Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 14.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

Address of honorable B. H. Hill before the Georgia branch of the Southern Historical Society at Atlanta, February 18th, 1874.

[The following address should have been published in our Papers at the time of its delivery, but for the fact that we did not begin our publication until two years later, and it was ‘crowded out’ from time to time by the pressure upon our pages. We are quite sure that our readers will thank us for giving them now this superb address of the great orator:]

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen.

The object of this meeting is to organize in Georgia an auxiliary branch of ‘The Southern Historical Society.’ The object of this Society is to collect and preserve authentic materials for a full and correct history of the Confederate States. I have accepted the flattering invitation to address you on this occasion, and now proceed to perform the part allotted me as both a duty and a pleasure.

When the war between secession and coercion ended, the Southern States were under every obligation which defeat could imply, or surrender impose, to abandon secession as a remedy for every grievance, real or supposed. Whatever might have been their convictions [485] touching the abstract right of secession, or the sufficiency of the causes which provoked its exercise, surrender was a confession of inability to maintain it by the sword, and honor and fair dealing demanded that the sword should be sheathed. But defeat in a physical contest does not prove that the defeated party was in the wrong. It is certainly no evidence of criminal motive. It is a confession of weakness, not of crime. Were it otherwise, the robber is a law-abiding citizen and his victim a thief. Socrates was a felon, and the mob that sentenced him to death were patriots. In a wicked world innocence and right are not at all incompatible with failure, sorrow and humiliation, else the man who fell among thieves on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho was a criminal, and his plunderers were entitled to the plaudits—the oil and the wine of all good Samaritans. Nay, the Saviour himself was a malefactor, and his crucifiers were Christian gentlemen. Failure to dissolve the Union, and nothing more, was the confession of surrender, and the obligation to remain in the Union and discharge all its duties under the Constitution necessarily resulted.

So, on the other hand, the Northern States—the asserters of the right of coercion—were equally under every obligation to accept surrender, as meaning this and only this. They proclaimed no other purpose in making the war of coercion, but to defeat secession and preserve the Union. They had no right, political, moral or honor able, to enlarge the issue after the contest had ended, and the issue made by the contest was exhausted and determined.

The Southern States and people accepted, in a frank and liberal spirit, all the just consequences of their defeat. They abandoned secession, and the doctrine of secession, as a practical remedy for all grievances, past or future, and for all time. They did more. Property in slaves was not the cause of the war. It was not the great fundamental right for which the Southern States went into secession. It was only an incident to that right. The right of the States to regulate their own internal affairs, by the exercise of the powers of government which they had never delegated, and the conviction that independence was necessary to preserve that right of selfgovern-ment, was the great, moving, inspiring cause of the seceding States. There was not a day of the struggle when the Southern people would not have surrendered slavery to secure independence. But slavery was the particular property which, it was believed, was endangered without independence, and which, therefore, made the assertion of secession necessary. The disciples of coercion denied this, and asserted [486] they had no intention of interfering with slavery in the States True, a war-proclamation of emancipation was issued finally, and a movement was made to amend the Federal Constitution, as if to make this emancipation effectual. But this was avowedly done as a threat, to induce a surrender to avoid such a result. Yet, promptly after surrender, the Southern people waived the discussion of all technicalities on this question, and relieved their late enemies of all necessity to enter upon such discussion, and, in conventions assembled, each State for itself most solemnly abolished slavery in their borders. To protect the negro in his freedom was more than a corollary to this emancipation. It was a duty which the preservation of society made necessary in each State, and by each State for itself.

But the Northern States and people were not satisfied with these prompt and manly concessions by our people of every legal, necessary, reasonable, and even incidental result of defeat in the war. The war being over, our arms surrendered, our government scattered, and our people helpless, they now determined not only to enlarge the issues made by the war, and during the war, but they also determined to change those issues, and make demands which had not before been made, which, indeed, had been utterly disclaimed in every possible form by every State of the North, and every department of the Federal government—legislative, executive and judicial. Nay, they now made demands, which they had in every form declared they could have no power or right to make without violating the Constitution they had sworn to support, and destroying the Union they had waged the war itself to preserve. Over and over, during the war, they proclaimed in every authoritative form to us and to foreign governments that secession was a nullity, that our States were still in the Union, and that we had only to lay down our arms and retain all our rights and powers as equal States in the Union. We laid down our arms, and immediately they insisted our States had lost all their rights and powers in the Union, and while compelled to remain under the control of the Union, we could only do so with such rights and powers as they might accord, and on such terms and conditions as they might impose.

Over and over again, during the war, they, in like authoritative forms, proclaimed that our people had taken up arms in defence of secession under misapprehension of their purposes toward us, and that we had only to lay down our arms and continue to enjoy in the Union every right and privilege as before the mistaken act of secession. We laid down our arms, and they declared we were all criminals and [487] traitors, who had forfeited every right and privilege, and were entitled to neither property, liberty or life, except through their clemency!

Over and over again, during the war, they, in like authoritative forms, proclaimed that the seats of our members in Congress were vacant, and we had only to return and occupy them, as it was both our right and duty to do. Our people laid down their arms and sent on their members, and they were met with the startling proposition that we had neither the right to participate in the administration of the Union, nor even to make law or government for our own States!

