Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/27

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these brave endeavors were repressed awhile l>y the errors of recon- struction and hindered by panics which they did not cause, yet through tin- wisdom, the courage, and the enterprise of these soldiers and their sons, their wives and their daughters, this irrepressible land is now waking up the world to gaze upon the sunrise of the South- ern day, and calling it to participate in that coming splendor which another census will reveal. The wayfaring man must be more than a fool who will not see the signs at the cross roads of prosperity pointing Southward. The bounty of Almighty God has endowed this land of the South with all the resources which a great people re- quire. Arable soil, stately forests, water powers, climate salubrious and soft; marble, stone, coal and mineral ores; great rivers, ample harbors, ocean shores and gulf coasts; mountain ranges, hills and valleys. It lies in broad beauty upon that middle belt of the North- ern Hemisphere, along which the brightest star of human achieve- ment has moved since the earliest historic age, and its richness exactly meets the demand for those elements by which man may attain to his highest estate of liberty, enlightenment and religion.

It is not a New South that has thus burst into sight like some freshly found planet, which has been formed with regravitated frag- ments which lately wandered in the skies. Not a New South but it is truly the Greater South flowering forth under new conditions from the stem of the old plant and out of the rich original soil. THE ( iki ATER SOUTH! May it be matched by a Greater East, a Greater West, a Greater North, and all these in the Union of their graces display to the world the greater glory of our matchless Country Tin: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

THE SOUTH AND THE FUTURE.

The South is now newly girded with strength and purpose to increase in all respects the true greatness of the American Union. It enjoys at this day a mediatory position which will enable it to re- move political asperity and to bring all differences to the fair plane of conservative, patriotic discussion. The South has its views, but they are in the Bill of Rights as taught by the old and new patriots of all States. It will stand firmly by those sacred original ideas. It will continue to ask for an uncorrupted preservation of the cardinal principles of the old Revolution and the strict observance of consti- tutional law. It will still maintain that our system of government is