Book_„:., Q^^^ 
 
 PRESENTED RY 
 
THIRD EDITION. PRICE 25 CENTS. 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 "HISTORY" 
 
 AS THE YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT 
 
 BY' 
 
 A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 
 
 GLEN ALLF:N, VA.: 
 
 CUSSONS, MAY & CO., INCORPORATED. 
 1900. 
 
THIRD EDITION. / PRICE 25 CENTS 
 
 /^9 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 "HISTORY" 
 
 AS THE YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT 
 
 BY 
 
 A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 
 
 GLEN ALLLN, VA.: 
 
 CUSSONS, MAY & CO., INCORPUKATKD 
 1900. 
 
 v.. 
 
.5 
 
 " What did they lack that conquerors should have 
 Save history's purchased page to call them great ? 
 A wider field ?— a consecrated grave,? 
 Their hopes were not less high : their souls loere Jull as brave ! " 
 
 P. 
 
 (Perwn). 
 
 20 Mr '01 
 
 4 
 
 <r ■■ 
 
 r< 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 MY COMRADES 
 
 WHO FELL IN DEFENCE 
 
 OF THEIR 
 
 INHERITED LIBERTIES 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 
 
Publishers' Note. 
 
 These pages give the candid utterances of a Confed- 
 erate soldier who strenously opposed disunion ; not as 
 doubting the rightfulness of secession, but as gravely 
 questioning its expediency. 
 
 During the period of agitation which preceded the 
 war he believed that the revolutionary spirit which 
 then infected the North was but a passing phase of 
 fanaticism, and that that fanaticism was destined to 
 perish under the rebuke of all good citizens who, he 
 believed, would surely unite in upholding the Consti- 
 tution and the laws. But when Lincoln's call for an 
 army of invasion found so swift response among the 
 multitude, it became evident that Northern conserva- 
 tism had been over-estimated, and that the advocates 
 of secession had really- read the portents aright. 
 
 The author has always held that the full measure 
 of America's greatness could be achieved only beneath 
 a single flag, but he is equally firm in the conviction 
 that a true spirit of nntional unity will never be 
 attained by a distortion of historic truths. He believes 
 
8 Publishers' Note. 
 
 that the highest and noblest aspirations of a people 
 will take their impress from that which is worthiest in 
 their traditions, and that if they are so unfoitunate as 
 to feel no just pride in their past they may well despair 
 of finding any rational hope for their future. In short, 
 he insists that there can be no evil so deep and abid- 
 ing as that which must befall a people who have been 
 taught to hold the memory of their ancestors in derision 
 and contempt. Believing thus, his creed is: "Absolute 
 fairness in the historic treatment of the past, — then 
 unity of effort for the upbuilding of a nation such as 
 the world has not seen." 
 
United States '* History" as the Yanl<ee 
 Makes and Takes It. 
 
 ON the general merits, or rather demerits, 
 te of The South it is quite evident that 
 the outside world has made up its mind. 
 The "accepted fable" or 'Vlistillation of 
 rumors" which we call histor}^, has fully 
 crystallized, and there seems but little 
 ground for supposing, during the present 
 generation, that there will be any revision 
 of the judgment already pronounced. 
 
 For two-and-thirty years our Northern 
 friends have deprecated an}^ allusion on our 
 part to the causes or character of the war, 
 assuring us that every impulse of manhood 
 and every throb of patriotism demanded 
 
10 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 that we should buiy the past, with all its 
 illusive hopes and unavailing griefs, and 
 bend our undivided energies to the upbuild- 
 ing of a common country. And that is pre- 
 cisely the thing which we have been doing. 
 
 Meantime, during those same two-and- 
 thirty years, those Northern friends of ours 
 have been diligent in a systematic distortion 
 of the leading; facts of American history — 
 inventhig, suppressing, perverting, without 
 scruple or shame — until our Southland 
 stands to-day pilloried to the scorn of all 
 the world and bearing on her front the 
 brand of every infamy. 
 
 This has been accomplished not alone 
 nor chiefly by historic narrative or formal 
 record, but rather by the persistent use, at 
 all times and on all occasions, of every 
 form and mode of unfriendly expression — 
 in pulpit and on platform, at lyceum and 
 on the hustings, by picture and story, by 
 essay and song, by sedate disquisition and 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 11 
 
 airy romance, and in a general way by the 
 unwearied false coloring of all past and 
 current events. 
 
 Step by step the malignant work has 
 gone on. Each point yielded by Confed- 
 erate silence has been swiftly seized as 
 new vantage ground for Federal aggression. 
 The forbearance of the South has been 
 misconstrued. In her solicitude for the 
 honor of the American name, she has re- 
 frained from either vindicating herself or 
 characterizing the conduct of her con- 
 querors. Like the true mother at the judg- 
 ment seat of the Great King she has accepted 
 injustice rather than bring under condem- 
 nation the child of her own being. "^^ And 
 she has her reward. 
 
 For thus it has come to pass that in the 
 popular mind her very name has been made 
 an embodiment of folly, a symbol of mean- 
 
 *The domain of Virginia originally extended from Carolina to 
 Canada, and from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific. 
 
