Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/97

 Addres* / ///'. I:. '/'. /;.//,//. 85

will find in it the political theories which may torment us by and by. Community of property, and the total absorption of the individual in the body politic.

" Nothing," says the first article of this Code, "belongs wholly to any one property is detestable, and any one who attempts to re- establish it shall be imprisoned for life as a dangerous madman, and an enemy to humanity."

The second article declares " That every citizen shall be kept, and maintained, and supplied with work at the public expense. "

" All produce shall be gathered into public garners, to be distrib- uted to citizens for their subsistence."

" All children shall be taken from their families at five years of age, and educated together on a uniform plan."

DeTocqueville, the most sincere and philosophic political writer of the last century, says of the principles I have quoted from the Code of Nature:

" So true it is that centralization and socialism are natives of the same soil one is the wild herb, the other the garden plant."

"Truth is the daughter of time."

The industrial armies now converging on Washington are but the first of a thunder shower.

The men who followed the fortunes of the Confederacy were descended almost entirely from a common ancestry.

The armies of the Confederate States were distinguished by the same general characteristics.

There were local influences which modified or exalted these char- acteristics.

The general level, however, was uniform.

Hence it is unjust to say that the soldiers of this State or that State fought best; all did well, and if on any given battle-field of the war, the dead of North Carolina, or Virginia, or any other State, fell nearest the enemy, it was the accident of fortune.

The men devoted themselves to duty even unto death.

If any considerable number of Confederate soldiers had been cut off from their commands, and left without orders, the characteristics of the men would have asserted themselves.

They would have done the best possible in their situation each a soldier each a commander.

The North Carolina soldiers were noted for their self-control and