Addressing this Society in Virginia, during the last summer, Mr. Davis said: ‘We were more cheated than conquered into surrender.’ The Northern press denounced this as a slander, and some of our Southern press deprecated the expression as indiscreet! I aver to-night what history will affirm, that the English language does not contain, and could not form, a sentence of equal size, which expressed more truth. We were cheated not only by our enemies, but the profuse proclamations of our enemies, before referred to, were taken up and repeated by malcontents in our midst–any of them, too, who had done all in their power to hurry our people into secession. They coupled these professions and promises of our enemies with brazen assertions that the laws of the Confederate government enacted to carry on the war were unconstitutional and void. They scattered these documents of twin falsehood and treachery among our people, to prove to them that they had a right to refuse supplies to the soldiers. They scattered them through the army to convince soldiers it was no crime to desert. And they scattered them among our enemies, to prove to them that our people were dividing, that our armies were weakening, and that they had only to take courage and keep up the struggle, and surrender was inevitable! Oh, my friends, we were fearfully, sadly, treacherously, altogether cheated into surrender! If the demands made after the war was over had been frankly avowed while the war was in progress, there would have been no pretexts for our treacherous malcontents; there would have been no division or wearying among our people; there would have been no desertions from our armies, and there would have been no surrender of arms, nor loss of our cause! Never! Never!!

But the Northern States and people having made these demands as results of the war, when we could join no issue on them in battle, there were only legal and political forums left in which to test their justice and truth. Had sovereign States committed treason? Were [488] eight millions of people traitors? Were leaders who had only obeyed their States and served their people criminals worthy of death?

These were the great questions, and the most usual forums to determine such issues were the courts of law. There was certainly no hindrance to such a test. Our great chief was a prisoner—in a dungeon—in chains! He was not only ready and willing to be tried, but demanded a trial. By himself he was most anxious to vindicate the innocence of his people; or, in himself, expiate their guilt by an ignominious death! Our enemies had the appointment of the judges, the formation of the court, the selection of the jury, the entire control and direction of the proceedings. Why did they hesitate? why did they finally decline to try? Was it because of mercy, or a spirit of magnanimity? Ah! we shall see directly. No, they were gnashing their teeth with rage. They knew that such a trial had no parallel in human history—they knew the whole world, and posterity for all time, would review it. There was the written law, and they knew it had not been violated! Eight millions of people, struggling as one man for liberty, were not traitors, only because power and treachery combined to defeat and enslave them. To try and convict, was to commit perjuries which would redden human nature with an eternal blush of shame—to try and acquit, was a judgment under oath by their own courts, that the war of coercion was itself but a gigantic crime against humanity, and a wicked violation of their own form and principles of government.

Here was the terible dilemma which confronted our accusers, and it was so palpable that all the insolence of recent triumph could not hide it, and they were left no resource but to pretend a mercy, whose necessity they despised, and turn the prisoner loose, after a long and most cowardly delay.

The next forum in which our people had a right to be heard was the Congress—the National Councils. By every protest and profession of our enemies, before and during the war, the Union was preserved, and by the plain terms of the Constitution each State was entitled to representation in both branches of Congress. The refusal to test the crime of secession before the courts increased, if possible, the obligation to recognize this clear right of representation. This was a rare opportunity for vindication. The forms of government had afforded it to few defeated parties in history, and to none on such terms of fairness and equality. There was never a time when the intellect of a people was so needed for their vindication, and no people ever possessed grander intellects for the work. We had trained [489] statesmen, constitutional lawyers, skilled debaters, who were perfectly familiar with every fact, and learned in every principle involved. And, the very ablest and best of these, there was no reason to doubt every Southern State would at once, and with unanimity, return to Congress. If this had been done, not only would the South have been vindicated, but the present horrible sectional acrimony, with all the black record of reconstruction, would have been avoided. The reunion would have been made cordial, with secession abandoned and slavery abolished. The Southern States would already have been far advanced in the work of material recovery, of social order and political contentment, and all the States—co-equals in a common Union—would be rejoicing in a manifest new lease of constitutional government and Republican liberty.

But the very reasons which made the return of our ablest men to Congress a glorious opportunity for us, made it a dreaded one for our adversaries. Victors as they were in a physical contest, they were not willing to meet the vanquished in intellectual gladiatorship. To protect themselves from this collision of mind they determined to add yet further crimes to their cowardice. And now we approach the analysis of the most stupendous series of crimes ever perpetrated in human history by individuals or States, civilized or savage. Unwilling to risk their own judges and juries, to pass legally upon the treason charged, our adversaries determined to punish without conviction—unwilling to hazard the power of equal debate upon the minds and consciences of their own people, they determined to condemn without a hearing. And why not? Their victims were unarmed and helpless, and the luxury of vengeance could have easy, safe, and unrestrained gratification.

The first act was for Congress, composed chiefly of men who had been borne into their seats on the bloody tide of sectional hate and strife, to seize all legislative powers into their own hands, and exclude the Southern States not only from actual representation, but from the right of representatives.

