Before the upturning of Southern society by the Reconstruction Acts, the white people, there, came to the conclusion that their domestic institution, known as slavery, had better be abolished. It has been common to speak of the colored race as the wards of the nation. May I not say with appropriateness and due reverence, in the language of Georgia's greatest intellect, "They are, rather, the wards of the Almighty"? Why, in the providence of God, their ancestors were permitted to be brought over here it is not for me to say; but they have a location and habitation here, especially at the South; and, though the changed condition of their status was the leading cause of the late terrible conflict between the States, I venture to affirm that there is not one within the circle of my acquaintance, or in the whole Southern country, who would wish to see the old relation restored.

This changed status creates new duties. Men of the North, and men of the South, of the East, and of the West, I care not of what party, I would, to-day, on this commemorative occasion, urge upon every one within the sphere of duty and humanity, whether in public or private life, to see to it that there be no violation of the divine trust.

During the conflict of arms I frequently almost despaired of the liberties of our country, both North and South. The Union of these States, at first, I always thought was founded upon the assumption that it was the best interest of all to remain united, faithfully performing, each for itself, its own constitutional obligations under the compact. When secession was resorted to as a remedy, I went with my State, holding it my duty to do so, but believing, all the time, that if successful, when the passions of the hour and of the day were over, the great law which produced the Union at first, "mutual interest and reciprocal advantage," would reassert itself, and that at no distant day a new Union of some sort would again be formed.

And now, after the severe chastisement of war, if the general sense of the whole country shall come back to the acknowledg ment of the original assumption, that it is for the best interests of all the States to be so united, as I trust it will, the States being "separate as the billows, but one as the sea," this thorn in the body politic being now removed, I can perceive no

reason why, under such a restoration, the flag no longer waving over provinces, but States, we, as a whole, with peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations and entangling alliances with none, may not enter upon a new career, exciting increased wonder in the Old World, by grander achievements hereafter to be made, than any heretofore attained, by the peaceful and harmonious workings of our matchless system of American federal institutions of self-government.

It is

All this is possible, if the hearts of the people be right. my earnest wish to see it. Fondly would I gaze upon such a picture of the future. With what rapture may we not suppose the spirits of our fathers would hail its opening scenes, from their mansions above! But if, instead of all this, sectional passions shall continue to bear sway, if prejudice shall rule the hour, if a conflict of classes, of capital and labor, or of the races, shall arise, or the embers of the late war be kept a-glowing until with new fuel they shall flame up again, then, hereafter, by some bard it may be sung,

"The Star of Hope shone brightest in the West,

The hope of Liberty, the last, the best;

It, too, has set upon her darkened shore,

And Hope and Freedom light up earth no more."

ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS.

BELLIGERENT NON-COMBATANTS.

(From Address in connection with Memorial Day, at New York, 1878, deploring war as only "the last dread tribunal of kings and peoples," and edited by permission for the "Patriotic Reader.")

Ir is related of General Scott that when asked, in 1861, the probable duration of the then Civil War, he answered, "The conflict of arms will endure for five years; but will be followed by twenty years of angry strife, by the belligerent non-combatants." The roar of arms only lasted four years, and let us hope that the belligerent non-combatants will give us a correspondingly shorter period of civil contention, than was then predicted.

The flippant manner in which some of our orators and newspaper critics make use of warlike terms, warrants me in warning them of the danger of playing with edged tools. Men who have felt the sting of the bullet, who have heard the crash of the cannon's shot and exploding shell, or have witnessed its usual scenes of havoc and desolation, rarely appeal to war as a remedy for ordinary grievances. Wars are usually made by civilians, bold and defiant in the forum; but when the storm comes, they go below and leave their innocent comrades to catch the "peltings of the pitiless storm." Of the half-million of brave fellows whose graves have this day been strewn with flowers, not one in a thousand had the remotest connection with the causes of the war which led to their untimely death. I now hope, and beg, that all good men, North and South, will unite in real earnest, to repair the mistakes and wrongs of the past; will persevere in the common effort to make this great land of ours to blossom as the garden of Eden.

