Our charge as Sons of Confederate Veterans"To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we submit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which made him glorious, and which you also cherish. Remember it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations." Lt. General Stephen Dill Lee - New Orleans, Louisiana April 24, 1906 "The Confederate Soldiers were our kinfolk and our heroes. We testify to the country our enduring fidelity to their memory. We commemorate their valor and devotion. There were some things that were not surrendered at Appomattox. We did not surrender our rights and history,nor was it one of the conditions of surrender that unfriendly lips should be suffered to tell the story of that war or that unfriendly hands should write the epitaphs of the Confederate dead. We have a right to teach our children the true history of that war, the causes that led up to it, and the principles involved." -Tennessee Senator Edward Ward Carmack, 1903. |