Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/44

 similar instance is to be found of such spontaneous uprising and volunteering. Inspired by a holy patriotism, again and again have our brave soldiers, with the aid of Heaven, baffled the efforts of our foes. It is in no arrogant spirit that we refer to successes that have cost us so much blood, and brought sorrow to so many hearts. We may find in all this an earnest of what, with determined and resolute exertion, we can do to avert subjugation and slavery—and we cannot fail to discern in our deliverance from so many and so great perils the interposition of that Being who will not forsake us in the trials that are to come. Let us, then, looking upon the bodies of our loved and honored dead, catch inspiration from their example, and gather renewed confidence and a firmer resolve to tread, with unfaltering trust, the path that leads to honor and peace, although it lead through tears and suffering and blood.

We have no alternative but to do our duty. We combat for property, homes, the honor of our wives, the future of our children, the preservation of our fair land from pollution, and to avert a doom which we can read, both in the threats of our enemies and the acts of oppression, we have alluded to in this address.

The situation is grave, but furnishes no just excuse for despondency. Instead of harsh criticisms on the Government and our generals; instead of bewailing the failure to accomplish impossibilities, we should rather be grateful, humbly and profoundly, to a benignant Providence, for the results that have rewarded our labors. Remembering the disproportion in population, in military and naval resources, and the deficiency of skilled labor in the South, our accomplishments have surpassed those recorded of any people in the annals of the world. There is no just reason for hopelessness or fear. Since the outbreak of the war the South has lost the nominal possession of the Mississippi river and fragments of her territory; but Federal occupancy is not conquest. The fires of patriotism still burn unquenchably in the breasts of those who are subject to foreign domination. We yet have in our uninterrupted control a territory, which, according to past progress, will require the enemy ten years to overrun.

The enemy is not free from difficulties. With an enormous debt, the financial convulsion, long postponed, is surely coming. The short crops in the United States and abundant harvests in Europe will hasten what was otherwise inevitable. Many sagacious persons at the North discover in the usurpations of their Government the certain overthrow of their liberties. A large number revolt from