Address of J. C. C. Black, at the unveiling of the Hill statue, Atlanta, Georgia, May 1, 1886.
[Hon. B. H. Hill bore no unworthy part in the great Confederate struggle, and we are glad to be able to preserve in our records the following eloquent tribute to his memory by our gallant friend who rode with John H. Morgan during the war, and who has so well illustrated what ‘the men who wore the gray’ can do in peace.]Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
History has furnished but one perfect character, humanity has but one example in all things worthy of imitation. And yet all ages and countries have recognized that those who, devoting themselves to the public service have led the people through great perils, and by distinguished careers added to the just renown of their country, were entitled to their highest respect, honor and veneration.
The children of Israel wept for their great leader and deliverer on the plains of Moab. The men of Athens gathered at the graves of those who fell at Marathon and pronounced panegyrics upon them. This sentiment is an honor to the living as well as the dead. It is just, for no merely human pursuit is higher than that public service which honestly and intelligently devotes itself to the common weal. There is no study more worthy of the highest faculties of the mind than that which seeks after the nature of civil government, applies it to its legitimate uses and ends, and properly limits its powers. No object is more worthy of the noblest philanthropy of the heart than society and the State. It is not only honorable and just, but like all high sentiment, it is useful—for honors to the dead are incentives to the living. Monuments to our great and good should be multiplied. May I take the liberty on this occasion of suggesting to the bar and people of the State to provide a fitting memorial to the distinguished Chief Justice who so long presided over our Supreme Court, whose decisions are such splendid specimens of judicial research and learning, and whose career recalls Wharton's picture of Nottingham ‘seated upon his throne with a ray of glory about his head, his ermine [164] without spot or blemish, his balance in his right hand, mercy on his left, splendor and brightness at his feet, and his tongue dispensing truth, goodness, virtue and justice to mankind.’ And by its side and worthy of such association, another to commemorate the sturdy virtue, unswerving fidelity under great trials, and worthy public career of that other Chief Justice who so recently passed from among us. The public disposition to honor the dead too often finds its only expression in the resolutions of public assemblies, and the exhibition in public places of emblems of mourning soon to be removed.
‘And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.’ Too often the great and good lie in unknown sepulchres, or, if known, they are unmarked by any lasting monument. When the feeling does chrystalize in enduring marble or granite in most cases it is after painful effort and long delay. Eighteen years elapsed after the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument, erected by the patriotism of New England, before its completion was celebrated. The statue of Chief Justice Marshall, appointed during the second administration, was unveiled within a very recent period. Immediately after his death, in 1799, Congress voted a marble monument to Washington. Half a century elapsed before the foundation was laid. After this, for seven and thirty years, it remained unfinished. Although intended to commemorate the life and character of him who was ‘first in the hearts of his countrymen,’ and had just claims upon the treasury of the government, it stood as if insulting him whom it should have honored, symbol of nothing but the ingratitude of the country, prophecy of nothing but a broken Constitution, a divided people and a disrupted Union. Its completion was not celebrated until the 21st day of February, 1885—more than three-quarters of a century after the resolution of Congress voting it.
The history of these similar organizations marks with peculiar emphasis that of the Association whose completed work we come to celebrate with becoming ceremony. Amidst profound and universal expressions of grief at the public calamity to the country inflicted by his death—on the 18th day of August, 1882, his body was buried to await the dawn of that resurrection day of which he so beautifully wrote after he could no longer speak. Within a few days after his burial, a public meeting was called to assemble in the State capitol on the 29th day of August thereafter. That meeting resolved itself into an organization that undertook the patriotic duty of commemorating [165] his public life by some fit and enduring memorial. The success, brilliant as his own resplendent career, which calls us together within less than half a decade after its inauguration to crown the completion of its work, is highly honorable to those who have achieved it, but most honorable to him who inspired it. It has few, if any, parallels. It is in itself a more fitting and eloquent oration than human language can pronounce, for that may speak in exaggerated phrase of the worth of the dead and the sorrow of the living; this is love's own tribute; this is grief's truthful expression.
