Senator Benjamin H. Hill OF GEORGIA His Life, Speeches and Writings- WRITTEN AND CGMPH..HO BY His SON BENJAMIN H. HILL, Jr. Also Memorial Addresses of Imminent Citizens of Georgia, Senators and Representatives in the Congress of the United States. Tributes of the Press, Nortli and South, and Kxercises attending the iiaveiling of the Statue to His Memory Erected in the City of Atlanta by His Grateful Countrymen. T. H. P. BLOODWORTH 32 and 33 Fitten Building, - Atlanta, Ga. Copyrighted by BENJAMIN H. HILL, JR. 2 1944 THIS BOOK IB TENDERLY AND LOVINGLY DEDICATED. PREFACE. IT has been with me a deeply cherished purpose to collect and publish in permanent form, the speeches and writings of my father, with a sketch of his life and career as a private citizen, lawyer, and statesman. This purpose has been inspired and strengthened by the conviction that these speeches and writings contain much that was valuable to his countrymen, and this life was filled with suggestions of encouragement to pure and patriotic endeavor. The history of Georgia is rich in names of great orators and many are the traditions of eloquent orations, but few of these orations have been preserved. The fame of "William II. Crawford, is proudly treasured by our people, and Berriun is said to have possessed wonderful power as debater and speaker, but no speech of either lias been preserved. Many now living bear enthusi astic testimony to the marvelous gifts of Ilowell and T. lit. R. Cobb, but their great speeches are lost to this generation. And so with many others who illustrated the State in the fields of oratory arid statesmanship. I think it is to be deeply regretted that more attention has not been given to the collection and preservation of the great thoughts of these rarely gifted men, and I sincerely hope that I bave done some service in collecting the speeches of one of Georgia's orators and placing- them 'within easy access. I regret exceedingly that the pressing duties of official station have delayed so long the completion of my work, yet I entertain the hope that I am not too late for the accomplishment of the good intended. My father's public life embraced the most momentous periods in the history of the country. His career as a public man was an exceedingly stormy one. Before the '. war he was the dauntless leader of patriotic minorities, and aftei- the war he was the aggressive leader of an oppressed and outraged people. His " iNotes on the Situation " and his speeches made during the Reconstruction era con tain severe and bitter invective. / "Read in. the softening light of time, they seem harsh, but when uttered"/ the arraignment of men who were the leaders of radical oppression, was not considered unwarranted by the pro vocation. Senator Brown, by reason of his course at this period, came in for a full share of this terrible invective. I think it proper to say that he and my father became warmlv attached friends before the latter's death, and my father's opinion of the character of his former antagonist was greatly changed by a more intimate association, but this modification of opinion did not extend to an approval of political conduct but was confined to an estimate of personal character and motives. The sketch of Senator Hill is necessarily of the most general description. A biography, giving the interesting details of his public career, would of itself require a large volume, and for the want of space I have limited this memoir to the more prominent incidents of his life. In estimating the vaJue of Senator Hill's work, I have, for obvious reasons, given the opinions of contemporaries, rather than my own. deductions. His convictions on all political questions PREFACE. were so positive and his courage of expressijDn so pronounced, that cotemporancous criticism was prompt and abundant, t If in the selection I have included only tlrose that were commendatory, it is because these only have stood the test of time and truth ; and if in admiration of some act of wisdom or patriotism I have occasionally spoken words of praise, I hope it will be pardoned the son, and if unsupported by the facts will be attributed to filial affection and not discriminating judgment. In discussing some of the great questions of the past, I have occasionally given my own views, for which I am solely responsible. 13ut after all, neither the opinions of contemporaries, nor the pen of a biog rapher, although guided by filial devotion, can give so true and luminou 0 any criticism on his political course. His sole motive power was to serve his people. In his public work he lost sight of self. He was not a scrap- book statesman. The accusation of enemies he did not care to remember. The kind words of friends he treasured in his heart. His fame he left en tirely to the future. Every speech of importance which was published will be found in this book. Few were revised or written by the author, and they ^.^,,,. .;,, +. ^ +i,,->TT were reported at the time they were delivered. Accom- n 'n " -i " ative of the occasion of its iioernes anu. iioiiur OL LIIU peupit; vvtsrt: in pt;ui. v^uiistii.Liun.Jiia.1 v^rovei niiieiiu was endangered. The crisis was met, the danger averted, but I believe the "Notes" will be found of permanent value. They will ever remain as models of invective against proposed wrong and of clear and powerful Con stitutional argument. With the earnest hope that the life of the father has not lost anything of its beauty and value by the presentation of the son, and trusting that the people of the South, in reading the works of the one, will be indulgent to the other, I present this volume to the public. BENJ. H. HILL, JR. ATLANTA, GA., January 2, 1891. CONTENTS. PART FIRST. Biographical Memoir, Benj. H. Hill, Jr., - CHAPTER I. Ancestry of Benjamin H. Hill--Of Irish-Welsh Stock--Characteristics of his ather --His Mother--Birth in Jasper County, Georgia--Brothers and Sisters--His Youth--At Sixteen Prepared for College--How He Appeared on Entering College--His Career in College--Carried off the Honors of his Class--Studied Law under William Dougherty--Admitted to the Bar in 1844--Marriage to Miss Caroline E. Holt, of Athens, Ga.--Settled in La Grange, Ga.--His Early Success at the Bar--His Methods of Study--His Interest in the Cause of Temperance, - 11 CHAPTER II. Entrance into Politics--Elected to the Lower House of the General Assembly in 1&51--Position on Political Questions--A Member of the Whig Party--Declines a Re-election to the Legislature--Declines the Nomination for Congress in 1833--Nominated for Congress by the American Party in 1855--His Opponent, Hiram Warner--His Canvass--How He Won the Soubriquet of " Our Ben "-- 'siden- Discussion with Alexander H. Stephens at Lexington, Ga.--Steph ens^Ch him to Mortal Combat--He Declines the Challenge--Correspondence Between the Two--The People Sustain him in his Declination--Nominated for Governor by the American Party in 1857--Joseph E. Brown his Opponent--Ben Hill and Joe Brown--Comparison of their Political Careers and Statesmanship--Defeated for Governor--Elected to the State Senate in 1859--The Choice Case--Nomi nated in 1860 for Presidential Elector for the State at Large on the Bell and Everett Ticket--Selected as a Delegate to the Secession Convention--Letter Ac cepting the Nomination--Secession Convention--Mr. Hill's Earnest Fight for the Union--His Peeling of Sadness over Secession, - - - . -- - CHAPTER III. Selected as a Delegate to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States--Elected Confederate States Senator--His Record as Confederate States Senator--Personal Difficulty in the Senate with William L. Tancey--True Account of this Un fortunate Affair--Speech in 1862 in Milledgeville--Efforts to Rally the People to Continue the War--Great Speech in La Grange in 1865--Confederate Leaders Gather at Mr. Hill's House in La Grange--Mr. Hill's Arrest and Imprisonment-- Letter to President Johnson--His Release from Prison--His Letter on Election of United States Senator in 1866, ------...- 1 LH 73 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. Mr. Hill Resumes the Practice of Law--His Success--The Metcalf Case--He Pre vents the Illegal Seizure of Cotton of the People--Mr. Hill's Fight against'the Reconstruction Measures of Congress--His Davis Hall Speech, July 16, 1866-- General Pope Advises his Banishment from the State--His Notes on the Situa tion--Joel Chandler Harris on this Part of his Work--Reorganized the Demo cratic Party in Macon in 1867--Bush Arbor Speech in Atlanta, July 4, 1868-- Tuombs, Cobb, and Hill--Description of their Speeches and Effect Produced-- Henry Grady's Graphic A.ccount of the Occasion--Robert Toombs's'^Tribute-- Some Reflections on the Character of the Reconstruction Measures, - CHAPTER V. Address to the People, December 8, 1870--The Effect of this Address--State Road Lease--Delano Banquet--Speech at the Banquet--These Three Things Cost Hill his Popularity in the State--He was Misunderstood and Greatly Abused--Ex plains fully his Reasons for Attending said Banquet to Mr. Grady--The Greeley Movement--Advocates it--Defeated for United States Senate in 1873 by General John B. Gordon--Cause of his Defeat--Gainesville Convention of 1875--Fails to Make a Nomination for Congress--Mr. Hill Goes before the People--Makes a Canvass of the District--Elected by a Very Large Majority--General Rejoicing over his Election Throughout the South--Meeting of the (Citizens of Atlanta to Celebrate his Election--His Speech on the Occasion--Analysis of Mr. Hill's Political Character, by F. H. Alfriend, __...--- CHAPTER VI. Takes his Seat as a Member of the Forty-fourth Congress, December, 1875--Great Blame, on the 10th of January, 1876, on the Subject of ty--Powerful Vindication of the So CHAPTER VII. General Statement of Mr. Hill's Political Career--His Career as a Lawyer--Resolu tions of the Supreme Court of Georgia--He made a Great Deal of Money Practic- ,._^ ing Law--His .Experiment in Planting in South-west Georgia--Great Financial Loss--His Princely Manner of Living--His Generosity--His Character as Hus band and Father--His Private Life--Pure Domestic Lives of Georgia's Great Men--Mr. Hill's Letter to his "Wife from Richmond, Va.--Mr. Grady's Personal Reminiscence of Mr. Hill's Home Life--His Letter to his Son--Advice about Political Office, ,,_-_--..-..-. CHAPTER VIIL His Sickness--Touching Account by Mr. Grady--Surgical Operations--Their Effect--Apparently Restored to Health--Third and Last Operation--A Great Mistake--His Surgeon Abandons Hope--Trip to Eureka Springs--Incidents Con nected with his Stay at Eureka Springs--Not Benefited--Returns Home--Re ception in Atlanta--Editorial by Mr. Grady--Incidents Connected "with his Sickness in Atlanta--Wonderful Patience and Heroism--Toiiching Evidences of Sympathy from the People--Letter from Jefferson Davis--Letter from Paul H. Haync--Universal Interest in his Condition--Closing Scenes--His Last Words-- His Death, August 16, 1882, _-.-.-..-. CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. s emory-- s ucess-- aue erece on eacree re lanta--Inscriptions on the Same--Conclusion of the Memoir, FART SECOND. MEMORIAL ADDRESSES : Funeral Sermon by Rev. C. A. Evans, D.D., 110 Memorial by Dr. E. W, Speer, - ... 120 MEETING- OF THE CITIZENS OF ATLANTA : Address of Mayor J. W. English, 135 Address of Senator Joseph E. B 136 Resolutions, 127 Address by Benjamin E. Crane, President of the Chamber of Commerce, 127 Address by Hon. N. J. Harnmond, - - - - - - 128 Address by Governor A. H. Colquitt, ---__-_- 130 Address by Chief Justice James Jackson, ,_....- 131 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTA TIVES IK THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS : Extract from Address of Senator Brown, _._-.._ 134 Address of Senator Ingalls, -_._____-_ 134 Address of Senator Vest, --,.-_-- . 136 Address of Senator Morgan, ---..-_-__- 138 Address of Senator Sherman, _,,-______ 144 Address of Senator Voorhees, --_,.--_-- 145 Address of Senator Edmunds, .-..,.._, 149 Address of Senator Jones, --...._.... 150 Address of Representative Tucker, -___.__- 153 Address of Representative House, -_.____., 155 Address of Representative "Wellborn, -------- 159 Address of Representative Kasson, -._-_-_,_ 104 .Address of Representative Hooker, -_-.._.. 165 Address of Representative Cox, ---_-_-_-- 168 TRIBUTES OF THE PRESS : From the Georgia Press, -----,_-._- 175 From the Southern Press outside the State, -_-.-__ 190 From the Northern Press, --.--_-,.- 195 POEMS : On The Portals, - John, W. Campitt, - - - 200 Fronting The Shadow, - Paul H. Sai/ne, - 202 The River, --.___ Mary E. Hill, - 303 "Almost Home," - Charles W. Hub'ner, - - 204 "Almost Home," . . . Montgomery M. Folsom, - - 205 The Fallen Shaft, - Wallace Putnam Reed., - ~ 206 Fallen--Risen, ------ Paul Hamilton Hayne, - - 206 Senator Hill of Georgia, If. ------ 208 The UQveiling of the Ben Hill Monument, H. T. W., - - - - 303 Immortal, ------- Charles W. Sudner, - - - 209 EXERCISES ON UNVEILING THE STATUE OF SENATOR HILL IN ATLANTA GA ON MAY 1, 1886 : Extract from Atlanta Constitution, May 2, 1886, _-.-.. 2\Q Address by Henry "W. Grady, ---------- 210 Prayer by General Evans _---.-...__ 211 Address-by R. D. Spaldlng, --._-.._.. 212 Address by Governor H. X>, McDaniel ----..,- 213 Address by J. C. C. Black, ---._.__-_ 215 Address by Jefferson Davis, ------.-., 237 li CONTENTS. PART THIRD. SPEECHES OF SENATOR B. H. HILL. Speech Delivered at Macon, Ga., June 30, 1860 in favor of Bell and Everctt, 229 Speech Delivered at Milledgeville, Ga., November 15, I860, in Opposition to Secession, ------------- 237 Speech Delivered before the Georgia Legislature, December 11, 1862, in Sup port of the Confederate Administration, ------- 2ol Speech Delivered in La Grange, Ga., March 11, 1865, Urging the Continuance of the Struggle for Independence, -------- 273 Speech Delivered in Atlanta, Ga., July 16, 1867, against the Military Bills of Congress, known as the Davis Hall Speech, ------ 294 Speech Delivered at Atlanta, Ga., July 28,1868, known as the Bush Arbor Speech, 308 Speech Delivered in Hew York City, October 6, 1868, before the Young Men's Democratic League, ----------- 320 Speech Delivered at Athens, Ga., July 31, 1871, before the Alumni Society, - 332 Speech Delivered iu Atlanta, Ga., in June, 1872, in defense of Greeley Movement, 350 Speech Delivered in United States Circuit Court in Atlanta, Ga., March 14, 187S, on Motion to Quash Panel of Jurors, -------- 367 Speech Delivered in Atlanta, Ga., before the General Assembly, January 16, 1873, on the Election of United States Senator, ----- 378 Address before the Southern Historical Society iu Atlanta, Ga., February 18,1874, 399 Speech Delivered in Atlanta, Ga., January 20, 1875, on the Situation in Louisiana, eech on Ms ech Deliver Amnesty Bill, in reply to Blaine, --Speech on the Reception of a Flag from Citizens of Ohio, Delivered in Atlanta, Ga., September, 1876, -----------461 Speech before the Legislature of Georgia, January 20, 1877, on the Election of United States Senator, --_-_--,,-- 473 Speech Delivered in the Senate of the United States on the Pacific Railroad Funding Bill, March 37, 1878, -___-__-- 494 Speech in the United States Senate on the Coinage of Silver Dollars, Febru ary 8, 1878, ------------ 530 Speech in the Senate of the United States on the Subject of War Claims, Janu ary 37, 1879, ------------- 551 " The Union under the Constitution knows no Section, but does Know all the States." Speech Delivered in the Senate, June 11, 1879, - 561 "The Untruthful Charge of a Revolutionary Purpose " on the Democratic Party. Speech in United States Senate, March 24, 1879, - - - - 585 "The Union and its Enemies," Speech Delivered in the Senate, May 10, 1879, 594 Speech Delivered in the United States Senate, May 11 and 13, 1880, against William Pitt Kellogg, _--_-___-- 635 Speech in Reply to Butler and Hampton, in the Senate of the United States, June 11, 1880, _---__---_-- 684 Speech in the United States Senate, March 14, 1881, known as the " Mahone Speech," ------------- 712 WRITINGS. Letters to Alexander H. Stephens in Reference to the Lexington Discussion, 1856, 20 Letter Declining Mr. Stephens^ Challenge to Fight, 1850, - 25 Letter Accepting his Election as a Delegate to the Secession Convention, 1860, 38 Letter to his Wife, February 7, 1864, -------- 87 Letter to his Wife, February 14, 1864, -------- 90 Letter to President Johnson written from Fort Lafayette, 1865, - 47 Letter in Reference to the Election of United States "Senator, 1866, - - - 48 Notes on the Situation, 1867-1868, -------- 730 Address to the People of Georgia, December 8, 1870, - - - - - 55 Explanation of his Alumni Address, -------- 332 Letter to his Son, written in 1881, - - - - _ - - - - 92 Letter to his Daughter-in-law, 1881, -------- 104 Letter to R. C. Humber reviewing the Haves Administration, 1877, - - - 812 Article in Reply to Dr. Wm. H. Fulton, 1882, ------ 817 ILLUSTRATIONS. Portrait of Senator Hill, --------- (Frantisfiect~j Birthplace of Senator Hill, ---------- 12 Academy where Senator Hill first went to school, ------ 34 Senator Hill's Residence in La Grange, Ga., - - - - - - -46 Portrait of Senator Hill's Wife, ._---._.- 90 Residence of Senator Hill in Atlanta, where lie died, ----- 108 Senator Hill's Statue, ----------- 210 PART FIRST. CHAPTER I. Ancestry of Benjamin H. Hill--Of Irish-Welsh Stock--Characteristics of his Father-- His Mother--Birth in Jasper Connty, Georgia--Brothers and Sisters---His Youth-- At Sixteen Prepared for College--How He Appeared on Entering College--His Career in College--Carried off the Honors of his Class--Studied Law under William Dougherty--Admitted to the Bar in 1844--Marriage to Miss Caroline E. Holt, of Athens, Ga.--Settled in I^a Grange, Ga.--Early Success at the Bar--His Methods of Study---llis Interest in the Cause of Temperance. CT is. a family tradition that the paternal ancestors of Benjamin Harvey Hill came from Ireland, and his maternal ancestors from Wales--the [7-,,i,,-i, ,,,,.,,,,, being Ingrahain. The Hill branch settled in North Caro- not one of those Americans "who boasts of having no ancestors. "While every man is the architect of his own name and fortune, yet a spotless record from generation to generation, is a priceless heritage. There is both beauty and inspiration in heirlooms and ancestral portraits. A tree is known by its fruit, and a crystal stream must flow from a crystal source ; and if great qualities of head and heart indicate pure and noble lineage, the forefathers ame from North Carolina and settled in tsuuieijy. j-ii Liie litui^ utigt; UL ins nuii : .o.t; wu i,nn uusititi 01 i/ne BL-IJOOJ., steward and class leader in the church, and the president of the temperance society." He was an enterprising citizen and the leader of every movement having for its purpose public progress arid improvement. He was beloved by his neighbors, and the little town, that owed in great part its existence to r , .. boyhood homeTjl These domestic flowers, planted in his child's heart, bloomed all through the years of a stormy career, and blossomed into fragrance and comfort- 12 SENATOR B. H. SILL, OH1 OMOB&IA. r~--~"~ when great trouble and suffering came. \When quite a young man, John Hill married Miss Sarah Parham. She was a woman with a noble, tender and loving heart, deeply religious and charitable, and a most excellent wife and mother. To her loving and careful training" can be truthfully attributed all that was best in the moral and religious character of her^sbn. In this home, where, with the simplicity of perfect faith, God was honored and love reigned, the biography of Benjamin Harvey Hill begins. He was born in Jasper County, Georgia, September 14, I82S. He was the fifth of six sons and the seventh of nine children. From an early age he worked with his brothers and a few slaves on his father's farm. In this respect no differ ence was made between the children and the slaves ; they were all made to work early and late. The wife and daughters of the family did the entire household work, spun, wove, cut, and made all the clothing for husband, children, and slaves. When his son Ben was ten years old his father moved to Troup County and settled in a little place called. Long Cane. The boys walked the entire distance, assisting in driving the cattle, and the father, mother, and sisters rode in wagons containing the household furniture and the personal property of the family. The farm in Troup was in the woods, and the boys at once set to work to clear the land, and afterward assisted in cultivating the soil. When the crops were made, or rather " laid by," the children all went to school and studied hard through the winter. So, with alternate work and study, life ran smoothly along-, and at sixteen years of age Ben was strong and robust physically, and mentally eager and ambi tious. So.-earn.fegt_was,.,liis..desii:L.for_ an education, and so rapidly did he master his lessons, that his father was- induced to select him from among his children for*higher educational advantages than he was able to give all. So at sixteen be was taken from the farm and placed at school for the pur pose of preparing to enter college^ It is proper to say in this place that one other son, William Pinckney, also received from his father the advantages of a collegiate education. But he did not graduate, leaving college before his course was completed and going to Texas to fight Indians and Mexicans. While at college, this brother was considered a young1 man of great genius. It is related that he and the late Bishop George F. Pearce, who were class mates, began preaching together, and that the sermons delivered by young Pinckney Hill were considered superior to those of George F. Pearce. When we consider that Bishop Pearce was the most eloquent preacher ever produced in the South, we can but regret that young Hill decided to change his voca tion in life. After the first enthusiasm of youth had been expended in many contests with the Indians and Mexicans, William Pinckney Hill settled in Texas, selecting the law as his profession. He rose to great eminence as a lawyer and was easily the leader of the Texas bar. I have heard my father state that if the Southern Confederacy had established a supreme court, that Mr. Davis would have selected his brother as the first chief justice. Many political honors were offered to him but he declined them all, preferring to devote himself to his profession. My father thought bim the most gifted member of the family, and was very proud of him. In JjL869, the year the writer graduated from the University of Geor^^jthis uncle came to Athens on a visit, to his brother. He impressed me as a man of vast information, great culture, and was a most brilliant and fascinating conversationalist. He was not, however, the equal of his younger brother in originality, depth and strength, of thought. Thelate Jeremiah. Black, one of the greatest of American lawyers, said that William Pinckney Hill was BIRTHPLACE OP SBNATOK HILL. HIS ZIFB, SPSaOSES, AND WRITINGS. a aways a wa was cae er pac, wc was near was cultivated by her house servants when not needed at house ' take the first honor in my class. ren to coeges an unverstes outse te mts o ter own tate, ot only patriotism, but a regard for the future interest of the child should always decide the balance in favor of home institutions. Associations 14 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. : In. 1841, Benjamin H. Hill entered the university, joining the sophomore class. Dudism or even st3rle in those days were unknown accomplishments of the students at Athens. The boys drove into the classic city in wagons containing their furniture, dressed in homespun and home-made jeans. The art of the tailor was little known among- the mothers and sisters, who cut and made with loving hands suits for sons and brothers. And it mattei'ed little how it fit, so that the material was substantial and the suit comforta ble. Those who saw Ben Hill when he first came to Athens declare that he was the greenest looking student of that year. His-dress consisted of home made gray jeans, an unusual^ long- coat, and scanty trousers barely touch ing the tops of his home-made shoes. In personal appearance he was un usually tall and slender, with a very pale and thoughtful face, and rather shy and awkward. In the words of one of the brightest of his classmates: "He was a towheadcd boy that had grown up without filling into pro portion. He had none of the light and blithesome habit usual to boys, but was thoughtful and quiet. Even then he carried his head bent to one side, and when walking appeared to be completely absorbed in thought." His college career was brilliant arid successful. Popular with his fel low-students, he was also the favorite of the faculty and especially loved by the Chancellor, Or. Church. He devoted his hours to redeeming the p romise rmade to his mother, and was remarkable for his earnest, studious habits. He carried with him to college the pure lessons of his country home, and was ever faithful to the family altar, where his father had prayed for him and his mother had blessed him with her kiss. Dr. G. A. Orr, a distinguished man and an earnest Christian, one of his classmates, in speak ing of this part of his life, said : "He was a pure and exalted boy through my college acquaintance with him. There was not the slightest shadow of immorality in his character. He was loyal, quiet, studious. I knew that he "would be a great man. Through all his life and through all criticism, I have thought of him as the pure, earnest boy I knew at Athens, and I have loved him and believed in him always." At the very beginning he took the head of his class and the lead in his debating society, and easily maintained both positions until he graduated with the highest honors of class and soc.iety. In those days the debates in the society were not simply superficial declamations, but most laborious and exhaustive discussions. The subjects for debate were thoroughly studied, and on Saturday the entire day was spent in. argument. Close attention to the debates, as then conducted, taught logical thought and accuracy of speech. It was in the contests of the^Demosthenian Society that Mr. Hill laid broad and deep the foundations of his matchless eloquence and resistless logic. He made three speeches during his college career which were much talked of at the time of their de livery. His speech at commencement, wliena memberof the junior class, on " Life, Love, arid Madness of Torquato Tasso," was in perfect harmony with the poetical subject, yet luminous with eloquence. His speech as anniver- sai'y orator of the society was said to have been a masterly address, full of wisdom and practical suggestions. The crowning effort of his college career was his valedictory. Col. P. W. Alexander, a classmate and a scholar of splendid attainments, said of this speech : " It was a superb piece of eloquence from beginning to end, and held the audience entranced; his per oration was a tribute to Dr. Church, the thrilling tones of which ring in nay ears yet. It was magnificent! That speech stamped the young orator as a man of wonderful power, and had newspapers then given the same atten- HIS LIFJS, 8PEEOII1G8, do it would at once have made him famous rater eclipsed the fame of the great 16 SENATOR B. II. HILL, OF GEOUGIA. poring over a book with tears streaming down his face. Curious to know what could so move the stern man of justice, he asked him what lie "was reading, he replied the " Lamp Lighter," and that he was crying over the tribulations of "poor little G-erty." He borrowed the book from the judge and read it. He also read " Ten Thousand a Year," that wonderful novel by Samuel Warren. Later in life, he was persuaded by his youngest son, who is an ardent lover of Dickens, to read " Pickwick Papers," and I have seen him laugh until the tears rolled down his cheeks over the inimitable humor found in this incomparable book. But as a general rule, lie regarded it as a waste of time to read either novels or light literature. His nature was too earnest and profound. His mind was far too great to be satisfied with any lesser food than the mighty problems of life and government, and the great thoughts of the profound and original. In 1845 to 1851, lie gave all of his time to the practice of his profession, and in a few years he was on one side of every case in his circuit. As a private citizen he was from the first very much beloved by the people of La Grange and Troup counties. He carried into his own household the teachings of his country home. He was a devoted father and husband, and in every respect a most exemplary citizen. He was an earnest member of the Methodist Church, a most efficient superintendent of the Sunday School, and active in every movement looking to the elevation of his town and people. At this time the tempei'ance movement took an absorbing hold on the people. An organization known as the " Sons of Temperance " was pushing the cause in Troup County and throughout the State. Mr. Hill was the leader of this movement in his section. In 1884, in speaking and its effect, Judge B. H. Bingham, who wa uriu.ersi/a.iici now i/iie earnest iiaiure or ivir. j;iiii was enlisted, in suon a noble cause, and it is to be deeply regretted that the eloquent appeals he made for the preservation of home, and the salvation of man, from this the deadliest of all curses, have not been preserved. CHAPTER II. Entrance into Politics--Elected to the Lower House of the General Assembly in 1851-- Position on Political Questions--A Member of the Whig Party--Decline^sa Re-elec tion to the Legislature--Declines the Nomination for Congress in 1853--Dominated for Congress by the American Party in 1855--His Opponent, Hiram Warner--His Canvass--How He Won the Sobriquet of " Our Ben "--Reduced the Democratic Majority from 2000 to 24--Nominated as the Presidential Elector from the State at Large for Fillmore in 1856--Canvass of the State--Discussion with Alexander H. Stephens at Lexington, Ga.--Stephens Challenges him to Mortal Combat--lie De clines the Challenge--Correspondence Between the Two--The People Sustain him in his Declination--Nominated for Governor by the American Party in 1857--Joseph E. Brown his Opponent--Ben Hilly and Joe Brown--Comparison of their Political Careers and Statesmenship--Defeated for Governor--Elected to the State Senate in The Choice Case--Nominated in 1860 for Presidential Elector for the State at Large on the Bell and Everett Ticket--Selected as a Delegate to the Secession Con'ention--Letter Accepting the Nomination--Secession Convention--Mr. Hill's Earnist Fight for the Union--His Feeling of Sadness over Secession. 1 ~T~T7~ITH a love for the country "which dominated him throughout life, in V-, VV 1849 Mr. Hill purchased a farm three miles from the town of La Grange, to which, he moved his wife and two children. In this quiet and delightful retreat he devoted himself to study and farm work, was ideally happy with his young wife and children, and untroubled by any ambitious longings. But it could not be expected that a man so brilliant as a speaker, .so wise in counsel, would be permitted to pursue his private work. ^tTie ' eople of his county were watching him, and in 1851, without seeking or esiring the office, he was eleeted to the lower house of the General Assem^i bjy. CJ)unng the year 1850 the entire country was greatly aroused on -4-biBSubject of the compromise measures in reference., to the extension of slavery. The agitation on this subject, which eventually disrupted the Union, was at its height. Mr. Hill entered the struggle in behalf of the Union, and was elected to the General Assembly as a Union man, and against continued slavery agitation. He saw with deep concern the bitter and aggressive agitation of the slavery question and its rapid and dangerous growth as a paramount and overshadowing issue in national politics. He realized that the question was dividing the North and South, embittering both sections and laying the foundation for war. He therefore entered public life as a member of the grand old 'Whig party, which at all times was for the Union, and he was an unrelenting enemy of the Democratic party in its course on, national questions. He hoped that the splendid Union victory in 1851 had settled the question of slavery, and, notwithstand ing a most brilliant record in the Legislature, he declined a re-election, and for the same reason he declined the nomination for Congress in 1353. In 1854, Congress repealed the Missouri compromise. This legislation Mr. Hill regarded as an act of bad faith, a reopening of the slavery question, a menace to the peace of the country and the institutions and liberties of .the South, "Take care, my fellow-citizens," was his prophetic warning, "that in endeavoring to carry slavery where nature's laws prohibit its entrance, 17 13 SENATOR B. II. HILL, OF GEORGIA. and where your solemn faith is pledged it shall not go, you do not lose the right to hold slaves at all." nominated Hiram Warner. Judge Warner he picture were these "When shanghais meet our native bird, they are sure to get a licking, Old Hiram Shanghai tried " Our Ben," and there he lies a-kicking. The district had always given a Democratic majority of not less than 2000, and it was predicted that this majority would be greatly increased during the election. But Mr. Hill's power as a speaker, his impassioned eloquence, his inspiring presence, and his earnest and patriotic appeals, burn ing with unselfish love for his country, made many converts, and he was defeated by only twenty-four votes. It was conceded that the virtue and intelligence of the district were largely in his favor, and that his defeat was accomplished bv smuggling Democratic miners across the Alabama line from Okichobee gold mines. This campaign gave Mr. Hill a State reputation, and in 1856 he was elected as a Fillmore elector for the State at large. He made an active canvass of the State, meeting in joint discussion the most dis tinguished Democratic orators. He won National fame by the power and scope with which he discussed great national questions. He took as his patri otic text, " The Northern extremist who "".T O" T rl save the TJnion at the expense of the Constitution, and the Southerp --.-\J . rr. t who would save the Qonstitution by destroying the Union, are --.= V; =. .j^'lly condemned. Let us have n e non, r. me e mos . Alexander H. Stephens and Kobert Toom bs had both been Whigs,, but had Democrats, and, like all convert , He and Mr. Hill began a joint canvasss of the State, but in their first xington, G-a., Mr. Hill was unfortunate enough to utterly route 20 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Of GEORGIA. and permanent. In this condition of public sentiment, it required a brave man to refuse a challenge and a most extraordinary man to survive a re fusal. Mr. Hill promptly declined, and the remarkable spectacle was pre sented of a dueling believing people applauding his refusal. The correspond ence between the two men is exceedingly bitter, and on the part of Mr. Hill shows remarkable power of satire and sarcasm. The entire correspond ence is interesting and is here inserted. CORRESPONDENCE SETWEEN HOIST. A. II. STEPHENS HOW. li. H. HILL. CKA~\VFOKI>VILI,E, ^November 17, 1856. Sir .' I have been informed that in your speech at Thomson, and also in Augusta, in alluding to a discussion you had with Mi". Toombs at Washing ton, and myself at Lexington, you said in substance that you had charged upon them (Mr. Toombs and myself) that they had betrayed the Whig party, and had acted toward it worse than Judas Iscariot, for thotigh he be trayed his Master, yet he did not abuse Him afterward ; that you had thundered this in their (Toombs's and Stephens's) ears, and they cowered under it. Please let me know if it be true that you, on the occasions alluded to, used such language, or intended yourself to be understood as using such language, or any of like import, at least so far as X am concerned. Your early attention to this will oblige Yours most respectfully, ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. To -S. H. Hill, Esq., La Grange, Ga. LA. GRANGE, GA., November 18, 1856. Dear Sir : I received your letter of the 17th to-day, and proceed to give a prompt reply. I did not say at Thomson or Augusta, or elsewhere, that you and Mr. Toombs " had betrayed the Whig party, and had acted toward it worse than Judas Iscariot," etc. This, perhaps, is the application which your informant himself made of what I did say. It is not possible for me now to recall the precise words used by me at the time alluded to, nor at any other time ; but the substance of what I said about the discussion at Lexington and Washington I well remember, though I cannot designate precisely how much I said at one place, as I sometimes said more than at other times ; but I have no disposition to conceal any thing I did say at any time ; because my motives were right and my "dec larations from the house-tops." At Thomson, Augusta, and other places, I did allude to the discussion at Lexington and Washington, especially the first, but I can say with entire certainty that I said no more on the subject of your inquiry than I did say in your presence at the time of the discussion at Lexington. During the discussion at Lexington you spoke of the "Know-nothings " (as you have been pleased to term the members of the American party) very severely, or contemptuously, as I understood it. Among other thing's, you read a portion of "what you called the "oath," and declared it illegal, and you spoke of Lane, "one of the forty-four," as a Judas, and said 1 e was HIS LIFE, SPEEO&E3, AND WRITINGS. 21 " our ally," etc. At Washington, Mr. Toombs spoke of the Americans, if possible, still more bitterly, and. described tliem "as sneaking at midnight around back lots," and even ministers as " telling lies, and getting out of them by equivocations," etc., etc. To both of you I made reply, and a portion of the reply was the same to both, and in the reply alluded to the manner in "which you had on former occasions treated these men, when they were alluded to as "midnight con spirators," " treason plotters," and as comparable to "French Jacobins," etc. I then spoke of the characters of many of these men who were brought under these terrible denunciations ; referred to the fact that they were up right members of the various branches of the Christian church ; never vio lated anv law ; were men into whose keeping we would be willing to trust our families, our reputation, and our property ; that among them, were to be found the greatest number of your early and best friends--men who had made you--had taken you by the hand and given you their business and made you rich ; had placed you in the national councils, and kept you there, and thus made you great ; arid even if you differed from them, now, that difference on such questions of propriety could not justify you in using the position they had given you thus to denounce them. I then spoke of your habitual and particular reference to Judas, and I added, " that Judas did be tray his Lord, but even Judas never abused his Lord after he betrayed him." These are the facts on the "Judas " branch of the argument--the only one to which you have addressed your inquiry, Now, as the manner in which "I intended it to be understood," I intended it to be understood as simply in reply to the charges made ; neither more nor less. It was in reply at Lexington and Washington, and on every other occasion afterward, when referred to, it was by way of nar rative as in reply, and in no other manner. The same charges seem to have been made wherever I went in eastern Georgia, and the same manner of treating the so-called " Know-nothings' " oath had been adopted by you dur ing the canvass of last year. So the people said. I never abused either you or Mr. Toombs--saw no one who so construed my remarks. I spoke of the reply as a reply, and made in, your presence. May,have said "thundered it "--not certain as to those words. Do not remember that I said in any speech, " you cowered under it." May have said in conversation that some of your friends were reported as saying so, and that the people, as far as I know, deemed the reply not out of place, but -well timed and merited; I know my main object was to report the facts as the best form in which I could present the argument. I never abuse anybody, never myself make personal issues in public speeches, but generally reply to anything which I consider merits a reply; I frequently, if not always (1 now believe always), alluded to yourself and Mr. Toombs with a distinct disclaimer of unkind feelings, because I never had such feelings for either of you. But I deemed it my duty to meet your argument to the best of my humble ability*, wher ever I met it, or heard it, and that, too, whether the argument assumed the shape of logic, sarcasm, or ridicule, and I never attempt the latter species of argument unless in reply to something of the kind first used by the adver-sary. I never make shots, except to those who build batteries. "What I said at Thomson, Augusta, or elsewhere, on the Judas allusion, you heard at Lex ington. How I said it yon saw, and to what it was said in reply, and, there fore, why it was said you know; and whoever represents otherwise misleads 22 SENATOR B. S. HILL, Of GEORGIA. you, either by misrepresenting me, or by substituting his own applications for my statements. I had almost said I was willing to submit to your own judgment, whether the whole was not in strict accordance with the rules of parliamentary retort. The public mind has strangely had yourself, and brother Linton and my self, on several occasions fighting and quarreling about something growing out of this Lexington discussion, but hoping these things will be in the fu ture, what they have been in the past, entirely imaginary and without foun dation in either fact or feeling, I am very truly yours, B. H. IIiix." Hon. -A. JI. Stephens. _____ CRAWFORTWILLE, GA., November 22, 1856. Sir: Your letter bearing date the 18lh instant (mailed or postmarked the 20th) was received by rue to-day. In reply to the inquiry made in mine to you of the 17th inst., you say that you did not, at Thomson or Augusta, or elsewhere, say that I and Mr. Toombs "had betrayed the Whig party, and had acted toward it "worse than Judas Iscariot," etc. This is satisfactory on that point. Yon, however, go on to say that at Thomson, Augusta, and other places you did allude to the discussion at Lexington; but that you said on those occasions no more on the subject of my inquiry (contained in my letter of the 17th inst.) than you did say in my presence at Lexington. And you give what you intend, I suppose, as the substance of what you there said, etc. Now waiving- all comments on this report of your remarks at Lexington, as given in your letter, allow me to ask you further, whether, at Lexington, in the only allusion you made to Judas Iscariot, you did not expressly state that you did not apply that to me ? I wish also to be informed whether, in your " narrative " at Thomson or elsewhere, you intended to be understood as having imputed treachery in me to the Whig party, or any other body of men ? An early and distinct reply to these additional inquiries rendered necessary by the character of your letter, is desired. Very respectfully, ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. To B. II. Jlitt, JEsq., La Grange, Ga. LA GRANGE, GA., November 24, 1856. Sir: By the mail of yesterday, (Sunday) I received your letter of the 22d inst., in which you made two inquiries, and ask distinct replies. 1st. Whether in the allusion to Judas Iscariot at Lexington I did not expressly state that I did not apply that to you. My recollection is this: In your first speech yon made your charges against the Americans, alluded to in myNletter of the 18th, and introduced the character of Judas and " his allies," In my first rejoinder, I made the reply alluded to, and without quali fication, expecting you, if you were dissatisfied or desired explanation, to speak of it in your conclusion. I again mentioned it, and added voluntarily --" of course, iny friends, I do not mean to say that Mr. Stephens is a Judas." This I added because I did not wish the audience to consider me personal, but as using a figure of my own in reply, and (as I must now tell the feeling that actuated me) because I did feel some compunctions for SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WHITINGS. 23 making that last speech at all, as it seemed cruel to add anything after your last speech. I always disclaimed personal unkindness, because I certainly felt none. 2d. You ask " whether in my narrative at Thomson or elsewhere, I in tended to bo understood as imputing, or having imputed, treachery in you. to the Whig party, or any other body of men." In my letter of the 18th, I distinctly stated in reference to my meaning that " I intended to be understood as simply in reply to the charges made, neither more or less." By the light of your own meaning, then, you can learn my answer. Your remarks were, certainly, as offensive as anything said by me, and were the first made; and I might also have been writing letters and calling on you for explanation; but as I entered the contest to use the sword of the tongue and the shield of fact, I intend to be satisfied with the result, and so I am. And as what I said there was said to the public, T had no ob jections to its use in reply to similar points, made at any time to any people. I never, in discussion, first enter the field of ridicule or personal re proach, but if my adversary takes that path., I generally follow, and if I get too close on his heels for his comfort, he must blame only himself. Instead of discussing the principles advocated by the American party, have you not for the last eighteen months been abusing the members of that party as "midnight conspirators," "treason plotters," "French Jacobins," etc.? Have you not compared them to everything monstrous among men, beasts or insects ? Have you not searched the whole field of ridicule from " Doodle-holes," " liear Fights," with which to engender prejudice against this party ? Did you not at Lexington call them the allies of the Abolitionist Lane, who has never acted with them, nor been of them, but who was one of the immaculate " forty-four "? And did you not pretend to read what yoij. called the " Know-nothing" oath (which you said Mr. Fillmore had taken) and did you not read only a portion, leaving out the qualification which your argument was designed to prove it did not contain ? Did you not, in that very connection, talk a good deal about Judas ? Were these charges just ? Were they true ? Was it not abuse ? And who were the men thus denounced ? Can you find better anywhere ? Will you ever find men who can or will do more for you than these men have done ? Do you really believe that they are dangerous to their country ? "Why, sir, I but repeat what you know when I say that when the battle for our country, our section, or our rights, must be fought, these men will be the first in the field, and the last to leave it. When they fall, Rome has fallen, and the Goths and Vandals may take it. !N"ow then, to the point: If in discussion you do so treat these men, must I say nothing in reply ? If I do reply, can your own illustrations returned be out of place? If the arrow does pierce, it was taken from your own quiver, and if I make you feel this one shot, how do you suppose your old friends have felt when you have made thousands ? If you had not made the charge, I should not have made the reply. If you had only a political meaning, then the reply goes no further. If you meant nothing, so did the reply. Your treatment of the Whigs is a matter be tween you and them; nor is it material to me to how many parties you may have belonged, or how you left them, or they left you; but when you speak of my political assooiates, whether Whigs or Democrats, in the manner men tioned, then the hour of defense and retort has come, and will not be 24 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. suffered to pass idly away. By your own words, construe mine; by your own moaning judge me, and harshly or kindly as you may. The charge was made, the reply followed, and there they are; take both or take neither. If you were in a glass house, you ought not to throw stones: if you did not live in a glass house, no stone thrown by me has harmed you. Your right to refuse to join the American party, and to join the Democratic party, is unquestionable; and the motive arid the fact are both unquestioned by me. The right of your old friends to refuse to follow you is also unquestionable, and neither you nor they should be compared to Judas, nor charged with treachery in thus obeying the dictates of honest conviction. Nor have I done so, or intended to be so understood by anybody. But if you compare these men to Judas, or apply the other opprobrious terms mentioned to them, their organizations, their principles, or their conduct, I shall call it by its right name--abuse; and in retorting to such abuse, leaving his treachery out of the question, I say you do what the record does not show against Judas--abuse the men who for twelve years fed you with *' five loaves and two fishes," indefinitely multiplied. I hope you now understand me. I never have made, and do not now make any charge of treachery against you. No man regrets more than I do your opposition, and especially the character of your opposition to the American party. It has been unjust to the party, grossly unjust, and untrue to the motives of the men and the principles they advocate. It has been unjust to yourself, and the student of your early history will have no right to anticipate such a sequel. But in the discharge of what I deemed my duty, I replied to your charge, and while the charges remain the reply must keep it company. Yours very truly, B. II. HILL. Hon. -4. I~l. Stephens. _____ WASHiNaTON, D. C., November 29, 1856. Sir: Your letter bearing date of the 24th inst. (mailed or postmarked the 25th), did not reach Crawfordville, where it was directed, until after I had left for this place, which I regret. It has just come to hand here, where it has been forwarded, and is far from being such as I bad reason to expect. So far from this, it has in it much, both in tone and matter, per sonally offensive in itself. Your answer, therefore, to my last two inquiries, taken in connection with the whole of your response to my first letter of the 17th inst., by no means constitute such an explanation of the offensive character of the report, -which had been communicated to me of your remarks at Thomson and Augusta, as I can receive with a due regard to my honor as a gentleman and my integrity as a man. I do not deem it proper on this occasion to join issues with you in any statement of facts in your account of what either you or I said at Xiexington. You hold yourself responsible, I suppose, for your own version of both, and for the version, as given by yourself, as well as its tone and manner. I ask of you that satis faction which is usual between gentlemen on such occasions. My friend, Hon. Thomas W. Thomas, who will hand you this, is authorized to make all necessary arrangements, allowing only such terms as my present distance may require. Respectfully, To J3. Jf. Hill, Esq., La Grange, Ga. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. HIS LIFJS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 25 LA GRANGE, GA., December 6, 1856. Dear Sir: Your letter of November 29 was handed to me a few moments since by Hon. Thomas "W. Thomas. You say that my letter of the 24th ult. has in it much, both in tone and manner, personally offensive in itself, and, without specifying anything which you designate as offensive, you pro ceed to ask of me ** that satisfaction which is usual between gentlemen in such cases." It might be some satisfaction for you to shoot me, though I should entertain no great fear of being hit; but candor requires me to say, with my present feelings, I could not deliberately shoot at you, a. d for many reasons, a few only of which I now give: 1st. I might possibly kill you, and though you may not consider your life valuable, yet to take it would be a great annoyance to me ever afterward. The ceaseless accusations of my conscience that I was a murderer would be the bane of my future happiness. 2d. I am not conscious of having given you any just ground of offense. In my letter of the 24th I authorized you to construe my remarks by the meaning of your own charge, to which the remarks were intended as reply. If the reply then was offensive, it only proves that you so intended your charge, and in that view you are entitled to no satisfaction, and I am satis fied with the reply. Further than this I distinctly disclaimed any personal allusion or imkindness, and, notwithstanding your " belligerent message," feel none now. 3d. If the invitation to mortal combat is extended as a mere formal oc casion to exchange a few harmless shots, and then have an adjustment, I can only say I never engage in farces nor make feigned issues. If I could be made conscious that I had done you injustice, I should deem it a duty to repair it, and should not wait first to be shot at. If you did me injustice, I met the occasion with the remedy, and it does seem made a shot which pro duced a wider, if not deeper sore than any within the power of powder or ball to produce. Now, sir (as I always speak plainly), I will only add that I know of nothing which has occurred between you and me which could authorize or justify a duel; and while I have never at any time had an insult offered to me, nor an aggression attempted, I shall yet know how to meet and repel any that may be offered by any gentleman who may presume upon this refusal or otherwise. Yours respectfully, B. H. HILL. JTon. -A.. JT. Stephens. _____ Mr. Stephens, after receiving Mr. Hill's letter, refusing to meet him in mortal combat, publishes the following in the Chronicle and Sentinel: The letter of K. H. Hill, Esq., published in the Constitutionalist of the 26th ult. (copied from the Savannah 2tepublican), abounding as it does with the grossest perversion of truth upon matters relating to myself, though not of great weight of themselves, should have been noticed at an earlier date, but for the pendency of a correspondence between him and mo upon another subject of a much higher grade of importance, which required prior adjust ment--that was the report which had reached me of his speeches at Thomson and Augusta, near the close of the late canvass, in which, as communicated to me, he had said in substance, at both of these places, in alluding to the discussion at Lexlngton with me and the discussion at Washington with Mr. 26 SKNATOR R. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. Toombs, that he had charged them (Messrs. Toouibs and Stephens) with having1 betrayed the ^Vhig party, and having- acted toward it worse than Judas Iscariot. "For though he betrayed his Master, yet he did not abuse him afterward--that he thundered this in their ears and they cowered under it." An explanation of this language took precedence over all minor issues, and I am now compelled, by a sense of duty to myself and the public, to make known that in the correspondence referred to, and just terminated, in relation to it, Mr. Hill has proved himself to be, not only an impudent brag- fart and an unscrupulous liar, but a despicable poltroon besides. All these proclaim him to be, holding- myself, notwithstanding what has passed and this denunciation, still responsible even to him for what I say, if he be not utterly insensible to shame or degradation, however he may be as to fear. The public will, therefore, excuse me for not saying anything further upon his version of facts relating to the very immaterial question, so far as I was concerned, as to whether he did or did not "back out from a discussion in Elbert.'5 I will also, I trust, be excused, even by the most fastidious, for the language now used toward him, which my own self-respect, on ordinary occasions, would forbid. Uut when a mendacious gasconader sets up wan tonly to asperse my private character and malign individual reputation, and then refuses that redress which a gentleman knows how to ask as well as to grant, no course is left for the most courteous and decorous, and the most upright and honorable, but to put the brand of infamy upon him, there to remain until a radical change in his character, and especially in his conduct, either in giving personal insults or making proper amends for them when given shall remove it. AT.EXANBEK H. STEPHENS. "WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., December 12, 1856. Letter from Mr. Hill : LA GKANGK, GA., December 18, 1856. Mr. JSditor : I have this morning read the " card " of Hon. A. II. Ste phens, dated at Washington City, December 12, and published in the Con stitutionalist of yesterday. It shall be answered as its merits demand. The correspondence between Mr. Stephens arid myself, as far as any purpose of mine was concerned, was not intended for publication, but as Mr. Stephens has alluded to it in his card, and, as an inspection will show, has given it a false version, it is proper that the public should see the whole of it, and ** then enter judgment." I send it to you with this. Mr. Stephens first made an issue of veracity in his letter of October 31 about going to Elbert. I stated the facts on this subject in my letter of November 5, and gave it as my opinion that Mr. Stephens would not deny the facts there stated. He does not do it. He dare not do it--but goes on to say that the letter abounds " with the grossest perversion of truth upon matters relating to himself," and then without a single specification dismisses this branch of the controversy, by saying they are of " no very great weight in themselves," etc., and was a very " immaterial question," etc. It is well for him that he abandoned this issue. He made it, but soon found it was a ridiculous retreat from a mortifying defeat, and every posi tion assumed by him in relation to it false, either in letter or the im pression which he sought to make, and known to him to be false, because he is compelled to know my statement is correct and can now be proven by disinterested gentlemen, if he dared to deny it, and specify what he denied. SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 27 Since "writing this portion of this article I have received another letter from a highly respectable gentleman (whose name with many others can be given if desired), in which ho says : " I read your published letter to Mr. Ste phens, of November 5, stating the facts in the case relative to your going to Elbert, or to Washington ; every item of which I think you could substan tiate, if necessary, by at least twenty "witnesses--myself among the number." In his letter of the 12th iiist. lie alludes to what he calls a " subject of a much higher grade," and that was the following language, which he says was communicated to him as used by me at Thomson and Augusta, that I had charged them [Messrs. Toombs and Stephens] with " having betrayed the Whig party, and having acted toward it worse than Judas Iscariot, for though he betrayed his Master, yet he did not abuse him afterward ; that he had thundered this in their ears, and they had cowered under it." By his own showing this is the language he desired explained, and it is the correspondence in relation to it [this language] by which he justifies his challenge, and, when it was declined, proceeds to utter his denunciations against me with his characteristic impotence and imperiousness. Now I will prove that this is not only a discreditable evasion, but an unmitigated false hood. My witness, I admit, is discredited, and has been often proved to be guilty of false statements ; but as he testifies in this instance against himself, probably some slight credence may be given to his statements. Look at his letter dated November 22, and you will find that he quotes this very lan guage and says my explanation " on that point is satisfactory," and then proceeds to ask other questions, " rendered necessary," as he says, by the character of my letter of the 18th of November, the very letter which on that point complained of is admitted to be satisfactory. The man is so given to falsehoods that he disputes himself. The truth is, the language which I did use, and which hurts him so badly, he knows was justifiable, because provoked by him, and hence his complaint could riot be based on that foundation. But his sore would not let him rest ; he must have an issue; the only effect of which he knew would be to prevent the probability of another " Lexington blister," and if he could not get up this issue in any other way, he would follow his natural proclivities, and lie into it. This he could do easily--"without effort. The gentleman has thus made two issues growing out of this Lexington discussion. The first he abandons as " im material," and the second he proves, himself, to be a falsehood, yet he says my correspondence proves to him that I am a " braggart, a liar, and a pol troon," etc. The public can judge from the correspondence itself whether this is not like all else he has said on the subject. His statement is no evidence. But let us see by facts how he stands on each of these points. I am informed that some time since, in a speech he made at IJexington, he compared himself to Moses ; and I know in the discussion with me he bragged disgustingly, I and Toombs and a few others (underlining he at the top always) passed and formed the Compromise Measure of 1850, told Web ster how to fix up the Whig platform of 1852, and did almost everything else of importance for many years in Congress. The records do not show it--very badly kept--they ought to be corrected. At Mount Moriah, in Jefferson County, when asked publicly by some of his friends where they should go in the then disruption of parties, he drew himself up, assuming the air of a Jupiter Tonans, and stretching forth his " red right arm" cried "Come to me, come to me, Alexander Hamilton Stephens," etc. Wonderful 28 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. savior. He also compared himself to an eagle and other folks to an owl, and talked about how he soared, and he did soar bejrond all location. I could fill columns with evidence on this subject, but I should say the fore going is enough for the present to prove him a " braggart." Now let us see bow this imperious arbiter of character stands the test of the second characteristic which lie attributes to me. During the discussion at Loxington I referred to and quoted a passage in Mr. Brooks's speech at Ninety-six, and asked Mr. Stephens if he indorsed it. In his reply, he said that he did not know that Mr. Brooks had used such language--it had not been read. I immediately handed it to him, pointing- to the portion quoted, and asked him (Stephens) to read it. He commenced reading, and "when he readied the portion I had quoted he skipped, and commenced reading below. I quietly stopped him and asked him to go back, and as I was rather under and behind him I gently took hold of his arm to point him to the omitted part, and he absolutely pulled against me. The thing was so palpable that a little boy five years old detected it, and exclaimed "he skips." After he was thus compelled to go back, he read it, and found it precisely as I had quoted it. He then told the people I had misrepresented Mr. Brooks, that he [Mr. Brooks] had not advised us to "tear up the already tattered Constitution "--that these were not Mr. Brooks's words, as I had said, but that Mi'. Brooks said these are the abolitionists' words, that they would tear up the Constitution, etc. This he said "with the balance of the sentence before his eyes, and which I then read : " Tear up the already tattered Constitution, scatter its fragments to the winds, and build a South ern Confederacy." Did the Abolitionists say they "would build a Southern Confederacy? Here are two falsehoods in reading one paragraph. He afterward read, or pretended to read, what he called the "Knownothing Oath," and commenced with the words " You will, when appointed to office," etc., and then made an argument to prove this oath was illegal, and went through a theatrical ceremony of holding up the Constitution, and closed by depositing- it into the keeping of some little boys. (I understood, in Elbert, he deposited it in the keeping of some g-ood old woman.) I asked him for the very paper from "which he read, and I took it, and showed the people that this very sentence, which he pretended to read, and "which he sought to prove was illegal, commenced, "If it can be done legally, you will, when appointed to ol'f"toe," etc., he [Stephens] leavingj out the "words " if it can be done leg-ally," etc. Now, reader, how do you suppose this truth ful impeacher of other men's veracity justified this deiccepttiive garbling ? With an effrontery and imperturbable gravity which surpassed even Simon Suggs, when, after swindling his neighbor out of a horse by a legerdemain known only to jockeys, ho said, "Integrity is the post I allers tie to." Mr. Stephens tohl the people " he read as much of the document as suited his purpose." His purpose; amid all his prevarication this one truth slipped out by accident; he read enough to suit his purpose. He next spoke of the passage of the Compromise Measures of 1850, and the part Mr. Fillmore acted, which he illustrated by one of those classical anecdotes, which so distinguish this gentleman's oratory, about Nancy fighting the bear, and her husband remaining in the loft until Nancy killed the bear, and then wcohmening'' 'down and saying, " Nancy, aren't we brave! " So said Mr. Stephens Co HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WHITINGS. 29 plauding Mr. Fillmore for his advocacy of these measures and his " firm ad herence " to tlie policy which sustained them. To get out of this dilemma he told the people he was not speaking of Mr. Fillmore--he told the bear anecdote to i-idicule me, which, of course, made me President in 1850, and the candidate for that office in 1856. He denied that he had abused Stephen A. Douglas, especially on the slavery question, in 1852. I appealed to the audience before me to prove otherwise, and stated "what I myself had heard Mr. Stephens say in !La Grange, and voices responded from every part of the audience, " He did it here--we heard him." I could go on and state more falsehoods equally ridiculous--his Lane charges, the introduction of Judas, --a favorite illustration with him [Mr. Stephens]--and many other things, but it seems to me unnecessary, and it is no pleasant task thus to expose him, if I were able to count his falsehoods as fast as he told thorn. I have mentioned five, given as instance at one time in one discussion, and before a large audience of intelligent people, and by "whom, every word can be pro ven, if he denies them. It seems to me this makes the gentleman a perfect "Colt's Repeater" in the matter of telling falsehoods. Keep cool, Nancy, this is worse than the bear fight. To the third point: The gentleman cannot specify a single sentence, word, or syllable in my letters to him, my speech in his presence, or my remarks about him, that is not strictly true, and confined to him as a public man. The only grievance which he specified in his card, lie admits in his letter, is satisfactorily explained. Everything else in the correspondence relates to what was said in the discussion. He did not take it as offensive at the time, invited me to discussion afterward, saw me two days before his first letter was written, was with me, had a long business transaction and social conversation, and not a word of dissatisfaction was whispered. He forged his grievance, manufactured his excuse, acted only a pretender in his challenge and is, therefore, a poltroon. Mr. Stephens speaks of my aspersing " private character" and "malign ing individual reputation." This is false--unconditionally, absolutely false; in fact, in conception, and in purpose, I never said anything against his private character, nor do I deal, in public discussions or at dinner tables, with private characters. But even on this point, I cannot release him without a stripe. At the dinner table, in Lexington, on the very day before the discussion, at the house of a distinguished gentleman, and wTien most of the listeners were personally strangers to me, this very man, A. H. Stephens, did asperse my " private character" and " malign my individual reputation." This he did falsely and maliciously. My private character is the jewel I prize above all others. I was born, raised, and educated in Georgia, and if man, woman, or child can be found whom I ever willfully deceived in private or public life, in politics, law, or social intercourse, I hereby unseal his lips, and authorize him to speak. It is a real consolation to know that on this subject, at least, I can defy the slanderer, mock the traducer, and despise the venom of even Alexander H. Stephens. I hope that no one will suppose that even now I entertain any thing like a feeling of hatred for Mr. Stephens; far from, it--I would not harm, a hair of his head. Up to the Lexington discussion, I entertained some thing of respect for him, though the character of many of his statements prior to that time shook my faith in him considerably. Since I saw him, felt him, and weighed him, and knew him, as at !Lexingtoii, all the depths of unutterable contempt are exhausted in the idea I have of his utter want 30 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. of fairness and candor and truthfulness as a debater. In our discussion at Ijexington, I deemed it a duty, because of his slanders of honest men, to draw a picture of his own course and show it to him. The very sight of his own picture ran him mad. It was true to life, and therefore the more hideous. Hence his sore. He had been allowed to misrepresent until he concluded he had a right to do so, by lapse of time and immemorial usage. His adverse possession of falsehood, he deemed, furnished an absolute bar to the entry of truth by the statute of limitations. !t*To man saw any grounds for a challenge in any of my speeches; no man can find it in our correspondence, and I believe every candid man will admit that my letter of November 18 ought to have proven satisfactory to any gentleman. The truth is, Mr. Stephens has discovered that I have found him out, and if you want a man to hate you, let him be aware that you are honest and that you know he is mean. I say to Mr. Stephens, that while I do know his faults, I am willing to regard them with much allowance and not talk about them as much as he supposes; because I honestly believe the man has perverted, distorted, and misrepresented until he cannot help it. It is necessary for his comfort. He is a monomaniac on the subject of falsehoods. ________ ____,,___., _____ _ ....sage oi _____ -_,,., _,,,,,, & ~-~g down and slanders coming up--originating the version about going to Elbert. To generalities I have replied facts, which, if the gentleman controvert, he "will but confirm his title to the character given laws of Grod and my native State unite in denouncing as murder could give me-no satisfaction to do, to attempt, or to desire. This determination is but strengthened when the contrary course involves the violation of my con science and the hazard of my family, as against a man who has neither con science nor family. But I have had, and shall continue to have, courage enough to do my duty firmly and truthfully, and to defend myself any where and everywhere, even in the Eighth District, and if any gentleman doubts it, there is a short and easy way to test it. Yours very truly. B. H. HILL. A distinguished Georgian, in writing about this episode of Mr. Hill's public career, says : " When the correspondence was published, Hill became more popular than before. There was not another man in all the South who could have penned that letter of declination and escaped political anni hilation and social ostracism. But Hill was a man whose courage required no certificate. His mien, his language, and his character were like ' all the blood of all the Howards.' The courage of Henry of Navarre was acquired, HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. that of Ben Hill was innate in the man." The writer has always it as unfortunate that these two Georgians became thus early personal enemies. They -viewed a great many public questions alike, were both ardent lovers of the Union, and, in his opinion, impartial history will pro nounce them the two wisest statesmen the South has ever produced. The work done by Mr. Hill in the Fillmore campaign made him the leader of the Whig or American party in the State. The press of that day was filled with eulogiums of' his powers as an orator and debater. Colonel J. li. Sneed, then editor of the Savannah Republican, and for a long time the leader of Georgia journalism, published in his paper, October, 1856, the following strong article describing a speech which Mr. Hill made at Waynesboro', in Burke County. This article is one of many of similar import published of him. at this time, and it is here quoted for the purpose of giving the reader some conception of him as a speaker at this period of his career. From, the Savannah Republican : HON. H. B. HILL. I heard the Hon. B. H. Hill at Waynesboro', on Friday last, address the people for three hours, arid the impression he made upon my mind is that, now the great Berrien is no more, lie stands, irrespective of ago, without a rival in mental power in Georgia. I know all our great men ; I have read their thoughts and listened to their eloquence. He has no superior as an orator, and no equal as a logician, tie unites moral with intellectual strength. He shuns, with the dignity of a statesman, and the integrity of a patriot, all the subtle arts and artifices of a demagogue. He goes not about the country imposing upon the weak and credulous with miserable balder dash and clap trap. He deals only in the indisputable truths of history, and in his analysis of these truths he makes arguments that eloquence can never fritter away, festoons of rhetoric never conceal, nor the thunders of declama tion silence. His language is plain, his perception clear, his wit bright, and under it the sophistry of an adversary withers. W^th a manner manly, an agreeable and a deep-toned voice, his unanswerable logic becomes irresisti bly fascinating, and for four consecutive hours intelligent audiences have listened to his great efforts at the hustings without having a thought to give to impatience or anything else but the vast importance of the vital theme, whose interest his pre-eminent powers as a public debater are so happily adapted to intensify. There are some public men who, with great boldness, will confront an intelligent audience, and, like the eagle dashing against the sun, will plume their wings for lofty flights into the far-off regions of speculation. The ignorant and vulgar stare and wonder ; but when the man of sense goes home, and sits down in his own quiet closet to ruminate on what he has heard, he finds it an easy matter to pick to pieces with a bodkin all the iine/rei work that blazed so brilliantly before him for an hour. It is not so with the views promulgated from the stump by this gifted young statesman. When yon take his facts and thoughts home with you, you find his facts are not inventions, and his thoughts are not specula tions ; but you do find one is history and the other is truth, and ought to be come history. With a spotless private character, a big- heart full of the glow ing fire of pure patriotism, an intellect such as God sends to the human family only once in a century, a soul that dreads neither the devil nor his imps, SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. One who was present at this meeting says: " There were several Demo crats on hand,' and when they saw that a speech was being made that no mortal man could answer, they determined to drown their sorrow in the pro verbial answer of Democracy to sound logic, to wit--whisky; and every now and then they could be heard shouting for Buchanan. One of them I heard shout: 'Hurrah for Buchanan and hell,* whereupon Mr. Hill pleas antly remarked, * That man is in the right fix to shout for Buchanan, be cause his reason is gone.' One of Mr. Hill's chief characteristics as a speaker, even at this early day, was his coolness, his calm self-possession. He was absolute master of himself at all times, and nothing could disturb his wonderful mental equipoise. On October 1, 1868, a great Fillmore mass meeting was held in .Atlanta. All the eloquent Whig orators were present, including such men as R! P. Tripp, H. V. M. Miller, A. R. Wright, and Henry W. Hilliard, the latter gentleman at this time the leading orator in Alabama. He had frequently successfully met that greatest of Alabamians, William L. Yaiicey, The account of the speaking given in the newspapers of the day shows that Mr. Hill, though much the youngest of the brilliant coterie, was a popular favorite. After the conclusion of Mr. Hilliard's speech, our * native bird,' Benjamin H. Hill, arose amid deafening shouts of applause, and after some length of time lie was permitted to proceed with his speech. It was the speech of the day, and will long be remembered by those who were enchained by his brilliant eloquence and burning sar casm." In July, 1857, the American party held its convention at Milledgeville for the purpose of nominating a candidate for Governor. At this date the party "was composed of some of the best men in Georgia. Among its lead ers was Charles J. Jenkins, a name revered by Georgians; E. A. ISTisbet, one of the first and ablest justices of the Supreme Court ; H. V. M. Miller, then, as now, a marvel of eloquence and learning; the impulsive and chival rous Francis Bartow, the witty and humorous Cincinnatus Peeples, the scholarly A. R. vVright, and men of like spotless and lofty character, but who "were all of them totally unfit for the rough contention of politics. Mr. Hill was the youngest of the leaders, but so great was the reputation made by him in the race against "Warner, and in his canvass as a Fillmore elector, that he was unanimously and by acclamation, amid great applause, nominated as an American candidate for Governor. In writing of Mr. Hill, in connection "with this high position, an eminent journalist of that day said : "Uniting a cool head and cultivated mind with a warm and honest heart, he is eminently qualified for the high and honorable station of chief magis trate. We are told he is the very idol of the community in which, he lives, that he has been pronounced by the judges of the courts in which he pleads to be the best lawyer there is in this State. The recent political campaign has placed him in the front ranks with the orators and politicians of the day, many of his political opponents even admitting that he has proven himself victor of every contest. For a man of his age to have risen so rapidly in the estimation of the people, with so much to contend with, not to say envy, malice, and political asperity, is proof positive that he is a great man. And for him to have had the moral courage to brook public opinion in an affair ITIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. declination of the challenge or i>ir. onepnens, lurmsties conclusive proof uiat he had lost neither popularity nor prestige by the act. He was then thirtyfrniv vears old, and. had met all the old leaders of Democracy 011 the stump, iy the concurrent opinion of friend and foe, met them most success- had sought the candidate." The Democrats nominated Joseph E. Brown for Governor. " Ben Hill " and "Joe Brown," as they were familiarly called by their admirers, thus began a political antagonism which continued until a few years before the former's death. When they met as colleagues in the United States Senate, Deen the pro line motner o genius. In statesmanship and literature, m science and art, she has given to the world many names tfiat posterity will not willingly let die. But no two men have more indelibly stamped their individuality upon her history than Hill and Brown. These two men, in character, in temperament,"in thought, and in method, were opposites. Their careers are divergent and in contrast. They both sprung from the people, and were leaders of the people, but they led them in different paths and by different methods. It has been so'frequently asserted as almost to have attained the dignity of a popular belief, that the political career of Governor Brown was characterized by unerring sagacity. That in statecraft his judgment was almost infallible. Indeed, he lias appropriated the meaning of the word by peculiarity of pronunciation. His admirers point him. out in the political firmament as the planet shining with clear and steady light. - - These same critics have asserted that Senator Hill's political course was inconsistent and frequently unwise. That he was unreliable and rown was a partisan, Hill a statesman. Governor Brown himself is largely responsible for this estimate of Seenator Hill. Indeed, he is the author of the fallacy that " Ben Hill pos sessed great eloquence, but lacked judgment." But Governor Brown can not be condemned for this opinion of his antagonist. It was necessary to accredit his own wisdom. I purpose to depart from the chronological order of my narrative, and by a comparison of the course of the two men demon strate, in the light of the logic of events, the absolute incorrectness of this opinion. In doing so, it is unnecessary for me to disclaim any personal feeling against Senator Brown. I am actuated solely by a motive of justice 34 SENATOR B. H. IfILL, OF GEORGIA. to the public career of Senator Hill. I know that there never was a greater error, and one for which there was less foundation, than the statement that Senator Hill as a leader and statesman was lacking in consistency and wisdom. And if I show this truth by contrast with the career of his eminent antagonist, it is because the facts furnish the contrast. These two statesmen began their great careers in the midst of a revolu tion. This revolution, caused by slavery agitation, finally culminated in these momentous stages of Secession, Coercion, and Reconstruction. In the light of to-day let us consider these stages and the part these two leaders took in each. Viewed from the standpoint of practical statesmanship, the monumental folly of the century was secession. It stands -without a rival in all history, the most striking example of a people's madness. I am not discussing seces sion as a right, but as a remedy for political wrongs. Senator Hill believed that secession was a revolutionary right, but not a remedy for Southern wrongs. He asserted that this remedy was to be found inside the Con stitution, and in the Union. He first entered public service to warn his The right to hold slaves he held as the priceless value of the Union. At all times, and to the last, he resisted the current rushing-madly and blindly on to the rock of secession. With American statesmanship. Mr. Hill fully comprehended it, and with patriot ism and wisdom labored to accomplish it. sons. e avocae secesson as a consttuona rg, an a perect remedy. His judgment was obscured by passion. His nature, usually calm, his actions, ordinarily deliberate, became impetuous and precipitate. He rushed ahead of the fiery Toombs toward revolution and ruin. He seized the forts and arsenals of the general government before the ordinance of secession was adopted--and in advance endeavored to commit his State to the fatal step of disrupting the Union. During this great crisis of our country's history, who was the wise and sagacious statesman, Benjamin H. Hill or Joseph E. Brown ? War, predicted and dreaded by Hill, laugUed at and precipitated by Brown, resulted. After the conflict began, the only possible hope of success was in the absolute unity of the Southern people. Division was certain defeat. Harmony was possible victory. Factious opposition to the Con federate Government was an unpardonable crime. Mr. Hill, realizing this truth, consecrated himself without i-cservatiotx to the cause of the South. He never wavered in his support of the Confederate administration, and soon became to civil affairs what !Lee was to the military--the right arm of the Confederacy. While leaders who plunged the country into strife were using their power and influence to impede the success of the cause by fac- AGA.DBEY WHEBE SBNATOB HILL HKST WEST 10 SCHOOL. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 35 tious attacks on the policy of Congress and the President, Ml*. Hill exerted his eloquence in their defense, lie never criticised. No soldier in the front ever heard from him any but words of cheer, His absorbing purpose was success, and to accomplish this lie was ready to make any sacrifice of opinion or property. In short, ho was one of the " most heroic figures in the revolution fought against his judgment." The men who were responsible for the Confederacy were under para mount obligation to promote its success. Of all men, the Secessionist should have buried self and exalted country. It is not my purpose to go into the merits of the controversy between President !3avis and Governor Brown. But I believe Jefferson I)avis was true to the cause of the South in every fiber of his nature ; and I assert that Governor Brown's course during these trying days is open to serious criticism from the standpoint of patriotic statesmanship. I do not doubt the sincerity of his motives, nor question his loyalty in arrajang himself against the Confederate Government. But it is certainly true that his attitude caused much discontent among the people and the soldiers, and his throat to resist the enforcement of the conscript laws gave encouragement to the enemy. \Vho was the wise leader those four years of darkness and death--Hill, the faithful friend of Da vis, or Brown., the opponent of Davis ? Let the soldiers "who followed .Lee, Jackson, and Hood, answer. The third and last stage in the revolution was the infamous period of Reconstruction. That the Reconstruction measures were infamous in pur pose and character has passed, as a truth, into impartial history. No people in the history of the world ever occupied a more critical position than the white people of the South immediately after the war. Civil law was dead. Military tyrants held absolute and irresponsible svray. A. fanatical Con gress proposed to disfranchise intelligence and enfranchise ignorance ; to place " black heels on white necks," and the white men of the South were asked to consent to the monstrous outrage. It was indeed a fearful crisis. Courage, patriotism, and statesmanship were demanded. It was absolutely necessary to put hope into the crushed hearts of the people, to preserve the self-respect of the soldier, otherwise the fate of the country was not only certain but ruinous. In this extreme hour of the country's peril was it wise statesmanship to accept the terms proposed ? It is conceded that they were degrading to Southern honor, that they were monstrous usurpations ; but it was claimed by Governor Brown that they were the terms of the conqueror, and therefore it was expedient in the con quered to accept them. He thought the " South was doomed to a complete surrender," and without a struggle she should accept her doom. It is true that such acceptance carried with it the admission by the South that the war between the States was a rebellion, and not a revolution,--that our dead soldiers were traitors, not patriots. Governor Brown insisted that unless these terms were accepted, others, more objectionable, would be forced upon the South. He did not show how it was possible for wicked ingenuity to devise other terms, worse in character and effect, for death to a proud people is preferable to dishonor. Mr. Hill, on the contrary, resisted tlie adoption of the Reconstruction measures, as a menace to the honor and civilization of his people. He fought them with matchless power, terrible invective, and burn ing eloquence. Jn the language of one of his ablest biographers, "fie was the incarnation of eloquent zeal in opposition to the -wrongs he believed to be meditated against his people, and against Anglo-Saxon civilization. 36 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Of GEORGIA. Under the influence of his magnificent appeals, his "burning invective, and dauntless courage, the white people of Georgia became suddenly massed in a Macedonian phalanx, seemingly ready again to defy the monster that had but recently subdued them." The practical result of Mr. Hill's leadership was the salvation of his people from dishonor and the redemption of his State from the rule of ignorance and corruption and placing her ten years in advance of the other Southern States,--an advance that she still maintains. To sum up the whole matter : On these great questions of Secession, Coercion, and Reconstruction, Mr. Hill displayed marvelous statesmanship and prophetic wisdom. The irresistible logic of results has demonstrated the absolute correctness of his positions. And these facts being true, the converse is equally true as to Governor Brown. "When I consider the lives of these two statesmen, the momentous scenes in which they "were leading actors,--when I find that events have always justified Senator Hill, and have never justified Governor Brown,-- it seems to me a political paradox that the former should ever have been regarded unsafe and unwise as a leader, while the latter was regarded safe and wise. I have been led into this digression by the conviction that truth and justice demanded the prompt explosion of this popular error. ...I return to the order of my sketch. The campaign between Mr. Hill and Mr. Brown for Governor, in 1857, was a memorable one in Georgia. Both candidates were young, and popular with their parties. Mr. Hill had the advantage in prestige and reputation, and in the joint discussions that took place demonstrated his superiority as an orator and debatei-. Governor Brown, however, exhibited great skill and adroitness, but after several meetings the manager of the Democratic campaign deemed it prudent to withdraw their champion from the joint discussion. The Democratic party was overwhelmingly strong- in Georgia, and after a canvass of unsurpassed brilliancy, in the language of another, "Mr. Hill found himself the idol of his party, the wonder of all Georgians, defeated by ten thousand votes, but the foremost man of his years in the country." In 1859 Mr. Hill was elected a member of the State Senate by the American party. He accepted the position for the express purpose of avert ing, if possible, secession and saving the Union he loved so ardently and had always championed so eloquently. In the Senate, he was the admitted leader of his party, and recognized as the ablest debater in an unusually strong body. "While serving his term in the Senate Mr. Hill won a mar velous legal victory, and established himself as the foremost advocate in Georgia. In the winter of 1858, "William A. Choice shot and killed one Calvin \Vebb, in the city of Atlanta. The killing was a premeditated assas sination. ^Vebb was a constable, who the day before had attempted to col lect a small debt from Choice. There was at this time an angry discussion between the two, but violence was prevented by others. The next day Choice met WVbb near the Trout House, and, without warning, drew his pistol and shot him twice, killing him instantly. The murder was so brutal and inexcusable that excitement ran high, and the prisoner's life was in danger fi-om mob violence. Mr. Hill was employed to defend the murderer ; his defense was insanity, caused by a blow on the head in early youth. Notwithstanding a powerful effort to acquit, the jury found Choice guilty. Mr, Hill appealed the case to the Supreme Court. This tribunal affirmed the judgment. In the report of this case, in 31 Georgia, the doctrine of HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 37 mental responsibility for crime and the legal view of insanity are exhaust ively discussed. It is said that Mr. Hill's argument before the Supreme Court in the case exceeded the great speech of Erskine in behalf of Haclfield. The defense in the two cases "was similar. Undismayed by the adverse decision, Mr, Hill appealed to the General Assembly for pardon, and by a majority of one tho pardon was granted. Governor Brown, however, in a very strong message, vetoed the bill, and in the effort to pass the bill over this veto, Mr. Hill made a speech, that to this day is recalled by those who heart] it, as a marvel of argument, eloquence, and pathos. Unfortunately, it was never reported steiiographically, and we have only tradition as to its power and eloquence. Under the influence of the argument the bill was passed over the Governor's veto, and Choice "was liberated "while under the shadow of the gallows. Mr. Hill was greatly enlisted in the case, because of his thorough conviction that his unfortunate client was not mentally re sponsible for liis act. The sequel proved the correctness of his belief. Choice lived only a few years, a mental wreck, and when he died he was per fectly insane. Mr. Hill's course in the Senate was conspicuous for his earnest efforts to stop sectional agitation and save, if possible, the imperiled Union. And to his work is in large part attributed the strong love for the Union that existed in the State even when the ordinance of secession was passed. But no human power could stay the revolution, and events were shaped and con trolled by destiny. The most momentous Presidential campaign this country ever passed through was that of I860. Four tickets were before the people. The ex tremists of the North nominated Lincoln ; the extremists of the South nom inated Breckenridge ; the Whigs who loved the Union more than slavery, nominated Bell ; the conservative Democrats nominated Douglass. Mr. Hill's consistent course in favor of the perpetuity of the Union naturally placed him. with the Bell party. He was an elector from the State at large. His canvass of the State was marked by great power and earnestness. The platform upon which Bell and Everett stood was broad enough to include all patriots. It was " the Constitution of the country, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws." The candidates were personally eminent for purity of character, and in public life had been con sistently non-sectional and national. Mr. Hill's speeches in this campaign were characterized by clear statement, close argument, and conservatism. He endeavored to convince the reason of the people and to prove the abso lute necessity for the election of the candidates of the Constitutional Union party in order to stop further slavery agitation, and thus save the Union. Kone of these speeches were preserved by him, and I have been able to find only one that was reported in such a way as to give any idea of his style. This speech was delivered at Macon, June 30, 1860. It is a very calm, lucid exposition and argument. Mr. Hill foresaw that unless the three antiRepublican tickets were united, the election of Mr. Lincoln and the conse quent disruption of the Union would be inevitable. Just before the election he wrote a strong appeal urging a fusion of these three tickets. This propo sition was favored by some of the ablest leaders of the three parties, but was finally declined. The proposition shows that Mr. Hill stood far above all mere party consideration and was working- in behalf of the whole country. The election of Mr. Lincoln plunged the country into a momentous struggle. Mr. Hill felt that the Union must be saved at all hazards, and into this last 38 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. freat effort he tlire\v all the devotion of his heart and all the eloquence of is tongue and all the fearlessness of his nature. He found fighting by his side his old adversary, A. H. Stephens, and his brother, Linton Stephens. In reviewing this period of our history at this day, when the mind is free from the passions of the hour, we are astonished at two things ; we are amazed that any human power could have withstood the storm of passion in which the secession of Georgia was consummated and so nearly defeated it in the end. Robert Toombs, then a Senator from Georgia, with all the im passioned eloquence of his nature, had declare-d to his people upon his faith as a true man, that there was no longer any hope for the security of South ern rights in the Union. Ho well Gobi) had asserted that the South could only find independence out of the Union. South Carolina had seceded, Fort Sumter had been captured, other States had followed Carolina, and their ambassadors thronged our halls pleading- with Georgians to make common cause with them against a common enemy. Governor Brown had anticipated secession, arid seized the Federal forts and arsenals at Augusta and Savannah. The fanatics North and South made the atmosphere lurid with passionate crimination and recrimination. The people were in a state of frenzy, and it required a brave and dauntless heart to withstand the on coming storm. Says an eloquent writer, in describing this period : "In the midst of all this fury and madness, unawed and undismayed, Mr. Hill stood the incarnation of seventy years of national peace and glory under the Union and Constitution--the spirit of Bunker Hill, of Yorktown, pleading for the perpetuity of the republic, born of that revolution to which his people had furnished the voice in Patrick Henry, the pen in Jefferson, and the sword in "Washington. In the Senate, on the hustings, in the convention, every where and under all circumstances, he was for the Union and the Consti tution, speaking like one inspired." One of the many speeches made by Mr. Hill in this great struggle for the preservation of the Union, only one is given. This speech he delivered in Mil]edgeviHe on November 15, 1860, and, at the request of many who heard it, he afterward wrote out the argu ment*; and although the speech lacked the fire and fervor which must have characterized its delivery, it is an unanswerable piece of logic, and is espe cially valuable in fully setting forth his views of the coui-se to be pursued in the great crisis then before the people. Mr. Hill was selected as a delegate to the secession convention, and wrote the following letter accepting the nomination: ACCEPTANCE OE MR. HILL. L-A GRANGE, GA., December 26, 1860. Gentlemen: Your letter, informing me that I have been unanimously nominated as a delegate to the approaching convention, has been received. I accept the nomination, because I do not think such a position ought now to be soiight or declined. You ask for my particular views on pending issues. These I have hith erto fully given. I see no reason to change or modify the views expressed to the people of Troup County on the 29th day of November last. A more important crisis was never upon any people. We of the South can bring this crisis to an end, just such as we wish; and we can reach that end in blood or peace, as our passions or our prudence may direct. Come what may, we should never be content with any patch-work. Slavery must SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, A ATI) WHITINGS. 39 never again be the hobby of the political demagogue. I greatly deplore so much feeling and'impatience with so many of our people. We need all the wisdom and cool firmness of all our people. We are in danger now from, nothing but tmr.se&je.s. No man is a lit counselor now who assumes that slavery can be abolished by any party or any power. This is a concession to the efforts and dreams of fanaticism without anj' foundation in fact. Of all people in this nation, the slave is this day far the happiest,; and of all property, slavery is by far the safest. The Union, the Constitution, good government, and the peace of the country, are in danger from the passions, the fanaticisms, and ambition of the white race only. But, whatever be the cause, a crisis is upon us, and we must meet it. It is an hour when every man should be all prudence and firmness, with out petulance or rashness in "word or action. Every Southern man should remember that every other Southern man is as much interested as himself; and every Southern State should remember that every other Southern State must be, more or less, involved by her action. Each is, therefore, bound by every consideration of ordinary respect and good feeling, to offer a consulta tion and an interchange of views before final action. Has South Carolina done this? Does her hasty action become the dig nity of the occasion and the importance of the issues? Rather, has she not acted with abrupt discourtesy to the claims, wishes, and movements of her sister slaveholding States? I trust she will yet be more deliberate and co-rnmunicative than her proceedings would, at first view, indicate. South Caro lina is not acting toward her sister States in 1860 as she did act toward her sister colonies in 1776. Perhaps her people are more chivalrous and patri otic! In the name of Calhoun, South Carolina is doing what CaLhoun, to the day of his death, never intended, desired, or counseled. It may be her present statesmen are wiser, and understood Calhoun better than Calhoun understood himself! She, doubtless, expects the sympathy and assistance of her sister Southern States; and these States, equally, expected from her consultation, and, at least, advisory co-operation. They have been disappointed; she may not be. At any rate, I hope Georgia, in her own sensible way of doing things, will return good for evil, and act in no spirit of retaliatory petulan,ce. At the same time, G-eorgia will not be dragooned by either friends or foes. Georgia will prefer discretion to haste, and wisdom to impetuositv. I believe she will be courteous to all her sister States of the South, and seek to com bine the wisdom of at least as many as will act with her. She will not be coerced to stay in the Union, nor to be hurried out before the proper time. There are numberless rumors and telegraphic reports flooding the coun try. We know not how much to believe. Our people must be self-pos sessed and deliberate, or they will be misled. One truth is established: there are too many demagogues and too few statesmen at AVashington. By the papers of this morning I am confirmed in what I have before suspected: that certain great men, so called, are playing tricks^ in this awful crisis, to excite the people! Oh, my country! The dissolution of this Union may be a necessity. If so, after being fully satisfied of that fact, let us decree that dissolution. But I must be allowed to say that I cannot regard such an event as an occasion for rejoic ing. The sum of Nero's ingratitude is recorded in the fact that he "fiddled while Rome was burning." I do not liken our people to Nero. Far from it. But is it not strange that we should fire cannons, illumine cities, raise 40 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Of GEORGIA. bonfires, and make noisy the still hours of night with shouts over the de struction of a government infinitely greater than Rome ever was ! Unless our grievances are fully redressed, and we can have satisfactory guarantees that they \vill not be repeated, I "will aid in the necessity of dis union. But I shall dissolve this Union as I would bury a benefactor--in sorrow of heart. For, after all, the Union is not the author of our griev ances. Bad, extreme men, in both sections, insult each other, and then both fight the Union, "which never banned or insulted either! Perhaps it has blessed all above their merits. For myself, I shall never ask for more true liberty and real happiness under any government than I have enjoyed as a citizen of this great American Union. May they who would destroy this Union in a frolic have wisdom to furnish to our children a better. Yours very truly, B. H. HILL. There is deep pathos in the closing sentence of this letter, and through out it breathes a consecration of service to that Union which had blessed all beyond their merits. In this spirit he went to the convention, determined to do all in his power to redress Southern grievances inside the Union. But if the rash impetuosity of the hour overrode considerations of wisdom, and Georgia was whirled from the beautiful system in which she had moved so harmoniously, then with a pad but loyal heart he -would follow her in all her wanderings to the end. The secession convention was the ablest body that ever assembled in Georgia. Every county had sent its truest and wisest men. The question to be settled was the greatest that had ever confronted the people. Upon its wise solution depended the destiny of the common wealth. Mr. Hill fully comprehended the magnitude of the issue. He was the leader in the great and prolonged debate, and his appeals for the Union surpassed expectation. And he, and those who stood with him, would have held the State safely anchored to that Union, even amid the wild waves of passion and impulse, but for the argument of the disunionist that better terms could be made outside through a parliament of sovereign States and the Union restored in more perfect form. But for the conviction that the separation would be o'nly temporary, and the sovereign sisters would come together again, with all differences healed, into a more lasting and loving Union, the ordinance of secession would not have been adopted. Even with this argument the test vote was close--166 to 130. Not in the way then predicted, but through great sorrow and sacrifice in God's own appointed time, Georgia did return to the Union, and though many of her gallant sons have been left by the wayside, she has come, we believe, to a more perfect one. Her tears have crystallized into diamonds. They are the most price less of her treasures. But regretting nothing but the sacrifice, she has turned her face resolutely to the future, and in love and in wisdom will make the restored Union a better one for her children. In studying this period of our history, the second fact that strikes the mind with amazement is, that our fathers should have sought a remedy for their wrong in the de struction of the Union. Waving discussion of the right of secession, it is astounding that it should have been regarded as a remedy. The great wrongs perpetrated against the Constitutional rights of the South were many and outrageous. But the Constitution was strong enough to protect her, and no President great enough to be the rnler of the nation had ever been traitor to its mandates or deaf to its voice. A Southern President, in HIS LIFE, SPEECHES. AND WRITINGS. 