To justify this enormous usurpation, they declared the Southern States needed reconstruction. As this idea was wholly unknown to the Constitution, they boldly put themselves outside of the Constitution they had sworn to observe. To make the work of reconstruction effective, they resolved that it belonged exclusively to Congress—the legislative department—and that the Executive department could not, and should not, participate, except to furnish the military to aid in holding the victims still while the punishment was [490] being inflicted. To prevent any embarrassing review of their measures, they further resolved that all questions arising under reconstruction were political and not judicial, and that therefore the courts could not, and should not, pass upon their constitutionality. Thus fortified in their usurpations, and goaded by rancorous, blind, long-nurtured hate, they commenced the work of dissolving governments, destroying States, robbing, insulting and oppressing already impoverished and helpless people, and humiliating the white race! They entered each Southern State, and declared all existing governments to be illegal. They outlawed and set aside all existing constituencies, the constituencies which originated State governments, and participated in forming the Federal government. They created new constituencies, composed chiefly of ignorant negroes. They offered to include in these new constituencies such of the resident whites as would consent that the usurpations were legal, and these punishments were just; and it must ever be a sad recital for all time, that some of our people were willing to barter their section, State, race and blood, for the privilege of aiding in this work of destruction, degradation, and infamy. The future historian will weep bitter tears when he finds himself compelled to record this darkest exhibition of human treachery and depravity, and he will close up the chapter as, with nervous energy, he shall write the withering judgment of all decent humanity for all future ages. Cursed thrice, cursed forever, be the memories of such unnatural monsters among men!

These motley constituencies of ignorance and vice, having no conception but in hate, no birth but in strife, no nursing but in usurpation, and no strength but in crime and treachery, were placed in each State under the appropriate lead of adventurous vagabonds—bankrupt in fortunes, and hungry for the spoil of their victims—paupers from birth in every sentiment of honor, and enjoying with keen relish the humiliation of their superiors! And these formed the government under which we have been dying. Ignorant negroes have been made masters—proud, educated masters made slaves—robbers have been made rulers—thieves have been made detectives, all protected by Federal power, while humble submission to the remorseless demands of this insatiate wickedness has been made the only test of loyalty and devotion to that Union which our fathers helped to form in order to secure the blessings of liberty to them and their posterity!

Many of the effects of this policy of reconstruction the future historian will have no difficulty in discovering. [491]

The millions of taxes we have had to pay to feed these vampires upon our substances, and sickening eye-sores to our pride and honor—the millions of debt piled up for our posterity to pay in bonds issued by these licensed gamblers upon the property, life and hope of the people of these States—the miscegenating orgies of loyal legislators, and reckless plundering of carpet-bag governors—the readiness with which criminals were turned loose, and the equal readiness with which good citizens were arrested without warrant, tried without law, convicted without evidence, and hurried off to foreign prisons without mercy, only because they were suspected of having too much manhood to bear their wrongs with unmurmuring submission—how our lands were depreciated, our society demoralized, and all our most intelligent and virtuous citizens were denied all right to provide remedies. These, and many more of like character, the future historian will easily see, and must see, though every glance, create nausea. But there are other facts and incidents, not so patent to the world, and not on record, which may be found in every neighborhood, and which we ought to gather up as far as we can. Rich men have been made poor, proud men have been made humble, noble women have been insulted, innocent men have been imprisoned, many, very many, have been too weak to bear their sorrows and the sorrows of their country, and kind death has brought them a refuge from grief. And yet the authors of all these wrongs boast of the great magnanimity and generosity they have exhibited to a fallen foe! They did not hang and exile our leaders, nor confiscate our property! What conqueror was ever before so manly and liberal? But they made slaves of masters, and masters of slaves, law makers of vagabonds, rulers of strangers, and tax gatherers of robbers. They declined to take life, only that they might make life a lingering death. They did not drive us from home, only that they might make home the abode of sorrow and poverty. They failed to confiscate our property by the usual act of government, that it might remain to be taken by negroes, thieves and strangers, as their own lawful spoil! Death, exile, confiscation, would end the punishment too soon. Such vengeance craved longer revel and slower torture! And if we, who have been the witnesses to these horrors, and the victims of these wrongs, will only gather up and preserve the unwritten outrages and unrecorded griefs of the last seven years, all posterity will, with one voice, declare that the punishments inflicted by our adversaries upon the Southern States and people, under the name of reconstruction, for vindictiveness of [492] hate, for meanness of oppression, for cool, prolonged relish of torture, and for insatiate extravagance of plunder, are without parallel in precedent, civilized or heathen!

It must be admitted that our enemies were wisely wicked. They well knew it would never do to admit Southern intellect into the National Councils until their work was fully completed and had been made part of the fundamental law. Even when reconstruction had reached the point that the doors of Congress must be opened, they were only allowed to be opened to such as were participants in, and products of, the infamy. The caressing fathers took only to their arms the dirty children their vengeance had begotten. In 1872, alarmed by what seemed to be a returning sense of justice at the North, aided by most remarkable concessions for peace and deliverance at the South, Congress removed the illegal disabilities imposed upon most of our leaders, though upon many even yet these dis abilities remain. In the meantime most of our greatest men—who were most familiar with the facts of the past, so essential to our vindication—had passed away, or were rapidly passing away. A very few of these were released from these bonds upon the use of their intellects. But most manifestly a better opportunity had returned at last to the Southern people, and it was expected by our enemies and the world that this opportunity would be improved, and our very ablest men everywhere chosen to Congress. And now comes the most curious chapter in our history. It will puzzle the future historian. Not a single man who was in full sympathy and accord with the Confederate administration, and who was intimate in the councils, and, daily as it progressed, familiar with the policy of that administration, has been called by our own people to a single prominent position, State or National! While many who gave aid and encouagement to the enemy, by disaffecting our people to that administration during the war of coercion, and refused to give counsel, or counseled consent during the baser war of reconstruction, have received high marks of confidence from our enemies, and high positions of honor from our people! Crowds of intellectual imbeciles, like flocks of noisy blackbirds in harvest time, rush forward to secure, by personal scramble and trade, those positions of heaviest trust and responsibility, and thus murder all hope of having any vindication of our dead, or justice for our living in the Councils of the Nation.