As we come to dedicate this statue to his name and memory, all the surroundings are most auspicious. No place could have preferred a claim above this. It was his own home; it is the Capital of the State, and his fame is a common heritage. The progressive spirit that has already made this populous and growing city the pride of every citizen, the wonder of every stranger, shall furnish opportunity to speak, as it shall speak, to the largest number of beholders. It is the time, too, when all over this Southern land, in the observance of a custom that should be perpetuated, fair women and brave men pay tribute to our dead. May we not think of the spirits of our honored dead who preceded him in our history, as well as those of his worthy cotemporaries, coming from that world where no uncharity misjudges, no prejudice blinds, no jealousy suspicions, to hover over us and rejoice in the tributes of this day. And surely, if the honor this occasion pays the dead could be enhanced, or the joy it imparts to the living could be heightened by human presence, we have that augmented honor, and that elevated joy in the presence of one worthily ranked among the most renowned of the living, whose strength of devotion to our lamented dead has overcome the infirmities of age, and the weariness of travel, and who comes to mingle his praises with ours. Illustrious son of the South, thy silent presence is loftier tribute than spoken oration or marble statue or assembled thousands. Alas! Alas! we this day mourn the silence of the only tongue that could fittingly and adequately voice the honor we would confer upon thee. Beside the grave of him who never swerved in his devotion to thee and the cause of which thou wert and art the worthy representative, we this day acknowledge thy just claim upon the confidence, esteem, love and veneration of ourselves and our posterity. May these auspicious surroundings help us to commemorate the life and character of him in whose honor we are assembled, and move us with the higher purposes of devotion to our State and country that life and character inspire. [166]
As a son of Georgia he eminently merits this enduring memorial and all the honors conferred by this vast concourse of his grateful and admiring countrymen. Born upon her soil, reared among her people, educated at her schools, permeated by the influences of her society and civilization, he plead with an eloquence unsurpassed by any of her sons for whatever would promote her weal, and warned against every danger his sagacious eye detected threatening her prosperity. Called into public service at an early age, he at once gave assurance of the high distinction he afterwards attained. For years his public career was a struggle against prevailing principles and policies he believed to be dangerous, and he stood conspicuous against as powerful a combination of ability and craft as ever ruled in the politics of any State. Upon every field where her proudest gladiators met, he stood the peer of the knightliest. He did not always achieve popular success, but that has been true of the greatest and best. His apparent failures to achieve victory only called for a renewal of the struggle with unbroken spirit and purpose. Failure he did not suffer, for his very defeats were victories. To say, as may be justly said, that he was conspicuous among those who have made our history for thirty years is high encomium. During that period the most memorable events of our past have transpired. It recalls besides his own the names and careers of Stephens, Toombs, the Cobbs, Johnson and Jenkins. In what sky has brighter galaxy ever shone? The statesmanship, the oratory, the public and private virtue it exhibits should swell every breast with patriotic pride. In some of the highest qualifications of leadership none of his day surpassed him. He did not seek success by the schemes of hidden caucus or crafty manipulation. He won his triumphs on the arena of open, fair debate before the people. An earnest student of public questions, he boldly proclaimed his conclusions. The power of opposing majorities did not deter him. As a leader of minorities he was unequalled. As an orator at the forum, before a popular assembly or Convention, in the House of Representatives, or the Senate Chamber in Congress, he was the acknowledged equal of the greatest men who have illustrated our State and national history for a quarter of a century. He was thoroughly equipped with a masterly logic, a captivating eloquence, a burning invective, a power of denunciation—with every weapon in the armory of spoken and written language, and used all with a force and skill that entitled him as a debater to the highest distinction, While the most unfriendly criticism cannot deny him the highest gifts of oratory, some have withheld from him [167] the praise due to that calm judgment that looks at results, that political foresight that belongs to a wise statesmanship. Judged by this just standard, who among the distinguished sons of Georgia, in that period when her people most needed that judgment and sagacity, is entitled to a higher honor? Who more clearly foresaw in the clouds that flecked our political sky the storm that was coming? What watchman, stationed to signal the first approach of danger, had more far-reaching vision? What pilot, charged with the guidance of the ship of State, struggled more earnestly to guide it into clearer skies and calmer seas? With that devotion to the Union that always characterized him, and believing that the wrongs of which we justly complained could be better redressed in than out of the Union, or had better be borne than the greater evils that would follow dissolution, he