41 obedience to the appeal of the North, had declared, "By the Eternal God," that a Southern State should not nullify the national law, and his declaration had been successfully enforced. So I believe Abraham Lincoln would have been patriot enough to have listened to the voice of the South, and through Constitutional methods protected her rights from Northern fanaticism. Viewing the question, therefore, free from the passion of the hour, mel lowed by the lapse of years, the argument of Mr. Hill that the remedy for Southern wrongs was not to be found in secession, but in the enforcement of the Constitution, was the very essence of practical statesmanship. It is not my purpose to discuss fully this great question. It is forever buried, and as a remedy for sectional wrong will have no resurrection in the South. It is simply referred to here to illustrate the wisdom of the subject of this sketch in this the greatest crisis of the country's history. The writer has frequently heard Mr. Hill declare that this was the saddest period of his -political life. While the people were rejoicing over the adoption of seces sion, cannon firing, the air illuminated with bonfires and laden with eloquent speeches, he shut himself in his room, in Milledgeville, and in darkness grieved for the Union he had loved and labored so earnestly to maintain. Indeed, so earnest and outspoken was the expression of this sorrow, and so resolute was his refusal to participate in the rejoicings of the hour, that some of the people became offended, and to show their displeasure burned him in effigy. How little they understood his loyal heart the next five years made demonstratioa. CHAPTER III. Selected as a Delegate to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States--Elected Confederate States Senator--His Record as Confederate States Senator--Personal Difficulty In the Senate with William L, Yancey--True Account of this Unfortu nate Affair--Speech in 1863 in Mill edge ville--Efforts to Rally the People to Continue the War--Great Speech in L.a Grange in 1SG5--Confederate Leaders Gather at Mr. Hill's House in La Grange--Mr. Hill's Arrest and Imprisonment--Letter to Presi dent Johnson--His Release from Prison--His Letter on Election of United States Senator in 1866, T HUS far I have given a general sketch of Mr. Hill's political career previous to the war between the States, The conspicuous features of this career are a broad nationalism., and an intense love for the Union and a wise opposition to slavery agitation, as inevitably loading to a sectional war, in which the South would lose the battle, and Republican institutions, as em bodied in the great American system of government, be menaced, if not destroyed. His speeches and writings from 1851 to 1861 are replete with prophetic warnings to his countrvmen, and, as we read them in the light of subsequent events, we fully realize that in the decade leading to revolution, Georgia or the South had no more sagacious or wiser statesman. M^hen his heroic struggle in behalf of the Union resulted in failure, and his beloved State was fully committed to revolution, he cast his lot with bis own people, and in order to secure unity of action he voted for the passage of the ordi nance of secession. There was no inconsistency in this course. He had not changed his convictions, but he felt it to bo his duty to yield his convic tions, and he knew that his loyalty was due first to his State. So great was the confidence in him, notwithstanding his Union sentiments, that he was selected in 1861 as a delegate to the Provisional Congress of the Con federate States. In this Congress he was one of the most earnest and active leaders in the formation of the new government, and it "was largely through his influence that the Constitution of the Confederate States was in all essentials like the Constitution of the United States. In speaking of this long afterward, while defending his own Southland from the charge of disloyalty to the Constitution, lie declared: "That so far from having lost our fidelity to the Constitution which our fathers made, when we sought to go, we hugged that Constitution to our bosom and carried it with us." W^hen the Provisional Congress adjourned, and the new government of the South, fraught with so many hopes, was fully organized, Mr. Hill re turned to his home m La Grange. He had predicted that there 'would be a long and bloody conflict, and although he had no part in bringing it on, but had exerted all the powers of his mind to avert it, yet he felt that every Southern man should be ready to go to the front, and he prepared to be among the first. The Legislature of his State "was in session at Milledgeville. He did not imagine that he would be called on to serve his country in any civil capacity, but that the leaders in the secession movement would naturallj^ be selected for this work. Great, therefore, was his surprise when a telegram informed him that he had been elected on the first ballot Con- 43 HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 43 federate States Senaior over Toombs, Jackson, and Iverson, who had led the secession moyement. There never was a more signal honor paid to man than this action of the General Assembly. Toombs had missed by only one vote the highest prize in the gift of the people in the new government, and to be selected almost unanimously over such a man was not only wholly unex pected, but a remarkable evidence of confidence. Mr. Hill could not resist the call of his State coming to him in such a spontaneous way, and^ he accepted the high and responsible position. His record as Confederate States Senator is known and honored all through the South. tie "was the young est member of the Senate. This body was composed of the ablest lawyers in the South. The judiciary system of the government had to bo organized and all national laws enacted in pursuance of provisions of tho.f@!onstitutiori. Such work required great ability, learning, and experience. So eminent was Mr. Hill's reputation as a lawyer, that he was selected as the legal pioneer of the new government and made chairman of the Judiciary Com mittee of the Senate. His services in this capacity involved immense labor and great anxiety, and he gave his whole ardent nature to it. I do not pur pose to go into detail showing his great work in the Confederate States Senate. His unfaltering devotion to the cause of the South, his tireless de fense of her civil administration, his eloquent support of her military lead ers, are known and honored by every true Southern man. In the language of another : " A proud passage in his life and in the history of Georgia is Hill's record as a Confederate Senator. Georgia knows the story of the patri otic ardor with "which, forgetting party associations and political antecedents, he became the right arm of the Confederate civic leader, and the devotion which so often won for bim the measured eulogy of its first and incompara ble military defender. Mr. Davis, in speaking of this part of Mr. Hill's career, declared that he was one ' "who stood by me "when all others forsook our cause. It was in those trying times that he proved himself the truest of the true. His pen and voice were on my side when I most needed them, and they were equal to ten thousand bayonets, and I will not forget his services.' The fervid encomiums of Davis and the tranquil confidence of Lee, are the sum of all praise that a devoted Confederate should desire, and these Hill had in abundance." While in the Confederate Senate, Mr. Hill had a personal difficulty with Wiliiam L. Yancey, Senator from Alabama. I allude to this matter for the purpose of correcting many of the exaggerated, false, and sensational reports that have been published about it. It has been even stated that an injury, which Mr. Yancey received in this difficulty, subsequently caused his death. This statement is absolutely without truth. The facts connected with tlie unfortunate occurrence, as gathered from Mr. Hill, are as follows: An exciting debate had been in progress for several days, in which Mr. Yancey was making severe attacks on the administration, and Mr. Hill -was defending it. Mr. Yancev, in the course of one of his speeches, asserted that a statement made by Mr. Hill was false, and known to be false when spoken. As soon as the words were uttered, Mr. Hill threw an inkstand at the speaker, striking him on the cheek bone. The wound produced was not at all serious, and after a few minutes Mr. Yancey resumed his speech, mak ing no further allusion to Mr. Hill. The matter was adjusted by friends of both Senators, and no other reference was ever made to the occurrence by either Senator. The following version of the affair is taken from, the Montgomery ^Bulletin, Mr. Yancey's home paper : " The facts in a nut-shell 44 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. are these, as we learned them subsequently to the removal of secrecy from Senators who witnessed the whole affair. In the midst of a warm, debate in open session, Mr. Hill animadverted upon the record of Mr. Yancey. At the conclusion of Mr. Hill's speech, Mr. Yancey rose to reply, and during his speech said that what the Senator from Georgia had said in regard to his record, was false, and that the Senator knew it was false when he made the statement. Whereupon Mr. Hill threw a glass ink-stand from aslant the position of Mr. Yancey, striking him on the point of the clieek bone, -which inado a sharp cut, producing considerable flow of blood, but causing no serious injury. The Senate went into secret session, took the matter in hand, and settled it. Long afterward Mr. Yancey died at his residence, near this city, from an affection of the kidneys from which he had suffered for years." The brother of William L. Yancey, Hon. B. C. Yancey, of Athens, and bis son, the gallant and generous G. H. Yancey, were Mr. Hill's warm personal friends and most earnest supporters up to the date of his death. During his last illness, the latter gentleman, in a meeting of the Ninth. District Demo cratic Committee, presented the following resolution: "Col. G. H. Yancey, of Clarke, offered the following resolutions : Re solved, that we tender to our distinguished and peerless Senator, the Hon. Benjamin II. Hill, our profound sympathy in his affliction. His great ser vices to the country command our warmest admiration, his fidelity to duty our highest respect, his matchless eloquence our iinbounded praise, and his Christian fortitude in bearing without a murmur the great suffering which has been sent upon him, touches our very hearts. If it be consistent with the will of the Divine Ruler of us all, we pray that God. will still spare his life to a devoted people ; but if he must die, may God in his mercy close his eyes to earth in peace, and open them to a blissful immortality in Heaven." It is hardly probable that the son would have presented such tender and sympathetic resolutions about the man who had caused the death of his father. There is, therefore, no foundation for the sensational accounts that have been published concerning this matter. Both Mr. Yancey and Mr. Hill were men of undoubted courage, high-spirited and impetuous, and deeply regretted the imfortunate affair. Mr. Hill left his post in RicJftnond, "Va., only twice during the entire session of Congress, and each tim^Tor the purpose of counteracting influences in Georgia that were weakening the cause. As the cause of the South g-rew more hopeless, his devotion grew more intense. He gave himself wholly to the effort of the South to win in dependence. During the year 1862, the Confederate Congress enacted the conscription laws. There was no disaffection on the part of the soldiers to these laws. They were recognized as necessary to meet the crisis, and sub mission was prompt and patriotic. Governor Brown, however, earnestly opposed them, and counseled disobedience. It was feared that his persist ent opposition might produce serious trouble, and Mr. Hill was sent to Georgia to meet the threatened emergency. On the llth of December, 1862, he made a speech before the Legislature at Milledgeville. It was a comprehensive presentation of the causes that led to the conscription laws, a demonstration of their constitutionality, and a most earnest denunciation of internal strife, and an eloquent appeal for harmony. This speech, in con nection "with others made in different parts of the State, fully satisfied our people of the correct policy of the laws, and although the opposition of Governor Brown continued, no serious trouble resulted. But the fate of the South was certain. While we fought for a higher and deeper principle BZ8 LIFE, SPEECHES, ANJ) WRITINGS. 45 than the right to hold slaves., yet the world regarded slavery as the " corner stone " of the Confederacy, and we fought alone, without support and with out sympathy. Our soldiers were our own citizens, and after each battle, whether victorious or defeated, our ranks were reduced without hope of re cruits. The enemy, on the contrary, having the world upon which to draw, grew stronger with each succeeding year. So Appomattox was inevitable. Sir. Hill's courage rose higher under disaster, his efforts more earnest with successive defeat. In the darkest hour of the struggle, he came to Georgia to encourage the people and inspire them, with a determination to continue _the_fign.t. Iri La Grange, on the llth of March, 1865, he delivered a speech which is regarded by many as the best he evei- made. The writer, though a mere boy, will, never forget the effect it produced on the audience. The hall was crowded with old men, boys, women, and disabled Confederate soldiers. As the orator spoke of our gallant soldiers, and in prophetic language pic tured the South under defeat, his listeners were overcome with emotion, and there was no one present but who would have regarded it as a happy privilege to die for Southern success. This was the last speech made in the South for the continuance of the war. , It is a striking illustration of the earnestness of Mr. Hill's nature and the love he bore his State ; that as he was the last man in Georgia to speak against secession and revolution, so he was the last to urge the people to continue the struggle. The predictions made in this speech, many of them were verified in the policy of the Repub lican party toward the South. It was a most remarkable forecasting- of Federal legislation with reference to the rights of the negro and the recon struction of tho Southern States. It is true, some of the predictions have not been verified, but time may yet bring the exact fulfillment of its darkest prophecies. For though the war has boon over for a quarter of a century, and though the South has gone to the point of humiliation in pro testing her loyalty to the Union and her complete acquiescence in the results of the war, vet in this vear, 1890, sectional bitterness at the North is as intense as it ever was against the South, and a radical majority in Congress is threatening to enact sectional legislation against one portion of our com mon ccmntry. These things continue, ton, after an administration of four years of the national government largely dominated by Southern influence, the purest and most patriotic since Washington. After the war was over, Mr. Hill retired to his home in La Grange, and calmly awaited results. Several of the chiefs of the Confederacy with their families gathered under his hospitable roof- There came the courteous and courtly Clay, for whose head the Federal government offered 8100,000. His brilliant wife was his devoted companion, and, when the publication of the reward for her hus band's head came to her knowledge, with high and courageous spirit she accompanied him to Atlanta and claimed the privilege of surrendering him to the authorities. There came also Stephen It. Mallory, the aJl-accomplished statesman, who out of nothing had organized a Confederate navy, and driven the commerce of the United States from the seas. The brilliant and fiery \Vigfall, "who had fought President Davis in the Senate with great bitterness, and had frequently met in high discussion the Confederate chief tain's ready champion, forgot the hours of contest and came to the faithful Hill in the hour of common sorrow. The elegant Sparrow, of Louisiana, with his colleague, the great lawyer, T. J. Semmes, both of whom were Mr. Hill's able lieutenants in support of the administration, were also welcomed guests. These men all came with their families, and it was an interesting" 46 SENATOR B. S. HILL, OF GEORGIA. group that gathered each day for the purpose of discussing the probable fate of their unhappy country. But they could not remain together long; already the enemy was on their track. So after a few days, all but Mallory left the country in disguise. It is a sad reflection, that of that brilliant coterie then gathered together, only one is left,--all but one have passed into the rest of the beautiful Beyond.. Mr, Hill's slaves all remained with him,, and notwithstanding emancipa tion continued to serve him with affection and fidelity. And it is a strik ing proof of their loyalty to him, that during the time when the leaders of the Confederacy were gathered at his house, and the Federal soldiers were in possession of the town, there was found no traitor among them all. Mr. Hill's immunity from, molestation was also due to the fact that the officer in command of the Federal troops had given the most stringent orders to his soldiers to keep out of Mr. HilPs premises. Lonjyjafterward he found that this consideration was shown to him and his household because the "officer, ^hile a.priso_iier and desperately wounded, had been taken to the hom^rofjj^ niece of Mr. Hill's and kindly nursed back into health and life. ~Tt 'was thought by JYtr. Hill that he would probably be arrested at once. His prominent and ardent support of Mr. Davis, and his efforts in behalf of the continuance of hostility made him a conspicuous figure for exemplary pun ishment; and when several weeks passed by, and no soldier appeared on the scene, the hope was entertained that our conquerors were going to be gener ous, and permit our prominent Southern men to remain at home and aid in . the work of rehabilitation. But in this hope we -were disappointed. I shall never forget the night my father was arrested. We had all retired, and about midnight were aroused by a loud knocking at the front door. I at once, and without dressing, rushed down to my father's bedroom. I found him already awake. A search was made for a match but there was none in the house, and I "went outside to the servant's house for the purpose of get ting a light. "What was my consternation on opening the rear door to find the house surrounded by soldiers, who stood with muskets and on guard. Securing the light I retui'ned at once, but in the mean time tlie officer at the front door had secured an entrance and with a dozen men was in the bed room. The officer in command gave him just- ten minutes to get ready. He did not leave liirn for a second, and there was no opportunity for any private leavetaking from wife and children. Neither my mother nor any of the children evinced the slightest fear, but said good-by with courage and cheerfulness. My father was placed in front of the soldiers and the order given to march. Anxious to find out where they intended to take him, I marched in front by liis side. \Ve walked rapidly down the long drive leading from the house to the street, and at the gate found another detail with Mr. Mallory in charge. The two rebels -were placed in front, and the company rapidly marched through the silent streets of the little village to the depot, where a special train was waiting. The officers declined to give us any information as to their destination, and were a reticent and 'sullen set of fellows. I bade my father good-by and hurried back alone to my home, where I found the entire family and all the servants in a tumult of indignation. We afterward learned that the reason for the time and hurry of the arrest was a fear of resistance or rescue by the citizens. Mr. Hill and Mr. Mallory were taken to Fort Lafayette, in New York Bay, and in carcerated in separate cells. They were not allowed any communication, and were treated with great indignity and. unkindness by the officials. My SENATOR HILL'S RESIDENCE IH LA GKANGE, GA. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 4 1? father had no money that would pass current in the North, and but for the kindness of two friends in Atlanta, who insisted on lending him $100 in gold, he would have suffered a great deal. He was arrested in May and remained in prison until the following Julv. After being in prison for a month and having no specific charge made against him, and hearing of no reason for his arrest and imprisonment, he directed a letter to President Johnson. Wo copy of this letter was preserved, but it simply contained a request for the reasons of his arrest and continued imprisonment. The President replied to the letter, promising to have the-matter investigated at once. After waiting two weeks azid hearing" nothing1 at all, JVIr. Hill addressed the following letter to the President: FORT LAFAYETTE, NEW YOKK, July 4, 1865. His ExcEt-tENCY ANDREW JOHNSON, President of the United States. Sir : Accept my thanks for your kind letter of the" 23d ultimo. Nearly two weeks since that date having passed without an order in my case, I infer that I have not been sufficiently explicit in presenting my application for parole. Allow me then to say that I accept in good faith continued Union and the abolition of slavery as irreversible results of the late strug gle. Entering politics originally, avowedly, to oppose those extreme meas ures which then endangered the Union, yielding to secession only from necessity, doing nothing cruel or criminal or inconsistent during the war, having at no time a feeling or sentiment in common with extreme men, either South or North, I deem it is clearly not in accordance "with your re peated avowals on this subject that I should be selected for exemplary severity. But if I err in this, yet having no concealments, making no at tempt to escape, and wishing to avoid responsibility for no act of my life, I know it cannot be your wish to hold me in prison in a time of peace, with out charge, without process, without indictment, and without trial. Approv ing as I do your plan of reorganizing the Southern States, commending it as a great benefaction to the Southern people, when compared to other plans proposed, seeking no public position, but willing, as a private citizen, by ex ample and counsel to aid in restoring harmony and prosperity on the new basis of labor, I feel it is not egotism to say my presence in Georgia would be of positive service, while it would also enable me to look after the rem nants of an estate devastated, by the "war, to adjust my family to the new order of things, and to make some arrangements with and for those who have hitherto been my slaves. If for any cause existing or contingent, an amnesty at present is not deemed advisable, and my presence may be desired on any occasion, that presence can be as effectually secured by a parole as my detention in this fort. And if it be deemed better that I do not now return to Georgia, I will remain in any designated place on parole until fur ther orders. I have, therefore, the honor respectfully to request an order for my release, with or without terms, as a candid review of my case may dictate. I have the honor to be, Very truly and respectfully, Your obedient servant, B. H. HiLt. In a short time after this letter was sent, Mr. Hill was paroled by the President and permitted to return to his family. He had very little prop- 48 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF1 GEORGIA. erty left, and at that time the judiciary of the estate was in a chaotic condi tion. For several years Mr. Hill devoted himself exclusively to his private affairs, taking- no part whatever in any public questions. Hut he fully ap proved the policy of President Andrew Johnson in reference to the restora tion of the South to all the rights and privileges of sovereign States in the Union. He corresponded "with the President on the subject, and Johnson was desirous of having his influence in this work. In January, 1866, the Georgia Legislature assembled at Milledgeville and proceeded to elect two United States Senators. The important question was to select men who would riot be objectionable either to the President or Congress. Messrs. Ridlev and Frost, members of the Legislature from Troup County, wrote Mr. Jlill a letter requesting that he permit the use of his name in this con nection. In reply thereto, he wrote as follows ; LA GKAWGE, GA., January 12, 1866, Gentlemen: In deference to your query, I have concluded on the sub ject of United States Senator to say: In view of some facts, entire seclusion would be much more agreeable to me at this time. But in view of other facts, which I cannot ignore, I could not honorably decline the position if tendered. Knowledge acquired by honors heretofore conferred might en able me to be of service to those whose misfortunes but increase my regards, and to a people when rescued by plain facts from the most malign obloquy now sought to be heaped upon them, must be admitted by civilized man kind to have shown themselves the bravest and most heroic people of whom history can furnish any account. In this, at least, the labor of duty would become a labor of love. The extreme radicals of the IS'ortli are now, and ever have been, the most bitter of all the enemies of the Union. By re peated treacheries to the Constitution they forced the impulsive but gener ous South, under the counsels of a few impassioned leaders, into an unwise secession. Thev then made that secession the excuse for waging the most cruel and devastating war upon their victims. And now, "when these victims lay down their arms and offer, in good faith, to restore the Union, they reject the offer. Not satisfied with having broken the peace of the nation, with having shed our blood and laid waste our country, they now seek to hold the government in their exclusive possession until, the slanders lit tered in uncontradicted form, they can fix upon us the most infamous char acter in the annals of human atrocities, and can fix upon the whole country, by repeated amendments, a new Constitution suited to their fanatical vaga ries. The great original error of the South was in mistaking her enemy, and in making war upon the Union instead of upon these common enemies of the South and the Union. The best vindication of the South, the strongest support of the President, and the surest means of perpetuating the Union is to lay bare the real history and pui'poses of these extreme men. If this be not done, honor for us and liberty for all are no more. But I am not a candidate seeking oflfice. To be honorable, I have always thought it should be conferred as merited, and not secured by personal importunities. And now the crisis is so solemn, ouv situation so delicate, the duties of the posi tion are so responsible, and the sacrifices to a capable man so great, that the idea of seeking it is shocking. Content with my station, ready to perform to the best of my ability any service, I leave the whole matter where the If18 LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITTNGS. 49 Constitution and. people have placed it, in the hands of an unsolicited, and freely-acting Legislature. \Vith high regard, I am. Yours very truly, BENJ. H. HILL. To Jffessrs. Hidley and Frost, Representatives from. Troujy. It was, however, deemed prudent not to present Mr. Hill's name, as h*! had been too earnest and prominent in the counsels of the Confederacy, Mr. Stephens, who had been less active iri his support of the "Lost Cause,7 was regarded as more acceptable to the North, and he, "with Herschel V. Johnson, were elected. But they were not allowed to take their seats. Of course, Mr. Hill's election would have been obnoxious to the North, and he would not have been allowed to take his seat. But, in reading his letterwe cannot repress a deep regret that lie could not have been present in tho Senate during the great debates of 1866 and 1867, to have met the slander* of the South, and in the very beginning vindicated her honor and humanity. We would have probably lost the "Notes on the Situation," but the iniqui tous purposes of the Republican party would have been exposed to the soorff of the civilized world, and the South would not have waited in deep hu miliation until 1876 for her vindication from the charge of inhumanity aii<* barbarism. CHAPTER IV. Mr. Hill Resumes the Practice of T^aw--His Success--The Metcalf Case--He Prcveuts the Illegal Seizure of Cotton of the People.--Mr. Hill's Fight against the Reconstruc tion Measures of Congress--His Davis Hall Speech, July 16, 1866--General Pope Advises his Banishment from the State--His Notes on the Situation--Joel Chandler Harris on this Part of his Work--Reorganized the Democratic Party in Macon in 1857--Bush Harbor Speech in Atlanta, July 4, 1868--Toombs, Cobb, and Hill-- F ROM the close of the war until the reconstruction period Mr. Hill took no part in public affairs. He gave his time to the practice of law and the adjustment of his private business. During- the years 1865, 1866, 1867, and 1868, Georgia was in a fearful condition. Her leading men were all disfranchised, her labor system destroyed, and her people greatly impov erished. Life, liberty, and property were at the will or caprice of military governors. A few of our citizens had saved cotton, and on the proceeds of this they hoped to subsist until law and order could be restored. Northern adventurers, in collusion with Federal commanders, were seizing this cotton under the pretense that it belonged to the Confederate government, and was confiscated to the United States. But the cotton was appropriated in every instance by these robbers. Thomas A. Metcalf, a wealthy citizen of Augusta, had accumulated a large quantity of cotton. This was seized by the Federal commander at Augusta, and Mr. Metcalf himself was arrested and thrown into prison. There was no lawyer in the city who was brave enough to undertake to release the citizen or recover the cotton. The local bar was completely awed by the threats of the general in command. Mr. Hill happened to be in Augusta at the time, and became deeply interested in the case. In behalf of Metcalf he prepared a bill in equity asking for an injunction to prevent the Federal officers from selling this cotton. General Steadman, who was in command, threatened to put Mr. Hill in jail if he at tempted to invoke the aid of the civil authority. The threat had no effect on Mr. Hill. No judge near Augusta would sanction the bill, and he was compelled to go to Milledgeville and present it to Judge Iverson L. Harris. This brave judge at once sanctioned the bill and granted the injunction. Returning to" Augusta, the order was served and treated with respect. The effort to hold the cotton was abandoned and it was restored to its lawful owner. This action of Mr. Hill put a stop to similar robberies throughout the State. It was regarded at the time as a signal instance of professional courage and legal triumph. In 1867 the Reconstruction measures wore passed by Congress and sub mitted to th* Southern States for ratification. It is not the present purpose of the writer to enter into a discussion of these measures. It is enough to say that they were enacted by a fanatical Congress in .bitter hatred of the South and for the purpose of degrading her people. A few citizens of At lanta met together for the purpose of taking such action as might be deemed 50 HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. Johnson promised to write a letter reviewing the situation. Mr. Hill came to Atlanta to confer with his fellow-citizens. After doing so, he secured n Lilt; jusu LIIIHJ siiiuu tut; aui i tjuu.t?i. _i_iit; wpeeu nsc of their danger, it put courage in the place of despair, and that night ry of the State. The circumstances under which it was made * repeated. And if they could, there is no longer a Ben Hill to of tliem. His soul and intellect were both aflame. He itli the ardor of a prophet. Pie met the people tion, and he was equal to every* dem; He walked amid the ruins of a peculiar civilization; very hand doubt, fear, and dcs pair had possession of the people. He penned by an, American. They "were accepted as the voice of the South, uttering her protest and her plea, and as such were discussed on the streets of Xjondon and the Boulevards of Paris, no less than in the cities of the North. Even now they stir the blood and kindle the pixlses of the most 52 SENATOR fi. II. HILL, OF GEORGIA. phlegmatic reader, but this is hut a hint of the sensation they produced when they were printed. Had Mr. Hill never spoken one speech, his 'Notes on the Situation ' would have stamped him as one of the greatest men Georgia ever produced." This eloquent opinion is but the expression of the public voice. Under the influence of Mr. Hill's appeals, the people became a solid and invincible phalanx against radical wrong and oppression, but for a while he stood alone of Georgia's public men in his denunciation of the Reconstruction measures. It is true that Johnson had written his promised letter, but it was a negative and not a positive force in the fight. Mr. Hill did not confine himself to speech making and letter writing. For the first time in his life he gave attention to the details of politics, and in Macon, in 1867, he reorganized the Democratic party. Mr. Hill, therefore, was not only the voice and the pen of the South in the dark days of Reconstruction, but he was also the practical leader in the organization of the party which redeemed his State from the horrors and infamies of radicalism. On -July 4, 1S6S, a convention of .Democrats met in Atlanta for the pur pose of nominating Presidential electors. An immense bush-arbor was erected where the passenger depot now stands. Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and ISenjamin H. Hill were the speakers. It "was the largest mass meeting ever held in Georgia. Mr. Hill had been for several weeks pre vious to this time suffering from an attack of bilious or malarial fever, which he had contracted while experimenting in planting in southwest Georgia. He had gone to Indian Spring for relief, and the "writer had ac companied him. I had no intimation that he intended to make a speech, and was greatly surprised when he told me on the day before the meeting that he was going to Atlanta for this purpose. I had been with him con stantly, and did not see any preparation for the speech, and as he was quite feeble physically I felt some concern for the result ; and when we reached the city and found over 20,000 Georgia Democrats gathered to hear the tseaking, and that Toombs and Cobb were also to speak, this concern in- d. I shall never forget that day. The impatience of the crowd uld not wait for the order of speaking, but broke forth in loud calls for Hill " before the meeting was organized. It was evident that he was ;atly the favorite. This, of course, was due to the fact that he was ked upon as the leader in the great fight against Reconstruction, "i6ombs, Howell Cobb, and J3en Hill--never before in the history of the 1 te had three such orators appeared on the same rostrum, and to discuss stions appealing most Strong'1 v to the sympathies and passions of the ience. They were-questions upon the correct solution of which depended only Southern restoration, but white supremacy in the land. I had er heard Toombs, and my expectation was at the highest point, but I greatly disappointed in his speech. I expected an eloquent and imsioned display of oratory, but I heard a desultory and disconnected argunt that did not even quicken the pulses of the vast crowd. Howell Cobb lowed him and made a great speech of surpassing eloquence, logic, and /yavcctive. The crowd was wild with enthusiasm when Mr. Jlill rose to sp"eak, the cheering that greeted him was indescribable; men and women rose in their seats and waved handkerchiefs and shouted for about five minutes. Mr. Hill was very pallid, not only from that pallor characteristic of the orator on rising to speak, but this was increased by his physical con dition. An able writer, in giving a personal recollection of the scene, gives this IIIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 53 vivid description : " Another personal memory of Mr. Hill comes to me with distinctness. It "was the day that he spoke at the bush-arbor meeting. I don't think T was ever so impressed by any human being- as by Mr. Hill that day. He lacked the superb presence of Mr. Toornbs, who preceded, for in personal majesty I never saw the man that equaled the unpardoncd Georgian. He lacked the prestige of Mr. Cobb, for that statesman made a larger national figure than any Georgian since Crawford, but'iii fervid elo quence, in the stirring invective and appeal demanded just then to arouse the people to a true understanding of the situation, Mr. Hill walked like a god for hours at heights to which the others did not soar. Such a speech, of such (sompass, pitched upon such a key, was never made in this State before or since," - However its violence may stand the test of after inquiry, there is no doubt that it was wisdom when delivered. At its close General Toombs jumped from his seat, and in the presence of the crowd threw his arms around the speaker, tossed his hat in the air, and shouted three cheers for Ben Hill. A careful student of politics said to me a year ago : " One hour after that speech of Ben Hill, I knew that the redemption of Georgia was accomplished. All the bayonets in the United States could not have awed, nor all the wealth of the government debauched a people who had listened to that speech." It is an interesting incident to recall that a dark-eyed youth, his face radiant with excitement and enthusiasm, picked up General Toomb's hat, handing it to its owner. This young man was Henry W. Grady, who years afterward was counted not unworthy to rank with the great orators of that day. The invective of the speakers was directed principally against Governor l?rown, and those who remember the indignation and hatred which flashed from every eye as they denounced him as the arch-traitor to his peo ple, can but marvel at his complete forgiveness twenty years afterward. And it is a strange illustration of the remarkable power of the man, that, without change or repentance, he won to his support in 1880 the same men who had cursed him in 1868. This remarkable condonation of what were then deemed political crimes furnishes proof of the ephemeral character of political differences. The questions submitted to our people, contained in the Reconstruction measures, were questions of principle and not political expediency; their acceptance involved our honor and civilization. The South could not con sent to accept the terms proposed by Congress without sacrificing her selfrespect and dishonoring her dead soldiers. The two fundamental principles of the Reconstruction measures were that the Southern States, in seceding from the Union, committed an act of treason and rebellion, and that in the plan of Reconstruction, intelligence and property should be placed under the h.jeels of ignorance and pauperism. To consent to the first was to volun tarily write the words rebel and traitor on the tombstones of our honored dead. To consent to the second was a crime against our own race. In my opinion, therefore, the men, who when such terms were offered to the South oe_r_n_. p. e-oMpl.e-,^a^dav-_rQ^O't,airt.te.d'--t^hebire amccae(jpetabnecteweceonmmthiettemdeann wuhnopawrdeorneafbaleithcfruiml ien. ose who were unfaithful, else there is no incentive to ;,TM,. ard for fidelity. The terrible upheaval of the war threvv^^^^ :J^i^^4-many hybrid characters, but standing out in hideous induct of that period is the secessionist-scalawag. A 1 t^ which history gives no parallel. The bitterness that SENATOR B. IT. HILL, OF GEORGIA. ;nt emogisis, -Among an ine true sons 01 ijeorgia ana trie ooui.ii in tnat dayr, his form stands conspicuous." The Reconstruction measures were deccllared ratified by the people of the Southern States, and this, too, in the face of the admitted fact that the whites were opposed to them, and they thus became parts of the fundamental law of the land. This presented an entirely new issue for our people. CHAPTER V. Address to the People, December 8, 1870-- The Effect of this Address-- State Road Lease--Delano Banquet--Speech at the Banquet--These Three Things Cost Hill his Popularity in the State--He was Misunderstood and Greatly Abused--Explains fully his Reason for Attending- said Banquet to Mr. Grady--The Greeley Movement-- Advocates it--Defeated for United States Senate in 1873 by General John B. Gordon--Cause of his Defeat--Gainesville Convention of 187G--Fails to Make a Nomination for Congress--Mr. Hill Goes before the People--Makes a Canvass of the District--Elected by a Very Large Majority--General Rejoicing over his Election Throughout the South--Meeting of the Citizens of Atlanta to Celebrate his Election-- His Speech on the Occasion--Analysis of Mr. Hill's Political Character, by F. H. Alfriend. When the Reconstruction measures were prreesented to the South in 1867, our people could not have consented to their ratification without coma not nave allowed, tnem to necome declared ratified by the States, they beca ADDKESS TO THE PEOPLE OF GEORGIA. ^T^HE relation I have borne to you during the last fifteen years will justify, 1 if not demand, this address. I began life with the distinct resolution never to enter public or political station, but to limit the gratification of ambition to professional success. This resolution was based upon the assumption that the integrity of the gov ernment would not be disturbed, and "was departed from only when that integrity was brought into question. Entering politics with none but the most unselfish and patriotic desire to aid in preserving our constitutional union. I was caught in the current, "which quickened into revolutionary madness, on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and have since been borne along, every hour vainly but earnestly endeavoring to arrest its wild rush to our ruin. Through all its three stages of Secession, Coercion, and Reconstruction, I have been the zealous and consistent antagonist of the revolution, and regard ing as I did the first stage as an error, the second as a crime, and the third as a monstrous usurpation, I would not if I could, disguise from you the fact that the conscious memory that I opposed all, and arn in no degree responsible for the consequences of any, has been to me a well-spring of joy through all the horrors of the past, and will bo a source of strength in all the struggles of the future. Whatever else be lost, this consciousness of selfsacrifice and devotion to what I believed was right is a treasure of exhaustless wealth, which no power can destroy and no misfortune can take away. The revolution, at least in its work of violence, let us hope, is at an end. 55 56 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. Leaving now out of view the material and moral devastations sustained, it is our duty to ascertain and fix, with all possible distinctness and without passion, the changes wrought by the revolution in our political framework; changes, though wrought as results, are now to become causes, and in their time must "work results, for good or evil, over all our country for, perhaps, generations to come. The tangible, permanent results thus wrought by the war in the charac ter of our political institutions are embodied in what are known as the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States. It is historical accuracy to say that the thirteenth amend ment received the assent of the original constituency of the Southern States; and the two other amendments -did not receive that assent. Nevertheless, all these amendments have been proclaimed by the power having jurisdiction of the question, to have received constitutional ratification, and to constitute parts of the national fundamental law. Taking this, then, as our starting point, the first question is : AVhat are the specific changes wrought by these amendments? The first changes I notice are perhaps the only ones which the popular mind seems to be aware of as accomplished at all. The amendments, in the order named, establish, "with a qualification, the freedom, civil equality, and political equality of the races--all races and colors. The only badge of bondage remaining in America is the qualification alluded to--being the disabilities imposed by the fourteenth amendment upon a portion of the white race in the Southern States. But, in truth, these changes in the relative status of the different races are the most insignificant effects of these amendments. Not only has the civil and political status of the negro race been changed, but, what is inex pressibly far more, the jurisdiction over the civil and the political status of all the races in all the States will be held to have been transferred by these amendments from the States, severally to the general government. This effects a great change in the character of the general government--greatly increasing the national and as greatly lessening its Federal features. In deed, language cannot express ideas more intensely national than are the ideas covered by the words " jurisdiction over the civil and political status of the citizen." These powers being conferred, it will be difficult to say what power has not been conferred. "While State governments may remain as convenient regiilators of limited local interests, it will be held that under these amendments to the now National Constitution the general government has acquired revisory powers over the entire State government, and over all the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the State governments. In view of the thorough changes thus wrought by these amendments in the whole character of the general and State governments, the next question becomes of exceeding great importance. Have these amendments become, in fact, fixed parts of the National Constitution, and will they "be so held? After giving this subject not only a careful, but a most anxious con sideration, I have been driven to the conclusion that these three amendments are in fact, and will be held in law, fixed parts of the Constitution, as bind ing upon the States and people as the original provisions of that instru ment. The legal ratification of the thirteenth amendment is conceded by all. It must be also conceded--is conceded--that the ratifications of the four teenth and fifteenth amendments have been proclaimed. By whom ? I HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, A Nil WRITINGS. 57 answer, by the .political departments of the general government having the jurisdiction so to proclaim. But it is said the ratifications were not fi'ee or real, but forced and usurpatory, and that, therefore, the Supreme Court "will declare the proclama tions of such ratifications to bo null and void, I reply, the Supreme Court has only judicial power, and the power in question is political and not judicial. Again, this judicial power of the Supreme Court is itself limited to cases arising under the Constitution--that is, to questions arising in the construction of the Constitution after it is made, and not to the making it self. The political power makes the Constitution, and the judicial power construes it. The political power having proclaimed these amendments to be parts of the Constitution, the judicial power can have no jurisdiction to re view or reverse that proclamation, but can only decide what the amend ments so proclaimed mean. The facts necessary to ratification, as recited by the political power, must be accepted as true by the judiciary, and cannot be ever judicially questioned ; for the judicial is no part of the amending power. There is a vast difference, in this respect, between the making of the Constitution and the passage of laws under it after made. But, I am asked, can usurpation become law, binding a people and courts ? I reply, yes, easily, very easily, and often. As efforts the most patriotic, failing-, became rebellion, so usurpation the most g-laring, succeed ing, become laws. A majority of human governments have no origin save in usurpations. Indeed, successful usurpation is the strongest expression of power ; and law itself, in its last analysis, is only power. In plain truth, human experience has discovered but one remedy* for usurpation. That remedy is preventive--not curative ; military--not civil. It is the sword. To apply this remedy in this case, the South was unable, and the North unwilling. Conceding then that these amendments "were usurpations, they were successful, and have become law--fundamental law-- binding upon States and people, courts and rulers. It may have been criminal--was criminal--to aid in committing a usurpation ; it is crime it self to break the law. And thus are we bound. But, again, we are told, the Northern people will discover their error, and a reaction will take place which will obliterate these amendments. But it will take three fourths of the States to obliterate. Besides, I now believe the following propositions may be correctly assumed concerning the North ern people. 1. Feeling that their protection was in their power rather than in the law, they have not been induced to understand and learn the nature of their gov ernment as their fathers did. What men do not know they cannot love. Their government the Northern people know. They know its power, in one sense, and for that they love it. They do not understand its federative character and do not love it. 2. The Northern people believe that what they understand to be the State's rights theory was the real source, and, therefore, the cause of seces sion, the war, and all its consequences. Therefore they hate that theory of our government. 3. The increase in population, the great accumulation of wealth, the won derful growth of commerce and trade, the close intermixture of many States and people through the agencies of railroads and other improvements, re quire, in the opinion of the Northern people, a strong national government; 58 SENATOR B. If. HILL, OF GEORGIA. and if these amendments increase the national powers of the government, they are not likely, on that account, to change them. 4. Add to these views the "well known fact that the great body of the Northern people regard the freedom and the civil and political equality of the negro as great national, philanthropic, and religious results ; and you must agree with me that the hope of a change at the North, which would obliterate these amendments, must be abandoned. If we could not hold the Northern people to the franchise system, when we had it with all the sanctity of common revolutionary struggles hallowing it, how shall we induce them to return voluntarily to that system after, as they believe, they have paid so much in treasure and blood to get rid of it. In a word, the masses of the Northern people have been taught to regard, and do regard slavery, secession, and State rights as words of close affinity, if not of identical meaning-, and, whether they are right or wrong in their conviction, there is no probability of its early change. The conclusion, then, is that we have a new National Constitution, with new and enlarged powers of government, establishing new and differ ent relations between the general and State governments; and also a new system of industry with a new, if not anomalous, condition of society. How this new system will operate; whether, under it, government will be more stable ; the.enjoyment of life, liberty and property more secure; whether statesmanship shall be more elevated, laws more respected and justly enforced, and natural prosperity and moral excellence advanced and increased; whether " the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies " which so distinguished the old system, can be imparted to the new, are all problems which experience alone can solve, and upon which I do not now propose to speculate. But there are a few immediate and pressing duties resulting from the above premises, to which I will call your attention. First. It is the duty of every good citizen to abide and obey the Con stitution and laws as they exist, precisely as if he had co-operated in estab lishing and enacting them. Because we disapproved a proposed law can furnish no excuse for disobeying an enacted law. Every good and trust worthy citizen will oppose if he can, and disapprove anyhow, a proposed wrong; and every such citizen will likewise obey an existing law and abide an accomplished fact. If the citizen's opinion of the law, rather than the law itself, furnished the measure of his obligation to obey, it would be im possible to have uniform rule, settled law, or stable government. Second. It was your opinion that the colored man was not prepared at once and indiscriminately to understand and appreciate, and, therefore, to receive the great trust of suffrage. But right or "wrong, wisely or unwisely, the new fundamental law has conferred upon him the right to exercise that trust. It has, therefore, become our duty, as it is also our interest, not only to permit and assent to its exercise, but also to render ready protection and cheerful assistance to the colored man in its free, full, and unrestricted en joyment. I know, fellow-citizens, that you concur in these views and do not need this admonition; but there is no subject on which the Northern people and the government itself so greatly suspect your fidelity; and, there fore, you will know how to pardon this repeated counsel. Third. I respectfully suggest that the time lias arrived when duty does not require, nor interest seek, a continuance of the divisions on the princi ples and events which have led to our present condition. Their heroism in HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 59 the field and wisdom in the Cabinet during the war; their fortitude under suffering, and patience under wrong, since the "war; and, above all, the grandeur of that manhood which they almost universally exhibited in per sistently withholding their assent, under the severest threats, from a scheme which proposed to manacle intelligence and virtue, and turn loose ignorance and vice to inaugurate government and administer law, have made a record of sincerity, devotion, and sense of honor for the Southern people which time must ever brighten and discussion cannot strengthen. Let us, therefore, cease all quarreling over the past and all threatenings for the future, and manfully unite our energies to bring back prosperity to our country and good will among our people. Touching the pending election, I will add but one suggestion. It is of secondary importance whom else you choose for your General Assembly; but it is of first importance that you choose honest men. AVe are suffering for wise and honest legislation. \Ve can never get such legislation unless you elect members whom, feed lobbyists cannot buy. A black man who cannot be bought is better than a white man who can, and a Republican who cannot be bought is better than a Democrat who can. The worst possible condition for any people is a body of ignorant and venal legislators, under the control of a band of professional lobbyists, fed by unscrupulous specula tors. INo government can be stable, and no country can be prosperous, if these things meet not condemnation by, and correction from, the people. BENJ. H. HILL. December 8, 1870. This letter, eminently wise, patriotic, and entirely consistent with Mr. Hill's position in 1867 and 1868, was nevertheless generally misconstrued, and furnished the excuse for much abuse from press and politicians. Shortly after this address was published, the lease of the "Western and Atlantic Hailroad was made by the Governor in pursuance of an act of the Legislature. The act directing the lease of the road was prepared and introduced by a distinguished Democratic member of the House of Representatives. There, were two companies bidding for the lease. At the head of one was Mr. Hill, having as associates prominent Democrats and citizens of Georgia. At the head of the other was Governor Brown, having as associates promi nent Republicans of the North. It was soon discovered that the Governor would probably give the preference to those of his own political faith, and to avoid this result, Mr. Hill's company combined with Governor Brown, forming a new company which secured the lease. Pending the negotiations on the subject of the lease, the prominent Republicans associated with Governor Brown, came to Georgia. Among them was Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior. A banquet was given to these gentlemen at the Kimball House, to which Mr. Hill was invited, and at which he made a speech. These three things,--the address of December 8, 1870, his associa tion with Governor Brown and other Republicans in the lease of the West ern and Atlantic Railroad, and his speech at the Delano banquet, had a most important effect on his political career. Up to this time he had been the most popular of all the prominent men of Georgia j he was simply the idol of the people; but these acts changed the whole current of popular love and confidence into one of distrust. Many politicians of the State, who did not like Mr. Hill, made them the pretext for gross misrepresentation and slander. Looking to his own personal advancement, it cannot be denied 60 SENATOR ft. H. HILT,, OP GEORGIA. tliat tliis action of Mr. Hill was unfortunate. It practically condemned him to private station and lost him the United States senatorship in 1873. But when wo look at his conduct in the light of subsequent events, we recog nize his pure and patriotic motives. Indeed, the motives that induced him to make a political sacrifice of himself must have been strong. As this part of Mr. Hill's life was so greatly misconstrued, I propose to show how unjustly he was treated. Was his letter of December inconsist ent with his course previous to that time? A careful perusal of the address itself, clearly stating as it docs the changed condition of public affairs, is conclusive answer in the negative. It was claimed by his detractors that he had receded from his previous position and was now advocating what he had before so eloquently condemned. This opinion is due to a superficial examination of the address. Mr. Hill nowhere approves as right the meas ures that had become parts of the law of the land. He recognizes them as accomplished facts. To use his own terse expression: " Successful usurpa tion bad become law." There was a vast difference between this position and that of those Southern men who favored the acceptance of the Recon struction measures when proposed. Mr. Hill himself, in answer to the ques tion to define the difference between his position as enunciated in this ad dress and that of Republicans in 1867, uses the following emphatic language: " There is just the same difference as that between two sons, one of whom helps assassins to slay his father, and the other, after exposing life and all to prevent the slaughter, and fails, simply and sadly recognizes the fact that his father is dead, and decently buries him, and honestly goes to work for the family. Is there no difference between parricide and filial love?" In truth, Mr. Hill, in the position taken in this celebrated letter, was only in advance of his party. In 1872 the Democratic party, in its national plat form, fully incorporated the principles set forth by Mr. Hill in 1870. The Democratic party, by this course, was not inconsistent and was not sur rendering any one of its great principles, but was simply adapting itself to the changes which the final adoption of the Reconstruction, measures made necessary. Now as to the lease of the AVestern and Atlantic Railroad. AVas Mr. Hill untrue to his people in becoming one of the lessees of this property ? It was the unanimous opinion that the road should be leased, and Mr. Hill had advocated its lease for thirteen years. Managed by the State it paid nothing, but furnished the means for corrupt party manipulation. Mr. Hill endeavored to obtain control of this great property by a company composed exclusively^ of Georgians ; finding that he could not do so, he was forced into a business association with men whom in politics he had bitterly de nounced. But the lease was not unpopular for any objection to the policy of leasing, but Governor Brown and his associates were at that time extremely obnoxious to our people. In speaking of the lease, Mr. Hill uses the fol lowing language in a letter written to Hon. John P. King, President of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company : " Besides the desire to see this great work taken out of the control of corrupt party politics, there were two special reasons why I approved this particular bill to lease. The first reason was that I was assured that unless this bill to lease was passed, one nominally to sell, but really to steal the road would pass. The second reason was, that I "was assured you would organize the company. Now outside of the magnitude of the interests in volved, I feel a special desire that the gentlemen who are to be the lessees HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WHITINGS. * should be such as will secure the confidence of the people, the owners, be cause if the company shall excite odium, that odium will attach to the lease itself, and will extend to all who aided in and approved its adoption. Rumor has many tongues as to the personnel and character of the lease. One is that your road and one in Tennessee are to be the sole indorsers and the chief beneficiaries. If this is well founded, a fierce and bitter contest may be expected. Let me beg you not to permit this. Another rumor is, that the Chief Justice of the State is to be interested as a lessee, and is even to be the president of the company. This is exciting much disparaging com ment. As an individual, I would not say one word against GovernoiBrown as a lessee. He is able and industrious. But as a chief justice, there is every objection to his connection with this lease. The greatest crime of this corrupt age is the use of official station for personal aggrandizement. You have been the honored associate of men of better habits and better times. I beg you now not to allow your good name to be quoted hereafter as lending countenance, even by association, to this great crime. In my judg ment, this great work ought to be removed from political partisan control." .But it could not be denied that the lease, as made, was for a while very unpopular in the State, and Mr. Stephens had added to its unpopularity by refusing to take a share in the lease, although he had written to Governor Brown consenting to do so. One of the greatest victories ever won by a public speaker was that of Mr. Hill before the convention of the Georgia Railroad, held in Augusta. The question before the convention was whether or not the stockholders of the road would ratify the action of the president, John I*. King, in becoming one of the securities on the bond of the lessees of the State road. Mr. Hill was present to advocate sustaining the indorsement. Robert Toombs and Linton Stephens were present for the purpose of fighting it. The hall in whicb the convention was held was crowded with earnest and excited men, all against the indorsement and bitterly inimical to the lease. "When Mr. Hill arose to speak, instead of being1 g'reeted by applause, he was received, with hisses and jeers, but when he had concluded his argument this same crowd gave him round after round of enthusiastic applause, and so great was the revolution in their sentiment that the speeches of Toombs and Stephens made no impression upon them, and they voted to sustain the indorsement almost without a dissenting voice. At this day it "will certainly be admitted by all that the condemnation of Mr. Hill for becoming one of the lessees was without reason and unjust. The third reason for Mr, Hill's xinpopularity at this period was his attendance on the banquet given by Governor Bullock to Mr, Delano, and the speech that he made there. It "was objected in the first place that he ought not to have attended. It was said that no Southern man ought to have attended a banquet given by Governor .Bullock to Northern Republi cans. "Was this position correct ? The banquet was given to a dlstinguished gentleman, who was a member of the Cabinet. It was given by the Governor of the State, and, although a Republican governor, yet an honest man and a gentleman.* It is a striking illustration of the bitterness of those days and the changes which time has "wrought, that Mr. Hill should * I speak advisedly. Governor Bullock was indicted for embezzlement while gover nor. I was solicitor-general at the time, and aided in his prosecution, Tlie most searching investigation failed to disclose any evidence of his guilt, and he was promptly acquitted by a Democratic jury. This much a sense of justice induces me to write. 62 SENATOR 8. H, HILL, OF GEORGIA. have been condemned for being present at a banquet to a prominent North ern citizen. !Now our people welcome all visitors from the North, regai'dless of politics, have frequently banqueted our worst political enemies, and Governor Bullock is now one of the most honored citizens of Atlanta and a welcome guest at any Southern home. But the speech that Mr. Hill made at the banquet gave much offense to the people, and the expression in it, "that he did not go to he a Democrat," was used by his traducers with ter rible effect ; and yet this expression is thoroughly explained by the context of the speech, and is perfectly unobjectionable. As a matter of interest in this connection, the speech is here given in full. Mr. Delano in his speech made the following allusion to the State of Georgia : "\Vhen I travel over your extensive territory ; wlien I behold the fertility of your soil, and its peculiar adaptability for the production of that great commodity that yields to our country more wealth than is realized from any other one source ; "when I come in contact with your inhabitants, and receive their congratulations and friendly greetings, and enjoy their hospitality, I feel that I am not paying an unjust or undeserved compliment, when I say th1, a-jt. tj.h1. is SOjt.a_ tj.e_ i s o_,,ne_ o_ fr t^h1,e.. m __ o,,,,s.!t. fJJlo,,,, ur_ is!h, :i,,n_g__a_n_ d,1 o,.n_ e,, o_ fC tj.h1.e_ m __ o_ s_jt_ p__r,,o_ g-_r-e._s_s_i.v_eStatess inn the XJnion, and in the Union she is and she will ever be." Mr. Delano gave the following toast : "I desire now to give you, gentlemen, as my sentiment, * Georgia--may she soon have in the Union, in all respects and in all particulars, the place she deserves.' " Governor Bullock called on Hon. Ben. H. Hill to answer to this toast. He said, in substance : iLiy menu, spu.h.13 UJ, iu a, MIC i^bu-hi ui *JTUUI gian. "Voorhees, himself a good orator, sprang to his feet and exclaimed, " That is the best speech that has been spoken in this House for twenty years. It is as sublime as the inspired words that fell from the lips of Paul on Mar's hill." After all, let us look quietly and soberly at the speech and the circum stances suri'ounding it. For the simple purpose of answering the few men who still believe, or profess to believe, that Mr. Hill should not have made the speech, we assume to defend him for a moment. W^e admit, in the out set, that the revival of this discussion of the Northern and Southern prison treatment is unfortunate for the whole country, and especially so for the 72 SENATOR B. II. HILL, OW GEORGIA. South. It "will renew sectional hatred, revivify the partisan fires, and reinspire the North to fanaticism. If any Southern member had inaugurated, or in any manner whatever provoked this discussion, he would have been guilty of a blunder, that would have been, as Talleyrand said, worse than a crime. But no Southern member was responsible for it. It "was wantonly and deliberately sprung by Mr. Blaine, a smart schemer for the Republican Presidential nomination. lie arose, and in the most brutal and slanderous manner denounced the Confederate Government for the cruelties alleged to have been practiced at Andersonville. Such another fiendish and malignant assault upon the honor, the chivalry, and good name of a people we do not believe the records of Reconstruction politics--as full as they are of brutal slanders--will furnish. He made two statements that were positive, con spicuous, and, as Mr. Hill showed, false. He first charged that " Mr. Davis was fully, deliberately guilty, and wantonly cognizant of, and re sponsible for the organized crime and murder of Andersonville." He then said : " I now assert deliberately before God, as my judge^ knowing the full measure and import of rny word, that the cruelties of the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the screws and tortures of the Spanish Inquisition did not approach in cruelty the atrocity of Andersonville." His speech absolutely bristled with statements similar to the ones above quoted. Now, on the floor of the House, within the hearing of these slan ders, sat a man delegated by his people to protect their honor before the country ; a man elected because his wonderful power qualified him especially to answer the misrepresentations "which, for a long and painful decade, had been heaped upon an unresisting people. This man, above any other man probably in the House, had in his possession facts which dispelled, utterly and triumphantly, every leading assertion made by Blaine. This man knew that the statements of the ex-Speaker, if acquiesced in by silence, would put a miserable and everlasting stain upon the integrity and honor of his people. lie knew that they were false, and that he could prove them to be false. 'What was his duty, then, under the circumstances ? To sit supinely in his chair and have it said, that the confidential adviser of Jefferson Davis, with all the facts in his possession, did not dare to rise and contradict what Mr. Blaine had said ? To sit there skulking beneath a false prudence, and let the Republican party scatter Blaine's assertions all over the North, coupled with the boast, that though made in open Congress, in the presence of a Democratic majority, in the very face of ex-Confederate senators and generals and congressmen, that not one of them dared to rise, and contro vert the facts as laid down by the ex-Speaker ? We can imagine nothing more absurd and cowardly. Silence, under such circumstances, would have been, as the Savannah Neios fitly says, " both hypocritical and pusillani mous." It being admitted, then, and we suppose no intelligent man will, upon re flection, deny that Blaine should have been answered, it is easy to see why, of all other men, Mr. Hill was the man to make it. He was intimately con nected with Mr. Davis during the Andersonville days, and was thoroughly conversant with all the facts in the case. If, then, the slanders of Blaine needed refutation, and Mr. Hill was the best man to refute them (and those HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 73 propositions seem to us to be self-evident), let us advance to the speech it self, and see how he performed his task--a task to which a hundred con siderations of duty imperatively urged him. It is acknowledged on all hands that the speech is a masterpiece of elo quence. We seriously doubt if the United States can furnish Mr. Hill's superior, when considered simply as an eloquent speaker. His wonderful effort doubtless did much to revive the old distinction earned for the South by such fiery giants of debate as Clay, Toonibs, Cobb, and Berrien. As a piece of soul-stirring1; scholarly eloquence, the speech was surprisingly suc cessful, and carried off all the honors. As logical effort, it was none the less admirable. Mr. Hill did not make a single assertion that was not sustained by the records. He said many things that were new to his hearers, and unpalatable to some of them. He aston ished his friends as well as his foes by the surprising array of facts and figures. And yet, though the statementsmade in his speech turned Blaine's assault, and made the gentleman ridiculous, and though Mr. Blaine has himself since occupied the floor in his own defense, he did not attempt to contradict a single statement made by Mr. Hill. Considered simply as regards its effect in the "North, we think the speech admirable in tone and sentiment. It breathed a thorough Union sentiment, and, while firm in its defense of the South, was tender, respectful, and de voted to the whole country. Even when forced, through the necessity of dehate, to allude to the cruelties practiced in Northern prisons, he shrank from the task, and, with a nobility of sentiment that must have touched even his enemies, he says that he shudders from putting a stigma upon either section of the country, because he loves the whole country and is jealous of its honor. How different is this good sentiment from the partisan meanness of Blaine, who, though he pretended to love the Union, takes a delight to put a stigma upon one section of it. The whole speech is full of a patriotic fervor, full of love for the re stored Union, and hopeful for its future. There is not a word in it to which any Northern Democrat or Liberal, or intelligent citizen, can object, but much that all of these must commend. As for the Republicans, it was not meant to please them. It will bo plain, we think, to any man who carefully surveys the situation, that Mr. Hill was right in answering Blaine's mad and reckless assertions. To have permitted them to go to the country, unanswered, would have been virtually to admit their truth--a most fatal admission. That Mr. Hill an swered them, eloquently, manfully, dignifiedly, and prudently, cannot be Tlenied, after the authorized report of his speech is read. Ben Hill said a grand thing "when he confronted Blaine and his angry adherents, and exclaimed, "I tell you that this reckless misrepresentation of the South must stop right here. I put you upon notice that hereafter when you make any assertion against her you must be prepared to substantiate it with proof ! " We thank God that there is a man in Congress at once bold enough to say such a thing as this, and able enough to enforce it. 'With all respect to those who have thought and acted otherwise, it is what the South has needed for some time. At the expiration of Mr. Hill's term in Congress, lie was unanimously reelected for another term. The spring of 1877 is the darkest period in *74 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OW GEORGIA. American history. Then was perpetrated that greatest outrage against the Constitution and against the sovereignty of the people. The infamous heel of fraud and bribery "was on the fair neck of liberty and law. The voice of the people silenced, and the greatest crime ever committed against free government was executed by the Republican party. Mr. Tilden was elected President of the United States, but by unparalleled and unprecedented wrong was not permitted to take his seat. The country was in the midst of a fearful crisis. The Republican party was unwilling to yield the govern ment, after so long possession. General Grant had possession of the govern ment and had the power arid determination to usurp the functions of Con gress, unless some measure of compromise was adopted. It was civil war or compromise. This condition of affairs gave birth to the Electoral Com mission. Democratic patriots were willing to submit to almost any wrong rather than plunge the country into internecine conflict ; as a consequence, all Democratic leaders favored the Electoral Commission. It did not seem possible to them that men who were prominent" enough to be selected as members of this Commission could be led, from partisan feeling, to the com mission of pei-jury, and in order to continue party supremacy, suppress truth, and destroy Constitutional principles. Surely it was not possible for a division, on strictly party lines, on questions involving the very existence of free government. Besides, the Independent judge, David Davis, was to be the umpire in the event of such a contingency, and the Democrats felt that in his hands they could safely commit their cause. The Republicans, apprehensive of the independent spirit of the judge, hastened to elect him Senator from Illinois before the Commission was organized, and he, in order to avoid the responsibility of the position as a member of the Commission, resigned his seat on the supreme bench and accepted the senatorship, thus rendering himself ineligible, and so another judge of the Supreme Court, under the terms of the act creating the Com mission, had to be selected, and Justice Bradley was the man. This settled the question, and from that time the Democratic party had no chance. Partisanship overrode patriotism, sectionalism was stronger than the great right of free suffrage, returning boards more potent than ballots, falsehood stronger than truth, and over all facts and against all law the will of the sovereign people was disregarded and Hayes declared elected President. So great and glaring was this outrage perpetrated against free government, that some of the Democrats in the House advocated a resistance to the decla ration of the result as determined by the Commission, and proposed to adopt a policy of filibustering until after the 4th of March. Mr. Hill did not favor this policy. In the first place he thought that the Democrats were, in good faith, bound to submit to the decision of the Elec toral Commission, as the party had given its consent to this method of set tlement ; and in the second place, if the plan of delay succeeded in post poning the declaration of the result by Congress, he did not see that any practical good would be accomplished, or how Mr. Tilden could be seated. President Grant was in possession of the government and would enforce the decision of the Electoral Commission, even if it involved the country in civil war. During this exciting period, Mr. Hill was recognized as the leader of Southern Democrats, and his voice and influence "were for peace at all hazards. In support of his position, he made the following speech at a Democratic caucus ; HIS LIFM, SPEECHES, AJfZt WHITINGS. 75 KBMABKS MADE BY B. H. Hit!., IN" THE CAUCUS OF JiEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OB1 THE HOUSE, EEBKTJARY 12, 1877. Mr. Chairman : Those who take counsel of their passions are often honest, but rarely wise. The indignation excited by a sense of wrong springs naturally in an honest heart, but this very indignation may over come the judgment and increase the very wrongs it would remedy. The strength of a wise man is, in great degree, measured by his ability to restrain his indignation and control his feelings. It was my lot to bo in the midst of the secession excitement. I listened to those who counseled that move ment. I am not sure I ever listened to more honest men, but I am sure I never listened to more unwise ones. Pardon me, nay friends, for I speak with the greatest respect, but I must say that the scene here to-night has brought vividly to my mind some of the scenes I then witnessed. Expres sions have been used here to-night which are identical with some I heard sixteen years ago, and ave doubtless inspired by like honest but excited passions. I did not concur with the counsels of passion then because I believed only evils would result. I do not concur with the counsels of pas sions to-night because I believe still greater evils would result from their adoption. I have calmly reviewed our present situation, and feel it is my duty to state frankly my conclusions. This is an hour for frankness. A mistake now cannot be recalled. I have carefully considered and weighed the decision and report made by the Electoral Commission in the case of Florida. It is painfully clear to my mind that the majority of that Commission have resolved, right or wrong, to count in Mr. Hayes. They will refuse to see fraud, in order that fraud may have success. I concede that. The result will be a great wrong and a national shame. I concede that also. Can we prevent it ? If we can, we ought. How can it be prevented ? Only one method has been sug gested. That method is, by dilatory motions, to prevent the completion* of the count by the 4th of .March. As a fact I admit that result can be reached. But as a remedy, is it wise, and will it be effected ? I think not. In the first place, the Constitution enjoins upon us the duty of making the count, and we have all taken an oath to support the Constitution. We cannot be absolved from that oath except by causes we can neither avert nor control. But it is said all our dilatory motions will be according to the rules, and, therefore, not revolutionary. I answer, the rules were made to enable us to discharge our duties, and not to avoid them. We have no right to use the rules, nor any other agency, to enable us to fail in a duty. To do wrong under color and form of law, has been the strength, but also the crime, of the Republican party. It is the vei-y crime which is making fraud omnipotent and of which we now justly complain. In the second place, we have passed, at this very session, the law which created this Electoral Commission. Our motives in passing it were patriotic, however wicked may be the manner of its execution. That law pledges us to complete the count, and we passed it in order to complete the count peaceably and by the time prescribed. W^e cannot repeal that law, for neither the Senate nor the Executive will concur in such repeal. N"o "wrongs and deceptions practiced by others--indeed, nothing can justify us in the violation or disregard of that law. 76 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Of GEORGIA. But in the third place, suppose we determine not to complete the count, and do succeed in preventing it ; what then ? "We shall certainly thereby prevent the peaceable inauguration of Mr. Hayes, but we shall also as certainly not secure the peaceable inauguration of Mr. Tilden. Neither will have been counted in. This will bring about a contingency not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution nor by the framers of the laws to carry into effect the Constitution, arid, therefore, a contingency which has not been provided for. We shall be -without both a President and Vice-President, and without any provision of law--consti tutional or statute--to secure either. In this contingency who doubts that Grant will continue himself upon us, perhaps for life ; or, that the Senate will put Morton upon us at least until another election can be had? Had we not better take Hayes peaceably for four years than have either of these on any terms ? But suppose we resist this result, and declare Tilden President by a reso lution of this House, without completing the count as required by the Con stitution. What then ? Our enemies will have possession of the govern ment, and will profess great willingness to abide by the Constitution and the laws. We shall be charged with having precipitated a revolution by refusing to obey either the Constitution, or our own law, both of which require, us to complete the count. This result will be charged to have been brought about by a Democratic House controlled by ex-Confederates. Civil war will be inevitable. The end of that war no man can foresee. I believe our free institutions will be finally and forever destroyed. The character of the war will become more and more sectional again, and I do not doubt that Louisiana and South Carolina, from whose necks we are so anxious to lift the heels of oppressors and robbers, will be the greatest vic tims in the universal horror. I believe nothing- can justify or excuse a civil war in a popular goverament. Jjiftina; myself, then, above all personal, sectional, and party considera tions--looking only, in this dark hour, to the good of our whole country-- earnestly desiring to perpetuate our free institutions, and taking counsel only of my judgment and sense of duty, I can see no course left us but to go straight forward with the count, in accordance with the Constitution and laws, and trust to the intelligence and virtue of the American people, in due time, to visit proper retribution upon those who commit or accept frauds, for geries, and perjuries, in order to usurp the offices and defeat the popular will. But if we take a narrower view of the situation, and look only to the effect upon political parties, we shall be brought to the same conclusions. If the course I suggest be adopted, the Republican party will hold the Presidency for four years longer. But they will continue in power solely by frauds committed and accepted only by themselves. Those frauds will surely come to light. They cannot be concealed. "We will bring them to the light. If we fail in our duty, they will bring themselves to the light. In the light of those frauds, when exposed, the people will be able to see what passion and "war and falsehood have hitherto prevented them from see ing--that the Republican party was never anything but a sectional, uncon stitutional, and revolutionary party. They will see that that party has never had any principle but force, and never any policy but frand ; and finally they will see that it is the only party now existing which is willing to hold the offices against the will of the people. After the 4th of March that party will become powerless to use force, and will live by no tenure but fraud, and, HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WltITI2fQ8. 77 after four years of imbecile infamy, it will go out of power and out of respect forever ! On the other hand, the Democratic party will lose the "Presidency for four years, but we shall save the peace of the country and end the revolu tion of force which has brought upon the people so much suffering. In the light of this sacrifice the people will be able to see that the Democratic party is the only truly national or constitutional party in existence, and is the only party which regards the good of the people and the integrity of the government as of higher value than the possession of the offices. At the end of two years the States will give us the Senate, as the people havo already given us the House, and a Republican '.President will become utterly harmless for evil. At the end of four years the people will redeem them selves from, the rule of both force and fraud by placing the Democracy in full possession of the government, and they will retain that possession gen erations to come. These are my views. I express them with diffidence, but in kindness for all. I believe my conclusions are wise, and I know they are honest and patriotic. no, v t icuii-cn"duot of JMahone an effort to form a coalition with the Federa,il adrninis- of Georgia would furnish two prominent recruits who had been recently daerfeateda ftor re-ecliection t1o0 C ouutww iluthiisstLatntuduiiniigy tLhiiiiss fitaucjt, lhie w\v----THE GREAT GEORGIAN SENATORS LAST OF EARTH----THE SCENES IN ATLANTA DURING THE PKOGRESS OF THE FUNEKAL,----GEN. EVANS'S ABLE SERMON. EXTRACT EKOM ATLANTA CONSTITUTION. IT is over. Tlio last scene in the calamity has been enacted. Yesterday, In Georgia soil, was laid the ashes of her greatest son. On the fresh sod of his grave mingled the tears of the w-hole State, for, when Atlanta stood in her weeds of mourning1, there came not only kindly words of sympathy from her sister cities, but also friends, who claimed a share in the general grief. Mr. Hill was a man of the people, sprung from their midst, rising to his splendid heights on their devotion, and placing himself in their affections beyond the love which mighty men are wont to win. For four days the city had been draped in the habiliments of sorrow, and her bells had tolled the story of her hero's death. Yet the realization of the affliction seemed to come only in its last sad scene. Atlanta has been crowded often before, but never for such a cause. In the thronged streets there was a sacred silence, and in the moving crowds the countenances of men told of the gloom that shadowed that great gathering. The voice of music was hushed, and the sound of revel was not heard. Of the dead, tender and beautiful things were said, and men spoke of him as of one whose like they should never see again. A more genuine tribute has never fallen on any grave to keep its flowers fresh in sweet and everlasting remembrance. The streets were crowded, though business had been suspended. One purpose animated the great crowd, and it was to pay their last respects to the memory of the great man gone. From the home to the chui-ch the procession passed through long lines of people of all classes. A more general outpouring was never seen in Atlanta. No political opinion, no difference in social caste, and no artificial distinction prevented the mingling of the masses in their common sorrow. The city seemed deserted except in the streets which led toward the church where the sacred rites were to be performed. It may be said that Atlanta devoted yesterday to the memory of Senator Hill, and a more general tribute was never laid by any people on the grave of a great man. With his memory the day is embalmed by the touching expressions of the general grief which marked it. IFUNEKAl, SERMO.N BY ES3V. CLEMENT A. BVANS. Religion claims the illustrious man whose decease is so deeply deplored, and whose name all men delight to honor, as altogether her own, finally and forever. Willing that the plaudits of all tongues shall be heard, she reserves to Uevsolf to say the best wovds about her departed son. The fame she gives him transcends the fretted earthly shore where all human renown is spent, and widens over the sphere where angels enjoy glory, honor, and immortal ity. Faith is jealous, with godly jealousy, of the luster that should glow around his name. The transient brilliance which great temporal achieve ment lent him is permitted as time's appropriate tribute, but for herself the religion of Jesus Christ irradiates his departing presence with light from heaven brighter than all present splendor--a light that shines through the UP HIS LIFH, 8PEECIIFJS, AND WRITINGS. Ill portals which admit him from his affliction into the enjoyment of " the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." These selected scriptures set forth that faith in which trusted those hopes he felt, the submission to God he made of himself, his dying testimony, and the home he now enjoys. They are not read for exposition or comment, but are set as chords that will respond in sympathy as we touch here and there the tuneful strings of the great life whose music always aroused and often entranced, whose sweetest melody was poured forth in the final strain. On Wednesday last, as the sun was rising, the spirit of Benjamin Harvey Hill ascended to heaven. The silver cord was loosed, the golden bowl was broken, and the spirit returned to God who gave it. The subdued sobs of the loving household were followed by the swift telegram which informed the Union that it had lost a great citizen; the tongue of the bell above the Capitol building told this city the sad tidings, daily listened for, that the State of Georgia had lost a senator ; and these mournful sounds of sorrow were quickly followed by the mellow cadeneed peal from the aspirant spire of the church of God, which spoke indeed in grief, but announced to all the world that a wearied, trusting soul, made pure through Christ, had entered home at last. Draped cities deplore his fall ; commerce clothes itself in sable ; society suspends its appointed pleasures ; flags droop half way the mast, and by all tokens the general sense of bereavement is declared. The governments, municipal, state, and national, take instant and honorable note of this death. The bar blend their appreciation with the general voice. The people, in mass meetings throughout the State, strive in vain to utter the popular affection for the great sufferer who had served them in his strength and now had sunk in their midst under the burden of a mysterious malady. From our whole country come testimonials of his broad fame, and this historic hour passes on and away freighted with the richest words that tongues most gifted can ut ter and pens most felicitous can write. Be it my work in this sacred place --not to relate the well-known biography--not to praise beyond due--but to so touch the great, vibrating life of Senator Hill, that its rich, resonant tones may reach the living and make melody in their hearts unto the Lord ! God speed the utterance and give grace to the hearers ! It was home--sweet hallowed home, graced by the saintly mother--which was the alma mater of his religious life. The i-udiments of Christ's match less doctrine were first embedded in his capacious brain by the mother's hand. Then came the direct appeal of the minister of the church--the consent of the young heart, and his conversion in Troup when he was fourteen years of age. " I was converted there," is the testimony of bis own lips. His ac ceptance of Christ seems to have been without reserve, and it placed him on the bright roll of the twice-born children of God. He laid his head in the lap of religion, gave his heart in early surrender to its charms, and conse crated himself unto Christ in the dew of his youth. Afterward, he bore his faith manfully through the peculiar perils of his college course. " He "was a pure bov," says State Commissioner Orr, his col lege mate, " There was not the shadow of immorality on his character." When the highest honor of his class blushed upon him, when unwonted flat teries fell thickly around him, when worldly hope stood him in the open wicket to the path of fame and showed him the higher summits accessible to his aggressive genius,--lie was still, thank God, a Christian, 112 SENATOR B. H. HILT,, OF GKORGIA. ~We may use the vivid, recollections of many yet living men to show us the manly figure, instinct with oratorio action, and the speaking face, lit with the tires of eloquence, that now first drew the gasce of men in a boy's speech from the college platform. Two great senators, Preston and Berrien, lis tened, looked, saw power enthroning itself, applauded the youth, and, join ing in the common enthusiasm, inspired him. to attempt the steep ascent to human greatness. Perhaps it was by the inspirations of this success he gathered iip the purpose and powers that lay within him in boulders yet unchiseled. The rock was smitten, internal fountains lay locked within. In the double streams of duty to G-od and country, the united waters began to flow. Earth's highest places, with never-failing hope of Heaven combined, was the possibility of his comiug life. Marriage came next, with the woman ever worthy of him, always devoted to him, ever dear to him, and for whom his trembling fingers traced the last word, " Dearest," and afterward wrote 110 more. A family, fond beyond ex pression and proud of him, even to idolatry, gathered about him first and last. The home altar of prayer arose, in which, as the priest of his house, he con secrated them to God. The church at La Grange--where he -went to reside in the practice of law--enjoyed at once his liberality and his laboi". I would also, wifcb. the proper emphasis, mark the earliest public service in which, his magical powers of speech were used for the good of his State. Called forth by his neighbors, he put himself upon the side of personal sobriety and the duty of civil government to give protection against temptation in a series of speeches made in Troup immediately after the close of his college life. His views were supported by his own example. Unpledged, he lived and died a ;sober man, having abstained wholly through all his life. He reasoned with Paul-like penetration of a temperance that stands upon righteousness, and hoped for the judgment to eoinu. This was more than thirty years ago. Ideas on this momentous subject of intemperance have moved 011 since then. Statesmen look at it now by the light of the public welfare, the judiciary arc wearied by its breach of law and brood of crimes, and citizens see wealth, peace, and purity wither by its blast. The testimony of Senator Hill's opinion and examples, from first to last, was against a wrong by which our country suffers in almost every home in all its vast dominion. His entrance into public life seems to have been imperative. His people, pleased by his manners and proud of his gifts, pushed him out into that fierce light which beats upon all public men. He found himself, almost be fore he knew it, in the midst of the dangerous whirl. Few men wholly escape the perils of public life. The billowy ocean has buried in its dark unfathomed caves more navies than it floats. The haxnrds of political strife must be met by good men, but let him who sets his ]>row seaward, and pushes out from the safe bays where the still waters are, lake heed lest his boat be beaten to pieces by the boisterous billows, or strand on some rocky coast. Some have thus ventured--lost all--made ship wreck of faith in man, in God, and every claim of Heaven--then gone down between the jaws of waves that opened "wide to take them in. Others have suffered themselves to be tossed about until the; rigging was rent, spars spliiitei'cd, and all their moral machinery tumbled into such mal-adjustments that they rolled in helpless drift on the great sea of public life ; and yet, after all have righted up, renewed their strength, readjusted their relations to God and mat), and gone by His grace in glorious beauty into the haven , of eternal rest. Not many have sailed those seas, weathering every tern- HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 113 pest, without the wrenching of a bolt. Still, some men have thus lived in p ublic service, and all men may so live as to preserve their firmness of faith, serenity of spirit, and purity of life amidst the most riotous political turbulence. Senator Hill did not escape these perils of winch I speak, nor would his most partial friend declare that he was unaffected by them. His first error, however, was strangely caused by his reverence. He conceived, as he told me, that public men should not be officious in religion lest they bring; reproach upon the cause. His views, of course, were wrong. The prevalence of his opinion, and its extension to all men in secular business, would paralyze the arm of the laity and commit the administration of human redemption to a close corporation of clergy. !N~o condition of religion would be more deplorable. But he formed tills opinion in the beginning- with a clear con science, and declined to officiate in religion after his open entrance into politics. After that, I am sure his religious joy began to decline, and yet in all his career, whether possessing or lacking the joy of salvation, he held fast to the cardinal doctrine taught by that Divine Saviour who, with incom parable speech, revealed the fathomless truths of man's only faith. Xhis helm, his fixed faith in all that Christ is and taught, kept the prow of his life pointing heavenward even while it was tossed about on the tremulous waves of his uncommon career. I revive "with sincere pleasure the recollection of a personal incident that hears on this stage of his spiritual life. We walked together one day, while in the old state capitol at ]Vtilled.geviUe, and sat down on the bank of the Oconee River. It was in 1860, when the fearful question of the Union's disruption was tossing all minds in a tempest of trouble. He was dreadfully afraiof of secession, and I, many years his junior, could not share his alarm. We were both members of the State Senate, citizens of the State, members of the church, and responsible for the part we were taking. The die, how ever, was cast, and nothing could stay the calamity. As we sat and talked, he suddenly said to me : "Is it not strange that we, who are both Christians, should trust so much, in this matter, to human wisdom ? We are praying men, and yet how we differ ! I am afraid," said he," as much, of the moral as of the political dangers of secession." Soon after I went to war, for which I was most fitted, and he went into tlii; councils of the new government, for which he was so well adapted, and we met no more for ten dreary years. Senator Hill never for a moment faltered in his faith. Some great intel lects have so far suffered the intrusion of doubt as to suspend their faith for a season contingent on the result of research into the doctrine of Christ. Thus Sir William Jones, in the noon of his mental power, made a deep study of the claims of Christianity, ending in his full acceptance of all its great truth. So Webster once sought mental peace by patient thought, and. recoi'ded his conclusion thus : "Philosophical argument has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith which is in me, but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality." Ho well Cobb, the great Georgian, was disquieted in mind, until, like the noble Bereaus, he searched whether these things averred of Christ were so, and closed his quest by acquisition of the pearl of great price. But such men were never infidels. They had not debauched their brains by lewd liaisons with doctrines that would debase society, disrupt government and destroy the foundation of human welfare. They only indulged in doubt in order to pursue truth. But Senator Hill never had even these doubts, nor 114 SENATOR 13. H. HILL, OP the n"Oy the precarious tenure of public favor or popular suffrage. The truth is, Senator Hill liad no talent for political "wire- working, for electioneering legerdemain, for wearisome correspondence with local great men, for franking cart-loads of documents to tbe four winds. Even in the daily routine of legislation he did not take an active part. But when great in terests were at stake and strong passions excited, when some political Mara thon or Waterloo had to be fought, then he girded on the whole panoply of his power, and displayed such moral heroism and such transcendent gifts of speech that a Chatham or a Mirabeau might have envied him. It has been said of some renowned orators, such as Sheridan, Canning, Fisher Ames, and "William. Pinckney, that they were more of rhetoricians than logicians ; that they dealt more in metaphors and similes than in facts and arguments. Such a criticism could not be justly predicated of Mr. Hill. His positions were taken clearly, boldly, strongly--without wordy amplifi cation or partisan vehemence. In listening to him, you felt that your under standing was addressed in behalf of a reasonable proposition, which rested on. something move substantial than sentimental refinement or rhetorical exaggeration. You could not fail to be impressed with the soundness of his principles, the elevation of his sentiments, and the fervor of his patriotism. _A_mong what may be termed the third generation of American states men since the adoption of the Federal Constitution --the generation succeed ing Clay, Calhoun, and Webster -- there has been no man of a more marked character, of more pronounced qualities, or of more vigorous powers in de bate. Growing up to manhood an enthusiastic admirer of Henry Clay, he cherished a profound reverence for the Constitution as a covenant of Union between the States. As a natural consequence, he was opposed to secession. !Not that he was indifferent to the rights of the States. He valued, as much as any man could possibly value, the principle of State sovereignty. He looked upon the organization of these separate and independent republics of different ages, sizes, geographical positions, and social interests, as furnishing HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 123 an organism of incalculable value for a wise and beneficent administration of local affairs, arid the protection of local and individual rights. But at the same time he regarded the Constitutional "Union, which bound these separate and independent sovereignties into a well compacted nation., as an approximation to the perfection of political wisdom--a Constitution un matched by the Amphietyonio* League of the ancient Greeks, and incompara bly superior to the confederated governments of Switzerland and the Nether lands. Nevertheless, when his honest and strenuous efforts to avert the horrors of a civil war proved abortive, he espoused the cause of the South with a generous zeal that did not pause to calculate how tragic might be his fate if the conflict should terminate disastrously to his people. From the organization of the Confederate Government at Montgomery to its overthrow at Richmond, we find Senator Hill intrusted with the most important duties, and discharging those duties with, unwearied diligence and consummate ability. In the Confederate Congress, composed of the ablest men of the South, he stood forth the acknowledged peer of the .most dis tinguished of his associates. There were very few of the Southern statesmen, who would not have confessed, when they agreed with Senator Hill, that he expressed their opinions better than they could have expressed them. And the bitterest of his opponents were obliged to concede that he maintained his own views \vith transcendent ability and power. I do not mean to say that lie always escaped censure then, or that he has not, since then, been misunderstood and even willfully and grossly mis represented. He has not escaped the fate which in all countries--especially all free countries,--awaits commanding- talent and eminent position, and which no great man in our history has escaped--not even Washing-ton himself. Astronomers tell us that the most difficult problem in that sublime science is to construct a lense that will not distort the object that it reflects. They assure us that a hair's-breadth deviation from the true curve in the specular mirror will dim the splendor of Sirius or disfigure the belts of Orion. Even so the most brilliant stars of the political firmament are shorn of .all their glory when contemplated through the distorting lenses of per sonal rivalry and partisan prejudice. But if full and impartial justice is not meted out to men of towering greatness while they live, it is very certain to be accorded to them when they are dead. There is not an intelligent man in Georgia who will not concede that our dead Senator won his lofty position by superb talents, laborious service, and patriotic devotion to the public good. As a representative, and senator of the United States, while ever ready to defend the South against unjust attacks and illiberal imputations, he proved himself capable of embracing the whole country in the comprehen sive affection of his large and patriotic heart. But alas ! alas ! he has fallen ; almost at the threshold of his senatorial career, and at a time when we were looking to him for public services which no other Southern statesman could perform, or, at least, perform so "well, "A solemn and religious regard to spiritual and eternal tilings," said Daniel "Webster, "is an essential element in all true greatness." We rejoice that our deceased senator did not lack this " essential element " of greatness. He embraced the religion of the Gospel at an early period of his life, upon 124 81SNA.TOR B. II. HILL, Of GEORGIA. studious examination and sincere conviction. He was a firm believer, not bigoted or boastful, but unswerving in loyalty to the doctrines of the Chris tian faith. The reality of his religion was evinced by the calm serenity with which, for days, and -weeks, and months, he confronted the King of Terrors. At the most critical moments, when the chances in favor of, and against his recovery seemed equally balanced, lie rejoiced that a higher wisdom than his own would determine the event. There is a moral grandeur in the closing scenes of his life that eclipses the brightest triumphs of all his previous career. His work is done--nobly done ! Never more in the temples of justice, or the halls of legislation, or on the hustings, will be heard the magical tones of his voice. But the lessons of his successful life and triumphant death will not be forgotten. Of such as him, we may say with the poet : The dead are like the stars by day "Withdrawn from mortal eye ; Bt not extinct, they hold their way In glory through the sky. Extract from t7ie Atlanta Constitution. MEETING OF CITIZENS OF ATLANTA. IK every boy and young man in Georgia, or even in the whole country, could have entered the solemn presence of the dead senator yesterday, and witnessed what was done and said there, what an influence it would have had in inspiring them with ennobling thoughts and laudable ambitions. They could have seen how a grand and beautiful life awakens love in the breasts of the people, and how fathers and mothers point their children to lives that are worthy of emulation. Wen and women, leading by the hand their little children, carried them in and showed them the cold, still face and silent lips that had uttered such patriotic sentiments while in life, and which spoke yet so eloquently even in death. Yesterday., at twelve o'clock, the hall of the House of Representatives was filled with a large assemblage of the. most prominent men of Atlanta, who had gathered in response to the call for a citizens' meeting to take suitable action on the death of Senator Hill. The meeting was called to order by Mayor English, who spoke as follows : MAYOR EKGLISIl's ADDRESS. " Fellow-citize'tis of Atlanta,: From the most ancient times in the world's history, it has been deemed just and decorous, when a public ser vant is stricken unto death, for his people to assemble and do honor to what was noble in his character and worthy of gratitude in his career. "In obedience to that unvaried custom, as mayor of this city, I have called you together that, through your representatives, and by your assent, you might publicly pay well-deserved and grateful respect to the memory of your late senator--Hon. Benjamin II. Hill. " I shall not attempt to anticipate the terms in which that tribute will be expressed by this sympathetic assembly or by a review of the familiar services of the great statesman whose body now lies in the icy embrace of death. Though they are interwoven like threads of gold in the woof of our State and national history, they may be easily traced by all who read its several chapters since he entered upon the stage of public life. "That his character was conspicuous in those gracious and ennobling virtues that constitute greatness among men, is testified to in the general sorrow which, is manifested everywhere in this Union over the news of his death. Looking1 back over his illustrious services, considering- the grand opportunities by "which he was surrounded when stricken down, and the hopes his fellow-citizens had rested on the triumphs of his intellect and genius in the future, we have but feeble language left us to express our grief and to voice onr sense of loss. As an earnest patriot and lofty states man, it will be long before we look upon another who can claim our con fidence and admiration as the peer of Benjamin Harvey Hill." Mr. English concluded his address by calling Senator Joseph E. Brown to preside. SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF G-EORGIA. SE^ATOIi BTSO"WN S ADDRESS. On taking1 the chair, Senator Brown said : " J$r. President: There are times when individuals, and families, and relatives arc called upon to mourn. There are times of greater importance, 'when communities, States, and nations mourn. Georgia to-day bows her head in solemn grief, and all her sons and daughters grieve. Her sister States tender their warmest sympathies. But why all this mourning? Georgia has lost her ablest senator, one of her most distinguished statesmen, her brightest lawyer, her greatest orator. The form--the noble form--of Benjamin H. Hill has passed behind the veil no more to be seen in this life. His eloquent tongue, hushed in death, will no more be heard by listening senates and admiring multitudes. "Well may Georgia weep. "Twenty-five years ago the most prominent figures in public life, aye the most distinguished public servants in Georgia, were Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, Charles J. Jenkins, Ho well Cobb, Herschel V. Johnson, Hiram Warner, and Benjamin H. Hill, the latter much the young est of any of those named. A few years after the war HowellCobb, one of the most gifted of the number, and one most beloved by his friends, was called hence. Two or three years ago Ilersehel V. Johnson, one possessed of purity and individuality, not surpassed anywhere, passed away. Not a year ago Hiram "Warner, the greatest jurist of Georgia, the distinguished chief justice, was called hence to his final reward. Governor Jenkins, General Toombs, Mr. Stephens, and Mr. Hill, aged in the order named, were left behind. Of these distinguished men, Hill was nearly twenty years younger than the oldest and some eleven years younger than the youngest of the remaining number. His health was perfect, his physical strength was great, all his faculties were in full play, and, in looking upon those men, ho%v natural to say that those older ones will pass away, but Hill will yet live to do the State twenty years of great service, and yet how in scrutable are the ways of Providence. To-day, while the others are in their usual health, ripe with age and experience, that youngest, probably that brightest, I might say, and that most promising, lies in the cold em brace Of death. "But we mourn not as those without hope. Senator Hill has passed away from the busy scenes of this life, but he has passed to the future and better \vorld as we believe. 