estimate until manhood becomes flattened into sheets of human mica. These small creatures are not only ready to condone the brutal insults of the politically potential, but actually condemn those dignified protestors who are too manly to bend the knee, and too assertive to stifle honest convictions. Subservients to power, they would give unrestrained freedom to the weapon of calumny in the hand of one suddenly elevated, lest they be suspected of lese majeste. Whatever my feeling of pity and contempt for such time-servers, the unmanly display disturbs me not half so much as the overwhelming sadness experienced when I hear that a Confederate veteran has placed in eclipse a record of daring and patriotism, by laying tribute at the feet of an unhallowed ruffianism, which respects neither maternity nor the grave in its ghoulish visitation of sec- tional venom. He who refers to Jefferson Davis as a traitor, charges treason to Qvtry man who followed the Stars and Bars, and no political position should save him from the retaliatory charge of libellous slander. How fallen the man of the South who would be willing to ad- just sectional differences except on the basis of the with- drawal of this venal libel on his Chieftain. Give me the man of iron, and pride, and honor, who stands for the right, without regard to success ! Such is the character that we epitomize this day — one so lordly in his relation to the world, so close and devoted to the people of his land, and so true and unflinching in the dis- mal hour of imprisonment, that all civilizations, in the end, must say of him : Whether breathing freedom in the liberated atmosphere of Heaven, or inhaling disease from the imprisoned vapors of the dungeon, Jefferson Davis was the purest and most unfaltering personality that ever led a popular movement, except the Christ that vouch- safed him to humanity and to liberty. The South 's leader was a most uncommon gift to civili- zation. Of gentle birth, brought up in an environment of chivalry, educated at West Point, he developed intO' chevalier, scholar, patriot, soldier and statesman. An un- compromising enemy to the wrong; an eternal foe to de- ception and hypocrisy ; the everlasting companion of can- dor and sincerity ; true in all things, he gave to the world a life that emblazoned the coronet of Time with the re- splendent jewels of honor and patriotism. Born of a parentage that represented the strongest and gentlest blood of the South, he was, by all the elements of Nature, a leader among men. Proud, without hauteur; an aristocrat, who ever showed the most delicate consider- ation for the humblest in life; lion-hearted in courage, yet dominated by tender emotions; gifted to the degree of genius, without the least show of disdain ; ambitious to serve his people, without regard to personal reward, it is not surprising that in an atmosphere of patriotism and refinement, Jefferson Davis should have evolved into the most wonderful impersonation of culture, courage, elo- quence, statesmanship and patriotism that this world has ever known. While history may recount a man, here and there, who surpassed Air. Davis in some specific attribute of great- ness, I repeat, that in all the symmetry of high moral and intellectual development, the South's great leader tower- ed, like a veritable Colossus, above the men of this earth. The dominant characteristics that distinguished Jeffer- son Davis in his public career, were noticeable even in his young life. As a child he was loved for his devoted loyalty, and respected for his manly deportment. Friend- ships formed in boyhood clung to him through life, with such unvarying zeal as to challenge the esteem of his enemies and win the admiration of all who knew him. His Christianity was of that broad and exalted type that tolerated the greatest liberty of conscience, and of that forbearing excellence which gave little comfort to the Puritan that chanced to come into his munificent pres- ence. After receiving an academic education in Kentucky, he entered the United States MiHtary Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1828, and l)egun active service as brevet second h'eutenant. He remained in the army seven years, and so distinguished himself in the Black Hawk war that he was promoted to tirst lieutenant of dragoons. In 1835 he resigned his commission in the- army, in answer to the appeals of his brother, returned to Missis- sippi, and became a cotton-planter. He followed a pas- toral life until 1844, when he was chosen one of the electors on the Polk-Dallas Presidential ticket. In 1845 he was elected to Congress, and at once became a recog- nized leader, bearing a conspicuous part in the discussions on the tariff, the Oregon question, and the war with Mexico. In 1846 he was elected Colonel of the Missis- sippi Rifles, and, although he had served only one year of his Congressional term, he immediately resigned, in the morning of a brilliant political life, to join his people at New Orleans, on their way to the seat of war. He distinguished himself at Monterey, where he dis- played almost superhuman courage, by personally lead- ing his regiment, in a successful charge, that swept through a galling fire from the frowning redoubts of that strongly entrenched city, with all the fury of a tempest. The heroic storming of Teneria caused all the world to ring with the story of the fame of Davis and his Missis- sippi Rifles. A new star had appeared in the firmament of military glory. At a single bound Jefferson Davis had joined the ranks of the great warriors