The lost cause.
A Masterly vindication of it by Judge J. A. P. Campbell. in an Address delivered at Canton, May 1, 1874, on the occasion of the Decoration of the graves of Confederate soldiers.
Ladies and gentlemen,—We have assembled to commemorate the day set apart among us as a memorial of the Confederate struggle for independence. The observance of memorials of great epochs is proper and sanctioned by custom. People usually celebrate their successes—we, our grand effort for freedom and right, which deserved, but did not achieve success. There is danger that, with the lapse of time and change of circumstances amid the cares of life, the survivors of the Confederate cause may forget, or neglect, the duty they owe to those who fell victims to the contest and to themselves. [233] It is right to keep alive, by repeated consideration, the spirit of patriotism which inspired our Southern movement and led to the sacrifice of the brave soldiers of our cause, whose graves we will this day decorate with flowers in token of affectionate remembrance of their sacrifice and the cause for which they died. This is not inconsistent with our present relations to government, but shows only a just appreciation of that spirit of patriotism which animated our people, and will ever inspire them under any government. Fond recollection of the dead implies no want of affection for the living. Fidelity to the Confederate government by its citizens in trial and danger, is an earnest of the same to another. He, who being of it was not loyal to the Confederate cause, may well be doubted in his profession of fidelity to another. Sad, indeed, is our situation, and dark and gloomy the prospect before us as a people. There is everything in our present surroundings to call for the display in the peaceful walks of civil life, of tile virtues which found exemplification for other objects during the late war. Our best commemoration of the heroes of the Confederate struggle will be an imitation of their example of self denial, patient endurance of evils, courage in contending with adverse circumstances, industry and economy. These virtues, which accomplished so much in war, will bring their reward in time of peace. During the war it was not alone on the march, in camp or on the field of strife that patriotism was illustrated or heroism displayed. Fortitude, courage, heroism and patriotism were exemplified outside the lines of martial hosts. In the enthusiasm of patriotic devotion to our cause, our people vied in common efforts for its welfare. Hands unused to toil were busily employed in its behalf. Luxuries were dispensed with before necessity required it—even necessaries were restricted. It was esteemed a badge of honorable distinction to be able to do most to render one independent of the adverse circumstances upon us and advance the general welfare. Beautiful female forms were seen arrayed in the tidy workmanship of their own tender hands and never appeared more lovely. We were knit together by a sense of common interests and common danger. We were called on at home as well as on the march, in camp, or on fields of blood to exhibit the highest virtues of the soul; and while the more striking and captivating exhibitions were found on the battlefield in the perilous hour—For Fame is there to see who bleeds,[234] we should, in doing homage to these, cultivate a holy affection for those less striking virtues which found exhibition at home. The wife who girds her husband's sword,
And Honor's eye on daring deeds—
'Mid little ones who weep or wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
What though her heart be rent asunder;
Doomed nightly, in her dreams, to hear,
The bolts of death around him rattle,
Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er
Was poured upon the field of battle.
The mother, who conceals her grief,
While to her breast her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief,
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses;
With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her,
Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod
Received on Freedom's field of honor!
