Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/75

 Ceremo7iies at Unveiling of Statue of General Lee. 69

titude in adversity. O, pater patrice ! living, as it were, "in an inverted order," and mourning, sternly and inconsolably, over the dead country, salve et vale fl

If these charges against Lee are true, the urgent question presents itself: What do we here to-day; erecting a monument to a deserter or a traitor ?

To magnify the deeds of our heroes, without at the same time vindicating the cause for which they were done, would be to ignore that which gives to those deeds their highest merit and grace and beauty. Mere brute courage, and even the highest military skill, are not, of themselves, fit subjects for commemoration in monu- mental brass. A pirate captain has often fought in defence of his black flag with as desperate bravery and as consummate art as Nelson at Trafalgar or Lawrence on the decks of the Constitution. A bandit chief might display as much devotion, skill and courage in defending some mountain pass, the key to the lair of his band, as were exhibited by Leonidas at Thermopylae. But we do not build monuments to these.

We cannot afford to sink our heroes to the level of mere prize- fighters, who deluged a continent in blood without just right or lawful cause.

Remembering that we are here, as Americans, to do honor to one of the greatest of Americans — gratefully acknowledging the presence of many of those who fought against Lee, and who have chivalrously accepted our invitation to participate in these ceremonies — I have anxiously asked myself whether I might without just censure under- take to speak in defence of the cause of Lee.

Two decades have passed since the Confederate flag was folded to its eternal rest. The Union is restored. The wounds of in- ternecine strife are healed. An affluent tide of patriotism, welling from the hearts of a reunited people, rolls with resistless ebb and flow through the length and breadth of a common country, and breaks with equal volume upon the Southern as upon the Northern confines of the Republic. All men agree that we live to-day under a Constitution, the meaning and effect of which have, in certain particulars, been as definitely setded in a sense opposed to that contended for by the Southern States in the recent conflict, as if it had been, in those respects, expressly amended. This has been effected by the inveterate res adjudicata of war, from which there is no appeal, and no desire to appeal. We, the people of the South, have renewed our unreserved allegiance to the Constitution