USA > Georgia > Fulton County > Atlanta > History of Atlanta, Georgia : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 24
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32
145
BIOGRAPHICAL.
But having incorporated the cavalier as a fact in your charming little books, i shall let him work out his own salvation, as he has always done with engaging gallantry, and we will hold no controversy as to his merits. Why should we? Neither Puritan or cavalier long survived as such. The virtues and good traditions of both happily still live for the inspiration of their sons and the saving of the old fashion. But both Puritan and cavalier were lost in the storm of the first revolution, and the American citizen, supplanting both and stronger than either, took possession of the republic bought by their common blood and fashioned to wisdom, and charged himself with teaching men government and establishing the voice of the people as the voice of God.
My friends, Dr. Talmage has told you that the typical American has yet to come. Let me tell'you that he has already come. Great types like valuable plants are slow to flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonists, Puritans and cavaliers, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through a cen- tury, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this republic-Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the vir- tues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than cavalier, in that he was American, and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrilling torces of his ideal government -- charging it with such tre- mendous meaning and so elevating it above human suffering that martyrdom, though infa- mously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle to human liberty. Let us each, cherishing the traditions and honoring his fathers, build with reverent hands to the type of this simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored, and in our common glory as Americans there will be plenty and to spare for your forefathers and for mine.
In speaking of the toast with which you have honored me, I accept the term, " New South." as in no sense disparaging the old. Dear to me. sir, is the home of my childhood and the tra- ditions of my people. I would not, if I could, dim the glory they won in peace and war, or by word or deed take aught from the splendor and grace of their civilization-never equaled, and perhaps never to be equaled in its chivalric strength and grace. There is a new South, not through protest against the old, but because of new conditions, new adjustments, and, if you please, new ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address myself.
Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes ! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war-an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory-in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home ! Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, he turns his face southward from Ap- pomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow, and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find-let me ask you, who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four year's sacrifice-what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful ? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away ; his people without law or legal status ; his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his 19*
146
HISTORY OF ATLANTA.
shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone. Without money, credit, emplo; - ment, material or training ; and, beside all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence-the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.
What does he do- this hero in gray with a heart of gold ? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair ? Not for a day. Surely God who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow, horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April, were green with the harvest in June ; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. "Bill Arp" struck the keynote when he said : " Well, I killed as many of them as they did of me, and now I am going to work." Of the soldier returning home after defeat and roasting some corn on the roadside, who made the remark to his comrades : "You may leave the South if you want to, but I am going to Sandersville, kiss my wife, and raise a crop, and if the Yan- kees fool with me any more, I will whip 'em again." I want to say to General Sherman, who is considered an able man in our parts, though some people think he is a kind of careless man about fire, that from the ashes he left us in 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city ; that somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes, and have builded therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory.
But what of the negro? Have we solved the problem he presents, or progressed in honor and equity toward the solution ? Let the record speak to the point. No section shows a more prosperous laboring population than the negroes of the South ; none in fuller sympathy with the employing and land owning class. He shares our school fund, has the fullest protection of our laws and the friendship of our people. Self-interest, as well as honor, demand that he should have this." Our future, our very existence depend upon our working out this problem in full and exact justice. We understand that when Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, your victory was assured, for he then committed you to the cause of human liberty, against which the arms of man cannot prevail while those of our statesmen who trusted to make slavery the corner stone of the Confederacy, doomed us to defeat as far as they could, com- mitting us to a cause that reason could not defend or the sword maintain, in the sight of advancing civilization.
