Died for Their State." 119
" Died for Their State."
BY BENJAMIN J. WILLIAMS, ESQ., A WELL KNOWN GENTLEMAN, OF
MASSACHUSETTS.
[Lowell (Mass.) IVeekly Sun, June 5th, 1886.]
The communication printed below is from the pen of Mr. Benjamin J. Williams, of this city, and treats of a subject of deepest interest to the people of this country, North and South. It treats of Mr. Jeffer- son Davis and his connection with the Southern Confederacy from a Southern standpoint. The writer handles his subject in a manner un- familiar to our readers, who, if they do not agree with the sentiments expressed, will at least find it a very interesting- and instructive com- munication, particularly at this time.
Editor of the Sun :
Dear Sir, — The demonstrations in the South in honor of Mr. Jef- ferson Davis, the ex-President of the Confederate States, are certainly of a remarkable character, and furnish matter for profound considera- tion. Mr. Davis, twenty-one years after the fall of the Confederacy, suddenly emerging from his long retirement, journeys among his people to different prominent points, there to take part in public ob- servances more or less directly commemorative, respectively, of the cause of the Confederacy, and of those who strove and died for it, and everywhere he receives from the people the most overwhelming manifestations of heartfelt affection, devotion and reverence, ex- ceeding even any of which he was the recipient in the time of his power ; such manifestations as no existing ruler in the world can ob- tain from his people, and such as probably were never before given to a public man, old, out of office, with no favors to dispense, and disfranchised.
Such homage is significant, startling. It is given, as Mr. Davis himself has recognized, not to him alone, but to the cause whose chief representative he is. And it is useless to attempt to deny, dis- guise, or evade the conclusion that there must be something great, and noble, and true in him and in the cause to evoke this homage. As for Mr. Davis himself, the student of American history has not yet forgotten that it was his courage, self-possession and leadership, that in the very crisis of the battle at Buena Vista won for his country her proudest victory upon foreign fields of war ; that as secretary of