opposed the secession of the State. We may not now undertake to trace the operation of the causes that brought about that event. We can justly appreciate how it could not appear to others as it did to us. As to us, it was not prompted by hatred of the Union resting in the consent of the people, and governed by the Constitution of our fathers. It was not intended to subvert the vital principles of the government they founded, but to perpetuate them. The government of the new did not differ in its form or any of its essential principles from the old Confederacy. The Constitutions were the same, except such changes as the wisdom of experience suggested. The Southern Confederacy contemplated no invasion or conquest. Its chief corner-stone was not African slavery. Its foundations were laid in the doctrines of the Fathers of the Republic, and the chief corner-stone was the essential fundamental principle of free government; that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Its purpose was not to perpetuate the slavery of the black race, but to preserve the liberty of the white race of the South. It was another declaration of American Independence. In the purity of their motives, in the loftiness of their patriotism, in their love of liberty, they who declared and maintained the first were not wortheir than they who declared, and failed, in the last. Animated by such purposes, aspiring to such destiny, feeling justified then (and without shame now), we entered upon that movement. It was opposed by war on the South and her people. What was the South, and who were her people? There are those who seem to think she nurtured a Upas whose very shadow blighted wherever it fell, and made her civilization inferior. What was that civilization? Let its products as seen in the people it produced, [168] and the character and history of that people answer. Where do you look for the civilization of a people? In their history, in their achievements, in their institutions, in their character, in their men and women, in their love of liberty and country, in their fear of God, in their contributions to the progress of society and the race. Measured by this high standard, where was there a grander and nobler civilization than hers? Where has there been greater love of learning than that which established her colleges and universities? Where better preparatory schools, sustained by private patronage and not the exactions of the tax-gatherer–now unhappily dwarfed and well-nigh blighted by our modern system. Whose people had higher sense of personal honor? Whose business and commerce were controlled by higher integrity? Whose public men had cleaner hands and purer records? Whose soldiers were braver or knightlier? Whose orators more eloquent and persuasive? Whose statesmen more wise and conservative? Whose young men more chivalric? Whose young women more chaste? Whose fathers and mothers worthier examples? Whose homes more abounded in hospitality as genial and free to every friendly comer as the sun that covered them with its splendor? Where was there more respect for woman, for the church, for the Sabbath, for God, and for the law, which, next to God, is entitled to the highest respect and veneration of man, for it is the fittest representative of His awful majesty, and power and goodness? Where was there more love of home, of country and of liberty? Deriving their theories of government from the Constitution, her public officers never abandoned those principles upon which alone the government could stand; esteeming their public virtue as highly as their private honor, they watched and exposed every form of extravagance, and every approach of corruption. Her religious teachers, deriving their theology from the Bible, guarded the Church from being spoiled ‘through philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.’ Her women adorned the highest social circles of Europe and America with their modesty, beauty and culture. Her men, in every society, won a higher title than ‘the grand old name of “gentleman” ’—that of ‘Southern gentlemen.’ This in herself what contributions did she make to the material growth of the country! Look at the map of that country and see the five States formed out of the territory north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi generously and patriotically surrendered by Virginia. Look at that vast extent of country acquired under the administration of one of her [169] Presidents, which to-day constitutes the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Colorado north of the Arkansas, besides the Indian Territory and the Territories of Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.
Is it asked what she had added to the glories of the Republic? Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Jefferson. Who led the armies of the Republic in maintaining and establishing that independence? ‘Who gave mankind new ideas of greatness?’ Who has furnished the sublimest illustration of self-government? Who has taught us that human virtue can set proper limits to human ambition? Who has taught the ruled of the world that man may be entrusted with power? Who has taught the rulers of the world when and how to surrender power? Of whom did Bancroft write, ‘but for him the country would not have achieved its independence, but for him it could not have formed its Union, and now, but for him it could not set the Federal Government in successful motion’? Of whom did Erskine say, ‘you are the only being for whom I have an awful reverence’? Of whom did Charles James Fox say in the House of Commons, ‘illustrious man, before whom all borrowed greatness sinks into insignificance’? Washington.