'While he was a member of the church, he was en- f:aged in the busy work of life and in the service of the State, and as all in hliis situation do, neglected too much his religious privileges--one of the griefs of his life. But before ho was called away, he was sanctified by af fliction and purified by suffering in a manner that probably falls to the lot of few men in this world. "We would not really have supposed, in view of his fine prospects, that in. view of his laudable ambition, his high opportuni ties, and his grand talents, that his mind would have been more or less fixed upon the things of this world, and he could not have met such a fate with out murmur. But when affliction came, and its heavy hand was laid upon him, how remarkable it was to see him suffer with all the patience of a Job, and to see what sublime faith and resignation characterised his whole course during his affliction. Senator Hill has passed from among us, but he is not dead. We have the faith to believe that to-day his spirit rests in the para dise of God," HIS LIFS, SPEEOHES, ANT> WRITINGS. 127 Senator Brown's address was delivered in a quiet and rnost impressive manner, and was listened to with strictest attention. AVhen he concluded, the audience was visibly affected, and there were many eyes wet "with tears. Old men and young men wept alike as the words of eulogy were spoken of the dead senator. THE RESOLUTIONS PASSED. At the conclusion of Senator Brown's remarks Major Benjamin Crane arose, and in a voice full of emotion, said : " Mr. Chairman : At a meeting called yesterday morning by his honor, the Mayor, of a few of our citizens for the purpose of preparing business for the consideration of this meeting, I was instructed to submit the resolutions which I hold in my hand." Major Crane then read the resolutions as follows, slowly, and in a man ner which was deeply impressive : The citizens of the city of Atlanta, sorrowing in heart, and recognizing the magnitude of their personal and public Joss, are this day met together in solemn assembly to do honor to the character and services of Benjamin Har vey Hill, late senator from the State of Georgia in the Congress of the United States. It has been so ordered, in the wisdom of God, that in the flower of his manhood and the most hopeful season of his usefulness to humanity, he should be taken from th% "walks of a noble career, his body returned to its kindred dust and his spirit recalled to the eternal companionship of its au thor. By this dissolution of the bonds of earthly kinship, friendship, and service, we feel that a deep bereavement has come upon us as individuals and as a people ; that our beloved State has lost an illustrious son, a peerless advocate, and an unswerving defender of her rights, her liberties, and her honor ; that the country has been deprived of one of its wisest counselors, most eloquent orators, and sagacious statesmen. In the midst of our mourn ing we remember with gratitude the loyalty, the earnestness, and the selfsacrificing spirit of his services at all times to his mother State and to the nation. The events of his long and useful cai'eer are forever embalmed in the memories of the people and written upon the imperishable records of the age to which his name and labors gave luster. The fame of the one and the examples of the others will survive among the generations yet to come, quickening emulation, stimulating patriotism, and dignifying public virtue. For these exalted purposes his life has been conspicuous, and in the achieve ments of his untimely finished career he has bequeathed to his people and to posterity the richest treasures of his well-spent years ; be it therefore RJSSOI/VKD, That we bow obediently to the unknowable Providence of the all-wise God in removing from our midst and from life our late fellow-citi zen, friend, and public servant, Hon. Benjamin Harvey Hill ; Resolved., That in this season of public grief, we mingle our tribute of affection with those expressions of respect and sorrow that are universal throughout the commonwealth, and that have found voice among his com patriots in all portions of the Union ; Resolved, That we herewith record our sincere estimate of the character and services of the illustrious dead : .Benjamin Harvey Hill, scholar, patriot, statesman, Christian. He was an early student of history and philosophy, that be might be useful to bis 1 128 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. fellow-men in all the trusts and duties of a citizen. ITe "was ever the friend and advocate of the people in maintenance of their private and public rights. He was a champion of the weak and humble In every forum of law and liberty, and his matchless eloquence enforced justice in the high tribunals, where it was heard to demand civil and religious freedom for the citizen, protection for the life and property of the individual and the rights of sov ereign States, the blessings of constitutional government, and the perpetuity of the Union of the fathers. Faithful to every commission, diligent to every trust, and noble in every purpose, as well as wise in council, dauntless in peril, magnanimous in triumph. He was devoted in the home circle, lovable in social companionship, and humble in the sanctuary. Honor and integrity were helmet and shield to him ; truth his weapon in every conflict with error and prejudice and oppression. On his tomb his grateful people lay the laurel wreath in testimony of his civil glory, and immortelles ii\ me nory of his Christian graces and his useful life ; 'Resolved, That the Mayor and General Council be requested to dedicate, a page in the records of the city to the memory of the illustrious dead, and spread thereon these resolutions, and that an engrossed copy "be transmitted to the family of the deceased in token of the deep sympathy of this com munity with them in this hour of their bereavement and grief. At the conclusion of the reading of the resolutions, Major Crane con tinued : " This duty, to me, is peculiarly a sad one. I have known Mr. Hill ever since I was a child. I have followed with pride his public life. I have re joiced in his success. I have loved him much and have felt honored in being numbered among his friends, and am gratified at having the privilege of placing my simple wild flower among the chaplets which adorn his bier. " Death striking down the strong man in the pride and strength of his manhood is terrible. But when it takes from us, in the very meridian of his glory and usefulness, the most brilliant intellect Georgia has ever produced --when it hushes forever the most eloquent lips which ever defended con stitutional liberty in this State, if not in this Union, it is appalling. TVe can only stand with bowed heads in submission to the will of Him who doeth all things well, recollecting that God's ways are not as our ways. "It is mete and proper that this meeting of his townsmen and friends should assemble to express their sorrow at his death and their appreciation of the virtues which characterized his life. "It is hard to realize that Ben Hill is dead--that we shall hear no more from this brilliant statesman and matchless orator--that in a few hours all that is mortal of him will be under the sod. Thank God for the glorious boon of immortality. Thank God that he has left a record which "will be to him a monument more enduring than that of brass or marble, a monument which will stand in his own loved State of Georgia as long as the greei grass grows or the bright -waters reflect back the silver stars of heaven. " I now move you, sir, the adoption of the resolutions." COLONEL HAMMOND'S ADDRESS. When Major Crane sat down, Hon. !N". J. Hammond arose, and said : " Having yesterday, as the organ of the bar of Atlanta, presented resolu tions touching the death of Mr. Hill, I might well be silent to-day. Ex hausted by watching over th,e corpse last nigh/t, silence would be to mo more agreeable. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 129 " But since I have lived in Atlanta nearly thirty years, I have a right to speak in a meeting of her citizens, and some about me think it my duty to say something- on this occasion. I saw the forests about our city cut awav and her highways of commerce laid out and opened up. I saw it built and burned. I witnessed its rebuilding and long have rejoiced that the ' g-lory of the latter house ' is 'greater than was tbeglory of the former.' " I have studied its conglomerate, composite population, gathered from every county of this State and every State in the Union. Youth came with high hopes and lusty vigor. Mature men came with well-stored minds, fixed principles, and steady purposes. In the estimation of our neighbors she passed from contempt to admiration, from envy to pride, from the rail- road station of 1846 to the capital of this grand commonwealth, " Among all her treasures, rich and rare, gathered together, none came better or more beautiful than Hill, tic sat in. life the * Kohinoor * of our cluster, and in death we mourn liimas our 'Pleiad gone.* Only once before have I seen our city so draped in mourning. That was when Garfield died. His death was tragic, and across the way, in the theater where tragedy was so familiar, it was fit to speak of his * taking off.' Mr. Hill died from disease, at his home, while he was the servant of the State, and it is well to speak of his virtues in the hall of the representatives of her people. " The last time I saw these two great men. together was at Mr. ChittenJen's reception of General Garfield, a few days before his inauguration as President of the United States. They had served side by side in the Federal House of Representatives. Though opposed politically, each knew the other's strength and admired the other's reatness. On that evening I saw them meet, and observed their greeting. Our senator, in courtliest style and complimentary tone, addressed him by his new title, * Mr. President,' when he, laying his hand upon Mr. Hill's shoulder, called him by his given name as familiarly as he would have been addressed by a life-time associate. I recalled the great gulf which had been between Mr. Hill and the late Presi dent, and felt that Georgia would become more potent in public affairs since this senator and our Chief Magistrate occupied such, close and confi dential relation?. But death has claimed them both. Did time allow, and were I able to do so fittingly, we might profitably review their characters. In strength and beauty they were alike ; in all else in marked contrast. Garfield feared individual responsibility ; Hill courted it with the dash of Sergeant Jasper and the cool courage of Trow p. G-arfield belonged to clubs and was fond of society ; Hill belonged to no associations but the church, and cared naught for company, except that of the few whom he saw in timately at his home. G-arfield was a man of varied information, and familiar with all the best literature of his time ; Hill read nothing but law and politics, and occasional recreations with Milton and Shakespeare. Each combined the rare powers of speaking well and writing well. Garfield's style was more polished ; Hill's stronger and, I think., grander. "Their opportunities were strangely in contrast. Aiding in a war where victory was sure, Garfield was boomed into public life and sailed onward to his proper place ' upon the smooth surface of a summer sea.' Hill, forced into a contest against his judgment and his sentiment, struggled with the storm of war, and at its end stood heartsick at the wreck of his country. Garfield had the victorious, mighty West to urge him onward ; Hill was weighted and clogged by the dead hopes and prostrate fortunes of the con- quered Squ.th. Yet he achieved and held without a question the highest ISO SENATOR B. H. SILL, Oft1 GEORGIA. niche in fame's proud temple which Southern brains and energy and South ern courage and skill had any possible right to claim. " Let the contrasts cease, and revert one moment to their like prepara tions for death. Slow paced it came on both ; the people feared and prayed for both. The faults of both were forgotten in fond admiration of their virtues, and the country will long cherish their memories among its richest jewels. " I second the resolutions, so appropriate and just to our beloved and brilliant fellow-citizen." GOVERNOR COLQUITT'S ADDRESS. "As the official representative of the State of Georgia, and as an hum ble citizen of this commonwealth, proud of her greatness, proud of her great men, I rise to unite my voice in the cry of genei'al lamentations that is heard over the State, and in seconding the resolutions that have been read to-day. The State is in mourning. The countenances of the people of this State are shadowed with grief. Amidst the activities of our people there is a hush of stillness, and men look inquiringly into each other's faces, and the response is ' Hill is dead.' "We are proud of our State, we glory in her mountains, and in her midlands, and in the country that lies upon the coast. But that of winch Georgians are most proud, that which will give her most character, that which will live the longest, that which will be the example for future generations, is to be found in the lives and the charac ters of her illustrious men ; and when the symbols of power, and progress, and improvement have been forgotten and gone down with the ages, the men that have illustrated your State in her councils and in her social walks, these men are the men whose memories will be transmitted to the genera tions to come, long after the monuments that are reared to give them fame have perished from the earth. Look around these halls. You have no fan tastic pictures to illustrate art, but you place upon these walls the portraits of those whose example you would hand down to the youth of our country ; and among the great men, among the men that have stood foremost in the councils of the State, in the forum., on the hustings, everywhere where men's views are heard in council, there is no man nor no name to which the future will point with more pride than to the name of Benja min IT. Hill. " For a quarter of a century he has been closely allied with me ; in all our affairs, in every political campaign, in the midst of social revolutions, at a time when there was despair everywhere, his voice was h ?ard like a trumpet to awaken life and hope, and in the clay of triumph no siren ever sung a hallelujah that -was sweeter to hear for Georgians than his exultation with our people, who were delivered and relieved of the weight that was upon them. "We shall miss him in our piiblic assemblies ; we shall miss him in our social circles ; we shall miss him. in the accustomed "walk, where ho used to go from his borne to his place of business, now hung with badges of mourning, black as the signiji of our woe, white as the signia of our hope of his resurrection. But my friends, while we, as citi zens^ as X said, may point to the public services and to the character of Benjamin H. Hill, that which touches your heart and touches my heart more than anv other incident in his life, is his long and protracted suffering nnd the "randness f the man as illustrated in his patience and Christian resignation. "It hud been a long- time since I had seen him; I called at the house and we had some conversation in relation to general affairs, but that to which he turned his mind more than to any other thing to be considered was upon his condition and the hopelessness of his life. I could see that he was resigned to whatever might come, and yet plainly visible in his countenance I could see a shadow as lie thought of and looked upon the dear faces, the dear countenances, of his wife and children, which he was to see no more on earth again forever. Yes, and I discovered still another shadow, and that was the agonv which would be brought upon these dear ones, who were (.leaver to him than life ; and yet, sad as were these reflections, with hope and with animation he said, '.I am in the hand of God. His will be done.' It has been done, and my friends, when all of his life and character of a public sort have been forgotten, the scenes around his sick bed and the hist days of Benjamin Harvey Hill will be handed down as a token of the hopes which inspired the Christian in his last hours. I bring this humble and impromptu tribute here to-day, and among the fragrant flowers and bouquets that shall be cast upon his bier I cast this. His memory will live when gar lands have faded. ' He that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall lie live.' He does live. Ah, could we but have the ears of faith to-day, we might hear the response of his last utterance upon this earth: 'Almost home.' " CHIEF JUSTICE JACKSO^'ft ADDRESS. " Af>\ O/iairrnan : The wreath of immortelles, which encircle the brow of the illustrious dead, was woven of flowers culled Tiot more from the broad fields of political adventure and civic glory than from the narrower gardens of legal lore and forensic renown. It is meet, therefore, that in response to the invitation of the committee of arrangements, as G-eorgia's head of the administration of her laws, I add a few words to what has been said in honor of his memory. " Less than twelve months ago the State was draped in weeds of mourn ing, and with the circle of entire sisterhood, she bowed her head in sorrow and wept over the fresh grave of the Chief Magistrate of the Union. The rude and ruthless manner of his taking off, the protracted, weary, and sad footsteps of the great sufferer through the ' dark valley of the shadow of death,' the patient heroism with which he endured the anguish, and the painful suspense with which the people breathlessly watched the event--ail struck the great chords of the American heart with almost unutterable sympathy, and its sobbing vibrations made a spontaneous and indignant wail throughout the land. It was fit, sir, that Georgia officially take her place in that funeral, and she did so from her heart. In this chamber her legislative, executive, and judicial departments of government--the mayor and council of this her capital city, and her citizens generally, assembled, and Georgia's voice was heard in the general lamentation. "But Garfield, Mr. Chairman, was not Georgia's child. Ho was the son of one of her sisters, and as one of a great family she sorrowed then. To day she grieves with a mother's love and a mother's anguish. 8ho stands now by the bier of her own boy--the offspring of her womb, whose cradle she rocked, whose early footsteps she watched as only a mother can watch a son, in whose growth she expanded, too, in parental pride, and in the alti tude of whose fame she gloried as her own. ** Well may she weep. 'Can a mother forget her sucking child?' is '132 SENATOR B. JT. HILL, OF GEORGIA. the question Jehovah put to manifest his unspeakable love for the children of men. Mr. Hill sucked evei'ything "which made him great from the breast of Georgia. He was all Georgian. Physically, intellectually, morally he was Georgia's own son. In the rnidst of the great red belt which encircles the body of the State from Savannah to the Chattahoochee-- her rich red zone, near the geographical center--the very core of her heart--his eyes first saw the light, and the blood which fed his magnificent physique flowed from that heart which now throbs with anguish over Ins remains. Intellectually, fie was her own son. An alumnus of her university, there he sucked intellectual nourishment, and Athens is in tears now while Atlanta weeps. If honey hung upon his lips, Georgia bees gathered it from her own flowers and hoarded it there. If the silver ring of his elo quence fascinated attention and moved all hearts with the magic of its music, that silver -was dug from Georgia mines beneath her own red hills. If the sword of his logic, wielded for her in the Senate chamber of the Union, flashed and cut like a Damascus blade, the material was Georgia steel, manu factured and tempered in her own workshops. If the broad shield which he raised in her defense, and in that of all the South, averted every blow and blunted the point of every javelin her traducers hurled at her honor and her heart, the material of it was sturdy oak and the granite mountain native to Georgia's soil. Oh, sir, this great Georgian was altogether Geor gian, and while his patriotism did expand and compass the Union in its wide embrace, his liearstrings clustered close to the mother who was all in all to him. " True patriotism always did, and always will burn "brightest at the fire side. Thence its rays will shine over all the land and -warm all the homes within the reach of its radiance to the remotest verge of the whole country. If it burn not there at home, it will warm nothing. Morally, Mr, Hill "was Georgia's own son. In a Georgia church, under Georgia preaching, a spark from heaven fell into his soul and kindled that humble faith in Christ which adhered to him throug'h life and made him grand in death. Well might he say with the Psalmist, ' Thy gentleness hath made me great.' And that gentle flow of God's spirit into his own made the greater grandeur of the evening of a grand day. "Sir, his career was not unlike the course of the sun in the heavens,--its morning, its noon, its setting in a cloudy west. "When it arose, the broad beams of its light, as they brightened the morning sky, gave early promise of a glorious zenith. "Well do I remember how the prophetic eye of Juds^e Charles Dou^herty--clarum, et venerable nomen-- watched those beams and delighted in their promise. Steadily it rose higher and higher. The bar, the forum, the hustings, legislative and congressional halls, all were flooded with the illumination, and, when full orbed, it culminated in the zenith. When all eyes looked at Georgia's senator in the American Senate--not Crawford or Tronp, not Forsyth or I5errien, illustrated Georgia with a richer, I had almost said, sir, with so rich a radiance. " ' There he shone, a sun with no spot upon its disk.' But evening came, and the sun set to rise no more on earthly scenes. It is not the clear, tranquil sun that is most beautifully grand. It is when clouds encompass the king of day that he draws the richest drapery around his couch, and more beautiful than morning's beams, grander than noontide glory, is the light the sinking sun sheds on the clouds which skirt the horizon he has left. ''.Mr. Hill sank among the clouds of deep affliction, and the twilight was HTS LT'FE, SPEEC11KS, A^TD WHITINGS. 133 long, but oh? how sm'passingly beautiful tliat lingering glory ! God seems to have brought the clouds around that dying chamber that the glory of Heaven might sweeten the sorrows of earth, and that the world might see, as Atklisoii wrote to his young friend, how a Christian could die. Mr. Chair man, it was rny fortune to be at .Eureka Springs when Mr. Hill was there. Though in feeble health myself, it was a pleasure as well as a duty to visit liiui often. There he sat afflicted, yet patient and lamb-like. There was the wife, whose 'widowed heart now is groaning in that residence on Peachtree Street, and there the noble son, who laid all lie had.--time, property, business, home, evei'3'thing at his father's feet. Well might the great suf ferer say, as he said to me, never had husband a better wife, never father a better son. " I looked from the outward to the inner man, and asked how was all within. ' I should like to live for my family and my country, but I make no pi-ayer to God without saying to Him from my heart, " Thy will be done." I know lie is wiser and better than I am and will . President: In. the demise of Senator Hill the whole Union has sus tained a severe loss. But the affliction of' the people of Georgia is greater than any other can be ; they knew him ; they loved him ; they honored and trusted him. ; they almost idolized him. And "when it was announced that Benjamin II. Hill was no more, they bowed their heads in sorrow, and will long- mourn their irreparable loss. But, Mr. President, Senator Hill possessed intellectual qualities of the highest order. His genius "was acknowledged by all. In debate he was surpassingly grand and. convincing. As a logician he had few equals ; as an impassioned orator he had no superior ; as a lawyer he occupied the first rank ; as an advocate at the bar he was absolutely overwhelming ; as an American senator he was the peer of any one. When I reflect upon the great, oratorical powers of Senator Mill, the splendor of his genius, the simplicity of his heart, and the patriotic impulses of his nature, as I had learned in later life to know them, I conclude that the day is not distant when, some great American poet, burning with patriotic zeal as well as poetic five, will weave into verse a tribute to his memory as glowing and as just as the immortal English bard paid the great Irish orator when Byron sang : ADDRESS OF ME, INGALJLS, OF KANSAS. Ben Hill has gone to the undiscovered country. 'Whether his journey thither was but one step across an imperceptible frontier, or whether an interminable ocean, black, unfluctuating, and voice less, stretches between these earthly coasts and those invisible shores--we do not know. Whether on that August morning, after death, he saw a more glorious sun rise'with unimaginable splendor above a celestial horizon, or whether his apathetic and unconscious ashes still sleep in cold obstruction and insensible oblivion--we do not know. Whether his strong and subtle energies found instant exercise in another forum, whether his dexterous and disciplined faculties are now contending in a higher senate than ours for supremacy, or whether his powers were dissi pated and dispei'scd with his parting breath--wo do not know. 134 HIS LIFE, 8PBKCIIK8, AND WRITINGS. * *35 "Whether his passions, ambitions, and affections still sway, attract, and impel, whether he yet remembers us as we remember him we do not know. These are the unsolved, the insoluble problems of mortal life and human destiny, which prompted the troubled patriarch to ask that momentous ques tion for which the centuries have given no answer " If a mau die shall he Jive again ? " Every man is the center of a circle whose fatal circumference he cannot pass. AVithiii its narrow confines he is potential, beyond it he perishes ; and if immortality be a splendid but delusive dream, if the incompleteness of every career, even the longest and most fortunate, be not supplemented and perfected after its termination here, then he who dreads to die should fear to live, for life is a tragedy more desolate and inexplicable than death. Of ali the dead whose obsequies we have paused to solemnize in this chamber, I recall no one whose untimely fate seems so lamentable, and yet so rich in prophecy of eternal life, as that of Senator Hill. He had readied the meridian of his years. Tie stood upon the high plateau of middle life, in that serene atmosphere where temptation no longer assails, where the clam orous passions no more distract, and where the conditions are most favorable for noble and enduring achievement. His upward path had been through stormy adversity and contention, such as infrequently falls to the lot of men. Though not without the tendency to meditation, reverie, and introspection which accompanies genius, his temperament was palestric. Ho was competi tive and unpeaceful. He was born a polemic and controversialist, intellect ually pugnacious and combative, so that lie was impelled to defend any position that might be assailed or to attack any position that might be intrenched, not because the defense or the assault were essential, but because the positions were maintained and that those who held them became by that fact alone his adversaries. This tendency of his nature made his orbit erratic. He was meteoric rather than planetary, and flashed with irregular splendor rather than shone with steady and penetrating rays. His adVocacy of any cause was fearless to the verge of temerity. He appeared to be indifferent to applause or censure for their own sake. He accepted intrepidly any con clusions that he reached, without inquiring whether they were politic or expedient. To such a spirit partisanship was unavoidable, but with Senator Hill it did not degenerate into bigotry. He was capable of broad generosity, and extended to his opponents the same unreserved candor which he demanded for himself. His oratory was impetuous and devoid of artifice. He was not a posturer nor phrasemonger. He was too intense, too earnest, to employ the cheap and paltry decorations of discourse. He never reconnoitered a hostile position nor approached it by stealthy parallels. He could not lay siege to an enemy, nor beleaguer him, nor open trenches, and sap and mine. His method was the charge and the onset. He was the JNIurat of senatorial debate. J3ot many men of this generation have been better equipped for parliamentary warfare than he, with his commanding presence, his sinewy diction, his confident and imperturbable self-control. But in the maturity of his powers and his fame, with unmeasured oppor tunities for achievement apparently before him, with great designs unac complished, surrounded by the proud and affectionate solicitude of a great constituency, the pallid messenger with the inverted torch beckoned him to depart. There are few scenes in histoi-y more tragic than that protracted combat with death. No man had greater inducements to live. But in the 136 SKNATOn K- II. HILL, OV GEORGIA. long struggle against the inexorable advances of an insidious and mortal malady lie did not falter nor repine. .Mo retreated with the aspect of a vic tor ; and though he succumbed, he seemed to conquer. liis sun went down at noon, but it sank amid the prophetic splendors of an eternal dawn. With more than a hero's courage, with more than a martyr's fortitude, lie waited the approach of the inevitable hour and went--to the undiscovered country. ADDRESS OF MK. VEST, OF MISSOURI. Jkfr. President: In November, 1861, I first met Mr. Hill in the Pro visional Congress of the Confederate States. The Confederacy was just entering upon its brief and stormy existence. Its capital had, recently been removed from Montgomery to Richmond, aiul Jefferson Davis, by a majority of only one vote in the Provisional Congress, had been elected president over Robert Xoombs. Surrounded by unexampled difficulties, moral and physical, isolated and alone, with the prejudices of the entire civilized world against them, and confronted in battle with overwhelming- odds, the Confederate Congress was called upon to meet not only the ordinary questions and emergencies attending the formation of a new government, but to grapple also with the exigencies and demands of a great war, a war not for conquest or policy, but for existence. Mr. Hill had earnestly opposed secession up to the last moment, but, find ing that the people of Georgia were determined to separate from the Union, he surrendered his personal opinion, and pledged himself fully and unre servedly to the cause of the Confederacy. Opposed to secession, with habits of thought and education utterly averse to revolution, the strange vicissitudes of this stormy period soon found him the leader of the administration party in the Confederate Congress. \Vithin the limits of an address like this it would neither be possible nor proper for me to attempt an analysis of the causes "which placed Mr. Hill in this position ; but chief among them was the fact that, having once pledged himself to the Confederacy, he could see no hope of success except in sup porting the President chosen by the people ; and having so declared himself, his great ability naturally made him the exponent and defender of the policy of the administration. Although surrounded by difficulties and dangers almost \vitliout parallel, and confronted by a common peril, it was very soon evident that personal rivalry, the attrition of diverse opinion, and the fierce passions of a revolu tionary era, had built up most determined opposition to Mr. .Davis among the leaders of the South. That the President of the Confederate States was loyal to the people he led, in every liber of his nature, cannot be doubted save by the blindest prejudice ; and this being granted, whether he was mistaken in the conduct of the Avar or in the policy of his administration, should be a sealed book to all those who sympathised and suffered "with him. It is enough to say now that never was any public man assailed by opponents so formidable as those who attacked the President of the Confedei-ate States. Toombs, the Mirabeau of the revolution ; Yancey, whose lips were touched "with fire, now the honey of persuasion, and then the venom of in vective ; Wigfall, brilliant, aggressive, and relentless--this was the great triumvirate which assailed Mr. Davis's administration. ISTo power of de- HIS T.TFK, SPlSKOITKFt, AND WRITINGS. 1T scrlption can do justice to the abilitv, eloquence, or bitterness of the debates in which JVIr. Mill, single-handed but undaunted, met his great opponents. As the war progressed and tho fortunes of tlie Confederacy became each year more desperate, the bitterness and violence of this parliamentary con flict increased, until scenes of actual personal collision occurred on the floor of the Confederate Senate. The participants have passed beyond this world's judgment, and the issues which stirred those fierce passions are dead, with the government they affected, but the few who heard these debates can never forget the matchless eloquence and logic that mingled with the roar of hostile guns around the beleaguered capital of the Confederacy. Reluctant to embrace the Confederate cause, Mr. Hill was tlie last to leave it, and I well remember that on my way from. Richmond, after preparations had been made to abandon the capital, and it was well known that the cause was lost., I met him in Columbus, Georgia, engaged in the task of rallyingthe people of his State in what was then a hopeless struggle. When I told Mm of recent events, of which he had not heard, he said, " All then is over, and it only remains for me to share the fate of the people of Georgia." How well be redeemed this pledge the hearts of his people will answer. Thrown into prison, stripped of all except life, his courage never failed; arid in the darkest hour, when the wolves were tearing tho victims of the war as the coyote the wounded deer, his eloquent voice was never for one instant silent until Georgia, torn and bleeding but yet splendid and beautiful, once more stood erect in the sisterhood of sovereign States. Nor did he ever under any temptation so far forget his manhood and honor as to Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning. Accepting fully and without reservation all tlie legitimate consequences of defeat, and resolutely turning to the future with its duties and obligations, he still retained his self-respect, and never did he Bend low, and in a bondsman's key, With 'baled breath, and whispering humbleness Say this-- Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday UisIXB,ESS Oi1 ME. MORGAN", OF ALABAMA. 3\fr. President; Alabama, the eldest daughter of Georgia, approaches this sad occasion with a proud but stricken spirit. I will utter no word in praise of the late senator that all the people of that State and of the South wiil not sanction with heartfelt responses. This is an occasion when the pure serenity of truth need not be clouded with undeserved eulogy of the dead. It would be an injustice to the sin cerity of his character, which his own history and example would condemn, to speak of the deceased senator in terms that would be misleading-. A strong and rugged character, such as belonged to Benjamin H. Hill, JEfI8 LIFK, SPEECHES, AN, cannot be correctly portrayed in the soft light of adulation, or by mere smoothness of expression, or in speech tempered with hesitancy and caution, He was a bold, daring, and powerful man in his intellectual and physical organism; and his convictions, when they were settled after due considera tion, were always the guide to his action and the measure of his duty. He thought much, and examined with carefulness every important question that engaged his attention. \V"hen he was in error, he was dangerous because of the fertility of his resources in argument, his xeal and firmness, his tact in debate, and the aggressive energy of his mind. \Vhen he was right, he was almost in vincible. These qualities naturally fitted him for the highest rang-e of achieve ments as an advocate and leader ; but such was his independence of all con trol bv the thoughts of others, that he sometimes sacrificed the leadership of men whom lie could have controlled had he made concessions that were not of vital consequence to him or to them. The people often made concessions to him to avoid controversy with one whom, they greatiy admired, and were attached to with affectionate regard. The following of the people under his leadership did not always result from their approval of his views, even on great questions. He was, in the American sense, a great popular orator, whose powers were best adapted to great questions and important occasions in which the rights and liberties of the people were concerned or the honor of the coun try was at stake. In such discussions, lie sometimes rose to astonishing heights of sublimity of thought and .speech, which carried his audience with him until they seemed to lose control of themselves. He had no faculty of imitation, and his style of oi-atory was all his own. He had no model in rhetoric or logic that fie was willing to copy, lie seemed to hare no thoughts that were his merely by adoption ; they were the offspring of his own mind. His eloquence was little more than a fervid statement of the facts or reasoning which had brought his mind to the conclusions which he was sup porting ; but it was so intense as to become almost irresistible. When speaking- to the people, in the period just preceding the war, when the argument was closed and a resort to other methods of defense had be come a necessity, as they viewed the situation, he turned their thoughts to the duties and dangers of the people of the South and of their posterity. He reviewed with pathetic fervor their fidelity to the Constitution and the Union in all former times of danger and trial--in the second war of Inde pendence with Great Britain ; in the wars with the Indians who were sup ported by British and Spanish emissaries, and inspired by the savage elo quence of Tecumseh ; and in the war with Mexico ; and feeling that they were threatened with servile insurrection and ultimate degradation and the loss of all protection under the Constitution, he urged them to their duty with such power that Each ravaged bosom felt the high, alarms. And all their burning pulses beat to arms. Mr. Hill was a lawyer of great ability, but his self-reliant habits of reasoning led him to seek for arguments rather than for precedents to sup port the cause he was advocating. The special-jury system of Georgia was productive of great alertness and. skill in foretisic discussion among the lawyers of Georgia, and in. these he excelled. Senators will remember how 140 SENATOR B. H. HTLL, Of GEORGIA. much he relied on this faculty even in the discussion of questions of the most intricate character. He always spoke extemporaneously, and seldom made any use even of notes of reference to authorities. In the strenuous controversy of high debate lie was sometimes severe, but never with willful injustice to those opposed, to him. His political career was shaped by the events of the most difficult and momentous period in American history. The success of the rebellion of ] 776, by the strength of the Union it established, made the success of the rebellion of 1860 impossible. I3ut the questions that were left open, after the first rebellion, to rankle in the bosoms of the people made the second rebellion and the war that followed it unavoidable. Mr. Hill, in common with oilier men of that period, understood that the third generation of.' American citizens was forced to settle by arms the questions that the first generation could not settle in the beginning without giving- up all hope of uniting the States in a federal government under the new Constitution. He, like many others, was compelled by a sense of dnty to change his attitude on questions of policy to meet the dangers as they arose and drifted with the current of events. His fated duty and purpose forced him into resistance to the inevitable, but the least destructive measure of resistance was what he always sought to adopt. Under such circumstances lie was then, and more recently, charged with reckless incon sistency. That was not a just criticism either of his character or bis conduct. He was so far free from that weakness which is dignified with the title of pride of opinion that lie did not hesitate to abandon his opinions and to disprove their soundness when subsequent reflection satisfied him of the error. It was this trait that gave color to the idea that he was vacillating in his politi cal convictions. If he were here, and I could render to him in person the justice which he would most appreciate, as I render to his memory what 1 believe to be most true, I would say of his course in the beginning of the civil war and during the discussion of the events that led to it, that no man then living was more sincerely devoted to the American Union than he was ; 110 man gave up the hope of its perpetuity with more intense sorrow than he did ; no man more firmly believed than lie did that the Southern States had just grounds for their secession ; no man deplored more sincerely than he did that secession and war were made inevitable by the very provisions of the Constitution that men were sworn to support, and that could not, in fact, be supported in its provisions relating to slavery except by the power of the sword as against the will of a great majority of the American people ; and when the crisis came, no man was firmer than Mr. Hill in supporting with his vote in the Convention of Georgia the ordinance of secession, against which be had entered his protest, but to which he gave his assent when his brethren had resolved that it was the only remedy left open to them. This is the true history of his motives and feelings in that time of severe trial, which so honorably explain his conduct. In the light of these facts there is a moral heroism iiv his course which raises his fame even to a higher eminence than that which is so freely accorded to Mm for his acknowledged JUS LIFE, 8PEEOH7GS, AND WRITIN&8. 141 abilities. His fidelity to the Confederate States could not have been greater if he had been the sole responsible author of the secession of each of the States. His devotion to that cause after he had espoused it, and to the people after they were involved in war,, appeals to their hearts for a tribute, which they freely render to his memory, far exceeding eulogy and praise,--- the tribute of gratitude enriched by love. N"oiie but the truest of men could have won this high distinction from the people of the South. He has won it worthily, and it will continue to bloom amid the leaves of the chaplet, with which thev have crowned him for immortality. The people of the South withdrew from the Union because they believed that the government of the United States had no longer the will or the power to protect their constitutional rights. They went out by the separate and independent action of each of the eleven seceding States. Their union into a Confederacy was itself a great task upon the statesmanship of the leading men of the South. Along with the task came this instant and inevitable work of preparing for a great war. In all these high duties ilr. Hill "was an active and leading participant, as a representative of the State of Georgia. The condition of these eleven States was perilous 111 the extreme, and re quired the highest order of capacity for government to direct them through tiiese dangerous tttraits. The individual States had armies in the field engaged in conflicts of arms before the Confederacy could be organized under a pro visional government. Then immediately came the great struggle, in which all the people of all races, with only a few individual exceptions, were united for weal or for woe. There was nothing 011 which the Confederacy could rely for success except the devotion of the people to the cause which united them. ISTothinjr was organized, and the material of war consisted only of resolute men. With out a military chest, or arms, munitions, equipments, transportation, or sup plies, the militarj^ resources of the Confederacy consisted of ten millions of people, of whom more than a third were slaves, whose release from bondage depended on the success of the arms of the United States. This population could not furnish, arid keep in the field more than a half million of men, even for a short campaign. Its total arms-bearing strength could not exceed a million of men, within the extreme limits of military lev ies, during the whole period of a four years' war. Their arms and ordnance stores, munitions, provisions, and transportation were to be dug from the mines and the fields, and hewn from the forests, and constructed from the native material". They had to raise the cotton and wool for clothing their armies, and to build factories to convert them into cloth. There was not a thousand thoroughly educated soldiers in these eleven States. They had little money and no credit abroad. They were shut in on land and sea by great armies and navies. Thev had no fleet and no commerce. They had not the genuine sympathy of any nation in the world. Their adversaries were men of their own blood; powerful, warlike, rich, determined ; aroused with enthusiastic zeal for the Union and the suprem acy of its laws ; supplied with every resource of warfare, and supported by the sympathy and assistance of many other great nations, whose people re cruited their armies. They could put in the field as many soldiers as the Confederacy could possibly muster, and still have a reserve of population of 20,000,000 from which to draw other armies. This bl'icf view of the situation will sufficiently show the general outline 142 RHNATOR B. II. IITLL, OF GEORGIA. of the labors that Mr. Hill and his colleagues in the Confederate Congress were called to perform. Thev courageously took up the task, which seemed too groat for human endeavor. Their debates are not published, but the tradition that has reached us is that they were never excelled in ability and majestic eloquence. It may be better that they have faded from human recollection. There was little of personal rivalry in the Confederate Congress. The weight of responsibility, resting upon all alike, kept each individual equal upon the common plane of duty. It was the performance of duty, and not daring enterprise or moving eloquence, that was the test of a man's devotion to the common cause and of his ability to serve it in that Congress. According to this standard, Mr. Hill was honorably distinguished among his colleagues, and was applauded by the people. The regard of the people for him far exceeded mere admiration. There was a strong bond of affec tion between them. All the sympathies of his lugh nature were aroused by their sufferings, and grew into homage for their virtues as he witnessed their fortitude and patience in the terrible trials of the war. He saw that their wealth was freely given to the Confederacy; that they fed and clothed the army without the hope of condensation ; that the poor, the widowed, and the orphaned took refuge and found comfort in their cheerful benevo lence ; that they gave up their houses for hospitals, and gathered from the fields and forests the simple remedies for the "wounded and sick which took the place of the ordinary hospital supplies and medicines which were denied to them. He saw that the women raised bread in the sun-beaten fields, with plow and hoe, and divided it between their children at home and their hus bands and children in the army. He saw the mothers sending their sons forth to recruit the armies as soon as they were able to bear arms, and often times to take the places of fathers and elder brothers who had fallen in bat tle. ITe rejoiced in the heroic spirit of the people, arid they felt that he was true to them. The end came ; and with it came the dawn of a new hope, only to spread its wings of light for a moment, and then to fold them again in darkness. With, peace came the promise of restoration to civil liberty, as it is proudly impersonated in the character of the American citizen. That prom ise contained the essential part of all for which the Southern people had fought for four wearv and sorrow-burdened vcars. They gave up the insti tution which was the provoking cause of the great conflict of arms, and felt assured that there would no longer be occasion or excuse for a denial to them of the equal rights enjoyed by other American citizens. Thev laid down their arms and a^ave their paroles upon these express conditions. But they were grievoiisly disappointed, and, having disarmed, they had no longer the privilege of making honorable sacrifices to vindicate their rights. They brooded in the darkness of a, hopeless doom over a loss that was seem ingly irreparable. On such occasions men have often come forward who seem to have Veeu fitted and prepared beforehand for the work. They ask the confidence of the people, and if they have the faith to give it and the courage to follow, they are led by them into a happy deliverance. Among this class of leaders in the South, Mr. .Hill was conspicuous. In the events which followed the surrender of 1865, his courage and eloquence were displayed in their grandest power as a leader of the people. He was maddened with the thought that the surrender of a people, who had struggled HfS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. ireeman s ballot they drove out their oppressors. His strength, when thus called into action, was a sublime expression of the depth of feeling arid suffering of a great spirit maddened by a sense of cruel wrong1. As when Alcides .... felt the envenom'd robe, and tore Through pain up by the roots Thesssilian pines ; And Ijichas from the top of CEla threw Into the Euboic t ocs not now admit of complete expression. ed the burial of Benjamin II. FTili in the bosom o spreading its leaves to welcome the summer showers. They were proud that their sorrow was honoring alike to the living and the dead ; but they were grieved that the sad occasion bad so soon arrived. They believed, and I do, that he had not attained to the fullness of his growth in intellectual power, and that he left unfinished many noble plans for the good of the country. Mr. Hill was not always wise, yet few were wiser than he. It cannot be said of him that he was always right, but it can be truly paid that he was never wrong- from willfulness, for lack of courage, or from, inattention to the requirements of duty. Discarding all blind confidence in fate, and deeply sensible of responsi bility to God, his noble and just spirit left this brief existence for one that is eternal, satisfied with the past ;ind confident of the future. Though his work here -was not finished, a,s we view such matters, he WHS not reluctant to lay down the great charge intrusted to him by a fond con stituency ; for he believed that the Master had called him to other duties, vfliich, as compared with his duties in the Senate, would confer on him "a 144 SENATOR B. IL HILL, OF GEORGIA. far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," and so assured, he departed hence with rejoicing". ADDRESS OF MR. SHE KM AX, OF OHIO. Mr. .President: We are often called upon in the midst of our public duties to commemorate the death of an associate who has shared with us in the labor and responsibility of official trust. But it rarely happens that the fatal shaft falls upon a senator of such physical strength and mental vigor as Senator Hill. He had scarcely yet attained, the full measure of national reputation to winch his admitted abilities would have raised him. The insidious disease which sapped his life not only filled his home, his family, a-tid his State with pain and sorrow, but caused a sigh of sadness and respectful sympathy in every household where his patient suffering and premature death were known. t am. not able to speak of Senator Hill with the fullness o information that his colleagues and personal associates have done. They tell us how he won and held in the highest degree the respect and esteem of his associates, that he lias been honored with the confidence of the people of his native State, and by their suffrages for years has filled with credit many positions of public trust. We knew him as he appeared among us,--a ready debater, an ardent but courteous antagonist ; strong, earnest,' and convincing. He came into the House of Representatives with a high reputation, and both there and in the Seriate maintained and advanced it so that, when the premonition of death came upon him, he stood as high in the respect and confidence of his associates as any member of this body. He was a native of Georgia, educated in one of her universities, and learned in the practice of law in her courts. He was distinctly a type of the Southern mind in its best relations to the affairs of life. Though his early life was spent under the influences of the institutions of his native State, and though its industries "were then confined mainly to the pursuits of agriculture, yet in his early manhood he appreciated the im portant position which Georgia holds, as containing within her bounds the chief elements for manufacturing industries as well as a fruitful soil for agricultural products. He was, as I understood him, in early life attached to the Whig1 party, and mainly, on account of the well-known position of that party, in favor of the protective policy. He sympathized heartily with the present prospects that in Georgia there \vill be a rapid development of her natural mineral re sources, and that the cotton grown on her genial soil arid that of the "Sunny Sonth." will be made ready for her Southern looms and spindles. He had no regrets for the past in the brightening prospects of the future, but looked to his State, often called the " Empire State of the South," as likely to be improved and advanced by the results of the war to a higher plane of wealth, strength,, and population. His hope was that his State would rise with fresh vigor from the mis fortune and devastation of war by the building of railroads, the opening of mines of coal and iron, and by the tide of immigration and labor from otherStates as well as from foreign lands. Senator Hill was consistently a Union man, before tUe war. He resisted the secession of his State until after the ordinance of secession was passed. "While his views of the construction of the Constitution in later years dif fered widely from rny own, yet T iiever doubted the sincerity of his opin- HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 145 ions. To the questions that grew oat of the war I do not feel at liberty even to allude, because on these questions we were widely apart in opinion. "Whatever his views on any subject, he always put them forth with, the utmost vigor and clearness of expression. Endowed by nature with, an ardent temperament, and cultivated by education in the uso of all the gifts of speech, he defended his opinions with consummate ability. "Whether in attack or in defense, be was an adversary to command respect in any form of debate. He represented, in a marked degree that first quality of an orator--earnestness. His training in the practice of the law made him ifarailiar, to a wide extent, with precedents and decisions, upon which lie drew copiously in his arguments upon questions involving constitutional law and legislative and judicial power. His speeches were more remark able for their clear reason than for their rhetorical felicity, and it may be said that the bent of his mind was in the direction of dialectics rather than of literary effort. As a man of fine natural gifts and high accomplishments, his loss will be felt not only in his own State and neighborhood, but in the councils of tin; ATtUKESS OF "MR. VOORHEES, OF JXDIAXA. Mr. Fresident,: "We halt to-day for a few moments in the great journey to say the last farewell words over a new.-made grave. A comra.de in the battle of life has fallen in this high forum. The skeleton foot of death enters with familiar step the loftiest as well as the humblest stations of human life, and again it has invaded the floor of the Senate, But yesterday a commanding presence moved in. our midst which we shall see no more ; a voice of powerful eloquence was heard, which is now hushed forever ; a towering intellect shed its light on human affairs, which, now has joined other councils than those of earth. A great and living force has gone out from tliis body and from every scene of mortal concern. Others have more fully spoken of Senator Hill's life and public career than will be expected from me, but of his intellectual strength, bis will, and his courage, 1 have deep and lasting impressions. I first met him during the reconstruction of the Southern States which followed the war. As a mem ber of ail investigating committee appointed by Congress I visited Atlanta, and there met Mr. Hill for the first time. His appearance and bearing strongly attracted my attention. The still intensity of his pale, strong face ; his firm, determined features, and the clear light of bis steady, inquiring, and, as it seemed to me then, somewhat distrustful blue eyes, combined to make on my mind the vivid and striking portrait of a remarkable man, I recall vividly now the self-poise, the reserve, the circumspection, with which be spoke of public questions, and sought to shelter from hurtful legislation all the interests of his people. He was not then taking part in national politics, and, I doubt if such was Ins intention ; but when he was, some time afterward, elected to the House of Representatives, my opinion of bis abili ties and force was only confirmed when he immediately took a conspicu ous leadership in that body. Of the merits of the heated controversies in which he en^as^ed, of course, I do not speak in this presence,, but that he was the peer of the ablest whom he met no one will deny. His fame was at once national,, and his State only waited for the first opportunity to bestow upon him its highest honor. 146 SENATOR B. H. HTLL, Off GEORGIA. After Mr. Hill became a member of this body, his daily movements and every word ho uttered were marked .and scrutinized as those of a leading and important actor in public affairs. He had been a representative man under an order of things and an attempted government which had crumbled to the dust, and he could not be less than a representative character here. To me it was always a curious and most interesting study to watch the workings of his brilliant and fertile mind, while he grasped the duties and the ideas of the living present, and at the same time, with reverent care and devotion, protected the motives and the memory of a cause into which he had poured the whole ardor of his earlier manhood. His mind was essentially daring and progressive, and he did not seek to cling to principles and methods which had been tried and failed ; he simply guarded well the honor of that vast cemetery in which the dead past lies buried. Standing, as I once heard him say, in the ashes of desolation., he still looked forward, with an unfaltering trust to the dawn of a new day of glory for his section, and of union and progress for the entire country. lie was a ready mounted knight, not looking back to past fields of encounter, but prompt to enter the lists whenever or wherever opened. He believed with Edmund Burke that statesmanship was tlie science of circumstances, and he addressed himself with wisdom and courage to the situation in which he found himself placed. This sometimes caused him to be accused of incon sistency by those who forget that the circumstances which govern the eonduct of the statesman are themselves inconsistent from day to day. The law of the world is mutation. History is a never ending panorama, in which the pictures are never the same. The same grand purposes and facts of progression are there, but the methods of public policy, the ways and means whereby governments are created and sustained, the measures which from time to time best promote, foster, and encourage the welfare of the people, are as various as the differ ent conditions of mankind which have called them forth. The principles which have governed one generation may have to be discarded for the safety and prosperity of the next. The wisdom of to-day may be the folly of to-morrow in the administrative measures of peace as well as in the tac tics and strategy of war. Senator Hill always appeared as much alive to this great fact as any man I ever met in public life. He was always found on the skirmish line of ad vanced and advancing ideas, and in the constant encounters which neces sarily take place on that line in the field of thought, the lightning as it leaps from the sky, is hardly more brilliant or rapid than were the operations of his mind. Indeed, so prolific was his genius, when heated by the combat of discussion, that it seemed at times to partake of the eccentricity of the lightning as well as of its brilliancy and power. But he was never allured, in his most daring flights, so far that he could not upon the instant return to meet Ids adversary at the precise point in issue. It was this quality, in great measure, and the intensity with which he could identify himself with the actual matter in hand, regardless of what the past had demanded of him, which made him the formidable antagonist and the resistless orator at the bar, on the hustings, and in the halls of legislation. Sir, a character such as I speak of, has never in any age failed to encoun ter determined opposition and deep-seated hostility. The overthrown an tagonist, the routed adversary, never forget and are often slow to forgive. The impetuous assault in debate, the fierce invective, the merciless sarcasm, 1US LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 147 leave wounds which, seldom altogether heal. This was doubtless true of the public career of the bold, aggressive senator, whose loss we deplore; and yet to those who knew him well in private life, how gentle, considerate, and kind were his words and his ways! A simple circumstance,of an accidental character, brought about relations between us which revealed him, to me in a light I did not expect, although I had been acquainted with him for years. I saw the self-absorbed, distant manner, meit away into the gentlest sun shine. I realized that when he gave his confidence at all, he gave it entire ; that when lie trusted, he did so without reservation, and with an unlimited faith. "While perhaps " he was lofty and sour to those who loved him not," yet he had, in a bountiful degree, those elements of nature toward friends which make man " sweet as summer" to his fellow-man. As the world saw him during his active career, he was a warrior with his armor on, his lance in rest, and his visor down ; but away from the scenes of conflict, and in the midst of those who came close to him, he was the unassuming, generous, confiding friend. At such times he always spoke with singular gentleness and charity of those from whom he differed and with whom his debates had been most'heated. and determined ; nor do I think I ever heard him speak with a show of personal resentment of such even as had dealt most harshly and unjustly with his name and fame. Sir,, the combination of rare and high qualities of mind and heart pos sessed by Senator Hill, not only account for the mourning of Georgia over his loss, but also for the fact that his death is regarded in every section as a -national calamity. His power for great public usefulness was recognized in every quarter of our vast, expanded country. He had a glorious cause at heart, the construction and development of a grand, harmonious future for the whole country, adjusting his own and the kindred States and people of the South to the existing conditions of the present day, and insuring them their full proportion of the honor and the wealth of the nation. What nobler purpose ever animated the human breast? But in the full meridian splendor of his mental vigor and his ripe experience the unfinished task fell from his hands. That summons to which every ear shall hearken and all mortality obey, reached him at the zenith of his powers, and with his plans of future work all spread out before him. "When the light of the sun fades away at nightfall, we behold the har monious fulfillment of nature's law ; but when darkness comes at noonday, we are struck with awe at the mysteries of the universe. When eternity beckons to one whose labors are ended here, and who walks wearily under the burden of years, we see him sink down to his rest with resignation to the decrees as they are written ; but when death claims the great and strong, in all their pride of power and place, we break forth in grief, and question the ways of heaven and earth, which are past finding out. Tlio hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary ; But the voice of the weeper Wails manhood in glory. How capricious and various are the ways of death ! On the first day of the new year there had gathered at the "White House a vast assemblage to pay honor to the President of the Republic. Talent, beauty, official distinc tion, all "were there. Heroes of the army and the navy, in tlie brilliant decorations of their rank, made their official obeisance to their Commander- 148 SENATOR H. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA.. in-Chief ; the ambassadors of distant courts, blazing in scarlet and gold, paid friendly congratulations to the Chief Magistrate of the foremost com monwealth on the globe ; thoughtful legislators and ermiried judges, men of letters and professors of science, stood in the same presence ; female loveli ness lent its enchantment to the scene ; soft music charmed all the air ; the rich odor of flowers came with every breath, and the lofty old halls and promenades "were vocal with, exclamations of happy enjoyment. Immedi ately at my side, in the midst of this radiant throng, stood one who was full of years and of honors. But the spirit of the glass and scythe was hover ing even there, and at the touch of its icy hand \ saw the venerable man of four score sink down like an infant to gentle sleep. Without moan or sigh or pain he passed in an instant from the light, the music, and the perfumes of earth to the world of eternal -beauty beyond the sun. Fortunate man ; fortunate in life, and still more fortunate in death ! Not a moment in the dark valley or the shadow between the two worlds, he closed his aged eyes upon the joys of time to open them iipon the brighter visions of eternity. But how shall the dreadful contrast, which flashes on every mind, be spoken ? To the dead senator whom we mourn to-day, death came in its most appalling form, wearing its most cruel and ghastly mien. No circumstance of torture or of horror was omitted from the awful ordeal through which he slowly passed. He sought the aid of science, for life was sweet to him; but after he turned his face homeward, to abide the will of God, as he said, among his own people, the pages of human bistoi-y, in all their wide range, present no more striking- instance than he did of unquatling, lofty heroism and of sublime submission to the decrees of Provi dence. The stoic philosopher of antiquity would have taken refuge in self-murder from the frightful aspect worn by l-ho King of Terrors, on which the dying American statesman looked from hour to hour, from day to day, and from month to month, with unbroken composure. A little more than a year ago, the world watched around the death-bed of the slowly dying- President of the United States, and wondered at his calmness and courage ; but to him there was administered daily hope. Not a "whisper of earthly hope sustained Senator Hill, as he looked long and steadily at his inevitable doom. And yet no murmur, wail, or lament ever escaped his lips; he uttered no word of grief or disappointment that the end of his pilgrimage was so near; no agony of suffering- was ever so terrible as to extort a single cry of pain ; he never ap peared so great, so calm and strong, as face to face with the mighty mon arch, before whom all must bow. And why was this ? Able, self-reliant, and intrepid as he was, could he, unaided and alone, sustain with unclouded serenity of mind such a conflict with approaching and painful dissolution ? Was there no one with him to soothe and to comfort as he passed through the furnace seven times heated ? Sir, we learn that Mr. Hill's father was a minister of the Christian religion, and. that he educated his son in the principles and the practices of his own faith. It is a fact, also, that when the son grew to manhood, and at every period of his brilliant and at times stormy career, this faith abided with him. The good seed sown in the morning- may have seemed scorched by the sun, or choked by the thorns and cares of the day, but it never lost root in his mind; and in his hour of trial it brought forth fruit more than a, hundred fold. It enabled him to realize a home of peace and joy beyond the reach of disease or death; it enabled him to smile amid his sufferings., as martyrs IIIS LIFTS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 149 have smiled in flames at the stake. Though of approaching death it might be said : Black as night, Pierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, He shook a dreadful dart ; yet the pale and wasted orator could for himself truthfully exclaim, "Death is swallowed up in victory." His heart could utter, if his tongue could not, that loftiest pceaii of human triumph ever chanted on the shores of time : O Death f where is thy sting ? O Gmve ! where is thy victory ? Sir, it is a deep and never-ending pleasure to know that in the midst of physical wreck, decay, and pain there came to our lost comrade in full abund ance, and in compensation for all he endured, those rich and precious conso lations which this world can neither give nor take awav. He sleeps "well in the soil of his native State. His memory will remain fresh and green in the hearts of his people. Distant and rising generations will point out Ms name in the books which record these times as they would point out one of the brightest stars in the sky. And this is all of earth that remains for him. No more will this great pulsating world, with its high, stern battle-cries of conflict, aroa.se his eager spirit to action. The world moves 011 without him, as the ocean rolls in unbroken and heedless majesty over the wreck which has gone down in her bosom. Great lives have perished at every step in the eternity of time, but the giant march of events has not faltered nor the progress of the world been defeated. The duties of the dead senator are all finished. Even this solemn occa sion, with his name on every lip, is nothing to him. His silent dust is alike indifferent to praise or blame, and his immortal presence has passed far beyond the call of human voices. But to us, the living, "who stand where he so lately stood, this hour is freighted with interest and admonition. ~We are walking with unerring steps to tiie grave, and each setting sun finds us nearer to the realms of rest. The fleetiiess of time, our brief and feeble grasp upon the affairs of earth, the certainty of death, and the magnitude of eternity all crowd upon the mind at such a moment as this. They warn us to be in readiness, for no one knows, in the great lottery of life and death, on whose cold, dead, pathetic face we may next look in this narrow circle. They call upon us to think and speak and live in charity with each other, for the last hours, that must come to all, will be sweetened by recollections of such forbearance and grace in our own lives as we invoke for ourselves from that merciful Father into whose presence we hasten. ADD-RESS OF MR. KDKUN13S, OP VERMONT. Mr. .President : Others more nearly connected with the late senator by ties of location, political sympathy, and personal intimacy have spoken of him as only those so situated can well do. I will speak of him chiefly as he appeared to me in his public career. He was, I think, of the very highest order of intellectual strength, both in. his perceptive and reflective faculties. He was able to perceive with clear ness the relations of public questions, and the remote, but not less certain effects of occurring events, "when to many others the horizon was entirely clouded and indefinite, or clothed with a distorted and illusory promise. A Whig and American down to the time of the attempted secession of the 150 SENATOR 13. H. 1ITLL. OF GEORGIA. Southern States In 1861, he foresaw something of the future ; and opposed with earnestness and power, in the conventions of his native State, the move ment for secession. But when it was resolved upon and undertaken, lie gave himself up to what lie considered his duty to his State, and was thence forth among the foremost in sustaining the Southern cause. The notion of fidelity to one's own State, whether her course be thought wise and right or not, is almost a natural Instinct ; and whether it be defensible on broad grounds or not, who does not sympathize with it \ Even in this body, whose members are senators of the United States, and are not, in a constitutional sense, any more representatives of the particular States that elected them than of all the oilier States and the people, it is extremely difficult to free ourselves from the feeling that we are the repre sentatives of particular States merely, and that we are bound to defend and promote the interests of their inhabitants without responsibility for the effect of what we do upon the people of other States. Is it not clear that the fundamental unity of all the States, as well as the security of the rights of each, will be much more secure, and the national government much better administered, if we remember that our obligations and our solicitudes should be bounded by no arrangements of political geography ? So think ing, I look with large interest and sympathy upon the scenes and events in which the late senator from G-eorgia bore so conspicuous a part, and upon the affection and confidence that the great mass of the people of that State felt toward him. And, differing widely from him. In respect of very many of his acts and opinions, I felt deeply for him, for his familv, and for his people in the calamity that came upon him. And how much more tender our syrnpathv and admiration grew when we saw him bearing- the greatest of human suffering with the calmness of manly fortitude and the supreme happiness of Christian faith, and when we saw that all the evils of this weary life were powerless to affect his soul, that rose " over pain to victory." Such events as we now commemorate, interesting and solemn as they are and must be to each one of us, are the most common and the most certain of all. The life of man, did it end with this earthly career, would be the most miserable of phantasms ; but to those who see with the eye of faith beyond the narrow border of our mortal life " the yokels easy and the burden light." On this great stage of government the actors appear and act their parts, and disappear to come again no more ; but the grand drama goes on without interruption. When the greatest, and apparently the most important, ad ministrators of government suddenly depart, there always conies forward from the body of an intelligent people some one to fill the vacant place, and who is equal to the emergency of the time. "While, then, we are touched with the suddenness of these separations, let us take comfort in the knowl edge that our country's institutions flourish In larger and larger securitv, and that all our people feel more and more the depth and strength of mutual interest, sympathy, and good-will. ADDKKSS OF MR. JOXiSS, OF FLOKII>A. 3fr. President: It is not my intention to weary the Senate at this hour by rehearsing the story of Mr" Hill's fame. Everything interesting in his public life has been graphically set forth by his able colleague and the senators who followed him, so that there is nothing left for me to do except to put on record my humble testimony of the value of a man like Mr. Hill to HIS LIF&, 8PKKCHES, A WRITINGS, 151 this country, and my sense of the loss which this Senate and the nation have sustained in our deceased brother's sad and KM timely death. In survi'yi tigthe great -field of life, and noting the progress which has been made in every science and almost every department of knowledge, it would seem, from thu little advance or change that has taken place in the affairs of government that we have reached a point of perfection in the art of ruling States ami peoples ; that it is beyond the power of human genius to do more than main tain the spirit and integrity of our existing- establishments. The best labors of the great minds of this country have been devoted to the work of settling in the public mind the great principles of our admirable systems of government, so that at all times the great body of the people could comprehend the line of separation which divides authority from popu lar rights, and thus secure a loyal support of government on the one hand and a steady and intelligent devotion to liberty on the other. In those unhallowed despotisms of the earth, where man is crushed and oppressed by excessive public power, it is the mystery which surrounds the segis and exercise of governmental authority that sustains the unfortunate relations of tyrant and slave. There nothing is defined, limited, or comprehensible, but all is dark, complicated, and forbidding. The popular mind, long enslaved by super stitious devotion to slavish names and maxims, never sees anything, of the light of truth ; and power and authority, united with ignorance and submis sion, keep millions in bondage and chains. You may ask, what has all this to do with the character or merits of the deceased ? I answer that in making- up my estimate of the Joss of our distinguished brother, I cannot overlook the quality which, above all others, made him. both eminent and useful. It', as I said awhile ago, we have made no progress in government of late, and have added nothing to the discovery of the fathers for the security or happiness of the people, it is of the highest importance that the work which has been accomplished shall be maintained. The gifted man whom we mourn to-day was especially fitted for the great duty of keeping before the people the beacon-light of political truth to teach them their obligations to themselves and their gov ernment ; to impress upon their minds triie conceptions of political liberty, allegiance, and loyalty to the demands of just authority, and the preserva tion of every power and authority which belong to the people and the States. His capacity for this great duty made him a leader of public opinion. In little matters he was not as great as little men. But where the magnitude of the question rose to the level of his great ability, his power of argument was felt here and in the country. The ordinary routine worker had then to stand aside, and every one ad mired the workings of his original, incisive mind as It put forth its powerful arguments in terse and pointed speech. This, after all, is the highest posi tion a public man can occupy in a country like this. Men of detail and method and labor can be found anywhere, and at all times ; but even at a time when everything is in a state of improvement, these grand qualities of mind which immortalized Fox, Pitt, Canning, G-rattan, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun are as rare, and far more important, than they ever wove. It was Mr. Hill's great ability as an argumentative speaker and writer which gave him his fame, He was often called a great orator, but he was more than an orator in the popular sense. He always addressed himself to the minds of his hearers. I never knew a speaker of the same reputation who drew less 152 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF7 GEORGIA. upon his imagination than Senator Hill. In his over-anxiety to fasten con viction on the mind, he would often labor for the accuracy and precision of the mathematician. While his vocabulary was always strong- and simple, in my judgment, it often fell short of the vigor and the depth of his thoughts. Like all truly great men, he attached more consequence to his ideas than to his language. He was in no sense a wordy, but always a thoughtful speaker. His views of the Constitution were broad and liberal. In his expositions of our great organic law he did not run into the extreme maxims of unlimited power on the one hand, nor seek to abridge, by too narrow bounds, the authority of the Union on the other. "While ho always admitted that the Constitution o the TJnion was created ~by the people of the United States, he ever contended that this was accomplished through separate iState agencies--the people of each State acting for themselves in the matter of ratification, independent of the people of every other State. But this view did not affect in the least his opinion of the supremacy of the Federal Constitution. He always contended that the powers granted by the people of the several States, acting as organized political factions, to tSie general government, were as irrevocable and as binding upon the people and the States, as though they emanated from the people of the Union with out regard to State organizations. The great argument which he drew from the mode of ratification was that the States and the government of the Union were parts of one system ; that there could be no question of divided allegiance between them ; that the Union could not exist without the States, although the States die! exist before the Union. He always advocated a free and liberal exercise of the powers granted this government, but his iinture was hostile to everything that had the appearance of usurpation. lie- was one of the few men in public life wlio combined high abilities as a political leader with pre-eminent legal talents. Lord Chatham at one time deprecated the presence of the mere lawyer in Parliament, and he said that you might shake the constitution of the land to its center and the lawyer would sit tranquil in his cabinet, b-ut just touch a cobweb in the corner of Westminster I-Iall and the exasperated spider would crawl out in its defense. 13ut this was not the case with Senator Hill. He did not sacrifice the Constitution to the profession. He brought to the one all the support of an enlightened statesman and patriot, full of devotion for the whole country and its institutions, and the other he adorned with legal learning and pro fessional abilities that will long be remembered by the bar. Like all men of strong convictions and great prominence, he was supported by devoted friends, and "was not without some enemies. Although he was fondly at tached to his high position, where his talents had full play, and tenderly bound by the ties of affection to his devoted family, the world does not furnish an example more sublime than that which he has left us in all the qualities of moral and physical courage, true Christian and manly resig nation, patient and uncomplaining submission to the will of God during the long, tedious months that he awaited in agony and suffering the period of his mortal dissolution. All the glory of the Senate and the fame of the hustings fade into insignificance before the grand spectacle presented by this Christian man when the time arrived which tested the weakness of human nature. Whether bleeding under the operations of the surgeon's knife, or silently feeling the gradual but sure inroads of the monster that was preying upon him, he never murmured or complained, but accepted SIS JLIFfS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 153 the terrible situation as evidence only of Divine pleasure, and with the firm conviction that his sufferings would be rewarded by a happier life be yond the grave. Who can deny the value and efficiency of strong Christian faith with such an example of its power and influence before him? "With all the glory and renown of the world fading away before the shadow of eternity, this strong man, accustomed to all the processes of reason, under the inspiration of Christian hope was able to leave an example of true heroism, more valu able and sublime than any left by the unbelieving philosophers of antiquity. AI>"DET2SS OF MB. TUCKEK, OF VIRGINIA. JUr. SpeaTcer : In the natural grief which Georgia feels for the loss of her great son, it is not fitting that Virginia should manifest her sympathy in silence at the tomb of one who often said ho felt like standing in her presence ever with uncovered brow. In this public calamity, which touches the whole country, Virginia begs to lay the tribute of her respect on his grave. My acquaintance with the late Senator Hill-began with our entrance into this liall as members of the Forty-fourth Congress. It ripened into inti macy from an association as in.embers of the Committee on "Ways and Means. That relation has no doubt made it seem appropriate that I should have been invited to say something- on this occasion. .... In January, 1876, the debate on the amnesty bill was opened with such a display of political excitement and sectional bitterness as I have never seen since that time, and which I am glad to hope will never be seen again in this hall. In that debate no one who heard it can ever forget the parliamentary elo quence and ability of Mr, IBlaine and of General Garfield, and the no less skillful and powerful speech of Mr. Hill. It was the battle of giants, and Mr. Hill was the equal of any man who took part in it. It placed him at once in the front rank of debaters in the American Congress. \Vliether in the labors of the Committee on "Ways and Means, on the questions of tariff and finance, or in the discussions in the House., Mr, Hill continued, while a member of this body, to rise higher and higher in public estimation until his election to the Senate in the winter of 1877. It is not too much to say that as a senator he fully maintained Ins hig-h reputation, and measured swords in debate on few occasions in which he was not victor, and in none in which he was vanquished. A mortal disease, insidious in its progress and painful in its nature, ended his life in the summer of last year, and the grave has closed upon a career which, though not prolonged to old age, was one of the most brilliant and memorable in our parliamentary history. The elements which make up the character of a remarkable man it is interesting to analyze and portray. I feel incompetent to do so satisfactorily jii this case- for, while our intercourse was always familiar and cordial, our relations were not so close and confidential as to have enabled me to judge and measure him with critical accuracy. His tall and striking person, his grave and thoughtful face, his clear but dreamy eye, and the gleam of sunshine which lit up his countenance when friendly intercourse detached his thoughts from the subject in which his mind was absorbed, all combined to interest, attract, and impress every per- Io4 SENATOR B. H. JIILL. O&' GEORGIA. son who came in contact with him. His ringing- voice ; his earnest, some times vehement, manner ; his bold and aggressive style ; his strong, clear, and logical reasoning ; his exalted and eloquent declamation, and withal liis self-reliant and confident assertion of his views, made him one of the most powerful and impressive speakers of his time. He worked with intense arid concentrated energy. His mind was capable of great abstraction. In the companionship of his own thoughts he became often unconscious of all around him, and his intellectual powers then glowed with the fires of his own enthusiasm. .He was an intellectual athlete. His strength was not mere dead force, but his sinewy frame enabled him to turn an adversary in the decisive wres tle, when he himself seemed to be overthrown. He was not technical in his reasoning', but cut down to the root of the matter of debate. His nature was bold and aggressive. If his foe was in ambush, he uncovered him and forced him into the open field. His tactical method was assault, fie struck for his enemy's center and rarely attacked his flank. But when assailed and in retreat, he would suddenly turn upon his foe, retrieve his loss, attack on flank oi" center as best he might, and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He was formidable in the opening of battle, chieflv f r attack, but he was us dangerous in retreat at its close, when pressed by a too confident oppo nent. Disaster did not dismay--mishap did not demoralize him. His ample resources were adequate to any emergency, and he would convert what seemed a fatal mistake into the source of a final triumph by his quick and bold repulse of his assailant, which heoften pushed to a complete rout of his forces. He argued from the workshop of his own brain. He intensified thought upon the issue, and discarding authority and extrinsic aids, drew from the well-furnished armory of his o\vii mind the weapons and munitions for the conduct of his warfare. These qualities made him. a great advocate at the bar, whether before juries or courts, and a great debater in the halls of legislation ; indeed as for midable in these respects as any man of his day. I believe he thought best on his feet. The fervor of his intellect made his arguments present convictions which might pass away and give place to others as strong under mental action at another time. To this peculiarity in his mental operations was duo what seemed a lack of consistency sometimes in the conclusions he reached. His intellectual activity was so powerful as to make him seem intolerant to his opponents ; but I do not believe it touched his heart. He struck the shield of his foe as a knight in the tourna ment,--vigorously, but without animosity ; and when the strife was ended he could lift up the adversary ho had struck down and clasp him in friendly re gard with the hand which dealt the blow. In his social life, while often abstracted by the thoughts which absorbed him, he was genial, kind, and loving-. Generous and brave, he grappled to him friends with hooks of steel. Honest in his dealing, sincere and truthful in his intercourse, and cordial in his friendships, he died mourned by hosts of warm admirers and followers. He was not, I think, a great reader of books. For works of fiction he had no taste. He told me once he had never read one of Scott's novels, after I had playfully called him in debate a Dalgetty, of whose name and character he was ignorant. J3ut his reading was such as strengthened his powerful mind, and furnished his style with the materials which gave grace and beauty to the solid and simple Doric of his severe and classic oratory. HIS LIFE, 8PBITSOIIKS, ANT) WRITINGS. 