of the earth. To surpass the glorious prestige of Monterey was the aspiration and the determination of this immortal son of an incomparable civilization. Jefferson Davis was yet to shed new lustre upon the escutcheon of a State that had nurtured him into the fullness of a perfect manhood. The radiance of Monterey was to fade, as did the starlit glory of Lodi before the noonday splendor of Austerlitz. If the name Davis, by this brilliant victory, had been made inseparable from the trophies of State that give potency to the flag of the American Union, his daring genius at Buena Vista presented him to the galaxy of the greatest military chieftains of the earth. Here he won a battle against such overwhelming odds, and in the face of such disheartening conditions as to make the operations around this historic field a marvel to military students. Like the intrepid Desaix, at Marengo, he rushed through the confused columns of an inglorious stampede, to what seemed to be inevitable death, and, although se- verely wounded, this chevalier of the South refused to leave the saddle until he had lifted the palm of victory from the mire of defeat, and emblazoned the field of car- nage with the glories of another triumph. The historic tactic movement wherein Col. Davis form- ed his regiment into the now famous V, in which position he dauntlessly awaited the mad charge of the Mexican lancers, was sO' original in conception and daringly suc- cessful in execution that it extorted the enthusiastic ad- miration of Wellington, and elicited the praise of the military captains of the world. In recognition of his gallantry he was personally complimented by dispatch from the Commander-in-chief, and as a mark of further distinction, commissioned Brigadier-General of Volun- teers, by President Polk, a promotion that he declined, on the ground that the Constitution reserves to the respec- tive States the right of such appointment. The only young officer who won a general's commission in the war with Mexico, Jefferson Davis was too true to political principle to^ gratify his passion for military promotion at the expense of State sovereignty. Where, in history, can a parallel to this exhibition of true greatness be found ? There is but one example in military annals of such a consummately successful and daringly original maneu- ver. In the battle of Inkermann, during the Crimean war, a British officer, Sir Colin Campbell, copied this splendid military suggestion in one of the desperate charges, on account of which he was distinguished by be- ing selected to retrieve the fallen fortunes of England in India, whereas Jefferson Davis, the author, was later dis- franchised by an ungrateful government for daring to ex- ercise a constitutional right. Returning to his plantation, after this memorable ser- vice to his State and to the Union, Mr. Davis, in 1847, was appointed to fill a vacancy as United States Senator from Mississippi, and was later twice elected tO' this office. Here he displayed his genius in debate, and his wonderful grasp of political problems in such a way as to easily di- vide honors with Calhoun as leader of the State Rights party. He was so ready and intrepid that when Henry Clay, on one occasion, turned to him in the course of de- bate and said, that at some future time he would discuss with him an important question of principle, Mr, Davis replied : ''Now is the moment." Even then he was a foe- man worthy the lance of either Calhoun, Webster or Clay. Great in all the fields of accomplishment to which his varied attainments directed the vital energies of this w^onderful life, the South could well afford to entrust the fame of her leader to^ a faithful record of his service in the Senate. His career in the first legislative body of the Union was in harmonious accord with the most perfect parliamentary models. Every utterance of this supreme thinker was masterful. His defiant intrepidity was sug- gestive of Chatham; his scholarly renown reflected Brougham; his polished and perspicuous diction remind- 10 ed one of Canning; his comprehensive grasp of the prin- ciples of government was not excelled by Burke; while in impassioned debate he displayed all the fervor of Grat- tan, combined with the subtle alertness of Fox. He car- ried into the Senate a lofty and dignified courage; a broad patriotism; a sense of conscientious responsibility; and a profound and accurate knowledge that elevated, en- nobled, impressed and illuminated the atmosphere of Sen- atorial discussion. In 185 1, immediately after his second election to the Senate, the Democracy of Mississippi, desiring to wrest the State government from , the control of^ the Union party, nominated him for Governor. He answered the appeal of his people by again resigning, this time a seat for the full term, in order to carry the standard of the State Rights party in a minority fight. Such was his popularity, though defeated, that he reduced a majority of 7,500 to the narrow margin of 999. Jefiferson Davis was not to remain in retirement. In 1853 he was appointed Secretary of War, by President Pierce, and his administration of this ofiice was such as to make him the most popular, as he is concededly the ablest official in the history of that department. .He car- ried into effect the revision of army regulations; the in- troduction of light infantry, or the rifle system of tactics ; the manufacture of rifled muskets and pistols, and the Minie ball ; the addition of four regiments to the army ; the improvement of seacoast and frontier defenses; the