those of any other one epoch." Posterity has scarcely known which to honor most of these illustrious statesmen. A later generation, however, discovered that the great instrument framed by them contained possible germs of danger or uncertainty.

With masterly power and persistence CALHOUN cultivated these germs into fatal fruition. Upon a foundation of unsound premises, with accurate logic, he founded the pernicious heresy of state supremacy, unfortunately accepted by a portion of the people of the South as the embodiment of constitutional law.

His memorable remark: "If you should ask for the word I would wish engraved on my tombstone, I should answer it is Nullification,'" furnished the watchword that finally brought ruin and desolation upon his people.

No more able or unanswerable argument was ever presented before or since, upon the subject of secession or nullification than ANDREW JACKSON's proclamation and messages of 1832. His iron nerve and withering rebuke overmatched even CALHOUN, and for the time overwhelmed and suppressed the schemes of his followers.

How happily changed is public sentiment of to-day. Whatever inscription may mark the tomb of the illustrious South Carolina statesman, the word "nullification would now bring no additional honors to his memory.

In this retrospect other reflections follow. It was not the South alone that had learned to look lightly upon the bonds of the Federal Union. This is one of the familiar defenses we hear at the South, as to its action in 1861-a defense, we must admit, not without some merit.

As early as 1811, when the bill for the admission of Louisiana was before Congress, as is well known, some of

the representatives from New England 'declared in violent terms that the admission of this new slave state would justify the withdrawal of their state from the Union. These threats were repeated in 1844, when the admission of the State of Texas was considered. In subsequent heated controversies in the national councils they were frequently repeated upon both sides.

As the strife between the sections grew fiercer, and neared final culmination, how many a patriotic heart was filled with uncertainty and dismay! It seemed at one time as if the South might possibly be permitted to depart in peace. Great journals of the North advocated this policy. A few prominent statesmen declared for it. CHARLES SUMNER said: "If they (the South) will only go, we will build a bridge of gold for them to go over on."*

They did not then realize the loyalty that lay deep in the hearts of the people. The North only paused before the ominous symptoms of the coming struggle. The chief executive unfortunately hesitated. Public opinion for a time seemed divided. In the intervals of hope and fear, under fatal and merely partisan leadership, the South unhappily became only the more inflamed and consolidated, and "the accumulated convictions of a century" finally met in mortal combat.

The South is naturally sensitive as to her record and place in the history of these events. Come what may, the loyalty of her friends and partisans does not fail her. The Southern historian, the editor, the author, the orator, the poet, have not been idle. Colonial history, congressional

*The authority for this statement will be found in "Great Senators," by OLIVER DYER, p. 166. A friend of SENATOR CHARLES SUMNER thinks this remark could not have been made by him, and should probably be attributed to WENDELL PHILLIPS, of Massachusetts.-G. P. T.

legislation, political records, supreme court decisions, are marshaled to her defense. The defense is a familiar one. I need not restate it. There is no present political significance in it. It is in the main a sentiment, a memory; but social forces at the South are gathered round it; public opinion is compacted about it; it is printed in the school books; it is (unfortunately, I think) sometimes engraved upon monuments of marble and bronze; yet whatever words may be inscribed there, these monuments can perpetuate only a true story of the sincerity and courage of the Confederate soldier, and the devotion of a warm-hearted people.

The eternal truth will still remain. Neither marble nor bronze nor stately granite can change it. The wheels of time will not turn backward. The verdict of history has been pronounced and accepted. It can not be reversed, or annulled, or obscured. It is deeply graven upon the heart of humanity. Union and freedom are better than dismemberment and slavery-better for the South, better for the North, better for mankind. These are the corner stones that lie at the foundation of a republic, whose moral grandeur and physical powers are the hope and pride of a free and united people.

The statue of GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE was recently unveiled at Richmond with imposing ceremonies. No true soldier can fail to respect the memory of this distinguished Southern general. Friend and foe alike recognize the nobility of his personal character. Not long before the war, when scarcely grown, I was invited to spend the day at Arlington, his home, and I still recollect his handsome face and form, and the innate kindliness of his manner. In the eloquent and temperate address of COLONEL ARCHER ANDERSON, at the unveiling of his monument, he gives GENERAL LEE'S opinion of the institution of slavery, and states that he was

"above the weak and passionate view of slavery as good in itself." He regarded it, in the words of the address, "as an evil which the South inherited, and must be left to mitigate, and if possible extirpate by wise and gradual measures." From a recent address of MR. INGALLS, we have also additional evidence of GENERAL LEE'S sentiments regarding the issues involved in the war. Not long before he resigned his commission in the United States army, in a letter to his son, he said: "I can anticipate no greater calamity for our country than the dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of. I am willing to sacrifice every thing but honor for its preservation. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for a perpetual union, so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not government, by WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON, MADISON, and the other patriots of the Revolution."

That letter, for some reason, was omitted by his chief biographer. In view of the justly exalted estimate of GENERAL LEE's character held at the South, let us consider his opinions further. After Virginia, his native state, lured by. excitement and partisan influences, and after a long struggle, had finally concluded to follow South Carolina out of the Union, GENERAL LEE, in a letter to his sister, written at the date of his resignation, says: "I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded

to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I would take part against my native state. With all my devotion for the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty as an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home."

Here the crime of South Carolina and the pernicious heresy of CALHOUN and his successors are laid bare. LEE and a hundred thousand good and patriotic men of the South like him were bitterly opposed to secession and to the extravagant demands of the JEFFERSON DAVIS school of extremists upon the slavery question. They never received the sanction of his judgment. He had no real sympathy for them or their cause.

He represented the pure gold and true worth of the South; they represented its errors, its ambitions, its passions—yet through the revolutionary strategy of these disunion schemers, and the wolf cry of "coercion," and Southern pride, LEE and men like him were unhappily placed in a position where they had to either exile themselves from family, friends, and home, or fight-against their very conscience and better judgment-the battles of secession and slavery. Their cause once reluctantly espoused by him, his faithfulness, and the military fame he achieved, belong to the annals of history.

How often during the years of conflict must this broadminded Southerner have contemplated the future of his country and recalled the sentiment of his letter," Dissolution of the Union is but an accumulation of all the evils we complain of?"

How often in the watches of the night, perhaps among