Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/358

 350 Southern Historical Society Papers.

guidance of God, may be trusted to deal with him kindly, gene- rously and magnanimously, but so effectually that the divorce shall be eternal, and we shall have no mongrelized government or race anywhere within this union.

As a spirit of Lee lives, so the spirit and the underlying instincts and purposes of the Confederacy live. These were for the main- tenance of the rights of the States, the rights of local self-govern- ment, the rights of the individual against the mass, even against the government itself. The right of secession from the Union was the only right of the States surrendered at Appomattox. The other rights promised by the Constitution remain and ought to be inviolate, and in the defence of them California is as immediately and as deeply interested as Virginia; Massachusetts is as anxious and as determined as Florida. The tendency toward centralization of power and authority extends from the government to the corpo- ration and the individual stockholder, and the minority find them- selves alike helpless, their rights disregarded, their protests unheeded, their interests not considered; against all this it is the right, the duty and the high priviledge of Lee's people to fight and to lead the way. The country is caught, but only for the moment, between the upper and nether millstones. We have in- corporated capital and power on the one side threatening our very right to breathe. We have the Federal government on the other side offering rescue at the cost of breaking the bulwarks of the State lines, making the imperial Commonwealths dependencies by the surrender of the sovereignty of the States.

Steady and stern and sure of purpose as Lee's veterans with measured tramp moving on to battle, let the States of the South move; the States that never have and never can be frightened or bought because their people can not be scared or bribed.

This time the Union will be with them in the demand that the central government shall recognize itself as the servant of the States, bound to help and serve them, pledged and doubly bound by double and inviolate vow not to attempt to usurp their functions or powers, not to disregard their prerogatives.

Gigantic combinations of capital are neither healthy nor necess- ary for the surest and highest development of a country. The great question is how big is it good to be, and at what point should "sovereign law the States collected will" step in and say, "so far