rain;--

We are a band of brothers,
Native to the soil,
Fighting for the property,
We've gained by honest toil.

* * * * *

Hurrah! Hurrah! for Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bear a single star.

The Southern Confederacy

Read May 11, 1909

More than a hundred years ago the American States rebelled against the
tyranny of England, the mother country, and formed a Confederacy of and
among themselves to work together for their own welfare and prosperity.
It was granted by their Constitution, and by the States, that each or
any individual State had the right under provocation, to withdraw from
the pact.

Not quite fifty years ago the Southern States of this Union, having
endured provocation after provocation, withdrew from their Northern
oppressors, and formed themselves into the Confederacy, whose brief
existence ran red with the best blood of her chivalrous land. War
was not contemplated. A peaceable separation was desired. A peace
conference was held to which representatives of the States were invited.
Measure after measure was proposed, so that war might be averted. All
were rejected. The recusant States must be whipped back into submission
to the autocrats that would direct their affairs. With restricted
territory, a minority of population, and home interests directly opposed
to those of the over-riding North, what was there to hope for but
continuous degradation? Our leaders have been accused of precipitating
the war for their own personal ambition. It was another "Aaron Burr
conspiracy." Let us hear what they had to say about it.

Jefferson Davis, the fearless soldier and upright citizen--the man who
by reason of his supreme fitness was a little later, chosen President of
the Confederacy, said in his last speech before the United States
Senate:

"Secession is to be justified upon the basis that the States are
sovereign. When you deny us the right to withdraw from a government
which threatens our rights, we but tread in the paths of our fathers
when we proclaim our independence. I am sure I but express the feelings
of the people whom I represent, toward those whom you represent, when
I say I hope, and they hope, for peaceable relations with you, though
we must part. This step is taken, not in hostility to others, not to
injure any section of the country, not even for our own pecuniary
benefit; but f