It is well for us to recur to the principle underlying the Confederate movement. Never was a cause apparently less understood or more maligned. The history of the world furnishes many instances of revolutions, rebellions and wars for insufficient causes. The maintenance of the claims of an individual or family to supreme authority, trivial complaints, trifling affronts, desire for aggrandizement, pride and ambition, have been prolific causes of popular uprising or national contests. But none of these actuated our movement. It sprang from a spirit of independence, which is hereditary and part of our being; a belief in the right and a sublime determination to maintain it. If successful, it would have been pronounced right. Failure don't make it wrong. The impelling cause was far greater and more justifiable than led to the American Revolution, and the different result can't change the dictates of justice and the decision of right reason. The spirit which has ever animated and will ever inspire the resisters of oppression, impelled the Southern people. To judge fairly and determine justly, their action must be estimated from their standpoint. This is the rule applied to individuals and is applicable to masses. We must transport ourselves to their situation, circumstances and surroundings, see as they saw, believe as they believed, feel as they felt, and consider the justice and reasonableness of their apprehensions from what they saw and felt. Doing this, it is discovered that the movement [235] sprang from the principle of self preservation—the mainspring of human conduct, innate in the soul. For many years a bitter contest of words had been waged between North and South, originating in conscience and sentiment, gathering force as it progressed, and quickened into fervid zeal by union with party efforts, until it culminated in party triumph in the election of a president on a platform of hostility to an overshadowing interest of Southern society. Then it was that apprehension of insecurity was aroused, and the momentous question arose: what should be done to secure safety and obtain protection to great interests, ramifying society and deemed to be seriously imperilled. The determination was to seek safety by withdrawing from a union, which it was thought was about to be made an engine for the destruction of our rights. There was nothing unnatural or unprecedented in this; there was no hostility to the people of the North; there was no dissatisfaction with the Constitution, which had been left to us, as to them; there was no objection to the union of the Constitution; war was not desired nor sought by us, but was deprecated, and tried by every peaceful means to be averted. War resulted; a long, a fierce and terrible war, waged by the United States for subjugation and by the Confederate States for existence. For a long time the contest seemed doubtful, but finally victory was declared for the United States and the Confederate flag was furled forever, and in its folds were enclosed the hopes of millions who had proudly gazed upon its stars and bars and fondly hoped that it would wave forever, an emblem of the right of self-government—the banner of a free people. No national standard was ever raised more justly nor rallied to by a nobler band of brave hearts; no contest was ever maintained more gallantly; choicer spirits were never sacrificed at any shrine; fairer hands never toiled for any object; sweeter voices never were heard in prayer for any effort; purer hearts were never enlisted in any cause. But still it failed. Sacrifices and prayers and efforts were, all combined, insufficient to bring final victory to our standard. Splendid battles were fought and victories won—all for naught as to the result. While recent history suggests to the thoughtful observer that the day is not distant, if not at hand, when even ardent votaries of the Union cause may well doubt if the subjugation of the South, with its consequences, was altogether beneficial to the cause of human progress and Republican government, the misrepresentations of current history are such that there is danger that the Confederate cause, so overwhelmingly just and defensible before the tribunal of truth and impartial history, will be so covered [236] with obloquy from distortion of facts and suppression of truth as to be misjudged by posterity. It devolves on the survivors of the Confederate period to preserve the truth of their history, and hand down, from generation to generation, a correct account of the impelling cause of the unfortunate struggle, in order that the cruelty of injustice to our motives shall not be added to the pangs of defeat. The world has done justice to Southern valor, but the just meed of merit has not been awarded to the motives of the Southern people. If the apprehension of danger did not justify our movement, surely the anticipation of the result of subjugation, as practically illustrated in its consequences, has furnished ample vindication of the heroic effort to avert it! What just historian of the future, with the experience of the Southern people since the war, will blame their movement for independence, if he shall grant their prescience to anticipate what has befallen them at the hands of the government of the United States? Who can view the wreck and ruin around us, the subversion of society, the ascendancy of ignorance, the elevation of incompetency, the depreciation of virtue, integrity and intelligence, and the cruel exactions from industry, as exemplied in the reconstructed States, as the direct effect of the policy of the victorious government, without according the highest praise to the statesmanship which foresaw, and the valor which struggled to avert such dire calamities? It is a truth that the Southern movement sprang from just such anticipation. The oft-repeated charge that ambition incited the movement is false, and proceeds from ignorance or malice. The course of the Southern people was that by many illustrated by a single individual, who seeks to