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and friend. He is lost to us as our leader in labor for the truth. I am here not to supply his place. No one can know, as I do, how- unequal I am to such an undertaking; but I am about to try, as best I may, to carry out the plans he had formed, to obey his instruc- tions, all unconsciously given. I persuade myself that in this at- tempt I shall have your kind indulgence.

SOUTH NOT THE AGGRESSORS.

The evening before Dr. McGuire was stricken with the malady which forever incapacitated him for any earthly service, I was with him, and, as was frequently the case, we were talking of the Con- federate war. In the course of the conversation, he alluded to the Report of last year, and feelingly expressed his just pride in the way you received it. He then said: " I am already making preparations for my next Report. I intend in that to vindicate the South from the oft-repeated charge that we were the aggressors in bringing on the war; " and he then added: " This will be my last ' labor of love ' for the dear Southern people." Within less than twenty hours from the time that sentence was spoken, the splendid intellect that con- ceived it was a mournful wreck, and the tongue which gave it utter- ance was paralyzed.

My task, therefore, is to show that "your Chairman was right in saying that the South was not the aggressor in bringing on the war; that, on the contrary, we did all that honorable men could do in the vain attempt to avert it all that could be done without debasing the men and women of the South with conscious disgrace, and leaving to our children a heritage of shame; and I shall further prove that the Northern people with Abraham Lincoln at their head, brought on the war by provocation to war and by act of war; and that they were and aref therefore, directly responsible for all the multiplied woes which resulted therefrom. In doing this, I shall quote almost exclusively from Northern sources; and, whilst I cannot hope to bring to your attention at this late day anything that is new, I do hope that, by reiterating and repeating some of the old facts, I shall be able to revive impressions which may have faded from the minds of some; I shall hope, too, to reach the many, many others, espe- cially the young, who have been the victims of false teaching with respect to these facts, or have had no opportunity, or perhaps, little disposition, to become familiar with them.