Races of men--nations--even the lesser communities, during the periods of their social existence, erect monuments, or leave, unwillingly sometimes, traces of their progress, their advancement, their culture, as memorials for the admiration, or as the objects of horror for the contempt, of future generations. The gigantic pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt tell of the civilization of their extinct founders; the airy and graceful columns, with the wonderful sculptures of the Parthenon, disclose the degree of the perfection and the delicacy of the Greek mind. Rome, though long since vanished from among the nations of the earth, has left the impress of her force, grandeur, and wisdom in those laws which now direct the tribunals of men; the lofty and colossal structures of the temples of the Rhine are the emblems of faith as well as the masterpieces of the Gothic heart and intellect; even the mysterious and history-forgotten Druids have left their rude reminiscences in those weird circles of enormous and cyclopean rocks, beyond which all is darkness. Thus men perpetuate their memories among the annals of the earth. But after their long period of existence and progress, what have the Slave Faction left for the historian to contemplate with satisfaction? for an attentive world to study, imitate, and admire? What beyond this appalling cloud of ignorance have they left as legacy to the poor white? What besides misery, violence, and crime have they bequeathed to the black man? With what treasures, in the estimation of mankind, have they enriched themselves, or left as inheritance to their degenerate offspring? The history of this remorseless party, its selfish and sordid aims, its cruel results, will always find place among the annals of civilized man so long as the noblest acts of men are admired, and so long as the dark deeds of cruelty appall and overshadow our better nature. Thermopylæ, Marathon, and the holy sites where Liberty has struggled for existence, and where men have risen above the trammels of their earthly natures, will be remembered no longer than this field of blood and torture among the obscure forests of Georgia. XXXVI. Who will say that Nature and Liberty were the genii who directed the labors of the leaders of the Rebellion? Soil, climate, hereditary traditions, and customs of society, give to a people the fierceness and gentleness of character, as well as the perfection of mind and body. This fatal Stockade, with the silent mound of earth which contains its harvest of death, is a fair and just exponent of the bigoted and selfish policy that struck down the Flag of the Republic; of that cruel and unearthly spirit which has despised all the "attachments with which God has formed the chain of human sympathies," and which, without a tear of remorse, has strewn the Atlantic Ocean with a broad pathway of human bones! APPENDIX. NOTES.