12 UNITED STATES " HISTOKY " AS THE 
 
 ness, a proverb of utter and incurable in- 
 efficiency. The economist Avith a principle 
 to illustrate, the morahst full of his Neme- 
 sian philosophy, the dramatist in quest of 
 poetic justice — in short every craftsman of 
 tongue or pen with a moral to point or a 
 tale to adorn turns instinctively to this 
 mythical, this fiction-created South, and 
 finds the thing he seeks. 
 
 The world has decided against us, and 
 there remains to us now but a single hope — 
 the hope of winning and holding something 
 better than a dishonored place in the hearts 
 of our own children. And even this hope, 
 modest yet none the less precious, is fading 
 away as the da3^s go by. A wise and philo- 
 sophical historian has justly said that "a 
 people which takes no pride in the noble 
 achievements of a remote ancestry will never 
 achieve anything worthy to be remembered 
 by refnote descendants." Truer words were 
 never spoken. And yet our grandchildren, 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 13 
 
 trained in the public schools, often mingle 
 with their affection an indefinable pity, a 
 pathetic sorrow — solacing us with their 
 caresses while vainly striving to forget "our 
 crimes." A bright little girl climbs into 
 the old veteran's lap, and hugging him hard 
 and kissing his gray head, exclaims : " I 
 don't care, grandpa, if you were an old 
 rebel! I love you!" 
 
 But there is to be an end of this. The 
 friends of the Grand Army of the Republic 
 have spoken. And ever since the war ended, 
 that army has been a potential force. Noth- 
 ing more is to be said in palliation of the 
 rebels or the rebellion — no word of com- 
 fort, no plea of sympathy. Confederates are 
 always to be described as "insurrectionists" 
 who sought to_ destroy the Government. 
 "Treason is to be made odious." The story 
 of the war is to be told from the victor's 
 standpoint, and from the victor's standpoint 
 alone. The existing histories are to be 
 
14 UNITED STATES '* HISTOKY " AS THE 
 
 expurgated. Every tribute to Southern 
 heroism is to be blotted out, and the 
 sum total of martial glory is to be trans- 
 ferred to the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 This plan has doubtless many advantages. 
 It seems to settle hard questions so easily. 
 Military fame is elusive, and if it comes 
 not by gage of battle, there is really noth- 
 ing more natural than to invoke it by other 
 means. And our Northern friends have 
 chosen wisely. If the three tailors of Tooley 
 Street could achieve undying renown by 
 putting forth a mere preamble, what may 
 not the friends of the Grand Army accom- 
 plish by writing down a solid column of 
 resolutions? They have labored long and 
 arduously, but have at last hit the mark. 
 We admire their perseverance, their re- 
 sourcefulness, but most of all we felicitate 
 them on their success in giving a new 
 meaning to the old aphorism that "the pen 
 is mightier than the sword." 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 15 
 
 The United States History which to-day 
 enjoys the widest circulation and the liighest 
 fame is the recent work of Gold win Smith, 
 Doctor of Canon Law and Professor of the 
 Humanities, Toronto, Canada. 
 
 The learned author has gathered his in- 
 spiration, and what he calls his facts, from 
 many sources. He enumerates by title no 
 less tlian twenty-two authorities, and adds 
 that a complete list would be out of pro- 
 portion to the size of the book itself. And 
 yet there is absolutely nothing to indicate 
 that he has troubled himself with more 
 than one side of his subject. He makes no 
 allusion of any kind to any writer who has 
 extended his investigations in the faintest 
 degree beyond the beaten paths of Northern 
 historical orthodoxy. There is not a frag- 
 ment of reference to Sage's colossal work, 
 or the scholarly monograph of Curry, or 
 the vivid picturings of Maury, or the com- 
 prehensive exposition of Stephens, or the 
 
16 UNITED STATES '"hISTOEY" AS THE 
 
 philosophical review of Ropes, or indeed 
 any citation whatever which can inspire a 
 reasonable hope of the slightest tendency 
 towards impartial treatment. 
 
 Mr. Goldwin Smith, however, is something 
 more than a mere Doctor of Canon Law 
 and Professor of the Humanities. He takes 
 high rank among the masters of political 
 economy, and surely not without abundant 
 reason, for the skill with which he has 
 adapted his wares to his market is beyond 
 all praise. 
 
 His book is published both in New York 
 and London, and is intended, he informs 
 us, " for English rather than American 
 readers;" nevertheless, it has become amaz- 
 ingly popular with our brethren throughout 
 the North. 
 
 The general plan of his work is an un- 
 sparing viUification of the South. This wins 
 for him Northern plaudits. Amid the glee- 
 ful tumult he weaves in his sneers and 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 17 
 
 gibes on America at large, and thus opens 
 a second market for liis books among his 
 own class of delighted Britishers. 
 
 South Carolina, he says, got her start by 
 combining " buccaneering with slave own- 
 ing," and utihzed her ports by making them 
 a shelter for pirates and corsairs, '^ such as 
 Captain Kidd and Blackbeard." 
 
 Georgia he deals with more leniently. 
 Her people were not distinctly criminal, 
 but just languidly and lazily vicious — shift- 
 less, drunken and beggarly. She became 
 "the refuge of the pauper and the bank- 
 rupt." Her first settlers were "good-for- 
 nothings who had failed in trade" — a "shift- 
 less and lazy set," who "called for rum;" 
 but later on " better elements came in, 
 Highlanders, Moravians, and some of the 
 persecuted Protestants of Salzburg." 
 