avoid injury by withdrawing from an association, the continuance of which he considers to be fraught with evil to his interest. It was an exercise of the right inherent in every people to change their governmental relations when government ceases to effectuate the object of its institution.. Government is not itself an end. It is but a means to an end, and that is for the welfare of the people for whom it has been instituted, and, failing in this, it has no sanctity. The doctrine of the Divine right of Kings and the sanctity of government in itself is an exploded fallacy of the past. The movement of the Southern people, impelled by a sense of danger, and animated with the determination to avert it, presents one [237] of the sublimest spectacles ever exhibited in the world's history. Born to an inheritance of freedom; jealous of the glories of the Union, of which the South was so large and important a part, and to the formation of which her people had contributed so much, her sons reverenced the Constitution of their fathers and the Union it formed, and shrank with awe from the idea of being deprived of either. Proud of the historic memories of the fortitude and heroism of the men and women of the South in the Revolution, their descendants were full of admiration of the structure they reared; and taught to view the Constitution these patriots had made as the palladium of their rights, the Southern people clung to its plain provisions, and rendered the homage of devoted hearts to the Union it formed. So strong was Southern devotion to the Union, that the idea of dissolving it had for a long time to be endured before it was embraced, even after thoughts of danger to the rights of the South were associated with its continuance. The resources of the brightest intellects and most patriotic hearts of the statesmen of the South were exhausted in devising expedients to save the Union, by staying the march of aggression, which threatened to endanger it. The various compromise measures which for a time allayed excitement and quieted apprehension are an evidence of this. The suggestion of a dual presidency was a device of the great intellect and patriotic soul of America's greatest statesmen to protect the South, and yet preserve the Union. The idea of nullification sprang from the same desire. The non-preparation of the Southern States for the necessities of war is an evidence of the hopeful trust of her people in fancied ability to preserve the Union and enjoy their rights. If hostility to the Union, and desire to break it, were felt by the people of the South, their course was marked by inexplicable and unexampled folly, for it is part of history that no preparation whatever had been made by the South for war when it was found to be iminent. Neither military organization, nor armaments, nor provision for them, existed. The truth is, that disunion and war were a surprise to the South, and were accepted as a dire necessity to avert what seemed to be a greater evil. The charge that the Southern people were hostile to the Union, and desired to overthrow it, is a groundless calumny, falsified by their history. Her sons were foremost in the Revolutionary struggle, her statesmen conspicuous in the councils of the government. The banner of the Union was never unfurled on land or sea, where danger was to be encountered and death endured in her service, when Southern men did not rally around it. The brightest laurels of the wars [238] of the Revolution, of 1812, and of 1846, were plucked on fields of carnage by Southern soldiers, while the whole people of the South rendered the homage of patriotic hearts to the glories of the American Union. That it might be perpetual was the fervent wish of every Southern soul. It was in large measure the work of Southern minds and hands. The Declaration of Independence itself was the offspring of Southern intellect. Southern valor contributed largely to maintain it. The Constitution was, in a great degree, the work of Southern men. Southern statesmen shaped and moulded the policy of the government, and the whole South felt just pride in the triumphs of the Union, so largely their own. It was not until the mournful conviction forced itself on the great Southern soul, reluctant to accept it at last, that this Union of States, created by the conjoint efforts of South and North, was about to be employed as an engine to destroy the South, that affection and reverence for it were weakened, and a determination made to abandon the Union and save the Constitution; and when the Union was abandoned by the Southern people, they immediately formed a union of their own, and built it upon the Constitution they had so long revered. They thus evinced, unmistakably that Union was desirable, and that the Constitution was acceptable, and among the first acts of the Confederate government, thus formed, was to try to establish terms of friendship with the United States, thus showing that no hostility was felt to the people, or to the government of the United States. A calm retrospect of the history of the United States affords just grounds for wonder that the sectional controversy, which culminated in attempted separation and war, was not terminated in their favor by the Southern States in the day of their power. The philosophic historian of the future, who, from the lofty eminence of truth, far removed from the impure atmosphere of prejudice and hate, by the clear light of the collected facts of history, shall view the course of events in the United States, will discover and record the solemn truth, that a reverential love for the Constitution and the Union, alike formed by our fathers, caused the people of the South to cling to the Union to their own peril, with a fatal delay; and that when a sense of danger proved stronger than sentiment it was too late. It was in the power of the South to have established a separate government, and assumed the guardianship of its own peculiar interests, for years after it became manifest that this alternative or despoilment