Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS I TO CONFEDERATE VETERANS IF WILLIAMSBURG COUNTY DELIVERED BY REV. J. E. MAHAFFEY ON MAY 10, 1907. rA ?: Mr Presideut, Ladies, Gentlemen and Fathers of the uomeaeracy: I deem it a very great hoiior you have conferred upon me, one of the sons of the Confederacy, in calling upon me to address you on this occasion. Ours is a great nation? great in history, great in achieve. ments, because great in manhood and character. I am proud of it. But I am especially proud of this, our Southland, which in so many respects is the Fatherland in those things that have made our nation great. I am not a native of the United J States. I was born in the Confederate States of America, upper South Carolina, in 1864. I proud of that Southern spirit w\iich has incarnated itself into a type of manhood and womanhood that it is distinguished above all other types under tha/Bhiuing sun. I am especially proud of the achievements that have been attained and the positions oocupied by Southern men, as from time to time the light of their superior genius aud patriotic daring has flashed from the great mountain ! peaks of the world's progress. Beginning with the very foundations of our government ,it is the Southern man who has taken the conspicuous initiative in nearly all of the great movements that have resulted in the hAttermeut of societv and humanity. The first president of the United States, and the most illustrious American that has ever lived?"the man first in war, first in peace, and ; first in the hearts of his country. men"?the chief-commander of the jy army which won the independence f" - of the colonies and whom by common acclaim we still delight to call "the ? Father of His Country"?was a Southern man. The commanderin-chief of the continental navy in t the war of the Revolution was & Southern man, James Nicholsou, and so also was the first president of the continental congress,?Peyh ton Randolph?and it was Richard Henry Lee, a Southern member of that congress, who was the author and mover of the adoption of the resolution declaring the colonies to be free and independent States. The greatest American Orator?the man whose words most inspired the Americau heart and moYed the Americau arm in the struggle for independence, was a Southern man. It was the worlds { greatest Democrat, a Southern man, ( Uho was the author of the Declaration of Independence, whic h is the most famous production of any AmIfican pen, and when the American people met to celebrate the centennial of that Declaration, it was Sidney Lanier, a Southern man, who was selected to write the poem for the opening of that occasion. James Madi?on, the "Father of the Con Stitution,'' was a Southern man; John Marshall, its greatest expounder and the greatest American jurist, was a Southern man. And when, in the fullness of time, the Union came to celebrate the centennial of that immortal instrument, it was Samuel F Miller, a Southern man, who was chosen as the orator of that memorable and imposing occasion. For more than half the period of its existence, the gorernment forced by that constitution was administered by presidents, who were Southean men, and the years of their administration mark by far the happiest, most illustrious and beneficent eras of the Union. It was the statesmanship of President Thomas Jefferson, a Southern man, seconded by the able and clean diplomacy of James Monroe, auother Southern man, that extended' the boundary of the United States from the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean on the Northwest, thus more than doubling the territory of the Union. It was Southern valor and Southern statesmanship that carried the boundary on Southward and Westward from the Sabine to the lxio Grande, adding Texas, New Mexico K ^ . & 4/ : I ^ t**-2 and California, which was 20,000 square miles more than the original thirteen States contained. It was the prowess of a Southern soldier, George Rogers Clark, that secured to the United States all that territory Northwest of the Ohio river, out of which the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigau and Wisconsin and part of Minnesota, were afterwards formed. The policy that secured this territory is the policy that has done more than auy other to build up the Union, and for this policy we are indebted to the ?:~ i 1 ?o?.,*u widuuui uuu pauiuuauj ui mc uuu'-uern States of Maryland and Virginia; to Maryland for proposing and urging it. and to Virginia for acceding to it,(for that territory belonged to her,) and in giving it to the United States for the sake of the Uuion (a gift from the Soath to the North,) Virginia furnished the crowning proof of her devotion to the