Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/347

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out the South of camps like this, whose fame has been blown throughout the land, and where we are drawn together, not merely to do to each other, and especially to our suffering poor, the offices of mutual benefit for the here and the hereafter, through the agency >l men who become devoted to the greatness of self-sacrifice, and of women who become heroic in ministration; where we not only enjov the pleasure of recounting glorious memories of a splendid past; but where we have rescued from oblivion and saved to our posterity the rich heritage of a veracious history of immortal glory wrought by Confederate valor.

Shall we barter this for gold ? Worst of all, shall we, whose past at least is secure, who have saved honor where we have saved nothing else; who have realized in its highest form the Greek con- ception of a man that he is the animal whose countenance is turned to Heaven get down upon our knees and crawl to the footstool of the Federal throne, and beg a bounty for what we failed to hold by our arms. No ! a thousand times, no !

INCONSISTENT WITH SELF-RESPECT.

Major Otey means kindly by us, and he is right when he declares our hearty and undying loyalty to the flag of the common country; he is correct in assuming that should war come the Confederate soldier will be found carrying that flag to heights as great as any soldier may reach, let them be as high as the stars, which it types. But neither he nor any Southern representative shall ever, with our consent, place us in any attitude like that of this bill, which is incon- sistent with our self-respect, and stains the record, to whose purity we devote and consecrate ourselves, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

If, at some future date, an American Congress, listening to the voice of some gallant representative of the North, should desire, in the general interest, to consecrate American valor, as it was illus- trated by the Confederate soldier, in some form, alike appropriate and pleasing, our loyalty would not be enhanced, because that is impossible; but we should find in our fellow-citizens to the north of us the real brothers whom we are most anxious to discover.