 But Virginia seems to be his especial 
 aversion. From her very beginning it has 
 been her misfortune to awaken within him 
 
18 UNITED STATES '' HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 the most distressing emotions. He says 
 she was not started right; tiiat her first 
 settlers were an unpromising lot — lackeys, 
 beggars, broken-down gentlemen, tapsters 
 out of a job. And things went from bad 
 to worse. "To the crew of vagabonds were 
 afterwards added jail-birds." * * " Con- 
 victs were offered their choice between the 
 gallows and Virginia," and some were wise 
 enough to choose the gallows. They were 
 not nice. Their aims were low, their mo- 
 tives sordid, "their very place of settlement 
 has long been a desolation, and only frag- 
 ments of ruin mark its site." 
 
 Such is the forbidding background of Mr. 
 Goldwin Smith's historical picture when he 
 begins to light it up with the luminous 
 glories of the Plymouth settlement. The 
 Pilgrims, he assures us, were an altogether 
 different kind of people. There was noth- 
 ing sordid about them, nothing grovelling, 
 nothing base. Their pure liearts were too 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 19 
 
 full of simple faith and holy zeal to afford 
 room for corrupting influences or worldly- 
 desires. "Some sustaining motive higher 
 than gain was necessary to give them vic- 
 tory in their death struggle with nature, 
 to enable them to make a new home for 
 themselves in the wilderness, and to found 
 a nation." 
 
 It was not only during the early period 
 of colonization that the New Englanders 
 were superior to the Virginians. The dis- 
 tinction seems to have widened as time 
 went on. "Though no longer gold seekers, 
 the men of Virginia were not such colonists 
 as the Puritans. They were," he says, 
 "more akin in character to the Spaniard on 
 the south of them, who made the Indian 
 work for him, than to the New Englander, 
 who worked for himself." * * "To work 
 for them they had from the first a number 
 of indentured servants, or bondsmen, jail- 
 birds, many of them; some kidnapped by 
 
20 UNITED STATES " HISTOEY " AS THE 
 
 press-gangs in the streets of London, all of 
 depraved character." * '^ "Afterwards 
 came in ever-increasing volume African 
 slavery, the destined bane of Virginia and 
 her ultimate ruin. Thus," he says, " were 
 formed the three main orders of Virginia 
 society : the planter oligarchy, the ' mean 
 white trash,' and the negro slaves." And 
 so for two hundred years she plodded on, 
 unredeemed, her "poor whites" being hope- 
 lessly given over to " a barbarous and de- 
 based existence." 
 
 As were the people so were their leaders. 
 "A chief fomenter of the quarrel" [with 
 England] "was Patrick Henry, a man who 
 had tried many ways of earning a liveli- 
 hood, and had failed in all." * * * "A 
 bankrupt at twenty-three, he lounged in 
 thriftless idleness, till he found that tho he 
 could not live by industry he could live by 
 his eloquent tongue." 
 
 This is the Goldwin Smith idea incarnate. 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 21 
 
 It is the Yankee idea, the Puritan idea. 
 The logical New England brain would 
 formulate and demonstrate the proposition 
 thus : 
 
 1. Patrick Henry, furnished with a good 
 stock of groceries, failed at twenty-three. 
 
 2. A Puritan, even of the tenth magni- 
 tude, under like circumstances, would not 
 fail at twenty-three. 
 
 Ergo : A tenth-rate Puritan is the supe- 
 rior of Patrick Henry. 
 
 Such are the limitations of the New Eng- 
 land mind. Under the law of its very 
 being it is fettered by its single standard 
 of worth, and is therefore qualified to pass 
 judgment only on those subjects which by 
 it are measurable or deemed worthy of 
 measurement. Its supreme test of merit is 
 accumulation; the capacity to amass. 
 
 As a student of natural history our 
 author has doubtless been taught that the 
 eagle is without a rival in range of vision 
 
22 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 or strength of wing. And j^et he should 
 know that the busy magpie in half an hour 
 will sp3^ out and store away more bits of 
 glass and shining beads and glittering 
 trumpery of every sort than the Bird of 
 Jove will be likely to get together in a 
 score of years. Mr. Goldwin Smith does 
 not seem to make proper allowance for 
 differences in instinct. 
 
 A generous foe, a member of the aris- 
 tocratic order which Henry so fiercely 
 assailed, sees in the young Virginian some- 
 thing other than a "shiftless idler" and 
 "lounging bankrupt." The poet-peer felic- 
 itously presents him to all nations and to 
 all ages as "the forest-born Demosthenes" 
 — the standard-bearer of a brave people, 
 outraged bv unendurable wrongs, yet reso- 
 lute to transmit to their posterity the liber- 
 ties which were their birthright. 
 
 With that prescience which is the heaven- 
 bestowed gift of genius the j^oung patriot 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 28 
 
 clearly discerned the signs of the times. 
 He foresaw the real nature of that tempest 
 which was fast gathering throughout the 
 civilized globe. He knew that tho the 
 world for two centuries had been awakening 
 from its lethargy of a thousand, years, yet 
 the time was only then ripening for man- 
 kind's deliverance. Instead of minding his 
 shop, as Mr. Goldwin Smith would have 
 done; instead of consecrating himself heart 
 and soul to movements in the tallow trade 
 or fluctuations in the calico market, he gave 
 his brilliant intellect free range through 
 the whole cycle of human knowledge, and 
 summed up the situation of the hour with 
 a precision and comprehensiveness which is 
 still the marvel of statists and historians 
 and political philosophers. 
 