would be forced upon it. As the Southern States had borne a full part in achieving American independence, and formed the Constitution and [239] Union, their people felt a just pride in the Union to which they had contributed so much, and shrank from the abhorrent thought of abandoning it until affection was lost in the realization that danger was imminent. Content with their institutions, and willing to allow others the full enjoyment of all their rights, the South sought not to meddle with the affairs of others, and asked only to be let alone in the quiet enjoyment of their own. But they were denied this, and continually were offended by the querulous voice of opposition to their peculiar institution and threatened with aggression. The feeble cry, which at first was uttered to unburden tender conscience, awakened by an imaginary responsibility for fancied sin committed by other people, oblivious of, or inattentive to its own, became at length the triumphant shout of a victorious host, arousing the too confiding South from its fancied security in the Union in which it was thus exposed; and then, when it was too late, was attempted what might sooner have been easily accomplished. The Southern people had beheld with painful solicitude the growth of a sentiment hostile to their interests from small beginnings to a vast political power, which at last exhibited strength sufficient to control a Presidential election, and culminated in a party triumph, hostile to their dearest rights. What were they to do? Were they to sit still and look supinely on and take no step to avert threatened injury? Were they to imitate the simple, who passeth heedlessly on, and is punished; or the prudent who foreseeth the evil, and avoideth it? The suggestion is readily and tauntingly made; they did not avoid it, but aggravated the evil they feared by the course pursued. The declaration is more easily made than proved. Who can say what would have been the result of quietly waiting the course of events? Has power ever been known to curb itself? Have enthusiasm and fanaticism ever placed impassable bounds to their excess? Would sentiment and religious fervor, quickened into zeal, and pressed into partisan service, have been contented with moderation in the exercise of official power? Would not the progress made and triumph gained soon have demanded greater? Let history answer. It is probably true that delay of action by the Southern people would have left them for a time in enjoyment of their rights; but how long, no one can tell or plausibly conjecture. We might have escaped the contest, to be precipitated upon our children or theirs; but a time surely would have come when the alternative would have [240] been presented of despoilment or resistance. How long it would have been postponed no one can tell. Whether our people acted wisely in doing as they did, or would have been gainers by delay, or were culpable in loving the Union so well and deferring action so long, must forever remain unanswered because unanswerable. All I seek to maintain is that, whether wise or unwise, the course of the South was justified by well-founded apprehensions of danger of great injury, as indicated by demonstrations apparently hostile and threatening on the part of the North; and that the indictment against the Southern people for wantonly and capriciously surrendering the ties that bind them to the Union is calumnious and unmaintainable. The false view so often urged, that mad ambition incited prominent leaders, who misled the Southern people, is wholly groundless. Never was the enthusiasm of the masses more nearly universal. History records no instance of greater approximation to unanimity among a people than characterized our Southern movement. True, there were differences of opinion as to what was best to be done, but the apprehension was general and the conviction universal that danger was iminent and that something must be done, in some way, to avert it. Surely the universality of the apprehension was an indication of some just ground for such widespread concern. All classes and conditions shared the feeling. The non-slaveholder of the day, most generally, was found in the front rank of the advocates of action, while those who hesitated and were disposed to delay were ofttimes most largely interested in the great institution supposed to be directly imperilled by the crisis upon the country. When the mists of prejudice which now, to some extent, envelop it shall have been dispelled, and our cause shall be seen as it was by the unobstructed view of impartial history, full justice will be done to the motives of the Confederates, as has already been done to their valor. The valor of our people compelled recognition, for it was so conspicuous, so tangible and manifest it could not but be seen, admired and acknowledged. But motive is not thus capable at once of securing recognition, and the subjection of our motives to persistent misrepresentation has partially succeeded in obscuring from view the true impelling cause of our action; and besides this, we encountered the prejudices of the civilized world in our struggle for the maintenance of an institution which had received its condemnation. It devolves on us, who were part of it, to vindicate the truth of our [241] history and preserve our self-respect in the same spirit in which we render true allegiance to our present government. I will not be understood as counseling the cherishing of a feeling of bitterness to the government of the United States. Far from it. I affirm that the same principle which animated the ardent Confederate in expousing the cause of the Confederacy will inspire his devotion to any government of which he is a citizen. In both cases it is love of country—an extension of the principle of self-love, born in every heart and going forth to family and country in its enlarging circle. A man loves his country, partly because it is his, partly from association, and partly from sentiment and duty in return for its benefits and