I invoke all, within the hearing of my voice, to heed well the lessons of this "Decoration Day;" to weave, each year, a fresh garland for the grave of some beloved comrade or favorite hero, and to rebuke any and all who talk of civil war, save as the "last dread tribunal of kings and peoples."

WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.

ALL UNDER THE SAME BANNER NOW, "ITS BROAD FOLDS UNRENT, AND ITS BRIGHT STARS UNOBSCURED."

(From Address delivered July 4, 1887, at Austin, Texas, before the surviving veterans of Hood's Texas Brigade, and edited by permission for the "Patriotic Reader.")

BUT few of you are here to-day. The great majority of your old comrades fill unknown graves, with naught to mark their silent resting-places; but their names are embalmed in as many loving hearts as ever entwined around living, or lingered around the graves of deceased, patriots. And to-day, as our memory recalls face after face of this vast spectral army, of those who

have preceded us in the line of march to the silent shores, we shed the tear of affectionate remembrance, as echo gives praises to their memory and honor to their dust. Throughout the broad area of the world there never was a field more rich in facts which constitute the fibre of an earnest, active patriotism, than that found in the Southern struggle. And the lofty admiration in which your manhood, valor, and endurance, as well as the sublime resignation with which you accepted disappointment, after great hopes and greater efforts, are held all over the world, shows how much the world yet values true and brave men, who could shake off troubles as great as these were, and by heroic efforts, in a time of peace, make them, to an impoverished country, but as flaxen withs bound around a slumbering giant. What wonder the world has stood amazed at the persistent vitality of our people? for, under your admirable conduct, every barrier to the flow of capital, or check to the development of our unbounded resources, was removed.

We see here, to-day, a free and independent mingling of men from every section of our broad domain, all prejudices of the past forgotten; and while our State has been fortunate in acquiring thousands of those who fought against us, and who are an honor both to the States which gave them birth, and ours which they have made their home, it matters not whence they come; they can exult in the reflection that our Country is the same, and they find floating here, the same banner that waved above them there, with its broad folds unrent, and its bright stars unobscured; and in its defence, if needs be, the swords of those old Confederates, so recently sheathed, would leap forth with equal alacrity with those of the North.

No nobler emotion can fill the breast of any man than that which prompts him to utter honest praise of an adversary, whose convictions and opinions are at war with his own; and where is there a Confederate soldier in our land who has not felt a thrill of generous admiration and applause for the pre-eminent heroism of the gallant Federal admiral, who lashed himself to the mainmast, while the tattered sails and frayed cordage of his vessel were being shot away by piecemeal above his head, and slowly but surely picked his way through sunken reefs of torpedoes, whose destructive powers consigned many of his luck

less comrades to watery graves? The fame of such men as Farragut, Stanley, Hood, and Lee, and the hundreds of private soldiers who were the true heroes of the war, belongs to no time or section, but is the common property of mankind. They were all cast in the same grand mould of self-sacrificing patriotism, and I intend to teach my children to revere their names as long as the love of country is respected as a noble sentiment in the human breast.

It is a remarkable fact that those who bore the brunt of the battle were the first to forget old animosities and consign to oblivion obsolete issues. They saw that nothing but sorrow and shame, and the loss of the respect of the world, was to be gained by perpetuating the bitterness of past strife; and, im pelled by a spirit of patriotism, they were willing, by all possible methods, to create and give utterance to a public sentiment which would best conserve our common institutions and restore that fraternal concord in which the war of the Revolution left

us, and the Federal Constitution found us. And I emphasize the declaration that, in most instances, those whose hatred has remained implacable, through all these years of peace, are men who held high carnival in the rear, and, after all danger had passed, emerged from their hiding-places, filled with ferocious zeal and courage, blind to every principle of wise statesmanship, to make amends for lack of deeds of valor by pressing to their lips the sweet cup of revenge, for whose intoxicating contents our country has already paid a price that would have purchased the goblet of the Egyptian queen.

LAWRENCE SULLIVAN Ross.

LET US REJOICE TOGETHER.

(Extract from Address upon "Immortal Memories," furnished for the "Patriotic Reader.")

MORE than twenty years have passed since the last great battle in our civil contest was fought. The mighty armies of the nation have long since folded their torn banners, stacked their