When such a State as Virginia, in such a crisis as this, for such a place as the Senate, repudiates such a statesman as Hunter—familiar [493] with every fact of the Federal history, intimately familiar with every fact in Confederate councils, trained in debate, learned in constitutional law, courteous in manner, accurate in statement, powerful in logic, and respected even by our enemies—I think it is time to despair of doing anything in this generation to lift the South to her former position of influence and power in the Congress of the United States. To feed our people on frothy declamation now, however blown by procured newspaper puffs, is like feeding a starving multitude on unsubstantial snow-flakes, however piled up by capricious winds! There was never such a field for real, profound, patriotic statesmanship. The very inferiority of Northern representatives, as compared with those they sent to Congress before the war, but increased the chances for Southern statesmen to remove, by proper debate in the national councils, the false theories and impressions which have been crowded into the minds of the Northern people, and thus return the general government to its constitutional limitations, restore to the States the free exercise of their reserved rights, and rescue from destruction for our enemies, as well as for ourselves, those great principles of constitutional government, which every purpose of the Confederates sought to maintain, and which every feature of coercion must logically tend to destroy.

Thus, denied by our enemies the opportunity of silencing by the solemn judgments of their own courts, the fierce accusations of criminality in secession, and denied by our enemies, and the follies of our own people, the glorious chance of vindicating our cause in high debate, and face to face with the chosen champions of our accusers, we have but one resource left us for defence or vindication. That resource is history—impartial and unpassioned, unoffice-seek-ing history! It is to secure a fair trial before this august tribunal that this Society has been organized to collect, prepare and perpetuate the evidence. Our enemies are exceedingly active in their efforts to get a false presentation of the testimony for the judgment of history. They are seeking to monopolize the possession of our own records. They readily pay more money for disjointed portions of Confederate archives than they did for the Madison papers, giving an account of the proceedings of the Convention that framed the Constitution. It is shameful to see how much assistance they are re ceiving in their efforts to pervert and falsify our history from those malcontents who kept up such restless assaults on the Confederate administration. The men who quarrelled more with their own side, than with the enemy during the struggle, are among the first after the [494] war to rush to writing books, to give their account of the government they did so much to break down. We owe it therefore to our dead, to our living, and to our children, to be active in the work of preserving the truth and repelling the falsehoods, so that we may secure for them and for us just judgment from the only tribunal before which we can be fully and fairly heard.

If the full truth can be secured and preserved, we shall have nothing to fear in the comparison with our enemy which history will make. The courage of our troops is beyond perversion. The fact that we killed, wounded and captured a greater number of the enemy than we had soldiers in our armies, is a tribute to our gallantry and skill which the records of no civilized war can surpass. With inferior arms and limited resources, shut up from supplies from the outside world, and with unfortunate and fatal divisions between the Southern States and among ourselves, we made a fight for independence which no people on earth ever yet equalled

Equally wonderful were the achievements of our statesmanship. In the beginning we had neither government, nor army, nor navy, nor treasury. All these we had to improvise in the very hearing of an arming foe, who had an established government, an organized army, a powerful navy, and all the sinews and appliances of war in extravagant abundance. And yet, when the enactments and measures of the Confederate Government shall be critically examined, they will be found to have sprung into existence with a wisdom, a vigor, an aptitude for the crisis and a strict conformity to all the principles of free institutions, which must challenge the admiration of publicists and statesmen for all time.

No people, ancient or modern, can look with more pride to the verdict which history will be compelled to render upon the merits and characters of our two chief leaders—the one in the military and the other in the civil service. Most other leaders are great because of fortunate results, and heroes because of success. Davis and Lee, because of qualities in themselves, are great in the face of fortune, and heroes in spite of defeat.

When the future historian shall come to survey the character of Lee, he will find it rising like a huge mountain above the undulating plain of humanity, and he must lift his eyes high towards Heaven to catch its summit. He possessed every virtue of other great commanders without their vices. He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without [495] vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward. He was obedient to authority as a servant, and royal in authority as a true king. He was gentle as a woman in life; modest and pure as a virgin in thought; watchful as a Roman vestal in duty; submissive to law as Socrates, and grand in battle as Achilles!

There were many peculiarities in the habits and character of Lee, which are but little known, and which may be studied with profit. He studiously avoided giving opinions upon subjects which it had not been his calling or training to investigate; and sometimes I thought he carried this great virtue too far. Neither the President, nor Congress, nor friends could get his views upon any public question not strictly military, and no man had as much quiet, unobtrusive contempt for what he called ‘military statesmen and political generals.’ Meeting him once in the streets of Richmond, as I was going out and he going in the executive office, I said to him, ‘General, I wish you would give us your opinion as to the propriety of changing the seat of government, and going further South.’