exploration of the best route for a railroad to the Pacific Ocean ; and the building of Cabin John bridge, near the Potomac, the widest single span of masonry, at that time, in the world. The vandals of the Lincoln administration chiseled his name from the tablet of record that desig- nated the builder of this wonderful monument to en- 11 gineering skill. His name must be carved anew on the keystone of this bridge, by direction of the President^ under an Act of Congress, before the South will believe in the professions of good will that come to her on the waves of condescending generosity from political and natural inferiors. At the close of the Pierce administration Mr. Davis was re-elected to the United States Senate, where he again served his State with such splendid ability that he was generally named, even in the North, as a leading Presidential possibility. Had it not been for the action of the Republican party in nominating an extreme sec- tionalist, and the disruption of the Democracy, which resulted in the election of this sectional candidate, Jefifer- son Davis, in all probability, would have been President of the United States, at the suggestion of the Northern Democracy. He was more popular in the North than any other Southern statesman, where he was honored for his conservative wisdom and exalted patriotism. It will thus appear that Jefiferson Davis relinquished more, in selfish political prospects, than any name asso- ciated with American history. He was reserved for a better, grander and more en- during test. In 1 86 1 Mississippi, like all the States of the South, was forced to surrender its integrity, or secede from the Union. This thought leads me into a presenta- tion of the constitutional issues of the struggle that fol- lowed : The causes that led up to the war between the States had their birth in the opposition of ideas and ideals that possessed the two types which settled Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. The Cavaliers and the Puritans were in continuous warfare in England, prior to the settlement of the Colonies, and as a natural result of these existent 12 political antagonisms, which had steadily grown in in- tensity, they drifted apart when they determined to seek a new home in America. After arriving in their new and untried fields of en- deavor, they remained as distinctly separate as if they had represented separate and distinct races. Individuals represented the respective types. It was Miles Standish and Endicott, against John Smith and Raleigh. It was in answer to the law of natural selection that these two peo- ples landed in climatic homes best suited to their psycho- logical standards. The Cavalier drifted naturally to the Southern, the Puritan to the Northern coast. There was nothing in common between the Cavalier and the Puritan. The former was too broad to be little, while the latter was too contracted to be liberal. Endicott so hated the Cavalier that he compelled the women of his colony to wear veils, and forced the men to cut their hair short. It was the Puritan clergy of Massachusetts that drove Roger Williams out of their colony, on account of his liberal religious views, and this was the type that burned and hanged old women for witchcraft. The re- verse was true of the liberal, forbearing and chivalrous Cavalier. Raleigh was not made in this mould, nor was John Smith. It was not until a common evil threatened that the two peoples entered into a compact for mutual protection. " It was decided to rebel against the oppressive taxation of England, and a confederation was formed. The peoples were so distinctly apart, that even the articles of agree- ment entered- into by their representatives, evidenced a suppressed sectionalism that was destined to cause trou- ble. This agreement was later subjected to such oppos- ing construction, as to threaten dissolution, by some of the New England States seceding, long before the con- 13 flict of the sixties. The right of secession had never been questioned. It had been taught at West Point, and advo- cated by the statesmen of both sections. SectionaHsm was, therefore, the primal cause of the war ; slavery a mere incident of the struggle. There were few people in the North who objected, or professed to object to the institution of slavery, until the popular mind was inflamed by the design of sectional agitators, who did not desire abolition except as a measure secondary to political vantage. In accord with this view, as late as 1835, an English- man (Thompson) was driven from Fanuel Hall, by a Boston mob, for advocating abolitionism. It was com- mon in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and other States of the North, to tar and feather people for this offense against their ethical standard. In 1837 a man (Lovejoy) was killed by a mob in Illinois, for agitating the abolition doctrine. A most extreme protectorate, it would seem, had been thrown around the institution of slavery, and in the very land where hypocritical cant and political design were conspiring to encompass its overthrow, by a systematic policy of goading the South into a revolutionary act. When the sectional feeling grew in intensity, more liberty was given these agitators. This was not done in answer to any suggestion of conscience, but on account of the selfishness which nurtured a high protective tariff, as. the best policy of the manufacturing North, against the principle of free trade, that seemed to be necessary to the continued ascendency of the agricultural South. Thus it will appear that unequal taxation, the cause of the confederation of the Colonies against England, was to be the entering wedge to bring about the dissolution 14 of the incongruous compact that threw off the original yoke. In order to maintain sectional inequality, the North- ern States opposed the admission of Southern Territories into the Union, for the expressed reason "that it gave too much weight to the Southern extremity," a feeling that was notably exhibited as to Missouri and Texas. The compromise of 1820, which defined certain po- litico-sectional lines for slavery, itself an al)ridgment, was abrogated by the refusal of the North to make it appli- cable tO' the territory accjuired from Mexico. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed. This was intended to return to the rule which had been infringed by the com- promise of 1820, but it likewise was subverted by the suggestion of "squatter sovereignty," which marked yet another abridgment of the territorial rights of the South, the design being to place the property of the Northern settlers in the new territory on a more tranquil basis than had been guaranteed the property interests of the South. This purpose was not confined to the Northern leaders in Congress ; it was accentuated by the policy of the North- ern pulpit — even preachers going so far as to advise the Northern emigrants to go to the new district with a "Bible and Sharpe's rifle," the latter to shoot into the Southern man who brouglit slave property to the terri- tories. These inflammatory talks, encouraged as they were by the political leaders of the North, were followed by Har- riet Beecher Stowe's extreme and libellous presentation of slavery, and John Brown's fanatical and bloody in- cursion of Virginia, which had the moral and financial support of some of the most influential people of the North. It seemed to be the demoniacal intent of the North to goad the South into extreme measures of re- 15 sentment, and claim the support of civilization under cover of universal liberty. With abandoned disregard of their official oaths the Governors of Northern States had refused to recognize the fugitive slave law, and the rights of the States were at the mercy of sectional design and hatred. Lincoln, a sectional President, was elected on a sectional issue, by a sectional vote. He had expressed the idea that the "Union could not exist one-half slave and one-half free," had appointed Seward as chief of his cabinet, who was to dominate his administration, a man who had refused to meet Mr. Davis and the Southern members of the Senate in conciliatory discussion, at the close of the Buchanan administration, one who had desig- nated the trouble between the South and the North an ''irreconcilable conflict." These conditions tended to arouse the resentment of the Southern masses, who had already borne more than was their nature to bear, and dreading the impending evil of social equality growing out of threatened aboli- tionism, if they remained in the Union, they, the rank and file, voted their leaders into secession. They dreaded the social consequence of liberating the slaves more than they valued the institution of slavery, in which they had not a dollar invested. It was the popular mind of the South, not the slave-owner, that led the secession move- ment. When President Lincoln issued a proclamation block- ading the ports of the South, and called out an army O'f 75,000 troops to quell a peaceful movement which the statesmen of his section had advocated as a constitutional right, including himself, followed by a wanton violation of his pledge tO' the Fort Sumter Commissioners, in se- cretly fitting out a relief expedition, as a measure of mili- tary vantage, the South, although preferring peace, be- u came aroused to the necessity of war, and fired the shot that sounded the end of patriotic forbearance ; a shot that forever drew the Hne between the Southern and the North- ern types of American civihzation. The unanswered and unanswerable logic of Jefferson Davis, and other statesmen of the South, concerning the issues that led up to the sanguinary separation of States, stand on the record as a living challenge to the preten- tious intellect of the North, and a defiant protest against the argument of the sword. It was then that Jefferson Davis, guided as he had ever been by lofty conception of duty, resigned his seat in the United States Congress for the third time. Casting political fortunes tO' the winds he again returned to his people, this time in response to their selection of him as Commander-in-chief of the Army of Mississippi. His speech on the occasion of his withdrawal from the Senate will live forever in the splendid galaxy of patriotic elo- quence. Jefferson Davis resigned more offices than most politi- cal leaders fill. He considered them all from the view- point of duty, and was, therefore, greater than any office than man can hold. In this display he exhibited an un- selfish patriotism that places him far above any man in the political history of this or any other country. Although preferring to serve his State and section as a soldier, the people of the South would not consent to any other name for their President, and he was nominated, and afterwards unanimously elected to this office for a term of six years. He was thus impelled to again resign a position of rare honor. Commander-in-chief of the Army of Mississippi. Whether considered as a genius of military discipline and strategy, a field of operation that had become with 17 him a passion, an inspiration — or a