Confederate Truths: Documents of the Confederate & Neo-Confederate Tradition from 1787 to the Present.

Sons of Confederate Veteran speaker claims the South fought for the supremacy of the white Anglo-Saxon race.

Confederate Veteran, Vol. 35 No. 2, February 1927, pp. 46-7. According to the speaker, the South fought for "the supremacy of the white Anglo-Saxon race." The Confederate Veteran was the official publication of the United Confederate Veterans, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Confederated Southern Memorial Association, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

THE LIGHTED TORCH

[Address by Judge A. Farrel Chamblin Commander of Camp Robert E. Lee, S. C. V., Chicago, Ill., at an entertain­ment given by Mr. and Mrs. F. W. Blankley, of the S. C. V. Camp, in honor of the U. D. C. Chapters of Chicago.]

Confederate Veterans, Sons and Daughters of the Confederate Veterans, friends and fellow citizens, brothers and sisters of a common tongue and of the blood of the Anglo-Saxon people: I greet you with sincerity and with a heart o'erflowing, striving to convey through the medium of words the pent-up love and faith in a cause that has been engraved upon that tablet which death nor time cannot efface—the conscience of living souls.

Our ancestors, unwilling to bow beneath the degrading power of tyranny, believing in the right of every man to pur­sue and enjoy life, liberty, and happiness, left the land of their fathers and journeyed o'er sea and land. They carved homes out of forests; tilled the soil; established commerce with foreign peoples and among themselves; they established schools to educate their children and the first university in America, Mary and William College. They had a glorious vision, and to the end of life labored to see that vision carried on.

Uniting with their brothers in the North, they threw off the yoke of a tyrant king and a blind government, the British Empire. Consider for a moment the trials of Washington and Marion; their struggle to unite thirteen States, widely sepa­rated geographically and having but one common thought, liberty or death. They gained liberty, although many a brave and fearless soul gave his all that his descendants and those of his fellow men might enjoy that liberty.

Time passed, and this youthful nation became a world power. Yet at the same time a separation came to pass within the boundaries of this republic. In the North, because of its rigorous climate, agriculture declined, while the manu­facturing industry increased. In the South agriculture flour­ished beneath a kindly sun. Slavery passed from New England and the Northern States because economically it could not exist. No fanatical theory drove slavery from the North; cold survival of the fittest method of producing labor choked it out. No devastating war drove slavery from the North under the guise of noble desire; stern compulsion caused its atrophy.

It is a heartening fact that no Southern man and no Southern ship ever transported a single negro from his African home to America or any other shore. It must be remembered that only one nation in the world frowned upon, and in its Constitution forbade, the African slave trade, and that nation was the Confederate States of America. But when fanatics rave about a principle regardless of the results of their fanaticism; whether reformations reform or deform; whether a Christ be crucified, or witches burned; or rivers run red with the blood of brothers—beware the day and shun such maniacs as one shuns a leper.

We all know the cost, though we of the present generation little realize the agonies, the woes, the, bitterness, and awful experiences of those who actually participated in the conflict.

The South stood up to a man for State Rights and the sanc­tity of the home and the supremacy of the white Anglo-Saxon race. The cause was lost by overwhelming numbers and at a fearful cost, but the sanctity of the home was defended even in the face of defeat.

Facing ruined homes, demolished plantations, and poverty beyond belief, these undaunted men and women took up the broken threads and wove a fabric that must endure until the end of time. A people who gave to the world Washington, Marion, Andrew Jackson, Calhoun, Davis, the immortal Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Poe, Clay, Page, and Wilson; such a people survive fire, famine, flood, hatred, war, poverty—yes they triumph over death—and pass along through time to that bourne whence no traveler returns, victorious in defeat.

There is a crying need to-day for men and women of courage, of high resolve, to accomplish deeds as well as words; to act as well as think; men and women who will live their faiths, who will shine forth a beacon light in the storm of thoughtlessness. Men and women who each and every one can carry a harmoni­ous message to their "Garcia." Men and women with a divine love for country, for liberty, and for their sacred homes.

We are here to-day enjoying a communion of thought, and from that thought there must spring forth a message to our fellow men. We have a duty to perform, a trust to carry on, a torch, a light to bear. Our duty—the duty of a father to his home, the duty of a husband to his wife, the duty of a patriot to his native land. Our trust, the priceless heritage our fathers bestowed upon their sons, and which we, too, must bestow upon our children, the Constitu­tion of our fathers. Our torch—the flaming torch of liberty, not a groveling subservience to fanatical theory, rather the freedom of the eagle, the unconquerable spirit of Washington.

To give the Constitution of our fathers the breath of life our immortal Washington gave his whole heart and his courage. To support that Constitution, Patrick Henry spoke those fiery words: "Give me liberty or give me death." Henry Clay stood aloft, a living flame of eloquence for State Rights. Jefferson Davis fought for those rights and was loyal to them to his death.

Veterans, Sons, and Daughters of the Confederate Vet­erans, to-night your ancestors behold you, their children, and must they see the sacrifice of State Rights, the sanctity of the home, the freedom of religious beliefs, for which they gave their glorious youth, their all; for which the immortal mothers gave flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone, blood of their blood upon the altar of liberty? Shall they have died and suffered in vain? Must their agonies, their griefs, their sacrifices go down in defeat?

To-night the souls of unnumbered and unnamed heroes and heroines look down upon us, and in the whispering breezes and again in the deep silence of the night, do we not hear a message? Could you look the immortal Robert E. Lee in the eye and grasp his hand without a quiver? What would you say to that champion of the Constitution of our fathers, John C. Calhoun? Would Francis Marion be proud of your pa­triotism? Could Thomas Jefferson read the present Constitu­tion with unclouded eyes? What message would Jefferson Davis give to your eager ears? Stonewall Jackson, I fear, would blush with shame to see his fellow men in such bondage.

We, the living endowment of our noble ancestors, have a duty to fulfill, a labor to perform. The Anglo-Saxon blood of the South has ever stood for right against might since history began, and that group of Anglo-Saxons, wherever they may dwell, be it east, west, north, or south, must continue to so stand, firm as the granite hills of their native land, resolved that government of the people, for the people, and by the people shall not perish from the earth.

My comrades, pause for a moment and in your mind's eye visualize that host of known and unknown dead whose souls are journeying from Elysian fields to sanctify our banquet hall to-night—shall they behold their glorious sacrifice lost in vain, that only in memory's echoing vaults shall dwell freedom, honor, sacred home?

From the Valley of Virginia, from the levels of Henrico and Hanover, from the slopes of Manassas, from the swamps of Port Hudson, from the woods of Chancellorsville, from the heights of Fredericksburg, from Antietam and Gettysburg, from the Spotsylvania wilderness, and from unnumbered un­marked graves, a silent host assembles to impress us that soon we, too, will be among their number; that we must bear their burden and so live that we may dwell in the land of our fathers with liberty, with a common faith, and with a holy love until the end of time.

Souls of our fathers, gathered 'round,

Winging in Honor's brilliant light,

Speak! Break the silence with a sound;

Grant us a message here to-night.

Shades of the immortal Past!

Wherein uncounted heroes dwell;

Withdraw the curtain ‘round you cast

By Time and Death's unfathomed spell.

Speak once again, Brave Washington!

Admonish us that we may see

That trust and righteousness be done;

Advise us, O Immortal Lee,

Grant us an audience divine

From our immortals now with thee;

That wisdom from their lips sublime

May guide us through eternity.