 He saw the forces of tyranny marshalling 
 themselves on every hand against the spirit 
 of liberty, and he saw that the spirit of 
 liberty was everywhere the spirit of the 
 
24 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 age. He foretold the nature of the coming 
 struggle, with its burden of grief for every 
 home in Western Europe. He heard the 
 tread of mighty armies and the sorrowing 
 cry of oppressed multitudes ; a cry Avhich 
 was soon to change its accent and precipitate 
 that frightful conflict which shook the earth. 
 The hour was approaching when monarchs 
 and priests and conquerors must unite to 
 try conclusions in a death grapple with the 
 awakened peoples — an hour when the new 
 world might sever the ligatures* which 
 bound it to the old — an hour when America 
 by one bold stroke might fling off the 
 ancient traditions which else would forever 
 entrammel her with the abuses and super- 
 stitions of a despotic and benighted past. 
 
 It was for the work of that hour that 
 Patrick Henry was born. 
 
 The informed historian discerns in him, 
 not the " storm petrel of revolution," but 
 the defender of inherited liberties. He 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 25 
 
 came at a moment when free institutions 
 were trembling in the balance. The old 
 theory of kingly right to govern wTong was 
 being again asserted. The illimitable and 
 unchecked right to tax was declared in the 
 very terms which had demanded benevo- 
 lences and ship-money. Lord North and 
 the Earl of Bute and George the Third had 
 formed a triune despotism which bore every 
 mark of the despotism of Strafford and 
 Laud and Charles the First. And it was 
 the lot of Patrick Henry at that crucial 
 moment to lead the forlorn hope of consti- 
 tutional liberty just as John Hampden had 
 led it, under the same conditions, a hundred 
 years before. 
 
 It is nothing to the purpose that the 
 colonies won their independence, their State- 
 hood, a few years before the coming of 
 the grand catastrophe. Their action was 
 simply the first episode of that mighty 
 drama. The prize battled for was the boon 
 
26 UNITED STATES " HISTOKY " AS THE 
 
 of civil liberty; the people interested were 
 the civilized nations ; and it was needful 
 that the first blow should come from the 
 Western hemisphere. And it is the glory 
 of Henry that his genius discerned the end 
 from the beginning — that he saw in the 
 approaching doAvnfall of crown and sceptre 
 and mitre, and all the infinite paraphernalia 
 of old world oppression, mankind's best 
 hope for the new world's deliverance. And 
 so amidst the first mutterings of the storm 
 which was to culminate in universal wreck- 
 age — amidst the portents which prefigured 
 the vision of tottering thrones and shattered 
 dynasties and crumbling empires, he upheld 
 the brave faith that then and there might 
 be laid, broad and deep, the enduring foun- 
 dations of the temple of American liberty. 
 
 It is safe to say that throughout his 
 entire work Mr. Goldwin Smith never utters 
 the name of a Virginian without bestowing 
 upon him the tribute of his scorn. 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 27 
 
 If sometimes he seems to praise Wash- 
 ington it is only that he may be the better 
 able to mark, by force of contrast, the 
 worthlessness of his followers and the bad- 
 ness of his cause. 
 
 "Without him," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, 
 that cause " would have been ten times 
 lost," and the names of those who had 
 drawn the country into the conflict would 
 have gone down to posterity linked with 
 defeat and shame." Still, continues the 
 author, "we can hardly number among 
 great captains a general who acted on so 
 small a scale," one who " never won a 
 battle," and whose final success after all 
 "was due not to native valor but to foreign 
 aid." The chief merit which he grants to 
 Washington was "his calmness and self- 
 control in contending with the folly and 
 dishonesty of Congress and the fractious- 
 ness of the State militia." As a commen- 
 tary on the times he quotes a casual remark 
 
28 UNITED STATES " HISTOKY " AS THE 
 
 of Governeur Morris: "Jay,' ejaculated 
 Governeur Morris thirty years afterwards, 
 
 'what a lot of d d scoundrels we had 
 
 in that Second Congress ! ' ' Yes,' said Jay, 
 'we had,' and he knocked the ashes from 
 his pipe." In a nation where all are blind, 
 a one-eyed man will be king. And such is 
 substantially the distinction which Mr. Gold- 
 win Smith accords to George Washington. 
 
 James Madison, one of the most eminent 
 and blameless statesmen of any age or 
 nation is curtly dismissed as "a well-mean- 
 ing man, but morally weak." 
 
 Henry Clay, orator, patriot, pacificator — 
 passionately beloved by his friends and 
 honored even by his political opponents — 
 devoted beyond all else to the welfare of 
 his country, and ever read}^ to make any 
 sacrifice at the shrine of an unbroken 
 Union — who Curtius-like flung himself time 
 and again into the abysses of sectional dis- 
 cord, and whose whole life was a concord- 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 29 
 
 ance of the placid words he spoke when he 
 met his pohtical defeat, "it is better to be 
 right than president;" — this man, able, pure, 
 magnanimous, generous in his ambitions, 
 avowed in his convictions, steadfast in his 
 aims, true to his friends, charitable to his 
 opponents, flexible in expedients yet firm 
 as the primal rocks where principle was 
 involved; this man, the latchet of whose 
 shoes his accuser is not worthy to unloose, 
 is flippantly denounced as a mere "political 
 acrobat," a "dazzling but artful politician 
 who owed his fall to a false step in the 
 practice of his own art." 
 
