BRIDGING THE BLOODY CHASM

BY

JOHN SHARPE WILLIAMS

Senator John Sharpe Williams of Mississippi was for many years the floor leader of the Democratic party in the lower house of Congress and afterwards senator.

[Introduction. On the fifth of February, 1912, Senator John Sharpe Williams of Mississippi, called up Senate Bill No. 2925, providing for a Confederate Naval monument in Vicksburg National Park. Senator Heyburn of Idaho objected to its consideration. In reply, Mr. Williams said:]

"Mr. President, the bill under consideration proposes the erection in Vicksburg National Park, of a monument to the Confederate Naval Veterans. It embodies the recommendation of the Vicksburg National Park Commission, a majority of whom are ex-federal soldiers. It was introduced by me at the request of the ex-federal officer who is chairman of that commission. It received the unanimous vote of those members of the Military Affairs Committee who were present that day. The Senator from Idaho now objects to its consideration on the ground that it cannot be discussed without necessitating sentiments that engender bitterness. When he says that he may speak for himself,

but not for me. It can be discussed without engendering any bitterness from me, I am sure.

"Mr. President, there has been a great deal said of late about 'Bridging the Bloody Chasm,' and a great deal more about 'bringing a great reunited country to the front with all of its citizens actuated by the highest degree of common patriotism'; a great deal more about the 'magnanimity' which the victors, constituting one section, showed to the defeated, constituting the other half, after the war between the states. If this is to be mere lip service, and is not heart intended, it is about time we knew it.

"When I reflect, Mr. President, that at the very door of the Parliament House in Great Britain there stands a magnificent statue of Oliver Cromwell; when I reflect that the great general of the Boers, General Botha, was made Secretary of War in the South African Colonial Government; when I reflect that the war between the States has been over nearly a century, it seems to me that we Senators from the South, Confederate soldiers and sons of Confederate soldiers, ought not to be placed in the attitude in which this opposition places

us.

"During the war, the people of one group of the United States were on one side, the people of another group were on another side. They fought because they honestly differed upon subjects which have been settled by the greatest court in the world, the court of arms and for the most part that settlement has been incorporated in the Constitution of the United States in its amendments. Now, with that behind us, when a federal officer suggests the expenditure of a few dollars in order

to erect a monument to the valor of certain American citizens from other states, the gentleman from Idaho objects to a discussion of the measure for fear somebody will tread on the sacred memories in the minds of the people of the North. Surely. I am a too innocent and inoffensive looking creature to be charged with that offense. I have trod on nothing I know of. In fact, if the Senator from Idaho knew me better, he would know that I frequently step out of the way upon the sidewalk to keep from treading on an ant. I have no idea of treading on anything. I would not want to tread out the public service of the Senator from Idaho, even if I could.

"The gentleman complains that in order to erect this monument, we want 'to take money out of the treasury of the people of the United States.' In the name of God, Mr. President, are we down South not a part of the people of the United States? Have we not been ever since this country was colonized, except for four short years when we were not? Our forefathers built this union together. The South furnished its share. When American liberty wanted a pen, Thomas Jefferson furnished it; and when it wanted a tongue, Patrick Henry gave it; when it wanted a sword, George Washington wielded it; when the newly adopted Constitution needed a great intellect to stabilize it by legal decisions, John Marshall was the man who did it. And when later on we struck our enemies upon the stricken fields of battle, the heroes of that war as leaders were Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor, both Southerners. The only victories won in the War of 1812, on land, were won by Scott at Drury Lane and Andrew Jackson at

New Orleans. I am not boasting; I am merely answering the blind assumption, if you please, that a man can refer to the people of the United States now in the year of 1912 and forget that the people of the South were and are now part and parcel of the people of the United States. Whose money is this in the treasury if it is not proportionately ours as well as yours? Who placed it there? The people who bore the taxes placed it there. It is no more your treasury than mine; it is no more your government than mine. I never fired a shot in the war between the states; I never smelt gunpowder. I was not eleven years old until after Johnston's surrender. I have no doubt that if I had been born in time, there would have been a different result. But like the honorable gentleman, I served in the 'infantry in arms'. Perhaps also, if the gentleman from Idaho had been turned loose upon the battlefield, a different story might have been recorded in history. Lee's genius and Stonewall Jackson's valor would doubtless have gone down in short order. At any rate, if they had consented to debate the matter according to Senate Rules and placed the cause on the calendar, it would have taken them a long time to overcome the gentleman from Idaho. But the gentleman feels that the fact that we were not old enough to bear arms has no bearing on the question. He feels that the principle came to us as an inheritance and it is our duty to stand by it. But, Mr. President, when a man inherits more than his father feels, he is inheriting too much. The men who have fought in the war have buried their bitterness. They have held, every year, reunions of the Blue and the Gray, and each man is telling the other how

he honors his courage and valor, and when we of the new generation talk of inheriting more than they of the old fighting generation feel, we are inheriting too much. I sometimes feel that the last man who wants to render treason odious has been sent by the State of Idaho to the United States Senate. But let him not, I beg you, make it odious upon this little bit of granite that is to signalize the admiration and respect that the victors feel for the vanquished, and to be paid for out of the treasury which both sides and their descendants have built up as a reunited people. Let the resolution come to a vote. Let it be decided by those who represent Northern constituencies alone. Let us of the South stand aloof. If it does not come from the other side in magnanimity and affection, the bill is worth nothing. Let us see how far the talk about a 'reunited country' and 'bridging the bloody chasm' and about the 'Spanish War having buried all these things' is lip service, and how far it is heart religion. So far as I am concerned it is heart religion."