‘That is a political question, Mr. Hill, and you politicians must determine it. I shall endeavor to take care of the army and you must make the laws and control the Government.’

‘Ah, General,’ I said, ‘but you will have to change that rule, and form and express political opinions; for, if we establish our independence, the people will make you Mr. Davis's successor.’

‘Never, sir!’ he replied with a firm dignity that belonged only to Lee. ‘That I will never permit. Whatever talents I may possess (and they are but limited), are military talents. My education and training are military. I think the military and civil talents are distinct, if not different, and full duty in either sphere is about as much as one man can qualify himself to perform. I shall not do the people the injustice to accept high civil office, with whose questions it has not been my business to become familiar.’

‘Well, but General,’ I insisted, ‘history does not sustain your view. Caesar, and Frederick of Prussia, and Bonaparte, were all great statesmen, as well as great generals.’

‘And all great tyrants,’ he promptly rejoined. ‘I speak of the proper rule in republics, where, I think, we should have neither military statesmen, nor political generals.’

‘But Washington was both, and yet not a tyrant,’ I repeated. [496]

And with a beautiful smile, he said: ‘Washington was an exception to all rule, and there was none like him.’

I could find no words to answer, but instantly I said in thought: Surely Washington is no longer the only exception, for one like him, if not even greater, is here.

Lee sometimes indulged in satire, to which his greatness gave point and power. He was especially severe on newspaper criticisms of military movements—subjects about which the writers knew nothing.

‘We made a great mistake, Mr. Hill, in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake,’ he said to me, after General Bragg ceased to command the Army of Tennessee, an event Lee deplored.

‘What mistake is that, General?’

‘Why, sir, in the beginning, we appointed all our worst generals to command the armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers. As you know, I have planned some campaigns and quite a number of battles. I have given the work all the care and thought I could, and sometimes when my plans were completed, as far as I could see, they seemed to be perfect. But, when I have fought them through, I have discovered defects, and occasionally wondered I did not see some of the defects in advance. When it was all over, I found, by reading a newspaper, that these best editor generals saw all the-defects plainly from the start. Unfortunately, they did not communicate their knowledge to me until it was too late!’ Then, after a pause, he added, with a beautiful, grave expression I can never forget: ‘I have no ambition but to serve the Confederacy, and do all I can to win our independence. I am willing to serve in any capacity to which the authorities may assign me. I have done the best I could in the field, and have not succeeded as I could wish I am willing to yield my place to these best generals, and I will do my best for the cause editing a newspaper.’¹

Jefferson Davis was as great in the cabinet as was Lee in the field. He was more resentful in temper, and more aggressive in his nature than Lee. His position, too, more exposed him to assaults from our own people. He had to make all appointments, and though often upon the recommendation of others, all the blame of mistake was charged to him, and mistakes were often charged by disappointed [497] seekers and their friends which were not made. He also made recommendations for enactments, and though these measures, especially the military portion, invariably had the concurrence of, and, often originated with Lee, the opposition of malcontents was directed at Davis. It is astonishing how men in high position, and supposed to be great, would make war on the whole administration for the most trivial personal disappointment. Failures to get places, for favorites of very ordinary character, has inspired long harangues against the most important measures, and they were continued and repeated even after those measures became laws. ‘Can you believe,’ he said to me once, ‘that men—statesmen—in a struggle like this, would hazard an injury to the cause because of their personal grievances, even if they were well founded?’ ‘Certainly,’ I replied, ‘I not only believe it but know it. There are men who regard themselves with more devotion than they do the cause. If such men offer you counsel you do not take, or ask appointments you do not make, however you may be sustained in such action by Lee and all the Cabinet, and even the Congress, they accept your refusal as questioning their wisdom, and as personal war on them.’ ‘I cannot conceive of such a feeling,’ he said. ‘I have but one enemy to fight, and that is our common enemy. I may make mistakes, and doubtless I do, but I do the best I can with all the lights at the time before me. God knows I would sacrifice mast willingly my life, much more, my opinions, to defeat that enemy.’

We all remember the fierce war which was made in Georgia, against certain war measures of the Congress, and against Mr. Davis for recommending them. Conscription and impressment, especially were denounced as unconstitutional and void, and not binding on soldiers or people. And then, the limited suspension of habeas corpus was made the occasion for a concerted movement on the Legislature, assembled in extra session, to array the State in hostility to the Confederate administration. It failed. This was in the dark days of 1864. On returning to Richmond after this, I made the usual call of courtesy—no, of duty and of pleasure—on the President. As I arose to leave him I said: ‘Mr. President, I am happy to say to you, that, notwithstanding some indications to the contrary, the people of Georgia will cordially sustain you in all your efforts to achieve our independence.’ ‘And I thank you, sir, for that information, and I have never doubted the fidelity of Georgia.’ ‘The people of Georgia sustain you,’ I added, ‘not only because they have confidence in you, but chiefly because it is the only way to sustain [498] the cause.’ And with an expression of sincerity glowing all over his countenance, and with a reverential pathos I can never forget, he said: ‘And God knows my heart, I ask all, all for the cause; nothing, nothing for myself.’ Truer words never fell from nobler lips, nor warmed from the heart of a more devoted patriot. These words express in language the soul, the mind, the purpose, aye, the ambition of Jefferson Davis. It was his misfortune, and the misfortune of the Confederacy, that this was not true of all who were in authority. It was his fault, perhaps, that he did not use his authority to deprive such of their power to do evil.