 John Randolph, he tells us, had "natural 
 ability" but lacked "good sense" and had 
 " no power of self-control." * * " With 
 the arrogance of his class he would enter 
 the Senate with his hunting whip in his 
 hand, and behave as if he were in his 
 kennel." 
 
 The "behavior" of Virginians seems in- 
 
30 UNITED STATES " HISTORY" AS THE 
 
 deed to be a subject of ever -recurring 
 solicitude with Mr. Goldwin Smith. For 
 he is exceeding strong on questions of 
 deportment — a weighty judge of "leather 
 and prunello." 
 
 He makes the customary fling at "plan- 
 tation manners," but is mildly surprised 
 that "Franklin and Samuel Adams" should 
 have been "lacking in the ordinary traits of 
 gentlemen." As for Patrick Henry nothing- 
 better was to be expected, since "the char- 
 acter of an English gentleman " is not to 
 be formed "on a plantation or in the back- 
 woods," — an opinion, by the way, which is 
 anything but English if we exclude such 
 authorities as the distinguished author, the 
 'Arrys and 'Arrietts of Bow Bells, and the 
 eminently respectable contingent of Servants' 
 Hall. 
 
 The only American whom Mr. Goldwin 
 Smith seems to hold in real regard is 
 the infamous Benedict Arnold — the sordid 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 31 
 
 wretch who for British gold plotted the 
 betrayal of his camp, his comrades, and 
 his cause. Mr. Goldwin Smith should beware 
 instinct — the instinct which impels him to 
 laud evil as inevitably as it constrains him 
 to decry that which is good. He belittles 
 Washington as naturally as he praises 
 Arnold. "Arnold," he says, "was one of 
 the best of the American commanders and 
 perhaps the most daring of them all." '" * 
 "He was slighted and wronged by the 
 politicians," explains our author, and "seems 
 to have despaired of the cause." As a 
 patriot " he shrank from the idea of the 
 French alliance," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, 
 and believed "that France had designs on 
 Canada." Under those circumstances he 
 resolved to enact the role of General Monk, 
 and to that end opened negotiations with 
 the British Commander. 
 
 A writer who is not ashamed to tlius 
 construe as a noble impulse what was really 
 
32 UNITED STATES *' HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 an attempted betrayal — the basest since the 
 kiss of Judas — shows pecuHar fitness for 
 our author's self-appointed task. 
 
 In his treatment of incident Mr. Goldwin 
 Smith is no less buoyant and free-handed 
 than in his judgment of character. He has 
 no prejudices ; no bias. All kinds of 
 knowledge are equally welcome ; all sources 
 of information equally meritorious. Any 
 rumor of the camp, any scrap of idle 
 gossip, any stray vagary of the newspaper 
 correspondent, so it meets his needs, is 
 accounted proper pabulum for the Muse of 
 History. 
 
 Here are a few of his utterances, taken 
 almost at random : 
 
 "Jefferson Davis when captured" was 
 " farcically disguised in woman's clothes." 
 
 "The slaveholders escaped military ser- 
 vice while they thrust the poor under fire." 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 33 
 
 "Confederate prisoners were well fed, and 
 suffered no hardships." ''' * * " If many 
 of them died it was because the caged 
 eagle dies." 
 
 ** Guards pressed men in the streets," and 
 ''conscripts were seen going to Lee's army 
 in chains." 
 
 The Southern clergy were '' not only 
 ignorant but cringing and degraded." 
 
 "Jackson was nicknamed 'Stonewall'" be- 
 cause of his steadfastness "on a field of 
 general panic." 
 
 Wilkes Booth was "a ranting Virginia 
 actor" who drew his inspiration from "the 
 tyrannicide motto of his State." 
 
 "At the taking of Fort Pillow the negroes 
 were nailed to logs and burned alive." 
 
 "Copperheads were so called from a rep- 
 tile which waits on the rattlesnake, the rat- 
 tlesnake being emblematic of the South." 
 
 "The Northern press, unlike the slave 
 press of the South, never misled the people 
 
34 UNITED STATES " HISTOEY " AS THE 
 
 by publishing false news of military suc- 
 cesses." 
 
 '^ The Southern lady was but the head of 
 a harem." She "might be soft, elegant, and 
 charming, tho there was an element in her 
 character of a different kind, which civil 
 war disclosed." 
 
 Slanders and perversions such as these 
 seem unworthy of serious refutation. They 
 arouse loathing rather than resentment. 
 And so amid our unutterable and unuttered 
 contempt they generally escape rebuke. Yet 
 the world believes them. It is nothing that 
 many of these fables are foolish and in- 
 credible in themselves. It is nothing that 
 they are false to nature, false to fact, false 
 to the canons of fiction. It is nothing that 
 they confute each other. It is nothing that 
 they would be mutually destructive if they 
 should meet, for they are scattered through- 
 out many pages and are digested singly. 
 
