In Defense of the Southern Cause.
An Address Delivered By Judge George L. Christian
Southern Historical Society Papers.
Vol. XXVI. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1898.
Before the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans at the Annual Meeting held at Culpeper C. H., Va., October 4th, 1898, and published by Special Request of the Grand Camp.
Great wars have
been as landmarks in the progress of nations, measuring-points of growth or
decay. As crucibles they test the characters of peoples. Whether or not there is
fibre to bear the crush of battle, and the strain of long contest:--not only in
this determined; but also another matter, of yet more serious import, and of
deeper interest to the student of history and to a questioning posterity. The
grave investigator of to-day, searches the past to know whether man is of such
character, whether the causes for which he has fought are such, that the future
is always to be dark with "wars and rumors of war" He asks what men
have regarded as sufficient causes of war? He does not enquire whether "the
flying Mede" at Marathon, or the Greek with "his pursuing spear,"
are types of their nations: he rather seeks to know how the apparently
unimportant action of an insignificant city, provoked the great Persian
invasion. His question is, not whether Athens or Sparta bred the better soldier,
but he searches the records to find out the causes of the Peloponnesian war.
He does not consider whether
Vercingetorix, standing a captive in the presence of Caesar, was, after all, the
nobler leader; nor whether Attila at Chalons was a greater general than Aetius,
nor why the sword of Brennus turned the scale on that fateful day at Rome. He is
more concerned to know why the Roman legions marched so far, and why the world
threw off the imperial yoke. The causes of wars test yet more deeply than
conduct in the field, the characters of peoples, indicate yet more surely what
hopes of peace or fears of war lie in the future, to which we are advancing.
The foregoing considerations press on
no people on earth more heavily than on those of the Southern States of this
country. The question of the justice of the cause for which our Southern men
fought and our Southern women suffered, in the great war which convulsed this
country from '61 to '65, will always interest the philosophical historian, who
will seek to know the motive that prompted the tremendous efforts of those four
years, and the character of the men who fought so hard. It must command the
attention of Confederate soldiers and their descendants for all time to come.
During that contest, and for many
years after its close, there was no doubt as to this question in all our
Southern land, and this is the case with nearly all our mature and thinking
people to-day. I fear, however, that some of our children, misled by the false
teachings of certain histories used in some of our schools, may have some
misgivings on this all-important subject.
As Carthage had no historian, the
Roman accounts of the famous Punic wars had to be accepted. All the blame was,
as a matter of course, thrown on Carthage, and thus "Punica Fides"
became a sneering by-word to all posterity. And so it has been, until recently,
with the South. For many years after the war, our people were so poor, and so
busily engaged in" keeping the wolf from their doors," that they lost
sight of everything else. The shrewd, calculating, and wealthy Northerners, on
the other hand, realized the importance of trying to impress the rising
generation with the justice of their cause; and to that end they soon flooded
our schools with histories, containing their version of the contest, and in many
of these "all the blame" (as in the case of Carthage), is laid on the
South.
In view of these facts, I have
thought it not only not improper, but perhaps, a sacred duty, to call attention
to some things which have impressed me very much, and some which so far as I
know, have not heretofore been brought to the attention of our Southern people.
I shall not, in this address, discuss
the Confederate Cause from the standpoint of a Southerner at all. Indeed, this
has been done so thoroughly and ably by President Davis, Mr. Stephens, Dr.
Bledsoe, and others, as to leave but little, if anything to be said from that
point of view. I propose to set in order certain facts which will show: (1) What
the people of the North said and did during the war to establish the justice
of our Cause, and what they have said and done to the same end since its
close; and (2) What distinguished foreigners have said about that cause, and the
way the war was conducted on both sides. It seems to me that an answer to these
enquiries is worthy of the gravest consideration, and ought to make its
impression on any reflecting and unprejudiced mind.
I am profoundly thankful that in
these latter days, our own people have become aroused to the importance of
presenting the truth of this great struggle, and that the result has been to
produce some very good histories by Southern authors, giving the facts as to the
causes which led to the war, and those as to its conduct by both parties. For
these indispensable books, we are indebted almost solely to the influence of the
Confederate Camps and kindred organizations which have sprung up all over the
South.
Passing over the history up to the
year 1864, we find the people of the North were then greatly agitated on the
question of the propriety of the war, its further prosecution and the manner in
which it was being conducted by the administration then in power. The opposition
to the war and Lincoln's administration was led by Vallandingham, of Ohio, with
such bo1dness and ability as to cause his arrest and temporary imprisonment. In
the Presidential contest of that year, Lincoln and Johnson were the candidates
of the Republican, or war party, and McClellan and Pendleton were those of the
Democratic, or peace party. The convention which nominated McClellan and
Pendleton was one of the most representative bodies that ever assembled in this
country. It met in the city of Chicago on the 29th of August, 1864, with
Governor Horatio Seymour, of New York, as its chairman.
An idea of the temper of the
convention may be gathered from an extract from one of the speeches delivered in
it by Rev. C. Chauncey Burr, of New Jersey, which is as follows:
"We had no right to burn their
wheat-fields, steal their pianos, spoons or jewelry. Mr. Lincoln had stolen a
good many thousand negroes, but for every negro he had thus stolen, he had
stolen ten thousand spoons. It had been said that, if the South would lay down
their arms, they would be received back into the Union. The South could not
honorably lay down her arms, for she was fighting for her honor."
Mr. Horace Greeley says that Governor
Seymour, on assuming the chair, made an address showing the bitterest opposition
to the war; "but his polished sentences seemed tame and moderate by
comparison with the fiery utterances volunteered from hotel balconies, street
corners, and wherever space could be found for the gathering of an impromptu
audience; while the wildest, most intemperate utterances of virtual
treason--those which would have caused Lee's army, had it been present, to
forget its hunger and rags in an ecstacy of approval--were sure to evoke the
longest and loudest plaudits."
This convention adopted a platform
containing these, among other, remarkable declarations:
"That after four years of
failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the
pretence of a military necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution, the
Constitution has been disregarded in every part. Justice, humanity, liberty, and
the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for the cessation of
hostilities, with the ultimate convention of all the States, that these may
be restored on the basis of a federal union of all the States, that the
direct interference of the military authorities in the recent elections was a
shameful violation of the Constitution, and the repetition of such acts will be
held as revolutionary, and resisted; that the aim and object of the Democratic
party is to preserve the federal union and the rights of the States
unimpaired, and that they consider the administrative usurpation of
extraordinary and dangerous powers, not granted by the Constitution, as
calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union; that the shameful disregard of
the administration in its duty to our fellow-citizens--prisoners of
war--deserves the severest reprobation," &c., &c.
It will thus be seen that this
platform charged the party in power with the very offences which the people of
the South complained of and which caused the Southern States to secede. It
charged that the "Constitution had been disregarded in every part"; it
declared that "justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand
that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities "; it charged
the administration with the "usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous
powers, not granted by the Constitution "; it charged it with direct
interference in the elections, and with a shameful disregard of its duty to
prisoners of war. The platform claimed that the object of the party adopting it
was to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired.
In a word, the grievances here set
forth were those of which the South was then complaining, and the principles
sought to be maintained those for which the South was contending. And in
addition to these, the people of the South were then exercising the God-given
right and duty of defending their homes and firesides against an invasion as
ruthless as any that ever marked the track of so-called civilized warfare.
Mr. John Sherman tells us in his
"Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate, and Cabinet," that
prior to the adoption of this platform "there was apparent languor and
indifference among people of the North as to who should be president, but after
its adoption, there could be no doubt as to the trend of popular opinion."
Governor Seward said in a speech delivered a few days after the adoption of that
platform: "The issue is thus squarely made: McClellan and disunion, or
Lincoln and union."
So that the issue thus made by the
people of the North among themselves was really whether the war then being waged
by them against the South was right or wrong; and on that issue, thus clearly
presented, out of four millions of voters who went to the polls nearly one-half
said, in effect, that the war was wrong, and that the principles for which the
South was contending--the "rights of the States unimpaired "--were
right, and that their overthrow was to be resisted by all patriotic Americans.
Lincoln received 2,216,067 votes, whilst McClellan received 1,808,725 votes; the
latter receiving very nearly as many votes in the Northern States alone as
Lincoln had received in the whole country when he was elected in 1860, his vote
at that time being only 1,866,352.
I construe this as a condemnation of
their cause by nearly one-half the people of the North, "out of
their own mouths." It will be remembered that in this election the
soldiers in the field voted, and it is to be presumed, of course, voted in
support of the cause for Which they were then fighting.--which fact alone would
doubtless account for a very large part of the votes cast for Mr. Lincoln. In
this election, too, there was again the most shameless interference by the
military to carry the election for Mr. Lincoln. When we consider these facts, I
think the result was truly remarkable, and something for the Northern people to
think of now, when many of them so flippantly taunt the Southern people with
having been "rebels" and "traitors." Let them ask
themselves, did not the South have a just cause, and did not nearly one-half the
Northern people so pronounce at the time?
As a sample of the interference by
the military authorities in that election, General B. F. Butler tells us in his
book how he was sent by Mr. Stanton to New York with a military force to control
that city and State for Mr. Lincoln. He says he stationed his troops
conveniently near to every voting place in New York city, and that "he took
care that the Southerners should understand that means would be taken for their
identification, and that whoever of them should vote would be dealt with in such
a manner as to make them uncomfortable"; and "the result was," he
says, that "substantially no Southerners voted at the polls on election
day."
I think these figures and these facts
demonstrate that if this election had been a fair one, without the interference
of the military, a majority of the voters of the North would have said by their
votes that the war then being waged against the South was wrong, and
would therefore have stopped it of their own accord, because they were convinced
it was wrong, and contrary to "justice, humanity, liberty, and the
public welfare."
It is most interesting to notice the
vote in some of the great States of the North in this contest on the issue thus
presented. Notwithstanding the interference by the military, as above stated by
General Butler, the vote in New York was 368,726 for Lincoln and 361,986 for
McClellan, or a little over 6,000 majority for Lincoln and his cause. Can any
one doubt what the result would have been but for what General Butler says he
and his troops did? In Pennsylvania the vote was 296,389 for Lincoln, and
276,308 for McClellan. That in Ohio was 265,154 for Lincoln, and 205,568 for
McClellan. That in Indiana was 150,422 for Lincoln, and 130,233 for McClellan.