Had Mr. Toombs said, which he did not say, " that he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill," he would have been foolish, for he might have known that whenever slavery became entangled in war it must perish, and that the chattel in human flesh ended for- ever in New England, when your fathers-not to be blamed for parting with what didn't pay -- sold their slaves to our fathers-not to be praised for knowing a paying thing when they saw it. The relations of the Southern people with the negro are close and cordial. We remember with what fidelity for four years he guarded our defenseless women and children, whose husbands and fathers were fighting against his freedom. To his eternal credit be it said, that whenever he struck a blow for his own liberty he fought in open battle, and when at last he raised his black and humble hands that the shackles might be struck off, those hands were innocent of wrong against his helpless charges, and worthy to be taken in loving grasp by every man who honors loyalty and devotion. Ruffians have maltreated him, rascals have misled him, philan- thropists established a bank for him, but the South, with the North, protests against injustice to this simple and sincere people. To liberty and enfranchisement is as far as law can carry the negro. The rest must be left to conscience and common sense. It must be left to those among whom his lot is cast, with whom he is indissolubly connected, and whose prosperity de- pend's upon their possessing his intelligent sympathy and confidence. Faith has been kept with him in spite of calumnious assertions to the contrary by those who assume to speak for
1
I47
BIOGRAPHICAL.
us or by frank opponents. Faith will be kept with him in the future, if the South holds her reason and integrity.
But have we kept faith with you? In the fullest sense, yes. When Lee surrendered-I don't say when Johnson surrendered, because I understand he still alludes to the time when he met General Sherman last as the time when he " determined to abandon any further prosecu- tion of the struggle " -- when Lee surrendered, I say, and Johnson quit, the South became, and has since been, loyal to this Union. We fought hard enough to know that we were whipped, and in perfect frankness accepted as the final arbitrament of the sword to which we had ap- pealed. The South found her jewel in the toad's head of defeat. The shackles that had held her in narrow limitations fell forever when the shackles of the negro slave was broken. Under the old regime the negroes were slaves to the South ; the South was a slave to the system. The old plantation, with its simple police regulations and feudal habit, was the only type pos- sible under slavery. Thus was gathered in the hands of a splendid and chivalric oligarchy the substance that should have been diffused among the people, as the rich blood, under certain artificial conditions, is gathered at the heart, filling that with affluent rapture, but leaving the body chill and colorless.
The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture, unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth. The new South presents a perfect democracy, the oligarchs leading in the popular movement-a social system compact and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface but stronger at the core-a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every palace-and a diversified industry that meets the complex needs of this com- plex age.
The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the conscious- ness of growing power aud prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because by the inscrutable wisdom of God her hon- est purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten.
This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the late struggle between the States was war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. 1 should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hills-a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men ; that of a brave and simple man, who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England, from Plymouth Rock all the way, would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the foot of that I shall send my children's children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory, which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for which he gave his life was ad- judged by higher and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in His almighty hand, and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil, the American union was saved from the wreck of war.
This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated ground. Every foot of soil about the city in which I live is as sacred as a battle ground of the republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers who died for your victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blow of those who died hopeless, but undaunted, in defeat-sa- cred soil to all of us-rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and better-silent but staunch witnesses in its red desolation of the matchless valor of American hearts and the deathless glory of American arms-speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace and pros- petity to the indissoluble union of American States and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people.
148
HISTORY OF ATLANTA.
Now, what answer has New England to this message? Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerors, when it has died in the hearts of the conquered ? WMM she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in their hearts, which never felt the gen- erous odor of conflict, it may perpetuate itself? Will she withhold, saved in strained courtesy. the hand which straight from his soldier's heart Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox ? Will she make the vision of a restored and happy people, which gathered above the couch of your dying captain, filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with praise and glorifying his path to the grave-will she make this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a benediction, a cheat and delusion ? If she does, the South, never abject in asking for com- radeship, must accept with dignity its refusal, but if she does not refuse to accept in frankness and sincerity this message of good will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, de- livered in this very society forty years ago, amid tremendous applause, become true, he verified in its fullest and finest sense, when he said : "Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same government, united, all united now and united forever. There have been difficulties, contentions, and controversies, but 1 tell you that in my judgment
"Those opened eyes, Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven. All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in th' intestine shock, Shall now, in mutual well beseeming ranks, March all one way."
