Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/192

 ] 80 Southern Historical Society Papers.

You have done well, men and women of Tennessee. With peace- ful hands you have won back more than your fathers lost.

"I wonder sometimes whether, when the great balances of the universe are poised and the great judgments of the Ancient of Days are rendered, whether even when the last human history is written of the war between the States, and the slow verdict of remote pos- terity is taken, the cause we loved will seem as lost as it once seemed to us. It may be that in the providence of God and the develop- ment of humanity these fearful sacrifices were necessary for the highest good of this nation and of the world. Truly in human ex- perience, without the shedding of blood, there is no redemption. Rather let us believe that the world is richer and better, purer and greater for the tragic story of forty years ago, and that the shed blood has brought blessing, honor, glory and power, incorruptible treasures of which a brave and noble people can never be despoiled.

PROSPERITY IS ASSURED.

" It is a source of joy to every one of us, as we make our annual pilgrimage to meet together, when we saw how prosperous our country has grown. At last I think we all feel that the prosperity of the land is assured. When the savings of all previous genera- tions were consumed in the common disaster, it seemed for a while as if the South has to face the bitterness of poverty for generations to come. Statesmanship, literature, art, culture, flowers of leisure and opportunity were to remain forever withered on the soil once so congenial; nothing was to be left but the hard struggle with adver- sity till the bitter end.

'' 1 think we are fully convinced now that the South is fully on its feet again. In material prosperity we have now not only reached, but have surpassed the achievements of our fathers; yet, when I look about me for the men who are to enter into the garden which you, my brave comrades, have made blossom under such hard conditions, I cannot but be sensible to the incomparable loss which the South sustained. The tongues \vhich would have commanded the applause of senates were never heard after the cry of battle was over; the genius that might have directed the counsel of nations breathed its last upon some forgotten skirmish line. The very flower and pride of our people perished in our battle front and the blood of our race lost much of its most magnificent strain when they went to their graves.