Clemson University - Taps Yearbook (Clemson, SC)

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338 THE CLEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE. England, but laid the foundations of a magnificent com- monwealth in the New World. Americans fought for liberty. Were they justified ? The glad answer of over seventy millions of people, in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, is, Yes ! a thousand times, yes ! War has followed, and must ever follow, when one part of a nation denies the inalienable rights of the other part; and so, less than half a century ago, the world was made to tremble, at a struggle between two parts of this natiou which had itself been founded by a war. Sons of the same country grappled at each other ' s throats in support of a cause that each thought to be just. Could either have refused battle to the other ? If the North had not fought for the idea of union which she firmly believed in, or the South not boldly maintained, before the world, rights under a constitution which her representatives mainly had helped to frame, — could the men of either section grasp the hands of the men of the other without a blush of shame ? No ! war, bloody as it proved to be was neces- sary to settle the differences when once they were brought prominently forward in the public consciousness. And to-day the heroism of both armies is the common heritage of the republic. Nor could the unparalleled prosperity of both parts of the nation, since that struggle, ever have been, or the cordial feeling that we may now safely pre- dict, ever have existed, without that struggle ? The Puritan of the North and the Cavalier of the South were cast in different moulds, and it was impossible for two such types of character, so widely divergent in customs and traditions, one or the other of which has stamped its impress on every State of the Union, to dwell together in peace. The contest had to come ; but in that meeting the two discordant elements were welded together into one homogeneous people, and pitiable indeed is he who

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THE CLEAISON COLLEGE CHRONICLE. 337 resign ourselves to the tranquil existence of the hermit and recluse, of old ; for life, as God means it for us, is a great battlefield where the two mightiest protagonists wage an inevitable war which will cease only when the essence of things are dissolved on that great day in the universal love of God, whose dwelling of light, truth, and love is alone free from the din of incessant strife. This battle of the soul, against darkness, doubt, des- pair, and the devil, as man began to recognize man as a fellow and comrade in the struggle, became the animat- ing principle of whole bodies of men, and sent them in armed battalions into the field of struggle for rights, lib- erties and common country. War had its origin in the early morning of history, when men banded themselves together for mutual protection. That the Old Testament is permeated with a warlike spirit needs no proof. Jehovah is known as the Lord of Hosts, and his commands to his people more frequently involve bloodshed than compromise. Did he not impose the extermination of the Canaanites upon his people as a sacred duty ? And all through the ages that have taught us that we are obeying his commands when we uphold a righteous cause. I need not tell you of the many wars of the dark ages in which the great concrete foundations of Christianity were laid : when Goth and Hun and Vandal invading the empire with fire and sword, came only to be conquered, and christianized whole armies at a time ; nor of the Cru- sades by which the coarseness of the West was brought into contact with the culture of the East; nor of the various other wars that have been factors in the advance- ment of civilization. Let me hasten to speak of later wars that have benefitted humanity, — of a revolution in England ' s colonies, that not only saved civil liberty in

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THE CLEMSOX COLLEGE CHRONICLE. 339 would strive to relight those smouldering embers of sec- tional opposition and party strife. The bitter cup has passed ; the last stumbling-block has been removed from our path of progress, and we can now move forward with a giant ' s stride to that high destiny for which the chas- tening hand of God has fitted us — the greatest nation and the grandest people in all the mighty tide of time. Still following the history of our own republic, I would bring to your notice, sirs, the h ighest and noblest cause for battle — battle for the sake of humanity — the chastise- ment of an effete and corrupt nation, and the liberation of a brave and struggling people. In Cuba, that Pearl of the Antilles. which Spain had won so proudly, but which she had so sadly misused, she was at last to find her Nemesis. For the murder of her own people ; for the blood of those slaughtered millions during the reign of the Inquisition, whose terrible cry of suffering could not be silenced, but came ringing down through the centuries, Spain incurred a terrible retribution. By the same stroke, the right to push forward in the march of civilization, and to enjoy the blessings of liberty. Spain goaded us by her taunts and insults, and buried our brave sailors in the putrid waters of Havana Harbor ; Cuba cried to us through her widows and orphans. Was war ever more necessary — ever morally more justified ? But consider furthermore, the beneficent results of this war upon our own people. The Spanish-American war has welded the Union together, as fifty years of peaceful days could not have done, and to-day, North and South are side by side, blazing the path of civilization into dis- tant and foreign lands. Whatever sectional bitterness and party strife existed by virtue of the Civil war has been swept away, and we now stand in the close communion of a common brotherhood.