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 'A new commaiulnient I si\*o unto you, That vo love one another.' 
 
 S P E E C II 
 
 HO:^^. E.= Ev^ SETTLE, 
 
 OF KENTUCKY, 
 
 HOUSE OF PvEPRESEJ^TATLVES, 
 
 Wedkesday, June 1, 18D3, 
 
 ON THE BILL TO REMOVE DISAIULITIES OF CONFEDERATES 
 OF THE LATE WAR. 
 
 \Vy«LSIITTSrGXOW. 
 
 1808. 
 

 i 
 
 4 
 
 ssssg 
 
or 
 DC 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 HON. E. E. SETTLE. 
 
 The House having under consideration the bill (S. ISTS) to remove all dis- 
 abilities imposed by section 3 of the fourteenth amendment to the Consti- 
 tution- 
 Mr. SETTLE said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I tliiuk when the permanent Record of this clay's 
 session is made up it would be incomi^lete indeed if some Repre- 
 sentative from the South, some man who is supposed to be in sym- 
 pathy with the Southern people in their present and their past 
 relations to the General Government, did not avail himself of the 
 opportunity to respond to the generous sentiments that have been 
 uttered on the floor of the House by the gentleman from Ohio and 
 the gentlemen from Iowa and Wisconsin in the conduct of this 
 bill to-day, for notwithstanding we may all say this is a just bill 
 and ought to have become a law years ago, yet we from the South 
 must agree that it is none the less a generous bill; and Southeru 
 Representatives should not hesitate so to declare in their places 
 here, for had we been the victors we might not have been so gen- 
 erous as they. 
 
 This bill is but the culmination of the course of events that have 
 been gradualh' approaching this point for ten or fifteen years 
 past. I have seen it in the present session. I have heard the 
 great battle hymn of the South— '-Dixey"— receive as generous 
 applause in Northern capitals as was accorded to the "Star- 
 Spangled Banner" and "Marching Through Georgia. " And it 
 came not from Southern sympathizers, but from the generous 
 people of the North, who took that occasion to say, in this way, 
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to tlieir brethren at llie South, ' ' We embrace you and have learned 
 to forget all past differences." [Applause.] 
 
 I happened to be at a down-town theater the other evening. In 
 the interval between the acts it has become the custom not to go 
 out, but to remain and hear the orchestra discourse patriotic 
 anthems and airs. After the band had ceased inlaying some gen- 
 tleman arose and proposed "Three cheers for McKinley," The 
 vast audience gave them with a will. Then three cheers were 
 proposed for Dewey, the hero of Manila, which were also responded 
 to. And then some gentleman, whom I took to be a military offi- 
 cer of rank, arose in his place, and waving his hand in the air 
 said, " Three cheers for a united country!" Gentlemen, that sen- 
 timent caught me; and it caught that vast house. [Applause.] 
 
 I thank God that I have lived to see this day. We sometimes 
 thought that the great war between the States was an unmitigated 
 evil, but in the providence of God it, accompanied by other agen- 
 cies, has proved to be a great blessing. That war was not of 
 chance or of accident. It came as the winds come and as the 
 storms come and as all things else come— in response to the eter- 
 nal purposes and behests of Him who "holds the wind in His fist 
 and the hearts of men in the hollow of His hand." [Applause.] 
 
 The beginning of the war was the acme of that sectional hate 
 which had been growing and increasing in bitterness for thirty 
 years. The North had no love for the South, and the South had 
 no respect for the North. The contlict was irrepressible. The 
 world looked on at the magnificent display of courage and forti- 
 tude exhibited through four years of battle and strife, and while 
 one rebel could not, as he thought at the beginning, wipe out 
 five " Yankees," the sequel showed that he could put them to con- 
 siderable exertion. [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 When valor and courage and endurance shall no longer com- 
 mand the praise of men, when tribute shall be denied to those 
 who endured privation without complaint and suffered all man- 
 ner of sacrifices without murmur, then we might hesitate to 
 unroll the curtain of that past and let its scenes pass in panorama 
 before us. But heaven forbid in this day, when one touch of 
 nature has made us all akin, that I should fear in this presence to 
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hold up for admiration the prowess of the gallant boys in tho 
 
 trenches and the field, wearing the blue or wearing the gray, who 
 
 gave to the cause of their country their lives, their fortunes, and 
 
 their sacred honor. [Applause.] 
 
 But the end came at last. These Southern knights went down 
 
 to their home, and many of them can not be reached by any pro- 
 
 .vision of earthly statute now. 
 
 Many of those good knights are dust— 
 
 Their good swords rust, 
 
 Their souls are with the saints, we trust. 
 
 They went down to their desolated homes and despoiled fields, 
 and without complaint they set about the task, the herculean 
 task, of rebuilding those waste places and restoring their ancient 
 splendor. Her sons laid down their arms in good faith, and in 
 the same spirit they laid their hearts upon the altar of their coun- 
 try and took their step to the music of the Union. I do not be- 
 lieve, gentlemen, that the American people were ever so iinited 
 as they are to-day. The men who stayed at home were the last 
 to forgive, but the men who fought have alv/ays been the first to 
 forget. [Applause.] 
 
 And now we are hastened to this era of good times by the war 
 in which we find ourselves involved. We shall free Cuba, but we 
 shall do more than that. We shall free ourselves. The greatest 
 of English poets, in speaking of the divine quality of mercy, has 
 said that — 
 
 It is twice blest: 
 It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 
 
 If we shall confer a gracious boon upon the people of that un- 
 happy island, we shall receive a blessing from Heaven, such per- 
 haps as we may not bo ^able to contain. Out of this baptism of 
 fire and blood wherewith we are now being baptized we shall come 
 forth, I doubt not, new men and new women, clean every whit, 
 with sectional hate and sectional bitterness clean gone forever. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 That were a consummation devoutly to be wished; that were 
 the summum bonum, the great desideratum; that were well worth 
 all the treasure we may expend and all the blood that may be 
 shed. In the language of the great Kentucky editor, this war has 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 alreadj- forever eliminated tiie sectioual contest. There are thou- 
 sands of old Confederates who are to-day happy in the thought 
 that before they have been called to join the silent bivouac of the 
 dead, they have seen the North and the South united in battle 
 array beneath the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 Flag of the free heart's hope and home! 
 
 By aBgel hands to valor given: 
 Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
 
 And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
 
 [Applause,] 
 
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lillllll 
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