protection. The government of the United States, in return for justice and kindness and trust, could find no truer, braver, more attached people than the late Confederates. If there has been backwardness on the part of the people of the Southern States to accept in full the results it was because they involved a complete revolution of all their thoughts and feelings and sentiments—that their traditional ideas were shocked, their pride mortified, their sentiments offended, their sense of propriety disregarded — that their whole moral nature has been violently outraged in what they have been called to endure. No wonder they were not ready to sing paeans to the Union which called them to submit to so much that is distasteful, when they had so recently mourned the cause they loved so well and for which they had endured so much. Surely, enlightened statesmen can properly appreciate and tolerate a feeling like this! and can realize the truth that they who were faithful, amid the terrible troubles of war, to the cause they espoused, will in time of trial prove equally faithful to another. It was natural, after the war had ended, by triumph on one side and defeat and subjugation on the other, that the ecstasy of delight on the one side should produce corresponding depression and bitterness on the other side of those chafing under defeat and goaded by the harassing taunts of the victors, as well as suffering under their inflictions. It is hard for the human mind to forget or forgive injuries, and between North and South there were mutual crimination and recrimination of real or imaginary grievances. Each party considered itself right and the other wrong, and had all the intensity of self-justification and condemnation of its adversary incident to such belief. The part of true wisdom and statesmanship is to accord to each a belief in the right, from its standpoint, and to do justice to [242] the impelling motives of both, and without wrangling over the no longer practical question of right, to admit the high qualities exhibited in the contest wherever found. I presume, if we had been in the North with the sentiments, ideas and interests incident to that position, we would have been in favor of war to maintain the Union, but being in the South, with the views, feelings, ideas and interests of that section, we yielded to them and were Confederates. I don't think a Northern man is to be blamed for going with the North, and vice versa. Locality has very much to do with our views and actions. There lives in the bosom a feeling sublime,
Of all it is the strongest tie;
Unvarying with every change of clime,
And only with life does it die:
'Tis the love that is borne for that lonely land,
That smiled at the hour of our birth;
'Tis the love that is planted by Nature's hand
For our sacred native Earth.
We are to a large extent creatures of education and the victims of circumstances. I would have been ashamed of any of my kindred if, being of the South, they had not united with the South in her heroic struggle, and am willing to accord to the people of the North the propriety of the same conduct I claim to have been right here. It is a great misfortune that the clearing away of the smoke of the last battle of the war was not the signal for the subsidence of the passions it excited; that statesmanship did not rule and guide the councils of the victorious government, and that the idea of merely preserving the Union, which had rallied all classes at the North in support of the war to that end, did not find its fulfillment in the disbandment of armies and the resumption of the former relation of the Southern States to the Union. It is sadder still to reflect on what might have been our condition, if passion and prejudice had not exerted their baleful influence and prevented us from the wise use of our opportunities. But it is not wise to repine, though it is a dictate of wisdom to profit by experience and adopt the salutatory suggestions of the past in our present and future. Animated by these sentiments I cherish devotion to the memory of the Confederate cause, for which so many gave their lives, and which is hallowed to [243] most of us by the recollection of dear ones sacrificed in its struggle. I would preserve, fresh as the flowers of spring, the recollection of all the virtues displayed in the Confederate contest. Though a lost cause-though branded by authority of the victor as treason, and its followers as traitors, I, for one am not ashamed of it. My holiest memories cluster around it. No power can storm the fortress of a resolute heart. When the Confederate banner was furled, we, as Confederates, in sadness accepting the result, while weeping bitter tears of unfeigned sorrow, and experiencing the poignancy of keenest grief at the termination of our efforts and disappointment of our fond hopes, in good faith assumed allegiance to our present government, and have maintained it; but it would be hypocrisy to pretend it was by choice, as it is treason to the memory of our gallant dead to confess the heart-condemned falsehood that our cause was not just. Our cause was just, our purpose honorable and upright, and attempted to be maintained by as noble a band as ever struck valiant blows for freedom and right. Falsehood cannot blacken it, malignity and calumny cannot disgrace it, misapprehension cannot dishonor it. It can never become odious until the men and women of the South forget what they owe to the memory of the gallant dead. Can this day ever come? Never, while the highest virtues of manhood find worshippers. Patriotism will always command respect. It is a principle inseparable from ourselves as social beings. Heroism excites admiration wherever displayed. It demands and receives tribute from the human heart, even though exhibited by the savage Modoc. When beheld in upholding the right, admiration swells into enthusiasm. We but do honor to the nobler impulses of the soul in cherishing with grateful and affectionate remembrance the memory of our sleeping heroes, and are only