He has already taken his place in history; not as an American, but as a Southern patriot and martyr, of whom America was not worthy. Every thought of his brain, every pulsation of his heart, every fold and fibre of his being, were Southern. Not a drop but of pure Virginia blood flowed in his veins. Virginian, Southern, Confederate, secession, from crown to sole, he had no aspiration in common with America as America now is, or sympathy with her works as they now are; and from the day on which his venerable State seceded from the American Union there was not an hour when he would not have gladly offered up life and all that life holds dear on the altar of Southern rights against American oppression.
L. Q. C. LAMAR TO THE VICKSBURG COMMITTEE
OXFORD, Miss., Dec. 5, 1870. To Col. William H. McCardle, and others, Committee, etc.,
Vicksburg, Miss.
GENTLEMEN: When, on the occasion of Gen. Lee’s death, I received your invitation to deliver an address on the 19th of January next, at the city of Vicksburg, the strongest impulses prompted me to an immediate and cordial acceptance. Subsequent reflection, however, showed me that I could not so regulate my engagements as to permit the making of a positive promise to be present on that proudly mournful occasion.
If my long delay in giving you a final answer seems strange, consider it as due to my anxious desire to avoid the necessity of relinquishing such an opportunity of giving voice to the emotions which fill my soul when contemplating the life that has just closed amid the tears of a nation’s sorrow.
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