Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1887 — THE NEW SOUTH. [ARTICLE]

THE NEW SOUTH.

Editor Grady’s Famous Speech at the New England Dinner. “I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy to-night," he said. "I am somewhat indifferent to those from whom I come. You remember the man whose wife sent him to a neigiibor with a pitcher of milk, and who, trippiug on the top step, fell, with such casual interruptions as the landings afforded, into the basement, and while picking himself up had the pleasure of hearing his wife call out: ‘John, did you breah the pitcher?' ‘No, I didn't,’ said Johu, ‘but I be dinged if I don't ’ “The Cavalier as well as the Puritan," said the speaker, “was on this continent in its early day# and he was ‘up and able to be about.' But both Puritan aud Cavalier were lost in the stjrm of their first revolution, and the American citizen, supplanting both and stronger than either, took possession of the republic bought by their common blood and fashioned to wisdom, and charged hinißelf with teaching men government and establishing the voioe o< the people as the voice of God. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow to flower and iruit. Rut from the union of these colonists, from the straightening of their Eurposes And the crossing of their lood, slow perfecting through a century, came he who stands as the first typioal American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this repubiio— Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of the Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in tho depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. Ho was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, iu that be was an American, and that In his homely form were first gathered tho vast and thrilling forces of this ideal government- charging it with such tremendous meaning, and so elevating it above human suffering that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from tho cradle to human liberty. “In speaking t:> the toast with wbluh you have honored me I accept tne term. 'The New South,' as in no soiibo disparaging to the old Dear to me, sir, are the home of my childhood and the traditions of my people. There Is a new Booth, not through protest against the old, but because of new condit ouh, new adjustments, and, if you please, now ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address myself. 1 ask you, gentlemen, to picture If youoan tho foot-sore soldior who, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket, the parole which was taken as testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, turns his face southward from Appomattox In April, 186). Think "of him us, ragged, halfstarved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, ho surrenders his gun, wrings the ha. ds of his comrades, and lifting his tear-staiued and Sallid face for the last time to the graves that ot old Virgiuia hills, pulls the gray cap over his brow and begins his slow aud painful journey. What does he find—let me ask you, who went to your homes eager to find all tho welcome you had earned, full payment for fou# years’ sacrifice—what does hs find when ho reaches the home he left four years before? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves freed, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his monoy worthless ; his social system, loudal in its magnificence, swept away ; his people without law or legal Htatus, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions gone, without money, credit, employment, material or training—and, besides all this, confronted with tho gravest problem that ever mot human Intelligence—the establishing of a status for his vast body of liberated slaves, what does he do, this hero in gray with a heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullhnness, In despair? Not lor a day. Burely God, who had scourgod him in his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity 1 As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. Tho soldier stepped from the trenches into tho furrow ; horses that hod charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and fieldß that ran red with human blood iu April, were greon with the harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made broeobes for their husbands, and with a patience and heroism that fits woman always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was a litte bitterness to all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. ‘Bill Arp' struck the keynote when lie said: 'Well, I Killed as many of them as they did of me, and now I am going to work.’ Or the soldier, returning home after defeat and roasting some corn on tne roadside, who made tho remark to his comrales : ‘You may leave the South if you want to, but lam going to Baundersville, kiss my wife, aud raise a crop, and if the Yankees fool with me any more I will whip ’em again.’ I want to say to Gen. Sherman—who is considered an able man in our parts, though some people think he Is a kina of careless man about tire—that from the ashes left us in 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city ; that somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes and have builded therein not one single ignoble prejudice or memory “When Lee surrendered—l don’t say when Johnston surrendered, because he still alludes; to the time when he met General Bbonnan last as the time when he ‘dot rminod to abandon any further prosecution of tho strugglo'—when Lee surren< ered, I say, and Johnston fluit, the South became and has oeen since loyal to this Uniop. Wo fonglit hard enough to know that we. were whipped, and in perfeet frankness accepted as final the arbitrament of the sword, to which wo hud appealed. The South found a jewel in a toad’s head The shackles that hud held her in narrow limitations fell forev&r when the shackles of the negro slave were broken. Under the old reglmo the negroes were slaves to the South, the South was a slave to the system. Thus was gathered in the hands of a splendid and chlvalric oligarchy the suostance that should have been diffused among tho poople, as the rich blood is gatherod at the heart, filling that with affluent rupture, but leaving the body chill and colorless The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture, unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth. The new South presents n perfeet democracy, the oligarchy leading into the popular movement—a social system compact and closely kn tt.'d, less splendid on the surface but stronger at the core —a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every palace, and a diversified industry that meets the complex needs of this complex ago. ” In closing, Mr. Grady said: “This message, Mr. President, comes to you from cons crated ground. Every foot of the soil about the city in which I live is as sacred as a battle-ground of the republic. Every hill that luvests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers who died for victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blood of those who died hopeless, but undaunted in defeat sacred soil to all of us—rich with memories that make us purer, and stronger, and better—silent b- t stanch witnesses in its rich 4efo ation of tho matchless valor of American arms—speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace and prosperity to the indissoluble union of Afiierican t-tates, and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people. What answer has New England to this message ? Will she permit the p re, ad ice of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerors when it has died in the hearts of the conquered? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in hearts w hich never felt the generous ardor of conlliet it may perpetuate itself? Will she withhold, save in strain' d courtesy, the hand which, straight from his soldier’s heart, Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox? W 11 she make tho vision of a restored and happy people which gathered above the couch of y< ur dying captain, f-lling his heart with grace, touching his lips with p>ais \ and gl rifvng his path to the gravo- will she make this vis on, on wh ch the last sigh of his expiring soul breath d a benediction, a cheat ana deiuipon? If she does, tho South, never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity its refusal. But if she does not refuse to accept in frankness and sincerity this message of good-will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered to this very society forty years ago, amid tremendoiis applause, when .he said: ‘Standing hnfad to hand and clasping hands, wo should remain united, as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of tho same government—united, all united, now and forever." There have been difficulties, conten--1 tions, and controversies, but I tell you that in my judgment , “Though opposed foroes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in th’ intestine shock, Shall now in mutual, well-beseeming ranks. Maroh all one way." , i ,