 Frightful stories are told of horrible 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 35 
 
 torture inflicted by Southerners on tlieir 
 hapless prisoners. And charming pastorals 
 ai-e written on the loviiigkindness of the 
 Northern people as manifested by their 
 beneficent treatment of the captives in their 
 hands. And yet when Mr. Goldwin Smith 
 is confronted by the official prison records 
 on each side — when it is shown that the 
 death rate in Northern prisons exceeded the 
 death rate in Southern prisons by nearly 
 eight per cent. — the versatile author has his 
 ready reason: "If many of the Southerners 
 died it was because the caged eagle dies." 
 
 This in a sense is true, and is a just tho 
 unconscious tribute to the soldiery of the 
 South. Many of them did die as the caged 
 eagle dies; they did beat out their hearts 
 against the prison bars; their spirits at last 
 did sink ; their eyes, dauntless in battle, did 
 grow dim. And so, tho they were still 
 unsubdued, their pulses ceased at last to 
 beat, and only their mortal clay remained 
 
36 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 to those who could destro}^ their bodies 
 but could not quell their souls. 
 
 The fidelity of the Confederate captive is 
 without a parallel in human history. At 
 any hour of any day freedom was his on 
 the simple condition of swearing allegiance 
 to the "Government of the United States." 
 
 But what was the mood of this Southern 
 soldier — this scion of a race of freemen — 
 this bold spirit who under duress "dies as 
 the caged eagle dies ; " what was his mood 
 of mind while he was being dragged " to 
 Lee's army in chains?" Where then were 
 beak and claw and strength of wing? And 
 with what sort of thrusting instrument did 
 the "shirking slave-owners" "thrust him 
 under fire?" And how many chained eagles 
 could one thruster thrust forward at a time? 
 Or rather, perhaps, how many " shirking 
 slave-holders" would be required to "thrust 
 under fire " a single eagle, chained or un- 
 chained ? 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 37 
 
 And is not the South entitled to some 
 off-set against the North on the score of 
 this special cause of death? Was it only on 
 one side that the vital spark was quenched 
 by loss of liberty? Did no imprisoned 
 Northern soldier " die as the caged eagle 
 dies?" Would each and all have been 
 happy and contented if "well fed" and 
 sheltered from "hardship?" Was it the 
 Southern soldier alone who had none but 
 moral griefs, while the Northern soldier 
 had only material ones? And must indeed 
 these mixed and incongruous absurdities be 
 blindty accepted as rational statements lest 
 the " sacred interests of a broad and gen- 
 erous patriotism" be impaired? 
 
 Mr. Goldwin Smith's argument is that 
 the Southern captive, amid boundless abund- 
 ance, pined and died, j^earning for liberty, 
 while the imprisoned Northerner had no 
 thought or care beyond his need of food 
 and shelter, thus proving the Southerner to 
 
38 UNITED STATES " HISTOEY " AS THE 
 
 have been of the earth earth}^, and the 
 Northerner to have been spiritual in a 
 super-subUmated degree ! 
 
 It seems a httle hard on tiie nniUumi- 
 nated that they should be expected to digest 
 this sort of reasoning. Yet perhaps we 
 ought to take such logic as we can get, and 
 be thankful for it, inasmuch as the sacred 
 right of might is hard to vindicate unless 
 facts can be forced into harmony with the 
 general h3^pothesis that the South is a region 
 of savagery while the North is a garden 
 spot of all the christian virtues. 
 
 Here are a few more extracts from this 
 "latest and best" of American histories: 
 
 *'It was a contest," says Mr. Goldwin 
 Smith, " between an iron despotism " on the 
 one hand and "spontaneous zeal" on the 
 other. 
 
 "The South," continues the author, 
 "almost from the first, resorted to conscrip- 
 tion, ruthlessly enforced by the severest 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 39 
 
 penalties," a course " from which Northern 
 democracy shrank." 
 
 "The South," he declares, " had the supe- 
 riority of force which autocracy lends to 
 war," while "the North had the advantage 
 of the unforced efforts and sacrifices which 
 free patriotism makes." 
 
 And as conclusive proof of the invinci- 
 ble strength which "spontaneous zeal" and 
 the " unforced efforts " of " free patriotism " 
 confer upon a "popular government" Mr. 
 Goldwin Smith might aptly have called at- 
 tention to the memorable interview between 
 the British Minister and the Hon. William 
 H. Seward: 
 
 "I can touch a bell at my right hand," 
 said the Secretary of State, "and order the 
 arrest of a citizen of Ohio; I can touch the 
 bell again, and order the arrest of a citizen 
 of New York. . Can Queen Victoria do as 
 much?" 
 
 Lord Lyons, with closed eyes, slowly and 
 
40 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 silently shook his head. Yet he might have 
 replied: "It is true, Mr. Secretary, that my 
 sovereign, in this our modern age, has not 
 the authority which you so justly claim; 
 nor indeed had his puissant majesty, George 
 the Third; yet I doubt not that some such 
 proof of power might have been given in 
 the good old days of Henry the Eighth." 
 