That in Illinois was 189,487 for Lincoln, and 158,349 for McClellan. That in
Wisconsin was 79,564 for Lincoln, and 63,875 for McClellan. In New Hampshire it
was 36,595 for Lincoln, and 33,034 for McClellan. In Connecticut it was 44,693
for Lincoln, and 42,288 for McClellan; and whilst McClellan got the electoral
votes of only New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, it is shown by the large vote
he polled in all the States that the feeling of the people of the North against
their cause was not confined to any State or locality, but pervaded the whole
country; nearly every State, except perhaps Massachusetts, Vermont, Kansas,
Maine and West Virginia, endorsing the war policy of the Republicans by smaller
majorities than they have since given to the same party on purely economic
issues. And just think of it, my comrades, that by a change of 209,000 in a vote
of more than four millions, a majority of the people of the North would have
voted that their cause was wrong, and that ours was consequently right.
The virulence with which McClellan's
campaign was conducted cannot be better illustrated than by incorporating here a
notice of a political meeting to be held during that canvass. This notice
recently appeared in a number of The Grand Army Record, and is as
follows:
"DEMOCRATS ONCE MORE TO THE BREACH!
Grand Rally at Bushnell, Friday, November 4th, 1864.
Hon. L. W. Ross, Major S. P. Cummings, T. E. Morgan, Joseph C. Thompson will address the people on the above occasion, and disclose to them the whole truth of the matter.
WHITE MEN OF McDONOUGH,
Who prize the Constitution of our Fathers; who love the
Union formed by their wisdom and compromise;
Brave men who hate the Rebellion of Abraham Lincoln, and are determined to
destroy it;
Noble women who do not want their husbands and sons dragged to the Valley of
Death by a remorseless tyrant;
Rally out to this meeting in your strength and numbers.
CENTRAL COMMITTEE."
Mr. Greeley, in
his American Conflict, says:
"It is highly probable that had
a popular election been held at any time during the year following the 4th of
July, 1862, on the question of continuing the war, or arresting it on the best
attainable terms, a majority would have voted for peace; while it is highly
probable that a still larger majority would have voted against
emancipation."
The same writer shows, too, not only
how the successes or failures of the Northern armies served as the financial
gauge which marked the price of their gold from time to time, but that these
same successes or failures told in the elections the measure of the devotion of
the Northern people to their cause.
Not so with the people of the South,
who, in the darkest period of the war, February, 1865, and with a unanimity
never surpassed, resolved that their cause was the "holiest of all
causes," and declared their resolution "to spare neither their blood
nor their treasure in its maintenance and support." And even now, a third
of a century after that cause went down in defeat, but not in dishonor, its
memories, though shrouded in sadness, are still a sacred and living factor in
their lives and being.
Just at this point I desire to
consider what was said of our cause, especially of the "right of
secession," and of the conduct of the war on both sides, by a distinguished
English nobleman who, it must be presumed, wrote from an unprejudiced
standpoint.
In a work called The Confederate
Secession, written by the Marquis of Lothian, and published in 1864 in
Edinburgh and London, that writer, after reciting and discussing with remarkable
accuracy and ability the grievances of the Southern States, and the cause which
led to their secession from the Union, uses this language:
"I believe that the right of
secession is so clear that if the South had wished to do so, for no better
reason than that it could not bear to be beaten in an election, like a sulky
school-boy out of temper at not winning a game, and had submitted the question
of its right to withdraw from the Union to the decision of any court of law in
Europe, she would have carried her point."
He then draws the following vivid
contrast between the way war was conducted by the two parties. He says:
"Let us however suppose the
Southern Secession to have been altogether illegal and uncalled for, or rather
let us turn away our eyes from the question altogether, and suppose that the
causes of the struggle are veiled in obscurity. Can we find anything in the
circumstances of the war itself which may induce us to take one side rather than
the other? Those circumstances have been very remarkable. This contest has been
signalized by the exhibition of some of the best and some of the worst qualities
that war has ever brought out. It has produced a recklessness of human life; a
contempt of principles, a disregard of engagements; a wasteful expenditure
almost unprecedented; a widely extended corruption among the classes who have
any connection with the government or the war; an enormous debt, so enormous as
to point to almost certain repudiation; the headlong adoption of the most
lawless measures; the public faith scandalously violated both towards friends
and enemies; the liberty of the citizen at the mercy of arbitrary power; the
liberty of the press abolished: the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act;
illegal imprisonments; midnight arrests; punishments inflicted without trial;
the courts of law controlled by satellites of government; elections carried on
under military supervision; a ruffianism both of word and action eating deep
into the country; contractors and stock jobbers suddenly amassing enormous
fortunes out of the public misery, and ostentatiously parading their ill-gotten
wealth in the most vulgar display of luxury; the most brutal inhumanity in the
conduct of the war itself; outrages upon the defenceless, upon women, children
and prisoners; plunder, rapine, devastation, murder,--all the old horrors of
barbarous warfare, which Europe is beginning to be ashamed of, and new
refinements of cruelty thereto added, by way of illustrating the advance of
knowledge. It has also produced qualities and phenomena the opposite of these.
Ardour and devotedness of patriotism which might, alone be enough to make us
proud of the century to which we belong; a unanimity such as has probably never
been witnessed before; a wisdom in legislation; a stainless good faith under
extremely difficult circumstances; a clear appreciation of danger, coupled with
a determination to face it to the uttermost; a resolute abnegation of power in
favor of leaders in whom those who selected them could trust; with an equally
resolute determination to reserve the liberty of criticism, and not to allow
those trusted leaders to go one inch beyond their legal powers: a heroism in the
field and behind the defences of besieged cities, which can match anything that
history has to show; a wonderful helpfulness in supplying needs and creating
fresh resources; a chivalrous and romantic daring, which recalls the middle
ages: a most scrupulous regard for the rights of hostile property; a tender
consideration for the vanquished and the weak; a determination not to be
provoked into retaliation by the most brutal injuries, which makes one wonder,
recollecting what those injuries have been, whether in their place, one would
have done as they have done. * * * And the remarkable circumstance is * * *
that all the good qualities have been on the one side, and all the bad ones on
the other."
In other words, he says that all the
bad qualities were on the side of the North, and all the good on that of the
South. He then says of the South:
"I am not going a hair's-breadth
beyond what I soberly and sincerely believe, in saying that the Confederates
have in almost every respect, surpassed anything that has ever been known.
"The most splendid instance of a
nation's defence of its liberties that the world has seen before the present
day, was perhaps (I am not sure, but I think so), that of Sicily at the end of
the thirteenth century: and the Confederates stand much above the
Sicilians."
He then goes on to enumerate the
splendid instances of sacrifice and devotion of the people, especially of the
women of the South, and of the valor and heroism of the soldiers in the field,
but to recount these, would consume more space than would be profitable in this
discussion.
That this writer was not singular in
his opinions, in regard to our struggle, is manifest from what Mr. Justin
McCarthy tells us in the second volume of his "History of our own
Times." McCarthy was evidently an ardent sympathizer with the North, and
yet he says that in England "the vast majority of what are called the
governing classes, were on the side of the South;" that "by far the
greater number of the aristocracy of the official world, of Members of
Parliament, of Military and Naval men were for the South;" that
"London Club life was virtually Southern;" and that "the most
powerful papers in London, and the most popular papers as well, were open
partizans of the Southern Confederation."
Lord Russell said the contest was one
"in which the North was striving for empire, and the South for
independence."
Mr. Gladstone said, our President,
Mr. Davis, "had made an army, had made a navy, and had made a nation."
And it is as certain as anything that
did not happen can be, that but for the fall of Vicksburg, and our failure to
succeed at Gettysburg in July, 1863 (both of which disasters came on us at the
same time), Mr. Roebuck's motion in Parliament for recognition by England, which
the Emperor Napoleon also was working hard to bring about, would have been
carried, and the Confederacy would then have been recognized by both England and
France. This recognition would have raised the blockade, and this was all the
South needed to insure its success. For as a distinguished Northern writer, from
whom I shall presently quote, said, "without their navy to blockade our
ports, they never could have conquered us."
Mr. Percy Greg, the justly famous
English historian, says:
"If the Colonies were entitled
to judge of their own cause, much more were the Southern States. Their
rights--rights not implied, assumed, or traditional, like those of the Colonies,
but expressly defined and solemnly guaranteed by law--had been flagrantly
violated; the compact which alone bound them, had beyond question, been
systematically broken for more than forty years by the States which appealed to
it."
After showing the perfect regularity
and legality of the Secession movement, he then says: "It was in defence of
this that the people of the South sprang to arms 'to defend their homes and
families, their property and their rights, the honor and independence of their
States to the last, against five fold numbers and resources a hundred fold
greater than theirs.'"
He says of the cause of the North:
"The cause seems to me as bad as
it well could be; the determination of a mere numerical majority to enforce a
bond, which they themselves had flagrantly violated, to impose their own mere
arbitrary will, their idea of national greatness, upon a distinct, independent,
determined and almost unanimous people."
And he then says, as Lord Russell
did:
"The North fought for empire
which was not and never had been hers; the South for an independence she had won
by the sword, and had enjoyed in law and fact ever since the recognition of the
thirteen 'sovereign and independent States,' if not since the foundation of
Virginia. Slavery was but the occasion of the rupture, in no sense the
object of the war." Let me add a statement which will be confirmed by
every veteran before me,--no man ever saw a Virginia soldier who
was fighting for slavery.
This writer then speaks Of the
conduct of the Northern people as "unjust, aggressive, contemptuous of law
and right," and as presenting a striking contrast to the "boundless
devotion, uncalculating sacrifice, magnificent heroism and unrivalled endurance
of the Southern people."
But I must pass on to what a
distinguished Northern writer has to say of the people of the South, and their
cause, twenty-one years after the close of the war. The writer is Benjamin J.
Williams, Esq., of Lowell, Massachusetts, and the occasion which brought forth
his paper (addressed to the Lowell Sun) was the demonstration to President Davis
when he went to assist in the dedication of a Confederate monument at
Montgomery, Ala. He says of Mr. Davis:
"Everywhere he receives from the
people the most overwhelming manifestation of heartfelt affection, devotion and
reverence, exceeding even any of which he was the recipient in the time of his
power; such manifestations as no existing ruler in the world can obtain from his
people, and such as probably were never given before to a public man, old, out
of office, with no favors to dispense, and disfranchised. Such homage is
significant; it is startling. It is given, as Mr. Davis himself has recognized,
not to him alone, but to the cause whose chief representative he is, and it is
useless to attempt to deny, disguise or evade the conclusion, that there must be
something great and noble and true in him and in the cause to evoke this
homage."