What State first made the call for the convention that framed the Constitution? Virginia. Who was the father of the Constitution? Madison. Who made our system of jurisprudence, unsurpassed by the civil law of Rome and the common law of England? Marshall. Who was Marshall's worthy successor? Taney. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Taney—these were her sons. Their illustrious examples, their eminent services, the glory they shed upon the American name and character were her contributions to the common renown. Is it asked where her history was written? It was written upon the brightest page of American annals. It was written upon the records of the convention that made the Constitution. It was written in the debates of Congresses that met, not to wrangle over questions of mere party supremacy, but, like statesmen and philosophers, to discuss and solve great problems of human government. It was written in the decisions of the country's most illustrious judges, in the treaties of her most skillful diplomats, in the blood of the Revolution, and the battles of every subsequent war, led by her generals from Chippewa to the proud halls of the Montezumas.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who to himself hath never said,
“This is my own, my native land” ?
[170] Forced to defend our homes and liberties after every honorable effort for peaceful separation, we went to war. Our leaders were worthy of their high commission. I say our leaders, for I believe that he who led our armies was not more loyal, and made no better use of the resources at his command than he to whom was entrusted our civil administration. Our people sealed their sincerity with the richest treasure ever offered, and the noblest holocaust ever consumed upon the altar of country. To many of you who enjoy the honor of having participated in it the history is known. You ought to prove yourselves worthy of that honor by teaching that history to those who come after you. Though in no wise responsible for it, though he had warned and struggled to avert it, Georgia's fortune was his fortune, Georgia's destiny was his destiny, though it led to war. Others who had been influential in bringing about dissolution and the first to take up arms, engendered disaffection, by petty cavils, discouraged when they should have cheered, weakened when they should have strengthened, but the spirit of his devotion never faltered, and through all the stormy life of the young republic, what Stonewall Jackson was to Lee, he was to Davis. If the soldier who leads his country through the perils of war is entitled to his country's praise and honor, no less the statesman who furnishes and sustains the resources of war. Our flag went down at Appomattox. Weakened by stabs behind, inflicted by hands that should have upheld; her front covered with the wounds of the mightiest war of modern times; dripping with as pure blood as ever hallowed freedom's cause, our Confederacy fell, and Liberty stood weeping at the grave of her youngest and fairest daughter. Our peerless military chieftain went to the noble pursuit of supervising the education of the young, proclaiming that human virtue should be equal to human calamity. Our great civil chieftain went to prison and chains, and there as well as afterward in the dignified retirement of his private life for twenty years has shown how human virtue can be equal to human calamity. The one has gone, leaving us the priceless legacy of his most illustrious character; the other still lingers, bearing majestically the sufferings of his people, and calmly awaiting the summons that shall call him to the rewards and glories of those who have suffered for the right.
Our Southern soldiers returned to their desolated homes like true cavaliers, willing to acknowledge their defeat, abide in good faith the terms of the surrender, accept all the legitimate results of the issue, respect the prowess of those who had conquered, and resume their [171] relations to the government with all the duties those relations imposed. The victorious generals and leaders of the North awaited the highest honors a grateful people could confer. Their armies having operated over an area of 800,000 square miles in extent, bearing on their rolls on the day of disbandment 1,000,516 men, were peacefully dissolved. Then followed the most remarkable period in American history—in any history. After spending billions of treasure, and offering thousands of lives to establish that the States could not withdraw from the Union, it was not only declared that they were out of the Union, but the door of admission was closed against them. While it cannot be denied that gravest problems confronted those who were charged with the administration of the government, a just and impartial judgment must declare that the most ingenious statecraft could not have inspired a spirit which, if it permanently ruled, would more certainly have destroyed all the States. Its success would have been worse for the North than the success of the Southern Confederacy, for if final separation had been established, each new government would have retained the essentials of the old, while the dominance of this spirit would have destroyed every vital principle of our institutions. The success of the Confederacy would have divided the old into two Republics. If this spirit had ruled, it would have left no Republic. It was, therefore, a monumental folly, as well as crime. It was not born of the brave men who fought to preserve the Union; it was the offspring of that fanaticism that had in our early history, while the walls of the capital were blackened with the fires kindled by the invading army of England, threatened disunion, and from that day forward turned the ministers of religion into political Jacobins, degraded the church of God into a political junto, in the name of liberty denounced the Constitution and laws of the country, and by ceaseless agitation from press and rostrum and pulpit, lashed the people into the fury of war.