master of logical elo- quence and matured statecraft, a stage of action in which the philosophy of his life had moulded into leadership the sublimest patriot of the age — it is not extravagant praise of him to say, that Jefferson Davis was the idol of his people. When Mr. Gladstone, the ''Grand Old Man" of Eng- land, stated that "Mr. Jefferson Davis had created a na- tion," he reflected the intelligent estimate of the Presi- dent of the Confederacy throughout the Old W^orld. Mr. Davis's reputation for purity, dignity, firmness and ability was universal. The pleasing contrast presented in the noble bearing of this polished gentleman of the South, as he traveled from Vicksburg to Montgomery, to be crowned with the love of his people, with the undignified and vulgar display that attended the journey of Mr. Lin- coln from Springfield to Washington, is a fair index to the civilizations that had produced the two leaders. The one represented the gentlest fabric of the South ; the other was apart from cultured environment in the North. I say this not in harsh disparagement, but since the North is pleased to talk so boastfully of standards, the South confidently presents the model in Jefferson Davis, on whose sublime crest no trace of coarseness has ever yet been detected by the searching eye of envious scrutiny. It was Talleyrand who said : "Nothing succeeds like success." Not Talleyrand, nor the consensus of preju- diced estimate can change a natural law. Whatever the result of the application of such a low standard of excel- lence, the South would not exchange the wealth of pride she feels in the ethical symmetry and unapproachable pa- triotism of her own patron saint, for all the vanishing successes of this existence. The wisdom displayed by Mr. Davis in the preparation 18 of the Constitution of the new government; his surpass- ing knowledge of men reflected in his selection of mili- tary leaders, whose daring and success in battle exceeded the glory of Napoleon and his marshals ; his great skill in organizing and maintaining an army of more than suc- cessful resistance for four years ; his devoted and un- selfish loyalty to his people when everything seemed to be against them ; his unblemished integrity in the manage- ment of the funds of the South, and his undismayed de- termination in the face of the opposition of the combined world more than justified the wisdom of his selection as the Chief Executive of the Southern Confederacy. Throughout the sanguinary conflict, in which the Southern soldier bore himself in such a way as to excite the military wonder and ethical admiration of the world, President Davis remained undaunted. When Alexander Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and John Campbell, the com- sioners appointed by the Confederate Government to meet President Lincoln in a peace conference, returned from their fruitless mission to Hampton Roads, and reported that Mr. Lincoln would agree to nothing except uncon- ditional submission, a report that has since gone through the mill of slander and emerged in the guise of a proffer by Lincoln to pay for the slaves of the South, when Lin- coln himself said, in his message to Congress, that he oft'ered nothing except unconditional surrender, Presi- dent Davis, though sorely disappointed, determined to continue the struggle, with increased resistance, for vital constitutional rights. Refusing to consign the honor and the glory of the South to the sacrificial altar of a mocking peace, he issued a proclamation, calling upon the people of Richmond to assemble and reconsecrate themselves tO' the cause of liberty. Mr. Alexander Stephens said of his- deliverance on this occasion : 19 ''His speech was not only bold, undaunted, and confi- dent in its tone, 1)ut had that loftiness of sentiment and rare form of expression, as well as magnetic influence in its delivery, by which the passions of the masses of the people are moved to their profoundest depths, and roused to the highest pitch of excitement. Many who had heard this master of oratory in his most brilliant displays in the Senate and on the hustings, said they never before saw Mr. Davis so really majestic. The occasion, and the effects of the speech, as well as all the circumstances un- der which it was made, caused the minds of not a^few to advert to like appeals by Rienzi and Demosthenes." While Jefferson Davis was a wonderful personality in the sunlight of success, he rose to the heights of grandeur in the gloom of defeat. When he saw the government nurtured by his devotion and strengthened by his genius overthrown; his own political and material fortunes scat- tered to the winds; looking out from the cruel prison walls of Fortress Monroe upon a devastated country; seeing his people, that he loved better than his own life, linked with hooks of steel, in yet another war, where the cowardly conqueror, after having accepted honorable sur- render, was vainly endeavoring, at the point of the bayo- net, to put the ignorant slave over the proud and intelli- gent master ; where all the horrors of social equality, ra- pine and murder were being threatened by the unbridled rapacity of carpetbag government ; surrounded as he w^as by the most cruel conditions and monstrous devices that were ever combined by Puritanical design to dismantle the glory of chivalry, Jefferson Davis rose to the pre-^ eminence of worldly grandeur when he bade his people be of good cheer and resolute heart, while he defied the cowardly brute who sought his humiliation in chains. The indignities put upon