This writer then goes on to review
Mr. Davis's career, both before and during the war, pays a splendid tribute to
his character as a man, and his genius and ability as a soldier and statesman;
says even Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, referred to him in a speech made
during the war, as the "clear-headed, practical, dominating Davis."
And after referring to the proud and defiant spirit of Mr. Davis, and his
splendid bearing both in the last days of the Confederacy and after his arrest
and imprisonment, he says:
"The seductions of power or
interest may move lesser men, that matters not to him; the cause of the
Confederacy is a fixed moral and constitutional principle, unaffected by the
triumph of physical force, and he asserts it to-day as unequivocally as when he
was seated in its executive chair at Richmond, in apparently irreversible power,
with its victorious legions at his command."
Mr. Davis, in' his speech on the
occasion referred to, alluded to the fact that the monument then being erected
was to commemorate the deeds of those "who gave their lives a free-will
offering in defence of the rights of their sires, won in the War of the
Revolution, the State sovereignty, freedom and independence which were left to
us as an inheritance to their posterity forever."
Mr. Williams says of this definition:
"These masterful words, 'the
rights of their sires, won in the War of the Revolution, the State sovereignty,
freedom and independence, which were left to us as an inheritance to their
posterity forever,' are the whole case, and they are not only a statement but a
complete justification of the Confederate cause, to all who are acquainted with
the origin and character of the American Union."
He then proceeds to tell how the
Constitution was adopted and the government formed by the individual States,
each acting for itself, separately, and independently of the others, and then
says:
"It appears, then, from this
review of the origin and character of the American Union, that when the Southern
States, deeming the Constitutional compact broken, and their own safety and
happiness in imminent danger in the Union, withdrew therefrom and organized
their new Confederacy, they but asserted, in the language of Mr. Davis, ' the
rights of their sires, won in the War of the Revolution, the State sovereignty,
freedom and independence, which were left to us as an inheritance to their
posterity forever,' and it was in defence of this high and sacred cause that the
Confederate soldiers sacrificed their lives. There was no need of war. The
action of the Southern States was legal and Constitutional, and history will
attest that it was reluctantly taken in the last extremity."
He now goes on to show how Mr.
Lincoln precipitated the war, and describes the unequal struggle in which the
South was engaged in these words:
"After a glorious four years'
struggle against such odds as have been depicted, during which independence was
often almost secured, where successive levies of armies, amounting in all to
nearly three millions of men, had been hurled against her, the South, shut off
from all the world, wasted, rent and desolate, bruised and bleeding, was at last
overpowered by main strength; out-fought, never; for from first to last, she
everywhere out-fought the foe. The Confederacy fell, but she fell not until she
had achieved immortal fame. Few great established nations in all time have ever
exhibited capacity and direction in government equal to hers, sustained as she
was by the iron will and fixed persistence of the extraordinary man who was her
chief; and few have ever won such a series of brilliant victories as that which
illuminates forever the annals of her splendid armies, while the fortitude and
patience of her people, and particularly of her noble women, under almost
incredible trials and sufferings, have never been surpassed in the history of
the world."
And he then adds:
"Such exalted character and
achievement are not all in vain. Though the Confederacy fell, as an actual
physical power, she lives illustrated by them, eternally in her just
cause--the cause of constitutional liberty."
Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, one of the
present Senators from Massachusetts, in his life of Webster, says:
"When the Constitution was
adopted by the votes of the States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the States
in popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the
country, from Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and
George Mason on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an
experiment entered upon by the States, from which each and every State had the
right peaceably to withdraw--a right which was very likely to be
exercised."
And I heard Mr. James C. Carter, of
New York, but a native of New England, and one of the greatest lawyers in this
country, in his address recently delivered at the University of Virginia, say:
"I may hazard the opinion that
if the question had been made, not in 1860, but in 1788, immediately after the
adoption of the Constitution, whether the Union, as formed by that instrument,
could lawfully treat the secession of a State as rebellion, and suppress it by
force, few of those who participated in framing that instrument would have
answered in the affirmative."
These are clear and candid admissions
on the part of these distinguished Northerners that the Southern States had the
right to secede as they did, and were, therefore, right in regard to the real
issue involved in the war between the States.
There is but one other fact to which
I desire to call attention in this connection, and while it has often been
referred to, it cannot be too deeply impressed upon the minds of our people, and
ought, it seems to me, to be conclusive of this whole question--and that is, the
refusal of the Northern people to test the question of the right of secession by
a trial of President Davis; and this, notwithstanding the fact that since the
cry, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" went up at Jerusalem, nearly two
thousand years ago, I believe there never was a time when a whole people were
more willing to punish one man than were the people of the North, who were in
favor of the war, to punish Mr. Davis for his alleged crimes as the leader of
our cause and people.
Mr. Davis was captured on or about
the l0th of May, 1865, near Washington, Ga., and straightway taken to and
confined in a casemate at Fortress Monroe. To show how eagerly these war people
of the North demanded his life, they attempted first to implicate him in the
assassination of Mr. Lincoln. It was even charged in a proclamation issued by
the President of the United States that the evidence of Mr. Davis's connection
with that atrocious crime "appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military
Justice." This evidence consisted for the most part of affidavits of
witnesses secured by that vile wretch, Judge Advocate General Holt. A committee
of the then Republican Congress says of these:
"Several of these witnesses,
when brought before the committee, retracted entirely the statements which they
had made in their affidavits, and declared that their testimony as originally
given was false in every particular."
Utterly failing in the attempt to
connect Mr. Davis with this crime, they then tried to involve him in the alleged
cruelty to prisoners at Andersonville, and a reprieve was offered to the
commandant of the prison, Wirz, the night before he was hung, if he would
implicate Mr. Davis,--which offer the brave Captain indignantly refused.
It was only after every attempt to
connect Mr. Davis with other crimes had failed, that the authorities at
Washington dared to have him indicted for the alleged crime of treason. Three
several indictments for this offence were then set on foot. The first was found
in the District of Columbia, but no process seems ever to have been issued on
that. The second was found May 8th, 1866, at Norfolk, Va., in the Circuit Court
of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia, then presided over by
the infamous Judge Underwood; and as Underwood himself tells us, this indictment
was found after consultation with, and by the direction of Andrew Johnson, the
then President of the United States. Almost immediately on the finding of this
indictment, Mr. William B. Reed, a distinguished lawyer from Philadelphia,
appeared for Mr. Davis, and asked: "What is to be done with this
indictment? Is it to be tried?"
* * "If it is to be tried, may
it please your honor, speaking for my colleagues and for myself and for my
absent client, I say with emphasis, and I say with earnestness, we come here
prepared instantly to try that case, and we shall ask no delay at your honor's
hands further than is necessary to bring the prisoner to face the Court, and
enable him under the statute in such case made and provided, to examine the bill
of indictment against him."
At the instance of the Government,
the case was then continued until October, 1866. Although efforts were made by
Mr. Davis's counsel to have him admitted to bail, or removed to some more
comfortable quarters, neither of these could be accomplished until May 13th,
1867, when he was admitted to bail, after a cruel imprisonment of two years,
Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith and other distinguished Northerners then becoming
his sureties.
On the 26th March, 1868, another
indictment for treason was found against him, which was continued from time to
time until November, 1868. During the pendency of these indictments, the 14th
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was adopted, the third
section of which provides, that every person who, having taken an oath to
support the Constitution of the United States, and thereafter engaged in
rebellion, should be disqualified from holding certain offices. Counsel for Mr.
Davis then raised the question that Mr. Davis having taken an oath to support
the Constitution of the United States as a member of Congress in 1845, the 14th
Amendment prescribed the punishment for afterwards engaging in rebellion, and
this was pleaded in bar of the pending prosecutions for treason. The reporter
says this defence was "inspired and suggested from the highest official
source--not the President of the United States." In other words, it was
inspired and suggested by the Chief Justice himself, as shown during the course
of the argument, and for the sole purpose of evading the trial of the issue of
the right of a State to secede, which was necessarily involved in the charge of
alleged treason. On the question thus raised, the Court divided, the Chief
Justice being of the opinion that the defence set up was a bar to the
indictment, and Judge Underwood being of the contrary opinion. On this division,
the question was certified to the Supreme Court, where, in the language of the
reporter, "the certificate of disagreement rests among the records of the
Court undisturbed by a single motion for either a hearing or dismissal."
It is a part of the history of the
times, to use the language of a distinguished writer, that "the authorities
at Washington and Chief Justice Chase himself decided after full consideration
and consultation with the ablest lawyers in the country that the charge of
treason could not be sustained, and so the distinguished prisoner, who was
anxious to go into trial and vindicate himself and his cause before the world,
was admitted to bail, and finally a nolle prosequi was entered in the
case."
I repeat that these proceedings are a
virtual confession on the part of the Northern people, that they were wrong, on
the real question at issue in the war, and therefore that the South was right.
At this time, when a few men at the
North are broad enough and bold enough to speak of some of the great leaders of
the Southern cause as great and good men, and when, just because they were
leaders in that cause, these opinions are seized upon, by those who still hate
and defame us, as evidence of disloyalty, if not acts of criminality on the part
of those who venture to express them, it seems to me, it is pertinent again to
enquire of the Northern people--
(1) What did nearly one-half of your
own voters think of that cause, not thirty-two years after, but when the war was
raging, and when all the passions enkindled, and horrors wrought by it, were
fresh in the minds of those voters?
(2) What did enlightened,
distinguished and unprejudiced foreigners think of that cause; the way the war
was waged, and the conduct of the leaders, and the people on both sides at that
time?
(3) What do some of your most
intelligent and distinguished writers think now of that cause, and its great
civil leader?
(4) And why did the people of the
North refuse to test the question of which side was right, when they had
instituted the case for that purpose in their own courts?
