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standing among the cinders of their homes, this great Valley still maintained an esthetic power.Her very weeds were beautiful.Her waste more rich than other climes’ fertility ;Her wreck a glory, and her ruin graced With an immaculate charm-'that could not be effaced. ?We are not here to discuss the mistakes or the blunders of political diplomacies and excited faction which precipitated the schism between governments whose destinies appeared blended by the most pathetic and patriotic trials and dangers, and whose common record from Dorchester Heights and the Declaration of Colonial Independence blazedwith a flame of glory. It is fitting just%to say that the action of the South in seceding from the Federal Union was the development of an intense protestagainst the absorption into Federal corporate power of rights appertaining to State sovereignty and independence under constitutional pact, and it is but fair here, too, to say that not until the clash of arms had occurred, and an army of coercion had been called for the invasion of the South, nor until she had vainly endeavored to placate the difficulties, did Virginia cast her fortunes4with the seceding States. If in the philosophy of a self-serving diplomacy this was wrong, still the imperative moral it I sense of humanity must saction the act. But if the incipiency of the war was anomalous the renewal of peaceful relations after its conclusion was no less so, for except in the abolition of the peculiar institution which English and Northern cupidity had fastened on the South, the seceding States, after passing through the crucible of reconstruction, contracted new obligations with the Federal government, whereby a perfect equality was granted them with the victors. An united North and South start:
Newspaper Details
Harrisonburg Rockingham Register
Harrisonburg, Virginia, US
Fri, Jun 04, 1897
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
VA, USA 23 Jan 2022
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