I am speaking in Atlanta, and it is all the more proper, therefore, that I should speak for the first time in public of the removal of General Johnston from the command of the army of Tennessee.

I have heard it said that I advised that removal. This is not true. I gave no advice on the subject, because I was not a military man. You have all heard it said that Mr. Davis was moved by personal hostility to General Johnston in making this removal. This is not only not true, but is exceedingly false. I do know much on the subject of this removal. I was the bearer of messages from General Johnston to the President, and was in Richmond, and sometimes present, during the discussions on the subject. I never saw as much agony in Mr. Davis's face as actually distorted it, when the possible necessity for his removal was at first suggested to him. I never heard a eulogy pronounced upon General Johnston by his best friends as a fighter, if he would fight, equal to that which I heard from Mr. Davis during these discussions. I know he consulted with General Lee fully, earnestly, and anxiously before this removal. I know that those who pressed the removal, first and most earnestly, in the Cabinet, were those who had been most earnest for General Johnston's original appointment to that command. All these things I do personally know. I was not present when the order for removal was determined upon, but I received it immediately after from a member of the Cabinet, and do not doubt its truth, that Mr. Davis was the very last man who gave his assent to that removal, and he only gave the order when fully satisfied it was necessary to prevent the surrender of Atlanta without a fight.

The full history of the Hampton Roads commission and conference has never been written. I will not give that history now. Much has been said and published on the subject which is not true. I know why each member of that commission, on our part, was selected. I received from Mr. Davis's own lips a full account of the [499] conversation between himself and the commissioners before their departure from Richmond.

You have heard it said that the President embarrassed the commissioners by giving them positive instructions to make the recognition of independence an ultimatum—a condition precedent to any negotiations. This is not true. Mr. Davis gave the commissioners no written instructions and no ultimatum. He gave them, in conversation, his views, but leaving much to their discretion. They could best judge how to conduct the conference when they met. His own opinion was, that it would be most proper and wise, so to conduct it, if they could, as to receive rather than make propositions. While he did not feel authorized to yield our independence in advance, and should not do so, and while he did not desire them to deceive Mr. Lincoln, or be responsible for any false impressions Mr. Lincoln might have, yet, he was willing for them to secure an armistice, although they might be satisfied that Mr. Lincoln, in agreeing to it, did so under the belief that re union must, as a result, follow. I may add that Mr. Davis had no hope of success, or of securing an armistice, after he learned that Mr. Seward was to accompany Mr. Lincoln. ‘Mr. Lincoln,’ he said, ‘is an honest, well-meaning man, but Seward is wily and treacherous.’

I could detain you all night correcting false impressions which have been industriously made against this great and good man. I know Jefferson Davis as I know few men. I have been near him in his public duties; I have seen him by his private fireside; I have witnessed his humble Christian devotions; and I challenge the judgment of history when I say, no people were ever led through the fiery struggle for liberty by a nobler, truer patriot; while the carnage of war and the trials of public life never revealed a purer and more beautiful Christian character.

Those who, during the struggle, prostituted public office for private gain; or used position to promote favorites; or forgot public duty to avenge private griefs; or were derelict or faithless in any form to our cause, are they who condemn and abuse Mr. Davis. And well they may, for of all such he was the contrast, the rebuke and the enemy. Those who were willing to sacrifice self for the cause; who were willing to bear trials for its success; who were willing to reap sorrow and poverty that victory might be won, will ever cherish the name of Jefferson Davis, for, to all such he was a glorious peer, and a most worthy leader.

I would be ashamed of my own unworthiness if I did not venerate [500] Lee. I would scorn my own nature if I did not love Davis. I would question my own integrity and patriotism if I did not honor and admire both. There are some who affect to praise Lee and condemn Davis. But, of all such, Lee himself would be ashamed. No two leaders ever leaned, each on the other, in such beautiful trust and absolute confidence. Hand in hand and heart to heart, they moved in the front of the dire struggle of their people for independence—a noble pair of brothers. And if fidelity to right, endurance to trials, and sacrifice of self for others, can win title to a place with the good in the great hereafter, then Davis and Lee will meet where wars are not waged, and slanderers are not heard; and as heart in heart, and wing to wing they fly through the courts of heaven, admiring angels will say, What a noble pair of brothers!

The saddest chapter in Confederate history which the future historian will be called to write, will be that one in which he shall undertake to define the real cause of our failure. For the truth must be told.

Five millions of people, in such a country as we possess, were not conquered because our resources were inferior, or our enemies were so powerful. All physical disadvantages are insufficient to account for our failure. The truth is, we failed because too many of our own people were not determined to win. Malcontents at home and in high places, took more men from Lee's army than did Grant's guns. The same agencies created dissensions among our people, and we failed to win independence because our sacrifices ceased, our purpose faltered, and our strength was divided. Kind judge, let this sad chapter be short!

But above all things we have least to dread in history on the merits of the issues which divided the contending parties. The Southern States and people must stand before the bar of history responsible for secession. The Northern States and people must stand before the same bar responsible for coercion and reconstruction. Weighed upon principle, by authority, and by effects and consequences, which of the two positions is the more inimical to the Union, to constitutional government and to liberty?

