Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 21.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

The world no longer measures men or principles by apparent or immediate results. Many a noble chapter of purely human story has contributed to this uplifting; but, in nighest development, this revolt against the tyranny of results, this emancipation from the worship of success, this soul-homage of the absolute right, are Christian faiths, born of Gethsemane and Calvary—the Cross and the Sepulchre.

Thirty years have passed since the bodies of these men returned to dust and their spirits returned to God who gave them. Standing here to-day, a survivor of the mighty conflict in which they fell, and looking backward over the heads of a generation knowing neither those days nor these men, I have an admission to make, which I do without grudging.

The world has been more just to the Confederate soldier; that is, it has been quicker to do him justice, than I, for one, anticipated. Who, to-day, vapors or hisses about ‘making treason odious,’ or ‘burying traitors in oblivion?’ On the contrary, to the honor of our late enemies, the people of the Northern States, be it said, that to-day, many, if not most of them, accord honor, admiration-glory, if you please — to the dead or living soldier of the Confederacy who is worthy to receive them, as readily perhaps, and in as full measure, as to his gallant foe who fought or fell upon the Union side.

What has wrought this great change?

Mainly two things——and

First: