Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/378

 362 Southern Historical Society Papers.

columned mansions under cool spreading groves, its orange trees waving their sprays of snowy blossoms, and its cotton fields stretch- ing away to the horizon, alive with toiling slaves, who sang as they toiled from early morn until the close of day; its pomp and pride and revelry; its splendid manhood and the dazzling beauty of its women, placed it in history as the high-tide of earthly glory. But the hurricane of civil war shattered it and swept it away. Billions of wealth dissolved, and vanished in smoke and flame. The South lost all save honor. But the Confederate soldier, the purest and proudest type of the Anglo-Saxon race, stood erect amid its charred and blackened ruins. The earth was red beneath him, the sky was black above him, his sword was broken, his country was crushed. But without a throne he was no less a ruler; his palace had perished, he was no less a king.

Slavery was dead, but magnificent in the gloom of defeat, he was still a master. Has he not mastered adversity ? Has he not built the ruined South ?

Look yonder at those flashing domes and glittering spires; look at the works of art and all the fabrics and pictured tapestries of beauty. Look what southern brains and southern hands have wrought. See the victories of peace we have won, all represented within the white columns of our great industrial exposition, and you will receive an inspiration of the Old South, and you will catch glimpses of her future glory.

I trust in God that the struggles of the future will be the strug- gles of peace and not of war. The hand of secession will never be lifted again.

DANGER TO THE REPUBLIC.

The danger to the republic now lies in the mailed hand of central- ized .power, and the South will yet be the bulwark of American lib- erty. If you ask me why, I answer, it is the only section left which is purely American; I answer that anarchy cannot live on southern soil; I answer that the South has started on a new line of march, and while we love the past for its precious memories, our faces are turned toward the morning. Time has furled the battle-flags and smelted the hostile guns. Time has torn down the forts and levelled the trenches and rifle-pits on the bloody field of glory, where courage and high-born chivalry on prancing chargers once rode to the front with, shimmering epaulets and bright swords gleaming; where thou- sands of charging bayonets, at uniform angles, reflected thousands of