In this presence, at the bar of the enlightened public opinion of America and the world, I arraign that fell spirit of fanaticism, and charge it with all the treasure expended and blood shed on both sides of that war, all the sufferings and sacrifices it cost, and all the fearful ruin it wrought. And in the name of the living and the dead I warn you, my countrymen, against the admission of that spirit, under any guise or pretext, into your social or political systems.
There are trials severer than war, and calamities worse than the defeat of arms. The South was to pass through such trials and be threatened with such calamities by the events of that period. Now [172] and then it seems that all the latent and pent up forces of the natural world are turned loose for terrible destruction. The foundations of the earth, laid in the depths of the ages, are shaken by mighty upheavals, the heavens, whose blackness is unrelieved by a single star, roll their portentous thunderings, ‘and nature, writhing in pain through all her works, gives signs of woe.’ The fruits of years of industry are swept away in an hour; the landmarks of ages are obliterated without a vestige; the sturdiest oak that has struck deep its roots in the bosom of the earth is the plaything of the maddened winds; the rocks that mark the formation of whole geological periods are rent, and deep gorges in the mountain side, like ugly scars in the face of the earth, tell of the force and fury of the storm. Such was that period to our social, domestic, and political institutions. Law no longer held its benign sway, but gave place to the mandate of petty dictators enforced by the bayonet. What little of property remained was held by no tenure but the capricious will of the plunderer; liberty and life were at the mercy of the conqueror; the sanctity of home was invaded; vice triumphed over virtue; ignorance ruled in lordly and haughty dominion over intelligence; the weak were oppressed; the unoffending insulted; the fallen warred on; truth was silenced; falsehood, unblushing and brazen, stalked abroad unchallenged; anxiety filled every heart; apprehension clouded every prospect; despair shadowed every hearthstone; society was disorganized; Legislatures dispersed; judges torn from their seats by the strong arm of military power; States subverted; arrests made, trials had and sentences pronounced without evidence; madness, lust, hate, and crime of every hue, defiant, wicked, and diabolical, ruled the hour, until the very air was rent with the cry, and heaven's deep concave echoed the wail:
‘Alas! Our country sinks beneath the yoke. It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds.’
All this Georgia and her sister States of the South suffered at the hands of her enemies, but more cruel than wrongs done by hostile hands were the wounds inflicted by some of their own children. They basely bartered themselves for the spoils of office. They aligned themselves with the enemies of the people and their liberties until the battle was fought, and then, with satanic effrontery, insulted the presence of the virtuous and the brave by coming among them, and forever fixed upon their own ignoble brows the stigma of a double treachery by proclaiming that they had joined our enemies to betray them. They were enemies to the mother who had nurtured [173] them. ‘They bowed the knee and spit upon her; they cried, “Hail!” and smote her on the cheek; they put a scepter into her hand, but it was a fragile reed; they crowned her, but it was with thorns; they covered with purple the wounds which their own hands had inflicted on her, and inscribed magnificent titles over the cross on which they had fixed her to perish in ignominy and pain.’ They had quarreled with and weakened the Confederacy, out of pretended love for the habeas corpus, and now they sustained a government that trampled upon every form of law and every principle of liberty. They had been foremost in leading the people into war, and now they turned upon them to punish them for treason. Even some who were still loyal at heart, appalled by the danger that surrounded, overwhelmed by the powers that threatened us, were timid in spirit and stood silent witnesses of their country's ruin. Others there were, many others, as loyal, brave, noble, heroic spirits as ever enlisted in freedom's cause. They could suffer defeat in honorable war, but would not, without resistance, though fallen, submit to insult and oppression. Their fortunes were destroyed, their fields desolated, their homes laid in ashes, their hopes blighted, but they would not degrade their manhood. To their invincible spirit and heroic resistance we are indebted for the peace, prosperity, and good government we enjoy to-day. Long live their names and deeds. Let our poets sing them in undying song; let our historians register them in imperishable records; let our teachers teach them in our schools; let our mothers recount them in our homes; let the painter transfer their very forms and features to the canvas to adorn our public halls; let the deft hand of the sculptor chisel them out of the granite and marble to beautify our thoroughfares; let every true heart and memory, born and to be born, embalm them forever.