 The liberty of the press is a subject on 
 which our author grows eloquent — holding 
 that in the North it was absolutely free, 
 while in the South it was but " a sounding- 
 board to register the decrees of tyranny." 
 On topics of this class it is really difficult 
 to judge whether or not Mr. Gold win Smith 
 it writing in good faith. The feeling con- 
 stantly arises that there is a sly sarcasm, a 
 lurking irony in his praises of the North. 
 In the blandest manner he lays down broad 
 propositions which are not only destitute of 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 41 
 
 truth but which are specifically and in detail 
 the exact reverse of truth. 
 
 Every Northern man who lived through 
 the war knows that under the Lincoln gov- 
 ernment there was no such thing as free- 
 dom of the press. It is true that before 
 mobbing or destroying that palladium of 
 liberty the "truly loyal" would lash them- 
 selves into a state of moral exaltation by 
 denouncing as "rebel sympathisers" all who 
 dared to remind them of their covenanted 
 obligations — all who dared to quote the 
 Declaration of Independence, or appeal to 
 the Constitution of the United States. And 
 so, from the great cities on the Atlantic 
 coast to the little villages on the Western 
 frontier, every opponent of radicalism, every 
 supporter of Statehood, every democratic 
 editor who failed to raise the abject squeak 
 that he was "a war-democrat" was forth- 
 with denounced as an " enemy to free 
 institutions," and patriotically raided, robbed, 
 
42 UNITED STATES ''hISTOEY" AS THE 
 
 muzzled and terrorized until crushed out of 
 existence or brought into a loyal frame of 
 mind. 
 
 Now turn to the South. During the 
 whole life of the Confederacy her press was 
 absolutely free. Even when confronted by 
 the united hosts of Europe, Asia, and 
 Africa — even when beset- by tenfold num- 
 bers and b}^ resources mounting up to ten 
 times ten — from the beginning to the end — 
 through all mutations of victory or defeat 
 — no matter what her power or what her 
 needs, the Confederate government, by spe- 
 cial enactment, gave absolute exemption 
 from military service to every individual 
 who was connected with her newspaper 
 press. 
 
 "A sounding board," indeed! Read the 
 editorials of the chief newspaper published 
 at her capital — the editorials of the Rich- 
 mond Examiner. They have been repub- 
 lished in book form since the war and may 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 43 
 
 be easily obtained. The editor was John 
 M. Daniel — a man of note — able, haughty, 
 resolute; a recluse bitter with the bitterness 
 of misanthropy yet devoured by an insati- 
 able ambition. Passionately pleading for a 
 better equipment in the field, and disgusted 
 with the complacent self-sufficiency of the 
 war office, he assailed the sanctities of that 
 bureau, and thence drifted into antagonism 
 with Mr. Davis' entire administration. The 
 breach was never healed, and from the 
 beginning to the end of the war he searched 
 out and gave to open day every blot and 
 every error of every department of the 
 Confederate government. Never since the 
 days of Sir Philip Francis had mortal hand 
 grasped a more trenchant pen, and never 
 was the work of a single pen fraught with 
 more momentous consequences. Under the 
 Lincoln despotism a writer such as Daniel 
 could not have held his liberty for an hour. 
 So much for the "autocracy" which lent 
 
44 UNITED STATES " HISTOEY " AS THE 
 
 the South her '' superiority in war." So 
 much for the " iron despotism " which, not- 
 withstanding autocracy, was overthrown by 
 the " spontaneous zeal " of the North ! 
 
 Does not Mr. Goldwin Smith know that 
 he is giving his readers either pointless sar- 
 casm or utter rubbish ? Does he not know 
 that the facts are notoriously and demon- 
 strably the exact reverse of what he states 
 them to be? 
 
 Again, the author says that "the South, 
 almost from the first, resorted to conscrip- 
 tion, ruthlessly enforced by the severest 
 penalties," a course " from which Northern 
 democracy shrank." 
 
 Does he not know that the Northern con- 
 scription was as savage and remorseless as 
 that of the invaded country was orderly 
 and mild? Does he not know that what 
 the "spontaneous" patriots really "shrank" 
 from was the decoys and trepanners who 
 filled the union-saving ranks at so much 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 45 
 
 per union-saver? Does he not know that 
 on a single occasion, in the streets of a 
 single Northern city, more than a thousand 
 recusant patriots were shot down like mad 
 dogs while flying in terror before the 
 crimps and kidnappers and press-gangs of 
 the Lincoln government? 
 
 But we bid adieu to Mr. Goldwin Smith. 
 He, in turn, is to be set aside. He is alto- 
 gether too mild a mannered man to meet 
 present demands. His vituperation of the 
 " rebels " falls short in acrimony, wdiile his 
 adulation of the yankees lacks the required 
 unction. ("Rebel" and "Yankee" — how 
 pat as echo the one term calls forth the 
 other.") 
 
 The history committee of the Grand 
 Army of the Republic seems to have finally 
 settled on a definite plan. And the plan in 
 some respects is so full of promise that it 
 will doubtle'ss be adopted. The aim is two- 
 
46 UNITED STATES "hISTOEY" AS THE 
 
 fold — to render the rebel more odious than 
 history has thus far depicted him, and at 
 the same time to put the yankee in such a 
 position that the world will be compelled 
 to admire him! 
 
 For the attainment of so patriotic an end 
 surely nothing more should be needed than 
 the Grand Army's simple requisition. The 
 needful appropriation might be graced by a 
 paean or two to the old flag, and all should 
 go smoothly. Else, what is the good of 
 victory and victory's lawful fruits? — fame, 
 wealth, honor, reputation, and full control 
 of "history's purchased page?" 
 