155 It was natural for such a man to have ambition. The eaglet in his home nest on the mountain, cliff feels in his unfledged wing- the power to soar uc amon s a noe vrue. e aspraon to upo e rg, o destroy the wrong;, and to do good, is all of human glory which it is lit for human life to aspire to win. That passion for place and office, without con sciousness of ability to (ill it well and for the public g'ood, is base and mean ; it is a vice, the vice of our day, and leads to crime. Mr. Hill aspired for public positions from the self-consciousness of his fitness to serve his country in and through them. In him. it was a noble virtue. of touching enerness an at, as s eage e glories of the immortal life, " Almost home ! " The paths of glory lead but to the grave. No farther? Ay ! through the grave, where human glory ends, the Christian hope plants our feet upon that path which leads to celestial glory in the bosom of our Father and our God ! ADDRESS Of MR. HOUSE, OF TTSNK ESSEK. J\fr. SpeaJker .' When the hand of death struck the name of 'Benjamin IT. Mill, of Georgia, from the roll of senators, the sad event was deplored not only by the State that had honored him, but by the whole country. All realized the fact that a man of great intellectual power had fallen, and that a vacancy had been made in the national councils which could not be readily supplied. I well remember the first time I ever met him. It was at a mass-meeting during the presidential campaign of 1860, at Knoxvillc, Tennessee. His fame even at that time, when lie was comparatively a young- man, had traveled beyond the limits of Ins own State. I recall most vividly the impression he made on me on that occasion, as one of the most eloquent and powerful popular orators to whom I had ever listened. The crowd was numbered by the thousand, and the speaking took place in the open air in a beautiful grove near the town. \V~ithout much seeming effort on his part, he held the undivided attention of the vast assembly during an address of some two or three hours. I can never forget the trepidation and mis givings with which I arose, according to the program of the day, to address the audience on the same side of the question, through fear that it would be 156 SENATOR S. H. HTLL, OP GEORGIA. impossible for me to say anything that would interest a crowd that liad listened to his magnificent effort. I saw him no more until I met him at Richmond, in the fall of 1861, as a member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States. At the end of the Provisional Congress oni" paths diverged. He entered the Confederate Seriate, where he served during the remainder of the war. The next time 1 met liim was in this hall as a member of the Forty-fourth Congress. That Congress was the first one after the war to which full dele gations of representative men were admitted from the Southern States. "They came to Washington fully impressed with the difficulties and complica tions that surrounded them. They felt that the people whom they represented, greatly impoverished by the war and struggling to repair their ruined fortunes, would be held to a strict accountability for the actions and utterances of their representatives. Thus impressed and thus appreciating the dangerous ground on which they'stood, and the delicate relations which they sustained to the government, they determined to tread the path of patriotic duty so plainly and firmly that none could fail to see that they fully and honestly acquiesced in the results of the war, and were prepared to discharge in good faith evei'y demand imposed by the conditions of a restored Union and the common welfare of a reunited people. I think I know the animus of the Southern men who took their seats in this hall as representatives in the Forty-fourth Congress. "Whether1 I have stated it truly and fairly I con fidently leave the records they have made here to determine. Soon after the assembling of that Congress a general amnesty bill was introduced in the House by lion. Samuel J. Kandall, of Pennsj'lvania, being similar in all respects to a bill which had on two previous occasions passed the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate. The question arose of admitting Jefferson Davis to the benefits of the act. A distinguished representative from Maine, in the course of his remarks, used this strong' and emphatic language : Up to this time no Southern man had taken any part in the proceedings. The discussion had not proceeded far before it became evident that it was destined to provoke more or Jess of sectio-nal bitterness. The representatives from the South deprecated and deplored the agitation of questions growing out of the war. They felt that all such agitation was mischievous in its tendency and could be productive of no good to their section of the country, and they were anxious that all such questions should be relegated to the tribunal of history. But as the discussion progressed it assumed a character which in their opinion demanded that a reply should be made from a South ern standpoint. Mr. Hill, from his known intimate relations with Jefferson Davis during the "war, as well as from his acknowledged ability, was gener ally recognized as the most appropriate Southern man to speak for his section in a debate which all felt was destined to become historic. lint little time for preparation "was allowed him, as the discussion arose rather unex pectedly. I know he felt deeply the responsibility and delicacy of his position. To defend the Confederate government against the charges brought against it, and maintain the honor of the Southern name, without saying any- HIS LIFK, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 15? thing that would militate against the interests of the Southern people in th prevailing temper of the public mind of the North, required the exercise of the coolest judgment and the nicest discrimination. Thus restrained and shackled by the grave considerations which surrounded the situation, he felt that he could not indulge the usual freedom of debate, and was therefore forced to meet his adversaries upon unequal terms. "When, he arose to address the House, he faced a most attentive audience upon tlve floor and in the crowded galleries. It was an occasion of deep solicitude and dramatic interest. I will not risk the imputation of intruding improper and unwelcome sugges tions upon this occasion by even a reference to the points or details of the discussion. It was watched with the keenest interest by both sides of this Chamber, and in fact by the whole country. It aroused feelings which, I am happy to say, time has softened and tempered, and which I would be the last to recall from the shades of the unhappy past. But justice to the dead re quires that I should not omit to say that, difficult as were the requirements of the occasion, Southern representatives and the Southern people felt that their good name suffered no detriment from want of ability in its defender. Mr. Speaker, I recall another prominent-figure in that memorable debate. James A. Garfield, of Ohio, replied to Mr. Hill. If any one had been called on at that time to point out two men on this floor whose robust health and vigorous manhood gave the greatest pi'omise of a long life, the selection could not have fallen upon any two members more appropriate!3' than upon James A, Garfield and Benjamin H. Hill. How little we know or can know of what the future has in store for us. How soon were these two distin guished men, who encountered each other in th:it debate, doomed to leave this world under circumstances of lingering and protracted suffering that stirred the sympathies of all. The former, in a short while, was transferred by the voice of his State from this House to the Senate, and before he could -assume the duties of a Senator the voice of the American people called him to the ^Presidency. Honors were showered upon him with a profusion that left ambition but little to desire. Jfe was inaugurated amid the well-wishes of the whole country. But while the thickly clustered laurels upon his brow were yet wet with morning dew at a moment least expected, in the heart of a populous citv, in sight of the Capitol the bullet of a beastly and vulgar assassin laid him low. The national heart stood still with horror when the first shock of the great crime was felt. As the distinguished sufferer lay upon his bed of pain, the hearts of his countrymen, of alJ parties and all sections, visited the chamber where he .. -. _ _ . -_ -_, .- L - _-,.._ the news to every part of the country that the straggle was over. The Democrat forgot that he was a Republican Presi dent, and the Southern man that he belonged to the North. All party, all sectional feeling was lost in the profound gloom that pervaded the whole countly. He had met his fate and borne his great sufferings with a patient fortitude and lofty courage which silenced all criticism and melted all hearts, while it intensified the universal horror with which the assassin's crime was regarded. For, Air. Speaker, whatever maybe true of other peoples and other lands, the crime of assassination can never be looked upon by the American people with other feelings than those of execra,tion and abhorrence. It is a noxious plant that can never flourish in our soil. General Garfield reached the highest position to which human ambition can aspire ; but the grandest 158 SENATOR B. II. HILL, OF GEORGIA, proportions which his character ever assumed were displayed in the heroism of bis death-bed. Mr. Hill was likewise called by the voice of his State to a seat in tbe Senate. This was a field much better suited for the exercise of his great gifts than the House of Representatives, and he soon gained in that body the front rank as a debater and a statesman of great and varied attainments. His speech in the Senate in the debate on the bill prohibiting the use of troops at the polls was recognized by all who heard it or read it as an effort of transcendent ability. His analysis and exposition of our dual system of government, defining the powers that belonged to tbe States and those that belonged to the Federal government under the Constitution, were thorough and profound. That speech alone was sufficient to rank him in the first class of American statesmen, and to that class he undoubtedly "belonged. As a debater he had few equals, even among the distinguished men whose learning and ability dignify and adorn the American Senate. "Whether on tbe hustings, addressing the masses of the people ; in the forum before judges and juries, or in the halls of Congress discussing great questions of national importance, he never failed to impress himself upon those who heard him as a man of great power and ability. No antagonist, whatever his fame or prowess, ever encountered him upon any of those fields of intellectual gladiature without feeling that he stood in the presence of a foeman worthy of his steel. But in the prime and plenitude of his great powers, when he felt the solid ground of a well-earned national reputation beneath bis feet and a long and a brilliant career of honor and usefulness opening vip before him, the admonition of death came, not it is true, in the guise of an assassin's bullet, but in a form almost as tragic and no less certain. Soon after tbe meeting of the present Congress, I visited the court-room where President Garfield's assassin was being tried for his life. On leaving, I met Senator Hill, and we walked some distance together. On the way I inquired as to the condition of the malady that had excited his fears and the apprehension of his friends. T found him hopeful and cheerful, and even buoyant, under tbe conviction that be had experienced the worst and that be was now in a sure way to permanent and final recovery. But not a great while afterward T heard that he had been compelled to again seek the offices of liis surgeon. I felt then that he was a doomed man--doomed to excrutiating suffering and certain death. With his robust constitution and great strength of will he made a bravo fight for bis life, and sought all tbe means within his power to preserve and prolong it. But all efforts proved unavailing, and at last ho went home to die. Within its peaceful bosom, surrounded by his family and friends, and by the people who admired and loved and honored him, be looked death calmly in the face as he watched its approaches day by day, and knew that nothing could avert the inevitable hour. How less than nothingness must liavo appeared to him all the glories of this world as he passed through his terrible ordeal of suffering to the grave that he saw opening to receive him. Distinguished as was his life, all the honors that clustered around it fade into insignificance in the presence of the sublime courage and Christian patience and resignation that crowned his death- Men in the whirl of busj^ life and the carnival of earthly ambition may treat with a sneer or a jest the power of the Christian religion to sustain the struggling soul amid the agonies of dissolving nature and the gloom of ap proaching death ; but that sneer is robbed, of its sting, and that jest loses HIS LIFE, SPEEGHKS, A.JV.D WHITINGS. 159 its point, beside the beds of protracted suffering and lingering- death from which the victorious spirits of James A. Garfield and Benjamin H. Hill left tfieir "\vasted tenements of clay. Mr. Speaker, sooner or later our struggle with the last enemy must come ; for whatever may be our hopes, our ambition, our schemes for the future, or may have been our achievements in the past, we may be assured of one fact--time will overlook and death forget none of us. And in that solemn hour which witnesses the exchange of worlds, the obscurest Christian that has honestly endeavored, during1 an unobtrusive life, to do his duty toward God and man is more to be envied than the tallest son oL" intel lectual pride, though he may have walked the mountain ranges of human thought, without God and without hope in the world. ADDRESS OF MR. WEI/LBORN, OF TEXAS. can"not break through nor raze.. the sun shines in brightness, or the clouds It is not the peace, however, bat the power of the grave which the memorial services of this hour most strongly proclaim. Opportunities neglected and opportunities abused have caused thousands, in dying, to leave behind them, but few evidences of their having been ; or if manv, only sad proofs of misspent and mischievous lives. Hence, " Lived to little purpose," or " Lived to a bad purpose," would be inscribed on many tomb stones if thev were tt.rvuulyv enpiittaa.pnhhperdL. arble column "which will point coming generations to t ii've the soul of a feeble, wasted frame to bravely and trium- 160 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Off GEORGIA. phantly cross over the dark borders of that mysterious land before whose veiled terrors strong manhood is wont to tremble. The example thus presented for our contemplation is made up from the experiences of Mr. Hill in private, professional, and public life. Of the last two only will I speak, leaving to others more familiar with it the portrayal of the first. It is not my purpose to undertake a narrative of events, but simply a hurried statement of traits of character which distinguished him in the public walks to which fortune or inclination called him. And in this I shall not aim at completeness, but only give a few of the impressions made on my mind by a general observation of him. as a lawyer, an orator, a states man, and a patriot ; nor shall I communicate these impressions in words of studied panegyric. Too well do I recognize, as applied to Mr. Hill, the truth of the apostrophe : Nature doth mourn for thcc. There is no need For man to strike his plaintive lyre and fail, As fail he must, if lie attempt thy praise. The splendid triumphs of Mr. Hill's niaturev years at the bar show that he must have mastered the law as a science during the period of his pro fessional pupilage. His attainments were not limited to a few scattering rules and forms picked up from particular decisions used in cases with "which he was connected, but were opinions and convictions formed from a searching and comprehensive study of jurisprudence as a grand svstem of principles resting on immutable foundations of right and justice. For the discovery of these principles he looked to the exercise of his own reason, and in forensic contests relied mainly on a conscious knowledge of the prin ciples thus discovered. Adjudicated cases he regarded as but instances illustrating and applying principles. In other words, his own reason, strengthened and equipped by the pupilage before mentioned, discovered and applied general principles ; precedents were invoked largely, if not onlv to support and confirm the conclusions of his own mind. This view accounts for the singular readiness and accuracy with, "which he could meet the various and often unexpected exigencies which complicated suits are liable to develop during the processes of trial. Mr. Hill combined within himself the jurist and the advocate. He was gifted with perception to discern and judgment to apply appropriate princi ples to given states of facts. Ho had also a logical and perspicuous style. The union of these qualities made him clear and forcible in the statement and proof of his premises, and powerful if not resistless in the conclusions he sought to establish. In law, as iu politics, he was distinguished for orig inality of thought rather than scholarship. His was the grander power to originate, not the lesser faculty of appropriating the creations of others. He was a model, not a type. However so great the excellency he may have attained unto in other pursuits, the judicial history of Georgia, as well as the traditions of her people, will always claim his legal attainments and fo rensic triumphs as among the most brilliant experiences of his brilliant life. To intellectuality Mr. Hill added the power to feel and to will. These mental endowments, with his fluency of language and at times impassioned delivery, formed for him what he became--one of the great orators of his day. Eloquence is defined to be "the utterance of strong emotion in a man ner adapted to excite correspondent emotion in others. It ordinarily implies HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 1G1 elevated and forcible thought, well-chosen language, an easy and effective utterance, and an impassioned manner." Those who ever heard Mr. Hill at the bar, in legislative hails, or on the stump, when the energies of his nature were thoroughly aroused, could not have failed to recognize in his effort marvelous and unmistakable manifestations of all these qualities. I remem ber to have heard a speech he once made on a noted occasion, characterized by a critical auditor as " logic on fire." And it was logic, burning logic ; not the formal disputation of a schoolman, out the power of passionately expressed thought, unto the conviction and moving of his hearers : And each man would turn And gaze on his neighbor's face, That "with the like dumb wonder answered him. ..... You could have heard The beating of your pulses while he spoke. The traits and acquirements which made Mr. Hill renowned as a lawyer and an orator fitted him for greatness in the arts of government. In these, question "How can men be best go him a subject of profound thought and philosophic research. He rightly looked upon it as a problem whose perfect solution the great minds of the world on memorable trials had failed to work out. The records of history, -which he widely and usefully explored, instructed him. that philosophy, with all its achievements in the realms of political science, had not been able to impart perfection or permanency to any civil fabric yet built, and that even the testimonies to its mightiest triumphs were chiefly chronicled in the disman tled wrecks of the institutions it founded. He had fullv learned the great lesson taught by ages of experience, that human infirmities will always im press their images on political as well as other human establishments, and that the Utopia of fiction could never exist in fact. The Constitution of the American Union, to which his best thought was long and profitably given, he considered the nearest approach to perfection in governmental structure human effort had yet attained. Under the meth ods, however, which even this instrument provided, he was prepared to see measures consummated which his judgment condemned as errors and told him were fraught with, disaster and woe. Emergencies of this kind, the crucial tests of character, did not confound his faculties, but rather stimulated them to the most reliable, if not highest exertions of statesman ship, namely, to see when a thing was inevitable, and, accepting it as such, to make the best of the situation, however bad it might be. He lost no time, therefore, in bewailing accomplished facts, but when proposed meas ures against which he warred became irreversible policies, his quick, com prehensive perception took in the whole situation, and he at once applied himself not to a continuance of vain resistance but the more sensible work of so controlling these policies as to avert, as far as possible, the ruin they threatened, and bring out of them the best attainable results. This qxiality of statesmanship, which, on close analysis, will be found to be nothing more nor less than the power of judicious selection between evils, Mr. Hill notably exhibited in his political course prior to and during the late war. From 1855 up to the passage of the declaratory resolution by the Con vention of Georgia, January IS, 1861, lie combated the disunion sentiment 162 SENATOR &. II. HILL. OF GEORGIA. with all the force and earnestness of his nature. The motives which in fluenced him were his attachment to the Union under the Constitution, and his desire to avert the calamities he profoundly believed war would bring upon the South. For years he did all man could do to stay the swelling tide of popular sentiment, drifting his State and section, as he firmly believed, into a night of storm and tempest whose starless gloom would prove intenser than Memphian darkness. His efforts were ineffectual. The declaratory resolution before referred to, against which, he voted, fixed and determined Georgia's policy. The die was cast. Then it was, under a high sense of duty to his State, he accepted as inevitable "what he had struggled to prevent, and recorded his vote in favor of the ordinance, believing this to be the initial and an impor tant step to the unification of his people in the course they had determined, against his judgment, to adopt. Of the conspicuous part he bore during the convulsive throes that ensued I shall not speak further than to say that all investigations and researches thus far made into that period of storm and gloom have but served to confirm and draw out in bolder lines, as his shining characteristics, an intellect equal to every emergency in which he was placed, a fidelity to conviction nothing could swerve, a resolution difficulties could not unsettle, a courage dangers could not appall, and a fortitude whose en durance no adversities could exhaust. This chapter of manly virtues will ever be held in warm remembrance by his associates in misfortune and de feat, and can but be read with respectful attention even by those "who con demn the cause in which these virtues were displayed. Mr. Hill's abilities as a lawyer, an orator, and statesman were subjected, while he was in public life, to the guidance of one grand sentiment : "The noblest motive is the public good." He loved his country with an intensity and ardor only lofty and generous natures can know. " Good government he considered the highest boon that could be bestowed on a people. For this he sought and studied long and diligently. The result of this search and study was one of the profoundest and most valued convictions of his life, namely, that there "was no other form of government, nor had there ever been one, comparable to the Union under the Constitution. Hear him as he tells to a listening Senate, in stately phrase, the excellency of this government: It is the noblest government, the greatest government that human 'wisdom ever de vised, and it could not have been framed by human wisdom alone. The human intellect never existed in this world that could from its own evolutions have wrought out such a thing as this Constitution of the United States. . . . . It is a government such as Roman never dreamed of, such as Grecian never conceived, and such as European never had the power to evolve. When the American people, either for the purpose of dismembering .the States or of destroying them, shall destroy this unparalleled government, this govern ment without a model, this government without a prototype, they will have destroyed a government which seems to have been wisely adapted to the peculiar condition of the time and to all their future wants, and they will launch out on a sea of uncertainty, the result of which no man can forecast. Hear him again, as he declares to a vast multitude at his own home, in rapid, beautiful utterance, his admiration for the American system of gov ernment : My countrymen, have you ever studied this wonderful American system of free gov ernment ? Have you compared it with former systems and noted how our fathers sought to avoid their defects ? Let me commend this study to every American, citizen to-day. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. Mr. Speaker, the voice of patriotism calls to us to-day from the grave of the great Georgian. In silence more eloquent than stirring language it points us to the "American system of free constitutional government" as the " noblest government, the greatest government, that human -wisdom ever devised.'* It impresses upon us that this system is the one founded by Washington and other patriots of tlie Revolution ; that it is hallowed by sacred memories and freighted with precious hopes ; that, though the right ful inheritance of one people, humanity everywhere has an interest in its preservation ; that, if in an evil hour it should perish, its ruins would en tomb forever the institutions of freedom and give a new birth to the estab lishments of despotism. By all these high considerations it pleads for the perpetuation of this in comparable system of government, " this government without a model, this government without a prototype," and points out the path of public duty, by urging as the measure of public worth, " that he shall be the greatest patriot, the truest patriot, the noblest patriot, who shall do most to repair tho wrongs of the past and promote the glories of the future." Mr. Speaker, the touching scenes and incidents of Mr. Hill's last sick ness were a fitting close to the illustrious labors of his active life. The intellect, the resolution, the courage, the fortitude which had sustained him in the latter did not desert him in the former. But, added to these, was a fuller reliance than ever on that unseen arm which alone can guide through the dark valley and shadow of death. So composedly did he contemplate his near dissolution that he was able to say, " But for the good I had hoped to do my family and country, I should 1'egard the announcement, ( I must die/ as joyful tidings." Above all, how entrancing the vision it was granted him to see just be fore death took him away, and which he pictured so aptly in the last two words he ever spoke,--"Almost home!" Home! A magic word. The English language has no brighter, the English tongue can speak no sweeter. It names the- best spot on earth, the radiant center of pure sentiments and hoaven-approvetl attachments. Thitherward the wanderer in distant lands ever turns his eye in bright expectancy ; and when be has been long and far away, and at last nears the loved place, and familiar objects begin to gladden his eye, the tired limbs may almost give out, but the hope-buoyed spirit exclaims, *( Almost home I " The end was at hand. The wanderings of time were over. Eternity's glories were breaking around. The dying senator "spoke out in full and even triumphant accent, 'Almost home !'" The pulse throbbed its last beat, and the spirit flew to its God and immortal destiny. 164 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. ADDBESS OF MB. KASSON, OF IOWA. Mr. Speaker: I deeply regret that, contrary to well-ordered custom, I am obliged to speak to-day touching- the honored dead without the prepara tion which properly characterizes such an occasion. I learn to-day that those of my colleagues on this side of the House who, from old association with Mr. Hill, late senator, were best fitted to speak of his character and to make just appreciation of those qualities which attracted the attention of the whole country, were by illness and other special causes prevented from taking part in the ceremonies of this day. Unwilling that this side of the House, which had also been a witness of the distinguished ability of Senator Hill -while he was a member of this body, should be unheard on this occasion, I venture to trespass on the kind ness of my colleagues while I say, extemporaneously, a few words upon his character and his services. We from the States of the North had only that opportunity to become acquainted with Mr. Hill, which was offei'ed by his comparatively brief public career upon this floor. Some of us, including- myself, were on the floor at the time of that great debate to which so frequent reference has been made by my colleagues upon the other side. Few men had a higher appreciation of the intellectual qualities developed by Mr. Hill in that dis cussion than myself. My sympathy with the views which he combated could not blind me to his power in debate. I am obliged to speak of his qualities chiefly from my memory of that session, and especially of that occasion. There were in him certain traits of character "which have led me to compare him with Oliver Cromwell among persons of English history, and with but few known to American history. He combined great self-poise and apparent consciousness of power with a certain solid, adamantine honesty of purpose -which gave to the movements of his intellect unusual, extraordinary strength. Earnest in countenance, he expressed in that respect only the earnestness of his nature. He moved with solidity in the development of his intellectual forces. He could not be cast off his balance by any light attack "whatever. He kept the main objec tion point always in view. His mind, like Cromwell's, was impregnated with a sense of the obligations of religion. ~No man can be a great power in a Christian country without this inward sense of responsibility to a greater power,--a power greater, higher than the people, and to whom the people themselves owe allegiance and acknowledge responsibility. It is the strong rock in human character to which, above all other qualities, the people themselves attach their confidence. While I recognize these great controlling' elements of the human mind in him, I did not fail to see that he, like most of us, was still animated chiefly by his great sense of responsibility to that part of the country which he repre sented. I recognized that same honesty of character when lie determined that the sentiments of those who elected him should be also fairly mani fested on this floor, and should be maintained by all the force of debate. And while from our point of view we often thought we discovered in him a strength of prejudice which was ineradicable, we also were obliged to remember that our opponents, bearing the same relation to us as we to him, would find for the same reason, for identically the same cause, ground to believe that our views also -were influenced or controlled by prejudice of section and of association. HIS LIFE, SfEJSGHES, AND WRITINGS. 165 Sir, I cannot spealt of Mr. Hill's character prior to his entrance into the Forty-fourth Congress. "We knew him to be a man of power. \Ve in the North rejoiced when we heai-d that his voice was lifted to save us from the disasters that followed the opening- era of secession. We mourned when we found that naturally, if not logically--for we appreciated that it was natural--he cast in his lot with his own State for disunion and separate government. But we rejoiced again when at the close of that great strug gle, as shown by the gentleman from Georgia who first spoke to-day [Mr. HammondJ, he again presented himself in the front of that column which sought to return to the Union with honesty of purpose, with perfect integ rity of heart, and with an earnest desire to do their duty to the whole country as faithfully as they had done it to their own section. I prefer to remember Mr. Hill from such utterances in that speech, to which reference has been made, as this : We had well hoped that the country had suffered long enough from feuds, from strife, and from inflamed passions ; and we came here, sir, with the patriotic purpose to remember nothing but the country and the whole country, and, turning- our backs on the horrors of the past, to look with all earnestness to find glories for the future. sentiments withn whnichn we alnl fninnda, onurselvess inspired as wo look into the fa of the dead. No higher tribute to the character which w ADDRESS OF ME. HOOKER, OF MISSISSIPPI. Mr. Speaker: Plaving^ been invited by my friend from Georgia [Mr. Hammond], who sits beside me, to say something on this occasion, I have felt it my duty to accept that invitation, because of the relations which have existed between the people of my own State and the great State of Georgia, to whose distinguished senator we have assembled here to-day to pay the last solemn obsequies ; for while the daughter has somewhat outgrown the 166 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. mother in many respects, she has not ceased to feel filial affection for that great country which supplied so many of her early citizens. As it is not my cus tom to write speeches, on any occasion, I am constrained to speak to-dav, so far as affection for the dead is concerned, rather from the heart than from the head. "With reference to the private life of the great statesman whose death we mourn, I can say but little except what I gather from the friends who lived closer to him than it was my fortune to do. But in regard to his public charactei'., and the two aspects in which it presents itself to the world at large, I will say a few words. Benjamin H. Hill underwent as a part of his education the severe train ing of a lawyer. It was in this aspect that he first presented himself to tlie people of his own State. His mind was formed by that vigorous discipline which belongs to the profession of the law. It made him logical. He is said to have excelled especially in that great power of the lawyer, the statement of his case. This he made so simply, so briefly, so lucidly, that the most unintelli gent court must seize the salient facts of the case. It was in his capacity as a lawjrer that Mr. Hill w^as first known to the people of his own State for his distinguished ability as a reasoner and an orator. I have heard from a friend of his an incident of his early life, when he was employed to defend a man charged with murder. That defense was assumed by him in the courts, and he failed. At that time in the State of Georgia it was within the power of the de fendant in a case of this kind to appeal to the Senate of the State. Mr. Hill made that appeal, not so much in behalf of the defendant himself as of the aged and widowed mother, from whose heart be wished to avert the blow which would fall upon the head of her son. He went into the State Senate with his case, with a widowed mother leaning on his arm. This gentleman describes the scene as he witnessed it--one in -which Mr. Hill looked, for the first time in his life, pallid with excitement, because of the great responsibility which rested upon him ; for in all his advocacy at the bar he was impressed with, the sentiment of the great responsibility resting upon the advocate and the intimate relation between the advocate and his client ; a sentiment which has been beautifully, though perhaps somewhat too strongly, expressed by one of the greatest of English lawyers and English premiers, Lord Brougham, when he declared that it is the duty of a lawyer to stand by the interest of his client even to the upturning of the govern ment. Mr. Hill walked into that Senate Chamber and made his appeal to the Senate on the ground of the insanity of the man who had committed the al leged murder. He spoke for hours, and he obtained from the Senate a ver dict which relieved the widowed mother, and spared the life of the son. In all his relations as a lawyer Mr. Hill achieved distinction because he was inspired with fidelity to the great duties which devolved upon him. But his great intellect was not destined to be confined in its exercise to the bar, though it was the shaping and the fashioning of that intellect, by close attention to his profession, that prepared him for a new and different arena. I had the pleasure of first meeting him here as we entered together the Forty-fourth Congress. He leaped into this grand arena of debate like Minerva from the bi'ain of Jove, armed cap-d-pie for any contest that might occur. He was prepared to take rank among the first in this hall of debate of the American Commons. I remember especially an occasion a short time after the convening of flTS LtFK, SPEECFIKF, AND WRITINGS. 107 * the Forty-fourth. Congress, when he spoke here almost from the position in which I now stand. The magnanimous, generous-hearted representative from Pennsylvania [Mr. Randall], then the leader of this side of the House, had introduced his bill for universal amnesty, thinking that the time had come when there should be a restoration of the Union, not iti name and word, but in deed and in truth ; that amnesty should be extended to every citizen, from the humblest subaltern, animated by a sense of dutv, to the lofty- plumed chief who led the Confederate forces \ that all the memories of the war should be blotted from the hearts and the minds of the entire people. In this spirit the gentleman, from Pennsylvania introduced that resolution upon which Mr. Hill's voice was first heard in this hall, as I.as been so beauti fully described by my friend from Virginia [Mr. Tucker], He encountered on that occasion an orator on the other side of the chamber who had been for years the leader of his party, who had at one time occupied the seat which you now occupy, who, as a debater, as a stater of facts, as a parlia mentary tactician, had propably no equal at that time on either side of this ball. It was a conflict, as the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] has well remarked, of giants, which took us back to the older days in these halls, when Hayne and Webster, and Calhou.ii and Clay, and other orators of the past, rendered illustrious the days in which they lived. As has been well said, it was a battle of the giants, and both giants fought with Damascus- like blades. But, Mr. Speaker, it was a somewhat unequal contest, for he who represented one side of the question was the victor and wore the laurel wreath which crowns the victor's brow, while the other represented what has become known in history as the "lost cause," and wore the melancholy cypress, which is the emblem of defeat and. death. Therefore, I say, it was a somewhat unequal contest ; but those of us for whom he spoke, and spoke with so much clearness, so much precision, so much, wisdom, so much patriotism, felt that he could appeal to the magnanimity of his great opponent, great he was and still is,--we felt that we could appeal to the magnanimity of his great opponent in that contest, that Mr. Hill had stated his side of the question as no other man could have stated it in this hall. During the time he was here as our colleague, we all remember him with, the tenderest affection and esteem. "We venerate his great ability. AVe deplore his loss to the State who called him son, and to the country who honored him for his patriotism and fidelity. It was not long, Mr. Speaker, before the people of his State, in 1877, called on him to occupy a higher position. I remember his being seated in that portion of the hall, from which he had delivered his powerful and elo quent speech a few minutes before, and receiving a telegram conveying to him the intelligence that the State of Georgia had transferred him to the other end of the Capitol. He went there, Mr, Speaker, as he came here, and at once took his rank in that graver, more dignified body, that body of loftier debate ; took his seat there when that chamber was filled with men of the highest intellect in this country ; when the gigantic intellectual form of Thurman sat on one side, and on the other the equally gigantic intellectual form of Conkling-. Benjamin H. Hill took his place in the Senate of the United States, as he had done in this hall, as the peer arid equal of any man there. He had achieved great triumph in every position of life,--as lawyer, as representa-. S. S. SILL, OF GEORGIA. i.t life niRtnrtrf, u ,^ ieds its roiiage in a Kmcuy largess to trie son ic grows on." ie nas passed from us to another scene of action. He has passed from us to that " home " to which he looked so fondly. Whether speaking to his people in the State of Georgia, or addressing the representatives in this hall on the most delicate questions, or debating in the Senate Chamber of the United States, there never fell from his lipa any other words than words of wisdom and patriotism. His were : Not such words as flash From the fierce demagogue's unthinking rage To madden for a moment and expire-- 3Sfor such as the rapt orator imbues With warmth of facile sympathy, and molds To mirrors 1'adiant with fair images, To grace the noble fervor of an hour ; But words which bear the spirits of great deeds Winged for the future ; whicli the dying breath Of Freedom's martyr shapes as it exhales, And to the most enduring forms of earth Commits--to linger in the craggy shade Of the huge valley, 'neath the eagle's home, Or in the sea-cave -where the tempest sleeps. Till some heroic leader bid them wake To thrill the world with echoes. ^V~berever he spoke and whatever he said, all was for his country's good. He rose superior to all partisanship because he was a statesman, looking always to the best interests of his people. . . .' . It may be said of him, Mr. Speaker, as was said by the great Marshall of his friend Menafee, when he was describing him after death : "His escutcheon is broad, spotless, bright, and beautiful as Bayard's oriflamme adorned with the lilies of France." AIXDKESS OP MK. COX, OB1 NEW TOEK. JWr. Speaker : When a great French leader of opinion died the other day, it was queried whether French institutions would survive. " The republic ia Leon Gambetta," was the sententious, phrase. Wherever the signs of sor row were displayed over the death of the great Frenchman, from San Fran cisco to Syria, the powerful tribune of the people, the vehement orator, the energetic patriot was mourned as if France herself were lost. The very floral offerings were shaped into the tricolor of France. Not so in other lands. Disraeli dies, and though his party g-oes on, sadly lacking his genius, the English government in form and structure receives no detriment. I saw nobles of ancient lineage and peasants of the country he had so long repre sented, follow his remains to its sepulcher. All that was mortal of the dead Hebrew and brilliant minister received the last rites of the established church, but the English constitution and English society received no shock. So, too, in these cis-Atlantic republican commonwealths--statesmen and presidents come and go like rainbows, but the State survives. It is more permanent because of the monumental service of the departed statesman it has nourished. The eloquent Georgian and senator whom we honor to-day rounded jvn active life of rarest mold. No glamor of the soldier was his. He was the ttlS LIFE, SPIBEGIIJGS, AND WRITINGS. l6d peerless citizen who led men by voice and thought in perilous times, through troubles and tyrannies, with a foresight and wisdom all too rare in this land of mercenary, grasping-, and unrelaxing1 excitement. He dies ; but his State and the nation grow better by the emphasis of his life and the virtue of its lessons. It was nay privilege to know Senator Hill, even before he became a mem ber here. It is because of a delightful, almost intimate friendship, that his friends have assigned to me a part in these sad obsequies. The dates and events, the links connecting such details, which make the chain of his personal history, and serve to illustrate the individual feeling" and life, the character of the man--these, others have touched with mag netic, loving hand. This chain was fashioned, as all character is, by surrounding circumstances. Those who knew him in his early days love to trace the main elements of his character to his parentage. His father was of slender education, but of robust virtue. He was remarkable for his invincible will and force. His mother was of an earnest, gentle nature, full of reflective and religious quali ties. These made up .the rudiments of that character which enabled him to overcome obstacles by endurance and palliate them by persuasion. The sturdy oak was garlanded with tenderest flowers. Like a Grecian or Doric fane, to which the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] likened it, his character combined beauty with strength. The old farm-house and the red hills where he passed the scenes of his boyhood modified these inborn elements of his nature, and gave fresh vigor to his healthful life and added grace to his gentleness. In his college experience the development and discipline of his mind was prodigious. His shyness and awkwardness, born of the country, soon gave way before his energy and ambition. Krom the rustic boy, in bis longjeans coat and scant trousers, he at once became a thoughtful student. His habit of abstraction began thus early. Whether in the Demosthenian Society, or as its anniversariaii orator, or delivering the valedictory of his class, he impressed those who listened with his uncqualed power of debate and the rare felicity of his eloquence. One index of the gentle side of his character may be noted. His theme at the junior commencement was the " Life, Love, and Madness of Torquato Tasso," into which he threw all his mother's poetic sensibility with his scholarly warmth. Soon the scholar ripened into the advocate. Here was his field. He had a legal mind. He drove the logic of the law bravely through every obstacle of fancy and fact. His fluency of speech and fertility of expedient, together with his power of application and study, gave him a forensic power which Lord Coke said a good lawyer should have for the "occasion sudden "; a power which partial friends have compared with that of Erskine. As a lawyer few men, even in our largest cities, have had such success. Although diverted again and again from his jealous mistress, the law, to canvass for Congress, legislature, elector, and governor, he was still em ployed in all the leading cases of the State. It is estimated--if such estimates may be quoted here and now--that he had made a million dollars, as fees, by the time he was fifty. He was as lavish in the expenditure and as improvident in the investment of his earnings, as he was indefatigable with head and voice in their accumulation. There is another phase of his life which gave its impress to the scholar, the citizen, the orator, the advocate, the statesman, and the man. It is the 170 SENATOR, 3. If. HILL, Of1 GEORGIA. sectional or Southern aspect of liis life. Without this place, he would not have made the mark which he so indelibly did upon his State. He had no act of the demagogue, no party tactics at command, no storied lore racv of the soil such as made the "Georgia Scenes" so whimsical and humorous, and little or no conversational loquacity ; but he had the reserve which carries the battle, and thus armed ho was dauntless. Yet there seems to be an unevenness and inconsistency in his career and character. This unevenness may have been the result of the vicissitudes of the eventful times when the best of men were distracted as to duty. In consistency ? Gladstone, the young Tory, becomes the venerable .Liberal, and Palmerston laughed at the vanity of consistency. Call it what you "will, State pvidc or local affection, and say it is irrecon cilable with a larger love of country, yet is it not the same patriotic impulse which made Tell love the mountains of Switzerland, and Webster the rockbound shores of N~ew England ? Besides, is it necessary to reconcile the love one bears the mother with that one bears the wife ? When one is true to his bridal troth, is he less true to the mother who bore him ? It was this State pride which led the youth to prefer his own State university at Athens for his education rather than follow the advice of his teacher, who was a graduate of Yale. It was the same sentiment which colored his after life and gave glow and glory to his oratory. Even while protesting against secession ordinances on the hustings arid in convention he followed with no laggard step his State into revolt against the Federal domination. When the question came home to him whether he would have the unity of bis Georgian people or the unity of all the States, he chose, and honestly chose, the unity of his home. Herein lies that seeming unevenness and inconsistency which some have observed in his character. I shall rather call it the tough fiber of his native robust being, its nature gnarled by so'rl and tempest, but none the less beautiful because it had the hard intertwisted knot of local devotion. True, he contended for " the Union, the Constitution, and the enforce ment of the laws." lie left his lawyer's desk and sought legislative honors, to champion constitutional Federal unity. It "was because he thought the mother was the loving friend of his bride. The first test of the young statesman, thirty years ago, was in the con test for the compromise of 1850. He desired to signalize the end of slavery agitation, which he foresaw would end in civil war and Southern disaster. Hence his entrance upon political life in 1851 as a Union man. Throughout his subsequent life, up to the signing of the secession ordi nance, he was, in its best sense, an ardent Federalist, lie was of such moderate views and so opposed, to the ultvaists of his State that he traversed Georgia, proclaiming fealty to the Union. He sounded the tocsin of revolt against the leaders of revolution. Never was a crisis met so courageously. At a time when Yancey's sentences thrilled the South, and when even Howell Cobb was the coadjutor of Senator Iverson, the silver voice of Ben jamin H. Hill, joining that of Alexander H. Stevens, was a trumpet, not of sedition, but of loyalty to the Union. In his speeches, full of the fervor of that wild day, and in a minority, he was to Southern Unionism what Gambetta was to distracted France. Both were too late to save, but both lived to rebuild and restore. It is not for me to inquire why the late senator gave his voice only for secession and not his arm. It was not from, lack of courage, physical, BIS LIFW> SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. lYl mental, or moral ; but he was doubtless continually shadowed by his own prophecy. " Take care," lie said, " that in endeavoring- to carry slavery where nature's laws prohibit its entrance you do not lose the right to hold slaves at all I '* The senator had no love for the secrecies and ritual of Know-nothingism, and when that semi-religious and anti-American crusade was preached it was condemned by him. Kut from his conservative habitude he defended the Fi llm ore administration, and in 1860 be became a Bell and Everett Union elector. Georgia rang from side to side with bis elegant and urgent phillipics against radicalism, North and South, and his fervent patriotism for the Union of our fathers. It is impossible to analyze a life so full of incident or a mind so well dis ciplined, and an oratory so alert and brilliant, without drawing upon the language of high encomium. All the virtues and genius as well as faults of the man and senator center around the love he bore to his own State of Georgia. He was a native of Georgia, and had he lived till now would have been three-score years of age. He was born at the center of that " old red belt which encircles the State from Savannah to the Chattahoochee." To bor row the language of a friend in the days of my first service here, Judge James Jackson : Georgia, geologically and picturesquely, under and above the genial soil, has natural advantages and beauties, which along with her liberal insti tutions early attracted such, adventurous minds as the Hebrew Mendez, the English soldier Oglcthorpe, and the Methodist "Wesley. Even the mounds are yet pointed out, in the county where our senator was born, into which I)e Soto delved for gold. Her mountains dip and curl in crested grandeur toward the west, while her savannas add their greenery and wealth to her shores. General James Oglethorpe, who, as Burke said, had called a province into existence and lived to see it an independent State, was the epitome of Georgia history. Oglethorpe's life was so full of achievement and variety that it is a i-omance. Pope eulogized, Dr. Johnson admired, and Thompson celebrated him. He was not only ready to defend his honor in the duel, but was the prisoner's friend and the founder of an "empire State." Sir Robert Montgomery called the new colony which the gallant general founded " tbe most delightful country of the universe." Even the poet of the Seasons, Thompson, in his " liberty," sang of the swarming colonists who sought the "gay colony of Georgia." He eulogized it as the calm re treat of undeserved distress, the better home of those whom bigots chased from foreign lands. It was not built on rapine, servitude, and woe. The very history and literature of England thus imbound with this colony is almost unknown to the North. Other States, it seems, attracted more literary attention. It was this Georgia, the asylum, and hope of man, and founded in honor, religion, and bravery, that our senator loved. Even John Wesley's mother, 172 SENATOR B. H. TIltL, Of hen the high church Methodist asked her whether ho should proceed to eorgia, said : " Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice if they were all so em plloyed." The very religion of Georgia had in it a courage which does not belong to our time, when the voyage across the Atlantic is robbed of most of its terror. In the center and heart of this historic State, and in a county which bears the name of the bravest soldier that cvev bore a banner to victory, -- Jasper, -- and with the heroic and religious associations of its founders, youngHill was born. At an early age he followed his family and its fortunes to the Alabama border, near the Chattahoochee River. The town of La Grange, to which they removed, is the county seat of Troup, Jt was then, and is yet, noted for its love of education and its school facilities. There are many associations in this county, and even connected with its very name, which might well attune a young mind to thoughts of ambition in the forum of law and politics. Giants were, arrayed in Georgia in those days, and their efforts, especially about 1833, when force bills and nullification were rife, gave impassioned tone as well as high temper to political discussion, Doubtless, the mind of young Hill took its hue from these surroundings ; but in a State, the very name of whose counties betokens a lofty division of sentiment---where "Washington, Jackson, Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison speak of the Federal Constitution, and Henry, Randolph, Troup, and Crawford speak of State sovereignty and local liberty ; but where, above all, the names of JPulaski, De Kalb, Morgan, and Carroll shine like primal virtues, all starry with our Revolutionary radiance, it could not be otherwise than that men of earnest thought should perceive a divided duty, and that great controversial acumen and power should enter the arena and inspire conten tious oratory. Doubtless, Senator Hill was greatly influenced in his pursuits and char acteristics by such rare men and events as Georgia has produced. These names may not be as familiar to Northern ears now as in the days of Jack son and Oalhoun, but they are still potential to start a spirit in Georgia, "where State pride has lost but little of its prestige by the result of the civil "war. Read the roster of Georgia's fovum--the brilliant lights of her bench, bar, literature, and Senate : Beall, Crawford, Bcrrien, Mclntosh, Clayton, Colqnitt, Cobb, Tripp, Dawson, Forsythe, Xmmpkin, Lainar, Jackson, Shorter, Reid, Warner, Johnson, Wilde, and Baldwin, -- not to speak of men who yet survive, like her present wonderful chief magistrate, -- and his contrast in stature and mato in intellect, Robert Toombs. A State like this, so grand in its beginning and so splendid in its hun dred and fifty years of prosperous history, must be proud of its heroes, whether fit For arms and warlike nmenance, Or else for wise and civil governance, To learu the interdcal of princes strange ; To mark the intent of councils, and the change Of States. Her annals are shining with the names of De Soto, Raleigh, and Oglethorpe ; and the names of their successors, under conditions of later days, de tract nothing from the luster of their worth and renown. To emulate the fame of Hortensius, king of the forum, Cicero never ceased bis efforts till he ascended the throne of oratory. So in this unrivaled galaxy of gifted Georgians. Emulation made ambition, reach high. From. HIS LIP'E, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS, 173 sire to son the names of eminent Georgians appear again and again, show ing the elevating incentives which enlivened and exalted this imperial State of the South. The gold in her hills, the silver on the cotton-pod, the sun with its balm, the rivers which flow from, her mountains, the opulence of her soil, are not more Georgian and imperial than the high standard of those who gave Georgia to the world as a colony, preserved her independence of England, brought her through fire into the federation of States, and after the vicissitudes of a great civil trial rescued her first, among the recusant States, from, the chaos of war. The senator we meet to honor was no exception to the emulation and exaltation of his surroundings. His natural ardors and ambitions thus re ceived their stimulus and -food. But the massive mind which made the great advocate, and the moral heroism which made the defender of individual ;uid civil liberties--these are of no soil ; they belong to no time. They illustrate the age of Aristides and given a glory to the fame of Rienzi. They made Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry possible, not as provincial men, but as enlarged and loving patriots. He who would, best portray the salient features of Benjamin Harvey Hill must remember that his devotion to Georgia was but the stepping-stone to a broader and loftier devotion to that Union which he loved to serve iti our councils here. The people of New York City have not yet forgotten the ring-ing pe riods of Senator Hill, in one of her halls, as he discoursed of the Magna Cliarta and other precious monuments of popular liberty. To his impas sioned utterance, his fine frame and musical voice gave a charm, beyond the reach of art. His State love was, sir, after all, the golden key which unlocked the secrets of his grand elocution and opened the casket wherein were the jew els of his splendid imagery. When the war had ended, and his State was in the grasp of unprinci pled adventurers and under the heel of an unbridled satrapy, and in the chaos wrought by the war, he gave to the reconstruction acts his defiance, and hurled his anathemas against its spoilers. In 1868 he went among his people with the stride of a demi-god. He fired their hearts, and, though surrounded by bayonets and threatened by bastiles, he uttered such sarcasm, scorn, and dauntless defiance that the sa traps, who outraged every canon of law and impulse of liberty, shrank from their hateful work in the very midst of a conquered people. Since the war ended we know something of his Federal service and career. The gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Kassoii} has truly given us some rare sentences of fidelity to the Union. One sentence he did not quote, which I well remember ; "This is our father's house. "We have returned to it--to stay ! " In hope and despair ; in and out of his party ; in his place of business ; in the forum of his love, the bar, and outside upon the platform, the same heroic altitude he illustrated to the end gave him. power to com bat the enemies of loeal and constitutional liberty. N"o weakness called on him for championship that he did not respond. His State was lifted up out of the reconstruction mire into the life and vigor of a new birth under the impulses of his eloquence. He gave her. beauty for ashes. Under his magic wand a new Atlantis--such as Bacon loved to picture--arose above the tide of desolation ; and a new Atlanta, with its goblin of steam and its ener gies, was recreated under the ribs of death. Matchless in his winged words, 174 SENATOR B. IT. HILL, OF GEORGIA. and fearless in his consummate bravery, lie stopped at no post of trust until he became the foremost Georgian at this Federal center ; and in the flower of his genius he laid down his eventful life with a Christian resignation and devotion only next to that of the martyred Polycarp. I doubt, Mr. Speaker, if ever man suffered in the flesh as this man. It would not be fitting hero to describe the details of that mortal malady and those surgical agonies that racked him so long and so terribly. He per ished day by day., hopelessly perishing with a pain which only his Christian fortitude relieved. Out of his torture at length came deliverance ; and in the middle of August last his courage yielded, but yielded only to death. When the great Frenchman Gambetta was agonized by his disease he cried out, "It is useless to dissemble. I welcome death as a relief." This was the end of one of Plutarchian mold ; but it was not the end of our beloved American statesman. Amid the tender farewells of his wife and family, with a patience sanctified on high and a faith which "endured as seeing Him who is invisible," this more than classic hero, this gentle follower of tlie meek and lowly One, sought consolation, courage, and hope in his faith. His last words, as given to his pastor, and repeated by my friends from Vir ginia [Mr. Tucker] and from Texas [Mr. Wellborn], were, "Almost home." It is an illustration of the sympathy and loving kindness which make the comforts of home so tender and eloquent that two gentlemen have most touchingly referred to these last words. But to rne they have a double, al most personal, meaning. I remember after the war, with a tenderness all too gentle for -words, the first greetings I received from this senator. He was pleased that I had aided to defeat, by a speech based on the constitutional clause as to attainder of treason, the attempt to take more than the life estate, i.e., the fee-simple, which belonged to the innocent children of the South. I had, he said, thought of the future homes of the South. That was our first bond of friendship. Home ! best of all solaces, without whose social benignities and affec tionate sweetness all the learning, eloquence, wit, lore, and renown of men fade away. His own sweet home ! In the midst of his own beloved circle, the immortal spirit looked to that home beyond in the mansion not made with hands. Yes ! oh, yes ! he was almost there--his heavenly home--where pain no longer tortures, where the world has no temptation and the grave no terror; where, with the loved ones gone before and the loved ones to fol low, he would join in the song of the Larnb forever ! In conclusion : It remains for us that we should so live that we be neither surprised, nor leave our duties imperfect, nor our sins uncanceled, nor our persons unreconciled, nor God unappeased ; but that when we descend to our graves we may rest in the bosom of the Ijord till the mansions be pre pared, where we will sing and feast eternally. Amen ! Te J}eum lartdamt/s. This would be the language of our departed friend from his borne above, as it is the admonition of sweet .Teremy Taylor in his " Holy Living and Dy ing." It comes from beyond the tomb. To the dead he sayeth, Arise ! To the living, Follow Me ! And that voice still soundeth on From the centuries that arc gone, To the centuries that shall be. TRIBUTES FROM THE PRESS. EXTRACTS FROM THE PRESS OF GEORGIA. ATLANTA CONSTITUTION. F OR weeks and months tbe public mind has l>een preparing itself for the announcement of Mr. Hill's death, and yet all the preparation has been of no avail. The shock is almost as great as if the whole State had been taken by surprise, for, as Mr. Grady has suggested in his sketch of the dead senator, behind all the apprehension aroused by the various statements in regard to Mr. Hill's condition, there has always existed a lively hope that the medical exports might here be brought face to face with another of the reconcile these two iacts in connection \vitli a man whose personality was powerful enough to arouse the interest of the public and gain the confidence arid affection of the people. We can add nothing to the elaborate sketch of tlie dead Georgian to be found elsewhere in to-day's Constitution^ but his character and his career may be studied from various points of view. Mr. Hill was about as near to the standard of statesmanship established by \Vebster, Clay, and Calhoun as our modern conditions \vill allow. He "was a groat constitutional lawyer. hnue was prioifoouuiniud, earnest, anda fuluueunut. H_o.ee was aait-tLaacchneedu tGoO reppuuubiliiccaa.inl instiitutions and was thoroughly impressed with their efficacy. There was no room in Ms mind for sectionalism ; he was an American. He was sensitively opposed to those political methods that look to sectionalism for their inspira tion, and he dreaded the success of such methods. Some public men seem to lead the people by divining their wishes and 175 176 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. carrying them. out. Mr. Hill was really a leader. He was sure to carry the people with him in the end, but he sometimes progressed more rapidly than some of the more timid thought necessary. Thus, until toward the closing years of his life, he always found himself obliged to fight a strong faction. Some of these fights were very bitter, but in all essential particulars Mr. Hill was sure of a vindication. It has been said that he lacked judgment, and the idea involved in this suggestion tickled those who found it impossible to relish the complacency with which he upheld his own opinions. W^iat Mr." Hill really lacked was policy. He was no politician ; perhaps he was not even discreet, so far as his own interests were concerned. He never paused, for instance, to consider whether this or that opinion would be popular. The world was welcome to whatever opinion he entertained ; welcome to com bat it if it chose to take the risks of controversy. This confidence in his own opinions was mistaken by his opponents for egotism. If his opponents were right, it was a very high order of egotism, It was the result of the most profound investigation and meditation, and it was not the least attractive quality of a grand intellectual equipment. What Mr. Hill lacked was not judgment, but policy. He was by no means infal lible, but he generally vindicated his judgment by waiting until the public was ready to take charge of his opinions and follow where be had led. Mr. Hill also lacked that humor which, is the shield and protection of genius. Perhaps humor is too broad a term here. He lacked that qualification or modification of earnestness which relieves and sweetens its aggressiveness, and which quickens and convenes the popular appreciation. At the last, no Georgian ever possessed the love and confidence of his people to a greater degree than Mr. Hill, and it may be that the manifestations of these were all the more sincere because of the severity with which he dealt with those who opposed his convictions. Mr. Hill's greatest effort in behalf of the people of Georgia was riot in the Senate nor in the House. It -was his remarkable campaign in 1868 against the reconstruction measures. Perhaps we ought to call it a crusade instead of a campaign. The man and the opportunity met, and no other Georgian ever had the advantage of such an opportunity. First came the well-re membered " Notes on the Situation." It was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Never before did political essays attract such instant attention. " Out of the depths of desolation a trumpet was blown." It is only by an effort that one can remember the awful despair of that period. The people were supine ; utter apathy had taken possession of all their faculties and activi ties ; they were disfranchised ; their slaves had been placed over them ; aliens were rioting in high places ; the social organization was in danger ; bayonets gleamed everywhere. At this moment Mr. Hill pressed his way to the front and made his voice heard in hig " Notes on the Situation." He stirred the hearts of the people and aroused them to a sense of their duty. And then he "went upon the hustings and made a campaign through, the State. It is a campaign which must remain without a parallel in the history of the State- The circum stances under which it was made can never be repeated, and if they could there is no longer a Ken Hill to take advantage of them. His soul and his intellect were both aflame. He went through the State with the ardor of a prophet. He met the people face to face and lifted them upon their feet. He could not go into every hamlet, but his influence went. He was the Greatheart to whom the new Pilgrim turned. What fire, what fluency, HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WHITINGS. 177 what tenderness was his ! How terse, how simple his language ; how glow ing his periods ; liow terrible his denunciation. TT n n ~' ' " " 1J1 " -1 task of revolutionizing a revolution, and he w ,he peeoopple, an ae em er ps rom e us. ew o s speeces i.during that campaign have been, preserved, but it is impossible to remember them without a thrill. The remedies he proposed -were the remedies of elous eloquence he denounced the oppressors ! , present political prosperity in Georgia. It all seems like a dream ; a dream of life -- an awakening to the reality of death. Happy are they who die young-, but happier they who die mourned by old and young. "Worn with sickness and disease, the great Georian has found eace and rest. . o, we r o ., ull maturity of perfect manhood, the dread shadow placed itself at his side. It brought no terrors then, and at the last it was a welcome guest. It took the senator from the tumult of politics, where the eloquent tongue, the grand in ore e e ta e a not ve n van. e ee, n some meas ure, the fruition of his life's purpose. He saw Georgia prosperous, contented, and free, and he was satisfied ; nay, move, he was happy. He was hopeful, not for himself, but for the people. He had no troubles of his own. The complacency of profound rest fell upon him and -wrapped him round about ; so that his sufferings seemed to come to him as angels and ministers of peace. And yet, in the midst of the serenity that surrounded him, there was one trouble that obtruded itself. He had a message to deliver to the people that could not be delivered. Communicating- with a friend, he wrote out his desire. If he could only gather the strength that remained he would write out his reflections, which he was confident would be of greater service to the people than all the acts of his life. TliJN desire was the burden of his thoughts. His own personality, his own suffering, he had placed aside ; 178 SENATOR B. H. HTLL, Of GEORGIA. waking or dreaming, his thoughts were of his country, his State. Ho had measured the spirit of sectionalism, and ho feared it ; he appreciated the social and political problems which the South inherited from the chaos of war. He desired, as a last effort, to give the people the benefit of his maturost thoughts. But it was not to bo. His strength ebbed away and his last thoughts remained unwritten. Nevertheless, his best thoughts and his high purposes live in the hearts of the people. Though lie is dead, yet the day has never been when he was a more potent influence in G-eovgia. Happy are they who die young, Tout happier they who die mourned by old and young. ATLANTA POST APPEAL. To-day the eloquent lips of the South's greatest orator are cold in death. The sad intelligence has been so long expected and dreaded by a sorrowing people, that there will be no shock of surprise when it is announced that Beniamin Harvev Hill is no more. with more signal brilliancy and success. With the leading incidents in the career of Senator Hill the country is familiar. His triumphs at the bar, on the hustings, and in the Senate are matters of current history. His talents were so conspicuous, his character so colossal, and his devotion to his people so steadfastly loyal that they re- people speak louder than any studied panegyric. ATLANTA HERALD. The hand of disease was never laid upon a son of Georgia more truly and universally beloved ; the shaft of death never struck down a leader to whom, his people were more implicitly devoted and for whom their eyes could yield more copiously the tearful tributes of affection. It "will be many long yeai's before that poignant sorrow is assuaged, and two generations must pass over to the "other side " before Georgia can forget the influence of his gi'eat example or feel unmoved hy recollections of his "words and deeds. No man could leave to his people a brighter, purer, grander legacy of ex alted ambition and unselfish public service than Benjamin Harvey Hill has bequeathed to Georgia. In the very early stages of his useful life, his character took form and crystallized around those principals of honor, integ rity, courage, independence, purity of person, and cleanliness of methods that are the aids and inseparable elements to all high, and noble careers. Ho\y HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS, 179 well he adhered to and exemplified those grand attributes is judged in the profound respect of the nation and the unalterable affection of his immediate people. CHRONICLE AND SENTIKEL. Before the day of steam or telegraph, a message was mvsteriously left at the house of Lady Holland, in London, simply containing these words : "The great man is dead." She knew immediately that this was a voice from St. Helena proclaiming that the discrowned and exiled Napoleon was no more. Of all English persons she had been his most constant friend, and, though her country's most redoubted foeman, she had a soul to appreciate his wonderful gifts and to bewail his melancholy end " on that lone, barren isle of the ocean." Yesterday the swift lightning sent all over the earth the sad tidings that "The great man is dead " -- that Benjamin H. Hill, the pride of Georgia, the most eloquent of the children of men, the profound lawyer, the brilliant statesman, the suffei'ing- Christian gentleman had passed the gates of pain and entered the kingdom where the weary rest from their labors. His death has left a gap in the State that cannot soon be filled, but who that saw his changed physical condition can grieve that the martyr has laid down the cross and received the crown in higher \vorlds than this? He did not expire, like that other marvelous man already alluded to, far from country, home, and friends, baffled, disappointed, and Prometheanlike. His latter days "were the most victorious, most splendid, most dazzling, most worthy. He had love by his bedside to the last, and even ancient hate had grown to be an affection when his doom was sealed. If he had sinned, as all men do, his repentance was vaster than the imperfection. If he had gone astray for a season from the All-Father, he came back with a child-like faith and surrendered himself to cruel wounds and unspeakable torments without a murmur, for the sake of him who died on Calvary. ^Nothing- in life became him so well as the act of leaving it. Future ages may forget the advocate and the senator and the wizard of the hustings, but never shall the story of his pathetic descent into the Valley of the Shadow, and glori ous emergence into the Mountain Land of Mystery, cease to bo a record of undying- fame. Less than a week ago the writer of these poor words, who feels that language fails him at the supreme moment, received from the hands of the dying Hill lines that must have been among the last ever traced by his fingers. The agony of that moment left an impression that then found vent in words appropriate to the occasion ; but now that the mighty spirit is emancipated and the breath is gone and the husk of human ity alone remains, words fail, and language itself becomes bankrupt to utter what he would like to say. Just as our friend could only, in a dumb eloquence, convey his welcome, so, in some such way, the pen is paralyzed that would so gladly speak of him as it never "was at a loss to do in the days that are gone. The painter who veiled the face of Agamemnon because he could not adequately express on canvas the grief of the father at the sacri fice of his daughter, appealed most irresistibly to the sympathies of all the world that gazed upon the picture. Let the powerlessness of our pen betoken the grief that cannot grow vocal. In the struggle to give utter ance to the thought that is in us we feel that if Prospero's wand were ours it would be broken and cast into the grave where the most cele brated Georgian of the century is so soon to be laid down to pleasant dreams, 180 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA, TELEGRAPH: AND MBSSENGEE. A telegram from Atlanta gives the mournful message, Benjamin II. Hill is dead. The sad intelligence was not unexpected. For weeks the people of Georgia have been conscious of the fact that their great senator had re ceived his summons, and that he was hastening out in obedience to it. At first they clung to the hope that the magnificent physique of the great Georgian would enable him to rally, and put the destroyer, at least tempo rarily, under his feet. But it was one of those soft illusions of hope that leave one only the more desolate for having entertained them. The destroyer had come to stay, and there was no relenting from his purpose to strike at the great man, and lay him low. Death has never found a more " shining mark," nor struck a more fateful blow. The death of Mr. Hill, while yet in the vigor of manhood and scarcely at the prime of his mental powers, is an irreparable loss. Georgia could ill have affoi'ded to give him up, had he been an old man, tottering on his staff and trembling on the boundary of the borderland; for none like him has gone forth from her midst into the shadowland. And there is no present promise that his mantle shall be worthily worn by any one who will come after him. It would be something worse than useless to murmur at this sad dispensa tion. There is nothing of future gain or of present contentment in a spirit that does not bend under the blow of bereavement dispensed by the All-Wise One. The shadow of this loss may in some unseen way embody the promise of some future life of sunshine, like that of the sleeping patriot. There are lessons in the life of Mr. Hill, and there is a lesson in his death which- should not be lost on the people of this State. He was an orator, a statesman, a patriot, a Christian. He illustrated in his remarkable career the great truth that courage--true courage--constitutes the foundation of every virtue. The courage of conviction marked all that he said and did. A life less earnest than his could not have won such triumphs as make up his record. As an orator he was without a peer. The eloquence that fell from his lips was of the purest, sweetest character. In some of his grandest flights, it would have been easy to imagine the -words in which he clothed his thoughts to be little less than inspired. Mr. Hill's statesmanship has been often decried by his political antago nists ; but it will stand a test of comparison with that of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster ; his equals, perhaps, but not his superiors. In purity of purpose, and clearness of insight, and bi-eadth of view, he has never had a superior among all the public men who have, at any time, adorned the civic records of the country. As a jurist he had no superior, perhaps no equal, in the United States. His legal arguments, at various times in the Senate, wore worthy of the greatest men of the Republic, in the day when there were giants in the land. Georgia will be better able now to appreciate his matchless gifts in this de partment of usefulness. Joys brighten as thev take their flight. No man ever loved Georgia with truer, moi'c constant, more unquestion ing devotion than Ben. Hill. He was always ready to fight her battles, and to spend and be spent in her cause. His record, from boyhood down to 1861, was one unmarred by the shadow even of selfish disregard of the high duties of citizenship. From 1861 to the day of his death, there was not a SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 181 moment in which he claimed for self what he denied to duty. His war record will be the pride of his children's children, and every true Georgian will count them blessed in such an inheritance. In the fearful days that followed the close of our heroic though unavailing struggle, he towered above the mean herd that trembled and cowered and skulked--a king among men, and a very eagle amid the inaccessible crags. Ben Hill was a hero then; a hero for the sake of Georgia, not for fame. Personal ease, personal secur ity, personal popularity were to him but meaningless considerations in com parison with the claims that Georgia had upon him for the labor of his hand and mind, and the devotion of his heart. There is still another phase in the character of this wonderful man which is worthy of mention in this brief outline. So far as concerns the fame and honors of this world, no one will deny that the life of Mr. Hill was one of more than ordinary success. The highest offices in the gift of Georgia were his for the asking ; and he discharged every duty growing out of his official relations to the people with unsurpassed skill, wisdom, and fidelity. But there is another life beyond the hopes, fears, ambitions, and strife of the present--a life often lost to trie view of the great of earth. Mr. Hill began public life as an humble follower of the lowly Nazarene. How far the wan derings of a long and eventful life may have carried him to the right or to the left of "the straight and narrow path" of Christian duty, we do not know. Sure it is the wandering great man returned again in the deep ening shadows of life's twilight ; and ended a glorious career, as he had begun it, leaning upon the arm of Omnipotence. Thus sustained, he bore the frightful sufferings that fell to his lot without a murmur ; and went out into the sunshine of the great Beyond, as an infant sinks to slumber in its mother's arms. Benjamin II. Hill's last victory was his greatest victory. Let the young men of the State remember this when, in laying their plans for a life of pub lic endeavor, they seek a model in the glorious man, now silent in death in Georgia's capital. The great as well as the lowly have need of rest when the struggle of life is ended. COLUMBUS ENQTJIEEE. Senator Benjamin II. Hill is dead. The long suspense is over and the South mourns. All the States of the Union, responding to that touch of sympathy which makes the whole world akin, stand uncovered in the pres ence of calamity. In every home in the South sits his personal mourner. Their grief and affection, poured out without stint, could not save him, but it must have been comforting to him, beyond expression, to know how pre cious was his life in the sight of the people. The suspense of the early days, when it was seen that the cancer was eating his life away, succeeded by con fidence and a happy hope, has made the blow still harder, it seems, to bear. For by these days, that now seem so long ago; by this watching and painful anxiety from hour to hour, the country grew to love Senator Hill more and more. It seems that death was kept waiting until the full measure of his noble life was meted out, giving all a chance to know him closer and better. As we scan and learn by heart every feature of the dying face of our loved ones, so these days gave the world an insight to Senator Hill's character. isTot forgetful of his human weakness, men began to see him in bis activity, as he stood before heads of party, a zealous leader, a generous foe. They pic tured him. on the floor of the House and in the Senate Chamber, his gauge 182 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Of GEORGIA. of statesmanship so broad, his judgment so direct, his argument so cour teous as to win regard even from his adversaries. Eminently a fair man in legislative controversies, while foremost in earnestness on the side he es poused, and full of zeal for his view of public affairs. No lukewarm advo cate was he ; his beliefs were the sober passion, and maturity of his life. SAVANNAH TIMES. the IialL or the senate ring with tus eloquent appeals in benali ot his beloved people. No more can Georgia look to his valued advice or claim his strong influence. He has left us to join a council above, where dissensions are unknown. DAWSOX JOURNAL. No man, since the days of Clay, "Webster, and<3alhoun, has illustrated the true statesman more nobly than, the Hon. Benjamin Hill, and in his death Georgia will sustain a loss that can never be repaired. COVINGTON (GA.) ENTERPRISE. Words cannot express the sorrow felt at the loss of such a statesman. His name and fame will live on and on forever. Our pen fails to convey the sentiments of a heart that deeply mourns for the deceased. May lie sleep sweetly in the silent city of the dead. WEST POINT (GA.) ENTERPRISE. His biography is as familiar as the alphabet to all Georgians, and it is needless to write it here. His was a life of unbroken brilliancy from the cradle to his death. Georgia can never fill his place. There was one Shake speare, one Cicero, one Napoleon, and there can be but one Ben Hill. But he is dead, and in common with a bereaved people we mingle our grief, our sympathy, and our sorrow. ALBANY (GA.) NEWS. Although the death of Senator Hill has been expected for several weeks past, the news which came by telegraph from Atlanta that he had breathed his last was a great shock to our community and a sorrow that entered the hearts of our people like a sudden shaft from a cruel hand. His death is to the people of the South what Stonewall Jackson's was to the South&m Confederacy--an irreparable loss, and there is no man in HIS LIFE. SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 183 Georgia who can be to us what lie was up to the time the fatal hand of affliction was laid so heavily upon him, and he was compelled to quit his post of duty at Washington, a few months ago. He was the peer of any man in the American Congress, and had the courage to defend his people aud the South whenever and by whomsoever assailed. MARIETTA JOURNAL. Thus Georgia loses one of the greatest men that ever was born within her limits. Our people will mourn his death with sincere sorrow, for we shall never see his like agjain. Georgia has lost a noble son, democracy a true friend, and constitutional government a staunch defender. May his soul rest in peace. AUGUSTA NEWS. Benjamin H. Hill is at rest. As goes down the stately ship in a quiet sea, after the storm is over, but scarred on the surface am! broken by the fury of the flood, wrecked in mid ocean and waiting to be engulfed, he sinks beneath the waves ; and the great ocean of humanity is troubled and distressed. But although his wonderful frame has gone down, his strong and faithful heart outlasted the tempest, and he carried into eternity the well-preserved freight of love and happiness and the flying white sail of a great name and a proud record. SAVANNAH (GA.) EECOKDEK. He was known throughout this broad land as a man of towering intel lect, of undoubted genius ; a ready debater and brilliant writer ; a fluent speaker, and an orator who could enter the forum and entrance the listening thousands. The South possessed no more stalwart defender and her enemies always found in him a foeman worthy of their steel. His lofty strains of eloquence, however, are now bushed forever, and the music of his voice will no more be heard. He has gone the way of all earth, and Georgia to-day mourns the loss of a faithful son and a truly great man, and one whose place can scarcely be filled. HOME (GA.) BULLETIN. From the day that it was ascertained that his disease would terminate fatally, a gloom has rested over the State that gave him birth, and that has ever been proud to do him homage. To-day, although the blow was ex pected, Georgia mourns for her favorite, gifted son, as a mother mourns for her best loved child, who is rudely and suddenlj'" stricken down by the fell destroyer. In his death a bright light has been extinguished, and the void created by his removal from our midst may never be filled by another. His loss is not his family's nor the State's, but the loss is a national one, and will be so regarded throughout the United States of America, SUNNY SOUTH, ATLANTA. The great suffering spirit has had * Another morn than ours, passing away resignedly, surrounded by his devoted family; thus closing at once a splendid career and an ordeal ot: pain such as has seldom fallen to the 184 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. lot of mortal to bear. With burning1 ulcers eating up his throat and tongue, unable to enjoy food or drink, to converse with friends, or even to breathe freely, bis life bad long been a burden, and when to this is added the con sciousness (so bitter to an active, ambitious spirit) that he was dying while in his prime, with genius and energy still strong within him, and much good work to be accomplished, we can partly realize the sadness of this affliction. ROME (GA.) COURIER. President Davis pronounced him a powerful pillar of his administration, and relied upon his great talents and his eloquent tongue for his defense in the Confederate Congress. When that ill-fated cause went down in defeat and disaster, Mr. Hill was the first politician of distinction to arouse the people from their state of despondency and demoralization, to a heroic rally for the preservation of their remaining1 constitutional rights against the encroachments and the usurpations of the party in power. Jf his life afforded no other proof of his innate greatness and heroism, his resolute stand on that momentous occasion would have endeared his memory to a people capable of appreciating patriotic courage and unflinching devotion to a conquered section and its rights. In this, as in every other political emergency, he was found "great on great occasions." His record in the Senate is one of which Ins State may well be proud, for he was the admitted peer of any senator North or South, and by many regai'ded as the most eloquent man who had held a seat in that body since the days of Henry Clay. Representing a State still laboring.jinder political disadvantages, he was a foeinan whom every senator, hostile to her interests or rights, dreaded to meet in debate, and a champion upon whom the people of Georgia could always rely for the vindication of their honor or the main tenance of their rights. Such was the man whom we mourn to-day--the statesman, the orator and patriot, whose life was devoted to one long struggle for principle and right against whatever odds or reverses. He, more truly than any other man of late years, fulfilled Pollok's description of the faithful legislator.. The man who in. the Senate house, "Watchful, unliired, unbribed, and unseduced, In virtue's awful rage battled for right. In the relations of private life, as a citizen, a friend, or the head of a de voted family, he was equally reliable, sincere, and pure. IJiving in an era of public corruption and individual gi'eed, the breath of suspicion was never raised against his private honesty or public integrity. He was the soul of honor, love, and fidelity in all his relations to his country and to his fellowmen. The void caused by his death in the large circle of his relations and friends can never be adequately filled, and Georgia can hardly replace in the Senate a statesman and orator of whom she can be so justly proud ; for, as Lady Percy said of her slain lord, it may be said of Benjamin H. Hill, intel lectually : The earth that bears him dead bears none alive so stout. BANXEK WATCHMAN, There is sorrow in the land. As the news was flashed over the wires announcing that Senator Benjamin H. Hill, one of nature's noblemen, one of HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 185 the country's greatest and grandest men, was no more, a whole nation was bowed in sorrow, while the silent tear, the voiceless anguish of aching hearts gave utterance to those emotions which lie forever beyond the domain of human language. To attempt the eulogy of one so well and widely known, one whose nature was so grand, whose statesmanship was so matchless, whose eloquence was so sublime, and "whose oratory was so peer less, would be as useless as we are incompetent to the task. Equipped for the duties of this life, with an intelligence as strong as it was ever active, with an eloquence as powerful as it was pleasing, to the full measure did he discharge those duties, making himself known and felt throughout the length and breadth of the land. \VelI and truly may it be said, that, as a patriot, as a statesman, and as an orator, one more highly honored and esteemed never lived, one more lamented never died ; that: A nobler and a grander man, Framed in the prodigality of nature, The spacious world could not again afford. How strange and how sad is that dispensation of Providence which has closed to this great and grand man a career so useful, so distinguished, and so brilliant, while yet in the full-orbed vigor and splendor of manhood's high meridian ? Although it is true that the distinguished deceased has been called hence, while yet in the full maturity of his powers, yet, the splendor of his intellect, the power of his eloquence, and the sublimity of his patriotism was given to the country and to his people during the most eventful and trying periods of their history. How the memory of this great man will ever be cherished by Southern people, when they recall with what undaunted, and with what reluctantly yielding patriotism he held on to their cause, for which he was ready and willing to sacrifice his all, and which was the cause of that people with whom he was reared and whom he so much loved. . Never will the Southern people cease to forget those dark days of reconstruction, when this departed states man, this lamented patriot and hero, with a magnetic presence, with a vigor of intellect, with a love of justice that knew no compromise, with an elo quence and an utterance as strong and as fearless as it was persuasive and convincing, and with a love of country which was the inspiration of his every effort,--his every ambition did "quicken into new life the dormant patriotism of others, thus dispelling the dark clouds which overshadowed an outraged and oppressed people, and causing the bright sun of peace and prosperity to again gladden our sunny South. Never will a nation cease to forget that fervid eloquence, that able and earnest advocacy of constitu tional law and government, with which Mr. Hill electrified the halls of Con gress, commanding for him the respect, the confidence, the consideration, and the esteem of both friend and foe, and which made him the peer of the grandest of all his predecessors. While these and all these grand, heroic, aud patriotic events in the life of Senator Hill go to make up the life of a great man, yet there was in the closing scenes of a life so full of history and so full of all that is great, that which ever induce the belief that a kind Providence, which had so endowed this noblest type of man, spared unto him that length of dav, that fullness of manhood, and that concentration of his powers, which made his last, his greatest, his grandest, his best days. Yes, that true love of Him. who doeth all things well; that Christian 186 SENATOR B. H, HILL, OF GEORGIA. patience, fortitude, and heroism ; that meek and humble submission to the Master's will, which, so beautified the last long-suffering- days of Senator Hill, will ever show forth the closing scenes in the life of this Christian hero, patriot, and statesman with a glory, a grandeur, and a resplendency that will far eclipse all that may be said or written of a life so renowned. Farewell to him, so great, so renowned, so beloved, and so lamented. LA GRANGE REFOKTER. The agony is over and Senator Hill is at rest. For two or three days be fore his death it had become evident to his physicians and family that his sufferings would not be protracted much longer. He had not only lost the power of utterance, but his hand was also powerless to indite his thoughts on paper. Almost to the last, he retained consciousness. His patient hero ism, his uncomplaining fortitude through his long and agonizing illness, were a wonder to all but those who realized that his strength to endure was derived from Omnipotence and was his through Christian faith and love. More lustrous than his oratory, more resplendent than his statesmanship, and more grand than his matchless fame, shone those Christian virtues which the night of his suffering brought out like stars in the firmauent. Truly, the night reveals beauties never dreamed of in the day. And now, how shall we describe our loss ? Georgia, speechless "with grief, stands by the bier of her mightiest child. Since the days of the glorious ** Harry of the West," no orator equaling Hill has appeared on this conti nent. The power of his eloquence was matched by the brilliancy of an intel lect that towered in majesty above all his contemporaries. On the hustings, in the forum, and in the halls of Congress, he was the peerless orator, the irresistible advocate, the powerful champion of whatever cause he espoused. His celebrated reply to Blaine, his arraignment of the Louisiana iniquity, and his denunciation of JVtahone, stand alone in the annals of Congress and have made him, a reputation that will live in the history of his country. But here in Georgia he will be missed most keenly. A Georgian of Georgians, he loved his State with all the ardor of his great nature. When others quailed in the presence of a military despotism, Ben Hill advanced fearlessly to the front and raised the cry whose reverberation awoke the en thusiasm that saved the State from negro-radical domination. *We owe him a debt of gratitude second only to that due the founder of our commonwealth, for he went into the " imminent deadly breach," and " plucked the flower safely from the nettle danger." Troup County mourns her illustrious son as no other part of the State can. Here he grew to greatness ; here arc the friends who watched most intensely the development of his genius, and whose suffrages first wreathed his daunt less brow with civic honors. Capturing the imagination of our youth by his political prowess, and stirring the blood of ago by his wonderful oratory, he was first borne in the halls of legislation on a tide of popular enthusiasm, which, mounting still higher, almost landed him, a few years later, into Con gress over the barrier of a tremendous opposition. Again Troup boomed him. for governor, and the contest which ensued, though ending in defeat of her youthful champion, revealed to the whole State his marvelous gifts and prepared the way for his subsequent promotion. The memory of Ben Hill will be handed down as a tradition from father to son by our citizens who knew him in his prime. SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 187 But he is gone. How hard to realize the fact. His long- identification with our politics will cause him to be missed as few public men of this gen eration have been. CARTERS VTLLE COtTRANT. Benjamin Harvey Hill is dead. A brilliant intellectual light has faded from this world, only to shine more transcendeiitly beyond the skies. A colossal mind has left its tenement of clay to find rest beyond "the beauti ful river." A grand soul has taken its flight to bask in the eternal realms of light and bliss.. ' The athletic form must slumber with the dust of his native State he loved so well. Grand old Georgia, the mother of so great and so good a man, in whose bosom he must be laid away to rest. No more shall we hear his clarion voice venting words of matchless eloquence, forming sentences that sprang1 from a genius of unparalleled brightness. The masterly mind will never again express its great wisdom to an admiring and loving people. Nor shall we again witness tlie coruscations of as bright a genius as the world ever produced. It is sad to think that Ben Hill is no more to be seen by the people of Georgia, who loved him so well and honored him so confidingly. The simple announcement of his demise will cast the shadow of a great sorrow, a poignant grief, over the hearts of all true Georgians. But he is gone. Virtually, the people of Georgia are *' clothed in sackcloth and ashes," for a prince of mighty mind, with a magnanimous heart, the Christian, the neigh bor, and the statesman is no more. For more than twenty-six years the writer of this feeble tribute to bis memory lias known personally and intimately the honored deceased. For many years we lived as his neighbor and friend in beautiful Ija Grange, where we know every heart to-day is bowed down in sorrow and grief; where he was beloved as no other man was ever loved by those people, who almost worshiped him, GAINESVILI.E EAGLE. At his home in Atlanta, Hon. Benjamin Harvey Hill, Georgia's gifted son and senator, the statesman, orator, and patriot, has breathed bis last. A great light has gone out in the starry firmament of genius ; a grand soul, strong in a noble faith, has gone to greet the God who gave it ; the most eloquent tongue in all this land has been stilled in death the finest eyes that ever windowed a soul of fire are glazed in dissolution. Georgia weeps to-day. Words of tendereat sympathy will tremble on ten thousand tongues. Ten thousand eyes will shed tears, those jewels with which affection decks its loved ones. But words will be hollow, tears will not glitter as is their wont, and dumb sorrow will stand round about the hearthstones of the Empire State of the South. In the presence of a great sorrow like this, when the leaden wing of woe hangs low its sable shadow athwart the pathway of life, we can only stand still, wring our helpless hands, wonder, and weep. EOME TRIBUNE. To-morrow the lifeless body of Benjamin Harvey Hill will be consigned to the cold and silent tomb. Atlanta, the home of the great patriot-states man, is in sack-cloth. Emblems of mourning greet the eye in whatever 188 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. direction it may be turned. The capitol, the public building's, the stores, and the residences of the devoted city, are draped in somber black, a fit emblem of the darkness and solitude which prevades the entire community. Atlanta is not alone in the burden of grief which is weighing- jier down. Not a city, not a town, not a village or hamlet within the boundaries of the commonwealth, but what is equally afflicted in the death of Benjamin H. Hill. From his earliest manhood he has enjoyed the love and the confidence of the people ; and. how richly he deserved this homage of a community, a commonwealth, a life of labor and devotion., such as has been rarely given to men to bestow, best attests. Lying on his bier to-day, thousands upon thousands of eyes will moisten with sorrowful tears as they behold for the last time their worshiped senator. To-morrow will ever be memorable as the day of that funeral at which our entire State was the mourner. Although every bosom, to-day heaves with j^rief and sorrow, every heart bleeds at the loss forever of our idol ; yet the full measure of the calamity sustained can not yet be realized. It will require time and reaction from, the excitement "which to-day prevails, time to think and consider before the people of Georgia can realize to its full extent the magnitude of the calamity which has befallen them. The ways of Providence are mysterious, and our re ligion teaches us to bow submissively to its decrees. Yet how difficult to acquiesce in this injunction. In the zenith of his manhood, in the prime of his glory, he is called away to that bourn "whence no traveler returns, mourned by a State and a nation. HAKTWELL (GA.) SUN". The blow has fallen, and Georgia's grandest citizen is dead. Our pen is too weak to "write a suitable tribute to the illustrious dead, and we will not attempt it. But every heart is saddened at the news of his death. A grand man, he died calmly, grandly his last words showing1 the grandeur of his faith in his Heavenly Father. WASHINGTON (GA.) GAZETTE. "What an. irreparable loss to Georgia and the Union--the end of this grand man, whose thrilling eloquence no orator has ever surpassed, and whose iri agnifi cent intellect has left its indelible impress on the history of the world. The life of Ben Hill will pass into the classics. He was a man who preserved his integrity through all the vicissitudes of an upheaving revolution and a disastrous defeat in a country around which his heartstring were bound so elosely. Georgia weeps, and well she may, over the bier of her noble son. ALBANY (GA.) NEWS AND ADVERTISEB. Although the death of Senator Benjamin Harvey Hill has been expected for several weeks past, the news which came by telegraph from Atlanta that he had breathed his last was a great shock to our community, and a sorrow that entered the hearts of our people like a sudden shaft from a cruel hand. Ben Hill, Georgia's silver-tongued orator, the South's ablest defender, is no more, No more will his eloquent voice be heard upon the hustings, nor in defense of his beloved South, in the balls of the United States Senate. His death is to the people of the South what the death of Stonewall Jackson, was to the Southern Confederacy--an irreparable loss; and there is no man SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 189 in Georgia "who can be to us what he was up to the time, the fatal hand of affliction was laid so heavily upon him, and he was compelled to quit his post of duty at \V~ashington a few months ago. He was the peer of any man in the American Congress, and had the courage to defend his people and the South whenever and by whomsoever assailed. There are few pens capable of paying a just tribute to Ben Hill. Ours will not presume to try. We can only mingle our tears with those of the thousands who weep for him to-day, and embalm his virtues and brilliant career in life's memory. EATONTOJS" MESSENGER. Ben Hill requires no eulogy at our hands. Our pen is totally unequal to the task of paying just tribute to one whose life presented in every attitude a spectacle of grandeur seldom witnessed in an age like this, and his best panegyric must come from the broken words of love for his life and sorrow for his death that escape the lips of every Georgian. The past few decades have presented no such event of sorrow, and the death of no one man has so solemnized the hearts of a people among whom he lived and to whom he gave his almost superhuman powers. The assassination of President Gar- tield aroused to a unit the sympathies and the indignation of Georgians ; but the silence of the most eloquent tongue in American politics, the decay of an intellect that has seen few equals and met no superiors, and the loss of one of the most potential powers for good that has made its impress upon the footprints of the nineteenth century must constitute a sorrow and calam ity that cuts deeper among his own people than the death of a President. The Republic will mourn the death of Senator Hill as a calamity over spreading the entire country. His devotion to the Union and bis states manlike career in behalf of the Union's prosperity and good, entitles him. to the respect and homage of an American people. The South, his native section, must mourn him as a man who has been unceasingly devoted to her existence. He was a Southerner in the days of our prosperity ; his devotion rose to the summit of grandeur in the days of our misfortune. t Georgia, the State of his nativity and his love, bows under the calamity of his death. His place in our highest position of honor will be supplied, but as long as two generations exist it will not be filled. \S^e must look to some marvel of coming generations for the man who can fill Senator Hill's shoes. EXTRACTS FROM THE SOUTHERN PRESS OUTSIDE OF THE STATE. NEW ORLEANS (LA.) TIMES-DEM OCRAT. S OME months ago Georgia's great orator, whose eloquence had spoken out so nobly for our people, and. whose brave and courageous defense of Louisiana in the hours of her greatest need, of her suffering and her misery, had endeared him so much to us, found that his tongue, with which he had lashed hypocrites and defended right and justice, was threatened with that fatal and mysterious disease of cancer. Ever since, Senator Ben Hill, the foremost statesman that the South ever produced, and among the ablest and strongest men in Union, has been dying. BALTrJVIOEE DAY. itiis w uuiii i/its .liitupiitj ui.ii tit; fji 1,1.1 c kjuuiiiJ. J-ia. ii uiii tiiuu btj LiiutJ commissioned as lier public servants. AVhen 331aine, with the craftiness for which he is famous, made charges against the honor and humanity of feed fat the grudge of their hate. The people of his State and the whole South will look back now with gratitude to the so-called rashness with which he ever sprang to defend them from charges which involved their honor and good name ; but bravely as he lived, the metal of his courage was never fully shown until, all illusive hopes abandoned, he turned and resignation. VICKLSBTTRG (MISS.) COMMERCIAL. He has been the ablest champion of democratic principles and the most earnest advocate and eloquent defender of the ex-President of the Confed erate States and the rights of the South. 