od and that inevitable future which we may hope
to put far from us, but which is even now at our door, would be an
imputation on our judgment, and an acknowledgment that we were unworthy
to measure our strength with a great occasion when it met us face to
face.

We are very far from joining in the unfeeling outcry which is sometimes
raised by thoughtless persons against the Southern people, because they
decorate with flowers the graves of their dead soldiers, and cherish
the memory of those who fell in the defence of a cause which they could
not see to be already fallen before they entered its service. They have
won our respect, the people of Virginia especially, by their devotion
and endurance in sustaining what they believed to be their righteous
quarrel. They would rather deserve our reprobation, if they were
wanting in these tributes to natural and human feeling. They are as
harmless as the monument to the memory of those who fell for the
Pretender, which McDonald of Glenaladale raised after the last of the
Stuarts was in his grave. Let us sympathize with and respect all such
exhibitions of natural feeling. But at the same time let us take care
that it shall not be at the risk of his life that the poor black shall
fling his tribute on the turf of those who died, with equal sacrifice
of self, in a better cause. Let us see to it that the Union men of the
South shall be safe in declaring and advocating the reasons of their
faith in a cause which we believe to be sacred. Let us secure such
opportunities of education to the masses of the Southern people,
whether white or black, as shall make any future rebellion
impracticable, and render it possible for the dead of both sides to
sleep peaceably together under the safeguard of a common humanity,
while the living dwell under the protection of a nationality which both
shall value alike. Let us put it out of the power of a few ambitious
madmen to shake, though they could not endanger, the foundations of a
structure which enshrines the better hope of mankind. When Congress
shall again come together, strong in the sympathy of a united people,
let them show a dignity equal to the importance of the crisis. Let them
give the President a proof of their patriotism, not only by allowing
him the opportunity, but by making it easy for him, to return to the
national position he once occupied. Let them not lower their own
dignity and that of the nation by any bandying of reproaches with