It seems to me, that the facts here
set forth furnish such answers to these enquiries as ought to give pause to
those of the North, who still love to revile and defame the people of the South;
many doubtless delighting in this task now, who did not dare to come to the
front when their professed views of duty called them there; some of whom have
been convinced of the justice of their cause, only by the savor of the
"flesh pots," and the allurements of the pension rolls, which the
results of the war and the achievements of others, have put within their grasp.
I would fain hope too, that these
pregnant facts will be pondered by our young people of the South, and if there
be more than one young Southerner who has said, as I heard that one did say not
long ago, of his old Confederate father, "the old man actually thinks he
was right in the war, "--that these facts will make any such, not only feel
and know that the cause of the South was right, and that the people of
the South, almost as a unit, espoused and loved that cause, but that as true men
they love it still, and that their children ought to feel alike proud of that
cause and those who defended it with their lives, their blood and their
fortunes.
As some of the writers to whom I have
referred have said: 'There never was a people engaged in any struggle who were
more united or determined than were the people of the South, in behalf of the
cause of the Confederacy.' They almost to a man, and certainly to a woman,
believed in that cause, and as I have said, supported it with their lives, their
blood and their fortunes. The sayings that "might makes right," and
that "success is a test of merit," have grown into proverbs. But there
never were more fallacious and misleading statements than these.
Appomattox was not a judicial forum,
but a battle-field, a simple test of physical power, where the Army of Northern
Virginia, "worn out with victory," and almost starving, surrendered
its arms to "overwhelming numbers and resources."
Therefore, I say that, so far as the
way the war ended is concerned, it proves, and can prove, nothing as to which
side was right or which was wrong. As we have seen, our enemies brought us into
their own courts, thus proclaiming to the world that they were ready and willing
to test the question judicially, and after advising with the highest authorities
on their side, of their own motion, abandoned their case, and fled from the
precincts of their own chosen tribunals. We were in their power, and could do
nothing but accept this, their own virtual confession that they, were wrong.
We need not fear, then, to submit our
cause, or the way we conducted the war in its defence, to the muse of history,
and to await her verdict with "calm confidence." Every day not only
adds new lustre to the heroism and devotion of our people, and the achievements
of our armies in the field, but rewards the researches of the unprejudiced
historian with new and more convincing proofs of the justice of our cause. What
are thirty years in the life of a nation? It was nearly two thousand years from
the time when Arminius overcame the legions of Varus in the Black Forest of
Germany before a statue was reared to the memory of that victor, and he was
called the "Father of the Fatherland." It was less than two hundred
years from the time when Charles the II came to his own, when the principles for
which Cromwell and Hampden and Pym fought were recognized by all English
speaking peoples, as the only ones on which constitutional liberty ever can
rest.
OUR DEFENDERS.
Having said so
much about our cause, I have only time to add a few words about the defenders of
that cause.
And first, what shall I say, aye,
what can I say, of the women of the South? For they were among the first, and
will be the last defenders of that cause. I have no words in which to portray
the admiration I feel, and the homage I would love to pay to these devoted
patriots. Writers have often tried to set forth the story of their services and
sacrifices, but have turned away baffled at the contemplation of the task. Poets
who have sung the achievements of heroes and warriors have found verse all too
feeble to translate their loving deeds into song, and minstrels with harps
well-nigh attuned to suit the Angelic Choir, have before that theme stood
hesitant and abashed, with nerveless fingers and silent strings. It has been
proposed to rear a monument to these noble women. I would love to contribute my
mite to this undertaking. But I know too well that the highest conception of
artistic genius can never measure up to the task of fitly portraying to the
world the patriotism, heroism, devotion, and sacrifices of the noble women of
the Southland. They were and are, in the language of Wordsworth:
"Perfect women, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort and command."
And what can I
say of our leaders in that cause? It is no small thing to be able to say of them
that they were cultivated men, without fear, and without reproach, and most of
them the highest types of Christian gentlemen; that they were men whose
characters have borne the inspection and commanded the respect of the world.
Yes, the names of Davis, of Lee, of Jackson, the Johnstons, Beauregard, Ewell,
Gordon, Early, Stuart, Hampton, Magruder, the Hills, Forrest, Cleburne, Polk,
and a thousand others I could mention, will grow brighter and brighter, as the
years roll on, because no stain of crime or vandalism is linked to those names;
and because those men have performed deeds which deserve to live in history. And
what shall I say of the men who followed these leaders? I will say this, without
the slightest fear of contradiction from any source: They were the most
unselfish and devoted patriots that ever marched to the tap of the drum, or
stood on the bloody front of battle. The northern historian, Swinton, speaks of
them as the "incomparable infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia."
Colonel Dodge, a distinguished Federal officer, in his lecture on
Chancellorsville, before the "Lowell Institute" in Boston, says:
"The morale of the Confederate
army could not have been finer." * * * "Perhaps no infantry was ever,
in its peculiar way, more permeated with the instinct of pure fighting--ever
felt the gaudiam certaminis more than the Army of Northern
Virginia."
Another gallant Federal colonel thus
wrote of them:
"I take a just pride as an
American citizen, a descendant on both sides of my parentage of English stock,
who came to this country about 1640, that the Southern army, composed almost
entirely of Americans, were able, under the ablest American chieftains, to
defeat so often the overwhelming hosts of the North, which were composed largely
of foreigners to our soil; in fact, the majority were mercenaries whom large
bounties induced to enlist, while the stay-at-home patriots, whose money bought
them, body and boots, 'to go off and get killed, instead of their own precious
selves, said let the war go on.'"
Another Federal officer, writing
after the battle of Chancellorsville, says:
"Their artillery horses are
poor, starved frames of beasts, tied to their carriages and caissons with odds
and ends of rope and strips of rawhide; their supply and ammunition trains look
like a congregation of all the crippled California emigrant trains that ever
escaped off the desert out of the clutches of the rampaging Comanche Indians;
the men are ill-dressed, ill-equipped and ill-provided--a set of ragamuffins
that a man would be ashamed to be seen among even when he is a prisoner and
can't help it; and yet they have beaten us fairly, beaten us all to pieces,
beaten us so easily that we are objects of contempt even to their commonest
private soldiers, with no shirts to hang out the holes of their pantaloons, and
cartridge boxes tied around their waists with strands of rope."
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, of New York,
in his life of Benton, says:
"The world has never seen better
soldiers than those who followed Lee, and their leader will undoubtedly rank as,
without any exception, the very greatest of all great captains that the English
speaking peoples have brought forth; and this, although the last and chief of
his antagonists, may himself claim to stand as the full equal of Marlborough and
Wellington."
And last, but not least, General
Grant, to whom Mr. Roosevelt referred above, speaks of these soldiers in his
Memoirs as "the men who had fought so bravely, so gallantly and so long for
the cause which they believed in."
I might add a thousand similar
commendations from those who fought us, but I cannot consume more of your time.
If you have not done so, I advise you by all means to procure and read The
Recollections of a Private, by a Northern soldier named Wilkinson, who was
in the "Army of the Potomac" during Grant's campaign from the Rapidan
to Petersburg, and describes, in a most entertaining and thrilling way, his
experiences in that army. Without intending it at all, I believe, and only
telling in his own style, the way in which that army was organized, controlled,
and fought, his recitals are a panegyric on the Army of Northern Virginia and
the glorious leaders of that army.
The London Index has this to
say of our army and our people:
"Let it be remarked, that while
other nations have written their own histories, the brief history of this army,
so full of imperishable glory, has been written for them by their enemies, or at
least by luke-warm neutrals. Above all, has the Confederate nation distinguished
itself from its adversaries by modesty and truth, those noblest ornaments of
human nature. A heart-felt, unostentatious piety has been the source whence this
army and people have drawn their inspiration of duty, of honor and of
consolation."
The Marquis of Lothian, from whom I
have already quoted, said:
"There are few stories that
history or tradition has handed down of valor and generosity which may not find
something of a counterpart in the annals of this war. Parents sending forth
their children, one after another, to die in the service of their country,
without a murmur; delicate ladies leaving home to wait upon their countrymen in
hospitals; stripping their homes of everything that could by any possibility
promote the comfort of the troops, and working their fingers to the bone to
making clothing for them;" * * * "individuals raising regiments at
their own expense, and then serving in them as privates; school-boys and
collegians forming themselves into companies, and volunteering for service;
common soldiers in regiments giving up their pay in order to procure what was
required for the sick and wounded." * * * "In their daring, as well as
in their self-sacrifice, things are constantly done which in most countries
would be made the theme for endless vaunting, but with them are passed over as
matter of course, and as almost too common to be specially noticed."
Many such just and generous opinions
might be quoted from like sources; but again I must forbear. You will observe
that, as I was content to rest the justice of our cause on what our enemies and
foreigners had to say of it, so I have been content to rest the conduct of our
people, and of our armies, upon the testimony of the same witnesses, and on
these alone. Let us leave the praise that ever waits on noble deeds to be
fashioned
"By some yet unmoulded tongue
Far on in summer's that we shall
not see."
During his first campaign in Italy
Napoleon, in writing of his soldiers, uses this language, which to my mind
strikingly describes the soldiers which composed our Southern armies. He says:
"They jest with danger and laugh
at death; and if anything can equal their intrepidity it is the gaiety with
which, singing alternately songs of love and patriotism, they accomplish the
most severe forced marches. When they arrive in their bivouac it is not to take
their repose, as might be expected, but to tell each his story of the battle of
the day and produce his plan for that of to-morrow; and many of them think with
great correctness on military subjects. The other day I was inspecting a
demibrigade, and as it filed past me, a common Chasseur approached my horse and
said, 'General, you ought to do so and so.' 'Hold your peace, you rogue,' I
replied. He disappeared immediately, nor have I since been able to find him out.
But the manoeuvre which he recommended was the very same which I had privately
resolved to carry into execution."
And so I heard a distinguished
Confederate soldier say that a private in the Army of Northern Virginia, sitting
on the side of the mountain, outlined to him one evening the whole plan of the
battle which was executed by the commanding general on the following day.
One by one the soldiers of the
Confederate armies are passing into history. Whilst they go, not like those of
the 10th Legion or the Phalanx, the representatives of victorious warfare; yet
they will go as the defenders of a cause, which not only unprejudiced
foreigners, but many of their former enemies, both during and since the
conflict, have pronounced just and right; as soldiers who did' their duty and
whose defence of that cause was such as to challenge the admiration of the
world. I thank God that there is not linked with the names of these men, the
crimes of vandalism, which so often brought forth the "widow's wail and the
orphan's cry," and which so marked the desolated track of those against
whom they fought.
I thank God too, that no pension
scandal has ever linked its corrupt and corrupting touch to the name of the
Confederate soldier; that his support is not a menace to the public treasury,
but that he has "hoed his own row" and so lived as to command the
respect of the world, and not by the help of the tax-gatherer, and amid the
sneers and contempt of a long suffering and grateful people.
Whilst the cause for which they
fought is a "lost cause" in the sense that they failed to establish a
separate government within certain geographical limits, yet it is only lost in
that sense. The principles of that cause yet live, and the deeds done by its
defenders were not done in vain.
No my friends,
"Freedom's battle once begun
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won."
And now, my comrades, I must stop to
say one word for myself and for you, about the true and noble people of this
battle-scarred, but still beautiful old county of Culpeper, in which it is our
privilege to meet, and to greet one another on this interesting occasion. The
record of this glorious people, won in the war of the Revolution, was completely
eclipsed by that made by them in the Confederate war, and whilst "Cedar
Mountain," "Brandy Station," and a hundred other fields will ever
attest the heroism and devotion of the Confederate soldier, there is not a home
or hamlet here that could not tell its story of the heroism, hospitality and
devotion of her Confederate men and women.
It is with a sense of peculiar pride
and pleasure then that we meet here to-night, not only with some of the
survivors of those who stood shoulder to shoulder on those bloody fields, but
with those men and women, and the descendants of those, who amidst the glare of
their burning homes, and the threats and tortures of a ruthless and relentless
foe, remained unwavering and unconquerable, and who are still true to principle
and to right. Yes, my old comrades, we stand upon historic ground to-night. The
rocky defiles of these mountains have echoed and re-echoed the thunders of
artillery and the rattle of musketry amidst the ringing commands of Lee and
Jackson, and the flashing, knightly sabres of Ashby, Stuart and Hampton. Here
banner and plume have waved in the mountain breeze, whilst helmet and blade and
bayonet were glittering in the morning sun; and here too, ah, shame to tell,
history will record many a thrilling tale of outrage inflicted upon this
defenceless people by the mercenary hordes of the North, permitted and
encouraged by the remorseless cruelty and unquenchable ambition of some of their
leaders. Just think of the almost infinite distance between the places these
leaders will occupy in history, and those already occupied by those immortal and
incomparable commanders, who sleep side by side at Lexington, and whose fame
will grow brighter and brighter as the years roll by. As the conquerers of
Hannibal, of Cæsar, and Napoleon have been almost forgotten amid the effulgence
which will forever cling to the names of these illustrious, though vanquished
leaders, so in the ages to come, the fame of Lee, of Jackson, the Johnstons,
Stuart, Ashby and others will outshine that of Grant, Sheridan and Sherman
"like the Sun 'mid Moon and Stars."
In the few hours that I could spare
from the cares and engagements of a busy life, I have thought it worth the while
to gather up the fragments of testimony which I have given you to-day as to the
justice of our cause, and the conduct of the defenders of that cause, not by way
of presenting to you any arguments of mine on these all-important themes; but to
show you some of the acts and confessions of our quondam enemies
themselves, and of distinguished foreigners. These constitute the highest and
the best evidence which the law recognizes for the establishment of the truth of
any fact. And I want you, and the young people here especially, to think on
these things. Yes, my young friends, this cause, which is thus, as I think, established
to be right, is the one for which a third of a century ago, your
fathers fought, and your mothers worked and wept, and prayed. They thought they
were right then, they know they were right now.
And I want to say, in conclusion,
that to think and feel, as we think and feel about the Confederate cause, does
not mean that we are disloyal citizens of our now united and common country. But
on the contrary, it is just in proportion as we are true and loyal to the cause
of the South, that we will be true and faithful citizens of our country to-day;
because the principles for which the Confederate soldier fought, are the only
ones, as I have already said, on which constitutional liberty can ever rest in
this, or any other country.
*************************************************************************************
JOHN C. CALHOUN
Delivered February 6, 1837
I do not belong, said Mr. C., to the school which holds that aggression is to be met by concession. Mine is the opposite creed, which teaches that encroachments must be met at the beginning, and that those who act on the opposite principle are prepared to become slaves. In this case, in particular I hold concession or compromise to be fatal. If we concede an inch, concession would follow concession—compromise would follow compromise, until our ranks would be so broken that effectual resistance would be impossible. We must meet the e nemy on the frontier, with a fixed determination of maintaining our position at every hazard. Consent to receive these insulting petitions, and the next demand will be that they be referred to a committee in order that they may be deliberated and acted upon. At the last session we were modestly asked to receive them, simply to lay them on the table, without any view to ulterior action. . . . I then said, that the next step would be to refer the petition to a committee, and I already see indications that such is now the intention. If we yield, that will be followed by another, and we will thus proceed, step by step, to the final consummation of the object of these petitions. We are now told that the most effectual mode of arresting the progress of abolition is, to reason it down; and with this view it is urged that the petitions ought to be referred to a committee. That is the very ground which was taken at the last session in the other House, but instead of arresting its progress it has since advanced more rapidly than ever. The most unquestionable right may be rendered doubtful, if once admitted to be a subject of controversy, and that would be the case in the present instance. The subject is beyond the jurisdiction of Congress - they have no right to touch it in any shape or form, or to make it the subject of deliberation or discussion. . . .
As widely as this incendiary spirit has spread, it has not yet infected this body, or the great mass of the intelligent and business portion of the North; but unless it be speedily stopped, it will spread and work upwards till it brings the two great sections of the Union into deadly conflict. This is not a new impression with me. Several years since, in a discussion with one of the Senators from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster), before this fell spirit had showed itself, I then predicted that the doctrine of the proclamation and the Force Bill—that this Government had a right, in the last res ort, to determine the extent of its own powers, and enforce its decision at the point of the bayonet, which was so warmly maintained by that Senator, would at no distant day arouse the dormant spirit of abolitionism. I told him that the doctrine was tantamount to the assumption of unlimited power on the part of the Government, and that such would be the impression on the public mind in a large portion of the Union. The consequence would be inevitable. A large portion of the Northern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would consider it as an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continuance, and that this doctrine would necessarily lead to the belief of such responsibility. I then predicted that it would commence as it has with this fanatical portion of society, and that they would begin their operations on the ignorant, the weak, the young, and the thoughtless —and gradually extend upwards till they woul d become strong enough to obtain political control, when he and others holding the highest stations in society, would, however reluctant, be compelled to yield to their doctrines, or be driven into obscurity. But four years have since elapsed, and all this is already in a course of regular fulfilment.
Standing at the point of time at which we have now arrived, it will not be more difficult to trace the course of future events now than it was then. They who imagine that the spirit now abroad in the North, will die away of itself without a shock or convulsion, have formed a very inadequate conception of its real character; it will continue to rise and spread, unless prompt and efficient measures to stay its progress be adopted. Already it has taken possession of the pulpit, of the schools, and, to a considerable extent, of the press; those great instruments by which the mind of the rising generation will be formed.
However sound the gre at body of the non—slaveholding States are at present, in the course of a few years they will be succeeded by those who will have been taught to hate the people and institutions of nearly one-half of this Union, with a hatred more deadly than one hostile nation ever entertained towards another. It is easy to see the end. By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must become, finally, two people. It is impossible under the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two great nations, if the present causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the same political system. The conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it—and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events. We of the South w ill not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country or the other of the races. . . . But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil:—far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.
In the meantime, the white or European race, has not degenerated. It has kept pace with its brethren in other sections of the Union where slavery does not exist. It is odious to make comparison; but I appeal to all sides whether the South is not equal in virtue, intelligence, patriotism, courage, disinterestedness, and all the high qualities which adorn our nature.
But I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good. I feel myself called upon to speak freely upon the subject where the honor and interests of those I represent are involved. I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this assertion, it is fully borne out by history. This is not the proper occasion, but , if it were, it would not be difficult to trace the various devices by which the wealth of all civilized communities has been so unequally divided, and to show by what means so small a share has been allotted to those by whose labor it was produced, and so large a share given to the non-producing classes. The devices are almost innumerable, from the brute force and gross superstition of ancient times, to the subtle and artful fiscal contrivances of modern. I might well challenge a comparison between them and the more direct, simple, and patriarchal mode by which the labor of the African race is, among us, commanded by the European. I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe—look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse. But I will not dwell on this aspect of the question; I turn to the political; and here I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions. It is useless to disguise the fact. There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and which explains why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North. . . . Surrounded as the slaveholding States are with such imminent perils, I rejoice to think that our means of defense are ample, if we shall prove to have the intelligence and spirit to see and apply them before it is too late. All we want is concert, to lay aside all party differences and unite with zeal and energy in repelling approaching dangers. Let there be concert of action, and we shall find ample means of security without resorting to secession or disunion. I speak with full knowledge and a thorough examination of the subject, and for one see my way clearly. . . . I dare not hope that anything I can say will arouse the South to a due sense of danger; I fear it is beyond the power of mortal voice to awaken it in time from the fatal security into which it has fallen.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
In 1742 there were 1,514 slaves owned in Boston. In 1764 the number had increased to 5,779 negro slaves and free blacks living in Boston.
In 1708, Gov. Cranston of Rhode Island reported that 103 vessels had been built for slaving!
In 1652, 270 Scotchmen were sold in Boston into servitude as negro slavery were sold!
Under the first code of laws toward slavery in 1641 Massachusetts, the Court of Salem directed the sale of Quaker children to be sold to the
English in Virginia or Barbadoes!
On 26 Mar 1884 a congressman from North Carolina made a speech to Congress stating that
"Massachusetts is a State more responsible under heaven than any other community in this land for the introduction of
slavery into this Continent, with all the curses that have followed it; that it is the nursing mother of the horrors of the middle passage, and
that after slavery in Massachusetts was found not to pay, her slaves were sold down South for a consideration, and then their former owners
thanked God and say the long metre doxology through their noses, that they were responsible no longer for the sin of human slavery."