true to ourselves, in annual commemoration of their sacrifices, by decorating their nameless graves. They were patriots. They loved their country and died for it. They were heroes, and displayed their heroism in gallantly striving to maintain the right. Then let choicest flowers be thickly strewn by fair hands and pure hearts above our sleeping heroes, and if the unbidden tear shall drop, betokening awakened sympathy with a cause for which they fell, let not carping envy sit in judgment on the sacred grief of the heart and call it treason. Let us ever preserve a memorial of our struggle and its patriot heroes. The rainbow which spans the heavens amid the cloud, and with its varied hues of unrivalled brilliancy ravishes with its beauties all beholders, is a memorial of the covenant made [244] by God with all flesh to spare the earth from devastation by another flood. The Passover, so scrupulously observed every year by the children of Israel, by command of God, is a memorial of their great deliverance from Egyptian bondage. And the Lord's Supper, instituted by Christ for the observance of His followers, is a memorial of His sufferings and death, to show them forth until He comes. And though your Memorial Day is designed to commemorate no covenant, nor deliverance, nor salvation, it is becoming the fair women of this land to observe with annually recurring punctuality a memorial of the privations, hardships, perils and deaths of the noble martyrs to a cause they deemed right and loved unto death. Greater love can no man have for any cause than to be ready to die for it, and whether right or wrong we need not stop to inquire, for he is in truth a martyr who believes himself right and seals his faith with his life. Then let this Memorial Day be a permanent ordinance of Southern society, to be observed, with appropriate ceremonies, from generation to generation, as preservative of the memory of the heroic men who gave their lives for their country. And as the children of Israel when, annually commemorating the Passover, memorial of the greatest event in their national history, they were in after years asked by their children ‘What meaneth this?’ recounted the sublime history of their great deliverance by the direct interposition of Jehovah, and thus kept fresh in the minds of every generation the wonderful event, as well as testified their grateful appreciation of it before those far removed from it in point of time; so let us, as a people, with each returning spring, celebrate the day chosen as a reminder of our heroes, and thereby preserve the memory of their struggle and sacrifice, as well as testify our grateful remembrance and just appreciation of the cause for which they died. And when our children shall inquire, what mean these things? though we cannot with pride point to national deliverance, let us with fearless courage vindicate the memory of our dead from the aspersions of malignity, and narrate the true history of our Confederate struggle. Let us tell them that their fathers were impelled by an apprehension of danger seriously threatening momentous interests, and a natural desire to avert it; that they were aroused by a conviction of the necessity of action to avert calamity and obtain security to valuable rights; that their fathers of 1776 asserted independence of interference with their local interests and took up arms to sustain their course, and that the people of the South were more seriously threatened, and had far greater interests imperiled, and saw a government made for [245] common defence and general welfare about to be wrested from the purpose of its institution and employed as an instrument of their oppression and destruction; and thus situated, and thus believing, they imitated the example of the patriots of 1776, and sought, in peace and quiet, to assume the management of their own matters; that they declared their withdrawal from a Union that threatened the safety of their rights and institutions; that they formed a confederate government, taking the Constitution of the United States as its construction, with slight changes, and thus showed beyond dispute that their dissatisfaction in the Union was not with the Constitution, but with its threatened perversion; that by duly accredited agents they sought earnestly to avert the calamity of war with the United States; that these efforts were unavailing, and in spite of all their peaceful overtures, war did come, a long, devastating and calamitous war; that its shock was met with firmness and sustained with enthusiasm; that men rushed to arms; mothers surrendered sons, and wives their husbands, to the call of patriotism; that the sound of the fife and drum was heard in every village, and hills and dales resounded with the notes of martial music and echoed with the soldier's measured tread, while fair hands were busy in every household with preparation for the soldier's outfit, and Heaven's throne was besieged with importunate prayers from pulpits and altars for blessing on the youthful Confederacy, in which were centered the hopes of millions of trusting hearts; that after well sustained efforts, through four years of the varying fortunes of war, after ten thousand heroic deeds and deaths, the sun of the Confederacy set forever, in gloom and darkness; its bright banner, all covered with glory and renown, was furled on land and sea; its gallant soldiers dispersed; its music hushed; its votaries smitten with sadness and grief. But though lost it was not dishonored. Its history, though brief, was dazzling with brilliancy. Its arms, though unsuccessful, filled the world with their renown. Its struggle though a failure, showed the world how a brave people could dare and suffer and toil and die to maintain their rights; and recreant to the high trust committed to them will the survivors of the sad contest be, if the time shall ever come when the dead heroes of the struggle shall be forgotten, or their memory permitted to be tarnished with the uncontradicted slanders of ignorance or hate.