Mr. Grady devoted much of his time in the year following this speech to organizing and aiding the Piedmont Exposition, which brought so many hun- dred thousand visitors to Atlanta, including President Cleveland and his wife, an exposition which was not only a wonderful financial success, but which did more than anything that has ever occurred to bring the resources of the Pied- mont region prominently before the world. He declined his numerous in- vitations to speak on notable occasions; declined an offer of $10,000 for a series of lectures in the North, and declined the pressing requests of various prominent publishers to write a book and magazine articles. He had some- thing else in view. In 1888 he royally rounded off the Piedmont Exposition by organizing and conducting the Piedmont Chautauqua at Salt Springs, six- teen miles from Atlanta. This great educational enterprise continued two months, and the visitors and the press were unanimous in the opinion that the buildings, grounds and programme of instruction and entertainment fully equaled anything that had been offered by the famous New York Chautuqua.
In October Mr. Grady accepted an invitation to deliver the address at the Texas State Fair at Dallas. He traveled in a special car with a party of dis- tinguished gentlemen, and from one end of Texas to the other was greeted with one continuous ovation. In his Dallas speech, among other things he said :
My countrymen, right here the South must make a decision on which very much depends. Many wise men hold that the white vote of the South should divide, the color line be beaten down, and the Southern States ranged on economic or moral questions as interest or belief demands. I am compelled to dissent from this view. The worst thing in my opinion that could happen is that the white people of the South should stand in opposing factions, with the vast mass of ignorant or purchasable negro votes between. Consider such a status. If the
149
BIOGRAPHICAL.
negroes were skillfully led, and leaders would not be lacking, it would give them the balance of power - a thing not to be considered. If their vote was not compacted, it would invite the debauching bid of factions, and drift surely to that which was the most corrupt and cunning. With the shiftless habit and irresolution of slavery days still possessing him, the negro voter will not in this generation, adrift from war issues, become a steadfast partisan through con- science or conviction. In every community there are colored men who redeem their race from this reproach, and who vote under reason. Perhaps in time the bulk of this race may thus adjust itself. But, through what long and monstrous periods of political debauchery this status would be reached, no tongue can tell.
The clear and unmistakable domination of the white race, dominating not through violence, not through party alliance, but through the integrity of its own vote and the largeness of its sympathy and justice through which it shall compel the support of the better classes of the colored race that is the hope and assurance of the South. Otherwise, the negro would be ban- died from one faction to another, His credulity would be played upon, his cupidity tempted, his impulses misdirected, his passions inflamed. He would be forever in alliance with that fac- tion which was most desperate and unscrupulous. Such a state would be worse than recon- struction, for then intelligence was banded, and its speedy triumph assured. But with intelli- gence and property divided - bidding and overbidding for place and patronage - irritation increasing with each conflict - the bitterness of desperation seizing every heart - political debauchery deepening, as each faction staked its all in the miserable game - there would be no end to this - until our suffrage was hopelessly sullied, our people forever divided, and our most sacred rights surrendered.
Que thing further should be said in perfect frankness. Up to this point we have dealt with ignorance and corruption - but beyond this point a deeper issue confronts us. Ignorance may struggle to enlightenment, out of corruption may come the incorruptible. God speed the day when every true man will work and pray for its coming, the negro must be led to know and through sympathy to confess that his interests and the interests of the people of the South are identical. The men who come from afar off, view this subject through the cold eye of specula- tion or see it distorted through partisan glasses, insist that directly or indirectly, the negro rac- shall be in control of the affairs of the South. We have no fears of this ; already we are at- taching to us the best elements of that race, and as we proceed our alliance will broaden exter- nal pressure, but irritates and impedes those who would put the negro race in supremacy, would work against infallible decree, for the white race can never submit to its domination because the white race is the superior race. But the supremacy of the white race of the South must be maintained forever, and the domination of the negro race resisted at all points and at all hazards - because the white race is the superior race. This is the declaration of no new truth. It has ahided forever in the marrow of our bones, and shall run forever with the blood that feeds Anglo-Saxon hearts.
