Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/15

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h: then draw a lim- along the northern boundary of Maryland and due we.st toward tin- Mississippi river, then northward to the Canada line, then along our northern limits to the Pacific Ocean, and from theme down the Pacific coast to the southern part of California, where you will turn eastward to the mouth of the Rio Grande and follow the islands of the Gulf around the Florida keys, and still on in the course of the Gulf stream sweep up the Atlantic shores by Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland, to the beginning point! Look, my countrymen, at that wondrous imperium in iwfierio, containing two-thirds of the nation's land, one-half its population, and destined to be the home of two hundred millions of free people that land came into the Union by the munificence of Maryland, Vir- ginia, the Carolinas and Georgia; it was won from the crowns of Eng- land, Spain, France and Mexico by the blood of the brave, or bought by the taxes of the people; it was all brought into the family of the free and sovereign States of this American Republic through a consistent, persistent, far-seeing Southern policy! But lest this historical statement shall seem to be a sectional boast, I bid you as patriots to cast your eyes proudly upon your country's territorial greatness and see it as it begins to appear in the eyes of the nations. Reflect on the common achievements of your countrymen in war and peace, and then nobly stand in your place with all States and people in the Union to repeat the words of the President: "We have built a magnificent fabric of popular government whose grand proportions are seen throughout the world."

II.

THE SOUTH IN OUR COUNTRY'S WARS.

We will enter next into brief and cold statistics which only vaguely show the martial patriotism of the South in the wars of the Republic. A country's fame is made great in part by the heroism of its people in times of wars. We have a heroic history, in which the patriotic valor and sacrifices of our people were so evenly balanced as to leave all sections wondrously rich in fame. Our "forefathers" were New Englanders as well as Virginians, and there are names that can never be made sectional : Ethan Allen and Francis Marion ; John Starke and Harry Lee ; Nathaniel Greene and George Washington who divides these martial heroes into North and South! Jefferson and 1 ranklin twin sages; Madison and Adams twin statesmen; Henry and Otis twin storms in debate : who can separate these civic chiefs