Jimmy Cantrell wrote
I do not recall anyone saying slavery was or is a 'good thing.' The case we have made is that the Abolitionists were WRONG in claiming that the Bible declares slavery to be sin. My case featured long quotes from historian Eugene Genovese showing that Abolitionists had come to create a god of their own image and demanded to impose him at gunpoint. Genovese documented that Abolitionists came to the point of recognizing the necessary implications of their theological and cultural views and asserted that if the Bible did not condemn slavery as sin, then the Bible was a bad book, that if Jesus did not call for an end to slavery then He did not do His duty.
Frank Conner added:
My book, "The South Under Siege 1830 - 2000,"
http://collards.phantacom.net , says basically the same thing,
although of course not in as much detail as Eugene Genovese's book,
since mine necessarily has a lot more ground to cover.
I focused upon the New England Transcendentalists, and the religion they
invented, as being at the heart of Northern Abolitionism. True, men
like Garrison may have made more noise, but they were considered
crackpots by most Northerners. By contrast, the ex-Congregationalist
ministers--such as Ralph Waldo Emerson--who formed the leadership of the
Transcendentalists were among the most-respected men in New England.
While in training to become Congregationalist ministers, those men had
been taught to be heretics by the Harvard Divinity School, because
nobody in charge at the school was then minding the store; and many of
its professors did not believe in the divinity of Christ, etc. The
religion which the ex-Congregationalist ministers later invented out of
hand. under the imported name of Transcendentalism, pretended to be the
study of God as reflected in the close study of the nature of man; but
when viewed in the cold light of dawn, it was simply the aggrandizement
of man. Although the Transcendentalists claimed to despise secular
humanism, the societal reforms which they demanded were essentially the
same as those of secular humanism, and would have required a
totalitarian-socialist government to attain without war. Also, they had
borrowed heavily from the preachments of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the
chief priest of secular humanism, in constructing their new religion (in
particular, his doctrine of romanticism).
These were the men, and this was their religion, which arbitrarily
declared that slavery was a sin. In fact, in their eyes, slavery held
the same status as Original Sin. Curiously, however, they did not
consider the Northerners who were then or had been engaged in the slave
trade (and this included some--if not most--of the most-prestigious
families in New England) to be sinners; and in fact the
Transcendentalists never even mentioned them. It was only the white
Southern slaveholders (in fact, all of the white Southerners) whom the
New England Transcendentalists damned to Hell for committing their
newly-invented sin. When you study the pattern of their actions, it
becomes apparent that the Transcendentalists' primary objective was to
attack and discredit the Christian white Southerners in the eyes of the
Northerners, not to free the slaves. And they were highly successful at
reaching that objective.
Frank Conner
Newnan, Georgia
Intended Honor To A Confederate Negro
(From Nov. 1905 CONFEDERATE VETERAN)
The Constitution prints an interesting story of Amos Rucker, a noted old negro
of Atlanta. An accepted “street rumor” that Amos was dead, created widespread
expressions of sorrow. There was good reason for the esteem in which the old
negro was held.
In the beginning of the war, in 1862, Col. Rucker and a son went to the war, and
with them went Amos. “Somehow, it mattered not how the commissary was depleted,
Amos was ever ready to serve a meal to his masters and to his masters’ friends.
Never, in those days when freedom was only a few hundred yards away, just across
the divide between the two armies, did Amos forget he was a negro, except when
fighting was going on. Then, taking up a gun dropped by a soldier who had died
fighting, he took that soldier’s place in the battle line and did his best. A
crippled leg and a red scar in his left breast now bear testimony to the fact
that Amos Rucker was a soldier, tried and found to be brave.”
“When rumors reached the city that Rucker was dead, initial steps were taken for
his funeral. Pallbearers were selected and orders were issued for the veterans
of the city to attend the funeral in a body Wednesday afternoon. The pallbearers
selected were ex-Governor Candler, Gen. A.J. West, F.A. Hilburn, member of the
city council; J. Sid Holland, member of the Aldermanic Board; Judge W. Lowndes
Calhoun, ex-Mayor of Atlanta; Dr. Amos Fox, a member of the Board of Police
Commissioners and ex-postmaster—each being a Confederate Veteran. Dr. Holderby
was to have preached the funeral. The body was to have been escorted to South
View by the Atlanta Camps of Confederate Veterans.”
“The only hitch in the arrangements was that Amos was not dead. When the driver
of the undertaker’s wagon, which had been sent to Rucker’s home, near Atlanta
University, was approaching the home, the driver almost dropped from his seat
when he observed, just in front of him, Amos Rucker walking into the city.
Sent by Cdr. Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
A Confederate Catechism, The War for Southern Self-Government by
Lyon Gardiner Tyler. It is the Seventh Edition:
Enlarged, July, 1935 and last reprinted in 1984.
Lyon Gardiner Tyler, 1853-1935. He began his career
as a lawyer, but only practiced law for a few years. He earned a reputation as a
writer and educator. In 1885, he published a two-volume work, "The Letter and
Times of the Tylers." In this and other books, he worked to vindicate his
father's presidency and career as well as the South in general. He was a
professor of literature at the College of William and Mary. He served as
President of the College of William and Mary from 1888 until 1919. He was the
13th son of John Tyler, the 10th President of the United
States. One of the last acts of his presidency, on his last day in
office, was to sign in Florida
as the 27th State.
1. What was the cause of secession in 1861?
It was the yoking together of two jarring nations having different interests
which were repeatedly brought to the breaking point by selfish and
unconstitutional acts of the North. The breaking point was nearly reached in
1786, when the North tried to give away the Mississippi River to Spain; in 1790,
when the North by Congressional act forced the South to pay the Revolutionary
debts of the North; in 1801, when they tried to upset the presidential ticket
and make Aaron Burr President; and in 1828 and 1832, when they imposed upon the
South high protective tariffs for the benefit of Northern manufacturers. The
breaking point was finally reached in 1861, when after flagrant nullification of
the Constitution by personal liberty laws and underground railroads, resulting
in John Brown's assassinations, a Northern President was elected by strictly
Northern votes upon a platform which announced the resolve never to submit to a
decision of the highest court in the land. This decision (the Dred Scott Case,
1856), in permitting Southern men to go with their slaves into the Territories,
gave no advantage to the South, as none of the territorial domain remaining was
in any way fit for agriculture, but the South regarded the opposition to it of
the Lincoln party as a determination on the part of the North to govern the
Union thereafter by virtue of its numerical majority, without any regard
whatever to constitutional limitations.
The literature of those times shows that such mutual and mortal hatred existed
as in the language of Jefferson to "render separation preferable to eternal
discord."
2. Was slavery the cause of secession or the war?
No. Slavery existed previous to the Constitution, and the Union was formed in
spite of it. Both from the standpoint of the Constitution and sound
statesmanship it was not slavery, but the vindictive, intemperate antislavery
movement that was at the bottom of all the troubles. The North having formed a
union with a lot of States inheriting slavery, common honesty dictated that it
should respect the institutions of the South, or, in case of a change of
conscience, should secede from the Union. But it did neither. Having possessed
itself of the Federal Government, it set up as its particular champion, made war
upon the South, freed the negroes without regard to time or consequences, and
held the South as conquered territory.
3. Was the extension of slavery the purpose of secession?
No. When South Carolina seceded she had no certainty that any other Southern
State would follow her example. By her act she absolutely shut herself out from
the territories and thereby limited rather than extended slavery. The same may
be said of the other seceding States who joined her.
4. Was secession the cause of the war?
No. Secession is a mere civil process having no necessary connection with war.
Norway seceded from Sweden, and there was no war. The attempted linking of
slavery and secession with war is merely an effort to obscure the issue - "a red
herring drawn across the trail." Secession was based (1) upon the natural right
of self-government, (2) upon the reservation to the States in the Constitution
of all powers not expressly granted to the Federal government. Secession was
such a power, being expressly excepted in the ratifications of the Constitution
by Virginia, Rhode Island, and New York. (3) Upon the right of the principal to
recall the powers vested in the agent; and upon (4) the inherent nature of all
partnerships, which carries with them the right of withdrawal. The States were
partners in the Union, and no partnership is irrevocable. The "more perfect
Union" spoken of in the Preamble to the Constitution was the expression merely
of a hope and wish. No rights of sovereignty whatever could exist without the
right of secession.
5. What then was the cause of the war?
The cause of the war was (1) the rejection of the right of peaceable secession
of eleven sovereign States by Lincoln, and (2) the denial of self-government to
8,000,000 of people, occupying a territory half the size of Europe. Fitness is
necessary for the assertion of the right, and Lincoln himself said of these
people that they possessed as much moral sense and as much devotion to law and
order as "any other civilized and patriotic people." Without consulting
Congress, Lincoln sent great armies to the South, and it was the war of a
president elected by a minority of the people of the North. In the great World
War Woodrow Wilson declared that "No people must be forced under sovereignty
under which it does not choose to live." When in 1903 Panama seceded from
Colombia, the United States sided with Panama against Colombia, thereby
encouraging secession.
6. Did the South fight for slavery or the extension of slavery ?
No; for had Lincoln not sent armies to the South, that country would have done
no fighting at all.
7. Did the South fight for the overthrow of the United States Government?
No; the South fought to establish its own government. Secession did not destroy
the Union, but merely reduced its territorial extent. The United States existed
when there were only thirteen States, and it would have existed when there were
twenty States left. The charge brought by Lincoln that the aim of the
Southerners was to overthrow the government was no more true than if King George
III had said that the secession of the American colonies from Great Britain had
in view the destruction of the British Government. The government of Great
Britain was not destroyed by the success of the American States in 1783. Nor
would the government of the United States have been destroyed if the Southern
States had succeeded in repelling the attacks of the North in 1861- 1865. Had
the North refrained from conquest, its example would have been felt by Germany
and there would have been no World War costing millions of lives. A group of
Northern States in 1861-65 assumed the imperialistic attitude of Great Britain
in 1776 and Germany in 1914, and substituted the armed fist for the American
principle of self government. Universal peace will never ensue till the
principle of self- government, which requires no armies to maintain it, is
recognized throughout the world.
8. What did the South fight for?
IT FOUGHT TO REPEL INVASION AND FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT, JUST AS THE FATHERS OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION HAD DONE. Lincoln himself confessed at first that he had no
constitutional right to make war against a State, so he resorted to the
subterfuge of calling for troops to suppress "combinations" of persons in the
Southern States "too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary" processes. It is
impossible to understand how the Southern States could have proceeded in a more
regular and formal manner than they did to show they acted as States and not as
mere "combinations." It shows the lack of principle that characterized Lincoln
when later he referred to the Southern States as "insurrectionary States." If
the Federal Government had no power to make war upon a State, how could it be
called insurrectionary?