this good and great man blot 20 the escutcheon of a government that was too vindictive to do him simple justice even in the hour of death, by its refusal to lower the flag of the War Department in honor of one whose State papers, while President of the Con- federacy, will always be the standard of excellence in administrative literature, and whose integrity, fidelity and brilliant forethought during his charge of the war port- folio of the General Government, will stand as a beacon- light to his successors until time shall be no more. • The mutations of time will yet visit upon them that have waged a war of calumny upon the great the censure of that enlightened condemnation which says : Your cowardly and venomous aspersion upon the patriotism of such a rare presentation of nobility as the immortal chieftain of the South reflect on the flag whose stars em- blazon the historic glory of Buena Vista, and whose elo- quent folds sing undying tribute to Southern leadership. I love the flag of this Union — that glorious emblem of statehood that was won by George Washington at York- towni, protected by Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, and clothed with new glory by Jefferson Davis at Buena Vista. Without this grand trinity of patriotism from the untarnished womb of the South, the United States ol America would not to-da}^ offer a home to the monarch- ridden peoples of the earth, through the light-houses of Liberty that shed glory upon her limitless coasts. I love, yes, wath deathless devotion, the Stars and Bars, that enshrined emblem of constitutional liberty in America. Both reflect the patriotic glory of Jefferson Davis, who is at last the test of any sincere sectional adjustment be- tween the South and the North. The North should un- derstand that, while the South concedes to that section the right to worship at the shrine of Abraham Lincoln, 21 she insists upon the privilege of glorifying the patriotism of Jefferson Davis. There are politicians of the South that have forged the right to speak for our people. Many have been afraid to mention the name of Mr. Davis before a Northern audience. These cringing nondescripts do not represent the South. He who would be willing to ob- literate sectionalism by accepting the half-hearted tributes of the North to Lee and Jackson, while the entire people of the South are still under indictment through Jefferson Davis, their leader/ is a defamation on Southern man- hood. Lee, the greatest commander the world ever saw, was a presentation to military glory by the unerring judg- ment of Jefferson Davis. He always deferred to Mr. Davis with the devotion of a brother — and the unequalled Jackson bowed recognition to them both. Lee was no more theJeader of the South, than was Grant the leader of the North. The test must be Davis and Lincoln, Lee and Grant, Jackson and McClellan, in the order named, and on the same plane of manly concession. Then hands off as to our internal affairs, or one hundred years from now will find some senseless hypocrite talking about the near approach of a reunited country. Our people observed in Jefferson Davis a patriot more unselfish than Kossuth ; a cavalier, whose daring was not less superb than that of Henry of Navarre ; a statesman, whose splendid thought and devoted purpose are sur- passed by no name that ever shed lustre upon a nation's statutes ; a soldier, whose skill and intrepidity at Buena Vista was radiant with Napoleonic glory; a leader, who when overwhelmed by defeat and cruel imprisonment, and insulted by the imprecations of a people that were afraid to try him for treason, bore himself with such dig- nity and courage as to suggest fhat he had no superior in history; and an author, thank God, who, unterrorized by 22 •defeat and calumny, left to the South a legacy in the ''Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," unex- -celled in literary merit, priceless in historic value and un- answerable in constitutional logic. Georgia was the first State in the South to make June 3d a legal holiday. Let Georgia continue to lead in move- ments to erect enduring monuments of love to the un- blemished leader of the South, who was put in chains for ;standing by her integrity, by naming one of the proposed new counties Jeff Davis. As Atlanta spread flowers along her thoroughfares in 1886, in honor of this uncrow^ned king of the South, who had come to Georgia (a State that yet loved him as the son of a noble sire that she had given to fame), to pay tribute to the memory of his faithful friend, Benjamin Hill ; and embowered his sleeping body with immortelles, as it lay in state in the eloquent shadow of the monument to loyalty that he had unveiled but a few years before, on its last sad journey to Richmond, the Mecca of enshrined memories; so let us this day point the children of the South to Jefferson Davis, the exemplar of noble deeds and inspiring achievements — a faithful leader, who, pre- ferring to rest from his labors, marched to his final home with no suggestion of surrender or dishonor, under the triumphant banner of Duty ! We will not look upon our patron saint as dead, but as one, turning from the morn- ing of life, passed with heroic fortitude through the shad- ows to the purpling West, where, enveloped in the sunset grandeur of an unapproachable existence, he was lifted to the plains of eternal victory, and surrounded as he is by Lee, and Jackson, and Gordon, and the Immortals, he ;awaits the final coming of the faithful. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 709 882 9 #