Among all the true sons of Georgia and of the South in that day, one form stands conspicuous. No fear blanched his cheek, no danger daunted his courageous soul. His very presence imparted courage, his very eye flashed enthusiasm. Unawed by power, unbribed by honor, he stood in the midst of the perils that environed him, brave as Paul before the Sanhedrim, ready for bonds or death, true as the men at Runnymede, and as eloquent as Henry kindling the fires of the Revolution. As we look back upon that struggle one figure above all others fixes our admiring gaze. His crested helmet waves high where the battle is fiercest, the pure rays of the sun reflected from his glittering shield are not purer than the fires that burn in the breast it covers. His clarion voice rang out louder [174] than the din of battle, like the bugle blast of a Highland Chief resounding over hill and mountain and glen, summoning his clans to the defence of home and liberty, and thrilled every heart and nerved every arm
It was the form and voice of Hill.
Not only is he entitled to the honor we confer upon him by the events of this day, and higher honor, if higher there could be, as a Georgian, but as a son of the South. The great West boasts that it gave Lincoln to the country and the world. New England exults with peculiar pride in the name and history of Webster, and one of her most distinguished sons, upon the recent occasion of the completion of the Washington monument, in an oration worthy of his subject, did not hesitate to say: ‘I am myself a New Englander by birth. A son of Massachusetts, bound by the strongest ties of affection and of blood to honor and venerate the earlier and the later worthies of the old Puritan Commonwealth, jealous of their fair fame, and ever ready to assert and vindicate their just renown.’ Why should not we cherish the same honorable sentiment, and point with pride to the names with which we have adorned our country's history? What is there in our past of which we need be ashamed? What is there in which we ought not to glory?
They tell us to let the dead Past be buried. Well, be it so. We are willing to forget; we this day proclaim and bind it by the highest sanction—the sacred obligation of Southern honor — that we have forgotten all of the past that should not be cherished. We stand in the way of no true progress. We freely pledge our hearts and hands to every thing that will promote the prosperity and glory of our country. But there is a past that is not dead—that cannot die. It moves upon us, it speaks to us. Every instinct of noble manhood, every impulse of gratitude, every obligation of honor demand that we cherish it. We are bound to it by ties stronger than the cable that binds the continents, and laid as deep in human nature. We cannot cease to honor it until we lose the sentiment that has moved all ages and countries. We find the expression of that sentiment in every memorial we erect to commemorate those we love. In the unpretentious slab of the country churchyard, in the painted windows of the cathedral, in the unpolished head-stone and the costliest mausolem of our cities of the dead. It dedicated the Roman Pantheon. It has filled Trafalgar Square and Westminster Abbey with memorials of those who for centuries have made the poetry, the literature, the science, the statesmanship, the oratory, the military and [175] naval glory—the civilization of England. It has adorned the squares of our own Washington City and filled every rotunda, corridor and niche of the Capitol with statues and monuments and busts, until we have assembled a congress of the dead to instruct, inspire and guide the Congress of the living, while, higher than all surrounding objects, towering above the lofty dome of the Capitol, stands the obelisk to Washington.