9. Did the South in firing on Fort Sumter begin the war?
No. Various hostile acts had been committed before this took place. The first
hostile act was committed by the Federal government when Major Robert Anderson
secretly removed his garrison at night from Fort Moultrie, a weak fort in
Charleston harbor, to Fort Sumter, a very strong fort. Shortly after, the
government, under James Buchanan, sent the Star of the West with troops and
supplies to Fort Sumter, but she was driven off. If South Carolina had a right
to secede, she had a right to all the public buildings upon her territory,
saving her responsibility for the cost of construction, which she readily
recognized. She took over Fort Moultrie and other buildings and she was joined
by other Southern States. Nevertheless no one was hurt, there was no war, and
Virginia interposed with her Peace Conference, originated and presided over by
John Tyler.
After Lincoln came in, the peace apparently continued for four or five weeks,
but secretly Lincoln took means to bring on war.. Despite the assurances of
Seward, the Secretary of State, assurances made with Lincoln's full knowledge,*
that the status would not be disturbed at Fort Pickens, and in violation of a
truce existing there between the Federals and Confederates, Lincoln sent secret
orders for the landing of troops, but Adams, the Federal commander of the
squadron before Fort Pickens, refused to land the troops, declaring that it
would be a breach of faith to do so, and that it would bring on war. This was
before Sumter was fired on, and Fort Sumter was fired on only when an armed
squadron, prepared, also with great secrecy, was dispatched with troops to
supply that fort also.
But firing upon Fort Sumter did not in any case necessarily mean war. No one was
hurt by the firing, and Lincoln knew that all the Confederates wanted was a fort
that commanded the Metropolitan city of South Carolina - a fort which had been
erected for the defense of that city. He knew that they had no desire to engage
in a war with the United States. Not every hostile act justifies war, and in the
World War this country submitted to having its flag filled full of holes and
scores of its citizens destroyed before it went to war. Lincoln, without any
violation of his views of government, had an obvious alternative in putting the
question of war up to Congress, which could have been called in ten days. But he
did not do it, and assumed the powers of Congress in making laws, besides
enforcing them as an executive. By his mere authority he enormously increased
the Federal army, marched it to the South, blockaded Southern ports, and
declared Southern privateersmen pirates. Every clause of Jefferson's tremendous
indictment against King George in 1776 was true of Lincoln in 1861-1865.
*See J.C. Welling, New York Natton, Vol. XXIX. p. 383.
10. Why did Lincoln break the truce at Fort Pickens and precipitate the war by
sending troops to Fort Sumter?
Lincoln did not think that war would result by sending troops to Fort Pickens,
and it would give him the appearance of asserting the national authority. But he
knew that hostilities would certainly ensue if he attempted to reinforce Fort
Sumter. He was, therefore, at first in favor of withdrawing the troops from that
Fort, and allowed assurances to that effect to be given out by Seward, his
Secretary of State. But the deciding factor with him was the tariff question. In
three separate interviews, he asked what would become of his revenue if he
allowed the government at Montgomery to go on with their ten per cent tariff. He
asked, "What would become of his tariff (about 90 per cent on the cost of goods)
if he allowed those people at Montgomery to go on with their ten per cent
tariff." (See authorities cited in Tyler, Tyler versus Lincoln, p. 4.) Final
action was taken when nine Governors of high tariff States waited upon Lincoln
and offered him men and supplies. The protective tariff had almost driven the
country to war in 1833; it is not surprising that it brought war in 1861.
Indeed, this spirit of spoliation was so apparent from the beginning that, at
the very first Congress, Grayson, one of our two first Virginia Senators,
predicted that the fate reserved to the South was to be "the milch-cow of the
Union." The New York Times, after having on March 21, 1861, declared for
separation, took the ground nine days later that the material interests of the
North would not allow of an independent South!
11. Did Lincoln carry on the war for the purpose of freeing the slaves?
No; he frequently denied that that was his purpose in waging war. He claimed
that he fought the South in order to preserve the Union. Before the war Lincoln
declared himself in favor of the enforcement of the fugitive slave act, and he
once figured as an attorney to drag back a runaway negro into slavery. When he
became President he professed himself in his inaugural willing to support an
amendment guaranteeing slavery in the States where it existed. Wendell Phillips,
the abolitionist, called him a "slave hound." Of course, Lincoln's proposed
amendment, if it had any chance at all with the States, did not meet the
question at issue. No one except the abolitionists disputed the right of the
Southern people to hold slaves in the States where it existed. And an amendment
would not have been regarded by the abolitionists, who spit upon the
Constitution itself. The immediate question at issue was submission to the
decision of the Supreme Court in relation to the territories. The pecuniary
value of the slaves cut no figure at all, and Lincoln's proposed amendment was
an insult to the South.
12. Did Lincoln, by his conquest of the South, save the Union?
No. The old Union was a union of consent; the present Union is one of force. For
many years after the war the South was held as a subject province, and any
privileges it now enjoys are mere concessions from its conquerors, not rights
inherited from the Constitution. The North after the war had in domestic negro
rule a whip which England never had over Ireland. To escape from it, the South
became grateful for any kind of government. The present Union is a great
Northern nation based on force and controlled by Northern majorities, to which
the South, as a conquered province, has had to conform all its policies and
ideals. The Federal authority is only Northern authority. Today (1935) the
Executive, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, the Ministers at foreign courts are
all Northern men. The South has as little share in the government, and as little
chance of furnishing a President, as Norway or Switzerland.
13. Could Lincoln have "saved" the Union by some other method than war?
Yes. If he had given his influence to the resolutions offered in the Senate by
John J. Crittenden, the difficulties in 1861 would have been peaceably settled.
These resolutions extended the line of the Missouri Compromise through the
territories, but gave nothing to the South, save the abstract right to carry
slaves to New Mexico. But most of New Mexico was too barren for agriculture, and
not ten slaves had been carried there in ten years. The resolutions received the
approval of the Southern Senators and, had they been submitted to the people,
would have received their approval both North and South. Slavery in a short time
would have met a peaceful and natural death with the development of machinery
consequent upon Cyrus H. McCormick's great invention of the reaper. The question
in 1861 with the South as to the territories was one of wounded pride rather
than any material advantage. It was the intemperate, arrogant, and
self-righteous attitude of Lincoln and his party that made any peaceable
constructive solution of the Territorial question impossible. In rejecting the
Crittenden resolutions, Lincoln, a minority president, and the Republicans, a
minority party, placed themselves on record as virtually preferring the
slaughter of 400,000 men of the flower of the land and the sacrifice of billions
of dollars of property to a compromise involving a mere abstraction. This
abstraction did not even contemplate a real object like New Mexico, for Lincoln
in a private letter admitted that there was no danger there. Lincoln stirred up
a ghost and professed to find in the annexation of Cuba a pretext for imperiling
the Union. It is needless to say that no such ghost could ever have materialized
in the presence of Northern majorities in both the Senate and the House of
Representatives. (Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, I, pp.
664, 669.)
14. Does any present or future prosperity of the South justify the War of
1861-1865?
No; no present or future prosperity can make past wrong right, for the end can
never justify the means. The war was a colossal crime, and the most astounding
case of self-stultification on the part of any government recorded in history.
The war itself was conducted on the most barbarous principles and involved the
wholesale destruction of property and human lives. That there must be no
humanity in war was, according to Charles Francis Adams, "the accepted policy of
Lincoln's government during the last stages of the war." (Adams, Studies
Military and Diplomatic, p. 266.)
15. Had the South gained its independence, would it have proved a failure?
No. General Grant has said in his Memoirs that it would have established "a real
and respected nation." The States of the South would have been bound together by
fear of the great Northern Republic and by a similarity of economic conditions.
They would have had laws suited to their own circumstances, and developed
accordingly. They would not have lived under Northern laws and had to conform
their policy to them, as they have been compelled to do. A low tariff would have
attracted the trade of the world to the South, and its cities would have become
great and important centers of commerce. A fear of this prosperity induced
Lincoln to make war upon the South. The Southern Confederacy, instead of being a
failure, would have been a great outstanding figure in the affairs of the world.
The statement sometimes made that the Confederacy "died of too much States
Rights," as instanced in the opposition to President Davis in Georgia and North
Carolina, fails to notice that Lincoln's imperialism did not prevent far more
serious opposition to Lincoln in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. And yet at the
time the South was under much greater pressure than the North.
16. Were the Southerners "rebels" in seceding from the Federal Union?
The term "rebel" had no application to the Southern people, however much it
applied to the American colonists. These last called themselves "Patriots," not
rebels. Both Southerners in 1861 and Americans in 1776 acted under the authority
of their State governments. But while the colonies were mere departments of the
British Union, the American States were creators of the Federal Union. The
Federal government was the agent of the States for the purposes expressed in the
Constitution, and it is absurd to say that the principal can rebel against the
agent. President Jackson threatened war with South Carolina in 1833, but
admitted that in such an event South Carolinians taken prisoners would not be
"rebels" but prisoners of war. The Freesoilers in Kansas and John Brown at
Harper's Ferry were undoubtedly "rebels," for they acted without any lawful
authority whatever in using force against the Federal Government, and Lincoln
and the Republican party, in approving a platform which sympathized with the
Freesoilers and bitterly denounced the Federal Government, were rebels and
traitors at heart.
17. Did the South, as alleged by Lincoln in his messages and in his Gettysburg
speech, fight to destroy popular government throughout the world?
No; the charge was absurd. Had the South succeeded, the United States would
still have enjoyed all its liberties, and so would Great Britain, France, Italy,
Belgium, Switzerland, and all other peoples. The danger to popular government
came from Lincoln himself. In conducting the war, Lincoln talked about
"democracy" and "the plain people," but adopted the rules of despotism and
autocracy, and under the fiction of "war powers" virtually abrogated the
Constitution, which he had sworn to support.
18. Was Lincoln's proclamation freeing the slaves worthy of the praise which it
has received?
No; his proclamation was a war measure merely. He had no humanitarian purpose in
view, and only ten days before its issuance he declared that "the possible
consequences of insurrection and massacre in the Southern States" would not
deter him from its use, whenever he should deem it necessary for military
purposes. (Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, I/, p. 235.)