When the States formed the Union, several of them, especially New York and Virginia, expressly reserved the right to withdraw as a condition of ratification. This reservation, by a well-established rule of construction, enured to all the parties to the Union. But no State recognized coercion to preserve the Union as a right or power, in the Federal Government, either express or resulting. So, in the [501] very stipulations which made the Union, secession finds a justification, and coercion none.

From 1787 to 1860, the ablest statesmen in America, both in the North and in the South, conceded the right of secession to the States. Some insisted it was a constitutional right, inhering in the sovereignty of the States, and conditioned in the terms of the compact. Others denied it was a constitutional right, but said it was only a revolutionary right, to be exercised for cause, and that infidelity to the terms, or the purposes of Union, would be sufficient cause to justify the act. But no accepted statesman, North or South, Whig or Democrat, ever contended or claimed that coercion was a right, either constitutional or revolutionary, during all that period. So, upon the authority of all our great statesmen, including the very framers of the Constitution, secession will stand in history acquitted and justified, while coercion, upon the same authority, must be condemned as criminal and without excuse.

Secession, consummated, would have divided the Union; the seceding States forming a new Union, and leaving the old Union in undisturbed enjoyment of the States remaining. Coercion, consummated, would first destroy the chief character of the Union, by making it a Union of force, instead of a Union of consent. In the next place, coercion, consummated, would destroy the Union and substitute consolidation instead. The very word, union, implies the combination of separate wholes for a common purpose. The moment you destroy the separate identity of the members, that moment Union ceases, and unity—consolidation—is accomplished. To destroy, is a greater crime than to separate or divide, and therefore, coercion is a greater crime against the Union than secession.

Again: Secession did not interfere with the rights, or attack the sovereignty, or lessen the dignity or importance of the States. Its real great purpose was to rescue all these from the consequences of threatened consolidation. But coercion, in its very nature, asserts dominion over the States, and must destroy them. Suppose we concede that secession would destroy the Union. Which is the greater crime, to destroy the Union, the creature of the States, or the States which created the Union? But I have shown that coercion destroyed the Union as well as the States. Then, again, the Union of the States was formed to secure the blessings of liberty. Secession could not even impair the liberties of the people. It interfered, in no way whatever, with the rights or privileges of the Northern States and people. It sought only to make more secure the rights, liberties and [502] privileges of the Southern States and people. But coercion, in destroying the Union, and making a consolidation, and in destroying the States, can have no logical result but in the destruction of all the liberties of all the people North and South. Will our people never perceive the patent truth that coercion must work consolidation, and that consolidation must destroy the identity and powers of the States and the liberties of the people? To coerce a State, is necessarily to enslave the State, and to enslave the State is necessarily to enslave the people of the State. Nothing but the roar of cannon, in the hands of unreasoning physical power, can silence this logic of liberty.

Here, then, great impartial judge of the future, we rest the law of our case. Secession did not destroy the Union, nor the States, nor the liberties, the Union of States was formed to secure. It only proposed to divide the Union, in order to rescue the States and the liberties of the people from destruction and overthrow. But coercion is the ruthless criminal which has consolidated the Union, enslaved the States, and destroyed the liberties of the people!

Secession invaded no State, interfered with no right, lessened the privileges of no man. Coercion laid waste the States, enslaved the people, murdered their sons, despoiled their daughters, desolated their homes, and burnt up their property!

And what is Reconstruction? It is the practical application of coercion. It is logic turning to facts. It is coercion at its work. It is the torch of the incendiary, the knife of the assassin, the firearm of the bandit, sending death-blows to the life of the State, to the heart of society, and to the hopes of civilization, that ignorance and vice may be exalted, and intelligence and virtue degraded!

Do I exaggerate? Look at South Carolina and answer. See the land of Marion and Sumter, of Rutledge and Pinckney, of Calhoun and Butler, the prey and sport of rioting thieves and gluttonous plunderers, whose orgies continue days, months and years in the face of the nation and under Federal protection!

Look at Louisiana! Behold a sovereign State sentenced to the chain-gang by telegram from Washington, to work at hard labor under negro and carpet-bag drivers!

This, this, is the fruit of coercion! These are the works of reconstruction!

Have the people of America no shame? Has the God of heaven no wrath? If coercion and reconstruction shall continue, their fruits will multiply, until all the people, in agonized remorse, shall cry out: Surely several unions were better than one Empire, and divided liberty more to be desired than concentrated despotism! [503]

Is there a possible remedy for these evils? I should be uncandid if I did not confess to you I doubt it. There is no resurrection for dead Republics, and few have ever been restored to vigor and health after reaching our present state of decline. I fear our people have not more intelligence and virtue than those whose histories we are but repeating. But for one I am willing to make the effort, and I exhort our Southern people to cherish no feeling inimical to success, and omit no duty that may promote it. We have more interest in restoring constitutional government than any other people; for if despotism shall come over all, North and South, there is reason to fear that serfdom of the South to the North will be our darkest portion.