Long may it stand, fit but inadequate symbol of that colossal character. Of all the works of man, it lifts its head nearest to the bright luminary of nature, so that every rising sun joins all human voices, and with the first kiss of the morning proclaims him favorite of all the family of men. May it and the character it commemorates, and the lessons that character teaches, abide with us until the light of that sun is extinguished by the final darkness that shall mark the end of the days.
Taught by these high examples, moved by this lofty sentiment of mankind, we this day renew the allegiance of ourselves, and pledge that of our posterity to the memory of our Southern dead.
No son of the South had higher claims upon our gratitude than he whom we this day honor. Against his convictions he followed the South into secession and war. True to her in the days of the war she waged for separate nationality; true to her in the darker days that followed that war, when she was denied admission into the Union, after her restoration he stood in the House of Representatives and the Senate Chamber the bravest and most eloquent of her defenders, resisting every invasion of her rights, and defiantly and triumphantly hurling back every assault upon her honor. Not only as a son of Georgia and the South does he merit the tribute of our highest praise, but as a citizen of the Republic. He was a profound student of our system of government, and his knowledge of that system was not only displayed in his public utterances, but is written in the lives and characters of the young men of Georgia who learned from him at the State University, and who, in all the departments of the public service, are entering into careers of the highest usefulness and distinction. ‘Melius est petere fontes quam sectari rivulos.’ Madison and Webster were his teachers. Never did student have better teachers; never teachers better student. Webster was not more intense in his love for the Union as originally established by the founders of the Republic. With the underlying principles of that Union he was familiar. To him the American Union was not the territory over which the flag floated and the laws were administered. [176] It was a system of government embracing a general government for general purposes, and local governments for local purposes, each like the spheres in the heavens, to be confined to its own orbit, and neither could invade the domain of the other without chaos and ruin. In the solution of all problems, in the discussion of all questions, in the shaping of all policies, he looked to the Constitution. As the fierceness of the storm only intensifies the gaze of the mariner on the star that shall lead him out of darkness and danger, so the greater the peril the more earnestly he contended for the principles of the Constitution. He regarded the American system of government as the wisest ever devised by the wisdom of men, guided by a beneficent Providence which seemed to have chosen them for the highest achievements of the race. He esteemed it not only for his own, but for all people the greatest production of man, the richest gift of heaven except the Bible and Christianity. But to him the States were as much a part of that system as the general government. His indissoluble union was composed of indestructible States. He opposed sectionalism under any guise, and from any quarter. As long as it spoke the truth, he honored and loved the flag of his country. For so long, wherever it floated, from the dome of the National Capitol at home, or under foreign skies; leading the armies of the Republic to deeds of highest valor in war, or signalizing the peaceful pursuits of commerce; at all times and everywhere, at home or abroad, on the land and on the sea, in peace or war, its stripes uttered one voice—of good will to its friends and proud defiance to its enemies—while the stars that glittered upon its ample folds told of free and equal States. Thus looking at it he could exclaim with patriotic fervor: Flag of the Union! Wave on, wave ever; wave over the great and prosperous North; wave over the thrifty and historic East; wave over the young and expanding West; wave over our own South, until the Union shall be so firmly planted in the hearts of all the people that no internecine war shall break our peace, no sectionalism shall disturb our harmony! Flag of the free! Wave on, until the nations looking upon thee shall catch the contagion of freedom; wave on until the light of knowledge illumines every mind, the fires of liberty burn in every breast, the fetters fall from every limb, the bonds are loosed from every conscience, and every son of earth and angel of heaven rejoices in the universal emancipation. There never was a time in his distinguished career when he would not have arrested and stricken down any arm lifted against that flag speaking the truth. But he would have it wave [177] over ‘States, not provinces; over freemen, not slaves;’ and there never was a time when flaunting a lie, by whomsoever borne, he would not have despised and trampled upon it. This was true American patriotism.
Though loyal to Georgia and the South during the period of separation, he rejoiced at their restoration to the Union. No mariner tossed through long nights on unchosen and tempestuous seas ever hailed the day of return to tranquil port more gladly than he hailed the day of the restoration of the States. No son driven by fortunes he could not control from the paternal roof, ever left that roof with sadder parting than he left the Union, or returned from the storms without to the shelter of home with wilder transport of joy than he felt when the South was again admitted to ‘our Father's house.’
