OCR Text |
Show By W. V. Telegraph. SPEECH BY JEFFERSOS DAVIS. Augusta. Ga., May 26. In response to repeated calls and cheers from the populace outside the Planter's Hotel, Jefferson Davis made an appearance on the balcony, where he was introduced intro-duced by Henry W. Hilliard, Davis said that he recognized the peculiar claims of Georgia upon him, and of himself upon Georgia, for in the ancient an-cient city of Augusta his father had identified himself with the revolutionary revolution-ary struggle for liberty. If the later struggle for the principles of constitutional constitu-tional liberty was a crime, it was his misfortune to be a criminal, for which i he had fully suffered. He was aware of the eagerness with which every word he might utter was watched for and misrepresented. He would be silent, not from any apprehensions as to the 1 result to him individually, but because I his utterances were made to affect the Southern people. He did not conceive that the principles of the Lost Cause were dead, or that truth should re-i re-i main crushed. He counselled fortitude and patience, believing that the South could afford to be patient under her i wrongs until a returning sense of jus-' jus-' tice will have achieved the rights of ; every freeman, a period to which he confidently looked. With his present j feelings, he was fearful to trust himself him-self to speak, because he could not ; think one thing and speak another to his fellow citizens. He must speak as his heart moved him. He then bade them farewell, expressing, the hope that God would be with them. |