Union and showed that she was worthy to be called "the Mother of States " It is to Southern men that our nation is indebted for blazing the way for civilization in the vast region beyond the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains?Meriwether Lewis and William Clark?the most famous explorers and adveuturers in America?were the first white men w ho ever crossed the American continent. Writing of them, Noah Brooksj the historian, Bays: * Peaceful farms and noble cities, towns and villages, thrilling with the hum of .modern industry and activity are spread over the vast spaces through which these explorers threaded their toilsome trail amid incredible privations and hardships, showing the way Westward across the boundless continent which is ours. Let the names of ^hese two men long be held in grateful honor by the American people." The supreme court of the United States, which is the sheet anchor of the government, has been presided over ny &outnem men ior neariy two-thirds of the period of its existence, and their decisions constitute by far the wisest, purest and most luminous pages of the record of that august tribunal. The first shot in the second war of the United States with England, was fired by a Southern man, and the most distinguished soldiers of that war were Southern men. The most complete and overwhelming defeat that any English army has ever experienced, was inflicted by Southern troops, commanded by Andrew Jackson, a Southern man; and the man who performed what Admiral Nelson called ''the most daring act of the agV' and who received the thinks of all Europe for overthrowing the Barbary powers and putting an end to their inhuman cruelties, was Stephen Decatur, a Southern man. The most distinguished soldiers in the war with Mexico, as in all the wars in which they have ever engaged, were th men from the South, and strange as it may seem, it was Lieut. James B Lockwood, with his thermometer 49 degrees below zero, who planted the "Star-Spangled Banner" nearer the North Pole than any other mortal had ever done, thus wresting from England an honor she had held for three hundred years. The first publio or circulating library in America was in the South, and a Southern State was the first to secure religious liberty by organic law. The first Sunday-school in America was in the South, at Savannah, Ga., and the first native Methodist itinerant preacher in America was William Waters, a Southa O-^i.1 em man. iinocner ouumeruei, Jesse Lee, was the founder of the Methodist Episcopal chusch in New England, and another, John Lyle, was the first American to establish a school exclusiyely for the education of women. The fiist female college founded on the face of the earth was the Wesleyan Female college in a Southern State, and the first college of dental surgery in the world was established iu a Southern city. Dr Johu Archer, the first man iu the United States to receive the degree of Doctor of Medicine, was a Southern man, and so also was the first professor of pathological and surgical anatomy?Dr John Wagner of South Carolina. The first agricultural journal in this country was established by Southern man, and the first succeea ful commercial paper in the Unite States was a Southern publicatior Mrs Harriet Martineau, the gifte and famous English authoress, shj that frtr mnrp than tiftv veai'S afU the Revolution days, "the best spec men of periodical literature thatth country afforded was the Souther Review, published at Charleston" the Charleston of the Old South. The man who first gave a com plete description of the Gulf streai ?who first marked out specific route to be followed in crossing the Atlar tic?who first instituted the syster of deep-sea sounding?who first sug gested the establishing of telegraph ic communication by a cable on th bed of the ocean, and whoindicate the line along which the cable wa laid?whose Treatise on Navigatio has been a text book for the Unite States navy?who was declared b Humboldt to be the founder of new and important science?and o whom France, Austria, Russia Prussia, Denmark, Belgium, Portu gal, Sweeden, Sardinia, Holland Bremen and the Papal States be stowed orders of knight-hood am ! other honors, was M F Maury, i Southern man. The first steamship that crossei the Atlantic went from a Southeri city, whose citizens had it bnilt, an* even its engine was constructed by i Southern man. The first railroac ever built and operated in the worl* was in South Carolina, and the firs iron-clad war-ship that ever plough ed the billows of the ocean was constructed by John M Brooke an* John L Porter, who were officers ii the navy of the Confederate State of America. The organizer an* constructor of the United