In political compliance the South has evaded the truth, and men have drifted from their convictions. But we cannot escape this issue. It faces us wherever we turn. It is an issue that has been, and will be. The races and tribes of earth are of divine origin. Behind the laws of man and the decrees of war stands the law of God. What God hath separated let no man join together. The Indian, the Malay, the Negro, the Caucassian, these types stand as markers of God's will. Let not man tinker with the work of the Almighty. Unity of civiliza- tion, no more than unity of faith, will never be witnessed on earth. No race has risen, or will rise above its ordained place. Here is the pivotal fact of this great matter -- two races are made equal in law, and in political rights, between whom the caste of race has set an impassa- ble gulf. This gulf is bridged by a statute, and the races are urged to cross thereon. This cannot be. The fiat of the Almighty has gone forth, and in eighteen centuries of history it is written. We would escape this issue if we could. From the depths of its soul the South in- vokes from heaven " peace on earth, and good will to man." She would not if she could, cast
150
HISTORY OF ATLANTA.
this race back into the condition from which it was righteously raised. She would not deny its smallest, or abridge its fullest privilege. Not to lift this burden forever from her people, would she do the least of these things. She must walk through the valley of the shadow, for God has so ordained. But he has ordained that she shall walk in that integrity of race, that created in his wisdom, has been perpetuated in his strength. Standing in the presence of this multitude, sobered with the responsibility of the message I deliver to the young men of the South, I declare that the truth above all others to be worn unsullied and sacred in your hearts, to be surrendered to no force, sold for no price, compromised in no necessity, but cherished and defended as the covenant of your prosperity, and the pledge of peace to your children, is that the white race must dominate forever in the South, because it is the white race, and supe- rior to that race with which its supremacy is threatened.
-
All this is in no unkindness to the negro- but rather that he may be led in equal rights, and in peace to his uttermost good. Not in sectionalism, for my heart beats true to the Union, to the glory of which your life and heart is pledged. Not in disregard of the world's opinion -- for to render back this problem in the world's approval is the sum of my ambition, and the height of human achievement. Not in reactionary spirit - but rather to make clear that new and grander way up which the South is marching to higher destiny, and on which I would not halt her for all the spoils that have been gathered unto parties since Cataline conspired, and Cæsar fought. Not in passion, my countrymen, but in reason -- not in narrowness, but in breadth -- that we may solve this problem in calmness, and in truth, and lifting its shadows let perpetual sunshine pour down on two races, walking together in peace and contentment. Then shall this problem have proved our blessing, and the race that threatened our ruin work our salvation as it fills our fields with the best peasantry the world has ever seen. Then the South - putting behind her all the achievements of her past - and in war and in peace they beggar eulogy -- may stand upright among the nations and challenge the judgment of man and the approval of God, in having worked out in their sympathy and in his guidance, this last and surpassing miracle of human government. .
The South needs her sons to-day more than when she summoned them to the forum to maintain her political supremacy, more than when the bugle called them to the field to defend issues put to. the arbitrament of the sword. Her old body is instinct with appeal calling on us to come and give her fuller independence than she has ever sought in field or forum. It is ours to show that as she prospered with slaves she shall prosper still more with freemen ; ours to see that from the lists she entered in poverty she shall emerge in prosperity ; ours to carry the transcending traditions of the old South from which none of us can in honor or in reverence depart, unstained and unbroken into the new. Shall we fail? Shall the blood of the old South -- the best strain that ever uplifted human endeavor -- that ran like water at duty's call and never stained where it touched -- shall this blood that pours into our veins through a century luminous with achievement, for the first time falter and be driven back from irresolute heat, when the old South, that left us a better heritage in manliness and courage than in broad and rich acres, calls us to settle problems? A soldier lay wounded on a hard fought field, the roar of the battle had died away, and he rested in the deadly stillness of its aftermath. Not a sound was heard as he lay there, sorely smitten and speechless, but the shriek of wounded and the sigh of the dying soul, as it escaped from the tumult of earth into the unspeakable peace of the stars. Off over the field flickered the lanterns of the surgeons and the litter bearers, searching that they might take away those whose lives could be saved and leave in sorrow those who were doomed to die with pleading eyes through the darkness. This poor soldier watched, unable to turn or speak as the lanterns grew near. At last the light flashed in his face, and the surgeon, with kindly face, bent over him, hesitated a moment, shook his head and was gone, leaving the poor fellow alone with death. He watched in patient agony as they went on from one part of the field to another. As they came back the surgeon bent over
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.