Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/173

 GRADY

THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW*

(1886)

Born in 1851, died in 1889; for many years Editor of the Atlanta Constitution.

There was a South of slavery and secession — that South is dead. There is a South of union and freedom — that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour.

These words, delivered from the immortal lips of Benjamin H. Hill, at Tammany Hall in 1866, true then and truer now, I shall make my text to-night.

Mr. President and Gentlemen, let me express to you my appreciation of the kindness by which I am permitted to address you. I make this abrupt acknowledgment advisedly, for I feel that if, when I raise my provincial voice in this ancient and august presence, I could find cour- age for no more than the opening sentence, it would be well if in that sentence I had met in

1 Delivered before the New England Society at its annual dinner In New York City, December 12, 1880— a speech which made him at the time a national figure. Grady afterward said: " When I found myself on my feet, every nerve in my body was strung as tight as a fiddle string and all tingling. I knew then that I had a message for that assemblage. As soon &s I opened my mouth It came rushing out.'*' Abridged.

141

�� �