190 HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 191 NEW OKLEAXS (LA.) PICAYUXE. !N"ot yet fifty-nine veai's of age, the foremost lawyer in Georgia, the idol of the people, whom his oratory always charmed and controlled, it seemed but the other day as though there yet remained before him many years of zealous service in the national forum where real service is worth something to the country. CHARLOTTE (is. C.) OBSERVER. The public career of Mr. Hill is well known, for but few men in public ]ifo had attracted more attention in the councils of the nation or made a more brilliant record, honorable alike to himself and to the State which proudly pointed, to him as one of her representatives. Georgia has had and may have other great men, but she has never had a son who has done her more honor, or in whom her trust was more worthily bestowed, than in the honest, incorruptible, fearless, eloquent, and brilliant Benjamin II. Hill, whose death she mourns to-day, and in which she has the sympathy of all who admire chivalric devotion to duty and honor and virtue. Such men die, but are not often forgotten. LOUISVILLE (KY.) COURIER-JOURNAL. The strong man lias gone, with the brilliant, alert mind, and he leaves a vacancy difficult to fi]l in the really small group of our public men posses sing genuine oratorical talent. Senator Hill's speeches in Congress were always good, keen, and incisive. He met and parried the assaults of the Northern demagogues during the days of sectional bitterness, a few years back, with marked ability. He had great distinction as a lawyer, and no man In Congress surpassed him in legal ability. The South loses in him one of the most judicious and patient of champions, and the country cer tainly loses one of her most talented and patriotic citizens. NASHVILLE (TE^K.) WORLI>. He ranked first among the ablest debaters in Congress, and his ready wit, caustic and scathing sarcasm, and brilliant eloquence gained for him the soubriquet of the urs of them, assuring him of their regard and sympathy, THE FRANKFOBT (iND.) BANNER, beJlzon by the maelstrom 01 excitement, and after the war he accepted results as settled, and expressed an earnest desire to aid in building n mm the respect oi every American, tie was a man o convictions, tearless in advocating them, and ever loyal to what he conceived to be his duty. He died in the prime of life, in the possession of all his faculties, and his last days were his most peaceful ones. Quick tempered, he was gentle as a woman. Though in the rebellion, he ardently desired a united country, and ludianians mourn with the South their great loss. SPRINGFIELD (MASS.) REPUBLICAN". The event will cause profound sorrow throughout his native State, where Hill was a popular idol, much as Charles Sunnier used to be in Massachusetts. In many respects Hill was wonderfully endowed for public service. Tall, of fine presence, with a mobile face, and ready command of language, alert, trained in debate and thought, he was earnest and at times most powerful. As a leader and manager of men, Hill was more brilliant than his con temporary in Georgia politics and the United States Senate, Joseph, E. Brown. SENATOR B. S. HILL, OF GEORGIA. WASHINGTON (l>. C.) CEITIC. pl hi smaller men who got in his way, and in the heat of contest ho struck, right and loft, heavy blows. Hut fierce and aggressive as his nature was, vindiotiveness of vengeance found no lodgment in his mind, and it was his habit to leave all his feuds on the field where he had fought. Personally, Ben Hill was a companionable, likeable man, toward whom it was well-nigh impos* sible to harbor resentment, and from whom it was impossible to withhold admiration. PHILADELPHIA (PA.) PKESS. The death of Senator Hill, of Georgia, is a great loss to his State and his country ; the greater because the mellowing influence of time and the drift of events had begun to place the man before the country in a new light. The seeming development was really a return to his earlier and. better self. Mr. Hill was a Democrat under protest, a Bourbon by accident. His first appearance in politics was in opposition to the Democracy, an opposition which he maintained with all the ardor of his aggressive nature through local contests and national campaigns, first as follower, afterward as leader, pur suing it into the Secession Convention of his State, and battling against it there until resistance was swept away by a maddened majority. The war over, the white men of the South, having1 been fused into a common opposi tion to the new order, Mr, Hill stood, "with his people against reconstruction, but was in advance of the mass of them in accepting the results of the war. But on this very question he showed one of the strong and admirable traits of his character. When the Reconstruction acts had passed he recognized the commanding voice of Congress, and gave to their support the weight of his influence and eloquence. He believed in the maintenance of the law, however unpalatable, An honest man and an able lawyer, an orator of high order and lover of SfS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 199 his reunited country has crone from us ; a man whose public career was embar rassed by a local sentiment which he could not drive but strove to lead ; who passed away before he had developed to the world the best that was in him. Kind feelings and sincere regret will follow the dead Georgia senator to Ms grave. NEW YOKKL SUN". His death removes one of the most distinguished and familiar figures in Washington life. He was not a man who hid his talents or his frailties under a bushel, and his career had a human interest "which attached to but few other members of the Senate. With his death there passes a\vay another, and almost the last of that extraordinary group of men which made the con flicts in the Forty-fifth and .Forty-sixth Congresses so notable. A visitor to the Senate Chamber now notices the absence of Conkling, Blaine, Thurman, Carpenter., Hamlin, and Hill, all of whom took a conspicuous part in those controversies, but none a more brilliant and influential part than the sharpeyed, emphatic senator from Georgia. Of those leaders, Beck, Hoar, and Edmunds are now almost the only senators of note who remain. Among senators he was personally verv popular, and the round robin letter of sym pathy which they sent him, and in which tribute Senator Hoar took the initiative, expressed the sincere feelings of his colleagues. This letter gave Senator Hill the greatest pleasure, and did much to sustain him in. his last illness. CINCINNATI TIMES--STAB. The nation had become so familiar with his suffering's, which were so intense and which were borne with a patience that marked the greatness of the man, that the announcement of his death falls upon almost every com munity like a death in their midst. Since the war Senator Hill's policy has been one of peace, pi'ogress, and reconciliation, and there can be no doubt that to him, as much as any other mail, Georgia is indebted for the wave of prosperity that is now sweeping over the State. His services and his suffer ings will live long in the memory of Georgians. POEMS. ON THE PORTALS. Tenderly inscribed to Georgia's dying Senator, by John W. Campitt, of Illinois, CounseJor-at-Law. I am \veary of my burden And fain would rest ; For the somber winds are sighing, And mv fondest hopes are dying, And like autumn leaves are lying On earth's cold breast. And I hear the voices calling, Sweet, soft, and low ; And their plaintive tones are pleading, "While the day of life is speeding-, And worldly scenes receding, For me to go. Come with us across the border, Seek rest profound ; "Where no somber winds are sigliing, 'Where no hopes and ioys are dying, "Where no dream of love is lying- Dead upon tlie ground. We will show a light bright burning Like a golden star ; i 'Tis a hope you one day buried, In the busy world all hurriod, But bocamo the resurrected To shine thus afar ! 'We will show you Heaven's morning-- A never ending day "Where the softest rays are shining And the blossoms sweet entwining ; Where the angels are divining Every thought upon the way. 300 STB LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS, Every leaf upon its shore-lines Is a gem ; Not a withered one is drooping, "While the hand of love is looping And Into garlands grouping All of them. In that world there is no sorrow, Not a tear ; Never comes the broken-hearted, From whose eager life departed The hopes that once had started, Fond and dear ! Not a storm-cloud ever gathers On the air ; Only summer clouds are drifting, And summer breez.es sifting, And sweetest perfumes lifting-, From g-ardens fair. Only music soft and melting Soothes the soul ; And its billows mild, and wooing, "With a gentle hand undoing All the cares that were bestrewing Each earthly goal. Lead me to that land of beauty, So I may abide ; Lead me where the flowers are blooming, Where the music mild is wooing, Where the hand of love is moving On every tide. Like a little child I'll follow Swift after thee ; To the land of never weeping, "Where my Father's Jove is keeping Mortal souls who failed in reaping Earthly ecstasy. I'll take my burden for a pillow, And lie down to rest ; God's love shall dwell beside me, And no clouds shall ever hide me From the loving ones that guide me To the portals of the blest. 20S SENATOR B. S. HILL, Of GEORGIA. FBOISTTIKG THE SHADOW. In one of Mr. James R. RandaH's graphic Washington letters he details an interview with Senator Hill, in the course of which, referring to his present condition, the senator spoke as follows : " If I recover, it is well. If I die, it is also well. While I think it strange that a man whose constitution "was formed "by physical labor on a farm, and who, up to a year ago, never had a day of ill health, should be afflicted with an inexplicable disorder of the blood, I resign myself into the hands of my Creator, who will do with me what seems best to Him, and either raise me up to further usefulness or summon me away. I await with patience either event." Oft hast tliou triumphed in the keen debate ; Lightened and thundered through the Senate hall ; Now o'er thee clouds of muffled silence fall, And by the flickering- Future's veiled gate A somber shadow seems to watch and "wait ! Still, round thy House of Life, from wall to wall, Dost thou not hear the golden trumpet call To those high lists which gird the strifes of state ? The old instinct stirs ! the ancient warrior heat Flushes thy blood ! and ne'er (thou know'st it) yet Have thy strong pulses felt a loftier beat, Nor nerve nor brain to lordlier praise been set. Come, lift thy weapon ! Heaven ! what spell is here ? Our Launcelot's hand but meets a phantom spear ! His firm, hand drops. Across Ms face a line Of furrowing anguish flashes to dark flame. Dear to his soul is action, dear is fame. " What, must I rest," he murmured, " lost, supine, "While other's drink of Glory's radiant wine ? Yea, if G-od will," in softened accents came ; " To Him I yield life, honor, purpose, name, Kneel to His wisdom, worship at His shrine." Ah, chastened heart, these words of simple trust, Are nobler than thy lordlier speech before ! They mount on wing of Pentecostal fire. And when yon Senate halls are blackened dust, IVEay crown the fullness of thy soul's desire, "With peace unknown by mortal sea or shore. PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. COPSE HILL, GA. THE RIVER. The follow.:? ^ beautiful poem was written by theaccomplished wife of Senator Hill's son, Mr. B. H. Hill, Jr. It "was written apropos of Senator Hill's sickness and in view of his approaching death. --Journal. Oh, rugged river ! restless river ! River of years--river of tears-- Thou river of Life ! HIB LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 203 River of tears ! Yet o'er thy bosom Joy, as a bird flashes its gaudy wing, And drinks its draught of ecstasy from out thy crystal spring. Oh, sunlit river ! shadowy river ! River of gladness--river of sadness-- Thou river of !Life I River of gladness I Yet o'er the blue of the beautiful sky floats a cloud. Out of whose fleecy whiteness the Loom of God is weaving a shroud. Oh, beautiful river ! while the star of youth is glowing. From the silver sprinkled sky ; River of Life ! when health's elixir flowing Paints thy waters its rosy dye. Sunlit river ! when the days are full of peace, And the calm of the song the river sings, And the quiet joy the lullaby brings, "We feel will never cease. And while the waters glow and glisten, Ah ! bow seldom do we listen To the turning of the ponderous wheel of Time. Over whose granite side are rushing The waves of the river in a symphony sublime ! But when the waters are black and bleeding, Dyed with dread Disease's breath, And we feel the river leading To the fathomless sea of Death-- Then, ah ! then, in our agony of soul We cry, " Oh ! wheel of Time, one moment stay.' Turn back the river, and cease to roll For a life we love is passing1 away." But God is the Miller, and the wheel is turning1, Though Grief's hot irons our hearts are burning. And the river's song--is only a moan, And the grinding wheel--sounds a groan. But from out our midnight gloom. Ijook up ! God knoweth best. See the life we love as it catches the bloom Of infinite radiance and rest ! Its waters have mingled with the crystal stream Flowing so close to the throne, And the waves have caught the golden gleam, And the river's voice, God's tender tone. SENATOR -B. If. HILL, Of GEORGIA. And the river in heaven in its crystal calm Found its way through the golden bars, Flowing upward--beyond the garden of stars-- To the feet of God and His lamb. Oh, royal river ! radiant river J River of Light--river of Life-- Thou river of God ! ALMOST HOME ! " Last "Words of Senator Benjamin H. Hill. " Almost home \ " Thus spake with resignation Divinely meek, the South's illustrious son, Drinking the dregs of mortal pain's potation, W^ith all, save death's supremest suffering1, done ; The splendor of his days was swift declining, Fast fell upon his path the night of death, Yet still one steadfast star for him was shining Amid the gloom--the star of Christian faith. " Almost home ! " I see the beacon burning ! The home-bound sailor sings abreast the bay ; " Almost home ! " The weary child, returning From the fields of frolic, murmurs on the way. Sweet words of cheer are they, on land or ocean, And like a blessing to our hearts they corne, But who can measure the sublime emotion, The transport, of the Christian's " Almost home \ " " Almost home ! '* The light of life was fading, The glory of the world grew wan and dim, Its fame or shame, its praise or its unbraiding, What, in that awful hour, were these to him ? Hushed the majestic voice whose mighty thunder, Reverberating 'neath the Senate's dome, Was wont to fill men's hearts with awe and wonder-- It could but breathe in whispers, " Almost home ! " But such a whisper ! Fame in all her sounding, Triumphant music hath no tones like these, With bliss surcharged, with ecstasy abounding, A wondrous anthem of immortal peace. Strange, passing strange. Death gave for his adorning The grandest crown of all his glorious past, And like a star that melts into the morning Heaven took, his soul--and he was at home at last. CHARLES W. HUBNER. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS ALMOST HOME ! Where moaning rolls the troubled wave, Whose tempest-tortured waters lave Life's furthest shoi'e, his spirit stands Half pausing on the crumbling sands. Exultant words of triumph wrung In joy from, that long silent tongue, He looks beyond the tossing foam And sweetly murmurs, " Almost Home ! " No more with woe and weakness cursed-- Disease and death have done their worst; The dream of life is left behind, Though near are hearts whose cords are twined Around his own. Forgetful quite, His kindling eye reflects the light Resplendent from the radiant dome Of heaven. He whispers, "Almost home ! " All heedless of the winds that wail Along the lone and shadowy vale. And recking not the storms that sweep The desert strand, or eyes that weep Salt dews in bitterest anguish shed, Blent with the death damps on his head. Hark ! Softly through the gathering gloom The tremulous accents, "Almost home !" As when among the shivering leaves The parting sigh of autumn grieves, So comes the plaintive, shuddering gasp, And snaps in twain the golden clasp. The boatman plies his muffled oar, The bark glides quickly from the shore, And from the faltering lips there come The dying echoes, " Almost home ! " !N"o more with pain or passion blind, That kingly spirit, tin confined By earthly fetters, bolts or bars, Victorious mounts beyond the stars, And winged its flight with nndimmGd eyes Across the plains of Paradise, In freedom evermore to roam-- Not "almost" now, but quite "at home J '* MONTGOMERY M. FOLSOM. SKNATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. THE FALLEN" SHAFT. Lines on the late Senator Hill, of Georgia. Alone the shaft of granite stood, And raised it head on high ; !N"o rival in its neighborhood Dared with its grandeur vie. Among the shining stars its crown "With lustrous glory shone ; With splendor seen afar, and down Where waves did fret and moan. Men wondered, as it met their gaze, And made the welkin ring With loud acclaim, and words of praise, Words such as poets sing. Full long the stately shaft defied The woi-k of all the years ; Men thought it proof 'gainst time and tide, And smiled away their fears. But all at once the thunder's blight Shattered the granite stone ; 'Gainst all save this, its matchless might Had royally held its own. Men mourned their idol lost--when higher, And in the self-same place, There darted up a pillared fire-- Celestial sign of grace. WALLACE PUTNAM REED. FALLEN ! -- RISEN"! On the Death of Senator Hill, of Georgia. Fallen ! Fallen ! The stateliest oak on the hill-side Has crashed to the quivering lea, While the echoes by field and rill tide, Roll down to the troubled sea ; Or rise, till the Heavens awaken, And their startled spaces afar "Would seem by the tumult shaken, \Vhich follows a bursting star ! Ah, me ! How low is the crown of the giant tree ! How fallen ! fallen ! fallen ! HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 2Cfi The eagle that soared thro' the azure, By a God-like will possessed, ^With truth as the grand emblazure Of his proud, puissant crest, In his loftiest flight was haunted By the shadow of blasting- blight, And saw--but with eyes undaunted-- His noontide change to night, From the beckoning sun, To the web death's ebon loom had spun, The woven glooms of a place of tombs, He hath fallen, fallen, fallen ! Yet, what if the oak in thunder Be hurled from his mountain hope. To perish in darkness, under Its savage and sullen slope ; And what if the dumb, dead eagle, Unchallenged by gleam or gnst, No longer enthroned and regal, Lies prone in the pulseless dust, Cold, cold, In the deepening fold of the frozen mold, Fallen ! fallen ! fallen To the soil of a realm enchanted, Shall the germ of the withered tree By invisible hands ti'ansplanted, Rebloom on a deathless lea, O'er the height of the hills of Adenn Shall the replumed eagle soar, While the luster of eyes unfading, And a wing1 that shall droop no more ! Ah ! cease your wailing--cease, From the flame of his torture--prison-- From the woe of his hopeless blight From the anguish of day, and the doom of night, From the vulture-beak, whose dart Flashed over his fainting heart, The spirit ye loved has gained release ! Release ! Release ! To the central calms, to the golden palms, \Vhose shadowy glories quiver In the depths of the sacred river, To the chrism of Christ, to the perfect peace, He has risen, risen, risen ! PAUL HAMILTON HAYITB, SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. SENATOR BENJAMIN H. HILL, A noble hymn is that of yore, Of one "who faced the opposing host ; ^Vith courage calm his legend bore ; Tho' oft the unequal fight seemed lost. For ofttimes weak and prone he lay Upon our common mother's breast, Yet ever rose from the dread fray AVith victory on his flaming- crest. Giant nor gnome their aid would lend His lance and battered shield to right, Nor fairy forms their way would wend To cheer him in the inconstant fight ; One single touch of earth, and then Redoubled strength would nerve his arm, And hero shades, unseen of men, Fought by his side, all leal and warm. Lost hero, weak thine earthly part, No foes hadst thou with whom to strive, All love enshrines thee in the heart, With Honor's name thy name shall live ; Earth could not nerve thy wasting frame ; The better part, thy dauntless soul, Gaining the victor race of fame, Hath strong- been made to win its goal. DETROIT, October 21, 1882. THE UNVEILING OF THE BEN HILL MONUMENT. Foremost of nations, all the world admits, Stands the Sorosis--sisterhood of States ; Grand in the broad expanse of her domain, Fringed "with two oceans, striped by all the zones. More grand in the unmeasured heights and depths Of nature's convolutions ; hills of rock Hewn into gorges by the mighty force Of mountain torrents, whicli but symbolize The grand careers of her majestic sons ; "Who, through, the adamant of prejudice, The selfishness of monarchs, and the sloth Of centuries of bigoted misrule, Have hewn a path, for liberty and truth. One and another of the sisterhood Have carved the recoi-ds of their favorite sons In monuments of everlasting stone, To-day fair Georgia, pivot of the South, Centers a nation's thought and gratitude, BIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 201 Aye ! thankful, we, for that best gift of God, A noble soul lent to a struggling1 world. "We have no rule to measure all the force Of one pure life, abounding' in great deeds, It is not admiration of his power In sharp bebate or graver counseling. Not that alone, nor chiefly is it that Which draws this multitude from far and near, 33ut in our heart of hearts there stirs a depth That only can be reached by some rare soul Through whom the power of Almighty God Is sifted, that it may not dazzle us. A life of zeal and honest rectitude, Passing unscathed the fiery ordeal Of public trust and opportunities, That have of late so many victims slain ; A life like his, whose marble counterpart Is here unveiled to our admiring eyes, Lays hold upon the very springs of life, And leads men up forever to their God. Behold this statue ! Fittingly it stands Where the broad road divides and points two ways. So, we remember, did this hero stand "Where the broad highway of our nation's life Was cleft in twain, and he--compelled to choose. O ! the great agony that rived his soul I Long as a spark of hope remained alive, He strove to avert the dread calamity ; But when the die was cast, and hope was dead, He ranked himself where his nativity Impelled allegiance ; then he freely gave ; And never was a cause more truly served. O ! cold and stubborn is the Northern heart That finds no inspiration in the theme Of honest sacrifice to honest faith. Behold this statue ! Facing the broad road, Where these two ways unite. Behind us now Lie all the enmity and all the strife. Before us is the path which he has trod, The path of Union--leading up to God. _____ H. T. W. IMMORTAL. At the Unveiling of the Hill Statue in Atlanta, On., May 1, 1886. O, marvelous man ! Lo, Genius, with a breath, Hath bid thee live and speak in effigy, To prove to us that neither Time nor f>eath Can ever have dominion over thee. CHAELES "W. HUBJCKK. The Unveiling of the Statue of Senator Benjamii H. Hill, at Atlanta, Ga., May 1, !86. Taken from tlie Atlanta, 'Constitution, May 3. BEN HILL--FOETY THOUSAND ENTHUSIASTIC GEORGIANS BEHOLD His FORM JN MAEBLE--A DESIONSTEATION SUBLIMELY GRAND AND UNSUR PASSED--ELOQUENT SPEECHES IN HILL'S HONOE--A GEEAT AND GLOBIOTJS DA.Y. fTlUE trains that arrived in Atlanta on Friday night brought fifteen thouJL sand visitors. Those that rolled into the depot yesterday brought thirty-five thousand more. At no period in her previous history has Atlanta had. within her borders suck a host, From every section of the Stale, from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Caro lina and South Carolina, from a score of other States, including even those of the far North ft The people came to do honor to those two exponents of all that is true and noble and chivalrous in Southern manhood, the lamented Hill and the revered Davis. They were of every condition. The child just learning to exercise, the power of thought, the lads and lasses but just beginning to feel the approach of young manhood and young maidenhood ; the young1 men and women" filled with the lofty aspirations known only to those in whose veins course young and vigorous blood ; the men and women of middle age, the gvandsires and granddames "with whitened hair and trembling limbs, all w.ere represented in the vast throng that surged into Atlanta and filled; her streets throughout the length and breadth. About the Kimball House, the depot, the court-house, and the Capitol the throng was densest; it was a matchless outpouring of enthusiastic humanity; it was a magnificent tribute to the good that is in humanity as represented in the two illustrious sons' of the South it was meant to honor. It was inde scribable. When Mr. H. "W. Grady arose to open the exercises he faced at least fifty thousand enthusiastic men and women. Advancing to the front of the speaker's stand, he said : MB, GEADY'S SPEECH. Jfyiends and ^Fellow-citizens: We have met here to-day to honor the memory of a great man, to perpetuate his virtues in our hearts, and fix his manly beauty in enduring marble. This vast assemblage, inspiring in its numbers, and in the ardor of its sympathies unequaled by any that ever stood on Georgia's soil, honors itself, no less than him, in gathering at the base of this statue. Callous must be the heart that is not ennobled by the touch of this hour's inspiration, sluggish the soul that does not kindle with new aspirations as the morning' sun catches the gleam of this marble, and this mute interpretation of a groat life is given to the morning air. And if in the mercy of God that great soul, enthroned beyond the skies, is per mitted to look upon this thrilling scene, and read the hearts of this loving 210 SENATOR HILLS STATUE. ERECTED TO HIS MEMOKY IN ATLANTA. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WHITINGS. 211 multitude in the swift revelation of that one glance, in that one chapter of fathomless love, it would find recompense for the crosses and trials of an arduous life and the agonies and sufferings of an heroic death. In behalf of the committee, T ask your silent and earnest attention, while General A. Evans, beloved friend and pastor of our lamented dead, invokes the blessing- of Almighty God 011 this scene, this people, and these cere monies. THE PHAYBIt BY GENERAL JLVAKS, General Evans arose, and the thousands of heads were bowed. General Kvans said : O, Thou, who art the Lord God, and Sovereign Father of all men, unto Thee we uplift our eyes in the hope of Thy favor., and before Thee we spread abroad our hands and implore Thy divine blessing upon all \vho are here assembled. We rejoice in the knowledge that Thou wilt accept our worship with that of all the Heavenly host and of all our comrades who have passed before us into Thy presence. Our thanksgivings abound as we remember Thy mercies, which are more in number than the green leaves that now enfold these trees afresh. Invited by Thy promise we pray Thy blessing may rest richly upon our State, upon these United States, and upon this good city. AVe thank Thee for this land of ours. Our lines have fallen in pleasant places, and we have a happy heritage. The priceless blessings of good government, of religious liberty and temporal prosperity, are Tliy gifts to us. Inspire us with the lofty purpose of becoming a people exalted by righteousness and worthy of the great national vocation whereunto we are called. Defend us from all foes, send us harmony among all sections, perpetuate the Union of the States, and preserve the liberty, intelligence, and religion of the people. We pray Thy blessing upon the generation now rising, who knew nothing of the strife of their fathers. Inspire them with the love of country and the fear of God, Grant, O Ijord, that these veterans who have survived their fallen brothers may remain under Thy special providence ; their num ber grow fewer and their heads grow more honored with gray. As after another crosses over the river, may they all " rest under the shade of the tree," until the last of the army shall pass and all assemble before Thee in the peace of heaven. We thank Thee, O Lord, for the exalted Christian character of the reverend chieftain who is the guest of this occasion and for the example of faitli in God which we will transmit as a legacy to his countrymen. And now that the surges of passion cease to roll around him or to beat upon him with any power, grant Thy blessing on the warm and worthy flow of the waves of popular affection which now embrace him. Spare him yet many years of peace and let his departure be as the sun re tiring in his strength and crowning the last summit with golden glory. We remember most especially the noble life of thy servant whose statue stands on this spot, whose death is deplored with fresh grief, and whose dying testimony verified Thy word. God bless the bereaved woman who with mingled tears of sadness and satisfaction beholds this honor paid to lier illustrious husband. May she and her children be guided by Thy wisdom and afterward received with glorv- Let these, our prayers, be acceptable in thy sight, and may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the comniunion of the Holy Spirit be with^us all. Amen. 212 SENATOR J3, H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. Mr. Grady said : I cannot proceed further in the duty assigned me with out testifyingjthus publicly, in behalf of the Hill Committee, to the invaluable services rendered by Dr. it, I). Spalding, President of the Hill Monument Association. It is not too much to say that while this statue is based in the love of the people, it was evoked by his abiding affection for Senator Hill, and largely fashioned by his energy and ability. Georgia will learn with gratitude that it is to a gallant and devoted Kentuckian she owes so much of this great work, and will rejoice in the knowledge that when this precious gift is delivered into the keeping of the commonwealth, to Governor Henry D. JVIcDaniel, that it has gone into hands entirely worthy. Dr. Spalding, President of the Association, will now present, and Gov ernor McDaniel will receive for the State, the statue of the Hon. Benjamin H. Hill. DR. SPALDING'S SPEECH. No higher evidence could attest the love of the people of Georgia for her dead senator, of their admiration for the living patriot and statesman who honors this occasion with his presence, than this vast concourse of her citizens. Georgia, as loyal to the memories of the past as to the responsibilities of the present, yields to no State in her devotion to the principles of the lost cause or to the great champion of self-government, home rule, and popular liberty, whom we welcome to-day as our guest. Mr. Davis is here to unite in a tribute to his friend, upon whom in the darkest hours of the Confederacy lie leaned as implicitly in the Senate Chamber as upon IJee in the field. The Ben Hill Monument Association was organized with no expectation of building a pretentious structure, but for the purpose of erecting a modest testimonial to the worth, of a good and great man. The name and memory of Benjamin H. Hill will be ever dear to Geor gians, and to all everywhere, who honor unsullied patriotism or who admire profound statesmanship. As a genuine work of art, the statue is deserving the highest praise, and yet. although beautiful in conception and faultless in execution, is an utterly inadequate memorial of him whose renown is destined to widen with the lapse of time. 'We tread to-day amid the ashes of a conflict whose smoldering fires ave still uuextinguished. Wliile it is true we are again a united people, liv ing under a constitutional form of government ; while it is true that Forrest, and Sheridan, and Stewart no longer ride at the head of their columns ; while Lee and Grant, the representative soldiers of the blue and the gray, are asleep in honored graves ; while the war drum has ceased to beat, and the battle nag is furled, it is equally true that the sentiments and convictions that inspired the contest still linger in the breasts of our countrymen North ami South. Nor may it bo safely questioned that these sentiments are not less the basis of national harmony than of national prosperity. In this gigantic struggle, Mr. Hill was thoroughly and consistently identi fied with his native section. Others may have faltered in their trusts or wavered in their allegiance to the Confederate administration, but Hill was alike unawed by the shock of arms or the strife of tongues. His brave spirit " rose under pressure and shone the brightest when weaker natures yielded, to despair." Never did his heroic virtues shine forth more resple.ndeutly than in the gloomy days of Reconstruction when the JUS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 213 "pleasure of the usurper was the supreme law and there shone riot a single star of substantial promise." Then it was that his " !Notes on the Situation" inspired his dispirited countrymen with renewed hope and roused them to fresh endeavors. In quick succession came the I>avis Hall and Bush Arbor speeches, in which lie spoke no mincing words, but words of lofty defiance to the enemies of constitutional liberty. Afterward, in the halls of Congress, in the ever memorable contest with jVTr. Blaine, he made himself immortal and filled every Southern heart with joy and pride. Still late!-, he scourged Virginia's faithless son as Cicero scourged the guilty pro-consul of Sicily. And now, sir, permit me, in behalf of the association which I have the honor to represent, to present to the State through yon, her chief magistrate, this statue of one who not less signally illustrated the honor of Georgia than her most distinguished sons--from. Oglethorpe, the founder of the common wealth, to Toonibs, the dead Mirabeau of the South. At the signal from Dr. Spalding, Captain J. F. Burke removed the veil, and the statue of Hill was revealed to the great crowd. A shout of applause went up. SPEECH OF GOVJERNOK M'_DANTBL. ]$r. Chairman ana Gentlemen of the Hill Jlfomimental dissociations The shouts of this vast multitude, gathered from farm and village and city, at sight- of the features of Benjamin H. Hill, proclaim, that the people of Georgia accept your offering- to his memory and will cherish it witji affection, boundless as their admiration for his character. Georgia is rich in illustrious names, the jewels of the commonwealth. Her Jackson and Troup, and Crawford and Cobb, and Johnson and Jenkins, and Stephens and Toombs, and others who have passed away, are honored wherever American states manship is known. None of these, great as is her affection for them, is more deeply enshrined in her heart than Hill ; no name thrills her with loftier pride. His portrait, with those of other illustrious men, has been placed by the State in the Hall of Representatives to inspire all who assemble there for p urposes of government with patriotic ends. But his .services to the country deserve a more imposing representation, which shall remind all the people, now and forever, of his virtues as a man, his patriotism as a citizen, and his wisdom as a statesman. Future generations will catch the sentiments which prompted the erection of such a monument by the voluntary contribution of devotion and admiring countrymen. And the association of patriots who conceived and executed this laborof love, deserves and will receive the thanks of all the people of G-corgia. The chisel of sculptor nor the brush of painter has ever wrought into expression the lineaments of a man which manifests alife nobler in patriotic purpose and endeavor, or richer in endowments of learning, eloquence, and thought. For more than a quarter of a century he was in State and Federal affairs, the peer of the most illustrious. He loved the 'Union of the States, and during the years preceding its dissolution his voice pleaded eloquently for its preservation. Exchanging the forum for the hustings, his impassioned logic, which has swayed courts and juries, was heard in the van of the devoted minority, struggling vainly to preserve the rights of States in the Union. But he was a Georgian, true to the commonwealth that gave him birth and sheltered his household. When the State withdrew from the Union she had 214 SENATOR 7?. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. voluntarily entered, lie responded to her summons, and represented her in the G-overiiruent of the Confederate States. During the mighty conflict that ensued, his voice never faltered in patriotic appeal and heroic counsel. HG was undismayed by accumulating disasters. The trusted friend of the President, with every throb of his heart, and every faculty of his nature, and every resource of }iis genius, he held up the hands of that devoted leader of his people. It is not the least of his manv claims to immortality that h.e merited and enjoyed the confidence of Jefferson Davis, whose dignity in defeat, not less than his courage and fidelity in the Presidency of the Confederate States, have won for him the undying- love of the people who trusted and followed him, and the admiration of every lover of constitutional liberty. The love of Georgians, beaming in the faces of the thousands around this consecrated spot, would be deepened, if that were possible, by his presence to-day, to add a leaf to the fadeless garland that crowns the brow of Benjamin H. Hill. ^Vhen the flag of the Union floated again over all the States, and the soldiers of opposing armies, with mutual respect and pride in American valor, parted in peace, the victors returning- to bonfires and feastings, and honors and power--the vanquished to ruined homes and poverty and toil ; when partisan hate offered proscription instead of reconciliation, and sought by military force to degrade States into provinces, the voice of Hill, never silent in times of peril, sounded the first note of warning and resistance that roused Georgians to a sense of the danger, and inspired them with courage to maintain their rights under the Constitution. 3Sfo people of any age have been confronted with evils of such magnitude, and none have overcome them with a nobler spirit of patience, forbearance, and loyalty to the pledges of their leaders and the principles of their fathers. Impoverished, proscribed, and maligned, they bent the energies which in warfare had astonished the civilized world to the task of regaining control of tVie State government. They rebuilt the social fabric, restored material prosperity, extended the blessings of education, and secured to every citizen, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition, all the rights and privileges to which he is entitled. Mr. Hill lived to share in the grand triumph, and to rejoice at the dawn of prosperity. He lived to vindicate in the Congress of the United States the conduct of the Soutli during the war, and to silence the slanders that impugned our honor. His eloquence first awakened the American people to the truth of the sentiment embodied in the immortal words that speak from yonder tablet, and connect his name with the brightest page of his country's history. But he was denied by divine providence a share in the final victory, by v/hich tile American people, at the ballot-box, in the election of a President, adopted this sentiment. Could he have lived to celebrate that event, no tongue of orator or pen of genius in the annals of time would have glad dened lovers of liberty with sublimer praises of our system of government. JVIr. Grady arose and said : Can I say more in presenting to you the orator of the day, and bespeaking for him the attention which I am sure he will hold when you have once heard him, than to say that the mantle of Ben Hill's eloquence seems to have fallen on his shoulders, and that in the Chris tian integrity of his character and the strength and purity of his life, Mr. Hill's career is sure to find its best interpretation. I introduce to you the chosen orator of tlie association, th.e Hon J. C. C. Black, of Georgia, SIS LIFS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 215 ADDKBSS OP HOIT. J. C. C. BLACK. _3/r. 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 coun try, 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 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 He in unknown sepulchers ; or, if known, they are unmarked by any lasting monument. When the feeling does crystallize 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, be fore its completion was celebrated. The statue of Chief Justice Marshall, appointed during the second administration, was unveiled within a very re cent 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 shoixld 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. ItB SENATOR B. K, HILL, OF GEORGIA. ecade after its inauguration to crown the comple tion of its work, is highly honorable to tin se who have achieved, it, but most honorable to him who inspired it. It 1: as few, if any, parallels. ve come to dedicate this statue to his n .me and memory, all the dges, 110 prejudice blinds, no HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 217 schools, permeated by the influences of her society and civilization, he plead with an eloquence unsurpassed by any of her sons for whatever would pro mote 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 afterward attained. For years his public career was a struggle against prevailing principles and poli cies 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. lie did not always achieve popular success, but that Las 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 vic tories. 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 bi'easfc 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 craft}?- 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 minori ties he was unequaled. As an orator at the forum, before a popular assem bly or convention, in the House of Representatives or the Senate Chamber in Congress, lie 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 the praise due to that calm judgment that looks at results ; that political foresight that belongs to a wise statesman ship. 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 stoi-m that was coming ? What watchman stationed to signal the first approach of danger had more farreaching 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 believ ing 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 wouM 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, 218 SENATOR S. S. HILL, OF GEORGIA. but to perpetuate them.v The government of the new did not differ in its .form or any of its essential principles from the old Confederacy. The Con stitutions were the same, except such changes as the wisdom of experience suggested. The Southern Confederacy contemplated no invasion or con quest. 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 goverments 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 worthier 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 in ferior. \Vhat was that civilization ? !Let its products as seen in the people it produced, and the character and history of that people, answer. Where do you look for the civilization of a people ? In their history, in their achieve ments, 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 ? Wliere has there been greater love of learning than that which established her colleges and universities ? AVhere 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 was con trolled by higher integrity ? W^iose 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 conserva tive Whose young men more chivalric ? Whose young women more chaste ? W^hose fathers and mothers worthier examples ? W^hose homes move abounded in hospitality as genial and free to every friendly comer as the sun that covered them with its splendor? W^here 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 venera tion of man, for it is the attest 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 Bi ble, 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 SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 219 " Southern gentlemen." Thus 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 Presidents, which to-day constitutes the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Colo rado 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 woi-ld 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 Con stitution ? 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 ser vices, 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 aquestions of mere party supi'emacy, 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 laud ! 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 intrusted 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 22O SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. 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. y 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 cheei'ed, 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 sol dier who leads his country through the perils of war is entitled to his coun try'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 pi"with the wounds of the mightiest war of modern times, dripping with as >ure 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 arid 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 cava liers, 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 relations to the gov ernment with all the duties those relations imposed. The victorious gen erals 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 with draw 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 the 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 fousfht to preserve the Union ; it was the offspring of that fanaticism that had in our early history, while the walls of the Capital SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 221 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 suf ferings 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 politi cal systems. j- 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 and then it seems that all the latent and pent up forces of the natural woi'ld are turned loose for terrible destruction. The foundations of the earth, laid in the depths of the years of iiidxistry 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 swav, 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 unoffendinginsulted ; 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 ; mad ness, 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 con cave 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 ene mies 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 enc- SENATOR B. H, HILL, OF GEORGIA. mies to betray them. They were enemies to the mother who had nurtured acy out of pretended, love for the habe as corpus, and. now they sustained a sculptor chisel them out of the granite and marble to beautify onr thorough* fares ; let every true heart and memory, born and to be born, embalm them forever. Among all the true ready for bonds or death; true as the as Henry kindling the fires of the Revolution. ..*., .,- ..,,-,,. ,,,,-- .. t,,... ,,...,,, 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 glittering1 shield are not purer than the fires that burn in the breast it covers. His clarion voice rang out louder 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 defense of home and liberty, and thrilled every heart and nerved every arm. ivas the form and voice of Hill.. Not oonnlyy is hee eenntittleed too thee honor we coonnfer upon m y e evens of this day, arid higher honor, if higher there could be, as a Georgian, but as a son of the South. The great TVest boasts that it gave Lincoln to the country and the world. New England exults with peculiar pride in the 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 hono7"able 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 everything 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 obli gation of honor demands that we cherish it. We are hound 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 unpreten tious slab of the country church-yard, in the painted windows of the cathedral, in the unpolished head-stone and the costliest mausoleum of our cities of the dead. It dedicated the Roman Pantheon. It has lilled Trafalgar Square arid Westminister Abbey with memorials of those who for centuries have made the poetry, the literature, the science, the statesmanship, the oratory, the military and naval gJory--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 charactei*. 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 dark ness that shall mark the end of the days. Taught by these high examples, moved by this lofty sentiment of man kind, 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 that war she waged for sepa rate 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 lus knowledge of that system was not only displayed in his public utterances, but is written in the lives and char acters of the young men of Georgia who learned from him at the State 224: SENATOR B. It. HILL, OF GEORGIA. University, and who irl all the departments of the public service are enter ing into careers of the highest usefulness and distinction, " J\felius est petere fontes quam sectari rivutos." Madison and Webster -were his teachers. ISTever did student have better teachers ; never teachers better student. Webster was not more intense in his love for the Union as origin ally 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. It was a system of government embracing a general government for gen eral 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 prob lems, in the discussion of all questions, in the shaping of all ^policies lie 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 govern ment as the wisest ever devised bv the wisdom of men, guided by a benefi cent Providence which seemed to have chosen them for the highest achieve ments 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 13ible 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 inde structible 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 Na tional Capitol at home, or under foreign skies, leading the armies of the Republic to deeds of highest valor in war, or signalizing the peaceful pur suits of commerce ; at ali 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 AVest, 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 section alism 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 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 loval to Georgia and the South during the period of separation, he rejoiced at their restoration to the Union. N"o mariner tossed through long nights on niicliosen and tempestuous seas ever hailed the day of return HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, ANI> WRITINGS. 325 to tranquil port more gladly than ho hailed the day of the restoration of the States. To son driven, by fortunes he could not contro], from the paternal roof, ever left that roof with sadder parting than he left the TJnion, or re turned from the storms without to the shelter of home "with wilder transport of jy 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 cor dial 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 hdy of John "Wicltliffe was exhumed and burnt to ashes, and these cast jBto the water, but " the Avon to the Severn runs, the Severn to the sea,'filind the doctrines for which he died cover and bless the world. Half a cerfiury 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 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 pro mote 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 com mon tradition, memories, and sentiment, 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 TJnion, oppose all sectionalism, pro- iJ-J SENATOR B, H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. mote tlie wunl and maintain the honor of the Republic. " Who paves his country saves himself, saves alt tiling's, and all thing's saved do bless him; who lots his country die lels all things die, dies himself ignobly, and all thi:i.>'s il.'i.ig Ciii\>e him." 1!Insurious citizen t> the State, of the South, of the Republic, tliou hast tan >-!it us to be brave in danger, to bo true without tlie hope of success, to be patriotic in all things. We honor thee for thy matchless eloquence, for thy dj/uitles* courage, for tli-y lofty patriotism. For the useful k-ssons thou liast t.uiQr'ifc us, for the honorable example thou has left us, for the faithful ser vice thou hnst 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. JVIay 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 stovm, thou. shalfc live, for we this day crown thee with higher honor than Forum or Senate can confer. " In this spacious temple of the firmament," 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 illusti'ious 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. Mr. Grady rose, and in the following language introduced Mr. Davis: Had the great man "whose memory is perpetuated in this marble, chosen of all men one witness to his constancy and his courage, he would have chosen the honorable statesman whose presence honors this platform to-day. Had the people of Georgia chosen of all men one man to-day to aid in this sacred duty, and, by the memories that invest him about, to give deeper sanctity to their work, they would have chosen Jefferson >avis--first and last President of the Confederate States. It is good, sir (turning to Mr. Davis), for you to be here. Other leaders have had their triumphs. Con querors have won crowns, and honors have been piled on the victors of earth's great battles, but never yet, sir, came man to more loving people. Nevei* conqueror wore prouder diadem than the deathless love that crowns your gray hairs to-day. Never king inhabited more splendid palace than the millions of brave hearts in which your dear name and fame are forever "enshrined. Speaking to you, sir, as a son of a Confederate soldier who sealed his devotion with his life--holding kinship through the ^priceless heritage of his blood to you and yours--standing- midway between the thin ning ranks of his old comrades, whose faltering footsteps are turned toward the grave, and the new generation thronging eagerly to take the work that falls unfinished from their hands--here, in the auspicious Present, across which the historic Fast salutes a glorious Future, let me pledge you that the love we bear you shall be transmitted to our children, and our children's children, and that generations yefc unborn shall in this fair land hold your HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 227 red, and point with pride to your lofty to the crowd), let us teach the tiiius its richest reward in the fact that we can light with sunshine the short ening end of a path that has long been dark and dreary. Georgians, countrymen, soldiers and sons of soldiers, and brave women, the light and sQoUUuLl aHn,Iidn. curnoj\wvinj ofi ouuir cuiivviinlzizfcaHtioionii, rliset, ainicdi give yoouurr hearts voice, as we tel] Jefferson Davis that lie is at home among his people. MR. UATIS SFEATCS. Amid the most stupendous cheers, Mr. I>avis advanced to the edge of the platform. He spoke as follows : ladies and Gentlemen : You have been, I believe, generally apprised that no address was to be expected from me. I came here to silently and reverently witness the unveiling- of this statue of my friend. I came as one who wanted to show his respect for a man who in victory or defeat was ever the same--brave, courageous, and true. If I were asked from Georgia's history to name three men who were fair types of Georgians, I would take Oglethorpe the benevolent, Troup the dauntless, and Hill the faithful. It is known to you generally, it has been told to you to-day, what part he took in the struggle which has just passed. If it were expected of me, and I felt able to speak, I should feel that nothing could properly supplement the great orations to which you have listened. There is nothing to be added. It is complete. But there is something I may say of my dead friend. If he was the last to engage in the war between the States, he was the last to give it up. If he did not precipitate the controversy, he stood by the wreck of our fortunes, and it was his voice which "was raised loudest and rang clearest for Georgia to assert her sovereignty. "When, under the power of the conquering enemy,--for they were still such--when, paralyzed by de" ope in Georgi voice rang out and called the people to remember that their cause was not lost ; it was the eternal cause of truth and justice, and he invoked Georgians to renew the struggle in such form as has led to the independence you now enjoy. But I dare not speak of Hill personally. From th't" ."beginning1 to the end of the controversy he was one on whose shoulder I could place my hand and feel that its foundation was as firm as marble. He had nothing to ask, but he had much to give; and when I was the last from the South who could excite any expectation of benefit, it was Hill whose voice rose 328 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GKORQIA. triumphant in the Senate and mashed the ingenious Yankee down. My friends, ours is the day of peace. The friend whose memory we have met to honor taught us the lesson of peace as well as resistance. He taught us that It was through peaceful methods we were to regain our rights. "We have trodden the thorny path and passed over the worst part of the road. Let us still remember fealty to every promise we have given, but still let us love Georgia and her rights, and may her rig'hts of freedom and independ ence, such as your father gave you, be j^ours and your children's forever. PART SPEECHES AND WRITINGS OF SENATOR BENJ. H. HILL. SPEECH DELIVERED AT MACON, GA., JUNE 30, i860. Mr, Hill was one of the Presidential Electors for the State at Large, in support of Bell and Evcrett, and the speech below was made by him in their behalf. It is a calm, convincing presentation of ttie reasons why Bell should be elected President of the "United States. Tt is the only speech which the writer has been able to find made "by Mr. Hill during this threat and momentous campaign. 3\r. .President and Friends: The city papers have announced that I would speak to this meeting' to-day. The announcement was without my knowledge or consent. I refer to this for the purpose of saying that my ap pearance now shall not be regarded as a precedent requiring- me to respond to similar calls in the future, I am no politician to fill bills to order, but if I were I should draw my own bills. Do not suppose I speak thus because I am not settled in my convictions as to what we ought to do in this canvass, for on that point I have no hesitation or doubt ; nor yet because I would not regard respectfully the wishes of my friends. 'Whithersoever the changes of the future may drift us, the affection I feel for every true Ameri can, with whom I have struggled so long for those truths which make tip patriotism, is part of my heart, and the two must live and die together. 13ut my health, though almost entirely restored, is such that I must be allowed to direct my own actions during this canvass. The very distinguished gentleman (Governor Johnson) who addressed you last night, said his mission "was to speak to the Democracy--his own divided brotherhood. Mine is very different. I shall speak to the people. Democrats, "Whigs, Americans--countrymen all, my word of warning- is to you ! This land of the free is full of corruption, strife, and distraction. Party, part}7", party has done it all ! Oh, that the God of the patriot would cast out from our people these seven devils of party, which have already well-nigh ruined us ! If I shall utter a word on this occasion which shall appear to be harsh, I assure you I do not intend such a meaning. I certainly have no such feeling. Tjet us determine first what great principle is involved in this canvass which we ought to support, and secondly, for whom, as patriots, we should vote, in order most effectually to secure and promote that principle. In my opinion, the whole nation is now called on, the first time in its history, to decide, at the ballot box, what power has the general govern ment over the subject of slavery? This question has often been voted on in Congress, in State Legislatures, and by factions, but now the whole nation must vote upon it directly at the ballot box. Whatever may be our 230 SENATOR S. IT. HILL, OF GEORGIA. opinions as to the wisdom, or necessity, or good or evil to result from such an issue, still politicians and events have thrust it upon us, and we must decide it, as far as the ballot box can decide it- Then, in my opinion, if the issue is made, the people ought, as national men and patriots, by this election to declare that the Federal Government "has no power over the subject of sTavery except the power, coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights." \Ve ought so to declare--first, because it is law. The supreme judicial tribunal of the nation lias, in language, so declared. If we do not maintain it, we shall simply subject the stability of the law to the whims of the mul titude, and are in anarchy. Wo ought so to declare, in the second place, because it is right. Protection to the person and property of the citizen is the first duty of every government, and it is the whole and sole power and duty of the govern ment of the XJnited States. It was made for this only, and it can do nothing else. Every act of every department of the government can have no other scope, purpose, or interpretation. Government can create nothing, and destroy nothing unless creation or destruction, in a given specified instance, be necessary to secure general protection. Whether it declare war or make Eeace, whether it build a navy or levy an impost--whatsoever it does must e done for this end. The wisdom of every speech, the redress of every wrong, the duty of every office, the legitimacy of every action, must depend upon and be measured by its fitness for, and its directness toward the one great goal--the protection of the person and property of the citizen. Human government has no other claim even to existence, and that form of govern ment must be the most perfect "which most perfect! jr secures this object. But I do not demand a slave code. Southern men who demand it, I think, reason badly. They leap over truths, and jump to a conclusion, which if granted might render even the right questionable. The demand for a separate specific slave code admits that the tenure to slave property is peculiar--different from that by which other property is hold, and therefore needs a different quality of legislation. The great original ground of this demand is taken from the idea that slavery is the creature of, and solely dependent upon municipal law. It is upon this doctrine that non-action is said to be effectual to exclude slavery from the Territories. Some persons say if there be no law directly to authorize slavery, it cannot exist- The slave without law is free. Therefore, if the Legislature will provide no law-- do nothing--non-act, slavery is excluded. If we admit the premise, the con clusion is irresistible. This is the foundation argument of all abolitionism. I cannot admit it, because I do not believe it correct. Slavery is the creature of Divine law. lie who originally gave maw dominion over the beast of the field, and the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, afterward made Japhet the master of Canaan and decreed Canaan to servitude forever. The first decree is older in date, but not higher in authority than the last, and it is not for me to question the wisdom, of either. He knows best, and there can be no wisdom or right which does not submit to His will. The slave, then, is property. The title is not made by human law. If I had only human Inw for my title or right to my human slave, I would loose him before the sun went down. Slave property differs from other property, not i'i t!ie right, but i'i its use. He who made the servant, prescribed rules niaster will demand of HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, ANZ> WRITINGS. 231 government that which we have--a property code for protection of all m'operty, and therefore of slaves. But, again, I will not now demand of Congress a slave code, because the laws as they now stand, outside of the Kansas bill, are sufficient for our protec tion. If the government is honestly administered, the citizen has ample protections under the remedies now provided. On a former occasion I ex plained this. It is sufficient at present to state the general fact, that we have sufficient legal remedies for present purposes (outside of Kansas and Nebraska, in which protection to slavery was refused by our organic act). But it may be said it' we have sufficient laws already, why now insist on the power and duty of government to protect. We must insist upon it : first, because this right and duty have been denied, and they who deny are seeking to get control of the government. Their success is a triumph of the denial. Already has this doctrine of pro tection been denied by actual legislation in one case--in the Kansas and Nebraska bill. Again, all experience shows that remedies which are sufficient for the present become insufficient under the changes of ever progressing and aggressive events. "Why do your legislatures meet annually ? Simply to pass such new laws and to remedy such defects in existing laws as time and experience constantly show to be necessary. Thus, in 1793, Congress en acted a fugitive slave law, to carry out a plain Constitutional provision. For that day, and for years after that day, that act was sufficient. But the ever-growing madness of anti-slavery fanaticism, and the interference of auti-sSavery legislatures, rendered utterly nugatory the remedies provided by the act of 1793. Hence, it became just as much a necessity, and just as much a duty, to pass a new and more efficient law, as it was to pass the original act. What would now have been our condition had our fathers agreed to be satisfied forever with the law of 1793., and released Congress from its duty of further protection ? So, though the legal remedies are now sufficient, how soon may the perverseness of the human will, the ingenuity of aspiring demagogues, the invasions of a mad anti-slavery, "world-wide sentiment, and the positive intervention of unfriendly Territorial legislatures and people, render present remedies utterly nugatory ? \Ve must insist that government, every depart ment in its appropriate sphere, shall keep our remedies efficient for all time and against all enemies, -wherever the authority of that government extends. I have given reasons enough to show the correctness of the great leading thought to be insisted on as the true solution of the question in this canvass. The next inquiry is, for whom shall we vote in order most effectually to secure the triumph of this principle? To secure this triumph and make it effectual, we must have a constant and honest eye to two things : First. AVe must indorse the principle by our vote. Secondly. AVe ought to indorse it so as to restore peace to the country, quiet the agitation, and thus preserve the stability of the government. It is needless to say we cannot support Mr. Lincoln. But why ? Because he says it is the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories. This is a claim of power other than to protect,'and, therefore, one wliitsh we deny ; and because, also, his election will not restore peace, but increase distraction, and endanger the government. It is idle to debate the propriety, the right, or the wrong of the fact. If the experiment is forced, the fact will turn out t'" 1. That Coiigi-ess has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories. 2. That the Territorial Legislature has no such power! 3. That, on the contrary, it is the duty of the government to protect property (slavery understood) wherever necessary. These are three sound propositions, and cover the whole ground of power and duty. About the 5th day of June, 1S5O, Mr. Seward, of New York, offered the following- as an amendment to the Compromise measures in the Senate : Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise tlmn by conviction for crime, shall ever be allowed in either of said Territories of "Utah and New Mexico, This is the W^ilmot Proviso. John Bell voted no, and thus indorsed, under oath, the first proposition of the platform. On the same day, Mr. .Berrieii--that great man from Georgia--offered the following amendment : But no law shall be passed interfering with, the primary disposal of the soil, nor establishing or prohibiting African slavery. This was against squatter sovereignty. John Bell voted yes, and thus indorsed the second proposition of the platform. On the 27th of May, of the same year, Mr. Pratt, of Maryland, and Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, agreed upon, and Mr. Davis offered, the following amendment to the same bill: Provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed so as to pi-event said Ter ritorial Legislature from passing such laws as may be necessary for thf. protection of the rights of property of every kind, which mav have been or may be hereafter conformable to the Constitution and laws of the "United'States, held in, or introduced into said Ter ritory. Mr. Davis also prefaced this proviso with some remarks, declaring his object to be to assert the duty of the government to protect slavery. On this proviso Mr. Bell voted yes, thus asserting- under oath, the duty of protection, when necessary, in the very language of the platform. For Mr. Davis's proviso, see Congressional Globe, vol. 21, part 2, page 1074. For all the votes, see same book, page 1134. Therefore, to an actual demonstration, Mr. Bell is certainly as sound as the Brock in ridge plat form. The next proposition is, that Mr, Bell is sounder than this platform. JSTow to the proof. This platform, of course, says nothing about slavery as a political, moral, 234 SENATOR S. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. or social good or evil ; nor does tliat platfoi'm assert any good in. slavery to the country, or as contributing to its prosperity. But on the 6th day of July, 1850, in his place in the Senate, Mr. Bell made a speech in which, after asserting the right to protection, to ho con stitutional and " unquestionable," ho proceeds to give his views on slavery itself. A better argument has never been made in defense of slavery. He proves it right by the laws of nature, and of God, as a political, moral, social, and religious good ! I beg every man in the South to get away from dema gogues and party--sit down with a pure and honest heart, and read that speech before he votes against JVlr. Bell, or stultifies himself by calling him un sound. Nothing like it can be found in all the life of John C. Breckinridge. Thus JVIr. Bell is sounder than the platform, and sounder than Mr. Breck inridge and his platform together. Now, fellow-citizens, I will say here in general terms, without taking up your time to read so much, that there is nothing in all- Mr. Bell's 1'ecord in consistent with this. I care not how designing editors and demagogues dis grace themselves with garbling falsehoods, and mean perversions to the contrary, this is true, and their lives not in all the South a purer, sounder, better statesman for the South and the Union than John Bell. But you will say, how is it that Mr. Bell, with such a record, has been declared to be unsound so often at the South. The grounds of this charge have been two--his votes against the Kansas bill and the Liecompton Con stitution, and also the general fact that everybody, not a Democrat, is habit ually denounced as unsound by the small men of that party. In 1856 they burnt me in effigy as an ally of the Republicans, and last night they hung Governor Johnson for the same reason I suppose. To the Governor I send greeting, with the hope that four years hence he may stand as fully vindi cated as I do to-day. But why should our Breckinridge friends condemn Mr. Bell for voting against the Kansas bill ? He did honestly believe and fully declare that that bill would be evil and only evil to the South and the Union. Do you not all admit it ? When you seceded at Charleston, you put on record the reasons for that secession, and, in looking over your reasons, I find many epithets applied to tlie Kansas bill anil the Cincinnati platform, such as " cheat," "swindle," " humbug," and " deceit upon the South." On this bill, then, why condemn Mr. Bell ! The only difference I can see between you and Mr. Bell on this point is that it required six years of bitter experience and earnest warnings to teach you %vhat Mr. Bell saw from the beginning ! Then as to the Ijecompton issue. Mr. Bell did not vote against this bill because it contained slavery. He honestly believed it was fraudulent. Whether so or not he believed so, and so believing, was it not his duty to vote against it ? We ought not to require a man to be corrupt, even to gratify our own feelings. Every man who condemns Mr. Bell for this vote, only impeaches his own reliability, doubtless without intending it. How ever we might differ with Mr. Bell as to the fact of frauds, yet the vote itself proves nothing except that Mr. Bell was honest, yes, honest enough to do right against his own prejudices. I admit but few politicians will under stand how this is possible \ I know of no greater virtue, nor one more needed at this time in our public men. Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, said this Lecompton bil 1 ought to have been kicked out ! Why not call him unsound, too ? He is a Democrat ! There is another reason strongly favoring the claims of Mr. Bell, which HI8 LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 235 we cannot consider too seriously. Mr. Bell is a national man, and his elec tion will nationalize our principles. But how happens it that he is so sound and yet so national ? The explanation is easy. Mr. Bell has always re garded our Constitutional rights as unquestionable. They "were fixed, and above the power of government to destroy. Therefore he has opposed agita tion as unnecessary and unwise. Foolish agitation always stirs up and in vites positive aggression. When issues and votes have been forced by the thoughtless, Mr. Bell has voted right, but he has done so, deprecating the evil to the country of gratuitous agitation. If all our public men had taken John Bell for a model, the rights of the South and the perpetuity of the Union would to-day be unquestionable and unquestioned. The election of Mr. Bell will give our principles a peaceful, quiet triumph, and disband the Republican party. The election of Mr, Breckin ridge will increase the strife and tend to build up the Republican party. Again, on the ground where my Breckinridge friends now stand, and claim so much credit for standing-, John Bell has been standing for years. Yes, he and we were standing there when you were excited, mad, carried away in the thoughtless adoration of this " cheat" and "swindle," as you now term the Kansas bill ; and abused us, called us traitors and abolitionist. You drove him from his seat in the Senate for his very fidelity. You drove the gallant and noble Crittenden from his seat for the same reason, and have placed Mr. Breckinridge in his place. In this hour of our vindication, must we abandon Mr. Bell ? Honor and a high sense of justice should force you to him. Nothing but ingratitude and the loss of self-respect can drive us from him. We have learned how to forgive enemies, but we have never learned how to abandon friends. Again, Mr. Bell was in the field first. The Convention was called while you were still in the National Democracy with your " sound forty-four faith ful." He was nominated while you were trying to get back after once going out. You ought not to have nominated another, and thus divided those who agree. Besides, we are more national and have greater strength North. Mr. Buchanan was elected by a plurality vote. That minority being again divided, how can you succeed? So I will say to our Douglas friends, why not support Bell ? You are national in your wishes, but you cannot succeed. You are dividing our strength and hazarding the nation. In voting for Bell, you only give up squatter sovereignty. Are you wedded to THAT ? If Mr. Douglas and his friends were to unite on Mr. Bell, the defeat of Lincoln is sure. And by such an exhibition of national patriotism, Mr. Douglas would write his name higher in the temple of Liberty than any living statesman has climbed. But if our Breckinridge friends cannot vote for Mr, Bell, there is yet a chance of union. Let us be equals ! I have suggested heretofore an ar rangement of this kind. The responsibility of its rejection and of the con sequent continuance of strife shall be with you, and with you I leave it. Why should our Breckinridge friends still cleave to Democracy? The organization, and the name, belong to Mr. Douglas. It is folly to deny it. People can't be made to say anything, simply because you want them to say it. Besides, if Democracy has become so corrupt, and has deceived the country as you say, why should you wish to appropriate its name with such a prestige? More than all, if that party has imposed on the country a " cheat," which lias borne no fruit but strife, and blood, and deception, how c;,u you pxpfct us to be counted in its membership? 336 SENATOR B. H. HILT,, OF GEORGIA. My countrymen, I appeal from these leaders to you ? How long will you Buffer politicians to flatter you as sovereigns and use you as victims, without awaking- your resentment '? How often shall they settle and unsettle the slavery question, before you discover that the only meaning they have is to excite your prejudices and get your votes ? For how many years shall changing demagogues shuffle you as the gambler shuffles his cards--to win a stake--and still find you willing1 to be shuffled again ? You. were told to wor ship the Kansas bill ; with the blind earnest devotion of a Mecca pilgrim you did kneel and kiss ! You were told to abuse your neighbor because lie would not worship with you. In all the billingsgate of tlie demagogue's vo cabulary you did it. USfow behold ! They wlib told you to worship, tell you the thing-you worshiped is a cheat, a swindle, a humbug ; yea, a deception to the South ! The neighbor you abused has proven a wise man and a true patriot ! Will you bend again the supple knee, and shout aloud with the tongue, when these same priests shall order you ? Will you ? and so soon? I have spoken to you, friends, in kindness. I have spoken the truth. I do not know that I shall speak again. May you do your duty, save your country, and stand approved at last. SPEECH DELIVERED IK MILLED GEVIZXE, GA., NOVEMBER 15, 18(50. This is the only speecn -which has been preserved, made by Mr. Hill against seces sion, and it is an unanswerable argument against it as a remedy for Southern "wrongs. In the light of subsequent events, its wisdom has been fully demonstrated. In an hour when passion and extreme utterances characterized public speakers both North and South, this address is conspicuous for its calm and statesmanlike discussion of the mo mentous questions then pressing for solution. CORRESPONDENCE. Son. B. H. Hill: MILLEDGEVIIXE, November 16, 1860. DEAE SIK : The undersigned, fully appreciating1 the .questions involved in our present political divisions, and having listened with pleasure to the able address delivered by yourself last evening at the Representatives7 Hall, believing, as we do, that " we should fully understand the issue in order to meet it," and desiring that other citizens of our State should have the grati fication of reading what many of us have heard fall fi-om your own lips, we therefore respectfully solicit a copy of your able, eloquent, and patriotic address, for publication, hoping you will comply. We are respectfully yours, B. I>. McWnoRTER, T. O. WICKER, H. W. HOWELL. W. F. HOLDER, R. H. WARD, R. C. HUMKEB, T. W. ALEXANDER, J. M. BONDS, JAMES PAKKS, C. C. PATTOK, JOHN J. TIIBASHER, J. F. I/SETT, M, M. MrNTz, A. J. CLOUD, J. M. BRINSON, "Wat. H. BRANTLY, B. R. REED, NEILL McLBOD, A. E. TARVEE, T. L. GUEREY, E. C. HOOD, "W. H. PlLCHER, CICERO GIBSON, JOHN THRASHEE, H. L. TAYLOR, ALLEN" KELLY, J. R. WILSON, B. J. EVANS, T. J. HiGHTOWER, SAMUEL L. WILLIAMS, JOHN McRAE, W. S. "WALLACE, T. J. SMITH, A. COLVARD, GEORGE T. BARNES, S. Y. JAMESOX, F. A. F^EWELLEN, K. H. I>AVIS, PHIL. COOK, S. F. ALEXANDER, THOMAS F. WELLS. Gentlemen : Since the reception of your letter I have hastily "written out the speech to which you refer. I could not recall the exact language, but the argument, such as it is, is herewith submitted for your disposal. I see nothing in the I'emarks inconsistent with anything heretofore writ ten by me. There is a prudent and imprudent "way of accomplishing the same good. I think some of onr friends are hasty- Let us keep right and " make haste slowly." I have discussed a policy of resistance, but I am ready to yield it for a better when I can find it. That policy which can most cordially unite our people, and most effectually redress our grievances, is the one I shall prefer. November 19, 1860. Yours, very respectfully, B, H. HILL. 337 SENATOR B. S. HILL, OF GEORGIA. JLaclies ancl Friends : While I am speaking to you to-night I earnestly beg for perfect quietness and order. It seems to be a general idea that pub lic speakers feel highly complimented when their opinions are received with boisterous applause. I do not so feel on any occasion, and certainly would not so regard such a demonstration now. The occasion is a solemn and seri ous one, and let us treat it in no light or trivial manner. One more request. I have invoked good order. I yet more earnestly invoke your kind and consider ate attention. No people ever assembled to deliberate a graver issue. The government is the result of much toil, much blood, much anxiety, and much treasure. For nearly a century we have been accustomed to speak and boast of it. as the best on earth. AY rapped up in it are the lives, the happiness, the interests, and the peace of thirty millions of freemen now living1, and of unnumbered millions in the future. Whether we shall now destroy tha,t government or make another effort to preserve it and reform its abuses., is th# question before us. Is that ques tion not entitled to all the wisdom, the moderation, and the prudence we can command ? Were you ever at sea in a storm? Then you know the sailor often finds it necessary, to enable him to keep his ship above the wave, to throw overboard his freight, even his treasure. But with his chart and his compass he never parts. However dark the heavens or furious the winds, with these he can still point the polar star, and find the port of his safety. Would not that sailor be mad who should throw these overboard ? "We are at sea, my friends. The skies are fearfully darkened. The bil lows roll threateningly. Dangers are on every side. Let us throw over board our passions, our prejudices, and our party feelings, however long or highly valued.. But let us hold on--hold on to reason and moderation. These, and these alone, point always to the fixed star of truth, by whose uidance we may yet safely come to shore. We must agree. We do agree if we but knew it. Our people must be united to meet this crisis. Divisions now would not only be unfortunate, but exceedingly disastrous. If divisions arise they cannot be based on our interests or our purposes, for these are and must be the same. Divisions must find their origin in our suspicions and jealousies. Let us give these suspicions and jealousies to the winds. Let us assume as the basis of every argument that we are all equally honest, and equally desirous in our various ways of securing one end--our equality and rights. There must be one way better than all others. Let our ambition be to find that way, and unite our people in the advocacy of that way. I have listened with earnest attention to the eloquent speeches made by all sides, and I believe a common ground of agreement can be found, if not for universal, at least for very general agreement. Those who hold that the Constitution is wrong, and the Union bad per sey of course will agree to nothing but immediate disunion, and such I shall not be able to affect. In the first place what are our grievances. All the speakers, thus far, even the most ultra, have admitted that the mere Constitutional election of any man is no ground for resistance. The mere election of Mr. Lincoln is on all sides admitted not to be grievance. Our State would not be thrown on a false issue on this point. 'We complain, in general terms, that the anti-slavery sentiment at the Nortb, has been made an element of political power. HIS LIVE, SP&EOHES, AND WRITINGS. 239 In proof of this we make the following specifications : 1. That a large political party has been organized in the Northern States, the great common idea of which is to prohibit the extension of slav ery by Congress, and hostility to slavery generally. 2. That this party has succeeded in getting the control of many of the Northern State Legislatures and have procured the passage of acts millifying the fugitive slave law, encouraging the rescue of fugitives, and seeking" to punish as felons citizens of our Southern States who pursue their slaves in the assertion of a plain Constitutional right. 3. That this party has elected governors in Northern States who refuse, some openly and others under frivolous pretexts, to do their plain Constitu tional duties, when these involve the recognition of property in slaves. 4. That Northern courts, chosen by the same party, have assumed to declare the fugitive slave law unconstitutional in the teeth of the decisions of the United States courts, and of every department of the United States Government. d. AYe complain that the Northern States, thus controlled, are seeking to repudiate every Constitutional duty or provision, in favor or in recognition of slavery--to work the extinction of slavery, and to secure to the negro social and political equality with the white race ; and, as far as possible, they disregard and nullify even the laws of the Southern States on these subjects. In proof of this complaint, we show that Northern governors have actually refused to deliver up fugitives from justice, when the crime charged against such fugitives recognized under State law property in slaves. Thus, a Northern man married a Southern lady having a separate estate in slaves. He deceived the lady, stole her negroes, sold them, and pocketed the money, and fled to a Northern State. He was charged with larceny under the laws of the State in which the crime was committed. A. true bill "was obtained and a demand was properly made for his return, and the Gov ernor of the State to which he fled refused to deliver him up on the ground that to commit larceny a man must steal property, and as slaves were not property according to the laws of the Northern State, it could not be prop erty according to the laws of the Southern State ; that therefore the Southern court, jury, and governor were r.ll wrong in obeying the laws of their own State, instead of the laws of t^e Northern State ; that the defendant was not guilty and could not be guilty, and should not be delivered up. The same principle was involved to shield several of the conspirators in the John Brown raid. The inexorable logic of this party, on such a premise, must array them against the whole Constitution of the United States ; because that instru tical consequences--disunionists per se. I would not quote from the low and the ignorant of that party, but I will quote from the learned and the honored. One of the most learned disciples of this party, says ; 240 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. One of the ablest, and oldest, and long honored senators of that party-- a senator even before the existence of the Republican party--said to the nominating convention of that party : I believe that this is not so much a convention to change the administration of the government, as to say whether there shall be any government to be administered. You have assembled, not to say whether this Union shall be preserved, but to say whether it shall be a blessing or a scorn and hissing among tho nations. I could quote all night, my friends, to show that the tendency of the Republican party is to disunion. That to be a Republican is to be logic ally and practically against the Constitution and the Union. And we com plain that this party is warring- upon us, and at the same time, and in the same way, and by a necessary consequence, warring upon the Constitution and tlie Union. 6. We complain, in the last place, that this party, having thus acquired the control of every department of government--legislative, executive, and judicial--in several of the Northern States, and having thus used every department of the State government so acquired, in violation of the Con stitution of the United States, in disregard of the laws of the Southern States, and in utter denial of the property and even liberty of the citizens of the Southern States--this party, I say, with these principles, and this his tory, has at last secured the executive department of the Federal Govern ment, and are seeking- to secure the other two departments--the legislative and the judicial. Here, then, is a party seeking to administer the government on principles which must destroy the government--proposing to preserve the TJnion upon a basis on which the Union, in the very nature of things, cannot stand ; and offering peace on terms which must produce civil war. Now, my friends, the next question is, shall these grievances be resisted ? I know of no man who savs they ought not to be resisted. For myself, I say, and say with emphasis, they ought to be resisted--resisted effectively and at all hazards. What lessons have we here ? We have seen differences running high-- even apparent bitterness engendered. Passion gets up, debates become jeers and gibes and defiance. One man says he will not resist Lincoln. His adversary pronounces that treason to the South and the mart a black Republi can. Another man saj's he will resist Lincoln and demand immediate seces sion. His adversary pronounces that treason to the Constitution and the man a disunioiiist. "What do you mean by Lincoln? Stop and define. The first means by Lincoln the man elected, the second means by Lincoln the issue on which he is elected. Neither will resist the first, both will resist the latter, and so they agree and did agree all the time they were disputing ! These grievances are our real complaint. They have advanced to a point which makes a crisis : and that point is the election of Lincoln. ^We dare not, we will not let this crisis pass without a settlement. That settlement must wipe out existing grievances, and arrest threatened ones. AVe owe it to our Constitution, to our country, to our peace, to our posterity, to our dignity, to our self-respect as Union men and Southern men, to have a cessa tion of these aggressions and an end to these disturbances. I do not think we should wait for any further violation of the Constitution. The Constitution has already been violated and even defied. These violations are repeated HIB LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 241 every clay. AVe must resist, and to attempt to resist and not do so effec tively--even to the full extent of the evil--will be to bring shame 011 our selves, and our State, and our cause. Having agreed on our complaints, and discovered tbat all our suspicions of each other are unfounded, and that our disputes on this point had their origin in hasty conclusions and thoughtless mistakes, let us, with an encour aged charity and forbearance, advance to the next step in this arg-ument. Who shall inaugurate this resistance ? Who shall determine the mode, the measure, and the time of this z-esistarice ? My reply is : The people through their delegate convention duly assembled. It is not necessary for me now to urge this point. Here again we have had disputes without differences. I have the pleasure of announcing to-night that the prominent leaders, of all shades of opinion on this subject, came together this day, and agreed that it was the right and privilege of the people in convention to pass on these questions. On this point we have disputed for a week, and to-day, acting as Georgians should act, we came together in a spirit of kindness, and in fifteen minutes our hearts were all made glad by the discovery that our differences or disputes were founded on groundless suspicions, and we are agreed. We are all for resistance, and we are all for the people in con vention to say bow and where and by what means we shall resist. I never beheld a scene which made my heart rejoice more sincerely. Oh, that I could see the same spirit of concord on the only remaining- ques tion of difference. "With my heart full of kindness I beg you, my friends, accompany me now to question. I do believe we can agree again. My solemn conviction is that we differ as little on this as w^e did on the other point, in every.material view. At leas*;, nearly all the quarrels of the world in all ages have been founded more in form than substance. Some men are honest, wise, and prudent. Others are equally honest a,nd intelligent, but rash and impetuous. The latter are often to be loved and encouraged ; but the first alone are to be relied on in emergencies. We often appeal to the history of our-fathers to urge men to indigna tion and resentment of wrongs. Let us study all that history. Let me show you from that history, an example of metal and over-confidence on the one hand, and of coolness and wisdom on the other. During our colonial history, the English government sent General Braddock to America to dislodge and drive back the French and Indians. The general, in arranging the company, assigned to his own command the duty of recovei'ing the Ohio Valley and the great Northwest. It was necessary to capture Fort Duquesne. He never thought of any difficulties in the way of success. He promised Newcastle to be beyond the mountains in a very short period. Duquesne he thought would stop him only three or four days, and there was no obstruction to his march to Niagara. He de clared the Indians might frighten the raw American militia, but could make no impression on the British regulars. This was IBraddock. One of that raw American militia who had joined Braddock's command, was the young Washington, then only about twenty-three years old. He became one of Braddock's aids. Hearing1 his general's boasts, and seeing his thoughtless courage, Washington quietly said to him, " We shall have more to do than to go up the hills and come down." Speaking of Braddock to another, Washington said, " He was incapable of arguing without warmth, 242 SENATOR B, H. HILL, OF or giving up any point lie had asserted, be it ever so incompatible with rea son or common sense." Braddock was considered on all hands to be a brave, gallant, and fearless officer. Here, then, are two men, both brave, noble, and'^intelligent, engaged to gether to accomplish a common enterprise for the good of their country. The one was rash, thoughtless, never calculating- difficulties, nor looking forward to and providing against obstructions. He arranged his express and sent forward the news of his victory before hand. -But the other was cool, calculating, cautious, wise, and moderate. He was a man who thought before he acted and then he acted the hero. Now, for results : Braddock was surprised before he reached the fort. His British regulars fled before the yelling- Indians, and the raw American militia were slain by them. Braddock himself fought bravely and he was borne from the field of his shame, leaving more than half his little armydead, and himself senseless with a mortal wound. After the lapse of a day he came to himself, and his first exclamation was, < Who would have thought it ! " Again he roused up and said, '* \Ve shall better know how to deal with, them another time." Poor general, it was too late, for with that sen tence he died ? For more than a century he lias slept near Port Necessity, and his only history might be written for his epitaph : "He was brave but rash, gallant but thoughtless, noble but bigoted. He fought hastily, died early, and here he lies." The young Washington was also brave, and in the thickest of the fight. Horse after horse fell from under him. The bullets of the Indians whistled around him and through his clothes, but Providence spared him. Even the Indians declared some God protected him. So cool, so brave, so wise and thoughtful was the conduct of this young officer, before, during-, and after the battle that even then a distinguished man " points him out as a youth raised up by Providence for some noble work." Who does not know the history of Washington ; yet who can tell it? Our g-lorious revolution, that wise Constitution, this happy, "widespread, and ever spreading country-- struggling millions fired on by the example of his success, are some of the chapters already written in that history. Long chapters of yet unrealized glory, and power, and happiness shall be endlessly added, if the wisdom of him. who redeemed our country can be continued to those who inherit it. The last hour of constitutional liberty, perpetuated to the glory of the end, or cut short in the frenzy of anarchy, shall wind up the history of Washing ton. Behold here the sudden destructon of the rash man and his followers, and the still unfolding; success of the cool and thoughtful mail, and then let us g-o to work to meet this crisis that is upon us. Though there are various modifications of opinions, there are really but two modes of resistance proposed. One method is to make no further effort in the Union, but to assume that the Union either cannot or ought not to be preserved, and secede at once and throw ourselves upon the consequences. The other method is to exhaust certain remedies for these grievances in the Union, with the view of preserving our rights and the Union with them, if possible ; looking, however, to and preparing for secession as an ultimate resort, certainly to be had, if those grievances eannot be remedied and com pletely remedied and ended in the Union. Irreconcilable as these differences at first view seem to be, I maintain a point of complete reconciliation can be reached. 1IIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 243 Now, let us look to the reason urged by the advocates of these two modes of redress. The advocates of the first mode declare that these grievances are the fruits of an o rig-in a], innate anti-slavery fanaticism. That the history of the world will show that such fanaticism, is never convinced, is never satisfied, never reasons, and never ends but in victory or blood. That accordingly this fanaticism, in the Northern States has been constantly progressive, always getting stronger and more impudent, defiant, and aggressive ; and that it will never cease except in our subjugation unless we tear loose from it by dissolving the Union. These advocates say they have no faith in any resist ance in the Union, because, in the nature of the evil, none can be effectual. The advocates of the second mode of resistance, of whom I am humbly one, reason after another fashion : We say, in the first place, that while it is true that this anti-slavery sentiment has become fanatical with many, yet it the agitation now upon us did not originate in fanaticism or philanthropy but in cupidity. England owned the "West Indies and there she had some slaves. She had possessions in East India which she believed were adapted to the growth of cotton, and which article of produce she desired to monopolize. The Southern States were her only dangerous competitors. She desired to cripple or break down the cultivation of the cotton plant in the South. The South could not use her own soil and climate in the successful produc tion of cotton without the African slave. England therefore must manage to set free the slave and turn the South over to some inadequate peasantry system, something like the coolie system. To this end Kngland- raised a great cry of philanthropy in behalf of the poor negro. As a show of sincerity she abolished slavery in the AVest Indies near us, thinking- thereby to affect the same institutions 171 her Southern neighbor. She taught her lessons of false philanthropy to our Northern pulpits and Northern papers, arid thus to our Northern people. At this time the Northern politicians saw in this in-flammable subject fine material for political agitation, party success, and self-promotion. They leaped upon the wave and rode on it. The Southern politicians raised the counter cry, leaped on the counter wave, and met the Northern politicians -- in office. As long as the people answered the politicians called, and the receded from a pol.itical solution, and i. ncreasi. ng in excitemen'Pt Pa1s it has pro gressed ; all statesmanship, North and South., is dwarfed to a mere wrangling about African slavery. Slavery will survive, but the Constitution, the Union, and pence may not. The Southern States will continue to raise cotton, but the hoping subject of tyranny in the earth may not continue to point to the beautiful success of the experiment of seif-govermnent in America. AVMle the storm which England raised in America has been going on, England has been trying to raise cotton in India. She has failed. Her factories are at home, but her cotton can't come from India. She must have cotton. Four millions of her people can't live without it. The English throne caann't stand without it. It must come from the Southern States. It can't be raised in the South without slave labor. Aud England has become the defender of slavery in the South. 244 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. I will frankly state that this revolution in English sentiment and policy has not yet reached the Northern people. The same causes must slowly produce it. But while the anti-slavery sentiment has spread in the North, the proslavery sentiment has also strengthened in America. In our early history the Southern statesmen were anti-slavery in feeling. So were "Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, and many of that day, who had never studied the argument of the cotton gin, nor heard the eloquent productions of the great Mississippi Valley. Now our people not only see the justice of slavery, but its providence too. The world can never give up slavery until it is ready to give up clothing and food. The South is a magnificent exemplifica tion of the highest Christian excellence. She is feeding the hungry, cloth ing the naked, blessing them that curse her, and doing good to them that despitefully use and persecute her. We say again that even the history of the slavery agitation in this country does not justify the very conclusion that Abolitionism has been always progressive. Whenever popular sentiment in politics has condemned the agitation, Abolitionism has declined. Many instances could be given. In 1848 the Abolition candidate for the Presidency received about 300,000 votes. At the end of Mr. Fillmore's administration in 1852, the candidate of that party received about half that vote, and a fugitive slave could be re- the agitation had been revived. These, and many other similar reasons, we urge for believing that all the enumerated grievances--the results of slavery agitation--are curable by remedies within the Union. But suppose our reasoning all wrong ! How shall we be convinced ? Only by the experiment ; for in the nature of the case, nothing but a trial can test the virtue of the remedies proposed, Let us try these remedies, and if we fail, this failure will establish the truth of the positions of the advocates of immediate secession, and we shall all join in that remedy. For let it be understood, we are all agreed that these grievances shall be resisted--shall be remedied--most effectively remedied; and if this cannot be done in the Union, then the Union must go. And we must not let this crisis pass without forever solving this doubt. If the Union and the peace of slavery cannot exist together, then the Union must go ; for slavery can never go, the necessities of man and the laws of Heaven will never let it go, and it must have peace. And it has been tantalized and meddled with as long as our self-respect can permit. But what remedies in the Union do we propose ? I will answer : The grievances enumerated are of two kinds--existing and threatened. The existing actual grievances are all violations of the Federal Constitution and Federal laws, either by Northern citizens or Northern States. Now, what does good statesmanship, good logic, and common sense naturally sug gest ? Why, that the Federal Government shall enforce its laws. No State can enforce, or punish, for the violation of a Federal law. The power offended must adequately punish the offender. The punishment must be such as to redress the past, and by certainty and terror secure the future. The Federal law is offended. The Northern States and people are the offenders. The South is damaged by the offense. This gives her the right HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 245 to demand the redress at the hands of the "Federal Government, and if that government, for waiit of will or power, shall not grant the redress, then that government is a demonstrated failure. And when government ends, selfdefense begins. We can then take redress in our own way, and to our entire satisfaction. Let the Georgia Convention meet. Let her not simply demand hut com mand that this war on slavery shall cease--that these unconstitutional acts and proceedings shall be repeated and abandoned by the States, or repu diated and redressed by the Federal Government. Let her invite all the States to join in this demand. If no others will come to their duty and meet with us, let the fifteen Southern States join in this demand, and let the penalty of refusal, even to the demand of one State, be the abandonment of the Union, and any other, even harsher remedy, each State may think her rights and honor require, AVe have an instance before us, made by the North. AVhen, in 1833, South Carolina was refusing to obey a Federal, law, in the execution of which the Northern States had an interest, Congress passed a force bill, and put it in the hands of a Southern President for enforcement, even with the army and the navy and the militia--if needed. Let us turn this battery against Northern rebels. The constitutionality of the act which South Carolina resisted was doubted. A Southern State never nullified, nor refused to obey, a plain constitutional law. But here are the Northern States, and people nullifying and setting at defiance the plainest Constitutional provisions, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; and, instead of demanding of the Federal Government the enforcement of its laws for the protection of our rights, we are spending our breath and wasting our strength, in vain boastings of wrath and hurtful divisions of our own people. Some of our wisest Southern statesmen think we have laws already sufficient for this crisis, if enforced. We have an act in 1795, and one in 1807, and perhaps others, to execute the laws, to suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. If these and other enactments are sufficient, let UB have them enforced. A. Voice. --The presidents we have already had won't enforce that law. J\fT. Hill.---Then you ought to have dissolved long ago. If the grievance has been by men of our own choosing1, why have we not complained before. Let us begin now. Let us begin with Mr. Buehanan. A few days ago, and perhaps now, a fugitive is standing protected by a Northern mob in a Northern State, in defiance of the United State Marshal. Let us demand now that Mr. Buchanan enforce the law against that rebel and against that State which protects him, or suffers him to be protected on her soil. Let ns have out the army and navy, and if they are not sufficient let there be a call for volunteers. Many of us say we are ready to fight, anxious to fight. Here is a chance. Let us tender our services. If the laws now existing are not sufficient, let ns have them sufficient. It is our right. We are entitled to a force bill for every clause in the Constitution necessary to our rights. What have our statesmen been after that these laws are not sufficient ? Some of these nullifying grievances have existed since 1843, and is it possible that our statesmen hare been all asleep, or lost or forgetful in wrangling about slavery ? Let us begin now and perfect our laws for the enforcement of every Constitutional right, and against every rebel enemy. Let the convention add to the contingencies of 246 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. disruption in the G-eorgia platform. Let the refusal to enforce the laws granted for our protection and defense be one contingency, and the refusal to grant the laws needed for that protection and defense be another contin gency. A. Voice.-- How long- will you wait ? Mr. Hill.--Until the experiment is tried and both the demands enumer ated may be tested and the contingencies may transpire before the fourth of March next. If thev do riot, if a larger time shall be needed, Mr. Lincoln cannot do us damage. As you heard Jast night, lie cannot even form his Cabinet unless he make it acceptable to a Democratic Senate. And I go farther and say that he cannot get even his salary--not a dime to pay for. his breakfast--without the consent of Congress. Nor would I have the Southern States, nor even Georgia, to hesitate to demand the enforcement of those laws at the hands of Mr. Lincoln, if we cannot test it before. The North demanded of a Southern President the execution of the law against a Southern State in 1839. Now Jet the South compel a Northern President to execute the laws against a Northern people ; yea, the very rebels that elected him. j4. Voice.--.Do you believe Lincoln would issue his proclamation ? JUr. Hill. --We can make him do it. It is his oath. He will be a traitor to refuse, and we shall have the right to hang him. lie dare not refuse. He would be on Southern territory, and for his life he dare not refuse. A. Voice. --The " Wide Awakes " will be there. Mr, Hill.--Very well, if we are afraid of the " Wide Awakes " we had better surrender without further debate. The " Wide Awakes " will be there if we secede, and if they are to be dreaded, our only remedy is to hide. No, my friends, we are not afraid of anybody. Arm us with the laws of our country and the Constitution of our fathers, and we fear no enemy. Let us make war upon that Constitution and against those laws and wo will be afraid of every noise in the bushes. lie who feels and knows he is right, is afraid of nothing; and he who feels and knows ho is wrong, is afraid of nothing, too. We were told, the other night by a gentleman urging immediate secession that we had. never had a member in Congress but who was afraid to demand the laws for the enforcement of these Constitutional rights. And this is true, but whose fault is that ? Shame upon us that -we have been afraid to demand our rights at the hands of our own government, administered to this hour by men of our own choice, and yet insist on our courage to siistain us in seceding from that government in defiance of its power. No, we have a right to go out, but let us know we must exercise that right before we go, and how can we know it unless we ask first ? The Declaration of Independ ence, which you invoke for an example, says, a decent respect to the opin ions of mankind requires us to declare the causes which impel us to the sep aration. When we separate and allege our grievances as our causes, and mankind shall ask us if we attempted, even demanded a redress of those grievances and causes before we went out, shall we hang our heads and say no? A people who are afraid to demand respect for their rights, can have no rights worthy to be respected. Our fathers demanded, yea petitioned, warned, and conjured, and not until the government was deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity, did they acquiesce in the necessity which an nounced their separation. It is not the cowardice of fear, but the courage of right and duty, to demand redress at the hands of our government. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 24V I confess I am anxious to see the strength of this government now tested. The crisis is on us ; not of our seeking, but in spite of our opposition, and now let us meet it. I believe we can make Lincoln enforce the Jaws. If fifteen Southern tate__s will take that Constitution and the laws and his oath, and shake them in the face of the President, and demand their observance and enforce ment, lie cannot refuse. Better make him do it than any one else. It will he a magnificent vindication of the power and the majesty of the law, to make the President enforce the law, even to hanging, against the very rebels who have chosen him to trample upon it. It will be a vindication that will strike terror to the hearts of the evil-doers for a century to come. Wli3r, Lincoln is not a monarch. He has no power outside of the law, and none inside of the law except to enforce it. The law is onr king over all. From the President to the humblest citizen we are the equal subjects of this only ruler. "We have no cause for fear except when we offend this only sovereign of the Republican citizen, and have no occasion for despair until his protection is denied us. I am also willing, as you heard last night, that our Convention or State should demand of the nullifying- States the repeal of their obnoxious laws. I know this idea has been characterized as ridiculous. I cannot see wherein. You would make such demands of any foreign power interfering with your rights, and why do less toward a confederate State ? But in my opinion, the wisest policy, the most natural remedy, and the surest way to vindicate our honor and self-respect, is to demand the unconditional observance of the Constitution by every State and people, and to enforce that demand. And if it be necessary, call out for this purpose the whole power of the government oven to war on the rebellious State. And when a State shall allow a fugitive to be rescued in her jurisdiction and carried beyond the reach of the owner, require her to indemnify the owner, and make the government compel that indemnity, even to the seizxire of the property of the offending State and her people. One such rigid enforcement of the law will secure universal obedi ence. Let the law be executed though the heavens fall, for there can. be no government without law, and law is but sand, if not enforced. If need be, let the State continuing in rebellion against the Constitution be driven from, the Union. Is this Union a good? If so, why should we sur render its blessings because Massachusetts violates the laws of that Union ? Punish the guilty. Drive Massachusetts to the duties of the Constitution or from its benefits. Make the general government do this, and abandon the government when it shall take sides with the criminal. It would be a trophy to fanaticism, above all her insolence, to drive the dutiful out of the Union with impunity on its part. Let us defend the Union against its enemies, until that Union shall take sides with the enemy, and then let us defend ourselves against both. In the next place let ua consider the benefits of this policy. First, let us consider its benefits if we succeed ; and then its benefits if we fail. If we succeed we shall have brought about a triumph of law over the fell spirit of mobocracy, never surpassed in the world's history, and the reward of that triumph will be the glorious vindication of our equality and honor, and at the same time the establishment of the Union in its integrity forever. And I tell you, my friends, we owe it to our history, ourselves, and our posterity, yea, to constitutional liberty itself, to make this trial. 248 SENATOR B. II. SILL, OF GEORGIA.. Can it be possible that we are living under a government that has no power to enforce its laws ? ^Ve have boasted of our form of government. ^W& have almost, canonized its authors as saints, for their patriotism and wisdom. They have reputations world-wide. They have been, for nearly a century, lauded as far above all antiquity, and all previous statesmen. Their faces and their forms have been perpetuated in brass and marble foi" the admiring gaze of many generations made happy in the enjoyment of their labors. In verse and song, in history and philosophy, in light literature and graver learning-, their names are eulogized, and their deeds commemorated, and their wisdom ennobled. The painter has given, us the very faces and posi tions of the great counselors, as they sat together deliberating in the forma tion of this Constitution. The pulpit has placed their virtues next to the purity and inspiration of the early apostles. The Senate Chamber has in voked their sayings as the test of good policy. The fireside has held up to its juvenile circle their manners as the models of good breeding. The demagogue on the hustings has falsely caught at their mantles to hide his own shame. All this, because we have been accustomed to believe that they suc ceeded in framing the best Constitution and in organizing the best govern ment the world ever saw. Is that government, after all, a failure ? \V^ho shall give us a better, and how shall we commemorate the worth of such wiser benefactors ? But if this government cannot enforce its laws, then it is a failure. We have professed to feel and realize its blessings. Eloquence has por trayed in magic power its progress in all the elements of power, wealth, great ness, and happiness. !N"ot a people on earth, since we achieved our inde pendence, has shown symptoms of a desire to be free, that we have not en couraged by our sympathies, and as the sufficient evidence of all success in self-government, we have pointed them to our example. There is not a people on earth who do not point to America and sigh for a government like that of the United States. Shall we now say to all these : Stop, you are mistaken. Our reputation is not deserved. Be content with your harsher rule. The people are not capable of self-government. This very government, which you admire, and which we have thought was A model, is unable to protect our own people from the robber, the thief, the murderer, and the fanatic ! Fellow-citizens, before we settle down in such a conclusion, let us make the effort and put this government to the test. Another advantage to be derived from success is, that we shall thus end the agitation of slavery foi'ever. Its agitation in politics was wrong from the beginning^ Debate its inorality and justice as much as you please. It will stand the argument. But don't drag it down into a party political issue. Show me the man who agitates slavery as a political party question and I will show you the true enemy of slavery and the Union, I care not whether he lives North or South. The safety and peace of the slaveholder and the Union demand that this agitation should not longer be allowed. But, in the second place, if we fail, we cannot be damaged, but great ben efits will result from the effort. In the next place we shall have time to get ready for secession. If we secede now, in what condition are we ? Our secession will either be peace able or otherwise. If peaceable, we have no ships to take off our produce. We could not get and would not have those of the government from which SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, ANI> WRITINGS. 249 we had just seceded. We have no treaties, commercial or otherwise, with any other power. "We have no postal system among our owii people. Nor are we prepared to meet any one of the hundred inconveniences that must follow, and all of which can be avoided by taking time. But suppose our secession be not peaceable. In what condition are we for war ? No navy, no forts, no arsenals, no arras but bird guns for low trees. Yet a scattered people, with nothing dividing us from our enemy but an imaginary line, and a long sea and gulf coast extending from the Potomac to Gralveston Bay, if all should secede. In what condition are we to meet the thousand ills that would beset us, and every one of which can be avoided by taking time. " "We have more to do than to go up the hills and come down." Secession is no holiday work. While we are seeking to redress our wrongs in the Union, we can go forward, making all necessary preparations to go out if it should become necessary. We can have a government system perfect, and prepared, ready for the emergency., when the necessity^ for separation shall come. Again, if we fail to get redress in the Union, that very failure will unite the people of our State. The only real ground of difference now is : some of us think we can get redress in the Union, and others think we can not. T_iCt those of us "who still have faith make that effort which has never been made, and if we fail, then we are 1'eady to join you. If you will not help us make that effort, at least do not try to prevent. Let us have a fair trial. Keep cool and keep still. If we cannot save our equality, and rights, and honor in the Union., we shall join you and save them out of it. Voice.--When you fail to save your rights in the Union, if you refuse to go with us then, what will you do ? J\fr. Hill.-- But we will go. We allow not if to our conduct in that con nection. If, when we coine to join you, you get stubborn and refuse to go, then we shall go without you. Now, my secession friends, I have all confidence in your zeal and patri otism, but simply let us take time and get ready. Let us work for the best, and prepare for the worst. Until an experiment is made, I shall always believe that the Constitution has strength enough to conquer all its enemies-- even the Northern fanatic. If it proves to have not that strength, I will not trust it another hour. A third benefit to be derived from the failure of an honest effort to i'edress our grievances in the Union, is the Union of all the Southern States. Some of the States will not secede now. Some of the States who suffer most from the grievances we have enumerated will not secede now. Because they think these grievances can be redressed in the Union. If this idea be a dream, let us wake up to the reality by an actual expei-itnent. A further benefit to be desired is, that if all the Southern States get ready and secede together, we shall be allowed to do so peaceably. Cer tainly, it is our right to go peaceably any way. The government, though having the right to enforce its laws against all the world, has no right to coerce back a seceding State. But the attempt might be made and the peace broken, if only one State should secede, or even a few. But let all the Southern States get ready and go together, and no earthly power would interfere or molest. My own opinion is that every Western and North western State, and the Middle States, and perhaps all but the New England States, would go with us. And the glorious result at last might be that we 250 SENATOR B. S. HILL, OF GEORGIA. should hold the government with all its power, and thrust off only those who have been faithless to it. But the Southern States alone, with the territory naturally falling into our hands, would form the greatest government then on earth. The world must have our products ; and after peace was once secured to us, the world would furnish our navies and our army, without the expense to us of a ship or a soldier. .Finally, ray friends, we shall have secured, by this policy, the g~ood opinion of' all mankind and of ourselves. AVe shall have done our duty to history, to our children, and to Constitutional liberty, the great experiment of self-government. We shall have also discerned the defects in our pres ent government, and will be prepared to guard against them in another. Above all we shall have found good consciences, and secured that, either in the Union or out of it, which is dearer to us than any "Union, and more to be desired than all constitutions however venerated--that which is the end of all our efforts, and the desire of all our hearts, our equality as States, our rights as citizens, and our honor as men. SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE GEORGIA LEGISLATURE, IN MILLEDGEVILLE, DECEMBER 11, 1862. CORRESPONDENCE. MiLLBDGByviLLB, December 12, 1862. Hon. B. If. Hill. DEAR SIB : The undersigned, members of the General Assembly, take pleasure in. expressing their high gratification at tlie able address delivered by you last night in the Representative Hall, and would respectfully request a copy for publication. Very respectfully yours, S. F. AT.-EXANDEK, 34th Dist. J. A. SHEWMAKE, IVth Dist. L. M. HILT,, 29th Dist. B. T. HARRIS, 20th Dist. D. R. MITCHKLL, 42d Dist, Jos. A. GASTON, 36th Dist. WM. GIBSON, 18th Dist. J. II. ECHOES, 30th Dist. T. M. FURI,O\V, 13th Dist. D. J. BOTHWKLL, 14th Dist. WM. P. BEASI.Y, 37th Dist. WII/LIATM M. UROWN, E. Gr. CAEANISS, J. A. L. LETS, J. PL R. WASHINGTON, JOHN FAVER, J AMIES E. KEY, JOHN W. McCoRD, P. E. LOVE, MILTON A. CANDLEE, L. N, WHITTLE, BEN. 13. MOORE, ROBT. J. BACON", ROBERT HESTER, T, jVt. NORWOOD, J. J. THBASHER. LA G-EANGE, GA., January 7, 1863. Gentlemen .' Your letter requesting for publication a copy of the speech I had. the honor to deliver before the General Assembly, was handed to me before I left Milledgeville. I made the speech with 110 thought of publica tion, and therefore was not prepared with a copy. Learning- that a gentleman had taken tolerably full stenographic notes of the speech, I applied to him. to write them out. He kindly promised to furnish them to me. After waiting a considerable time, he wrote me that he had been prevented from complying with the promise. In the midst of other engagements I have endeavored to write out the speech. I have not been able to recall the language spoken, but the line of argument is precisely the same. Hoping the views uttered will, at least, do no harm, I place them at your disposal. Since the speech was delivered, several splondid victories have crowned our arms with new and, if possible, more glorious triumphs. These give increased confidence to the high and gratifying hopes of final success which. I then expressed. In the midst of scenes which should excite universal accord and harmony 251 252 SENATOR B. If. HILL, OF GEORGIA. in all the measures of the administration, it is painful to Georgians to find only in our State a few who still murmur and seek to divide. What can be the end or the object of strife now ? Rational men must have a distinct purpose in view. Are we so tired of the revolution that we wish to retrace its steps and go back ? Or are we so in love with revolution that we desire another ? Or is it simply an Erostratan ambition for notoriety ? Perhaps these differences are inseparable from republican governments. They existed in Washington's day, and charged the Father of his Country with infidelity to the Constitution., and with ambition to wear imperial pur ple. "We can then afford to be patient, and the justice that rewarded then, will be meted out again. With great regard for you all, personally, gentlemen, I have the honor to be, Very truly yours, B. H. HILL. 3fessrs. J3. Gr. Cabaniss, J~. -A. _. ^Lee, and others. Some discontent existed in Georgia against the policy of the Confederate administra tion. This feeling was inspired by the Governor of the State, wZio "was bitter in his oppo sition to the Conscription Acts of the Confederate Congress, and to the executive policy of President Davis. This attitude of the Governor was causing some dissatisfaction among the soldiers and the people. It was to meet this opposition and to allay this feeling that Senator Hill came to Georgia and delivered this speech to the General Assembly. The speech furnishes a conclusive answer to the charges that have been made against President liavis and the Confederate Congress by the Governor and others, and rallied the peon? to a united support of the Southern cause. Ladies, Gentlemen of tft,e General Assembly', ccnd fellow-citi-zens : "When this revolution began I imposed on myself sternly what I regarded as the virtue of silence. In my opinion success had to be won by active ai'ms, united hearts, liberal sacrifices, and that without which all these might prove unavailing--silent tongues. As you have just been informed, a large ma jority of the General Assembly invited me to address thorn and in deference to their "wish I am here to-night for that purpose. I am sure I intend to say nothing but that which will promote the good of the country and the har mony of our people--which I consider inseparable. I have been an humble and very quiet actor in this revolution from its beginning. I have been a very close and anxious observer of men, of measures, and of things, and it shall be ray purpose to-night to give you a brief review in general terms of the embarrassments of the Confederate Government from its organization : the progress that government has made ; the causes of that progress, and the probable result of the revolution, judged by the past and the present. Perhaps no assembly of men ever took place under circumstances of greater anxiety and higher responsibilities than those which surrounded and pressed upon the convention which met in Montgomery on the 4th day of February, 1861. For one, I felt most heavily the crisis. There -were many troubles on every hand. The present was stormy. The future was dark-- very dark. When we first assembled we were forty-three delegates, repre senting six States. Texas was soon added. These seven States had sepa rated from and formed a border or fringe of what had been a very powerful republic ; a republic great in every sense ; full of men ; full of resources ; r SIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 253 full of genius, and talent, and full of prosperity. We had a large coast, and no navy with which to protect and defend it. We had but a small popula tion--less than three millions against more than twenty-five millions. Our resources were exceedingly limited- There -was not known to be a saltpetre cave capable of being worked in the Confederacy. "We had very few muni tions of war, and still fewer facilities for procuring- more. In all the ele ments of power necessary to prosecute the revolution by force, we wore weak. But all these together constituted not our greatest trouble nor our greatest weakness. The most serious difficulty resting upon that convention was the conviction, very generally if not universally shared by the members, that we Fwere not certain of a constituency. Our people were divided-- greatly and almost angrily divided. There was not much division as to our abstract right to set up for ourselves, nor in relation to the fact that the sec tional rule asserted by the North was sufficient cause for separation ; but many felt, and felt keenly, that the separation had been hasty, ill-advised, and without that consultation and concert which was due to our sister slave States, and to the crisis. Thus seven States not compactly situated, with one-eighth the population, with a large seacoast exposed, with few supplies, and fewer resources, and with a divided people, dared the wrath of this powerful republic, as full of hate and fanaticism as of men arid materials. How could these frariiers feel otherwise than oppressively anxious ? Nor was the prospect of our enlargement in any degree flattering. Soon after the assembling of that convention the border States voted on the proposition to cast in their lot with us. Not only by a large, but by an overwhelming majority, they refused to do so. And we felt and knew that many had cast that vote under the stinging reflection that we had not treated them with due consideration. This was the state of things now known to us all, and therefore I speak of it freely. But, fellow-citizens, the skies soon began to change. Light mingled with the darkness. True, it was on the bosom of a war cloud, and just before a deluge of blood, yet the bow of hope was seen and all was not darkness. What wrought this change and inspired this hope ? The first cause will be found in the prompt and wise labors of that convention. The formation of the new Constitution was a very powerful agency for good. Many of our own people had serious apprehensions that the purpose of the revolution was not simply to get rid of the union with the North. Some anticipated a more radical democracy--a fearful anarchy. Others looked for an aristoc racy, or even a limited monarchy. London, Exeter Hall, and Boston Pande monium had horrid images of a slave-trade oligarchy floating before them, and certainly destined to shock the sensibilities of mankind. All these were disappointed. The convention, with a promptness and unanimity never surpassed, agreed upon and adopted the old Constitution, with only such changes, well interwoven, as time and discussion had shown to be necessary and proper. Even the candid of our enemies were driven to admit that the new Constitution was an improvement. The world admitted the statesmanship of the convention, and our own people began to acquire confidence. So, also, the great body of the old laws were adopted, and our people found themselves living under their ancient usages and customs, and changed in nothing but their Federal associates. In the election of executive officers, also, the convention manifested much wisdom and a liberal spirit. While statesmen of ripe ability were 254 SENATOR B. 1L HILL, OT? GJHORGIA. selected, both the latest divisions of parties found themselves represented in the persons of leaders having no superiors in their ranks. None felt, pro scribed, and if all were not convinced of the wisdom and necessity of sepa ration, all were .satisfied that the destruction of constitutional liberty was no part of the design of that convention, and that the shaping- of the new government had fallen into safe conservative hands, Uut, much as we owe to the wisdom and moderation of our own states men, we owe much more to the folly of .Mr. Lincoln and his advisers. Left to ourselves, we never could have accomplished the great results we so soon witnessed. To secure the confederation of those who had so emphatically refused to join us ; to remove the jealousies arid heart-burnings which long party divisions had fostered, and which the last contest for separation had not allayed but increased ; to break the affections of our people at onco and forever from a Union which they had always loved, and connected with which were so many delightful memories and historic glories ; those formed a task for which all ordinary means were unequal. If Mr. Lincoln had com prehended the crisis, and had adopted toward, the seceded States a paciiie, instead of a belligerent policy ; had shown a purpose to administer the government according- to the just and equal rule of the Constitution, instead of the hated dogmas of a mad sectional party, the border States would not have left the Union, and it is exceedingly doubtful whether the cotton States would have remained out of the Union. 13ut madness and folly ruled our enemies, and success and power were the results to us. In April, 1861, Mr. Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand men to coerce sovereign States to a loathsome sectional rule, and by this giant effort of imbecility, 'Virginia --glorious old "Virginia--was thrown into our arms wide open to receive her. Doubts were all removed, weakness was all gone--we were confident, strong, and united ; Virginia was with. us. Soon the great States of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas followed, and for the same reasons. At once we had a territory not surpassed by any nation--large, compact, arid fertile. Our white population was more than doubled, our resources quadrupled. Munitions of war, with facilities for increasing them, were added in great quantities, and though terrible war was the agency bv which all this success was acquired, yet with the war came to us the power to meet it. The same policy which added thus to our material greatness, produced perfect unity among our people, removed all jealousies and divisions, and kindled in every bosom, a blaxe of patriotism, and aroused the high resolve which prepared all for those noble deeds and liberal sacrifices which cannot fail to insure independence and nationality. Missouri and Kentucky, in time, were added to the Confederacy, and though those groat States labor under great dis advantages, and have the heel of the oppressor heavily on them, they have furnished many of the noblest heroes and most gallant spirits who have hal lowed our cause and brought glory to our struggle. In heart and interest they are of us, and must be iu destiny with us. Thus, fellow-citizens, in a few short months we liad adopted our Consti tution, framed our laws, healed our divisions, enlarged our borders, multiplied our resources, and exhibited to the world all the elements of an admirable government in successful operation. With equal rapidity did we now pre pare to defend that government from a most powerful and vindictive foe. enemies ; for the greatest tribute ever rendered to any people was rendered IIJ'S LIFE, SPEECHES, A.ND WRITINGS. 255 to tlie Confederate army and government by their disappointed and de feated foe. When the hosts of the enemy fled in fright and dismay before our army of heroes on the ever memorable field of Manassas Plains, the only excuse they could iuid for their discomfiture was in shame and confusion to confess they had fought before they were ready. Think of this, nay country men ! An old government, organized for three-fourths of a century ; with a regular army and nav3^ ; with twenty millions of people and eoimtless millions of material resources ; with a general in command who bad fought his hundred battles and never known defeat ; with a great array well equipped and full of confidence; a nation vain and proud, impatient and insolent; apologizing for a most ignominious defeat in sight of its capital, by a despised band of improvised rebels, sent out bv a government less than six months old ; and finding1 no ground of apology save in the humiliating con fession that they fought too soon --before they were ready ! Surely, a fact like this should satisfy the most exacting that this young republic had been most vigorous and active, most vigilant and faithful. With the history of the struggle since this first great trial of arms you are all familiar. It is not my purpose now to deal with incidents, but to state results, and show the way to correct conclusions. "We have had disasters, at which none can wonder. But we have had successes, many and great successes, at which all the world do wonder ; at which posterity will never cease to wonder. We have had defeats and losses. Considered in themselves, they have been sore and depressing. The good and the noble have fallen, and the dark shadows of sorrow have passed over the door sills and rest by the hearthstones of almost every home in the land. But con sidered in the light of the circumstances which surrounded us and in view of the effects upon our national success, T affirm that all our disasters are as nothing. Indeed, when impartial history shall weigh this struggle in the balances of unerring philosophy, it will be doubtful whether Manassas and Tjeesburg, or Fishing Creek and Don el son will press down the scales. Failures are not always losses, and blessings sometimes chastise. Hut in the cabinet and in the field the rule has been success, and defeat the exception. In every respect we have steadily progressed. I have watched this revolu tion anxiously ; I have scanned the chief actors critically ; my own, and my children's, and my country's all, are wrapped up in it ; and in full view of all my responsibilities, and before yon who have honored me, I assert this night, most confidently, that the Confederate States have strengthened with every day of their existence ; yea, though it be early morning with us, every hour is brightening into day. There is no apology for discouragement, and no propriety in grumbling, This success, this progress, is not the glory of any one man, nor of any one agency, but is the work of many men and the result of several causes. No government was ever defended by a more heroic army. From the humblest private to the general in command, they are above praise. Nor can history furnish a, parallel for the active, demonstrative patriotism of our p eople. I doubt whether either the government or the army could havo been sustained without the voluntary and most liberal contributions of the people. It was not possible for any government in so short a time to have provided for so large an army. It required the most marvelous energy to pass the necessary laws, provide appropriate means, and to organize the volunteering multitudes and discipline them for the fight. Every man, every woman, and every child in the land became an assistant commissary, an 256 SENATOR B. II. HILL, OF GEORGIA. assistant quartermaster and a volunteer aid in every part of the glorious work. These are facts which all admit, and which our children shall cele brate in song and story as long as liberty is prized or patriotism is honored. "Without this heroism of our army and generous support of our people we never could have succeeded ; but with these alone, great as they were, failure would necessarily have ensued. Laws, order, system, wise policies, skillful plans, and vigorous and judicious administration were indispensable to success. Without these, the first would have produced but anarchy, waste, and ruin. For these laws, this system, and this vigorous and judicious administration, the legislative and executive departments of the government were responsible. Both were equal to the demands of the fearful occasion. Neither the provisional nor the permanent Congress ever failed to provide every necessary law and all proper means to meet the growing and everpressing calls of the contest. The only serious charges of want of foresight and promptness of action which have been made against the Congress, I will presently show, were made without a knowledge of the facts, and by the answer to these charges I hope minor accusations will be judged. In republics, the disaffected and the dissatisfied generally level their shafts against him who may for the time be the Chief Executive. Different conclusions, which are always formed when free discussions are universal; private griefs, which, must exist when all cannot be gratified ; personal jealousies, which will arise when many aspire and few can be chosen, must be expected to do their usual share of fault-finding in the new Confederacy. In addition to these sources of discord, inseparable from all free government, there are others growing out of our anomalous form of double governments. In the nature of things the State governments will be jealous. This jealousy is often legitimate. In the old Union there were many occasions when the Southern States were justly resentful, and State complaints became popular to the Southern mind. It is not strange, therefore, that the earnest and the ambitious--indeed all the classes first mentioned--should seek to invoke the force of this popular feeling in their behalf, and in all their clamors against the Confederate Government and the Confederate Executive, in season and out of season, to cry "State Rights." Now, gentlemen, I will give you frankly my opinion of our first President----Mr. Davis. In the old Union he and I always thought differently and acted with different political parties. I was not prepossessed in his favor. He was not originally my first choice for his present high position. Furthermore, since his election, if a single old political friend of mine, in this State, has received a civil commission at his hands, I am to this hour not aware of the fact. These things are not calculated to win a favorable judgment ; but I experience a sense of selfrespect when I realize as I do the fact that I am capable of lifting myself above all these petty, but too often popular considerations, and can judge tiie President by the merit of his ability and patriotic motives, and by the principles of his administration. Thus judging him, I declare to you that if I had now to select a chief magistrate for this trying crisis, I should feel it a duty to select Jefferson Davis. I concede the charge, sneeringly made, that he is neither a Csesar, nor a Cromwell, nor a Napoleon. He is nobler than either and greater than all, because he has respect unto the laws of the land, and seeks to establish and not to d is troy constitutional government. In my opinion, his great desire, to which all earthly desires are subordinate, is our final and complete success in this revolution. Mr, Lincoln, with all the advantages of a long organized, powerful, and well supplied government; HIS LIFW, 8PBEGHK8, AND WRITINGS. 257 State Executives, even in the Confederate States--not having upon their shoulders the conduct of this gigantic war--have pleaded necessity as an exouse for exercising extraordinary powers, and have trampled upon consti tutional restrictions and individual rights. But Mr. Da-vis, with all the disadvantages of a new and weak government to which I have alluded, and with the fearful doom of the chief of traitors full before him in case of failure, lias never yet found it necessary to violate the Constitution of his country, nor to trample upon the rights of the humblest citizen. "Within the boundaries of law, by the provisions of legislative grant, and according to the high and ancient privileges of Anglo-American freemen, he has used the sword to the shame and discomfiture of a million of enemies in ; arms. By a vigorous policy he has led a new-born nation from weakness to power. By a firm but humane adherence to the great principles of nations into whose family we had been refused admittance, he has degraded the faithless excesses of our adversary to universal notoriety and perpetual infamy. And by the wisdom of an accomplished statesmanship, and the pure rhetoric of an elegant pen, he has secured admiration and esteem for himself and his countrymen in the highest Cabinets and most refined Courts of the civilised world. Kven our enemies, usually so bigoted and selfish, are driven in shame to apply every epithet of ridicule to the awkward blunders of their President., and to admit the ability, the tact, and the states manship of the "rebel chief." A wise government, then, a gallant army, and a liberal, cordial, and united people, constitute together the cause of onr progress, the assurance of our success, and onr title to admiration and renown. In a republic of free opinions, where the minds of men are as variant as the leaves on the trees, and as unrestrained as the xephyrs that fan them, we have much cause to be gratified that so few issues have been made with the administration, and that the issues made have found so few advocates. On almost all questions our people are unanimous. Politicians have prepared a few issues. None, thus far, have been accepted or taken up by the people. Complaints are few, and some of the few may be traced to causes outside of the merits of the questions involved- It has been said that the 5favy Department has not done its duty. In my opinion, no portion of our people arc more patriotic than the navy, and no portion of the government has been managed with more industry, under the disadvantages to which it has been subjected, than the naval. Much of the work and policy of this department is necessarily kept from the public. The people, or rather some persons, condemn because they do not know, and the Secretary must submit in silence, because to defend would be to expose and damage the public service. But it does seem to me the people have seen enough to satisfy them--even to excite their gratitude and pride. When this revolution began, all said -we could expect "noticing from the navy. We had no navy. We had neither time nor materials to bnild one, nor means to purchase one. But while the whole country was resting satistied that we could do but little on the water, the navy was at work, and all at once the country was waked up, the world was waked up, by the grandest naval achievement in all history. Like Minerva, full grown and full armed at her birth, the iron-clad Virginia leaped into life, and in a day taught the world a lesson in naval warfare, the wonder of which mythology had never imagined nor centuries of science discovered. At once hundreds, of sea monsters, long terrible on the water, were shown to be worthless. Nautical SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. struetion of such vessels as the Virginia and the Mississippi were great misfoi'tunes to us ; but the misfortunes were great in precise proportion as the works were powerful. It" the Virginia and the Mississippi had not been con structed we should not have known how great was their loss. Those who produced them could not have been dull or idle. Regrets for losses caused by the necessities of our condition as a naval power, cannot justify us in blaming those who have done so much to improve that condition. The mag n'it'udn e' o' f our -- losses,is..kn-o.w.n..only-, by the splen- dor of our succe.sses. Impar- taents ncung te mtary. pon ts ea presume e rese ted in making- appointments, and in a great majority of cases results hav ndicated the wisdom of the rule. For several months there was a zealous clamor for an invasion of the K"orth. he administration was censured, in some quarters acrimoniously censured, . , dence and wise counsel were in danger of being overwhelmed. By invasion, under the disadvantages which surrounded iis, we should have been ruined speedily and forever.. On our own soil arid in defense,, we have ever been and will ever be invincible. Recent events have satisfied all of this truth, and on this subject there is no longer any danger of divisions among our people. I can now remember but one more issue upon which an attempt has been made to excite an opposition to the administration of the government. The occasion for this attempt is found in the acts of Congress known as the legislation ana. co tins state, in wincti tne greatest clamor ^maeea, tne 01 'eal clamor) has been made against the legislation, requires that I present imv own views upon the questions made. T " ne facts which inies. It.has been said, that there was no occasion for the passage of these laws 5 HT8 LIWK, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 259 that the spirit of volunteering was ample to keep up the army ; that calls on the States would have secured all the troops needed ; and that, if at the time these laws were adopted the necessity did exist, that necessity was brought about by the negligence and want of foresight in the Provisional Congress, and from, a desire on the part of the government to have an excuse to resort to conscription. These charges are so utterly untrue--so utterly at variance with the very records of the government, that I must presume the authors were entirely ignorant of the legislation of Congress and the acts of the gov ernment. I am not willing to believe that men in position would originate or repeat such grave charges with a knowledge of the facts. As I was tile humblest of the actors, it is becoming in me to invite your attention to a simple recital of history. As early as the 28th day of February, 1861, an act was passed ** to raise provisional forces for the Confederate States of America., and for other pur poses," and by this act the President was authorized to receive into the ser vice of the government such forces in the service of the States as may be tendered, or who may volunteer, by consent of their State, in such numbers as he may require, for any time not less than twelve months, unless sooner discharged." The troops raised by the States and turned over, were to be received " according to the terms of their enlistment." On the 6th day of March, 1861, an act was passed " to provide for the public defense," and by the act the President was " authorised to ask for and accept the services of ativ number of volunteers, not exceeding one hun dred thousand, to serve for twelve months, unless sooner discharged." On the 8th of May an act was passed " to raise au additional military force to serve during the war," and under this act the President was authorized to accept volunteers without limit andfor every arm of the service. Kut very many complaints came up to Congress that some of the State governors were exceedingly partial in the tender and organisation of the regiments under former acts--that they were using their powers to put for ward their friends and promote themselves----and that manv who offered regi ments and companies to the governors were either rejected or discriminated against in some odious manner, and that arms f then scarce, were furnished only to favorites. To remedy these complaints, and secure the services of all these gallant men, Congress, on the lltli day of May, 1861, passed an act " to make further provision for the public defense," and authorized the President to receive such volunteers as may tender themselves, and he may require, " without the delay of a formal call upon the respective States, to serve for such time as he may prescribe.' 1 It was under one of these last acts---the first for the war--that the gal lant Bartow tendered his company of Oglethorpes and was accepted. I believe his was the first company enlisted for the war. On the 8th of August, 1861, an act was passed "further to provide for the public defense," by which the President was authorised to accept four hundred thousand volunteers for not less than twelve months nor more than three years, unless sooner discharged. There was a clamor from some quarters that certain localities were not defended, and that many persons would enlist for the defense of particular localities, who would not volunteer in the general service ; and that many persons would be useful on special service, who would not enlist to be sent off to unknown and discretionary service. Therefore, 011 the 21st of August, 1861, au act was passed "to provide for local defense and special 87SNATOR 9. If. HILL, OF GEORGIA. vice," by which the President was authorized HIS LIVK, SPEEVHKS, AND WRITINGS. 201 with transportation home and back. Such as did not wish to go home were to have the commutation "value of the transportation in money and even those who had been in separate State service were included in the provis ions of the law. On the 19th day of December, 1861, an act was passed which authorized the Secretary of \Var "to adopt measures for recruiting and enlisting men for companies in service for the war, or for three years, which by the casualties of the service have been reduced by death and dis charges." But it was said that many would not join existing organisations, who would, if encouraged, volunteer in new ones, and thus have an opporturiitv either to be chosen or to choose officers, etc. So, on the 22d day of January, 1862, Congress passed an act authorizing tlie President "to appoint and commission persons as field officers or cap tains to raise regiments, squadrons, battalions or companies, 1' and all persons thus enlisted by them were to have, in addition to bounty., "pay, transpor tation and subsistence from the date of the organization of the companv." Again, a general authority to organise a recruiting- system not proving sufficient, Congress by the last act also authorised one commissioned and one non-commissioned officer, and one or more privates from each company i'or three years or the war, to be detailed for the express purpose of going home to recruit men for the company. And on the 27th of January, 1862, an act was passed authorising three details of an officer and two privates to recruit for the companies originally enlisted for twelve months. So, we not only provided every mode for volunteering which even caprioe could suggest, but also offered every inducement and stimulant that ability would allow, or ingenuity could devise. ]\Ten were not only received, and received in their own way, but they were sent for and begged to come. Tried veterans filled the country urging those at home to join their glorious ranks. Money was freely offered, and ambition was commissioned to employ all its energies in raising regiments, battalions., squadrons, and com panies to secure command. All failed. Our army was still thinning and the enemy still increasing. Even yet the government was not willing to give up the favorite popu lar system of raising- and keeping' an army by voluntary enlistment. One more method was resorted to--the one about which we hear so much from men who do not seem to know what lias been done. On the 23d of January, 1862, an act was passed authorizing the Presi dent "to call on the several States for troops to serve for three years or during the war." This is the plait which we are flippantly told would accomplish everything. And the Congress and the President are abused I'or not adopting this plan. Well, Congress did pass the act, and the Presi dent did make the call, and let us see what was accomplished and how it was done. The quota required of Georgia, I believe, was twelve thousand, and as onr State seems to have made as much effort and as much noise about her efforts as any other State, I will take Georgia as the test. The quota for Georgia was filled, and we are told there was a large excess. If this were all, the argument might be worth something. 35ut how were these troops raised ? In the first place I state a fact of which you are not probably aware. Soon after this call was made the Governor sent a request, or perhaps a pro test to the Secretary of War that no more troops should be raised in Georgia '262 SENATOR B. IT. HILL, OF GEORGIA. by persons having commissions for that purpose, under the act to which I have referred, until this requisition was filled ; and a number of regiments partially raised were only saved from being disbanded by the Secretary, agreeing that they should be credited to Georgia as part of the quota re quired under the call. I do not state this to blame the Governor, but it is a fact which shows that he thought he would be unable to raise the quota if these commissions were continued, and that there would be difficulty in fill ing- the requisition. But oven with this help, how did the Governor pro ceed. I have Tiot the proclamation before me, but I cannot mistake or for get its character. He allotted a proportion to each county, and designated a day when all, I believe, of the militia age, should be called out, and the offer should be made for volunteers. If they volunteered, all well ; if not, they were to be drafted--coiiscribecl, and this is the first instance of practi cal conscription during this revolution in the Confederate States known to me. Tho system proposed by the Governor in one feature is similar to the conscription acts, for those acts give every man an opportunity to avoid conscription by volunteering. .But in all other respects the conscription acts are far preferable and more in accordance with the genius of our insti tutions. IVlr. Da vis would never think bf ordering a draft or conscription without legislative authority. The Governor had no authority of law for his order. Nothing was ever more illegal. Again, his draft classified very arbitrarily, if not worse, and bv executive order limited the right of suf frage--thus making a refusal voluntarily to respond to an executive call an occasion for forcible seizure of the person--a discriminating seizure of per sons, and an excuse for depriving the persons so seized of the right to vote-- all, I repeat, without legislative authority ! I refer to these facts, not to make a charge against the Governor, but to show how these troops were raised, and how little of the volunteer spirit was manifested. Other States, t ain informed, never did. fill the requisitions of the President. How many I do not know. Do you suppose your members of Congress did not observe the illegal process adopted in Georgia for filling this requisition? And would thev have been wise to have supposed another requisition could be filled by vol unteering ? They would have merited and would have received universal execration, and those who now condemn for what was done would have taken the lead in the execration. Again, it lias been charged that Congress, showed a great want of fore sight in receiving so many men for twelve months, and that from the begin ning thev ought to have received volunteers only for the war, and this would have saved the trouble about the twelve months' regiments. By reference to the acts of Congress, as I have enumerated them, you will see that the two acts under whicli twelve months' troops were accepted were passed, one on the 28th of February and the other one on the 6th of March, 1861. The first simply authorized the troops to be accepted by the .President which had been raised by, and were in the service of the States, and they were to be received on the terms of their enlistment--of course by the State laws before the confederation. Thus, most of these men woreraised by the States--those governments that always do right ; and tho. want of foresight is charged on the Congress by State rights men. Again., both these acts, were passed before there was any war, and at a time when most of our statesmen, and especially those who charge the Com gress with a want of foresight, "were leHiug us there would be no war. They- 1TT8 LIFK, SPttJSC&ES, AN1> WHITINGS. 263 abuse the Congress for not raising- troops to serve during the war, when there was no war ami they were telling us there would be no war ! Yet, ridiculous as it is, this is about the fairest charge made against the govern ment. As I think wo ouo-ht to have known that there would bo a war--a bloody war--and we ought to have raised troops accordingly. Neverthe less, we have done well and all ought to be satisfied1 . Thus, every plan for authorizing- volunteers had been tried ; every in ducement had been offered which the government was able to offer ; every appeal had been made, and still our regiments were but skeletons. Still, half those regiments were going" out of the service. Hoanoke and Fishing Creek, and TJonelson and Nashville had covered the land like so many thick palls of darkness. On every side the enemy was gathering, boasting, press ing, robbing, and destroying, A mighty army, which no man could num ber, was rushing to our classic Peninsular, and wild with the thought of sacking oirrx;apital, and destroying our people, as the hungry locusts devour the grass blades in their pathway. Still, still, tlte heavy heart-crush ing fa,ct came back to your Congress and to your President, that our regiments were but skeletons ; half of these would soon go home, and none were coming to take their places. The people did not and could not see and feel these facts as did those in authority who were intrusted by the people to keep faithful watch in that dark and stormy hour. There was no remedy left but to keep all the regiments and organiza tions we had, and fill them up by a system, of compulsory enlistment; and that remedy, to be effective, must be speedy and thorough. Hut it is said this legislation is unconstitutional. That Congress had no power to raise an army by compulsion. \Vell, if this be true., then the gov ernment was a, failure. "We had no government--no Confederate Govern ment. And what a spectacle would we thus have presented to the nations of the earth, "We were asking them to recognize us as a nation--to receive us into their family as an independent member. To entitle us to be so rec ognized and received, it is necessary by the established laws of nations, that we show to the nations that we have a government capable of com manding the obedience of our own citizens, and capable of repelling the as saults of foreign foes. That foreign foe was assaulting us most heavily. We had defended--nobly defended by voluntary enlistment, until that system had exhausted, its strength. AVe must command to the fight or fail. If we had no right to command, the Confederated States was a demonstrated failure, both as to internal government and external power. But why, upon what ground is this legislation unconstitutional? First, because it is said to be contrary to individual liberty, and oppres sive upon individual rights. Government, it is said, has no right to force men from their homes and business, and compel them to defend their coun try. This is a strange notion of liberty. Men owe obligations as well as possess rights. The performance of obligation is the preservation of rights, and the only security to liberty. Government is formed for mutual defense, and every member of government is under a paramount obligation to defend it as a very condition to his right to protection by the government. He who will not defend, has no claim to protection. To require a citizen to defend his government from hostile attack is not to deprive him of his lib erty, but to require him. to perform his obligation, and to defend liberty and all the rights of society. But it is flippantly said, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and, therefore, there 264 SENATOR B. II. HILL, OF GfSORGfA. can be no power where there is no consent. What an argument for a states man ! Governments do derive their just powers frcni the consent of tlie governed, but do they exercise their derived powers only by the consent of tlie governed ? When yon call a man from his home and business, and make him a juror to settle other men's disputes, and fine and imprison him if lie does not obey, do you ask him if he consented to the law under which he is summoned, and compelled, to attend ? 'When you require a citizen to work the highway and public roads, do you ask him if he consented to the road laws ? Yet military duty is far higher than these, for if the country is not defended, all other rights are destroyed and all duties consequently discharged. Thus, it is a well-established principle, which you will find in every standard author on government, that the obligation is on every man equally with Ilia neighbor to render military service. No man is exempt except by law. Can a man be discharged from, his obligation simply because he is unwilling to perform it ? Are they willing to bear all the burden of defend ing the country ? Can no man be a soldier but a volunteer? Is want of will, or withholding of consent, to relieve from duty ? "When people form a government, they may say whether that government shall be democratic, aristocratic, or monarchical. They may say, as their theory, that all power is derived from the people, or resides in a crown. Uut when the govern ment is formed, when the powers are conferred, it is the duty of those intrusted with the powers to exercise them, and it is tlie duty, the virtue, and the patriotism of the citizen to obey. A citizen is under as much obligation to defend a republic as a subject a crown, and the greater, since the republic is formed by his consent. Originally, when government de clared war, the very declaration of war made every man a soldiev. No special act was required to make him a soldier. The act of war tpso fftcto made him a soldier. None but women, children, and invalids are natural exempts. Hut all were not needed for the army ; and besides it was im portant that some should produce provisions. Now, who shall say that this man must be a soldiev and another must remain at home ? In other words who shall raise the array ? You cannot leave it to the individuals--the consent of the governed. "Who can determine this but the government-- the power that declares the war ? Thus has sprung up the necessity for legis lation to declare who shall be a soldier, to fix exemptions, and to ascertain the non-conibatants. For under the laws of nations these non-combatants are entitled to many privileges, even to non-interference by the enemy with their persons and property. These principles are so familiar to students on government that I am amazed that any one should assert a theory directly in the face of them. No, my countrymen, it is every man's duty, and should be his pleasure, to defend the government of his choice. No man has a right to say, "You shall go, because you are willing, and I will stay because I am unwilling to go." AVilling or unwilling the duty is the same, and the government alone can systematize and enforce the obligation. But it is objected, secondly, that the States alone can exercise this power of compelling military service, and that the exercise by the Confed erate Government is a violation of the rights of the States. There is certainly a plain and easy method of settling this question, Ts this power delegated or reserved? If delegated, it belongs to the Con federate Government j if reserved, it belongs to the States. The Constitu- r JS, SPEECHES. AND WRITINGS. 265 tion--the grant--is the only test. That most explicitly declares that Con gress shall have power " to "declare war," and " to raise and support armies." Here ends the argument, but, strange to sa3T , not the controversy. Men who claim, to favor strict construction, to oppose interpolation, now begin to construe and to interpolate. They say the Constitution means that Con gress shall have power " to raise armies " by voluntary enlistment. By what authority of fact or logic are these words added ? Again, men who love controversy, say the Constitution means that Congress shall have power "to raise armies " by calls on the States. By what authority are these words added ? These broad and destructive interpolations upon the Con stitution are not only without excuse, but in the very teeth of history. Under the articles of Confederation, the general government was depend ent on the will of the States for troops, and the system worked so badly, even during the revolutionary war, that the framers of the Constitution determined to get rid of it, and did g'et rid of it in the most clear, intelli gent, and emphatic manner. "When the convention were engaged in framing" the Constitution, the very question of what powers should be limited a,nci what not limited, was before them. Every power delegated was considered separately, and the necessary limitations were also considered, and the intention was to leave no words out which it was proper to insert : Hence, eight of the eighteen powers are restricted and qualified in the very terms of the grant. The power to raise and support armies is limited as to the latter branch--sup port. "No appropriation of money for that purpose shall be for a- longer period than two years." !Now, tll^ power to raise armies is the major propo sition, and either of the limitations now proposed to be inserted is greater than the limitation upon the power to support. Did the clumsy i'ranvers in sert the minor qualification and leave out the greater? Hut it is again said that this power to " raise armies " is limited by the power to call out the militia. With all due deference, I must say this con founding- the army with the militia is trifling with the question. The mili tia is a peace establishment--exists always in all the States. The States do keep the militia, but not troops of war in time of peace. "When the Consti tution was framed the States had a large frontier exposed to sudden invasions by hostile Indian tribes. History had also shown that republics were sub ject to insurrections and resistance to the process of law. The desire was to provide a power ample to protect this large frontier from Indian in cursions, to preserve internal peace and security, and to do all this without a large standing army. This was the very purpose of the militia. It was not to prosecute war, but to preserve the peace--to be used in sudden emer gencies-- and to this end it was organized to be kept always trained, always officered, and in every locality. And as the militia embraced the great body of the people whose business was not war, but agriculture, commerce, and all the industrial pursuits, and ought not, therefore, to be called away for a long period from their pursuits, the power of Congress is expressly limited to call forth the militia only to suppress insurrections, repel invasions, and execute the laws. The militia may sometimes aid the army but always for short periods ; and, therefore, the militia, as such, has never been called out for a longer period than six months in this country. A proposition by Mr. Giles to call out the militia for two years, was denounced by the very men who opposed conscription, as an unconstitutional attempt to convert the militia into an army ! And in this they were right. Hut *'* to declare 286 MBXJLTOJ2 . H. HILL, OF G-KQRGlA.. war" is a wliolly different power. To declare war is not to suppress insur rections, repel invasions, or execute, the laws. It "is broader and greater. It may require us to invade--to resent insult and revenge injuries, and to accomplish this groat work--tho most terrible necessity of a fallen nature-- Congress had to have distinct and efficient means. And for this purpose Congress was .invested with the power to raise and support armies. And this is right. If the thirteen States had remained separate, it would have required as Jarge an army to wage war by, or in defense of one, as all. The expense of each would also be. as great. Indeed, each State would have re quired a larger armv than all would require, for with so many rival and conflicting powers so contiguous to each other, wars and collisions would have been frequent. To avoid these very evils--to provide a common defense--to make that common defense easy and light, was one of the very objects of the Confederation ; and to make that common, defense equal and a, unit, the power to raise the army and to support the army was given to the common government. To have left the execution of this power dependent on the will of the States would have been ruinous. For one State might be willing- to furnish its quota of men and money, and another unwilling, as was soon the case, and this state of things would have produced not only weakness and injustice, but disagreements, criminations, and Collisions-- the very evils which were intended to be remedied. In the war now pend ing, Congress did not want a militia to repel an invasion. Invasion, it is true, was one feature of the war ; but it was only one feature. Congress wanted an army *.o prosecute war--to conquer a peace and win independ ence. I will not offend your intelligence by pursuing so palpable an argument. I have thought this much was due from me because of my relation to this legislation. I was never more troubled than when this necessity for con scription, in some form, became manifest. The country at the time was filled with gloom. It was the dark hour of the revolution. I had no doubt even in that dark hour that some of the State authorities would resist the law as then proposed. I said as much in the Senate, not by way of ap proval, but in shame and sorrow. I feared the disaffection thus began by politicians and local authorities might extend to the army. The law was harsh on the twelve months' men. I feared they might bo reached by such untimely appeals and hurtful contVoversy. This would have wrecked us forever. The cause had already as much as it could bear in the common enemy, and the struggle was fearful. "Whatever might be rny opinion of the patriotism or wisdom of a controversy at that .hour of darkness and gloom, I did desire, if possible, to avoid it ; and to avoid it I was willing to leave no room for the prejudices of the reckless or the whims of the capri cious. Pending the subject, therefore, I preferred another proposition or bill, a milder form of conscription, which I thought might accomplish the good and avoid the controversy. With the lights now before me, I doubt whether the milder form of conscription for which I voted would have been sufficient for the crisis. At all events, the present proposition became the law of my country, and I shall, as a good citizen, support it ; and with equal cheerfulness whether I voted for or against it. I will not countenance that sickly patriotism, nor render commendation to that higher law fanati cism which cannot support as law, that which, as a proposition of expediency, did not meet the approval of individual preference. Failing in the argument, the opponents of the law seek to provoke the HIS I^IFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 267 jealousies, and to alarm the fears of the people. "Why, say they, if this power to raise armies by compulsion is conceded to the Confederate Gov ernment, that government could destroy the people and the States. Thus they pass away from the Constitution to the motives of those who happen to administer it, to ascertain the powers of the government ! Until the advent, in political logic, of these new lights, whose theory seems to be that nothing was ever before understood, and whose practice seems to be that nothing shall ever be considered as settled, it bad been conceded by reason-era of supposed ability, that to prove a power could be abused was no argument to show the power did not exist. Existence itself may be abused, and, unfortunately, all existing things are liable to be abused. Still, all things do exist. I3y this method of reasoning- you could soon prove that Congress had no power whatever, for what power in the whole enumerated catalogue might not be abused to the injury, if not the destruction, of the people and States? Congress would have no power " to provide and main tain a navy"; for they might blockade and destroy all the ports of the States. Congress would have no power to "regulate commerce"; for they might destroy all the commerce of the States. And it would never do to permit the Confederate States to build forts and ironclad vessels for the protection of our cities, and man them with Confederate troops, for they might turn the guns on the cities and destroy them ! The truth is, my friends, when men or rulers wish to destroy, they do not wait for authority to do so. The best evidence of a willingness to assault right and liberty is the exercise of powers not granted, or of functions not coiifeired. Revolu tions neither make nor justify tyrants, but they do develop them. Place no power in the hands of those who betray a love for the exercise of power --who plead necessity as the excuse for usurpation, and revolution as the occasion for oppression. The crowning grandeur of Washington's character was, that in the midst of revolution he obeyed the laws ; and the highest claim which Mr. Davis presents for your confidence is, that with examples to the contrary all around him, he has, thus far, strictly refused to exercise any power not expressly authorized by law. It is a fact well attested by alt history, that they find most fault with power in others, who themselves exercise nngranted powers most freely. This is the sure unerring ear-mark of that ambition which made Cf&sar and Cromwell and Bonaparte trample upon the liberty they swore to defend, and grasp empire. Was the conscript law intended to destroy the States ? Did it destroy the States ? On the contrary, history will record the fact, that it saved the States and saved the country. Yea, it drove back the foreign invader and secures to its domestic foes the privilege of sitting here in peace, to defame the law as an usurpation, the government that enacted it as oppressors, and the heroic army that obeyed it as slaves ! Nor will I omit this occasion to enter my protest against that folly, now so common, of attempting to excite jealousies, controversies, and conflicts between the States and their own common government. To hear these illtimed philippics against that government, a stranger would suppose that the Confederate States was a government foreign to the States, and the iieces^ sary and unyielding enemy of the States, The people are constantly warned not to trust, not to help, not to sustain, but to distrust atid to resist their own government as some insidious monster always stretching for power to destroy the States. Now, my friends, who are they that administer the Confederate States ? Are they not citizens of the States, delegates from '368 SENATOR K. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. the States ? Are not their interests all in the States ? Have I lost my affection for my State because you have honored me as her delegate in that government which was created by the States and whose business is to pro tect the States ? Is not my family, my property, my home, my every interest, and every hope still in my State ? Why have I less interest in, /_>r less affection for Georgia than I had when I occupied one of your seats in the State Assembly ? We have gotten rid of those "whose interests and sympathies were different from our own. Let us also got rid of the exces sive jealousies which those differences furnished politicians with an excuse to inflame. The government is your own. The agents who administer it are of your own choosing from your own citizenship. Choose wise men, good men ; then give them 3^0ur confidence and support. And when they become unworthy, return them, to private life. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty ! I grant it. But I deny that eternal vigilance means perpetual snarling, snapping, fault finding, and co in plaining. I deny that vigilance means resistance to the government, disaffection to the laws, contumely to authority, or the disorganizing free dom of individual opinion to set itself up against legal enactments and judicial decisions. No, there is no foundation for these constant jealousies and threatened conflicts between the State and Confederate governments. !N"ine of every ten of these issues spring, not from any real -well-grounded differences, but from passion, personal ambition, and party maneuver. There is little diffi culty in understanding the respective rights and powers of the two govern ments where the desire is sincerely and only to understand them. The powers of the Confederate Government are plainly and specifically dele gated. The rights of the States are covered by two propositions : first, to exercise the powers reserved or not prohibited ; and, second, to have the powers delegated exercised according to the purposes of the grant. The great business of the Confederate Government is to manage the interests common to the States, and especially to conduct the relations with foreign governments. There is two much quibbling about terms. I sometimes speak of the Confederate Government as a nation. What is meant by this ? \Vhen applied to the Confederacy it has no territorial reference. Are we not struggling- for admission into the family of nations ? Are we not claiming and demanding recognition by other nations ? As what will we ask them to recognize us ? By what name will we be called ? Agency ? Created by a revocable power of attorney, which experiment entered into to-day and which caprice may recall to-morrow? Partnership? A society of convenience, without rank or national dignity? A standard "writer, con curred in by all standard writers, tells us, " that the independent States entitled to rank in the great family of nations, are those powers to whom bi,eilo_nTMg_s t*hu~e r,.i:g~Kht. o_.fe e--m--b1,a_ s--s--y;. tthkee ryi^gghhtt ttoo rreecceeiivvee aanndd ttoo sseenndd ppuubblliicc ministers." Will not this be the3 great-- --the peculiar--the appropriate province of the Confederate States?J Who shall conclude our treaties of peace and of commerce ; form alliances ; receive ministers of foreign nations ; resent insults and demand reparation for injuries'? Who shall float the flag, and protect the citizen over all waters and in all lands? "Who, but the Confederate States ? And shall we say they shall enter this great family with less rank, less dignity, and less power for success than otber nations ? Lee;ss thh:an England, or France, or Russia ; yea, less than Turkey, Brazil, or Mexico ? Away with this perpetual effort to belittle and paralyze our own govern ment. \Ve have prescribed its boundaries, beyond which it cannot pass, and within those boundaries let us not quarrel over forms nor quibble about terms, but render that confidence and co-operation so essential to efficiency. Let each government--State and Confederate--move in its own sphere, neither interfering with, abusing, nor exciting jealousies against the other, for both are seeking the one great end--the happiness of the same people. Too many persons will not interpret the Constitution according to its plain language, and clear intent and meaning. Adherence to some precon ceived theory; the prejudices of education; the bias of association; the desire to accomplish some given object ; even passion, impulse, personal disappointment, or a dislike of those who, for the time, administer the government ; ambition, interest, or caprice often shape the judgment and form the opinion of men. Every law which does not conform to their theories is at once declared an usurpation and void, and the Constitution itself is unconstitutional when it does not suit their views or promote their wishes. It is according to the philosophy of the human mind that those who are thus influenced rarely see the right and as rarely admit an error. Such minds are always extreme, sometimes fanatical. There is no rule of logic which they will not violate, no perversion of fact which they will not commit, and no elevation of character which they will not assail. They rarely yield an opinion, yet are never consistent. They admit no wisdom in precedent, no respect for authority, and nothing binding upon conscience but their own abstract individual opinion. It was precisely this spirit, which, in the old Union, inaugurated the crusade against the South, The laws of Congress, though based upon a plain grant in the Constitution, wero nullified by State Legislatures, set aside by circuit judges, and made odious by the official harangues of State governors. The decisions of the highest courts in the land fixed no obligation upon individual opinion to conform, settled no disputes ; and judges, distinguished for learning, patriotism, and every virtue, were openly assailed as governed by outside influences I liead the records of Northern fanaticism and find the verification of all these statements. Then turn your eyes to the fields of blood, and wail, and ruin all over the continent, and you will see the only legitimate results of such an insatiate spirit of discord. It is not the subject which this spirit may agitate that works the mischief ; it is the spirit itself, which will always find a subject and make an occasion. Why, gentlemen, if the people were to select a thousand tivnes, they could not find persons into 'whose hands they could move safely intrust the rights and honor of the States than those who now administer the Con federate Government. The President, from his youth rip, has been dis tinguished for his devotion to the States, If you enter the Senate Chamber you find there the AV ell -balanced Clay of Alabama ; his colleague, the elo quent Yancev ; that able, experienced, and renowned statesman, Mr. Hunter, of Virginia ; Mr. Barn well, of South Carolina, than whom uo better man nor purer statesman ever blessed his country or adorned ft, Senate ; and many more well deserving of mention ; all of whom have ever been . champions of the rights of the States, and all of whom voted for and advo cated the conscription laws. "Vet the men of yesterday tell us that these men are usurping power which may crush the Sta,tes ! I-Jas absurdity no limit ; effrontery no blush ? Has statesmanship no avocation but fault- 270 SENATOR B. II. HILL, OF GEORGIA, finding ; patriotism no end but power ; ambition no satiety even in blood, and the country no destiny but dissension and endless divisions? But, if these high Confederate characters merit not your confidence, will not the decision of your own highest State court--a court composed of judges than whom none are more eminent as jurists nor more worthy as men--appease your wrath and convince your judgments ? Is your own highest court engaged, also, in the terrible "work of destroying the States and enslaving the people ? Can none be right but those who condemn the law ? Can none be trustworthy but those who persist in discord ? Has it come to this, that statesmanship can settle no principle ; character excite no confidence ; and the courts end TIO controversy? Does freedom of speech consist in assailing' the constituted authorities of the land, and freedom of opinion confer the right to disregard adjudicated, law? Beware, my coun trymen, lest with such wild, unbridled theories, you mistake licentiousness for freedom, and enthrone bloody anarchy in the seat of law-restraining liberty! Casuists have written, and cabinets have debated, to ascertain the best form of government aiid the true philosophy ot" governing. Every form has had its advocates, and every people their experiments, and the bloody arbitrament of war has shed its crimson tides in the ever-recurring controversy. But to one great conclusion casuists and cabinets, people and armies must agree. All government is vanity where the laws are not respected. Vain, vain indeed, will all your sacrifices be ; your sons will fall in vain, and in vain will your heroes roll back the red wave of battle and vanquish the countless hosts of the invader, if, when peace returns, the law be not the rule of every man's life, and the guide of every man's opinions. This is the rock on which we have split. This is the rock toward which we are steering again : the growing, spreading disregard of law and disrespect for authority. The philosophy of government is law. The stability of government is law. The glory of government is law. And oh, that I could catch the emphasis which would force universal conviction when I say, the FREEDOM OF (ioVEENitBMT is LAW ! AVhere shall conflicting opinions har monize, save in the decisions of legal authority ; and how can we agree except on the basis of well-considered law? These, my friends, are no new thoughts with me. I utter them with earnestness, because I have felt them for vears. ^Lawlessness is the power I never cease to dread ; and I warn you this night, that it will require all your vigilance to prevent it from enslaving yourselves, and establishing its throne ot" ruined liopes in this land we leave for our children, and all in the name of libertv. But there is another state of things which transpired in 'the history of those conscription laws which is the reverse of that against which I have been speaking, and which is well calculated to gladden our confidence and inspire our hope. I have said that I predicted resistance by some in authority to these laws, and that under the circumstances then existing this disaffection might extend to the army, and we should be undone. 3VIy judgment was not at fault in its conclusions as to what politicians would do ; but the apprehen sion that their teachings might possibly affect the conduct of the troops was groundless. I know of no incident of the kind in all history more beautiful and touching- than the self-denying patriotism with which the troops who originally enlisted for twelve months, obeyed the first conscription act. In ancient Sparta the evidence of all worth, the test of all courage, and. III8 LIVE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 271 the sum of all virtue, was obedience to the laws. And Socrates, the Athe nian, has been consecrated, to immortality for more flian twenty centuries as the greatest and wisest of ancient philosophers, because he submitted him self to the law of his couiiti'y, though that law was procured by false accusa tion and doomed him to the death of a felon. For a short period in the beginning of the revolution, the government asked for volunteers to serve for twelve months. Ill a very little time more than one hundred thousand enlisted. They came from every rank and condition in society. They came--the tender son of fortune, the hardy mechanic from bis shop,, the student from his lamp, the laborer from his plow, the bridegroom from, his chamber, and the old man from his household--all peers and comrades--rushing to the front in this dawning struggle for imperiled liberty. They braved the scorching heats and life-destroying miasmas of the tropical South. They endured the frozen snows and icy winds of the chilly North. Amid the flowing gardens of beautiful P*eiisacola ; by the wave-washed shore of surf-beaten Hatteras ; on the banks of the classic James and York ; and over the dreary summits and through tho rugged gorges of the mountains of Virginia, these first enlisted bands of Confederate braves, marched and camped and fought and suffered for their beleagured country. By the deeds which heroes love, and the pains which martyrs only feel, they have made the names of Bethel and Manassas, Leesburg and Belmont, fjaiirel Hill and Sewell Moun tain, as familiar as Marathon, sacred as .Bunker Hill, and immortal as Yorktown. The months rolled by and the end of enlistment drew near. Fatigue to the extent of physical strength had been borne, and glory enough even for the spirit of the cavalier had been won. It was natural that the heart should turn its longings from the strife, and the tired soldier, "foot-sore and weary," should desire to go home and rest. The sweet thought made the laugh ring merry around the camp-fires, and was whispered in earnest hope from comrade to comrade along the line of battle. In the quiet night the sleeping- veteran, all fitful in dreams, would start and mutter in half-uttered accents the names of the loved ones rushing- to the gate to meet him ; and the faithful sentinel, wide awake with the joyous anticipation, would count by his steps, as he paced his rounds, the days and the hours that lingered, ere yet that he should receive the heart-warm welcome of wife and family. Alas ! for the cruel, heartless demands of relentless war. The foe still gath ered along our borders. These very homes were yet threatened with deso lation and ruin bv as piratical an invader as, ever cursed the innocent of the earth. Therefore, the reluctant but stern enactment came, and said to these earliest patriots, " This return must not be yet ! The march must still be made ; the watch must still be kept, and for two long years more you must endure the hardships of camp and dare the dangers of the fight ! " What a test of patriotism was this ! No wonder that statesmen felt anxious for the effect of this trying announcement. Ko wonder the enemy expected our army to disband. And just at this moment--this critical moment--the voice of the politician was heard, in accents as uusuited to the camp as th<> whispers which seduced from allegiance in Eden, saying to these troubled and disappointed spirits : The law is unconstitutional--unjust--unnecessary, and binding on no one ! Yet, not one of that hundred thousand listened to the voice of the charmer, or questioned the duty of obedience. ~No, no, they clinched anew the rifle and started afresh for tho battle. Their ven- 272 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Off GEORGIA. geance was against the foe that made the law a necessity. And by that triumph, our independence was won. All along from Malvcrn Hill to Sharpsburg, and from the Potomac to the Mississippi, these heroes are sleeping in glory to-night. Xo these, that happy return will never come, but they have furnished an example of duty and sacrifice which all nations shall praise, and their children shall bless for ever. Others, more fortunate, have returned, and many of them with one limb, or one eye, and with scars of honor such as Trojan never wore and Grecian never won, are everywhere urging obedience to the laws of the country they defended. If chivalry obeyed, what excuse has ambition to re sist ? If the army is satisfied, why should politicians and people complain ? Here let tlie gown and the ermine learn of the sword and the bayonet a les son of obedience and submission. !Let the sublime examples speaking in the rattling musketry and deep-mouthed cannon along the Chickahominy and the Shenandoah silence your cavils--ye, of easy seats and safe positions ! Kor shame, let detnagogism slink away in silence, and cease forever to disturb a people so worthy to dwell in peace ; and with one voice and one heart let us consecrate to immortality., and to the perpetual emulation of our children the memory of these Confederate heroes of more than Spartan courage, and greater than Socratic virtue. Thus, gentlemen and fellow-citizens, in feebleness but in candor, have I given you iny views of the condition and prospects of our country. "We be gan in divisions and doubts. These divisions are healed and these doubts are gone. We began in weakness. In the very struggle for life we are grow ing- strong. We began without arms, without munitions of war, and with out known resources. We have procured, and are daily making plenty of arms of most excellent quality, from the pistol to the heaviest ordnance. We have no lack of the munitions of war ; and our mountains and our caves, our fields and our looms, are furnishing resources and supplies abundant for every purpose and for all our people. Providence seems to have hid away in our earth every good and desirable thing, and when the hour of our need arrived, kindly guided us to them. We have suffered disasters, and in the nature of war must suffer them again. But we have had four-fold triumphs, and shall have final success. But few differences and dissensions have arisen, and time and patience have soon shown them to be unfounded and unnecessary. The only remaining difference--the conscription laws--was never extensive, is narrowing daily, and must soon pass away with the others. They are founded 011 a specific grant, were obeyed by the army, and saved tiie country. In the shadow of these gi-eat facts opposition rnustsicken and die. We have a better army than we have ever had, and arc stronger in every element of power. We have already won success, and patience will bring the full fruition of our hopes. ISTo other nation will molest us. No outside power, nor combination of outside powers, can subjugate us. We can never be subdued until we ourselves shall will it. All the civilized na tions commend our devotion and admit our wisdom. Our enemies, in fear and trembling, concede our power. The darkest day of the crisis is behind us : and as surely as the natural sun shall rise on the early morning, and brush away the mists and darkness which surround us to-night, so surely will the sun of our independence arise on an early morrow, and driving away these murky clouds of war, give splendor to the earth, and light and life and happiness to our children. SPEECH DELIVERED IN LA GRANGE, GA., MARCH II, 1865. Speech, on the means of success, the sources of danger, and the consequences of fail ure in the Confederate struggle for independence, delivered in Sterling Hall, La Grange Ga., on the llth day of March, 1865. "It is greatness of soul alone that never grows old ; nor is it wealth that delights m the latter stage of life, as some give out, so much as honor."--Pericles. Mr. Hill had left Ms seat in the Senate at Richmond for tlie purpose of coining to Georgia to rally tlie people to the waning cause of the South. This speech was the last one delivered by any Southern man in behalf of the Confederacy. I venture to express the opinion, that for eloquence, classic diction, and learning, it has few equals. WHli the elegant rhetoric of Burke, it combines the logic of Fox, with the ornate sty]e of Cicero the rugged power of Demosthenes, aud it will live in the literature of the country as an oration of rare eloquence and beauty. Mr. Hill revised aud republished it in 1874 with the following reasons for his doing so. I republish this speech for two reasons : 1. Some of those who heard it delivered have requested its repnblication. 