Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/360

 360 Southern Historical Society Papers.

To this task of collection we invite the immediate attention and co-operation of our copatriots throughout the South, to facilitate which we propose the organization of State and district associations, that our whole people may be brought in harmony of action in this important matter.

The rapid changes through which the institutions of the country are now passing, and the still more stupendous revolutions in the opinions of men, remind us that we stand to-day upon the outer verge of a great historic cycle, within which a completed past will shortly be enclosed. Another cycle may touch its circumference, but the events it shall embrace will be gathered around another historic centre, and the future historian will pronounce that in stepping from the one to the other he has entered upon another and separate volume of the nation's record.

Let us, who are soon to be in that past to which we properly belong, see that there are no gaps in the record.

Thus shall we discharge a duty to the fathers whose principles we inherit ; to the children, who will then know whether to honor or to dishonor the sires that begot them ; and, above all, to the dead heroes sleeping on the vast battle plains, from the Susquehannah to the Rio Grande, whose epitaph history yet waits to engrave upon their tombs.

The funds raised by initiation fees, assessments, donations, and lectures, after defraying the current expenses, will be appropriated to the safe-keeping of the archives, and publication of the transactions.

For the accomplishment of these ends contributions are respect- fully solicited from all parties interested in the establishment and pros- perity of the Southern Historical Society.

Contributions to the archives and library of the Society are respect- fully solicited under the following specific divisions :

1. The histories and historical collections of the individual States from the earliest periods to the present time, including travels, jour- nals and maps.

2. Complete files of the newspapers, periodical, literary, scientific and medical journals of the Southern States, from the earliest times to the present day, including especially the period of the recent American civil war.

3. Geological, topographical, agricultural, manufacturing and com- mercial reports, illustrating the statistics, climate, soil, resources, products and commerce of the Southern States.

4. Works, speeches, sermons and discourses relating to the recent