Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/266

252 we can; let us continue to hallow it in our memory, and still pray that

His eulogy of the old flag was so full of Union sentiment that it was regarded as treasonable; and Brooke was severely rebuked. William Porcher Miles, of South Carolina, the chairman of the committee, protested against the resolution and the utterance of the mover. He gloried more, a thousand times, in the palmetto flag of his State.

He had regarded from his youth the Stars and Stripes as an emblem of oppression and tyranny. He was so warmly applauded that Brooke, at the suggestion of a friend, withdrew his motion.

W. W. Boyce, of South Carolina, who had been a member of United States Congress seven years, presented a model for a flag which he had received, with a letter, from Mrs. C. Ladd, of Winnsboro, who described it as "tri-colored, with a red union, seven stars, and the crescent moon."

She offered her three boys to her country, and suggested "Washington Republic" as a name for the new nation.

In presenting the flag, Boyce said: "I will take the liberty of sending her letter to the Congress. It is full of authentic lire. It is worthy of Rome in her best days, and might well have been read in the Roman Senate on that disastrous day when the victorious banner of the great Carthaginian was visible from Mont Aventine. And I may add, sir, that as long as our women are impelled by these sublime sentiments, and our mountains yield the metals out of which the weapons are forged, the lustrous stars of our unyielding Confederacy will never pale their glorious fires, though baffled oppression may threaten with its impotent sword, or, more dangerous still, seek to beguile with the siren song of conciliation."

Chilton, Tombs, Stephens and others presented devices for flags. They were sent in daily from the cotton-growing States, a great many of them showing attachment to the old banner, yet accompanied by the most fervid expressions of sympathy with the Southern cause.