19. Is there any truth in the statement that the South seceded from the Union
because it saw itself menaced with the loss of the rule which it had enjoyed
from the beginning?
None whatever. The Southerners never ruled the Union in any real sense. They
controlled the executive department, but this department was confined to giving
directions to the foreign relations and to executing the laws made by Congress.
And this body, the lawmaking - the real ruler - was managed by the North from
the very start. With the aid of a few delinquent Southern votes the North could
always count upon a majority in Congress. The revenue was chiefly levied on the
products of the South, and it was mainly disbursed in the North. Never once did
the South use the machinery of the Federal Government to enrich herself at the
expense of the North. The funding of the National debt, the assumption of the
State debts, the bounties for shipping, tonnage duties, bounties for the
fishermen, the restrictions on foreign trade, the National bank, the tariff, the
pensions, land grants, internal improvement, etc., were all in interest of the
North. And this one-sided development remains today [1935] exactly like it was
of old. The South is still "the milch-cow of the Union."
20. What has been the effects of the abolition of slavery?
The negro question has been one of much exaggeration and slighting of facts. The
wicked method in which abolition was accomplished was a terrible injury both to
whites and blacks. It raised race animosities that have not yet passed away. It
threw the South back a hundred years. All the Northern States had rid themselves
of slavery by laws contemplating gradual emancipation, and Lincoln at Peoria in
1854 admitted that, "if all earthly power was given him, he would not know what
to do as to the existing institution." His action, therefore, in 1862 in trying
suddenly to abolish slavery without regard to time or consequences made him
self-convicted as a great criminal. As a war measure it involved the danger of
massacre and insurrection, and was, therefore, forbidden by the international
law, that massacre did not occur does not lessen the guilt of Lincoln. Ten days
before his proclamation he declared that he would not be deterred from its use
by apprehension of massacre or insurrection. We are told by Gideon Welles,
Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, that the North had the belief that "a civil war
would inevitably lead to servile insurrection, and that the slave owners would
have their hands full to keep the slaves in subjection after hostilities
commenced," (Welles,Diary,!!, p. 278.) Lincoln undoubtedly shared in this
expectation, and six days after the issuance of the proclamation he wrote to
Hannibal Hamlin: "The time for its effect southward has not come, but northward
its effect should be instantaneous." It appears that he was looking to some
effect in the South. What "effect" could this have been save a saturnalia of
murder, arson and rape and atrocities unspeakable? Lincoln, by the abolition in
the manner done, was the true parent of reconstruction, legislative robbery,
negro supremacy, cheating at the polls, rapes of white women, lynching, and the
acts of the Ku Klux Klan.
21. How has the abolition of slavery affected the labor system?
It is absurd to say that slavery was a failure as a labor system. The military
system is a form of slavery in which the best results ensue when the discipline
is strictest. Freedom is not necessarily a panacea. The negro's idea of freedom
is to do as little work as possible. One works now (1935) where five worked
before the war. All that has been accomplished in the South since the war has
been by the white people, but it has been at the expense of that splendid
leisure that enabled the South to take the lead in Congress and in the Nation.
What statesmen have we now to compare with the statesmen of old? None. What
scientist to compare with McCormick, Maury, or Ruffin? None. What magazines to
compare with the Southern Quarterly Review, the Southern Literary Messenger,
Ruffin's Farmers' Register, and DeBow's Economic Review? None.
22. Did Lincoln at any time offer any terms of peace?
None except absolute submission. He refused to see formally or informally the
Southern commissioners sent to Washington before the war began on the childest
legalism that they claimed to be agents of an independent power, thus mimicking
the arrogant attitude of the British Commissioners in 1776 who refused to treat
with Congress as a political authority.
This attitude was not kept up by the British but was persevered in by Lincoln to
the end. Congress breathed out threatenings of death and confiscations to all
concerned in the Confederacy, and Lincoln in a paper December 8, 1863,
pretending to be a proclamation of pardon, but which was much more a menace than
a pardon, left under the penalties imposed by Congress everybody of any
consequence in the South. This was in contrast to the British proclamations
during the American Revolution which made absolutely no exceptions.
23. Did the South make any efforts for peace during this time?
The South made several efforts to open peace negotiations with the authorities
in Washington, but were rudely repulsed.
But by August, 1864, the Northern people had become tired of Lincoln and the
war, and the unhappy President had to change to some extent his policy. He
addressed a letter to his Cabinet that he had no hope of a reelection. There was
a general cry for peace, and Lincoln gave permission to various persons, at
their eager intercession, to visit Richmond to ascertain the views of President
Davis.
Shortly afterwards came the victories of Sherman and Sheridan which ensured
Lincoln's election, and Lincoln's spirit rose again. In his annual message
December 6, 1864, Lincoln said: "On careful consideration of all the evidence
accessible, it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgents
could result in any good."
But the South was not conquered, and the prospect of war for some indefinite
time induced him to listen favorably to the renewed solicitations of the
Confederates for negotiations. It took, however, the added influence of General
Grant in favor of peace to induce him to come himself to Old Point in person on
February 3rd, to meet the Confederate Commissioners, Alexander H. Stephens, R.M.
T. Hunter and John A. Campbell.
24. What happened at the meeting at Old Point?
At this meeting Mr. Lincoln's course was exactly the reverse of the humane
attitude of the British commissioners in 1778. They proposed an armistice and
the concession to the Americans of everything short of independence. Lincoln
would consent to no suspension of hostilities and declined to make any
stipulations. There must be absolute submission, and a trust in his mercy, but
even this mercy was confined to an expression of his disposition (no promise) to
execute in a very liberal manner the laws of Congress, denouncing death,
imprisonment and confiscation of property on all Rebels.
25. Was any importance to be attached to Lincoln's assurances?
None. As a matter of fact Lincoln as President had very little authority, as
pitted against his Cabinet and Congress. And he had not the backbone of Andrew
Johnson. How very little could be expected of him was amply illustrated at a
meeting of the Cabinet a few days later. The President repeated a proposition of
Horace Greely to pay the Southern States $400,000,000 if they would stop
fighting and come back into the Union. Lincoln's proffer was only a war measure,
though of a different turn, from his Emancipation Proclamation. There was no
suggestion of kindness or mercy, nothing save the practical arithmetical
calculation that the war was costing $3,000,000 a day, besides all the lives,
and a hundred days more of war would cost nearly the sum proposed.
But the Cabinet unanimously refused to agree to the proposition, and Lincoln
readily submitted. If he meant it why did he not stand up resolutely for it?
What Congress would have done had the proposal been made to them is scarcely in
doubt. They had been too long accustomed to taxing the South for the benefit of
the North to turn around and tax the North for the benefit of the South. The
vindictiveness of the leaders in Congress was so great that voluntary submission
would never have saved the South from the horrors of reconstruction, and Lincoln
would have submitted as he had done before.
Lincoln is claimed to have had a keen insight into human nature, but he did not
show it in this proposal to pay the Southern people for their slaves. They would
have scorned his proposal to pay them, as they were not fighting for the money
value of slaves, but in defense of their Fatherland and self-government. Had he
had the bravery to promise to protect the Southern States by his veto against
vindictive legislation interfering with their local government, however futile
the promise may have been, the war at this time may have been brought to an
end.
The very last act of Lincoln showed how absurd is the idea that Lincoln was a
friend of the South. Whatever he may have said, he always continued to line up
with the worst enemies of the South. Upon the evacuation of Richmond, Lincoln
made haste to visit the city which had defied him so long. In his joy over the
event he gave permission for the old Virginia Legislature to assemble. But when
he got back to Washington he was met with the determined opposition of Sumner
and his Cabinet, whereupon, at the vehement protest of Stanton, he sent a
telegram in the very words that Stanton suggested withdrawing his permission.
(Connor, Life of John A. Campbell, p. 182.) It is claimed that Lincoln would
have made things easy for the South after the war. But does not this instance
show that he was too feeble a man to have dared such a thing?
26. What was the condition of things in the South in 1861?
The South was very flourishing. The most prosperous decade in the history of the
South was the decade between 1850 and 1860. Up to 1850 the South lived in a
Union hostile to her development. But during this decade the South enjoyed the
advantage of a free trade tariff and of the Independent Treasury, which divorced
the government from the control of the Northern banks. It was the first time
that the South had a fair deal in finance. It was a period in which the South
took the lead in using improved machinery and improved methods of farming. Great
sums of money were spent on highways, canals, and railroads. Factories in which
white labor was wholly employed began to spring up all over the South, thus
affording ample opportunities of employment for the poorer classes of white
people. The census shows that in this decade Virginia increased 84 per cent in
wealth, South Carolina 90 per cent, and Georgia 92 per cent, while Massachusetts
increased only 42 per cent and. New York 71 per cent. Dr. Avery Odell Craven,
Professor of History in the University of Chicago, declares in his work on
"Soil Exhaustion" in Maryland and Virginia that in no section of the nation and
in no period of its history were greater agricultural advances made or greater
difficulties overcome than in Virginia and Maryland. The future was bright with
hope, but Lincoln, by his war and the sudden emancipation of the slaves without
regard to time or consequences, put back the South 100 years. This is readily
shown by comparing the census of 1860 with that of 1920. If we make allowance
for the depreciation of money (4 to 1) and the increase in the population (about
3 to 1) there is less of wealth per head today than in 1860, counting the negro
in the population and excluding him from the property. There is no evidence
whatever that if slavery had continued, the South would have fewer factories and
spindles than it has today. Before 1860 it had been found that negroes free or
slaves, were not fitted for the mills. There is no evidence that the industrial
system might not have developed side by side with the plantation system.
27. Did the South ever try to dictate to any territory whether it should have
slavery or not?
No. All that the Southerners ever asked was to be permitted to go into the
Territories with their slaves, subject to the action of the citizens there, when
they formed a State Constitution. The Supreme Court decided in the Dred Scott
case in 1856 that such was their right.
The Northern speakers spoke of this as an "extension" of slavery, and the word
was unfairly used to imply an increase in the number of slaves, but, of course,
this would not have added a single slave to the number already in the United
States. It was merely a transfer of population.
28. Was it superior humanity that actuated the Northern people in 1861?
No. There was no reason whatever to suppose that the Northern people were more
humane than the Southern people. During the war for Southern independence the
Northern