“Who saves his country, saves all things, and all things saved will bless him. Who lets his country die, lets all things die, and all things dying curse him.”
These words are graven on the statue of Benjamin H. Hill in the city of Atlanta, and in their spirit I shall speak to you to-day.
Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens: I salute the first city of the grandest State of the greatest government on this earth. In paying earnest compliment to this thriving city, and this generous multitude, I need not cumber speech with argument or statistics. It is enough to say that my friends and myself make obeisance this morning to the chief metropolis of the State of Texas. If it but holds this pre-eminence—and who can doubt in this auspicious presence that it will—the uprising tides of Texas’s prosperity will carry it to glories unspeakable. For I say in soberness, the future of this marvelous and amazing empire, that gives broader and deeper significance to statehood by accepting its modest naming, the mind of man can neither measure nor comprehend.
I shall be pardoned for resisting the inspiration of this presence and adhering to-day to blunt and rigorous speech—for there are times when fine words are paltry, and this seems to me to be such a time. So I shall turn away from the thunders of the political battle upon which every American hangs intent, and repress the ardor that at this time rises in every American heart—for there are issues that strike deeper than any political theory has reached, and conditions of which partisanry has taken, and can take, but little account. Let me, therefore, with studied plainness, and with such precision as is possible—in a spirit of fraternity that is broader than party limitations, and deeper than political motive—discuss with you certain problems upon the wise and prompt solution of which depends the glory and prosperity of the South.
But why—for let us make our way slowly—why “the South.” In an indivisible union—in a republic against the integrity of which sword shall never be drawn or mortal hand uplifted, and in which the rich blood gathering at the common heart is sent throbbing into every part of the body politic—why is one section held separated from the rest in alien consideration? We can understand why this should be so in a city that has a community of local interests; or in a State still clothed in that sovereignty of which the debates of peace and the storm of war has not stripped her. But why should a number of States, stretching from Richmond to Galveston, bound together by no local interests, held in no autonomy, be thus combined and drawn to a common center? That man would be absurd who declaimed in Buffalo against the wrongs of the Middle States, or who demanded in Chicago a convention for the West to consider the needs of that section. If then it be provincialism that holds the South together, let us outgrow it; if it be sectionalism, let us root it out of our hearts; but if it be something deeper than these and essential to our system, let us declare it with frankness, consider it with respect, defend it with firmness, and in dignity abide its consequence. What is it that holds the southern States—though true in thought and deed to the Union—so closely bound in sympathy to-day? For a century these States championed a governmental theory—but that, having triumphed in every forum, fell at last by the sword. They maintained an institution—but that, having been administered in the fullest wisdom of man, fell at last in the higher wisdom of God. They fought a war—but the prejudices of that war have died, its sympathies have broadened, and its memories are already the priceless treasure of the republic that is cemented forever with its blood. They looked out together upon the ashes of their homes and the desolation of their fields—but out of pitiful resource they have fashioned their homes anew, and plenty rides on the springing harvests. In all the past there is nothing to draw them into essential or lasting alliance—nothing in all that heroic record that cannot be rendered unfearing from provincial hands into the keeping of American history.
But the future holds a problem, in solving which the South must stand alone; in dealing with which, she must come closer together than ambition or despair have driven her, and on the outcome of which her very existence depends. This problem is to carry within her body politic two separate races, and nearly equal in numbers. She must carry these races in peace—for discord means ruin. She must carry them separately—for assimilation means debasement. She must carry them in equal justice—for to this she is pledged in honor and in gratitude. She must carry them even unto the end, for in human probability she will never be quit of either.
This burden no other people bears to-day—on none hath it ever rested. Without precedent or companionship, the South must bear this problem, the awful responsibility of which should win the sympathy of all human kind, and the protecting watchfulness of God—alone, even unto the end. Set by this problem apart from all other peoples of the earth, and her unique position emphasized rather than relieved, as I shall show hereafter, by her material conditions, it is not only fit but it is essential that she should hold her brotherhood unimpaired, quicken her sympathies, and in the light or in the shadows of this surpassing problem work out her own salvation in the fear of God—but of God alone.
What shall the South do to be saved? Through what paths shall she reach the end? Through what travail, or what splendors, shall she give to the Union this section, its wealth garnered, its resources utilized, and its rehabilitation complete—and restore to the world this problem solved in such justice as the finite mind can measure, or finite hands administer?
In dealing with this I shall dwell on two points.
First, the duty of the South in its relation to the race problem.