Permanent peace and unity in republic or monarchy cannot be secured by the power of the sword or the authority of legislation. England, with all her power and statesmanship, has tried that for centuries and failed, and will continue to fail until her people and her rulers learn what her foremost statesman has recognized, that the unity of all governments of every form must rest in the respect and confidence of the people. If this principle had been observed after the war between the States, that dark chapter in our history, that must remain to dim the glory of American statesmanship, would have been unwritten. Wisely appreciating this principle after the admission of the true representatives of the people in Congress, with voice and pen, he devoted all the powers of his great mind, and all the impulses of his patriotic heart, to the re-establishment of that cordial respect and good feeling between the sections upon which alone our American system, more than all others, depends for permanent union and peace.
The great and good do not die. Fourteen centuries ago the head of the great apostle fell before the sword of the bloody executioner, but through long ages of oppression his example animated the persecuted Church, and to-day stimulates its missionary spirit to press on through the rigors of every climate and the darkness of every heathen system, to the universal and final triumphs of that cross for which he died. Four centuries agone the body of John Wickliffe was exhumed and burnt to ashes, and these cast into the water, but ‘the Avon to the Severn runs, the Severn to the sea,’ and the doctrines for which he did cover and bless the world. Half a century ago the living voice of O'Connell was hushed, but that voice to-day stirs the high-born passions of every true Irish heart throughout the [178] world. The echoes of Prentiss's eloquent voice still linger in the valley of the Mississippi. Breckenridge's body lies under the sod of Kentucky, but he lives among her sons an inspiration and a glory.
And to-day there comes to us, and shall come to those after us, the voice of our dead, solemn with the emphasis of another world, more eloquent than that with which he was wont to charm us: It says to us: Children of Georgia, love thy mother. Cherish all that is good and just in her past. Study her highest interests. Discover, project and foster all that will promote her future. Respect and obey her laws. Guard well her sacred honor. Give your richest treasures and best efforts to her material, social, intellectual and moral advancement until she shines the brightest jewel in the diadem of the Republic.
Men of the South, sons of the proud cavalier, bound together by common traditions, memories and sentiments, sharers of a common glory and common sufferings, never lower your standard of private or public honor. Keep the Church pure and the State uncorrupted. Be true to yourselves, your country and your God, and fulfill the high destiny that lies before you. Citizens of the Republic, love your system of government, study and venerate the Constitution, cherish the Union, oppose all sectionalism, promote the weal and maintain the honor of the Republic. ‘Who saves his country saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved do bless him; who lets his country die lets all things die, dies himself ignobly, and all things dying curse him.’
Illustrious citizen of the State, of the South, of the Republic, thou hast taught us to be brave in danger, to be true without the hope of success, to be patriotic in all things. We honor thee for thy matchless eloquence, for thy dauntless courage, for thy lofty patriotism. For the useful lessons thou hast taught us, for the honorable example thou hast left us, for the faithful service thou hast done us, we dedicate this statue to thy name and memory. Telling of thee, it shall animate the young with the highest and worthiest aspirations for distinction; cheer the aged with hopes for the future, and strengthen all in the perils that may await us. May it stand enduring as the foundations of yonder capitol, no more firmly laid in the earth than thy just fame in the memories and hearts of this people. But whether it stand pointing to the glories of the past, inspiring us with hopes for the future, or fall before some unfriendly storm, thou shalt live, for we this day crown thee with higher honor than Forum or Senate can confer. ‘In this spacious temple of the firmament,’ [179] lit up by the splendor of this unclouded Southern sun on this august occasion, dignified by the highest officers of municipality and State, and still more by the presence of the most illustrious living, as well as the spirits of the most illustrious dead, we come in grand procession-childhood and age, young men and maidens, old men and matrons, from country and village and city, from hovel and cottage and mansion, from shop and mart and office, from every pursuit and rank and station, and with united hearts and voices, crown thee with the undying admiration, gratitude, and love of thy countrymen.