You know I never regarded secession as wise in act, for however legal or just it may or may not have been, as an abstract right I never believed it would prove practicable as a remedy. I have never doubted that a belligerent collision between centralism and constitutional Federalism would, sooner or later, come. But by the States in the Union, and for the liberties of the people, was always my favorite plan to make the fight. But, for the sensitiveness of slavery, we might have made that fight only in the Union. Let therefore secession and slavery be buried out of sight, and, though late, let us make one more determined effort in the forum of reason and at the ballot-box to save the treasures we are losing. We should not pull down the temple our fathers built, because thieves and moneychangers desecrate it. Rather, under the inspiring memories of 1776, let us wake up the sleeping god of patriotism, and cast out the despoilers, and consecrate the temple anew to the equality of the States and to the liberties of our children!

There is but one beginning for this work. We must elevate the statesmanship of the country. In all Republics an imbecile statesmanship has succeeded a civil war, and we have not escaped the scourge. It is because men at such times rise into power on passion and hate, and not by merit and worth. If you would purify statesmanship you must elevate it. Men of intellect, alive with ambition to lift up a falling State, are more apt to be moral, patriotic and honest, than hypocritical imbeciles who, dead to the capacity of this higher ambition, are alive only to trade, and barter in blood, religion and prejudice, in order to reap puffs, perquisites and salaries!

In order to elevate our statesmanship, two things, in my opinion, are indispensable. In the first place, our people must abandon the insane habit of placing men in high civil positions simply because of military talents or success. Lee was right. It is contrary to the [504] very genius and safety of Republican institutions to place their civil administration in the keeping of men of military aptitude and training. Brave fighting is no evidence of able statesmanship. It is usually evidence of the very contrary. Otherwise, Captain Jack was the foremost statesman of this age, and, instead of being hanged, ought to have been made President or Senator for life. If this habit shall not cease, we shall not have a civil statesman for President this generation. In Congress, too, we have generals, and colonels, and captains, and lieutenants, sufficient to make a small army, and scarcely statesmen enough to form a good committee. I will not allude unkindly to General Grant. However much wrong he may have done otherwise, we, in Georgia, owe him a debt, of which I have personal knowledge, and I shall never speak of him unkindly. But I am speaking of a great principle, and if General Grant had adopted and acted upon the grand truth uttered by Lee, he would have lived deeper in the affections of his people and higher in the esteem of mankind than all the battles he has won, and all the presidential terms he can receive can ever secure for his name.

The second thing, indispensable to the elevation of our statesmanship, is the reduction of congressional salaries. Upon principle, the legislators of a country, who have in their hands the purse of the people, ought not to have the power to help themselves. I believe Franklin was right when he desired by constitutional provision to prohibit compensation to members of Congress. I am very sure the propositions of others in the Convention to fix the amount of the compensation in the Constitution—so that the members could not increase their own pay—was full of wisdom. Madison uttered a truth when he said it was an indecent thing for members to fix their own compensation.

Then, again, high congressional salaries are wrong and hurtful in policy. They excite the merely mercenary, with desires to secure the seats. This begets scrambling and trading in every election. Men of high ability will not be parties to such contests. Thus mercenary men get control of the Congress, and as they are chiefly moved by a passion that is insatiate—if the salary were a hundred thousand dollars—they would use the office to double the sum. This will finally reduce our statesmanship to one governing standard—use money to get office, and use office to get money. With few exceptions, Congress is now but a sad congregation of negroes, knaves and imbeciles, and no people ever won, or preserved, or recovered either liberty or right under such civil leaders. You cannot scatter [505] a flock of carrion birds by railing at them, but if you burn up the stinking carcass that attracts them they will scatter themselves. So we shall never get rid of these creatures from Congress by portraying their characters. They cannot see the mischief they are doing, and, if they could, they have not manhood enough to be made ashamed. But abolish the high salaries that tempt and feed them, and they will leave the places that furnish to them no other allurements. If high salaries continue, the greatest age of American statesmanship is in the past. We shall never have another Clay or Webster or Calhoun in the National Councils. These great men served willingly on a salary of fifteen hundred dollars and less. The Butlers and Chandlers—with their negro and carpet-bag allies—all but the spawn of a mad revolution—need seven thousand five hundred dollars to support their dignity! It is sad to see a Republic dying as other Republics have died, and the people still unable to see the evils which work death until life is extinct.

But one comfort the Southern people and their children must ever have. Whether constitutional government shall continue or fail—whether the States shall remain or be obliterated—whether liberty shall be recovered, or die the death that knows no waking, we shall be vindicated! If the Union of the States under constitutional government, and securing the blessings of liberty, be recovered and perpetuated, the work can only be done by returning to the great principles for which we struggled. The general government must be restrained within the limitations of its constitutional delegated powers, and the States restored to the unrestrained control of their domestic affairs, under their reserved rights or Union, States and liberty must perish. If this glorious work shall have success, then the rejoicings of according States, and happy millions from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes to the Gulf, will syllable forever the hallelujahs of Southern triumph!

But if blindness, madness, hate and ambition shall continue, coercion and reconstruction, as accepted and approved principles of Federal administration, then the wail that shall come up from the universal wreck of Union, States and liberty, will drown the thunder in loud vindication of Southern wisdom and fidelity. The graves of Davis and Lee will become Meccas for journeying, sorrow-stricken pilgrims of right for ages to come, and the future historian, reviewing the records your care shall have preserved, will write the epitaph for the Confederate dead. These were the last heroes of freedom in America!