2. I desire its preservation as the best expression I can now give of the moral causes which compelled surrender, as well as of the horrors consequent upon surrender. "With immaterial variances in details, nearly all the predictions, in this speech, of the consequences of subjugation, have become already historical facts. The predictions not yet fulfilled, I leave to that inexorable future which shapes human destinies in logical consistency with human nature and God's laws, despite the follies of human wisdom, and the crimes of human legislation. The reader will see, in this speech, the reasons -which prompted me so earnestly to stand by the Confederate struggle to the last hour ; and toseelc, by every means in my power, to avei't from the Southern people that greatest of human calamities--the subjugation of one section by another section of a common country. I regret nothing but the FAILUEE, and my inability to do more to pre vent it. BEKJ. II. HILL. May 22, 1874. SPBECH, From my youth, most of you. now before me liave been accustomed to honor me with a willingness to hear my opinions upon questions of public interest. This large assemblage to-day manifests that, through all our sufferings and vicissitudes, your confidence remains steadfast ; and most sincerely I thank you. At no previous period have I addressed you -with so thorough a convic tion of the magnitude of the interests involved, nor with so deep a sense of mv utter incapacity to discuss the issues upon which those interests depend, satisfactorily to myself. I do not come to tell you your property is secure, or your liberties are unthreatened, or your lives are safe. I come to tell 373 274 SENATOR B. H, HILL, Of GEORGIA. you that tlie greatest trial which can befall a people is now upon you. Are you willing--are you ready, to sacrifice property, liberty, and life, to defend, to preserve, to establish that national honor, national integrity, and national independence, without which neither property, liberty, or life, could be either valuable or desirable? If so, you will enjoy all--property, liberty, and life, and enjoy them more abundantly. If not, then you lose all; and with them you throw away national lion or, integrity, and inde pendence, forever. Nations, like individuals, must have character; and nations, like individuals, must have that character tested--proven by trial. Trial is to the national character what the sculptor's chisel is to the marble ; it cuts away much of its substance, but leaves it in shape, comeliness, and value. And this I can speak for our encouragement, that no nation has ever yet died, or been destroyed, while the people held every other interest subordinate to the preservation of national honor, virtue, and independence. "While this I must say for our admonition : that no nation has ever yet survived, whose people became willing to sacrifice honor, virtue, or independence for individual ease, or any material prosperity. As, therefore, no man can enjoy life, liberty, or property, except the national integrity be preserved, it follows, that it is every man's duty to sacrifice all these, when necessary, to preserve that national integrity ; and he who refuses to make the sacrifice, becomes an enemy to that nation, and the personal enemy of every other individual of that nation, and of every individual to be born in that nation. I speak to you, my friends and neighbors, to-day, but I speak of interests that must affect our whole country, and our whole country's posterity. We can have no divided interests, and no separate deliverance. I plead the cause of twelve millions, living, and of twelve millions, many times multi plied, vet to live. And what a patrimony to preserve, what a heritage to transmit, are involved in this cause ! Since our beneficent Father made the heavens and the earth, He has parceled out to His children no better portion than that which we of the Confederate States possess. We have ati area broader than the five great powers of Europe. We have a sky as bright, and a climate as balmy, as the poet's " loved Italia." "We have a soil more fruitful than that of the land selected by the Father Himself for His own chosen people, and which is described as " flowing with milk and with honey." And we have rivers which can float to the sea ten thousand cargoes, each richer than the fabled golden fleece ! And yet, since God cursed man and drove him from Para dise, thenceforth to be the victim of hatred and revenge, and of every passio7i,no people have been threatened with evils so dire, and a fate so terrible, ns those with which we, of the Confederate States, are now threatened! For, what to us will be our widespreading lauds, if they are to be divided by the hands of an enemy ? What will it be to us that our skies are bright and our climate balmy, if the spirits of our people are bowed and broken ? What will it be to us that our productions arc rich and varied, if while we may reap another shall enjoy? What, oh, what will it be to us that the sails of white-winged commerce shall gather in our waters and along our streams, as the fleecy clouds sometimes gather on our horizon and through our heavens, if they come to bear away our riches to fill the coffers of a conqueror? I would not be sacrilegious ; I would not be ungrateful ; I would not throw away, foolishly, the bounties of Heaven, but rather than these evils should be fixed upon us, I could pray that Gr<>d would curse HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AJVD WRITINGS. 275 these lands until not a seed could vegetate, and darken these skies until liot a. ray of light could penetrate the blackness ! In view, then, of the great interests involved, let us proceed to examine the issue, as that issue is now presented between us and our enemies ; how that issue is to be solved ; our resources ; the difficulties which obstruct us ; the method of overcoming those difficulties, and our prospects for final success. There can be no two honest opinions as to the character of the issue. Our enemy, proverbial for deception, is candid with us, on this subject, now. If we be deceived here, we must deceive ourselves. Indeed, so dis tinct is the issue, that, in my opinion, this very distinctness, combined witli the character of the demands which make the issue, will, in history, make this the beginning of the second epoch in this revolution. Four years ago, our people were divided in opinion as to what our enemies proposed to do; and, therefore, were divided in opinion, as to what we ought to do. Then, there was ground for debate; room for doubt ; tolerance for differences, and patriots on both sides, Now, our enemies declare distinct^ what they propose to do, and equally distinct becomes our duty. There is no ground for debate ; no room for doubt ; and there ought to bo no tolerance for difference, for patriots cannot longer divide. He that is not for us, is, by the very nature of the issue, compelled to be against us. This issue, I repeat, is formed, made up, by the demands of the enemy, officially an nounced by Mr. Lincoln to our own appointed commissioners. The first demand is "a complete restoration of the authority of the Con stitution and laws of the United States over all places within the States of the Confederacy." What Constitution ? Ah, my friends, not the Consti tution which our common fathers made ! Not that Constitution in which conflicting interests and opinions made mutual concessions for the general good ; in which the South agreed to contribute to the commercial and manufacturing greatness of the North, and the North, in consideration therefore, agreed not to interfere with, but to respect, the industrial pur suits and domestic labor of the South ; and without which mutual conces sions our fathers distinctly declared they would never agree to any union at all. That old Constitution, the Northern people did not like. Many of them hated it. They called it "a covenant with hell, and a league witli the devil." They refused to obey it. They openly, repeatedly, grossly vio lated it ; and, because of that bad faith, we were compelled to abandon the Union formed by that Constitution. Since we left them, they wave made a. Constitution to suit themselves. They have annulled all the concessions their fathers made to us ; but have retained all the concessions our fathers, in return therefore, made to them ; and have added new exactions of us, which their own fathers, in the Convention, disclaimed, and which those fathers would have considered themselves disgraced in exacting ; and which the most fanatical enemy of the South, in New England, would not have exacted before our separation. They have repealed the old laws, made for our benefit, in pursuance of the old Constitution ; and have made new laws, in accordance with the spirit and purposes of this new Constitution. And now, they take this new Constitution and these new laws--spawns of the most wicked fanaticism, conceived and perfected in the most bitter hatred to us, even while they were invading our soil, burning our homes, and shed ding our blood--and tell us we must consent to have their authority restored over us as the first condition of peace with them ! Did these people forget who our fathers were, or did they think we were degenerate? 276 SENATOR B. JL HILL, OF GEORGIA. The next demand is, that we must agree in advance " to accept what ever consequences may follow from, the restoration of this authority." It matters not how hard our lot may be ; how degrading- to our honor; how ruinous to interests ; how hopeless for our children ; we must agree, in ad vance, not to complain ; not to plead surprise ; not to resist again ; not to ask for a change. We must accept whatever consequences ma?/ follow! Our enemies are wiser, in their exactions, than the Venetian Jew. We must pay the pound of flesh, "whatever blood shall flow, and it must be so written in the bond. If we sign that bond, no fair Portia will give judg ment for us, and no honorable woman can ever bear children to a people so bankrupt in manliness ! But what are the changes made in the Constitution and laws, and what are the consequences to flow from these changes? for Mr. Lincoln is candid enough to give us notice of a sufficient number of them to enable even a stupid man to see that others must follow. In the first place, our slaves are emancipated by our enemies, and we must consent to that emancipation. What need for " courts and votes," after this consent? Well, this change alone, is a great one. Slavery was not the cause, hut it was the occasion of our secession. We voluntarily left a Union under a Constitution which our fathers did help to make ; in which slavery was recognized ; in which, even the Abolitionists admitted it was recognized in the States, to secure greater and more quiet protection for that property. It is now proposed, demanded that we be carried back, by force, to a Union under a Constitution which our fathers refused to make ; which our enemies alone have made ; in which onr property is taken from us without compensation, and all at the bidding of an enemy who have been murdering our children while making this change to destroy our prop erty, and who tell us they will continue to murder until we accept the ebatige, and consent to the destruction. I sav, to yield slavery at all, is to show a great change in our people. To yield it thus to the enemy, is singu lar, unusual humiliation for the Southern people. But to yield as a privi lege--as a condition of reunion with that very enemy ; and to be required, in. the now Union, to pay a full proportion of the debt incurred by the enemy while murdering our people to force them to the surrender, is a sub jugation which no people fit to live with would exact, and to which no people fit to live at all would ever submit. But I am. speaking to-day of questions whose solution must affect all the world, and all the world's posterity. By what I this day utter, I am willing to go before my country, before posterity, and before my Heavenly Father for judgment. And so speaking I declare to you, I think the preservation of property in slaves, great as it is, is yet the very smallest interest involved in this contest. I believe slavery is God's own decree. If I did not believe so, no earthly power could make me hold my slaves until the going down of this day's sun. In God's hands I am willing to leave the negro's condition and destiny. " Best are all things as the will of God ordained them." But as far as property in that negro is the creature of human con sent, I am willing to say I would freely, cheerfully, gladly, if necessary, give up slavery for independence ; but I will never consent to give up slavery and independence, for any price which human coffers can p^y> nor on any term^ which human ingenuity can devise, nor under any torture which human power can inflict. But I say, emancipation simply, is the smallest question involved. If this HIS LlVfi, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 27Y were the only danger ; if we, the white race, were still permitted to regulate the new relations by our own State laws, we might be able to protect our selves in our political, civil, and social supremacy ; and though in a different way, atid on different terras, we should still be able, in a great measure, to control the labor of the negro, both for his good and our own. Our enemies have seen this result, and they have provided against it. Therefore, in the next place, under this now Constitution, Congress--the Federal Congress--we are notified, " reserves the power to enforce this eman cipation, by such legislation as that Congress shall deem appropriate" That is to sav, the people who emancipate the slave reserve the power to say how that slave shall enjoy his freedom ; what shall be Ms political, civil, and social status ; and what relations shall exist between the freed slave and his former master. The people who bate you, who have murdered your sons to free the negro, who impoverish and degrade you to enrich and elevate the negro, is to be the sole judge oi' what is appropriate in the future relations between you and that negro. Do you imagine such a people will judge it appropriate that you should be above the negro ? "Will it not be marvclous if they even judge it appropriate that you should be his equal ? Let us glance a moment at some of the measures which this Federal Congress must deem not only appropriate, but as absolutely necessary, to enforce this emancipation of the slaves ; without which, indeed, the eman cipation would be idle and cruel. In'the first place, of course, the freed negvo must have a country to live in. Now, it has never been known that the white and black races could inhabit the same country, in any large proportions, without the one race being sub ject to the other. The contrary is the experience of mankind. In former times, even Abolitionists shuddered at the idea of turning loose four millions of blacks to live in the South. \Vhat to do with the nogvo after freeing him was the hardest problem for the world's fanaticism to solve. For the pur pose of solving this problem, the "Colonization Society " was formed. The object was to carry the freed negroes back to their own land, Liberia, and aid and encourage them to pursue and progress in the civilization and Christianity they had acquired here, and extend both to their race still in barbarism. Great intellects helped the scheme. "Wealth, philanthropy, and fanaticism all combined, from the North and from the South., to give it success. It failed. The negro preferred slavery here to freedom there. Many in this very State, freed by their masters to be carried to Liberia, re fused to go. Some did go. Teachers with books, and preachers with the Bible, went with them. But even with these helps, the freed negro went back to the barbarism of his race with more rapiditj^ than he recovered Ms race from barbarism. Slavery is the only civilizer of the negro. Early in Mr, Lincoln's first term, we heard much of his efforts to g-et some Southern country in which to colonize the negroes. He failed. The negro would not go. He preferred to stay here even if compelled to shoot his master; and Mr. Lincoln, it seems, has concluded that it is a more Christian work. The truth is, the negro will never voluntarily leave this country. He much prefers slavery. And the Yankee has concluded he shall neither leave the country nor remain a slave in it, whatever consequences may result. But why give the negro his freedom and a country to live in and not the means of making a living? He must have lands to work and the means to work them. Therefore, as another result, our lands must be parceled out with the negro. Gen. Sherrnan has already commenced the work. He has 278 8H3TATOR . &. HILL, OF GEORGIA. already set apart certain lands in OS-eorgia and South Carolina, and the islands adjacent, for the poor, starving negroes who followed him, and has forbid any white person going within their limits except by military order. In the next place, the negro, being a free landed proprietor, must have civil rights, and civil rights are but a mockery without civil power ; and all these \vill be futile without social equality. I tell you as sure as there is rea son in logic, or revenge in hate, these consequences will all follow. They cannot follow naturally. The negro, of himself, can never make, administer, or execute laws for the white man. His intellect is not equal to the task of either supremacy or equality. His taste, his habits, his nature can never, by any innate charm or power, rise to social equality with the white race. And I repeat, these ends will not be reached as results naturally arising from his state of freedom. But they will be provided for by law. His friend and your enemy, his liberator and your tyrant, will have the sole right to judge of the measures appropriate to enforce the negro's emancipation ; and by virtue of laws thus provided, the negro will be entitled to hold your lands, to sit in your legislative halls, to adjudge your rights, to be the witness be tween you and. his race, to pass sentence upon your acts, to eat at your tables, to associate with your families, and to intermarry with your children. !N"or is the worst yet told. It will be in vain to give the negro all these rights, and establish them by law, and stop there. All the laws the Federal Congress could devise, could not by their simple enactment lift the negro to ac tual equality with the white man. His nature and his habit is to fear and obey his master. The nature and the habit of the white man is to command and govern the negro. This normal relation must be overcome by something stronger than laws, or it will practically prevail. Therefore, power--force-- must be provided tosectfre to the negro the actual enjoyment of these rights. The Yankoe will not sacrifice a million of lives, and billions of money to ob tain these rights for the negro, and then hesitate to adopt whatever means mav be necessary to secure their enjoyment, as far as that enjoyment can be secured. This force must come from without, or be. found within the country. To be furnished from without will prove too expensive. It will require three hundred thousand soldiers to garrison this vast territory. It would doubtless be deemed appropriate to collect the ex pense of maintaining this force, from us, especially as we would t>e considered the cause of the necessity for such force. But, impoverished and enervated, and manacled in all our energies, we should never be able to provide the means for such payment. The Yankees would not long agree to pay such expenses from their own treasury, and the force from without would be chiefly withdrawn. Only one resource to accomplish, the end would remain, and this would be adopted. The black race--the eman cipated slave--would be armed ; and the white race--the dominating offended master--"would be disarmed \ Do not tell me this result is too hor rid, too demoniac. You will have 110 right to judge. That right is re served, by the terms proposed, to the Federal Congress. Your enemy is to be the only judge. You are to agree in advance he shall be the only judge. That enemy is fanatical ; that enemy is mad ; that enemy is blind I That madness has been restrained hitherto by your power, bnt, even now, is there any cruelty which that enemy has not delighted to inflict upon us -where opportunity presented ? Let Atlanta, with her exiled people and heaps of ashes, answer I Let Columbia, given to a soldiery licensed to sack, to JUS LIFJ2, 8PSECUJS8, AND WHITINGS. 279 riot, and to burn, close up the argument. I tell you, Atlanta depopulated and destroyed ; Columbia sacked and in smoking ruins, are happy places, where the weary and pursued may "well fly for rest and safety, compared to the fate which will await this whole land, when the white race--conquered and hopeless--shall lay down their arms and submit to be the negro's fellow on the Yankee's terms. I will not detain you longer "with details of the con sequences that must result from an acceptance by us of the terms proposed by Mr. Lincoln to our commissioners in Hampton Roads. I have shown you that he requires us : 1. To accept a new Constitution and new laws made by our enemies-- made in the midst of inflamed hatred to us ; made while invading our coun try, burning our homes, and shedding our blood ! 2. To accept this new Constitution, and these laws, "without reservation or qualification as to the consequences that may follow. 3. That we must agree in advance, that our slaves are emancipated ; and that the Federal Congress shall, in future, exercise the power to enforc that emancipation by such laws as they may deem appropriate. 4. I have shown you that to enforce this emancipation, it must neces sarily be deemed appropriate : 1. That the freed negro shall have this coun try to inhabit. 2. That he must be furnished with lands to cultivate, and with means to cultivate them. 3. That he must have civil rights ; civil and political power, and social equality with us. 4. That he must have power to protect himself in the enjoyment of all these rights against an old domi neering master, and that, too, to this end : the negro will be armed, and the former master--the white race--will be disarmed ! I need scarcely add, that in order to carry out this policy it will become necessary to obliterate all State lines, and have all the States of the Con federacy reduced to one vast territory. For this territory there will be but one law-making power--the Federal Congress ; and from this territory, in that Congress, the negro, or the white man willing to be his equal, will be the only fit and accepted representative. As an inducement--and the only inducement offered--to accept these terms, Mr. Lincoln promises us a liberal exercise of the pardoning power ! And, doubtless, those at the North who support him, will consider this indeed a liberal offer, since they claim the right to exterminate us for the sins already committed ! The very terms of the issue, as tendered by Mr. Lincoln, must preclude any division of opinion as to the manner of meeting that issue. Diplomacy, on its own terms, by its own champions, has made an effort and failed at the threshold. Statesmanship has been given its day, and not only failed, but was humiliated before one day ended. How could it have been otherwise when Mr. Lincoln had previously plainly said : " It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory." The day for diplomacy and statesmanship -will certainly come ; and it "will come early, or delay long, just in proportion to the earnestness and unanimity with which we, on our side, now wage the "war. ^Vooing will drive it away. Universal defiance will bring it on. If our enemy could have heard from our people but one harmonious determined voice of vesistance to death after the Hampton Roads conference, that day would have come upon us ere the springing grain could yellow for the harvest. Oh ! dastardly is the cowardice of that trooper who lingers from the battle now ; hopelessly suicidal is that avarice which can withhold its offering now ; and hateful, hateful, hateful far be- 280 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Of GEORGIA. yond the darkest thought of the traitor's mind, is that ambition which can not forget its personal griefs and personal scheming' and cease to divide our people now \ If we were base enough to desire to submit, we could not--for all induce ments to such submission are destroyed by the terms proposed. We could not get back the old Union, for that has been more effectually destroyed by the enemy than by secession. We could not save our property, for its surren der is the very first condition of submission. We give up property in slaves in advance. We throw away all the debt we have incurred, and which is due to our own people. The remainder of our property, if sold in the most favorable market, would not pay our proportion of the enemy's debt incurred in our subjugation ! We would not secure peace. I do not speak to you with threats ; but I d<> speak in frankness. And I tell you, if you., at home, are willing to sub mit to terms so degrading, the army will not! The soldiers can give up property ; they HAVK given it up. They can leave home, and wife, and children ; they have left them. They can endure cold, and heat, and hun ger, and nakedness. They have endured all these for four long years. They can climb mountains, wade rivers, make long inarches, walk without shoes, sleep without tents, fight without trembling, and die without fear! All these things have been done from Texas to Maryland. They can listen to the bursting shells without quaking knees, and watch the flashing guns without blinking eyes. They have heard and seen them in a hundred battles. You cannot startle them with, the enemy's numbers ; they have met that enemy on a hundred fields without a count, save of the slain and captured ! They can bury their fallen comrades, and still press on. Ah ! ten times ten thousand quick-shoveled mounds hide the still clenched teeth and fearless miens of sleeping braves from Oak Hills to Gettysburg. They are in the valley of the Mississippi, and, to their memories, the great father of waters will mingle a hoarse, deep dirge with the tolling bells of floating steamers, while commerce shall gather the rich fruits of their labors. They are among- the hills of Georgia, and the sweet, winding E to wall shall hymn their requiem, as long as the iron mountain, around whose base she pours her waters, shall remain. And Virginia--unrivaled old mother--holds them, to-day, all over her great, wide bosom ; and there she will ever hold them, richer, in them alone, than India with her treasures, and prouder than Egypt lifting her changeless pyramids to the skies ! And what is it, so richer than wealth ; so dearer than home, and wife, and children ; and so more valued than ease, and health, and life, that for it, the true, brave soldier, is willing to lose all, and endure, and suffer, and toil, and light, and die, and never falter ? It is that without which there can be no enjoyment in wealth, no home for family, no safety in ease, and no pleas ure in Ufe. It is the honor and independence of OUT country ! And do you suppose that tiiese gallant heroes, who have lost so much, who have endured so much, who have suffered so much, and who have buried so many, and all to defend and maintain that honor and independence, will tamely agree, that you, who have never felt the sirocco touch of this war's wild blast, shall now surrender all national honor and independence forever? Will they agree that you shall say all their privations have been endured in the cause of treason ? Will they, at your bidding, lay down their arms, and, like peni tent felons, trust the enemy they have been fighting, for pardon ? "Will they ever consent that you, taking the friendly hand of the enemy who slew them, HIS LIFE, BPEEGS3S8, AND WRITINGS. 28! shall go over the fields of Manassas and Fredericksburg, Shiloh and Chickamaus^a, and write above the graves of their comrades who are vesting thei'e, that blackest of libels--"Traitors lie liei-e " ? Will Georgia write that epi taph for Bartow, and Cobb, .and her thousands of sons who have fought and died to illustrate her honor? "Will Virginians write it for Jackson? Whose hand shall write it, and not be paralyzed ? Whose tongue shall utter it and not grow speechless? "Who will bear the message to those foreign nations who are carving statues and erecting monuments to his memory, to forbear the unholy work of perpetuating the name and features of a traitor? But even if the army could endure all this, and lay down their arms, think you they would not grasp them again when they should see that nobler than Brutus, that purer than Cromwell, and that greater than Washington, the glorious Lee, led up to the prison stand to receive the sen tence of an inveterate, or the pardon of a penitent culprit, from the mouth of such a jester as Lincoln ? Enough ! enough ! Away with the thought of peace on such terms. "Pis the wildest dream that restless ambition, or selfish avarice, or slinking cowardice could conjure in the highest flight of the most anguished imaginings I The day yon make friends with the enemy on tany such terms, you will make eternal enemies of your own bravo sons and brothers who have been defending you against the malice of that enemy. You will have an enemy in every household, a battle by every fireside, and a war that shall blight your fields, and curse the land with hor-ror forever ! For glory is the soldier's prize. The soldier's wealth is HONOR. But even if our people and army were all to agree to submit to Mr. Lin coln's terms, we should not have peace. No, not even if our negroes should not be armed, or oven the emancipation proclamation should be abandoned. Policy, safety, and passion would all combine to drive our enemies into a foreign war, and every man in the Southern army would beat once ordered to the conflict. Our sons, husbands, and brothers would be marched from the Mississippi into Mexico, or from the James into Canada, or, perhaps, into both .' Let us not deceive ourselves! The clay of compromise did exist, It lingered long. It has gone forever ! There is now for us 110 safety, no property, no honor, no peace, no hope, save in independence. The next question, therefore, becomes an important one : AVhat are our resources for prosecuting a defensive war? These resources are of two kinds, physical and moral. Physical resources consist in men, in supplies, and in arms and munitions of war, and in the means of producing and procuring them. It was my fortune to be one of a joint committee, recently appointed by the two houses of Congress, and charged with the duty of inquiring into the condition of our resources, present and prospective, for the maintenance of the public defense. After a lenthy examination, the committee had the happiness to conclude and to report, unanimously, that our resources were sufficient, and, with energy and vigilance, were available for the prosecution of the war until independence was won. Tt may not be improper to state to you some facts on this branch of the subject: We have more than half a million of white men within the military ago, east of the Mississippi River. Taking the whole country together, east of that river, and we find pro- 282 SEWATOft B. H. HILL, OP GEORGIA. visions--though scarce in some places--were never more abundant. We have supplies in North Carolina and Virginia sufficient to sustain General Lee's armies until harvest. Notwithstanding- recent losses, we have an abundant supply of heavy ordnance and field artillery. Wo have more small arms than men on duty to hold them. We have machinery now on hand sufficient to manufacture fifty-five thousand rifles and muskets (not counting- pistols and carbines) ptr annum. This is more than twice the number manufactured in the whole United States before the war. What will critics who can find nothing efficient in our new government say to this fact alone ? M^e need, mechan ics in this department. We have, arid can manufacture within ourselves, powder enough to carry on the war indefinitely. Lead is not so abundant as powder, but suffi cient. Thus, you see, God has not left us without all the physical means neces sary for our defense in this trying- struggle. Truly, it seems He hid away in our eartli all things needful for us, and at the critical hour of want lie uncovers them for our use. The moral resources of a nation consist in the will--the spirit--the determined and united purpose of the people. These resources are devel oped in the highest strength, when all the people detei'mine to use all the physical resources to the one great end of defending, protecting, or establishing their national integrity and independence. This will must bo manifested by faith--faith in God, in our cause, in ourselves, in our gov ernment, and in our army. This faith is manifested by a readiness--a cheerfulness to tlo, to suffer, and to sacrifice. It is the province of the clergy to teach you faith in God. I trust no man now needs to be taught faith in our cause. The exactions of the enemy have made that cause righteous far above all precedent. When this war began, no people ever exhibited a sublimer faith in themselves, their government, and their army. None will admit they have lost faith in the army ov in the people. 13ut, in this struggle, the army, the people, and the government are almost the same. Certainly neither can be strong, when either is weak ; neither can survive, when either shall fail. And the cause, which all are required to defend, cannot succeed when these shall give way. Now, the skill of a commander is generally exhibited by finding out and attacking his adver sary's weakest point. Our enemy have not been stupid or blundering on this point. From, the beginning, Mr. Lincoln and his followers have desired to weaken and destroy our government^ well knowing that whenever the people of the army should abandon the government, we should be effectually destroyed in all respects. Indeed, they believe, that if they can disaffect our people to any one branch of the government, especially to the President, we shall necessarily fail. This great fact is made very distinct by Mr. Lincoln's last message. He says : "On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible, it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept of nothing short of the severance of the Union. His declarations to this effect are explicit, and oft repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He offers us no excuse to deceive ourselves. AVe cannot voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and tjffi LIFE, 8PEKGIIKS, AND WRITINGS. 283 decided by victory. If we yield, we are beaten. Jf the Southern people fail Mm, he is beaten." Here Mr. Lincoln puts the whole issue of the struggle on one single point. He does not say,--if our army fails ; if our munitions of war fail ; if our supplies fail ; if our cities fall ; if our States are overran, or if our currency becomes worthless, we are beaten. No. Mark his words : " If the Southern people fail." Fail what ? Fail the cause ? No. Fail the Congress ? No. Fail the President 1 " If the South ern people fail him, he is beaten J " I repeat, from, the beginning, our enemies have never expected to subdue us by the failure or exhaustion of our physical resources. They have expected us to fail in our moral resources. '.They have relied upon disaffec tion among- onr people to our government, and chiefly to the President. And in this fatal work we have had enemies within as well as without. " Why," said the greatest of Roman orators and the purest of Roman states men, "why are we speaking so long about one enemy; and about that enemy who avows that he is one ; and are saying nothing about those who dissemble, who remain at Rome, who are among us ? Whom, indeed, if it were by any means possible, I should be anxions not so much to chastise as to cure, and to make friendly to the republic; nor, if they will listen to me, do I quite know why that may not be." Never were words more applicable. That enemy who avows he is one, who bears arms in his hand, who meets us in battle, is not our worst, our most dangerous enemy. \Ve have enemies who deceive themselves ; who dissemble ; who are here among us. And if we are conquered, subjugated, disgraced, ruined, it will all be the "work of those enemies among us ; and they will accomplish that work by destroying the faith of our people in their own government. Oh, if I bad a voice to-day which could reach every man, woman, and child in the Confederacy, and. could open their eyes to this one great truth, our independence would be secured beyond the possibility of failure. There are many among us engaged in promoting this work of disaffection. They act from different motives, and are in different degrees of guilt. Many are uninformed and thoughtless, and do not really design to do mischief. Some are misguided ; some are deceived ; some are designing, and some are employed by the onemy. To most of these I allude " not so much to chastise as to cure, and to make friendly to the republic." Many of our people were opposed to secession as a remedy for our grievances. They regarded it as revolution, and believed it would bring, in its train, the evils of revolution. Most of them are earnest and devoted supporters of our government. This government lias been regularly adopted by the people--is a living entity by the " consent of the governed," and cannot be abandoned, except by another revolution. And another revolu tion now, can never lead us back to the old Union, but would lead, with multiplied horrors, inevitably to subjugation. It is natural, therefore ; it is consistent, that these men should give all their energies to sustain the government, and should deprecate the spirit of disaffection as the wiliest us into another, whose losses, sufferings, and evils would be tenfold those of the present. I trust not one of them will linger in his regrets and prejudice, after-hearing of the Hampton Roads conference. For one, I buried the 284 SKtfATOR B. It HILL, OF GEORGIA. Union as I buried my father--from necessity, and in sorrow of heart. I would not, I could not, utibury it now ; for, decayed and fetid, it would stench the earth. A fanatical abolition despotism has been erected on the ruins of the old Union, and Southern honor could not live in its Upas shadow. sarly and earnestly into the secession move. that can actuate patriots. Many of them Noble freorgians ! The State, the people, posterity, meirnories and commemorate your virtues ! .But all our secession friends were not Bartows and Cobbs, nor . militia or otner commissions, which they would have scorned beiore ttie war ; and their chief business is to abuse the government they are unworthy to In all countries, some people are naturally timid, an try honlors. Lastly, we have some peculiar characters among us, more fully developed HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 285 by this revolution than in any previous one. These are men, who, adding to a natural vanity a long domination in party tactics, have become absolute in their opinions, and are unable to see how those who differ with them can possibly be right or wise ; or why their counsel should be sought and not followed. These find the conduct of the war is not precisely according to the policy they may have deemed best. Therefore, fealty to the sovereignty of their opinions requires them to believe we shall fail. They, accordingly, prophesy we will fail ; they find reasons for proving we will fail, and never seem to suspect that the very course they are piirsniiig is helping to failure. Out of these various classes--that triune curse of all revolutions--the croaker, the critic, and-the traitor is formed. Add to these the spies sent in or brought up among us by the enemy, and you have the different materials which, though immalleable in themselves, form the solid column which, day and night, is assaulting the government, and striving to batter it down hi the confidence of the people. Having nothing to keep them together but a common hatred to the government, it is the testimony of all history that whenever they succeed in destroying the government, they invariably fall to fighting each other, and the people who are deluded to follow them divide into factions, and rush headlong into anarchy. The two characters which furnish the most dangerous materials for this work of disaffection and demoralization are the avaricious and the ambitious. I have nothing to say against legitimate trade. The man who made Iiis living by honest trade before the war, if not called into military service, may properly continue his calling. The honest middle man is necessary to the non-producing class of society. Nor will I stop now to develop the sin of the unofficial citizen who takes advantage of political, social, and commercial disruptions to gather fortunes. It would be expecting too much of our people to look for the sublime spectacle of universal self-denial. Neverthe less, if it could have been so, this stream of blood would long since have ceased. But I cannot pass by the office-holding speculator, without leaving on record my opinion of the unpatriotic and ruinous nature arid effect of his dealing. I deny that office-holders have the right to speculate at any time. All history shows it is corrupting ; and no government ever remained faith ful to itself, or to the people, whose administrators became traffickers. But in times like these, the error becomes a crime--a crime against the public faith and the public weal. It was very clear from the beginning, that this war could only be con ducted on the public credit. The note of the government was certainly to become the only currency "with the army and the people. It, therefore, be came the solemn official duty of every man in office, State and Confederate, to make, to administer, and to execute the laws with special reference to the protection and preservation of this credit. It is another fact, equally clear in reason, and beyond doubt in the history of the times, that the amount of profits in trade has been measured by the amount of depreciation of this public credit. Here, then, is the dilemma : It is the office-holder's duty to preserve the public credit ; it is the speculator's interest to depreciate that credit. If the office-holder and the speculator be one, which feeling will con trol--duty or interest ? I deny that any man has the rig-lit to make the con flict or that any people ought to risk the hazard. IS^or can the subject matter of the trade change or lessen the guilt. It ig 286 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. the speculation, not the thing speculated in, that depreciates the credit. In fact, large dealings in property, stocks, bonds, and foreign commerce, are the more culpable because they do more to depreciate the credit, and furnish a more unrestrained field for the elasticity of conscience, than dealing in provisions. And provision dealers only hoard their supplies, because they know property dealers will certainly carry up the price by depreciating the currency. Speculations are, besides, exciting and absorbing to the mind, and no man so habitually engaged can be fit for the grave and heavy duties of official station in times like these. ernment is weakened in all its sinews. Plato had a maxim, that " when officials bought and sold, the State became corrupt." It was forbidden in Sparta, and by positive laws in Rome. Verres, as Governor of Sicily, violated this law, and went back to Rome, at the close of his service, immensely rich. I3ut the eloquence of the great and pure Cicero has made him infamous to this day. " Whence comes it," said Demosthenes, in one of his patriotic appeals to ai-ouse the Athenians, " that all the Greeks once panted so stro * e' scandalous traffic now become so common in -Athens, where a price is set upon everything, and whore all things are sold to the highest bidder." History is full of examples, from Demosthenes to \Vashington, that true statesmen have always declaimed against official traffic ; and that a people who tolerated it have always suffered heavy penalties. It is gratifying to :i\ow, that among the highest officers of our Confederate government this the strong measures of the government, adopted to carry on mo war, as un constitutional, oppressive, and subversive of civil liberty. AH governments, in revolutions of half the magnitude of this, have found it necessary to sus pend the privileges of the writ of habeas, corpus. All history shows this is necessary to restrain treason and secret schemings to undermine and destroy the government. It is necessary to protect the patriotic and the faithful. IIS LTFJ5, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 287 It is aimed to weaken the arm of disaffection. It is natural that all those wlio work disaffection should oppose the siispension.. and very many good men become alarmed by their earnest appeals, lest the government is seek ing to become a military despotism. Again : It is not possible to conduct a struggle of such proportion without employing many agents throughout this vast country. It is equally impossible alwavs to secure intelligent, upright, and faithful agents, and many of them violate the laws and deal oppressively with the people. All these acts of faithless agents are ascribed to the government and the laws by the designing and disaffected critics. There are many hardships incident to the war. 33mv3ens are necessarily heavy. Marauders rob the people and defy the laws. Disasters will happen to our arms. The stronger power will overrun the country and commit desolations. Strong measures are absolutely necessary to compel men to discharge dangerous and unpleasant duties, and make sacrifices. All these things ace inseparable from war. Yet critics and designing men never lose an opportunity to ascribe all these hardships and misfortunes to the blun ders or iucompetency of those who administer the government and conduct the war. This is a favorite species of argument not only with critics, but also with spies and traitors. It is easily made plausible. It conies home to the feeling of the people, and it requires intelligence and patriotism to detect the miserable sophistry. It seems to exhibit also a sympathy with the people, and thus secures their confidence, and thus prepare the way to misrepresent the acts and malign the motives of those in power, and thus to disaffect the people. The Southern people are naturally confiding, and designing men always profess good motives. The serpent professed a great regard for mother Eve when he sought to disaffect her to the Ruler of Heaven. He made her believe that God was a despot and dealt untruly with lier. And from that day to this, that lias been a favorite argument and a favorite manner of using the argument, to disaffect a people to constituted authority. Cati line used it in Kome. Arnold used it in the first revolution. And, though I \vill not say, for I do not believe, all who are using it now are Catiliues and Arnolds, yet I will say that every Catiline and Arnold, every spy and traitor in the land, are using all these very arguments this very day, and for the one great purpose of disaffecting the people to the government. If the curtain which conceals men's hearts could be lifted, I have no doubt there are men now in this country in the employ of the enemy, editing papers, and in various ways, and from many positions, instructing the pub lic mind. Remember, " 'twas not Philip, but Philip's gold, that took the cities of Greece ! " If a man desires only to do justice and circulate the truth, why should he misrepresent facts, pervert the laws, and attribute false motives to the government ? Why is it that neither the Congress, nor the President, can do anything to please them. ? AVhy do they use arguments which justify desertions from the army, and then attribute these desertions to the policy and laws of the land ? It has been found necessary, in all revolutions like this, for the govern ment to keep its secrets. There are many facts and reasons entering into the making of the laws, and in conducting the war. which the enemy ought not to know. The Congress of the first revolution sat in secret. Our Con gress has found it necessary to do the same. Now, how can he be honest. 288 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Off GEORGIA. or true, or patriotic, who represents to the people that the object of the Congress is to conceal the votes, and hide the reasons of the mem bers ? Of all the assaults that are made upon the President, and the Cabinet, and the Congress, I regard none as so manifestly dishonorable, as the advan tage which is taken of this very necessity of secrecy. The heaviest assaults are made on these very measures and operations, the reasons for which are often most necessary to be concealed from the public enemy. It matters not how many mis statements are made, how many false motives are charged, there can be no defense, for defense would require the truth to be told, and this would damage the public interests. This is taking advantage of the patriotism of those in authority, to destroy the public confidence. Can anything in treason itself be more dishonorable *? I have heard the President say, on several occasions, " If my enemies would tell falsehoods which injured only me, it "would be a matter of small moment. But they make statements, utterly perverting the truth, which damage the public interests, and which cannot be corrected without expos ing facts which would damage the public interest still more greatly." Washington often made similar complaints. In one of his letters to Mr. Lau veils, he uses this strong language : How is it possible that men who will take such a dishonorable advantagccan be patriots? And how can those who are patriots believe anything such men say ? Tlie greatest generals cannot escape the criticisms of these designing " sappers and miners" of the public confidence. They assume to know more about military campaigns and military strategy than the best com manders. In one of the most trying periods of Roman historv, Paul us Emilias--a great and good man--was called by the unanimous voice of the people a sec ond time to the consulship. He determined to take command of the army, then engaged in a hard struggle in Macedonia. Uefore leaving Koine, he called the people together, and made them a speech, which was so full of wisdom that it lias been preserved to this day. Allow me to read you a portion of that speech. lie said : to establis IK zin L- land. when we are to tight the enemy, and when to lie still. They not only prescribe what is best to be done, but, for deviating ever so little from their plans, they make it a crime iu their Consul, and cite him before their tribunal. [In this day, they would call a. convention, to amend the Constitution, to get rid of him. j But know, Romans, this is a great impediment with your generals. All have not the resolution and constancy, like Fabius, to despise impertinent critics. lie could choose rather to suffer the people, upon sueli rumors, to in.vnde his authority, than to ruin the business of the State, in order to se cure to himself their good opinion, and an empty name. If there be any one who con ceives himself capable of assisting me with his counsels, in the war you have charged me with, let him, not refuse to do the republic that service, but, let him 50 with me into Mace- H18 LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WBITI2TQ8. 289 donia ; a ship, horses, toots, provisions, sliall nil be supplied at my cliartje. But, if he will not take so much trouble, and prefers the 1 tranquillity of the city to the dangers and fatigues of the field, let Mm not take upon him to hold the helm and continue idle in port. We shall pay no regard to any counsels, "but such as shall be given us in. the camp itself. The learned historian who reports this speech, makes the following pointed comment : This discourse of Paubis Kmilius, which abounds with reason and good sense, shows that men .ire the same in all ages of the world. People have an incredible itch for exam ining, criticising, and condemning the conduct of generals, and do not observe that by so doing, they act in manifest contradiction to reason and justice ; for, \vhat can be more absurd and ridiculous than to see persons, without any knowledge or experience in war, get themselves up for censors of the most able generals, and pronounce with a magiste rial air upon their actions ! But we must not expect to see a failing reformed that has its source ki the curiosity and vanity of human nature ; and generals "would dp wisely, after the example of Paulus Emilius, to despise these city reports and crude opinions of idle people, who have nothing' else to do, and have generally as little judgment as business. Meeting with General Lee, soon after General Bragg was relieved of the command of the Army of the Tennessee, and feeling great interest in the question, I asked him to suggest to the President the most proper general to take command of that army. He promptly said lie knew of no better officer in the service than General Jiragg. I told him I certainly pronounced no opinion against General Bragg, but right or wrong, critics, or subordinate officers, or both, had destroyed his usefulness with that army, and some one else would now have to command it. "This is true--unfortunately true," said the great man, and then, with a dignified sarcasm I shall never forget, he made the following speech : " We made one great mistake, IVlr. Hill, in the beginning of this revolution, and I fear we shall never get rid of the blunders that follow from it. A\r e put all our worst generals to commanding our armies, and all our best generals to editing newspapers ! These editing generals alone can see beforehand everything that ought to be done in a campaign, and how a battle ought to be fought, and never make mistakes. I have planned several campaigns and battles and have taken great pains and did my best, and sometimes I have thought the3r eould not be improved ; but when I had gone through with the campaign or fought the battles, I have seen where they eould liave been better, and have ha,d to regret I could not foresee and avoid some of the errors. Afterward, on reading some paper, I found those best generals saw all the mistakes from the beginning-, but were not kind enough to point them out until it was too late. And now," added the patriot, " I desire to serve my country in this struggle in any position in which I can be useful. I think wo ought to have our best military talent in the -field. I have done the best I could commanding the army, and I know I have committed errors and made failures ; and if some of these better generals will come arid take my place, I ana willing to do my best to serve my country editing a newspaper." I have endeavored to be explicit in explaining- the causes which impair our moral resources, and thereby prevent the efficient use of our physical resources, because T know they constitute the greatest obstacle in the way of our success. The enemy may overrun our country, but they can never hold it without the consent of our people. They conceded this much when they abandoned Atlanta- Our people will never consent to subjugation, unless their minds are first disaffected to our own government. " If the 230 SENATOR B. IT. HILL, OF GEORGIA, Southern people fail the Insurgent leader," said Mr. Lincoln, " he is beaten." Mr. Lincoln knows lie can never be beaten in any other way. The critics, the spies, and the traitors among us know it. These are our most danger ous enemies, because they alone can assault and destroy this fidelity of the people. Mr. Lincoln confesses his hopes lie in this infidelity. He says, " Some of them we know, already desire peace and reunion. The number of such may increase." Yes, they are among us, and they will increase. We had but few of these critics and destroyers of the public confidence in the beginning1. As the war has progressed, and its burdens increased, and its hardships multiplied, they have increased. They thrive on their coun try's disasters. 'We shall have other disasters, and they will grow in bold ness and numbers. They have always done so. They strengthen on the misfortunes that befall our cause and oppress our people, as the vultures fatten on the torn flesh of their prey. They have already done much to produce and justify desertions from the army. They have done much to dissatisfy the people, and induce them to hold back their supplies. They have done much to prevent our recogni tion by foreign powers. They have done much to encourage Mr. Lincoln in the hope that the " Southern people would yet fail their leader, and cause him to be beaten." They have done much to break down every movement at the North calculated to stop the shedding of blood, and to inaugurate the peaceful councils of negotiation; for the North will never negotiate while they are made to believe they can conquer. They have done much to pro long this war, and to murder our people in battle. I know the time has come when these enemies within will make fresh assaults, with greater bold ness ; arid therefore it is I have come home to raise my voice of warning against them. I know the grievances, all petty and imaginai-y, that redden the eyes with vengeance and make the words drop oily from the tongue, while the purpose grows dark in the heart ; and I dread this day the subtle power of the serpent that coils within the garden, far more than I do a mil lion of bayonets bristling without the walls ! There is but one way to fight these enemies among us. The people must support the government which Mr. Lincoln, and these, his co-workers, fight. It is your government, my countrymen. It is fighting your battles, and toil ing, day and night, to establish your rights and liberties. Support the President; support the laws ; support the generals ; supply the army ; drive off the traitors ; confound tbe critics ; and then you will be able to defy the enemy ; arrest disasters, and win independence. There are many roads to failure and bondage. You may drift there by lethargy ; you mav wind there by treason ; you may rush there by faction. There is but one road to success and freedom, It may be narrow, and require toil and patience and sacrifice, but you are certainly traveling that road, when you support your own regular Confederate Government. Every man who teaches you other wise is your enemy. And never had any people a government which they could more safely trust. You may summon a thousand conventions ; you may let every carping factionist be tried in his turn ; you may cross your lines, and select from all the cabinets of the world, and you will get no better chief execu tive than him whom God and your own votes have given you. You may resurrect all the Alexanders, and Napoleons, and Washingtons, of all ages of the world, and you will never get a better general than your .own unrivaled Lee. HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 291 And, if you could combine in one, the power of the Macedonian Phalanx, the fidelity of the Roman Legion, and the earnest fire of the French Guards, you could not get a better army than that composed of your own sons, brothers, and husbands, who have fought on an hundred fields ; who have endured untold privations, and who still, unmurmuring, unfaltering, and unflinching', face the mongrel invaders of our homes. My faith has grown with every year of the struggle. That faith rests on the known patriotism of our leaders ; the tried courage of our army ; the virtue and intelligence of the people, and the justice of a chastising and { mercy of a not always offended God. The campaign of 1864 has taught me to know what I always believed--that this vast country cannot be held by an enemy against the will of our people. I dread no enernv, therefore, as I do the factionist. But I know the same enemy helped the hosts of Persia against the Greeks, and was overcome. This enemy helped the power of the conquering Hannibal against the yet feeble Romans, and was overcome. This enemy helped the haughty and cruel Spaniard against the Netherlands, and was overcome. This enemy joined the ranks of the British and Indians and Tories against our fathers under Washington, and was overcome. An<2 I believe the Confederates are as brave as the Greeks, patriotic as the Homaiis, determined as the Dutch, and as true as even their fathers. And neither of these "were ever threatened with such a fate as that with which our enemies threaten us. 'When every other resource shall fail, the cruelty of our enemy's terms of peace will still drive ns to resist ance. It is natural we should be punished severely, because our sins have been many. For many years, in the, old government, "wrangling aspirants for place, losing sight of the great duties of statesmanship, were solely engaged in heating the furnace of passion and hate. In the beginning of this revolution there were deceptions and frauds and errors 011 all sides ; but the Abolitionists alone moved to their "work with, deliberate, calculating malice against the rights of man and the decrees of God. Therefore, while all of us must suffer, the enemy must finally fail. We are able to come out of this struggle with constitutional govern ment retained, with liberty enjoyed, and with slavery preserved. The first two are our rights, and so dear, that war with them is better than peace without them. The last is God's law, and He is stronger than any arm of flesh. If a man shall stand on the banks of the Mississippi, and watch the mis fortunes that occur upon, and by reason of the waters of the mighty river, he will see much to sadden and discomfort him. He will see that when a man falls in the middle of the stream, he can swim to neither shore, but must go to the bottom. He will see floating palaces striking- snags, or meet ing with other accidents, and going beneath the mocking waves with all on board. And, anon, he will see the flood swell high and break from its bounds ; and now he will see beautiful homes swept away ; and man and beast alike perishing in the deluge. And then, if he will close his eyes, and not see that for one man who perishes in that river a thousand live from, it ; that for one steamer that sinks, a thoiisand ride safely, with wealth, and life, and joy, over its surface ; if lie will not survey the wide alluvion spreading from either bank, gathering richness from the swelling flood, and producing food and raiment for millions of people throughout the earth, he "would naturally conclude that philanthropy required the waters should be stopped, and the long, deep channel dried. And then, with vivid pictures of drown- 292 SENATOR fl. tf. HILL, OF GEORGIA. ing men, and sinking steamers, and submerging homes ; with song and story, in pulpit and council chamber, he might exeite the imaginations of a fanatical people, and arouse them to the expenditure of labor, and money, and life, to stop the flow of that river. And when the high, long obstruc tion should be completed, and the triumphing dreamer should leap to the summit, and command the waters--back ; the dancing, rushing, laughing floods, breaking away on every side, and mocking the puny creature, would cry with ten thousand voices : God bid us go to the Gulf, arid thither we are going, though wo deluge a continent on the way ! So the foolish Abolitionist looks upon slavery, and can see nothing but its stripes, its labors, and its bondage. Pie will not see that for every stripe there are a thousand blessings. He will not see that no pauper population of any age, in any country, was ever so well fed, so well clothed, so lightly worked, so comfotred "with home, and so instructed in religion. He will not see that this disciplined labor, while it protects society, and keeps the negro in contented, happy subjection, is furnishing food and raiment to millions all over the world--even to the Abolitionist himself and to his children. Therefore he magnifies the evils of slavery. He arouses the imaginations and passions of an uninformed and fanatical people. He sets at defiance the solemn covenant of a well-considered and time-honored compact of govern ment. He disrupts society, desecrates the pulpit, defames the Senate hall, and prostitutes learning and science. He gathers millions of men for slaughter, and billions of treasures to be wasted. All, all that an easy bond age may be broken, and a happy slave turned loose ! And suppose, like the dreamer witli the floods, he shall seem for a time to succeed. Suppose that the restraints, which bind four millions of these people to duty, shall be with drawn. Who that knows the negro, or has faith in God, does not see the result;1 Bright homes will be destroyed, rich fields will cease to bear, millions will become hungry and naked, society will rush toward barbarism, and government to anarchy and despotism. The continent will be deluged in blood ; and, after all, the poor scattering negroes, like the uncontrolled and uncontrollable waters driven from their natural course, "will wander in unknown ways, weakening the more, the farther and longer they wander; caring for none, and shunned by all ; destroying and destroyed wherever they go ; until at last, they will return to the channel of servitude which God marked out for them to follow, and will bear, in happy xisefulness again, the burden of their destiny. For He who bid the waters go to the sea, said also, by .His servant, that Canaan should serve his brethren. Man's impious devices can no more annul God's moral decrees than his puny arm can subvert God's physical laws. He may pervert and obstruct both for a time, but always with confusion and punishment to himself. It was such transgression that put death in nature, doomed the Ethiopian to bondage, and filled the human heart with sorrows. But He who hath the power will also show the mercy. And as long as the Mississippi shall roll his floods to the Gulf, roaring, in eternal thunders, praises to Him by whose command the waters come and go, so long will the serving children of Canaan sow and reap in the valley made rich by this coming and going ; and, happy with food and raiment, home and family, faith and hope, shall hymn in daily thanksgivings praises to Him whose goodness also made this land of the Confederate the African's paradise ! Contending, then, only for what God has approved, and contending, also. HIS LIFJff, &PJ&JSCUMS, AND WHITINGS. . 203 for all that rewarded the toils of our fathers, and all that can give us hope for our children, let us dedicate all that we are and have, anew to the con test. Let us, from this day, think no thought, speak no word, do no deed, but for our country, until that country shall be free. Let us have no friends but the friends of our country j let us Lave no enemies, but the enemies of our country. Who can fall, if his country shall rise? "Who "would rise, if his country shall fall? Friends, neighbors, countrymen ! we all, all shall rise if we will only Onward in faith ! and leave the rest to Heaven, SPEECH DELIVERED IN ATLANTA, GA., ON THE NIGHT OF JULY 16, 1867. This is known as the " Davts Hall " speech, so called from the name of the hall in which it was delivered. It was the first speech made in the South against the Reconstruction measures of Con gress, and was the beginning of Southern rehabilitation, the inspiration to united effort that had glorious fruitage in the redemption of the State from the rule of ignorance and corruption. It was a time of great danger and required courage of a high order to speak. One who was present described the scene as follows : " The liall -was insufficiently lighted, and the pallor of men's faces in the pit almost put to shame the lamps that flickered here and there. Mr. Hill appeared in a full dress suit of black. His superb figure showed to best advantage, his gray eyes flashed, and his face pallied into dead white with earnestness. Just before he began the Federal generals, in full uniform,with glittering staff officers, entered the hall and marched to the front, their showy uniforms and flushed faces making sharp contrast with the ill dressed crowd of rebels through wirich they pushed their way. and sat in plain censorship over the orator and his utterances, with incomparable unconcern Mr. Hill arose. The threatening presence of the soldiers, the jails that yawned behind them, the dangers that their slightest nod would bring, had no effect on him. Without hesitation he launched his denunciations on their lieads and on the power they represented. For two hours he spoke as mortol man seldom spoke before, and when he had done Georgia was once more on her feet, and Georgians were organized for the protest of 1868 and the victories of 1870." It is to be regretted that this speech was not stenographically reported, and Mr. Hill never revised it, and w"e can only present a synopsis. Ladies and Fellow ^citizens : Human governments, like everything1 else human, naturally tend to decay. They can only be preserved by constant watchfulness, courage, and adherence to correct principles. These remarks apply with unusual force to free governments, which are the most difficult of all to maintain. If we, the people of the United States, were the first in history who had attempted the experiment of living under a democratic or republican form of government, we might be excused if we failed to dis cover the symptoms of approaching death, and to apply the remedies to preserve our liberty and the blessings we have heretofore enjoyed. Uut we are not the "first "who have made this experiment. Other peoples and nations, for thousands of years, have had commonwealths, republics, and democra cies, which, have risen and fallen times almost without number. I but assert a great truth--one which finds no contradiction or exception in all history-- when I say that the great leading and substantial causes of the decay of freedom in all countries, have ever been the same. How inexcusable must we be if we fail to discover the symptoms, and how cowardly and recreant if we fail to apply the proper remedy to prevent so foul a death! N~o people ever commenced to build up a free government Tinder such favorable auspices as we. What a climate, soil, variety of productions, and material resources do we possess ; and what an ancestry and what a common struggle for liberty did onr fathers pass through 3 I>id any people ever before commence with such advantages ? Rome commenced as a small city, and was despised by the barbarians around it. She extended her power by her arms and increased till at last she became mistress of the world. \Ve commenced with such a people, country, and productions as no 294: .HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, A2TD WRITINGS. 295 people ever had before, and we had fewer dissensions and elements of dis cord than any people ever suffered from ; and Providence, as if to separate us from the crimes and corrupting influences of the old world, spread out this great continent before us, with the wide sea to separate us from them, with no influence of monarchy and oppressive systems to threaten or make war upon us. If we fail, it will be by our own folly. "What excuse can we render to our posterity and to the world if \ve, in this day, with the lessons of history before us, allow free institutions to perish on this continent ? And our race will have been the soonest run. We have not yet lived a century. It is but seventy-eight years since the Constitution was framed, and but ninety-one years since independence was declared by our fathers, .while the commonwealth of Rome lived four hundreed ytears before the measures which produced her decay were propoossed. Whsat a spectacle ! The best people, the richest soil, the maost "vvick stores also ! I am ashamed to talk or use arguments about confisca tion, in time of peace ! It is a war power, not known to international law except as a war power, to be used only in time of war, upon, an enemy's goods ! Confiscation in time of peace is neither more nor less than robbery [ But yon say they have all the power and they will exercise it, unless we do as they bid us. And will you, in this case, abcuidoti your only protec tion? It is like going out into tho highway and surrendering1 your purse to tho robber to keep him from, taking it. I could introduce a great deal of high authority to establish this point, but I will not insult the Radical portion of the audience by reading from any authority for them, except from a Massachusetts judge. Here is what he says : It lias been supposed that, if the government have the rights of a belligerent, then, after the rebellion is suppressed, it will have the rights of conquest, that a State and its inhabitants may be permanently divested of all political privileges, and treated as foreign territory acquired by arras. This is an error, a grave and dangerous error. Belligerent rights cannot be exercised where there arc no belligerents. That is what I said : " Confiscation is only a war measure, and ceases with the war." Again : When the United States take possession of a rebel district, they mean to vindicate their pre-existing title. "Under despotic governments the right of confiscation may be unlimited ; but uudcr our government the right of sovereignty over any portion of a State is given and limited by the Constitution, and will be the same after the war as it was before. There is one Tjot in Massachusetts, and if Abraham we.ro alive to-day I would have him pray to God to spare that State and trust it--not only to ten men, but--even to one. There is at least one good man. in it and he is a judge, and dares to proclaim to all that security to property is given by the Constitution, the same after fvs before the war. And now I "will read for the patriots of the audience something from the most distinguished of all "writers on international law : "When a sovereign, arrogating to himself the absolute disposal of a people whom he has conquered, attempts to reduce them to slavery, he perpetuates the slate of warfare between that nation and himself. Should it be said that in such a case there may be peace and n kind of compact, by which the conqueror consents to spare the lives of the vanquished on condition, that they acknowledge themselves his slaves; he who makes such, an assertion is ignorant that WAV gives no right to take away the life of an enemy who has laid down his arms and submitted. But let us not dispute the point; let the man who holds such principles of jurisprudence keep them for his own use and benefit ; he well deserves to be subject to such a law. But men of spirit, to whom life is nothing-- less than nothing, unless sweetened with liberty, will always conceive themselves ut war with that oppressor, though actual hostilities are, suspended on their part, through want of ability. My friends, this was written by a man who lived in despotic times ; by a man who was taught under a despotic government; and how his love of liberty and la>v shames the praters about loyalty in free America. J-Jut I ivill dwell no more on this subject. Confiscation is the law of enemies in war, and in peace it is the law of the robber. If they have the \vill to rob yon, you will never escape by submitting1 to their power. If you submit, give tip the law and substitute the will of the robber; lie boldly avows that it is his purpose not to give the black man his rights, but to JUS LIVE, SPEECHES, AND WHITINGS. 301 bring- about srich measures and so to shape thing's as to perpetuate the rule of the Radical party ! Kvery man wlio joins the party, and can satisfy them that he will sincerely help in this work, will be; accepted. They will put their arms around your necks and call yoii brothers. 'You. can make a friend of the devil upon these same terms, and there is but little difference between them. If YOU please the one you will go to the other, and I am not sure but you will get what you deserve ; but 1 object to your taking' the country with you. But, oh ! it is sad to see the Constitution trampled npon and the country destroyed, only to perpetuate their hellish dynasty ; and. then to see some of our own people join in this unholy work, calling' upon ns to submit and become the agents of our own dishonor ! This is sad, sorrowful, and fills me with shame! upon te tate an ts aws -- to ot out every ope -- to perure every man who accepts them, with every principle of honor, justice, and safety dis regarded, trampled upon, and despised--all to pe" rpeiltluiattesuttchceeeedpo?weTrhao is the question. I feel truly thankful in my heart that I have an answer which lifts my soul amid all the gloom and apprehension of the hour. Some of you may not appreciate it, but to nie it is the only oasis in this desert. This scheme will never, never succeed, and I proclaim its ultimate failure to-day in your hearing. I know that some think it will. The air is full of the words of those who proclaim that there is no power to prevent it. Men have before this been weak and foolish, and cowards and traitors have before believed as you talk now, but L have a reason for the faith that is in me, which is absolutely sublime in the strength of its foundations. First. It will fail because it is not possible to perpetuate a government of force- under the forms of a democracy. It may take some time to com prehend this thought, but you -will not forget it. That which is now pro posed is force. It is proposed by men who do not live in this State, and whose ag'ents do not live here ; and it is sought to be accomplished by military power, but under the pretense of your sanction -- not to please yourselves, but them. There is not an instance in history where a govern ment of force has been perpetuated under the forms of free institutions. It is an impossibility., and. can never succeed. Second. But it is sought to be accomplished by deceit and fraud, which cannot much longer escape detection. The masses of the people of the 'North love the Constitution, and fought for it and the Union, but the leaders did not light for it, and do not love it; and they now seek to destroy it under pretense that we must give some further guarantee for our future good behavior than merely supporting the Constitution. As soon as the means by which their deceit and fraud have been covered up are removed, the scheme will be crushed to death by the people. It is a doubleshaped monster, like the sentinel at Hell-gate, which can live nowhere except in a political pandemonium. And what must be the results ? I do not say "we will come out of all this with free institutions preserved, but this scheme can never succeed. A despotism over the whole country and over all the people, guilty and innocent alike, may ensue. You will fail, but you may bring ruin upon all. Whenever you pull down the temple of liberty, you also will be crushed by the fall. "You cannot level or lower us and elevate yourselves. >Ve must 302 SENATOR B. IT. HILL, OF GEORGIA. either all rise or all go down together. Despotism may come, empires may rise and fall among- us, but whether they do or not, we shall not have the reign of a Radical party. Understand me : If I say a man cannot live high up in the air, I do not mean he cannot g-o up in a balloon and remain for a time, or if I say a mari cannot live under water, I do not say he cannot go down in a diving hell and remain a while ; but- the Radicals will as cer tainly fail to perpetuate their power under this scheme, as that a man will fail who attempts to dwell in the air, or drown who makes Ms home under water. Such a government would be unnatural--apolitical monstrosity -- and cannot possibly last; but you mav destroy the forms as well as the principles of free government, and then you will have a monarchy, an autoc racy, an empire, or a despotism, as the case may be. This very scheme was attempted in Rome by much better men than you Radicals are, and for a much better reason than you give. It is not origi nal with you. You are but plagiarizing traitors at best? and get your scheme from the criminals of long ago. If I did steal, I would try to steal something better and from a more respectable source. If you will examine, and compare "with former times, the productions of such men as Stevens, Phillips, and Sumner, and the lesser followers and sec ond-hand plag-iari^crs down South, you will find all their miserable jargon about "liberty and equality," the " natural right of man," and "the born right of manhood's suffrage," are borrowed from the men who fomented social and civil wars in Rome, and which have been repeated in every age since, by those who have no statesmanship but tho devilish ability of exciting ignorant men to cut eacli other's throats. Republican Rome had an immense number of slaves and freedmen, and non-voting citizens. She had a landed aristocracy embracing comparatively few of her people. An agrarian law was proposed, and for a time was immensely populai1, but it failed, and its first author was slain. His brother renewed the law and enlarged it by proposing suffrage to the slaves and freedmen with equal Sjlitical rights. It was said " there could be no freedom without equality." ut the brother also perished. Then, a great general became the leader of the Radicals of that day, and he had more fame and merit and ability and honesty than all the Radical party of this day combined, but he also failed. And why did they all fail ? J3ecause they were attempting to engraft a government of force and robberv upon republican forms--attempting the absurd tiisk of making equal things which God had made unequal--attempt ing equality by taking that which industrious and frug'al men had made and giving it to thriftless vagabonds, and by depositing in the keeping of beginning of the agrarian attempt "was one of blood and faction, and. waste and ruin, until the goal of empire was reached. In the social and civil war* which marked the struggle, more than seven hundred thousand ot" her best citizens were slain, and, besides these, whole populations o' some of her most popxilous territories were exterminated. It may be that we of the United States have been so crazy in leaving the Constitution--the only ark of safety--that our Heavenly Father has doomed us to perish, but I am gratified with a hope that it is not so. If not, there is but one method for our rescue, and that is by a prompt restoration of the Constitution. "Will it come ? "Will we escape an agrarian war, with result- HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 303 ing despotism, and save our institutions for our children ? I hope w-e shall. I believe we shall. Though a great effort is being made--a designed effort--to destroy us as Rome was destroyed, I believe the effort will fail. I have great faith in the Anglo-Saxon blood. I derive great encouragement from Anglo-Saxon history. Our liberty was not born in a day. It is not the work of one generation. It is the fruit of a hundred struggles, and its guarantees have been perfecting for eight hundred years. Many have been the efforts to destroy it. Often the English Constitution was trampled on. Often traitors sought to substitute arbitrary "will for well-established law, and often have, the people for a time been misled. I3ut thus far they have always waked up and called the traitors and factionists to account. Charles I trampled on the Constitution. He had judges who decided that his will was the law, and all who resisted that will and defended the Con stitution were punished as disloyal. And it did seem as if his power was irresistible. No doubt if you weak-kneed Radicals of the South had lived in that day yon would have said, " the Constitution is dead and we must consent to what we eannot resist," But John Hanipdcn would not consent. He resisted. He was tried as a criminal for resisting, and was condemned. But what was the sequel ? The people finally asserted their power. Charles and his ministers perished. The very judges that condemned Hampden were themselves tried and condemned as criminals, and the very officers, even the sheriffs who'executed the orders of Charles and his courts, were sued l>y the citizens for damages, and had to pay nearly a million of dollars for execut ing the processes of avoid, unconstitutional law ! For a time traitors held the power and trampled on rights, but vengeance came, and perpetual infamy followed. So Cromwell and his parliament violated the Constitution, and though they also flourished for a season, they too were overthrown. So James II trampled on the Constitution, and had to fly from his kingdom a fugitive forlife. In all these struggles good men, for a time, suffered, and bad men, for a time, ruled, but the English race have never yet failed to rescue their Constitution from the power both of traitors and fanatics. I tell you the American people will not always be deceived. They will rise in defense of their Constitution--and traitors will tremble. They who rallied three million strong to defeat what they considered an armed assault on the Constitution and Union, will not sleep until a few hundred traitors from behind the masked battery of Congressional oaths and deceptive pre tensions of loyalty shall utterly batter down the Constitution and Union forever, I warn you, boastful, vindictive Radicals, by the history of your own fathers, by every instinct of manhood, by every right of liberty, by every impulse of justice, that the day is coming when you will feel the power of an outraged, and betrayed people. Gro on confiscating ! Arrest without warrant or probable cau.se ; destroy habeas corpus j deny trial by jury ; abrogate State governments ; defile your own race, and flippantly say the Constitution is dead I On, on, "with your work of ruin, ye hell-born rioters in sacred things ! but, remember for all these things the people will call you to judgment. Ah ! what an issue you have made for yourselves. Succeed, Succeed, and you are the perjured assassins of liberty ! Fail, and you are defeated, despised traitors forever ! Ye who aspire to be Radical governors 304 SENATOR I?. JT. HILL, OF1 GEORGIA. and judges in Georgia, 1 paint before you this day your destiny. Yon are but cowards and knaves, and the time will come \vhen you will caJL upon the rocks and mountains to fall on you and the darkness to hide you from an outraged people. Does it do you good to trample on the Constitution--deceive tlie negroes and ruin the country'? It may be sweet now, but I tell you the sulphurous fires of public infamy \vill never be quenched on your spirits. I pity you from my soul, "W~oald that the time had never come when I had to stand upon Georgia's soil and thus talk to Georgians. A struggle is coming. It may be a long and bloody one, and you who advocate this wicked scheme will perish 111 it, unless the people now arouses and check its consummation. Tjt't every true, law-loving man rally at onee to the stand ard of the Constitution of his country. Come, Do not abandon your rights. Defend them. Talk for thein, and if need be, before God and the country, fight and die for them. Do not talk or think of secession or disunion, but come up to the good old platform of our fathers--the Constitution. Let all, North and South, come and swear before God that we will abide by it hi good faith, and oppose everything that violates it. The man who loves the Constitution now, and is willing to live and die for it, is my friend and brother, though he come from the frozen peak of Mt. Washington ; and the mau who is for trampling upon it Js my enemy, and I shall hold him so, though he come from the sunny clime of the orange and the cotton bloom. That is my issue. Oh how sorry a creature is the man who cannot stand up for the truth, when the country is in danger. There never was such an opportunity as now exists for a man to show of what stuff he is made. How can you go about the street and say, "All is wrong, but I cannot help it ? " You want courage, my friend ! You are a coward ! You lack courage, to tell the truth, and would sell your birthright for a temporary mess of pottage, even for a little bit of a judgeship or a bureau officer's place. But some one savs : "How will you resist it ?" I will resist it first by not approving it. If everybody would do that it would be effectually resisted so far as we are concerned. 35ut the so-called Congress has pro vided a cover for itself in advance, under which to hide from the odium attaching to this scheme. It has provided that you can voto either for against a convention and again vote for or against whatever constitution it may frame. It is sought to make us responsible for whatever may bo the conse quences and relieve them. After a while, when you become alarmed at the results, they will say, " We did not do this. We only gave you a chance and you did it." .But if we defeat this, it is said, military rule will continue. Certainly-- until wicked men shall bo driven from power. .But let it bti so. General l-*ope. seems to be a gentleman, and I infinitely prefer his rule to the rule of such men as you will get under this scheme. Besides, the new govern ment, if inaugurated, will not bo able to live a day without military protec tion. It is safer to be governed by power than by treachery. Perhaps you will think I have overdrawn the picture of the fearful con sequences of accepting this scheme. T recollect an incident "which occurred over six years ago, when I was urging the people of Georgia not to seeede, because the country would thereby fall into the hands of Radicals, aud pre dicted war aud its attendant sufferings as the result--though then deemed visionary. I woulc1.be almost ashamed now to read my remarks of that day-- HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, Alii) WHITINGS, 305 my picture would be so tame and so far eliort of the dreadful reality that has followed. A very prominent gentleman replied to me, urging that there would be no war, and, to prove it, he read an article from Horace G-reeley'tf Tribune and old Ben. 'Wade's speech declaring the South liad a right to secede, and if she chose to exercise that right they should be allowed to do BO in peace. He then said that Greeley and Wade were better friends of the South than I, who was born here, for I way trying to frighten the only tell him the truth--that these men only desired to encourage the South to disunion for their wicked purposes to destroy the Constitution ; and that a great government could not be dissolved without blood; and what have Greeley and Wade done since that time ? And now I advise you to reject this scheme of force, fraud, and deceit which Congress has devised. If you, of your own free will, submit to it, you will see the consequences of it. I advise you to register. There is no dishonor in that. It is arming yourself with an important power to be wielded against the nefarious sehenie, but don't vote for a convention--don't go for anything whatever which is an assent to the scheme, but be against it at every step. Never go halfway with a traitor, nor compromise with treason or robbery. It' they hold a convent ion, vote against ratification--vote against all their measures and men, and indict every one who, under such void authority, invades your rights according to existing State laws. That's mv policy. Fight this scheme all the time. I have no more idea of obeying than John ttampden had of paying ship-money, because I have taken an oath to support the Con stitution, and I intend to keep it. This whole scheme is in violation of all the issues of the war--all the promises during its progress--and all the terms of surrender. More than a hundred thousand men abandoned ."Lee's army because they were assured that if they laid down their arms they would be in the Union again with all their rights as before. I knew the promise was false, and warned you against the seductions of the syren. The people--the soldiers of the United States-- were then willing to "fulfill the obligation ; but the politicians intended to deceive you. Such men as Simmer and Stevens never intended to carry out the pledge of the nation. They "would acknowledge the independence of the Confederate States to-day, before they would agree to restore the old Union, even with slavery abolished. I respect th^e Northern man who honestly fought for the Union, but I despise the traitors who, under the name of the Union, have used the Northern people to destroy the South, and then to destroy the Constitution. The people of the North have been long discovering this deception, but they will be compelled to see it before the traitors can go much further in their work. How many people in Atlanta belong to the " loyal league " ? I warn all decent men to abandon such dens. I know the times have been such that many good men have naturally gone astray. But save yourselves before it is too late ! Destroy all the evidences of your membership--bind all your comrades to mutual concealment of the fact that you were members and come out. You are pardonable for the past ; but iC you continue you will be covered with shame, and your very children will disown you. Come, join the Patriots' Leagxie. Our only pledge is to support the Constitution-- love its friends and hate its enemies, and proclaim our love and hatred at noon-day and from the house-tops. Save yourselves ?otf?, or be forever lost 306 SENATOR _#. ff. HILL, OF GEQRG3A. to decent society and your own self-respect. All the brave and true men, even at the North, respect me this day more than they do you. The very Kadicals will use, but even they will despise, the Southern man who becomes their sycophant. My colored friends, will you receive a word of admonition ? Of all the people, yon will most rieed the protection of the law. You will most suffer bv anarchy and usurpation. Do you believe that the man wlio is faithless to the Constitution of the country will be faithful to you ? If a man will take an oath to support the Constitution and then violate it, can you rely upon his keeping any promise to you ? No ; I tell you such people are friends to nothing' but their own interest. They are betrayers of the Con stitution to keep themselves in office ; they desire to use you to help them get office, and they will betray you whenever they find it to their interest to do so. They tell ycm they are your friends. It is false ; they are your very worst enemies. They tell you they set you free. It is false. These vile creatures who come among- you and put themselves on a level with you, never went with the army except to steal spoons, jewelry, and gold watches. They are too low to be brave. They are dirty spawn, cast out from decent society, who come down here and seek to use you to further their own base purposes. They promise you lands, and teach you to hate the Southern people, whom you have known always and who never deceived you. Are you foolish enough to believe you can get another man's land for nothing-, and that the white people will give up their land without resistance ? If you get up strife between your race and the white race, do you not know you must perish? You are now ten to one the weaker race. You will grow weaker every day. You can have no safety but in the Constitu tion and no peace except by cultivating- relations of kindness with those who are fixed here, -who need your services, and who are willing to protect you. The same experiment which is now being attempted with you by these Northern knaves who seek your votes, was attempted by similar people in France for the negroes in Hayti. They passed laws to give the negroes political equality--abolished all distinctions of color--and what "was the result ? There was first a war of classes : then a war between the whites on one side and the blacks and nrulattoes on the other. Then there was a war between the blacks and the mulattoes, and neither white, black, nor mulatto have ever seen peace or prosperity in Hayti since. These men intend your extermination. Some of them are writ ing books in favor of your extermination, and I have myself heard some of them avow that you ought to be exterminated or driven from the country. These are the same people TV hose fathers fo*und the Indians here. They declared the earth was the Lord's and belonged to his saints, and that they were his saints. Then they killed and drove off the poor Indian and took his lands. If you do not make and keep friends of the Southern people, your fate is that of the Indians ! Woe to your race I You well know your race is not prepared to vote. Why do you care to do what you do not understand ? Improve yourselves. Learn to read and to write ; be industrious ; lay up your means ; acquire homes ; live in peace with your neighbors ; and drive off, as you "would a serpent, the mis erable, dirty adventurers "who come among you, and 'who, being too low to be received into white society, seek to foment among you hatred for the de- KCniSS. AND WRITINGS. 307 cent portion of the white race. You can always know a gentleman, whether from the North or South, and all such respect and esteem--fof such will not deceive you. Do not desire to vote until vou are qualified to vote, and then look for the right to be given, not in a manner that violates the Constitution, hut in aecordance with it, and through your own State governments. I feel more deeply for you than I do for the -white race. White people ought to know better than to disregard the laws and expect any good. But you do not know the laws ; you do not understand deceivers. I am willing, anxious to welcome among us good and true men from the North, who come to help build up our country, and add to its prosperity. I wish they would come on and come in multitudes. They -will find us friends. But when I see the low, dingy creatures--hatched from the venomous eggs of treason--coming here as mere adventurers to get offices through negro votes --to ride into power on the deluded negro's shoulders--and creeping into se cret leagues with negroes and a few renegade Southern whites, and talking flippantly about disfranchising the wisest and best men of the land, because they know it is the only possible chance for knaves and fools like themselves to get place, I can but feel ashamed that such monsters fire to be considered as belonging to the human species. I warn you, my colored friends, if you would be respectable in society, or prosperous in your purse, or decent in your own feelings, to avoid all such people. They will hug you and call you friend, and talk about your friends, but they will pull you down to degradation, to sorrow, to poverty, and to shame. They have white skins but black hearts, and -will ruin your characters if you associate with them. They are creatures born of political accidency and treasonable conspiracy, and arc the enemies of all g-ood governments and of all decent people. And now, my friends, of all races, of all colors, of all nations, of all sexes, of all ages---let us resolve to stand by our Constitution, and surrender it to no enemy. This is our country. Tjet us resolve that we will never be driven from it, nor ostracised in it. SPEECH DELIVERED IN ATLANTA, GA., JULY 23, 1868. This speech is known as the "Bush Arbor" speech, from the fact that It was delivered under an immense bush arbor, prepared by the awakened Democracy of Atlanta to shelter the great multitude that assembled. The writer was present as a boy and heard the speaking that day, and the scene is ineffaceably impressed upon his memory. Mr. Hill's " Davis Hall" speech and his " Notes on the Situation" had aroused great enthusiasm in the State, and over twenty thousand people met in Atlanta on this memorable day to hear Georgia's three greatest orators, liobert Tooinbs spoke first. His speech fell far below expectation and did not even quicken the pulses of I he vast crowd. Hpwell Cobb followed. His oration was a grand combination of eloquence, logic, and invective. The enthusiasm was intense when Air. Hill rose to speak. The cheering that greeted him was indescribable and lasted for several minutes. He was very pallid, not only from that pallor always characteristic of the great "orator, but he was just recovering from an attack of fever. In scathing invective and impassioned eloquence this speech surpasses any ever delivered on the hustings in Georgia. Yet, considering the occasion and time of its delivery, it was universally regarded as consummate wisdom. The people simply went wild with enthusiasm and excitement, and at its conclusion Tooinbs rose in the presence of the crowd, tossing his hat in the air, and throwing his arms around the speaker, shouted, " Three cheers for Ben Hill." The speech was not well reported, and no report could give any conception of the fervor of its delivery, and the reader can form little idea of its power and compass from the synopsis preserved. Mr, President and Fellow-citizens: I especially request entire quiet while I attempt to address you to-day. In addition to the fact that I have to follow two gentlemen who have no superiors on this continent, I am, un fortunately, laboring under considerable physical disability, the extent of which is not even known to myself. I greet you to-day, my countrymen, with, a joy and glad'Aess that no language can express. One year ago T ca,me, in my humble way, to this same city, to speak to the people what I believe to be -words of truth and soberness. There has been quite a change since then. On that occasion I met, in a quiet, retired room, some half dozen gentlemen, "who had made up their minds to brave the storm, that was coming upon us, at all hazards. That little band of half a dozen in that private room has swelled to-day to thousands of freemen, in the open air of this once more to be redeemed country. I must confess that the history of the past year is one to rae full of cheer and rejoicing. I may differ with most of you, bnt I feel that during the past twelve months the white race of the Southern States lias done more to manifest heroism, endur ance, and courage than any other people had ever manifested on a hundred battle-fields. It is not uncommon for a people to lose their property ; it is nothing new in the history of nations for a people to be defeated in battle ; it is not even altogether new, unfortunately, that a people should lose their cities arid bury their dead, that they should be cowed in their spirits, and should be made almost hopeless of the future. But there is something else which is possessed by every people far more valuable than property, far more to be desired than cities, far more to be coveted than the victories of war, and that thing you still possess, notwithstanding your enemies sought to destroy it--I me;*n your honor as a people. There were two propositions 308 ffTS LCFtt, SPEECHES, A3TD WRITINGS. 309 made to you, which I would briefly state, so that you can soe clearly what I mean. The first proposition, which affected your honor, was, that a Congress in which yo'.i were not represented--a band of foreigners, not one of whom has ever lived or expects to live upon your soil--nay, men who have avowed that they hate you, claimed the right to destroy the government you had formed, and to dictate to you the formation of a, new government. This was done, too, right in the teeth of the Declaration of Independ ence, "which says that all government derives its authority from the con sent of the governed. You are asked to forfeit your honor because a band of foreigners--men among whom you hr.d no representatives--among-whom you were denied representation--"who confess their hate of you--these men claimed the right to destroy the government which vou had formed, and to dictate-the formation of another in its stead. None but slaves would have acceded to such a, demand, and none could have been other than slaves who would consent to it. The second reason why your honor as a people was so seriously involved, is this : That in the formation of the new government which this foreign power dictated, it was prescribed, as a-necessary condition, that the intelli gent and virtuous of your people--those whom you had all your life deemed worthy of the highest trust--should be forbidden to participate, while those who had been your slaves should be at liberty, without discrimination, to participate. You were to form a government, under the dictation and by the direction of a foreign power, and vou, in the formation of the govern ment, were to be deprived of the services of the intelligence and virtue of your countrymen, simply because you had trusted them, and you had to submit to the government being formed by those who had recently been your slaves, ignorant and debased as they were. You will remember now that these are the reasons why your honor was involved. The base Congress-- the unprecedentedly traitorous Congress who got its own consent thus to attempt, in the day of its power, to dishonor an unarmed people--this Congress, I say, had a vague, lingering suspicion of the dishonor of its scheme, and therefore provided a plan by which the infamy should seem to spring from your own consent. Well, I confess truly that when I looked at the picture, when I saw the issue and remembered that no people had ever grown great who suffered their honor to be sullied--no people had recov ered from misfortune who had yielded their honor to the enemy--when I remembered all these things and saw the condition of our people, saw all the dangers that surrounded them arid the power that dictated these terms,-- Oh God ! Thou and Thou only knowest the anxiety of my spirit! "When the smoke of our burning cities "wont up to heaven, and our brave men fell in battle, I was grieved exceedingly ; but when a whole people--millions of freemen--were asked--ordered--commanded by power to sacrifice their honor at the bidding of hate, and there were found those who whispered that the sacrifice "would be made, my heart did sink within me ; and when I remember now the means and appliances brought to bear to compel you to yield, I do rejoice in knowing that you refused. I have had only one point to accomplish in this struggle ; some have troubled themselves about offices, others about votes, others yet about carrying the election against the con vention, and still others about the defeat of th<- Constitution. For all this I care nothing ; the great and only point which I had ever felt to be of serious consequence in this struggle, was to induce and persuade the "white people of the South never to consent to this infamy. I knew that elections 310 SENATOR B. IL HILL, Of GEORGIA. would be declared successful ; I know that, right or wrong, they would say that the elections were carried. They came for that purpose. That was not the point with* me. I wanted your women and children to see ; I wanted posterity to know ; I wanted a record made so that it could be read by all men, now and forever, that the "white people of the South refused to give their consent to this iniquity. That is why I wrote and spoke ; that is why I despised the infamous and defied the powerful, Still, fellow-citizens, it was a time to fear. If I doubted and trembled on that occasion, do not blame me ; if I feared yon would not be equal to the great crisis, don't ehidc me. Remember the powerful influence brought to bear. The Congress claimed to bo all-powerful, arid they avowed their purpose of carrying out this infamy, and if you did not accept it, of making you accept a worse. Kirst of all these., in carrying out that plan, they sent the military here ; they sent an army of bayonets to make war upon a helpJess people as another means of accomplishing this infamy, and securing the form of your consent ; thev came to some of your own public men--natives of Greorgia and of the South--men whom you had honored of old, and they bought them up as coadjutors in the work. I speak of a class, and I affirm fearlessly, and .1 want the'people of the country to know it, that there was not a single Southern public man who advocated the acceptance of this Reconstruction scheme who was not bought, and bought with a price, by your enemies. The price has partially been paid, and you are to pay the balance. What arguments did they use ? Did they appeal to your pride, your honor, or your interests? Not at all. They came among you and traveled from the seaboard to the mountains, and they told an impoverished people, " If you don't accept this infamy, the little property that you have left shall be confiscated, and every man of you shall be disfranchised ! " Congress, claiming to be all-powerful, installed an army in your midst, and found citixeiis ready and willing to urge, to persuade, to intimidate, aud to threaten a starving and almost helpless people. Oli, my countrymen, proud as I know Southern blood to be, flon^t chide me if iri this dark hour I felt uneasy. I confess that I did. I watched the first election--the election for the convention--with intense interest. I happened to be in New York City when the first election in the South came off, and I shall never fora;et how my hopes "were lifted and my desires ful filled on receipt of the first telegram from the South, giving as one of the facts connected with the first day of the election, that the whites refused to have anything to do with it. I "waited anxiously for the second day, thinking that perhaps the ''superior race" had crowded in, and the whites were, on that account, unable to go to the polls. The second day came, and brought the news that the "whites had, almost to a man, remained away from the polls--only a few carpet-baggers and office-seekers voting1. Thus the elections went on to the last. I tell you, fellow-citizens, I moved among the inhabitants of the great commercial metropolis prouder that day than ever before. I shall never forget meeting some of the prominent men of that city, one of whom, said to me, " We had been taught to believe that the people of the South would indorse this measure, and they have had nothing- to do with it. Why," added he, " your people are more honorable than we gave them credit for." Well,- the power with the bayonet said that a convention was ordered. All knew, however, that it was ordered by negroes--not by "whites--though, in truth, nobody did order it but the bayonet and certain scoundrels. The HIS LIFE BFEEGHE8, AND WRITINGS. 