Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/142

 142 Southern Historical Society Papers.

The land we celebrate to-night the land of brave and honest men, of maids and mothers virtuous and true, of statesmen, sages, and heroes the land whose whole history is marked by great deeds and redolent of glorious memories the land of Washington and his great compatriots the land in whose battle-scarred bosom sleep Lee and his great Lieutenants, Stuart, Hill, and Jackson, with the unnumbered thousands of those gallant men who followed them with hearts as brave that is the land we celebrate to-night.

The day, the man, the cause, the land, we meet to honor are all forever linked with the history, the wonderful rise and the untimely fall of that Confederacy of States which in four short years for years are as nothing in the lifetime of nations earned for itself an immor- tality of glory, and then gave place to a Union which from our hearts we pray may endure forever " an indestructible Union of indestruc- tible States" founded on mutual confidence, mutual respect, and the eternal principles of truth, justice, and right.

" Ah ! realm of tombs but let her bear

This blazon to the last of time : No nation rose so white and fair Or fell so free of crime.

"An angel's tongue, an angel's mouth,

Not Homer's, could alone for me Hymn well the great Confederate South Virginia first and Lee."

GOVERNOR McKINNEY SPEAKS.

Governor McKinney responded to the next sentiment, Virginia She holds as a sacred trust the ashes of her dead ; she feeds with bounteous hand her living sons ; she looks with calm hope to a better future. " If honor calls, where'er she points the way, the sons of honor follow and obey." Churchill.

The speaker began by saying he had listened with pleasure to Major Stringfellow's oration.

Virginia had on every occasion been able to furnish a man to meet the emergency. When in the Union she was looked upon as a leech, and when in the Confederacy she was regarded as the foremost State of the South.

Virginia was the first State where free religion obtained. She was for independence when others were uncertain. The climatic condi- tions conduced to the growth of brave men ; It was not warm enough