Memphis Daily Appeal

CAMPEN, S. C., June 20.-The monument erected by the women of Kershaw county, in memory of the Confederate dead, was dedicated to-day with a grand military demonstration, in which twenty companies participated. Senators Hampton and Butler, and Gov. Thompson and other distinguished men were present. The ceremonies of unveiling consisted of an artillery salute, dedicatory prayer, an ode by the ladies and a memorial oration by Senator Hampton. Senator Hampton paid a tribute to the faith, devotion and patience of the Southern women, and said when the true history of the war shall be written, they would not only occupy the first place in our hearts, but the first in honor. They would always repel with scorn and indignation the imputation that monuments to Confederates marked the spot where traitors slept. We of the South were neither traitors nor rebels, nor was our war in any proper sense a rebellion. It was strictly a civil war, growing out of conflicting interests and different constructions of the constitution by opposing sections of the country. He maintained that the perfect union of the States contemplated by the fathers could never be possible if the citizens of one portion of the Republic are to be kept in that union merely on sufferance, tolerated, but suspected; contributing their full share to the support of the government, but not participating in its direction; bearing its burdens, but not sharing its honors, and feeling that in the home of their fathers they are but unwelcome intruders. He congratulated the country that the future was suspicious; that the scars of war were being obliterated by time, and demanded that our former enemies do justice to the motives that inspired our conduct. He believed if the settlement of war issues had been left to old soldiers the country would have been saved the shame and humiliation of reconstruction. He counseled obedience to the laws and to the supremacy of the constitution, and said: 'It requires only mutual forbearance, concession and generosity on the part of the late contending sections to bring about this result, and surely every statesman, every lover of his country, desires to see this end reached; and it can be attained without the loss of self-respect by any honorable man North or South, without any unmanly degradation, without the sacrifice of honest conviction or one cherished principle. The great questions which were at issue between the North and South, and which were left to the arbitrament of war, were decided against us, but the sword never has decided and never will decide the question involving a great principle. The final judgment as to the motives and actions of man rests with a higher tribunal than any one on this earth, and to that last great court of appeal must every question of right and wrong be submitted. For our convictions we are responsible alone to our consciences and to our God, hence there is no inconsistency in our giving to the constitution and laws under which we live an earnest, conscientious support, while we hold in tender reverence the memory of the men who died for a cause we held to be just and right.' The oration was received with much enthusiasm.