311 negroes never ordered it, X exonerate the negroes. I affirm to-day another great fact, which I -want to be remembered, and -which, whenever the occasion may demand, I stand prepared to support : The convention in Georgia was defeated by thirty thousand votes ! Ah, nay friends, there is nothing like it in history ! You were poor, you were betrayed, tempted, threatened--you were told that every man that didn't vote for the conven tion must have his little remaining property confi seated, besides being disfranchised, and that the list of voters was to be used to ascertain who you were. Miserable threat ! Proud people--noble people ! The verdict you gave was that, though many of our gallant spirits "were sleeping under the sod, there was heroism still left in the South. "Well, the false convention assembled, and a thing called a constitution was framed. It had to be ratified, and a governor and officers had to be chosen, and "what was the appeal then ? Of course, if the Southern white people approved the consti tution, this dishonor was complete. They had exhausted appeals to your fears--you could not be frightened from your honor--and the next thing was to buy you up. So they put in the new Constitution something called relief. The few men in the South (who, unfortunately, were Southern men from accident or other cause) who had sold themselves to engage in this work, being- entu-ely conscious that they were bought up for the purpose, thought, of course, that the same means would answer for the balance of the people. They, therefore, sought to buy you, and they promised you relief. I came here to this very city, and I took occasion to notify you that this promise was put into the new Constitution for no other purpose than to cheat you, and that the rogues and hypocrites who put it in, did so with, the distinct knowledge that it would be stricken out after the election. They used it well. They bid high. The question was this : how many men in Georgia are willing to confess themselves no better than negroes if they could thereby get rid of their debts? how many of you would be willing to be negroes, if, by being negroes, y\>u could be excused from paying your debts ? Well I came to this city in March to inaugurate the fight on "that question, and some of you, my friends, were weak-kneed. You didn't do right. A good many of you came to me then, and said, " Don't you say anything against the Constitution ; everybody is going to vote for it; every body was going to be sold." It was a great wound, to inflict upon me. I was struggling for nothing on this earth but to preserve the honor of the people of Georgia, and knowing that they could not be frightened. I hoped they could'not be bought. "We made the fight and let the whole world know it ; the white people of Georgia, by an overwhelming majority, refused to be bought. Some few men, I apprehend, are about in. the category of the poor negroes who voted for a convention to get "forty acres and a mule." Ah, you poor victims of a wily hypocrisy ; of men to whom God gave a white skin by mistake. You who went upon the public block, before your country men and the "world, and publicly proclaimed that you were willing to be a negro, if, by being a negro, you could be excused from paying your debts, how do you feel to-day, after agreeing to be a negro and having to pay your debts too ? My friends, General Cobb made a request of the military ; I shan't make any--never intended to ; but I advise you, poor fellows, to make one. The only evidence of how you voted is in the possession of the military. Go 313 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. then, before they leave, and ask them to burn up ttxc record. The great majority of the white people spurned the bribe and despised the bribers. And let it be forever remembered, to your pride and honor, that the people of Georgia, under the threat of the bayonet, with the temptations of treach ery all around and in the very ashes of their poverty, have said to all man kind : " AVe can neither be frightened nor bought from oui" honor." I have said the military declared a convention had been ordered, when there was thirty thousand majority against it. They also declared that Gordon was defeated, and that the Radical party had succeeded, when, in. truth, Gordon was elected by nearly ten thousand votes. I say that it is so, counting the correctly registered voters and correcting the frauds of the bal lot. I repeat, counting the honest registered voters, that this express agent was largely defeated for governor, and he knows it, and they know it. We won two victories, and we won them against the bayonet, against force, against fraud, against treachery, and against the negroes. The white p eople of this country are not going to consent to this thing ; they never h ave and never will. If the Radicals have been unable thus far to get the consent of the white people to this scheme of infamy, will they be able to do it hereafter? How can they? They have appealed to your fears and your avarice, and taken advantage of your poverty, but they have been disap pointed ; they bave failed in their schemes, and I tell you that there is no argument or appliance which they can use in the future more powerful than those they have iised in the past. Any people who can withstand such appli ances of force and pressure as have been brought to bear upon you within the past twelve months, can never bo seduced or driven from their honor. I am proud of Georgia, and I pray that when God takes me hence my bones may be laid in her honored old soil, My friends, I wish to pass now to another subject. The issue has some what changed. I have told you what the issue has been the last twelve months, and I wish to state here, in a few brief words, the main points in issue now. Some who consented to be bought for the purpose of inducing the people of the South to accept this infamy, offered this excuse. They said they were not going to be Radicals, they were not going to consent to negro government, but they said " let us seem to go into this thing, let ua get back into the Union, and then we'll turn it all over and do as we please." That was an argument based upon treachery. They had betrayed you, and thev were justifying their treachery to you by proving that they were going to betray the Radicals. That suggestion deceived a great many people for a time. For myself, I had nothing to do with it, because I could not con sent to join traitors. I don't believe in treachery--no people ever saved themselves by it. Where the honor of a people is involved, they cannot swerve from principle for the sake of policy. The only line of honor is a direct one. 13ut what is the result ? Those manipulators at "Washington who had bought these Southern men had more sense than the men they bought. They "were not going to be caught in any such trap as that, and in this respect my prophecy has turned out to be correct. The issue now, then, is this : Shall this infamy, which has been thrust upon the people of Georgia, and of the other Southern States, be valid and perpetual ? That is the first point to which I wish to direct your attention. Jii order that it may be perpetual, the Chicago platform says that the rights of the North ern States to regulate the franchise and to change and modify their own Con stitutions shall not be infringed but the Southern people shall not have the right to change their Constitutions at will. ^NV>w, if anything in American history never was disputed l>eforc it is this, that the States were members of the Union on an equal footing ; and there is no man, from George Washington down, -whether high or low, wise or simple, black or white, who ever had any idea that the Union formed by the States was a Union of un equal States ; it was always admitted that the States were equal and each retained control of the franchise. I state a mere fact and history ; since the .acknowledgment of our independence we have added twenty-four new States to the Union, and in every act admitting' a State as a member of this Union it is distinctly stated that she is admitted on an equal footing with all other States. But this Chicago Convention, with the Georgia Radicals in it, for the first time in American history, makes the declaration that the Union shall be a Union of unequal States. I "want yo\i all to remember that point. It is the great aim of the Radicals. Whore are you now, my good Union men? You that wanted to get back into the Union and were willing toj sacrifice everything for the accomplishment of that object ; you that con^ratiilatcd the country upon being again in " the Union " ? It is a Union in which the Southern States are vassals and the ^Northern States rulers. I want you to hear it and to remember it. That it is mere sheer naked dis union in the most odious and traitorous form in which the word was ever spoken. It cuts the femoral artery--It is a stab to the very heart, and de stroys the Union of equal States, which our fathers formed. I read with shame and mortification--(I know the poor fellow did not know much)--I read, I say, in the papers, that this stupid express agent, in the presence and under the protection of force and treachery, went yester day through the farce of being inaugurated a miserable sham Governor of Georgia. AVhy, every word he uttered shows he does not, this day, know the difference "between a restored Union of equal States and a constructed new-Union of unequal States. Take that fact down--pencil it carefully and take it to your hearts. If I can teach you to take home with you that single sentence, you will not have come here to-day in vain. There never was, in the history of any people, such a bold, plain, palpable, universally admitted cause of war, as that simple statement in that Chicago platform. And yet that is not all. You, gentlemen, who think you are members of a legislature--poor, deluded souls, bow I pity you '.--you who come hero and go through the form of passing laws, I want you to hear one thing. Not only is that doctrine of unequal States in the Chicago platform, but it is in what you call your Omnibus Admission Bill. That bill prescribes the manner in which you shall go back, and every one of you who voted the other day to get back, as you say, into the Union, agreed to the doctrine that Georgia shall never have the right to do what Ohio can do ; that the Southern States shall never have the right to do what the Northern States ?can do. You agreed to remain forever an unequal member of the Union. You agreed that you would got back into the Union by consenting that Georgia shall never have the power to modify or to change her own State constitution, as to her own domestic affairs, according to her own will and pleasure. Ah, you renegades--you rogues--who tried to steal your neigh bors' property and could not do it ! All, ye men that adopted the Recon struction, measures for the purpose of getting back into the Union, and then catching the Radicals by changing the Constitution afterward. Are yon net caught--caught by Thad. Stevens--caught by Charles Sumner? I don't know but one thing that is worse, and that is agreeing to be a negro, 314 SENATOR B. H. IIILL, OF GKOROIA. to get rid of your debts, and then, after becoming- a negro, having your debts to pay. Remember, oh, my countrywomen !--mothers, teach it to your children as you rock them in their cradles and in the nursery ditties by which you send them to sleep--tell them that men--white men--Georgians--some of them " to the manor born "--have come upon this classical old hill and. have deliberately put upon record their solemn consent that the proud old State of Georgia goes back into the Union on the express condition that she shall never be equal to other States. Oh, you renegades from everything- that can make you hope for even a chance of being gentlemen ! You have buried the sovereignty of your State, you have sullied the character of your ancestors, and agreed to make vassals of your children. You have agreed to wear a Uadical yoke in order to vote yourselves eight dollars a day for a few hot days in summer. That is the Union we have--a Union of unequal States. Ye cowardly, base disunionists of the vilest type, you disgrace humanity by calling- honest men rebels ! That is not all. You have not only agreed to inequality, but you have also agreed to what is called the equality of races ; that is, you have agreed to equality among1 the races as a condition of getting back into the Union, and you have agreed that that shall never be changed ; but you are so given to lying that you could not tell the truth even when you thought it was to your interest to do it. You say in your record that you have agreed to an equality of the races, when you know, you vile hypocrites, that the very agreement you make in cludes the disfranchisement of the intelligent, virtuous and educated, and wealthy -vvhite men, and that they shall not be allowed to hold office in this country, or while any scalawag or negro may. Is that equality ? If a negro has a right to vote and hold office, why not these men whom you have always trusted? Oh, you whited sepiilchera--ye who are degrading the poor negro by your example of fraud and treachery. Ye vile renegades from, every law of God and every right of humanity, you are deceiving the unfortunate negro to his ruin. If the negroes ever get a permanent right to vote in this country, it must be by the consent of the people that live here. If the negroes, when this infamous proposition was made to them by more infamous white men to disfranchise the white people, had come out and said publicly and openly, " We are willing to accept the franchise ; if there is any benefit in political equality we want it, but we will never consent to disfranchise the intelligent white men of this country," if the negroes had come out and said that, they would have furnished "an evidence that they wore capable of exercising the franchise. You Radicals of the Legislature have agreed to degrade your own State and people, and you have agreed that that degradation shall be perpetual. The question in this contest is, whether that program shall be carried out. That is where Grant stands, and where Colfax stands, and where all you vagabonds stand. \V~here do we stand ? \Yhere do (Seymour and I51air stand? Upon the glorious ancestral doctrine that the States are equal and that "white blood is superior. Now choose ye which you will vote for. Some of you got scared last fall for fear of losing your propertv by confisca tion ; others of you were afraid of being disfranchised, and others still were bought this spring with relief. Where is relief now ? Echo answers, Where ? Now come, nay friends, I know you feel very badly. I know you don't feel like associating with gentlemen ; come now, go home immediately ; tell your wife to put on you a clean shirt ; take a good wash with soap and warm JUS LIFK, SPEEOITES, AND WRtTrNGS. 315 water, and then come back and be free and decent white men. Come to our side of the question. We will try to forgive you, but you must come quick. I admit that there are some of you I would.foe very sorry to see come, for the reason that I know our party would be betrayed very soon ! Still, you who didn't know any better, you who were sold--if you will clean up and get on a clean shirt, we will take you back. How many white men in Georgia are going to say by their vote that Georgia is not ati equal member of this Union with Rhode Island, and that Virginia--proud old "Virginia--that State which has in its bosom the ashes of VVashington, and has furnished more Presidents to this country thai) any other State, shall not be the equal of Kansas I I want to know how many men in Georgia are willing to say that proud old Virginia shall never be the equal of Kansas. I want to know, too, how many white men in Georgia are willing to put upon the record, that pauperism shall fix the burdens for property, arid ignorance and vice shall prescribe the law for intelligence and virtue? Take this concern up hei-e--take the Radical wing- of it and tell me how much property in this State they possess ? It is true there is one man in the whole concern that represents some property, arid it is said he stole it. I repeat, how much property do the Radical members of this thing, that imagined itself a Legislature, represent? It does not represent taxable property enough to pay their per diem. And these men are to make laws to tax disfranchised property holders in this enlightened nineteenth century and in this Christian country. Shame [ shame ! Is there a member of the Legislature who hears me to-day? Ah, to your shame be it said, more than a hundred of you have so recorded your names ! Go, my friends, and take it back, for I charge you this day, in this bright sun and in this central city of Georgia, that if that record remains as you have made it, whereby you have covenanted and agreed that these Southern States shall .be unequal members of this Union, and that the intelligent men of this country shall be disfranchised and deprived of their right to hold office, and that pauperism shall fix the burden of taxation, and vace and ignorance make laws for intel ligence and virtue, you will go down to posterity so infamous that when a legitimate Legislature shall have assembled, some unfortunate creatures wlio may be compelled by Providence to call you father, will apply to the Legis lature to have their names changed. I understand some of you that voted for that fourteenth Article, and voted to expunge relief, call yourselves Democrats. You are vain, deluded creatures if you think that the Demo cratic door will be ever open to receive you \vitli such a name. Such a vote is directly against the Democratic platform, and directly for the Kadical platform, and must be repented of and changed. Are these, then, the terms of the new Union? terms of negro dominion, of pauperism in power and ignorance in legislating, I say such terms will never succeed. The white people have refused to consent to them, and I tell you that they will not consent to them, and you can never establish any government permanently in this country against the consent of the white people. The Supreme Court of the United States made up their minds that the Reconstruction measures were unconstitutional and void, but they were too cowardly to declare the decision. This is a melancholy fact, that the supreme judiciary of this country should have given way so cowardly. But it "Hall not always be thus--it cannot forever refuse to pronounce its decision. It is true, a Radical Congress has taken away jurisdiction in the McCardle case, but we shall have another case. A gentleman, who is the only real 316 SENATOR B, II. HILT., OF GEORGIA. - Governor of Georgia, is making a case in which jurisdiction is given by the Constitution. Yes, when X mention him, I mention a man who, in any age or nation, is worthy to be a governor ! I tell you, then, you who trade in the respectability of your race--you who are venders of your people's ' honor--I toll you to-day that this very court will pronounce these acts unconstitutional and void, and everything done under them, unconstitutional and void. But we have a party now organized, a strong and a glorious party, with statesmen at its head, and with correct principles for its platform. From Maine to California the glorious tramp of the Democracy is growing more and more distinct, and by November a verdict will be pronounced by the great freemen of America that shall gladden the hearts of patriots now and forever. And when, the people shall have pronounced that verdict the court will take courage and pronounce their judgment. Then--ah, then, what will become of you, ye isolated hypocrites ? All power to threaten gone, treachery exhausted, relief measures and Reconstruction measures both dead, the liadical party out of Congress, how on earth will you hide your shame, thus stripped naked to the ga/.e of the world in all your unhidden infamy ! What will become of you '? " Ye generation of vipers, how will you escape the damnation of hell ? " That's what is coining. Oh, it's corning ; thank God it's coming--coming to the cheer of patriots and the dismay of traitors. Yes, I tell you victory is coming. We have suffered, and suffered much. Our comrades are sleeping. Ah, sleeping ! many of them by the streams and in the valleys of Georgia. They are sleeping on the banks of tlie deep-roll ing Mississippi ; they are sleeping all over Virginia, grander than the pyra mids of Egypt and richer than the mines of India. Spirit of our departed braves, we are not dishonored yet '. and though the vile, tlie low, the cor rupt, and the perjured are seeking to be our rulers, and have seized upon our high places, the noble, the valiant, and the true are stilf left to us, and through all our borders are taking courage and hymning the notes of coining triumph. Ye miserable spawns of political accidency, hatched by the putrid growth of revolutionary corruption into an ephemeral existence--renegades from every law of God and violators of every right of man--we serve you with notice this day that this victory is coming. Phe men of the South and the men of the I^orth--patriots everywhere--are sending up their vows to heaven that this is, and shall forever foe a TJnion of equal States, and never a hateful Union of unequal States. Men of pride, men of character, women, --thank God!--without a dissenting voice, and even children in their play grounds, are proclaiming on hill-top and in valley, that those whom God made superior shall not be degraded to the dominion of the inferior. A few more "words and I will close. If, as I now hope and believe, we shall again have liberty and law under the Constitution, what shall be done with those who have taken advantage of these corrupt times to insult inno cence, trample iipoii rights, and oppress helplessness ? These criminals will foe among us, and must foe assigned appropriate positions. What shall we do with them ? Ye who have traveled through the blood and losses and sorrows of war, for asserting nothing but what the very frarners of the Con stitution taught was your right ; ye who have been taunted and reviled as rebels and traitors ; ye who have been disfranchised in the land of your fathers, and made exiles in the home of your birth. When this victory shall come, and we shall once more be free men, and no longer insulted and oppressed by miserable vagabonds and renegades, what shall we do with TflS LlFlS, SPEECHES, AND WHITINGS. 3l7 the criminals ? I would not hurt a hair of their heads, do them no personal harm, and deprive them of no right. Give them over--oh, give over the miscreants to the inextinguishable hell of their own consciousness of infamy. But some thing's vou must do for the protection of your children and of your selves, and for the vindication of your honor. I affirm it, and I want it heard. It is going to be the law of this country, and a law more irrepealable than the laws of the Modes and Persians, Not one man that dares record his vote for the inequality arid vassalage of the Southern States and the degradation of his own race, ought ever to be received into a decent family in Georgia, or in the South, now or hereafter. And this rule we can make now. If we have not the power to help make the laws for our government or for society, thank God! we can at least pass social laws for our own homes. I charge you this day, as you honor your children and your household, and would preserve your good name for your posterity, never suffer a single native renegade "who votes for the vassalage of these States, and the disgrace of your children and your race, to darken your doors, or to speak to any member of your family. You condemn the poor victim to the penitentiary who steals a horse or a hundred dollars, and yet these miserable creatures have sought to bargain away everything that you have or can value. You scorn the criminal who has violated the penal laws of your country. These miserable renegades are faithless to every law of heaven and of earth, and have used every means to sell you to those who hate you, and to place your lives and your all in the power of the ignorant and debased. Another thing I insist shall be done : A people "who will not resent such foul innovations of their right, are not worthy of freedom. You have been helpless--your great men have been silenced ; you surrendered your arms to what you thought was a gallant foe ; you surrendered them under the assurances of protection--and yet these men, your own citizens many of them, who hurried you to war, have taken advantage of your poverty and helplessness, and of the presence of the bayonet ; they have invaded your households ; they have stolen your property ; they have robbed you of your goods ; they have joined-the negro and the stranger to tax, insult, and op press you ; and they have, contrary to the laws of the land, forced into dun geons and before military commissions the proud freemen of this country. You have been powerless to prevent these things. But my vow is recorded, and I shall redeem it if I find the people "willing to sustain me. Men who have trampled upon the rights of the citizens of Georgia, at a time when the laws were paralyzed, shall feel the power of that restored law when liberty is reawaked. Ye vile miscreants of the conven tion, who stole the money of the State to pay your per diem, I give you notice that you shall pay it baek. And there is a good legal principle here, which I want you to remember, and that is, that where a number of men band themselves together for the commission of a common purpose, each one is responsible for -what all the others do or get. And, therefore, every man who took a portion of that stolen money, is liable for every cent that negroes and carpet-baggers received, and we are going to make them pay it. Ye constitution makers, ye men that sprung at one bound from the penitentiaries of the country, to frame constitutions for honest people ; ye men who oscil late from grand jury rooms with charges of perjury upon you, up to legisla tive halls and other high places in the lanrl, I servo you. with notice to-day, that the money shall be repaid with interest. And you who are depriving 318 SKNATOR B. H. JTILL, OX* GEORGIA. the people of liberty, threatening and conspiringagainsttheirlives--(holdme responsible for what I say)--I tell 3-011 that the day is coming whe.ii the judges shall be in the prisoners' box, and the persecutors shall be clamoring for mercy. "Thou shalt not take the life or liberty or property of a citizen, except according to the laws of the land and. by the judgment of his peers," is the first and great commandment in liberty's decalogue, and upon it all the other commandments hang. It was given as a concession from power to the people more than six hundred years ago, at the political lloreb of Anglo-Saxon history, and no man from that day has violated or disregarded it who was not a tyrant or a traitor, or both. No man in Kiiglisli history ever trampled upon those sacred rights without bein^ called to account. Wicked men have the power now ; they have bayonets to protect them, and they feel they can insult and oppress with impunity forever. So did Judas feel safe when he helped eat the Lord's Supper with the Lord. Catiline held power in Rome, Arnold once held a commission in the American army. And you-- you vile creatures, whose infamy no epithet can describe, and no precedent parallel--you will find your names more odious than those of Catiline and Arnold combined. Return then, the day of grace is almost passed. Reform now, and we will forgive you, 1 do not want a single man except a carpet-bagger to vote for this Chicago platform. And you, members of the Legislature, T will talk to you kindly --you who voted for this infamy the other day--the Fourteenth Amend ment--mark what I tell you. At the peril of your respectability, go aud take it back. It is a record whose stain will reach your children. And vou who call yourselves Democrats and who yet are lying round here seeking and bargaining to get office from a Legislature which every line of Democratic principles declares to be an illegal and illegitimate body, shame, shame upon you. If this usurping Governor and Assembly had sufficient regard for the country's welfare to tender positions to Democrats, even the acceptance of such positions would present a question for serious consideration. While I will not condemn those who differ with me, I must be permitted to say for myself that no earthly consideration or power could induce or force me to so far recognize them as to accept an office at their hands. For myself, I hold them to be nothing but wicked, willful, and corrupt usurpers of power, by authority of none but strangers and deluded negroes, and wanton conspirators to subvert the legitimate government of our State, and as such I shall hold myself in readiness to visit upon them, by proper legal process, the penalties due to their crimes. I do not, of course, include in these remarks the Democratic members. These are there to prevent the mischiefs I announce. Their positions are necessarily un pleasant. But they are making sacrifices by the votes of our people, and are patriots, doing all the good they can, or rather preventing all the evil they can, and merit our regard. But those who voluntarily come forward to beg office of such a body ; above all, those who, either in the Legislature or out of it, make bargains with Radical usurpers to get office for them selves and their friends--to all such I repeat, shame, shame upon you ! One thing more will be necessary to a proper expression of the abhor rence of our people for the infamous attempt to destroy the Union by destroying the equality of the States, and for the measures, authors, and advocates of this whole scheme to degrade the States and people of the South. When liberty shall return ; when the law shall be again respected, and good men shall again be our rulers, we must gather all the journals, HIS LIFJS. SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 319 and constitutions, and enactments, and records of every character of the conventions and assemblies, thus forced upon us by force, and fraud, and usurpation, and, catching tire from, heaven, burn them up forever ! And right here, my countrymen, I want you to understand that I am a candidate bat for one office on earth. "When the glorious day shall come, and the free women, and the free men, and the laughing children, and the proud youth of Georgia, shall gather together to fire the miserable, hideous record of'infamy, let the office be mine to kindle the flames. That is all 1 want. I would have my children know, I would have my children's children to know., if my humble life shall be remembered so long, that from first to last, through thick and through thin, I fought this attempt to disgrace our people ; and that at the sequel I kindled the fire that consumed the infamous record of its existence. That will be a proud day, my countrymen ; that will be a glorious day, when you and I can look each other in the face, and feel as 110 Grecian ever felt--as no Roman ever felt--that we have passed through the most trying ordeal in the annals of humanity, and, as a people, have come out gold--pure gold. Take courage, my countrymen, that happy day shall come. The Union of equal States, "as made by our fathers, shall be ours again. The disunion of unequal States, which Radical treason seeks to make, shall not be. With the records of the vile attempt, we will build the bonfire of the Constitution's triumph. By its light we shall read joy in each other's faces. Around the burning pile we shall gather our wives and little ones, and strike up anew the song of our deliverance, and, as the ascending smoke shall rise high in the skies, it will wake the notes of our heroes in bliss, and heaven and earth shall ring with the universal symphony : " Well done ! well done, ! noble people ! Througj^i sorrows the most bitter, through trials the most severe, through misfortunes multiplied and prolonged, you have passed with your honor unsullied, growing brighter and brighter. Enter again into the joys of freedom here, and finally into the realms of the good hereafter." SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S DEMO CRATIC UNION, IN NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 6, 1868. This was the first speech made in the North by a Southern man after the "war. It contains an elaborate defense of the South, her full and frank acceptance of all the legit imate results of the -war, and a most earnest appeal to the North for justice. No more eloquent and earnest appeal 1'or a restored Union of brotherly love was ever made, aud all speeches delivered by Southern men in the North since, have only been a repetition of its great truths and uon-sectional patriotic sentiments. People of the North : Iu deference to the earnest wishes of a committee from tlie Young1 Men's Democratic Union Club, and. tlie request of personal friends, some of whom differ with nie in political views, I depart from my original intention not to make a speech in the North, and appear before you this evening. I do not come to ask any favor for the Southern people. The represent ative, however, of that people, who have experienced burdens of despotic power, and the insecurity of anarchy, I come, all the more earnestly, to ad dress you in behalf of imperiled constitutional free government. Will you hear me without passion ? The South--exhausted by a long war and unusual losses--needs peace ; desires peace ; begs for peace. The North--distrustful, if not vindictive-- demands guarantees that the South "will keep the peace ehe so much needs. In countries where wars have been more frequent, the important fact is well established by experiment, that magnanimity in the conqueror is the very highest guarantee of contented submission by the conquered. It is to be regretted that you seem not to have learned this lesson. A people who -will not be magnanimous in victory are not worthy to be, and will not always remain, victors. In the next place, if you of the North would only open your eyes, and see the plainest truth of the century--that the Southern people fought for what they believed to be their right--you would find at once a sufficient guar antee for peace. The South believed honestly, fought bravely, and sur rendered frankly ; and in each of these facts she presents the most ample title to credit. Why will you not see and admit the fact, which must go into history, that the Southern people honestly believed they had a right to secede? Some of the wisest framers of the Constitution taught that doctrine. Many of the ablest men in the North as well as in the South, of every generation, have taught this doctrine. Some of your o~wn States made the recognition of that right the condition of their acceptance of Union. Even your own "Webster--your orator without a rival among you, dead or living--taught that this right existed for cause--certainly for much less cause than now ex ists. Will you, then, persist in saying that the Southern people are all traitors, for exercising, or attempting to exercise, what such men and such States taught was a right? Will you say they did not honestly believe such teachers V Was it their intent to commit treason ? Here lies the 'whole cause of our continued troubles. The North will not admit what all other people know, and what all history must concede--that the South honestly believed in the right of secession. As a result of this infidelity to such plain fact, you assume that the Southern people are criminals. This idea is the sum of all your politics and statesmanship. It must be abandoned. It must be repudiated thoroughly and promptly. There can never be any peaceful and cordial reunion possible while one-half the nation regard the other half as criminals. How can you trust criminals ? "Why should you desire union with criminals ? "Why do you exact guar antees of criminals ? If the Southern people are honest, their asent, to the non-secession construction of the Constitution is a siiflicieiit guarantee. If they are not honest, biit criminals, no promise they could * make ought to be trusted. Power is the only guarantee of fidelity in crim inals, and if you cannot believe and cannot trust the South, you must, in deed, abandon the Constitution, and govern with power forever, or you must give up the South as unworthy to federate with you in an equal government of consent. I speak frankly. If you cannot abandon this miserable theory and habit in your politics, in your religion, and in your schools, of regarding the Southern people ay criminal traitors for attempting what good men, and wise men, and great men taught was their right, you will make peaceful reunion under free institutions utterly impossible. You must hold them as friends, or let them go as foreigners, or govern them as subjects. If you govern them as subjects you must share the pen alty, for the same government can never administer freedom to one half and despotism, to the other half of the same nation. Rise above your passions, then, and realize that herein is your guaranty. The South believed honestly, fought bravely, and surrendered franklv. Again. The exhausted condition of the South ought to inspire you with confidence in her professions of a desire for peace. Are you afraid for her to recover strength? Take care lest the desperation of exhaustion prove stronger than the sinews of prosperity. Peace is not desirable without its But you of the North will not try magnanimity ; will insist that the Southern people are traitors ; and that an exhausted people are dangerous, and you must have guarantees. In your papers, from your pulpits, behind vour counters, on your streets, and along vour highways, I hear the perpet ual charge that the South fought to destroy the government, committed trea son and murder, and every inhuman crime, and that she is still intractable, and rebellious, and dangerous, and insincere, and must concede and give guarantees. Well, I am here to show you that the South has made every concession (hat an honorable people would exact, or an honest people could make. Every d.iy I read in your papers, and hear on your streets, that the Southern people will not accept the results of the war. I am here to prove, so clearly that no honest man shall doubt, that the Southern people have not only accepted every result of the war, but also they have accepted every proposition and abided every condition of reunion whie-h lias been proposed from any quarter, or by any department of the United States Government which could have benefited you, or strengthened the Union, or not dishonored themselves. aVow, to the history : 1. The first terms of settlement agreed were the terms granted to Gen eral Ijce by General Grant, at Appomattox, These terms were : first, tV'it 322 SENATOR B. If. HILL, OF GEORGIA. the Confederates would not again take up arms against the United States; second, that they would obey the laws of force where they lived. These terms were agreed to by the Confederate armies universally., and received the pledge of the Union armies in turn, that they should never be further molested.. These terms must ever stand as greatly honorable to both sides. They were in exact accordance with all the promises made by the "United States Government to induce surrender. They simply preserved the Union with secession abandoned. This covered the whole issue of the war. Genoral Grant was truly great on that memorable day of defeat and magnanimity. Now, soe also the most happy effect which that day's work produced. On both sides there had been, great fears of a guerrilla warfare after regular war should terminate. These noble terms of justice and good faith, granted with the magnanimous spirit exhibited by General Grant, sheathed every sword of vengeance. .All idea of guerrilla warfare vanished, as these terms and scenes were eagerly read throughout the South. More than this, confi dence was almost universally restored, and good will, to an extent before deemed impossible for generations, at once revived. Tfappy, most happy had it been for this country if those terms had been faithfully abided at the North, and exactions had ceased. Not a single Southern man has ever vio lated the Appomattox covenant. It has been said these terms were confined to the army. The army was representative. Terms granted to those who bore arms could not be reasonably denied to those who had not borne arms, and the terms were received at the South as a settlement of the controversy-- ah end of war, and the return of universal peace. And I desire distinctly to record the good effects produced as another encoxiraging lesson of the power of magnanimity in victory. 2. 33ut tlie politicians of the North were not satisfied with this settle ment by the armies, and soon we heard that other concessions must be made by the South to guarantee a permanent restoration of the Union. So next to the army, the President, the Kxecutivc Department of the United States Government, claimed the right to fix the terms of restoration. Accordingly, the people of the Southern States were required to assemble conventions, and agree to the following terras of restoration : (1) The annulling of the ordinances of secession. These we considered as already annulled by the surrender at Appomattox, and therefore readily agreed to annul again. (2) The ratification of the proposed Amendment 13, abolishing slavery and the incorporation of like provisions in the State Constitutions. "Well, we did not regard slavery as strictly the cause of the war, but the world had regarded the institution as staked on the result, and so had the Southern people generallv. 33esid.es,, experience had taught us that it cost more to maintain slavery than the entire slave property was worth. Therefore our people readily complied with this exaction, simply leaving the question of compensation, without demand or expectation, to the magnanimity and sense of justice of the future. (3) The repudiation of the Confederate debt was the last material exac tion of the President. At this our people hesitated. A suggestion of honor arose. 33ut nearly all Confederate creditors were themselves Confed erates, and repudiation by creditor and debtor in joint act relieved us on the question of honor. If, in the future, we become able, and pay the few out side creditors who remain unpaid, wo suppose there will be no objection. So we complied with this demand. rrrs LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRTTINGS, 323 Thus we see the Southern people complied, promptly with every demand made by the President as a condition and under promise of cordial reunion. 3. But though the army "was now satisfied, and the Tfixecutive satisfied, yet we soon learned that Congress was not satisfied, and the Southern people must make further concessions--give still more guarantees. To justify itself in this demand, Congress now denied the right of the Kxecutive to prescribe terms to the South, and claimed that right as exclusively in Con gress. Here commenced a fierce war between the Executive and Legislative departments of the government. Now, let me right here make a statement which T do not think is generally understood at the North. On this ques tion of power and right, as between the President and Congress, the South has never taken sides--never judged. We thought the Union was restored at Appomattox, and did not need the intervention of either the President or Congress. Neither of these really ha,(l any power not expressly guaranteed in the Constitution, and secession having failed at Appomattox, the Union remained, and the Constitution "was the supreme law of both rights and powers. But the South was not disposed to debate. Her humor was to concede-- give guarantees. When the President demanded concessions, the South did not ask him for his authority but guaranteed his terms. So precisely she was disposed toward Congress. T^et us see : (1) The first thing demanded by Congress was that the South should not have representatives in Congress, until Congress should be pleased to receive representatives, but in the mean time must continue to pay taxes. The South pointed to the Constitution, and to the provisos made, during- the war, of immediate equal reunion, and to the great cause of original quarrel between our common fathers and G-reat .Britain, who said that "taxation without representation was tyranny," but only pointed--submitted. We paid the taxes--heavy, discriminating taxes. Nay, the demand went behind Appo mattox, and we were required to pay taxes levied during the war. Our peo ple had already paid taxes to the only power then over the country, but they paid again, so anxious were they to satisfy with concessions and guarantees. (2) The next claim by Congress "was the right to separate the popula tions of the Southern States, and withdraw tlie negroes from the absolute government of the States, and place them under the government of the Frcedman's Bureau. On this arose quite a quai-rel bc-tween the President and Congress ; and the South, when thinking at all, thought that on this question the President, constitutionally, was right ; but -while the President and Congress quarreled, the South submitted, and the Bureau was allowed to run its course of outrage upon the whites, and of peculation on the poor blacks. (3) The next concession demanded by Congress was the Civil Rights bill. Here again a quarrel arose between the President and Congress. But the South did not even care to think which was right, constitutionally, on this question. The negro being free and deprived of the protection of his master, was entitled to the equal protection of the law, and to absolute equal civil rights. To show you how unnecessary was the confusion created by Congress on this subject, I will state that before Congress had passed this Civil Rights bill, of "which it boasts so much, the legislature of Georgia had passed a bill giving absolute equal civil rights to the negro, in language almost precisely the same with that afterward adopted by "Congress. Con- '524 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA. gress re-enacts the law of Georgia under pretense, before the Northern peo ple, of a necessity to compel Georgia to give civil rights to the negro ! Thus far, ladies and gentlemen of the North, you perceive that every demand, upon the South, whether made by the military or civil authorities, whether by the President or by Congress, whether inside or outside of the Constitution, whether in accordance with or in plain violation of every promise made during the war, was promptly granted and sometimes even anticipated. Thus far, who will say the South was intractable and not dis posed to accept the results of the war ? (4) But Congress was still not satisfied, and made a fourth demand. This demand was in the shape of a proposed amendment to the Constitution, known, as Article 14. There have been so many misrepresentations at the North of the action of the South on this amendment, and the motives of that action, that I am afraid the amendment originated to prevent what it pretended to desire--a cordial reunion. This amendment analyzed contains four distinct and different proposi tions, (l) The first was to confer equal civil rights upon the negro as a free citizen. Now, this had already been done by the Civil Rights bill of Congress, and long before that, as to Georgia, by .the Civil Rights bill of that State. So the amendment was not rejected on account of this proposi tion. (3) The second proposition of the proposed amendment was, in plain language, that if the negvo was excluded., in any State, from the ballot on account of color, his race should not be counted in the basis of representa tion in fixing the number of representatives from such State in Congress. The South thinks, that under the Constitution the basis of representation is a very different tiling from the question of suffrage. But every possible which the South was determined to manifest, the amendment would not have been rejected on account of this proposition, and was riot for this reason rejected. I hope yon of the North will now distinctly understand this, for, on this point, the South lias been greatly misrepresented here, and this misrepresentation lias been the cause of much foolish discussion and angrv bitterness toward the South. (-3) The third proposition in this amendment guarantees the pavrnont of the national, and repeats the repudi ation of the Confederate debt. Now, I have already shown vou that the Southern States had already repudiated the Confederate debt under the President's plan. As to them that question was settled. As to the national debt, the Southern people, as I have shown vou, were paying all taxes required---heavy taxes--to meet it. The South has never stopped to make any question as to how and in what wav the national debt was to be paid. She has quietly paid her taxes--imposed without representation--and if the heavy taxes so paid have been applied to maintain the Freed man's Bureau, and to enforce a military I.ieconstruction, it is not the fault of the South. (4) This brings us to the fourth and last proposition in this Amendment 14. This was that about two hundred thousand of the most intelligent arid trustworthy white men in the South should never be chosen by the people to hold any office whatever, State or Federal. The exclusion from Federal offices, it" by act of Congress or the North, would not have been much re gretted--especially by those excluded. But the Southern States never so much needed the counsels of their wisest and best men in their State a.ffairs. Their resources were exhausted, their "whole system of industry changed, HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 325 their society greatly demoralized, their old laws not at all applicable to the new order of things. Now why, at this critical conjuncture, should the Southern people be told that they must consent to deprive themselves of the right to choose their wisest men--those they were most willing to trust--to i(ive strength and hope to their counsels ? besides, these leaders had done only what the people had requested them to do. The people were as guilty as their agents. To require the people, therefore, to disfranchise their agents--to them faithful agents--was to require the people to dishonor themselves. And how could this benefit the South? How coufd Massachusetts be benefited by depriving South Carolina of the right of filling her own State offices with her own wisest citizens? Now, therefore, because to agree to such a provision as a part of the funda mental law of the Republic would have dishonored the South as a section, and her people as a people, and "would also have worked incalculable injury to them., and brought no benefit to the .North, nor strength to the Union, the South rejected this proposition. And because Congress had so inten tionally submitted this Amendment 14 as to require the acceptance of all. or the rejection of all, the Southern States rejected all rather than accept this dishonor. Now you have the plain truthful history of the rejection of that amendment. The time will come when you of the North will rise np and honor the Southern people for this manly conduct, and curse the crea tures who have so wickedly deceived you on this subject. (5) Tinder the pretext of the rejection of this amendment Congress be came vindictive and determined to play the role of a conqueror. In this spirit the measures known as the Reconstruction measures "were enacted. These are so numerous that I cannot stop to take them up in detail. I \vill give you a clear view, however, of the reasons why the Southern whites have never consented to these measures and never will consent to them. In the first place, these measures set aside as illegal the Southern States governments of 1865. If these governments were illegal, then all they did \ras illegal. If tliis be true, then Amendment 13, abolishing- slavery, has never been ratified, and the State constitutions abolishing it are void. Now, to compel the ratification of Amendment 14, which contains no proposition which is not already law, or which the South is not willing to make law, except the one to disfranchise their own agents for nothing but their fidelity to the people, you propose a legal relhiquishment of Amendment 13. The South is not willing to do this. Her people prefer the loss of property by Amend ment 13 to the loss of honor by Amendment 14. Which do you prefer? In the second place, Congress, by these Reconstruction measures, created 'a new constituency of all negroes and a portion of whites to do what the "whites have refused to do. Now, the plain question is, shall the Southern States be members of the Union under constitutions adopted by the white people as all other State constitutions were adopted, or under constitutions dictated by a Congress in which these States had no representation, and which dic tation is enacted into the forms of law by ignorant negroes and intermed dling strangers ? How will you of the North decide this question ? In the third place, Congress intrusted the execution of these measures-- not to the courts and the civil officers of the country, as all civil laws hereto fore have been intrusted--but to the military. Is it right to establish civil f)vernment and execute civil law by military power in times of peace ? on of the North must decide. 326 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GEORGIA, But even these measures, which the South rejected to save her honor, she was always willing- to refer to the courts for decision : mark you, not to her own courts, hut to the courts of the United States. The Congress was always unwilling that these questions should be passed on by your own courts. Which party in this showed au intractable temper, a disposition not to accept the results of the war ? When passion shall subside ; when truth, not falsehood,, shall he be lieved ; and when virtue and honor and law and right shall again bo appre ciated and loved, the temperate firmness with which the South has rejected these measures of lawlessness and dishonor, will constitute the noblest, most enduring' monument of her heroism, intrepidity, arid "worth. You ask for guarantees that the South will be true to her professions. Herein is the very highest possible guarantee, that her people, under every pressure, and at every sacrifice of material interests, reject dishonor. If they accepted dishonor, the acceptance would be worthless, and every con cession made under its influence would be disregarded. Are you such strangers to this high sense of honor, that you cannot see its force or appre ciate its reliable power? Your children will see it to your shame, and to our credit. If the Southern people were not sincere, they would seem to agree to anything' in order to regain power, and then repudiate the agree ment. This is exactly what your so-called Southern friends propose. But we can. see no permanent peace iti such hypocrisy, and therefore frankly reject what we cannot in honor accept and abide. Note, also, the fact that everything rejected by the South has been con fessed to be outside of the Constitution, and based exclusively on the idea of conquest, which your own government, ill every department, solemnly promised should never be, and which your own courts have uniformly de cided could not he the result of the war. I cannot stop now to show you how these Reconstruction measures have been executed, in the South. This history will be written, and when written, every agent engaged in enacting this, the dark age of American life, will sink into universal Infamy, and the cheek of every honorable Northern man will blush for shame. Now, I have gone over before you every single proposition of settlement or restoration or reconstruction of the Union, which has been made by the army, or by the President, or by Congress ; and "what is the result? All the terms of the army were accepted, and have been most faithfully kept. AH the terms demanded or suggested by the Executive Department were promptly accepted, and have been faithfully observed, though no promise made to induce their acceptance has ever been fulfilled. Again, all the terms proposed bv Congress have been accepted, and most quietly submitted to, except the single proposition that our people should dishonor themselves by disfranchising their own faithful agents, and have refused to consent to the plan of substituting negroes and strangers as a constituency, that this dishonor may be accomplished. Xhis is all. I affirm fearlessly, this is all. I have defied your papers, and I defy your leaders--even your preachers-- to point to a single proposition ever submitted to the Southern people as a condition of reunion, by the army, or by the ^President, or by Congress, which they have not accepted and faithfully abided by, except the single proposition to dishonor themselves by disfranchising their own agents, or consenting that negroes and strang-ers may disfranchise them, No man has taken up the challenge j no man will take up the challenge ; no man can HIS LIFE, SPEECHES, A.N& WRITINGS. 327 take up the challenge. Rut everywhere, by editors, by preachers, and by politicians, the false, wicked charge is repeated, that the South is intractable and unwilling to accept the results of the war. - People of the North, will you not rise above passion, and save your own honor, and onr common free government, by doing plain justice to a people who accepted your pledge and trusted your honor? I beg you-to understand the facts of actual history before it is too late. I repeat, and beg you to note, what the South lias already conceded as the results of the war : First. The South conceded, at Appomattox, that the arguments of the ablest statesmen America ever produced in favor of the right of secession as a constitutional remedy, had been replied to in the only manner they could be effectually replied to, by physical force ; and the South consented that this judgment, written by the sword, should have legal force and effect. Second. The South, by her own act, made valid the emancipation of her slaves in the only way in which that emancipation could be made valid, and thus gave up the property the North sold her, without compensation, ffitird. The South has solemnly repudiated her debts contracted in her defense, and has agreed to pay a full share of the debt contracted for her subjugation. Fourth. The South has permitted, without hindrance, the Congress to enter her States, and establish tribunals unknown to the Constitution, to govern a portion of their population in a manner different from the govern ments of the States. Fifth. The South has agreed to make the negroes citizens, and give them absolutely equal civil rights with the whites, and to extend to them every protection of law, and every facility for education and improvement, which are extended to the whites. Sixth. In a word, I repeat, the South has agreed to everything which has been proposed by the civil or military government of the United States, and by every department of that government, except the single demand to disfranchise their own best men from their own State offices, at a time when their counsels are most needed, or to consent that negroes and strangers may disfranchise them. For this, and for this only, all their other concessions are spit upon, and they are denounced as intractable, insincere, rebellious, and unwilling to accept the results of the war ! Shame upon leaders who will persist in such charges ; and shame upon a people "who will sustain such leaders ! 13ut while the white people have refused to agree to these Reconstruction measures for the reasons stated, the negroes and adventurers from your worst population in the North, and the military, have proceeded "with the work of executing them, Governments have been formed by them, which have consented to the dishonor required by Congress. What are the effects already produced ? In the first place, they have done more to break down confidence at the South in Northern pledges and Constitutional justice than all our previous history, including the war. In the second place, they have stopped both capital and emigrants from going to the South, and have put a sudden end to all improvement. In the third place, they have depreciated property in tbe South to less than one-fourth the value of 1866, and have lessened pro ductions a hundred millions annually. In the fourth place, these paralyzing :>,-23 SENATOR B. H. HILL, OF GKORGl'A. effects are daily increasing., LI ml threaten the utter destruction of our industry and prosperity. In the fifth place, society has become demoralized, laws rendered inefficient, property insecure, and life and innocence kept in per petual hazard. Now, then, I advance to the question--Are these reconstructive measures of Congress, and the ill-shapeii governments they have produced, to be maintained and perpetuated ? The Chicago platform says they shall be. and the New \~ork platform says they shall not be. This is the issue. Count the cost, if you can, of maintaining them--the cost of honor, of peace, of life, of money, of freedom ! I tell you no figures can add up the sum. Neither your bonds nor the government that issued them can stand if these measures are to be maintained. It is impossible in the very nature of things, and you of the North are simply mad. if you will not see the destruction you are bringing on yourselves. To perpetuate these measures is to perpetuate infidelity to the Constitution, infidelity to Northern pledges, infidelity to every object of the war, and infidelity to every hope of peace. These measures of Congress repudiate the results of the war, and'you of the North alone " are inti'actable." These measures are bad enough in themselves, but still worse in the means adopted to sustain them, at the North. The only argument I have heard in their support is based upon hatred parallel, I have seen my own sentences cut up and changed, and made to say exactly what I condemned. .1 have seen whole letters and speeches manufactured arid repeated to Northern people by men of social and respect able standing here. The South is slandered by the very prayers which go up from Northern altars. Ministers of the G-ospel turn demagogues in order to sanctify calumny '. These things I see, and hear, and know, and they make up nine-tenths of the materials of the Republicans in this canvass. I refer to them in sorrow" and shame, not hi anger. I know no government can last under such influences ; and no administra tion can give hope of peace, influenced and controlled by a people who can be the victims of such hate aud falsehoods. I know there are very many among you who tell me that G-cneral Grant is not a Radical, and will disregard the Chicago platform, and will do for the South, according to the noble spirit he exhibited at Appomattox. If so, he will find cordial support at the South. Kut what right have we to expect it? In my opinion the question of what man shall be elected is compara tively a very contemptible question. Uy what means, and tinder what influ* ence is he to be elected ? Here is the great question for one who loves his country and cares nothing for an office. How can we have faith in free in stitutions, when fraud, falsehood, sectional hate, and the worst feelings of human nature are resorted to as the most effective means of pleasing the people and securing the highest offices in the land. God, if not man, will destroy such a nation. Do you suppose the early patriots, such as Washing ton, aud Adams, and Madison, would have permitted themselves to be elected to the Presidency by a pandering to sectional hate in their sup porters ? Has sectional distrust become a stronger passion with the Ameri can people than love for the Constitution ? 13ut we are told that this policy of Reconstruction is a fixed fact, and though it is hated by every respectable white man in the South, it is to be .HIS? LIFE, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS. 329 enforced under General (-"-rant's administration with the same vigor which marked the prosecution of the war. That is, the Constitution is to be de stroyed as vigorously as the Union was saved, and only to force on the Southern whites governments which, disfranchise their best men. by negro votes under "Congressional dictation. Well, if such be the verdict of the people, "what will the South do ? You lean forward, anxious to hear this question answered. If the gravity of the subject did not forbid, I might for a moment imi tate Dr. lienry Ward Beecher, and become facetious. He tells us that get ting outside of the Constitution is very different from going- against it, and' his audience greeted the bright idea. 'Well, I suppose the South will not actually oppose--go against the lieconstructioii measures--she will only g-et outside, of them. In that event we shall expect this ecclesiastical interpreter of Constitutional law to defend us, and \ve retain his services in advance. Jjut what will the South do? I will tell you first what the South will not do, in my opinion. 1. The South will not secede again. That was her great folly--folly against her own interest, not wrong against you. Mark this : that foliv will not be repeated. Even if the people of the South desire the disruption of the Federal Government, their statesmen have the sagacity to see that that result can more effectually come of this secession by the North from the Constitution. Those ominous words "outside of the Constitution" arc more terribly significant than those other words " secession from the Union." The former is a secession having1 all the vices of the latter greatly increased, mid none of its virtues. Certainly none of its manliness, straightforward candor, and justification. So note this: the South does not desire or seek disunion. If she desired it, she does not deem another secession necessary to bring it about. -Disunion will come from Chicago, in spite of Southern opposition. 2. The South will not re-enslave the negro. She did not enslave him in the first, instance. That was your work. The South took your slave-savage and gave him the highest civilization ever reached by the negro. You then freed him, and kept the price of his slavery, and you alone hold the property that was in human flesh. 3. Hut the Southern whites will never consent to the government of the negro. Never! All your money spent in the effort to force it will be wasted. The Southern whites will never consent to, social and political equality with the negro. You may destroy yourselves in the effort to force it, and then you will fail. You may send down your armies, and exhaust the resources of the whole country for a century, and pile up the public debt till it lean against the skies ; and you may burn our cities and murder our people--our unarmed people--but you will never make them consent to governments formed by negroes and strangers, under the dictation of Con gress, by the power of the bayonet. Born of the bayonet, this government must live only bv the bayonet. No\v, I will tell you some things, which, in my opinion the South will do. 1. The South would accept the election of ]VIr. Seymour as a verdict of the Northern people that the general government was to be administered according1 to the Constitution, and she would rejoice and come out of her sorrow strong, beautiful, and growing. The South will accept the election of General Grant as a verdict by the Northern people that the Constitution is a nullity, and that they will that 330 SENATOR B. IT. SILL, OF GEORGIA. the general government be administered outside of it. But the South will then' submit passively to your laws, "but in her heart hope will still cleave to the Constitution. It is her only port of safety from the storm of fanaticism, passion, and despotism. The South surrendered secession as a constitutional remedy at Appomattox, Tbut she did not surrender the Constitution itself, nor the great princi ples of freedom it was intended to secure. 2. Whether Mr. Seymour or General Grant shall be elected, the South ern States--each State for itself--will quietly, peacefully, but firmly, take charge of, and regulate, their own internal domestic affairs in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. What then will you of the itforth do ? What will President Grant do ? Will you or he send down armies to compel those States to regulate their own affairs to suit you outside of the Constitution ? Will you? It is high time this people had recovered from the passions of war. It is high, time that counsel were taken from statesmen, not demagogues. It is high time that editors, preachers, and stump speakers had ceased slander ing the motives and purposes of the South. It is high time the people of the North and the South, understood each other, and adopted means to in spire confidence in each other. It is high time the people of each State were permitted to attend to their own business. Intermeddling is the crime of thu century. If it was folly in the South to secede, it was crime in the North to provoke it. If it was error in the South to dissolve the Union, it is crime in the North to keep it dissolved. The South yields secession., and yields slavery, and yields them for equal reunion. People of the North, now is the aiispicious moment to cement anew, and for still greater glory, our common Union. 15ut it must he cemented in mutual good, will, as between equals and under the Constitu tion. Such a Union the South pleads for. I care not what slanderers say, what fanaticism represents, or how selfish and corrupt hate and ambition, pervert ; I -tell you there is but one desire in the South. From every heart in that bright land, from her cotton-fields and grain farms, from her rich valleys and metal-pregnant mountains, from the lullabies of her thousands of rippling streams and moaning millions of her primeval forest trees, comes up to you but this one voice--this one earnest, united voice : "Flag of our Union, wave on ; wave ever ! But wave over freemen not subjects / over States, not .Pi-ovinces / over a Union of equals., not of lorcts and vassals over a land of law, of liberty, and. of peace, and not of anarchy, oppression, and strife !" People of the North, will you answer back in patriotic notes of cheering accord that our common Constitution shall remain, or, in the discordant notes of sectional hate and national ruin, that there shall be protection for the North inside of the Constitution and oppression for the South outside of it ? If the latter, then, not only the Union, not only the Constitution, but that grand, peculiar system, of free federated governments so wisely devised by our fathers, and known as the American system, and of which the Con stitution is but the instrument and the Union but the shadow--will die, must die--is dead ! Have you ever studied this American system of government ? Have you compared it with former systems of free governments, and noted how our fathers sought to avoid their fatal defects ? I commend this study to your prompt attention. Xo the heart that loves liberty it is more enchant ing; than romance, more bewitching than love, and more elevating than any SIS LIFE, 8PWKCHES, AND WRITINGS. 331 other science. If history proves any one tiling- more than another it is that freedom a art not be secured in a "wide and populous country, except upon the plan of a federal compact for general interests, and untrarnmeled local gov ernments for local interests. Our fathers adopted this general plan with improvements in the details of profound wisdom, which cannot be found in any previous system. AVith what a noble impulse of common patriotism they canic tog-ether from distant States and joined their counsels to devise and perfect this system, henceforth to be forever known as the American system. The snows that lodge on the summit of Mount 'Washington are not purer than the motives that begot it. The fresh dew-laden zephyrs from the orange groves of the South are not sweeter than the hopes its advent inspired. The night of its own symbolic eagle, though he blew his breath on the sun, could not be higher than its expected destiny ! Alas, are these motives now corrupted? Are these hopes poisoned? And is this high destiny eclipsed, and so soon,--aye, before a century has brought to manhood its youthful visage? Stop before the blow is given aiitl let us consider but its early blessings. Under the benign influences of this promising American system of gov ernment, our whole country at once entered upon a career of prosperity without a parallel in human annals. The seventy years of its life brought more thrift, more success, more individual freedom, more universal happi ness with fewer public burdens, than were ever before enjoyed or borne by any portion of the world in five centuries. From three millions of whites \vc became thirty millions. From three hundred thousand blacks we became four millions--a greater relative increase than of the whites with, all the aid of immigration. From a narrow peopled slope along the dancing Atlantic we stretched with wide girth to the sluggish Pacific. From a small power which a European depot ism, in jealousy of a rival, patronizingly took by the hand and led to independence, we became a power whose voice united was heard throughout the world, and whose frown might well be dreaded by the combined powers of earth. Our granaries fed, and our factories clothed mankind. The buffalo and his hunter were gone, and cities rose in the forests of the former, and flowers grew, and hammers rang., and prayers were said, in the play-grounds of the latter. Millions grew to manhood without seeing a soldier, or hearing a cannon, or knowing the shape or place of a bayonet ! And is this happy, fruitful, peaceful system dying-- hopelessly dying ? Has it but twenty days more to live a struggling life ? People of the North, the answer is with you. Rise above passion, throw vindicate its wisdom ; the present charges you with its treasures, and the future demands of you its hopes. Forget your anger, and be superior to the littleness of revenge. Meet the South in her cordial proffers of happy reunion, and turn not from her offered hand. From yotu" great cities arid teeming prairies, from your learned altars and countless cottages, from, your palaces on sea and land, from your millions on the waters and your mul tiplied millions on the plains, let one united cheering voice meet tlie voice that now comes so earnest from the South, and let the two voices go up in harmonious, united, eternal, ever-swelling chorus, " Flag of our Union ! wave on, wave ever ! Aye, for it waves over freemen, not subjects ; over States, not pi'ovinces ; over a Union of equals, riot of lords and vassals ; over a land of law, of liberty, and peace, not of anarchy, oppression, and strife !" SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE ALUMNI SOCIETY OF TI1.E UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, AT ATHENS, GA., ON JULY 31, 1871. This speech is one of the most thoroughly prepared and profound ever marie by Mr. Hill. It furnishes ;i philosophical ;md exhaustive review of the causes Unit coul.ributt.Hl to Southern weakness in the past, and the means uml met hods bv which the Soutli could JJTOW strong and gretit in tliu i'uttiru. TJv adopting these methods the Soutli luis become rich and potential. The speech is that "of a leader, and wtis in advance of the thought of the day, and as a consequence met with much unjust and harsh criticism. We who stand in the lijvht of the fulfillment oJ: its wisdom can but marvel at the genius of the statesman who so clearly pointed out the w;iy for his country's growth ;md rehabiHfcition, and. wonder at that narrowness which could question the patriotism of his motives and purposes. The perversions of the speech were so persistent, and the attacks on Mr. Hill so unjust that he deemed it necessary to make the following explanation of the address. Tlie explanation itself is full of practical wisdom. August 3, 1871. .Editor Oonstit-ution : Much as I have been accustomed of late to gross misrepresentation of my opinions, and contemptible fling's at motives, I was not prepared for some of the very ludicrous statements concerning this Alumni address. In the first place, the address was written, and, excepting a very fow extempore sentences, was spoken as written. In the next place it is known that "by unanimous vote of the Society of Alumni, it is to be given to the public. A very ordinary sense of justice--even propriety--would suggest that adverse criticisms be delayed until the address appeared in its own language. The language employed by others in reporting1 it, however honest, cannot bo accepted as a proper standard for judging, much, less criti cising, a, written literary address. Attempting, nevertheless, as the address does attempt, however feebly, to blaxe the only way by Avliieh, in my opinion, the Southern States and people can reach wealth and power, and then, if they desire, and necessity of interest require., independence ; if the unjust denunciations which precede its appearance shall cause it to be read when it appears, I shall really re joice rather than complain, that I was reviled. If my humble .suggestions shall have the effect of arresting the attention of great minds, who shall take up the subject, and either cleave out the way indicated or find a better to reach the great end, I can afford to disregard all the shallow allusions to "motives" and other "latitudes," and "tumbling acrobat" of thoughtless scribblers and anonymous slanderers. Therefore, to quiet the nerves of some, and prevent the prejudices sought to be created in advance of its publication, allow me space to say, that the address does not underrate .Southern civilization in the production <>1" an elegant select society, and of the most superior individualism in the iield and in the cabinet. It does not alm.de, either directly or indirectly, to politics, or political parties, old or new. It does not allude to slavery as ;i moral question or a question of property, nor is there one word in it which can by possibility be construed as even doubting "our glorious right to carry slaves to Kansas." Well knowing the great number of "noble minds" engaged in the great work of saving " Southern rights," and seeing the unparalleled success which has attended their wise counsels and well directed efforts in this field hith erto, I thought I could be spared to inquire whether we could not strengthen Southern rights with a little Southern power In the- \vav of developing our natural physical resources through the moans of scientific schools and edu cated industries. That which I sought to typify under the classic.il tig-ure of Prometheus bound and unbound, and at whose release T was disposed to give thanks, was not the negro, but Southern genius, AVill the time never come when a native Southern man --even one than whom none has felt more keenly Southern wrongs, nor denounced more fear lessly Southern oppressors, nor is willing to labor more earnestly for South ern prosperity--can venture to suggest that negro slavery is not the only way of Southern salvation, without having so many, who make no effort to meet the argument, denounce him as " unsound." tn their countless multiplicity of specimens for six thousand years, hu man annals have never before furnished such a people as " we glorious Southerners." With every ingredient more abundant at home, we send to the originally barreri North for fertilizers to give life to our originally fertile, now dead ened, soil ; with the finest ores and exhaustless coal beds peeping at us from our own hill-sides, we send North for tools to work our fields ; with the richest lands on the continent, we send North 1'or bread to feed our children ; with the noblest trees that ever lifted their tops toward heaven, if we want a "finer church in which to worship, or a more convenient residence in which to live, we send North for the plan, for the architect, and for the builder ! We spend, millions of dollars sending our children North to be educated, and refuse the smallest pittance for the endowment of universities at home. Our physicians and surgeons send North for their medicines to heal, and for the tools that secure skill in their delicate art. Our lawyers send North for the hooks in whioh to learn the rule of justice for our people. Our preachers send North for commentaries on the .Bible to teach their Hock the way of salvation. Our editors send North for type to print their papers ; and lawyers, preachers, and editors make long speeches, say long prayers, and fill whole columns, thanking God for superior Southern genius, purity, and learning ! And our politicians, ah ! shades of Demosthenes and Cicero, bend down and hear the matchless periods of true patriotic eloquence. Our politicians strut like condescending .Jupiters to the hustings with Northern hats on their heads, Northern shoes on their feet, and Norther/) coats on their hacks, and prove to gaping crowds their unequaled fitness for office, in straining their lungs as the thunder gust doth the yielding clouds with noisy denunciations of Northern weakness nod greed, and dim at in eulogies on Southern power and independence. If my humble voice could be heard by the Southern people, I would urge them to do many things which these very derided Northern people, have done. Endow first-class universities ; provide for polytechnic schools in those universities ; honor labor, and make the callings of the miner, the manufacturer, the metallurgist, the machinist, the agriculturist, and the mechanic, as learned and.as honorable, as are the learned professions of law, medicine, and theology. We cannot live by bread alone. We cannot grow great, or rich, or independent, by planting alone. Let us find in our children iha,t skilled labor which was impossible in the ignorant negro slave ; and 334 SEyATOIJ 7?. //. TULL, OF GKORGTA. with that skilled laboi1 let us utilize the unsurpassed natural physical ele ments of power with which God has filled almost every portion of our here tofore neglected country. If we do these things promptly, vigorously, and liberally, it will soon be that the sun in his cycles will not let fall his rajs on a greater or more prosperous people. If we do not these things, we shall grow weaker until we be despised as contemptible. The stranger--even the enemy we hate--will come in and possess oar heritage ; will build up the land we neglect, and will be tho rulers of the children we leave behind us. To have pointed out the weakness which has prevented these blessings remembered as one who had the courage to tell unpleasant truths to a long deluded and now impoverished people, that they might wake up and grow great, is the only earthly glory I crave, when I have been interred and sleep with the fathers. Now read the address, and by its own words let me be judged. BEXj. II. HILL. CORRESPONDENCE. UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, ATIIEXS, GA., July 31, 1871. _#/>/ Dear Sir: I have the honor of submitting to you the following- res olution, unanimously passed by the Society of the Alumni, of the University of Georgia, at their regular annual meeting, held this day, viz.: By Colonel Samuel Hall : "'Resolved, That the thanks of the Society of the Alumni be returned to 3Ir. 33. H. Hill for the able, eloquent, and instructive address delivered at their request before them, on this day, and that a copy of the same be re quested for publication." Hoping that you will comply with the wishes of the society, I am, with great respect, your obedient servant, "WILLIAM HENRY 'WAUD.ELL, Secretary of the Society of the .Alumni, University of Georgia. Mr. B. II. HILL. ATLANTA., GA., September 9, 1871. 3fy ~Dear Sir.' Your letter of July 31, conimumoatinsf the resolution of the society, asking a copy of the address for publication, reached me two days ago, I cheerfully furnish a copy as requested, and for the purpose, designated. "With high regard, I am yours, very truly, BK>-,T. II. HILL. .Professor WTLIMAJJ HP:XRY WAIXDELL, Secretary of Society of Alumni, University of Georgia,. ADDRESS. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the A.lumui Society : I congratulate you on this assembling to-day. I congratulate our rlty the defeated past, and if wo, would live in the growing, eonquei'ing future, we must furnish our strength to shape its course and our will to discharge its duties. The pressing- question, therefore, with every 336 SENATOR -8. ]I. HILL, OF GEORGIA. people is, not what they have been, but whether and what they shall deter mine to be ; not what their fathers were, but whether and what their chil dren shall be. (rod in events---mysteriously, it maybe, to us--has made the educated men in the South, of this generation, the living leaders of thought for a great and a noble people, but a people bewildered by the suddenness with which they have been brought to one of those rare junctures in human affairs when one civilisation abruptly ends and another begins. I feel oppressed with a sense of fear that we shall not be equal to the unusual responsibilities this condition imposes, unless, conquerors, indeed, of the greatest model, we can deal frankly with these events, frankly with ourselves, and bravely with our very habits of thought. Though unjustly, even cruelly slain, brave sur vivors He not down with the dead, but rise up resolved all the more to be leaders and conquerors with and for the living. Let, then, the other days of this literary festival suffice for the fascina tions of rhetoric and the cultured figures of oratory. It accords alike with, the grave duties of our assembling, with the suggestions of those who have called me to this task, and with my own convictions of duty, to deal with practical, thoughts, looking to results, and to " speak forth the words of truth and soberness." I propose, therefore, to consider: I. The situation of the Southern people in their relation to the other civ ilized peoples of this age. II. The means by which that situation may be improved and advanced, and especially our educational wants and demands in this connection, III. The application of the views presented to our own State, to our own university, and thence deduce our duties as citizens of the State, and as alumni of the university. In 1787, when the States, by their delegates, were engaged hi the work of framing a government for a common union, and the then existing ami prospective relative powers of the several States and sections were being dis cussed, there Avcre wise men who ventured, with much confidence, to predict that in a not distant future the Southern States would surpass ail others in population, wealth, and power. Nor was this prediction then unreasonable. The areas of these States were most extended. Tlieir soils were naturally the most fertile. Their climate was the most genial, with a temperature compatible with out-door labor during all seasons of the year. Their pro ductions were the most varied and deemed of greatest commercial value, though at that time tobacco, rice, and indigo were the chief staples; and that marvelous fibrous texture which is now strong enough to tie the fortunes of all people, move or less, to these States, was then little known or relied on. So, also, their harbors for commerce were as many and as wide and as deep; and although geology and other physical sciences had then scarcely move vision than he who only saw men as trees walking, yet, with even that faint vision, they saw gold and silver, and iron and lead, and coal and all minerals, rich, accessible, and exhaustless, in their hills and valleys and mountains. .But the hopeful anticipations of those wise men have not been realized. .Areas less extended contain more homes. Soils less fertile have produced more fruits. Climates where the snows scarcely melt have attracted more people than our sunny skies. Coal and iron, and all metals, which in other Plates were deep buried, have been, wit h immense Ui'iov and expenditures and dangers, dragged from the bowels of the opened earth; while here, where they He at the surface., and seem to throw off the earth's covering as if to hear day "but that the vessels which carry the golden -fleeces of commerce are still of Argonautic pattern, and. it" they were to hear the fierce blowing of the try ing steamers, they would testify to all. the gods of mythology that old Neptune had grown angry, and in thundering wrath was lashing his dominions. \Vrhv this failure ? Charge not God. tie lias done for no people more tlian for us, He gave.'us not only the sweetest flowers, the richest fruits, and the brightest skies, but He added to these every other good gift. Nor can this failure be charged to any deficiency in the white race. This earth contains no white race superior to the Southern people. Still, the question, conies back to us, why have States with inferior natural advantages advanced more rapidly in wealth, in population, and in all the elements and means of power ? Gutfailure must be found in the manner of improving our gifts and not in the want of them. The beginning of all greatness in our future must be based on the wisdom which shall discern and the courage that shall correct the real cause of this, our failure in the past. This cause, in my opinion, is to be found in one fact, bat a fact which, like the Lerncan hydra, multiplied itself. That multiplying fact is this : The Southern laborer "was a slave, a negro slave, and an ignorant negro slave. It is not within the scope of this address to discuss the morality of slav ery, nor the views of the Southern people touching- the question of property ID slaves, nor even to allude to any political issue of the past on the subject of slavery, nor yet to venture so ranch as an opinion on the effects of slav ery, or of its abolition, on the fate of the negro race. I only propose to show that slavery affected, and most deleteriousl v affected, the Southern States and people in general scientific, physical, and educational progress, and especially in material and commercial development, and, as a conse quence, delayed their growth in population, wealth, and physical power. In the first place it must be conceded that the most striking manifesta tions of progress in modern civilization are found in the extensions of edu cational facilities to the masses of the people ; in the elevation and advance ment of strictly industrial pursuits; in the establishment of scientific, physical, mechanical, and all polytechnic schools, and in the discoveries made and results wroug-ht by educated and enlightened industries. .Indeed, I am not convinced that this generation has witnessed any religious, politi cal, moral, or professional progress. Religion, the science of faith, so to speak, being- the inspiration of God, can never become a subject for im provement by human skill or art. It was altogether perfect when first given. It exhausted truth when first spoken. True, science does frequently and arrogantly parade some new discovery as proof that the .Hible is a fable ; and hence it is that we Have sometimes seen the greatest of human intellects become, for the moment, victims of the most pitiable of human weaknesses, and, discarding the only true God, bow down to some idol of their own creation. This was strikingly illustrated in the early days oi' geology. Therefore, while there can be no new discoveries of faith, arid no wiser utterances than those of the despised Nazarcne, yet in view of this anxious proneness of the mind to discover a god of its o\vn for worship, it is import ant that the ambassadors of heaven should become the pupils of all human schools, and keep pace wit-Ii human science in all her ever-freshening iields, that they may be able to show that whatsoever that science may or can dis- :538 SENATOR B. H. HILL, Of GEORGIA. cover, however new or startling- to us, it is only what He who guided the babe of the bulrush., who elated the Judcan shepherds, arid inspired the Galilean fishermen, always knew and never contradicted. To the extent, therefore, that the physical and natural sciences have progressed, the theo logians of this day may be and ought to be more learned than those of preceding- ages. So, again, I doubt whether this century has witnessed any progress in the science of government or of law. [Popularism is the distinguishing fea ture of modern statesmanship. Improvement in that direction is still a problem. At the hazard of wounding the pride or offending the vanity of the disciples of modern professional sciolism, I must be permitted to ques tion whether, since their day, civilized nations have produced any lawyer more profound than Blackstone, any pleader so accurate as Chitty, or any judge wiser than MansSeld ? Similar remarks might be made touching other branches of learning; but I have said enough to fix and isolate the point before stated, that mod ern progress is chiefly, if not entirely, found not in the advancements of what are called the learned professions, but in the education and elevation of the masses ; in the discoveries and appliances of the physical sciences; in the establishment of schools of science, and in the promotion, enlarge ment, and results of all departments of industries. To these we owe those remarkable inventions which substitute the sinews of nature for the muscles of men and animals in the work of productions ; that wonderful facility of distribution which makes the most delicate fruits of each clime the fresh comforts of every people and that cver-marvelous system of communica tion which enables each living man to step to his door, nay, to sit in his chamber and convei'se with all othei' men in whispers, and which enables the man beneath us, with his head pointing1 the other "way, to send us his greetings with each rising sun, saying,, "Good-morning, neighbor?'' And to these we owe also innumerable comforts and conveniences in every field of business and in every sphere and department of life. Now, let me ask, how much to all this wonderful progress of modern civilization, to all these comforts, conveniences, and facilities of man and of society, have the slavcholdmg States and people contributed? Nay, how much of all these works of others have we even appropriated and reproduced except as cupidity has tempted others to furnish them ? We have railroads, and telegraph lines, and a small proportion of needed manufactories. But "whence came the educated engineers "who build and operate them ? \Ve have a few machine-shops, but "whence carne the machinists? Go even into our laundries, otir kitchens, our chambers, and our parlors, and tell me how many of the comforts, the conveniences, the elegancies you find there were made by slave labor ; indeed by labor in slaveholding States? These things can be so truthfully said of no other people entitled to position in the column of advancing civilizations. In accounting for these shortcomings my predicate is, that the cause must be found, not in the absence of natural gifts or resources, and not in any inferioritv of our white race, but in the fact that hitherto the laborer of the South has been a slave, and a negro slave. The first step in the argument is this : Because of the condition of slavery, the supposed nature of the slave, and the external pressure which aggravated both, it was deemed essential, for internal peace and social security, to make ignorance the primal condi- SIS LIFfl, 8PEIBGH1S8. AND WRITINGS. 339 tion of the slave, and, as a result, tlie primal law of labor. Thus the South ern States were driven to the fearful disadvantage, in competing with a world, advancing by means of educated industries, of making it a penal offense--a punishable crime--to educate their laborers. Whatever .may have been the necessities of such a policy as touching the safety of society or the well-being and proper subjection" of the slave, it must be said that no greater curse can be inflicted upon any people than that of being compelled to keep as their chief laborers persons who, for any cause, it cannot be both wise and safe to educate. The first effect of this state of things was the necessity of confining our principal labor to the simplest processes--processes requiring muscle and not skill. But this itself is a paradox, for 1 deny that there can be any labor which skill cannot progress, elevate, and improve. Another effect, and one still more serious, wag that labor, in a great degree, became degraded to the condition of the laborer. The real supporter of all society--the pro ducer and the true author of all comfortable appliances and physical im provements--the mechanic, the machinist, and the artisan--felt the weight which thus pressed them from, the front seats of social consideration, and assigned them a kind of half-way position between the gentleman and the slave. A large proportion of our white population, not born to fortune nor blessed with first-class educational advantages, struggled, by all practicable means, to avoid the kinds of labor performed by slaves, and labor itself, if possible. They would resent, as an insult impeaching their respectability, all invitations to occupy the same useful positions in our society which the same class of population in all other countries were glad to-fill. "Thank you, sir; I am not a slave," was the ever-ready answer of starving pride to the most courteous offers for service by opulence. The educated minds of the South sought, almost exclusively, the profes sional fields for employment. Our social fabric was built, in great measure, upon the distinctions which these results created. Even intellectual and professional labors were avoided, if the number of slaves doing vicarious service would permit the enjoyment of those most generally desired of nil positions in society--elegant leisure, hixurious abandon, and hospitable idleness. Even the business of teaching--the calling of Plato --did not obtain, save, perhaps, in our first-class universities, the position of estima tion to which it is always so justly entitled, because its followers "were either, in some sense, laborers, or were supposed not to possess the number of slaves deemed necessary to an easy independence. Thus it was that, in a world whose greatest necessity is labor, and in an age when all other peoples were being prized into power by the Archime dean lever of educated labor, -we of the Southern States were earnestly defending and maintaining a system of labor whose legal status was igno rance, and whose social impression was that- labor was the badge of a slave, entailing a sort of social degradation, while idleness was the lucky fate of a gentleman, entitling to social excellence. Many of our "best, society" would like Abraham, to bring with their own hands the tender kid from the flock; and how many of our accomplished and fashionable young ladies were either willing or able, like Sarah, " to knead three measures of fine meal, and bake cakes on the hearth," to induce even angels to tarry? They could 840 SENATOR B. H. JIILTj, OF GEORGIA. well entertain them with exhibitions of imported millinery, with lively adcounts of the last romance, and with marvelous sounds of operatic music, all, doubtless, novelties in their country ; but, I fear., if some sable Dinah were not about, even angels would have to go away hungry < * So, again, our politics became absorbed, passionately absorbed, with issues involving1 slavery and those theories of our government, with the maintenance of which the existence and protection of slavery were supposed fco bo intertwined, became the specialty of our statesmanship. Here, indeed, we produced lengthy, learned, and able disquisitions, combined with logical power and exhibitions of oratory such as no people ever surpassed, and thus most abundantly demonstrated that Southern intellectual capabilities were equal to any task. Kut what real permanent pi'ogress have these made for us ? Take our most distinguished, able, and renowned statesmen of this generation ; exclude from their works those portions devoted to slavery and the theory of government alluded to, and pray tell me, wb.at is left? Whore are our Bacons, or N"ewtous, or Blackstones, or .Burkes, who, by labors long' and vigils many, have wrought oat theories of government, codes of law, and revelations of science, applicable alike to all people and blessing all conditions of mankind? Nay, where are even our Storys, Ban crofts, and our Noah "Websters ? There are many whom, the ghost of our dead civilisation may justly call champions, her champions ; but how many have we whom living, growing, immortal civilizations will honor as victors in the world's field oi thought? Then, turning our attention to those fields of thought and of progress which I have described as peculiarly distinguish ing the civilizations of other peoples, and where are d