State Naval Observatory, one of the bes in the world, was James Melvill Gillis, f. Southern man, who was al so the first constructor of a working astronomical observatory and th first publisher of a volume of as tronomical observations in the Un ited States. The most learnet American mineralogist, the greates American naturalist, the most famous mnsician, the greatest Ameri can architect, the greatest Amen can tragedian, the most noted dra matist, and the first Greek schola in A m An tz-wliirr A?.a nil C All nm 1U Auiu iua luuav, aic an uvuuicii men. The tirst woman in the world t< receive a col lege diploma was Mia; Catherine E Brewer, a Southern wo mftn of the State of Georgia; so wa the first woman in the world to di rect and conduct a great daily politicle newspaper, and the only womai on record who was the wife of j governor, the sister of a governor the niece of a governor, the mothei of a governor and the aunt anc foster-mother of a governor was i woman of South Carolina. With all this arrav of bright shin ing stars that sparkle in the flrmam entot Southern history, who couli fail to be Droud of beirnr associate* with so noble a company? Oar own South Carolina has been distingu ished as "the nurse of manly senti ment and heroic enterprise," when is to be found in the highest degree "that sensibility of principle, tha chastity of honor which feels j stain like a wound and inspires cour age while it mitigates ferocity.' South Carolina, with her long liu< of statesmen, orators and scholan who have illumined the pages of oui history mith their words and deeds presents a phalanx of talent and pa ti ic^ism unequaled in the Union. Bur hark! This is Memorial Day "Backward?Turn backward, ( Time in your flight!" aDd let ui contemplate in solemn awe and won der, a3 we take one brief glimpse in to the years from '61 to '6,5. ] hear! I see! I feel! It is like tbi noise of great waters, mingling witl streams of lightning, the crash o: thunders and the roar of volcanoes Manassas, Murfreesboro, Sharps burg, Fredricksborg, Gettysburg Vicksburg.Chickamauga, Pittsburg Appomattox. Draw the vale, it 1 too much! What tongue or pen o: mortal man, can tell the tale oil va lor, patriotism, privation, endurance and self-sacrifice of the Southeri Armv, the army that fought, bled and died, inch by inch for the lift of a principle that was murderec with it? No cause then, and n< a cause today, is dearer to the South! em heart than the "Lost Cause," d the cause of liberty and free-agency, i. It is the cause of humanity, it is the d doctrine of God. And since,""by ass persion, perversion aud misrepre?r' sentation the South is frequently i- placed in a false position by those le who seek to hide the spirit of greed n and imperialism that is the menace - of our country today, we, the sons and daughters of the Confederacy, - must keep swept the dust from anil tique time, uphold the facts of his?s tory, aud wait for the truth that i- once crushed to earth, shall rise u again. r T n 1 t Kft A m a t*i mm TTmiah tt'ti o xii J.UV1 cue xiuici icau uuiuu nao i- composed of thirty-three States, e joined in a voluntary political asd sociation, partnership or govern,s ment, called the United States of n America. The people of eleven of d these States, numbering about 5,y 000,000, finding that uuder that a union, their safety and peace were n constantly and seriously threatened ., and disturbed, instead of being - secured as contemplated by the , union, decided to institute a new s- government?one that to them seemd ed more likely to effect their safety a and happiness. In accordance with with the principle enunciated in the d Declaration of Independence, they a instituted such a new government i aud called it the Confederate States a of America; whereupon, the people iff I the other States, numbering about I 22,000,000, in defiance and subvert sion of the great principle of the - Declaration of Independence, made - war upon the eleven Southern States 1 to compel them to renounce the i government of their choice and come s back under the government from i which they had withdrawn because s it bad ceased to secure to them the t ends fpr which it was designed. e It must be remembered that the statesmanship of the South had I always consistently maintained that e the Federal Constitution regarded ultimate soverejguty as resting, not - in the nation as a whole, but in the 1 individual States themselves, as t supreme and independent common wealths^ According to the view of the South, these sovereign States - had entered into a league of union - for purposes of mutual advantage, r and this partnership, like others, 3 was to endure only so long as its original purpose was maintained > with regard to all the States. Events e seemed to indicate that the time for the dissolntion of the compact had 3 arrived. In the first place the balance of - political power was passing rapidly 3 into the hands of a party inimical to a the interests of the South?a party , not only pledged to the abolition of - slavery, but also to a commerical I system of Protection which was i peculiarly unfavorable to an agricultural community. As to slavery, . it is unfair to represent the South -'as, in the abstract, devoted to a II servile system. Many of our great 1 est statesmen deplored the existence l of slavery as an economic and social - injury, and that question would likely have settled itself if it had e been given an unmolested opport, unity. t The truth is, it was the ill-judged i zeal, and ungodly greed and envy of - Northern extremists that precipitat' ed the trouble. It wa3 the crusade of ? extremely bitter and violent dei nunciation and mdiscriminating r abuse heaped upon the sensitive and , high-spirited people of South, be cause there existed among them an institution originally planted and ! fostered by New England slave ) dealers and Northern traders who 3 had grown rich by importing and selling negroes in the South; and - now, when the country is stocked [ and fast becoming a source of profit ? to the owners?woich it never could i be in the North?envy and jealousy f seize the sword and say to the South, ! "If we cannot, you shall not. ' The - South said: "We will dissolve , partnership then." "No," said the , North, with its millions of men, s money and machinery, "we will not f dissolve; we will make slaves of you?might is right." And so, for , forty years, the heel of the North 1 has ground upon the neck of the I South. But thank God, after forty ? years in the wilderness, Israel walk1 ed over into Caanan and so shall it > j be with this Southland. "The * ' wilderness and the desert place shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." And now, to yon, bravewold heroes of the Confederacy, let d^say: We are proud to be called the sons and daughters of the bravest men that ever looked upon a battle flag or sang a battle song, and we feel that we can give you no better assurance of our purpose to honor your noble memory and cherish the glory of your immortal deeds, than that contained in the recent eloquent words of Miss Grace Lumpkin, your spon- j sor iu the Palmetto State: ' Confederate Veterans, yourj daughters will beat into history the, true story of the blood, the scars and j the storm the storm-swept nation of! the men who wore the gray. They j will keep your memories until there1 "A dollar is a dolh There is no better way t dealing with J. L. Stuckey, the ok man. I have a splendid line o Blips, Win that in view of the hard times above cost. A nice bunch of HORSES at prices to suit. J. L St in 1 SPRING 1 49 4? 49 and you want to 1 49 home in keeping ; - See my new lines $ ed Room Suits, Felt Matti | Rugs aod Nal 1 keep constantly 49 plete line of : 1 COFFINS ani 49 49 and am preparec J* services day and i 49 ====== | L. J. STA 49 THE FPRNIT Jj KINGSTREE, sWaterf $ and 0 if f D ILdgni n Tffoderatc Perfect Gasoline Engines f J*. J*. Stiff man,? 6969696363696? 1 Ths Parlo ii Dressed Meats. Fit ?; Oysters, Eggs and Ft jj3Tgi3a.037- C ? hides wanted : prices ?j Tli.e 2?a,rlo: ? T. B. Arrows ?? KINGSTR v Iwyypyrr-T; == shall beni.tions no more, and when you brare Did men shall go out one by one, vhen the trumpet shall / sound for you the last great battle, the battle of grim old death, your l/oor> lh? vicrils nf uau? iucio mil nw|/ ^mv - , Camp Hampton and Camp Gordon and Camp Robert E. Let. | Your daughters will meet eaty year, and for the love they bear 9 E you and your glory, will salute yolJMr old battle-flag and tenderly place the roses above your sileut hearts." Note:?For many of the facts here presented we are indebted to "Some Truths of History," by T K Oglesby (The Byrd Printing Co., Atlanta, Ga.), which volume is especially recommended to those desiring a larger presentation of historical matter on this subject. saved ar made" o save your dollars than by d reliable live-stock f ft nnii TTnimnnn 5 III MH, 1 am offering at 10 per cent and MULES always on f Lake City, S. C. * IS HEREj freshen up your with the season. of ** resses, Hammocks, . ? [tings and Refrigerators. | on hand a com. . 4^ *< (Jr dcaskets! ii I to render my J light;. ? | CKLE Y, ? PRE MAN. J S. C. ? Residences {L Store 5 Hotels jjk ^ Public buildings jjj ? Cost. S jfct/nff* * or any purpose. U Florence, c? C. * i ifiai ivci? ----- ? sh, Game, Poultry & ill Line - - g Groceries | SHIQHEST^ARK n i r 2v?arlret<>,? I smith, Agent., ? i EE s. c. I m - ^