 The proposed plan is to be official, govern- 
 mental, authoritative. The required history 
 is to be written by a duly appointed and 
 truly loyal personage who is to gather his 
 war material solely from the "dispatches" 
 on file at Washington. But right there, we 
 apprehend, will be found the fl}^ in the 
 ointment. 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 47 
 
 Think of it. History by the transcrip- 
 tion of yankee dispatches! Bewildering 
 dispatches ! Unhappy historian ! — the wings 
 of his imagination close clipped, and him- 
 self bound by both literary and patriotic 
 obligation to harmonize with the actual 
 situation, and with one another, the varied 
 dispatches of commanders who never, no 
 "never misled the people by publishing 
 false news of military successes ! " 
 
 Take a handful of the most important 
 dispatches of the war. Or, still better, take 
 the chief dispatches of the Grand Army's 
 chosen heroes — the radical republican gen- 
 erals, the men of immaculate loyalty, the 
 gleaming meteors of war — Benjamin Butler, 
 Banks, Hooker, Pope, O. O. Howard. 
 
 Turn to Hooker's dispatch when he had 
 Lee "at his mercy:" "The rebels must 
 attack us in our chosen position, or in- 
 gloriously fly ! " The rebels did not fly, 
 but they attacked; whereupon the gallant 
 
48 UNITED STATES 
 
 corps of 0. O. Howard marched out of 
 history with unexampled alacrity, while the 
 exultant dispatch-bearer spurred hard for 
 Washington with Stonewall's troopers at his 
 heels ! 
 
 Butler's dispatches are a vibrating note 
 of triumph from Big Bethel in '61 to Ber- 
 muda Hundred in '64. The former affair 
 was really a drawn battle, the two wings of 
 his army having lost their way, until they 
 at length collided, whereupon they fired into 
 each other until mutually satisfied, and 
 then simultaneousl}' retired. Butler claimed 
 it as a double victory, but history has not 
 allowed the claim. In his Bermuda cam- 
 paign he announced his position as being 
 "impregnable against any numbers which 
 the rebels might bring against him." A 
 narrow space between the rivers was the 
 only point of entrance or exit. So Beaure- 
 gard with a handful of troops turned the 
 position against him, or " bottled him up," 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 49 
 
 as Grant expressed it, and Butler, as a war- 
 rior, was heard from no more. 
 
 General Banks was pre-eminently distin- 
 guished as a dispatch writer, whether waging 
 war amid the cotton bales of the Red River 
 or " chasing the rebels " in the Valley of 
 Virginia. But his campaigns were peculiar, 
 being modeled on the maritime principle of 
 fighting in a circle, so that whenever he 
 overtook the rebels he was pretty sure to 
 find them busy among his supply trains. 
 The hungry Confederates held him in affec- 
 tionate regard, and generally spoke of him 
 as " Old Stonewall's Commissary," altho in 
 his dispatches he modestly forbore to men- 
 tion the rank they gave him. 
 
 General Pope was also famous for his 
 dispatches, and never were those dispatches 
 more aglow with victory than whilst he was 
 being cuffed and cudgeled from the banks 
 of the Rappahannock to the walls of Wash- 
 ington. At the very moment that he was 
 
50 UNITED STATES " HISTOKY " AS THE 
 
 declaring the rebels to be in headlong flight, 
 the General-in-Chief, Halleck, frantic with 
 terror, was imploring McClellan to force his 
 marches and save the Capital ! 
 
 Truly, this official history will be worth 
 the waiting for; particularly as the historian 
 is to be put under orders to arrange the 
 dispatches "patriotically," — that is, in such 
 shape as to debase the rebel and exalt the 
 yankee ! 
 
 And yet this subject has its sad side too. 
 The "History" will have its vogue, ever}'-- 
 body will want to read it, but during that 
 lively period what will the poor comic 
 papers do? 
 
 Those friends of the Grand Army who 
 have a sense of humor are apprehensive 
 that that patriotic body is in danger of 
 being laughed out of existence. And in 
 this emergency it is proposed to enlarge 
 the powers of Government so that a new 
 code of laws may be enacted — laws which 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 51 
 
 sliall make it a penal offence to speak with 
 levity of patriotic persons, or to utter re- 
 proachful or shghting or irreverent words 
 when speaking of any project which enjoys 
 the support of "loyal" men. A "truthful 
 history" is to be ordered "by act of Con- 
 gress," and " publishers are to be fined and 
 imprisoned" if they "issue works" which 
 are calculated "to wrongly impress the 
 minds of the growing generation regarding 
 the Rebellion." 
 
 Considered as aji emanation of the Puri- 
 tan spirit, all this is perfectly logical. He 
 cares not who fights his battles so that he 
 alone is left to record them. That has 
 always been a Puritan prerogative, and he 
 does not propose to abandon it. He has 
 laid aside his steeple hat and his sour 
 visage and his sad-colored raiment, but at 
 bottom he is the same old Puritan. He has 
 dropped his sanctimonious snuffle and the 
 upward turning of his eyes because he 
 
52 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 began to perceive that those outward signs 
 of inward grace were putting the unregene- 
 rate on their guard against him. But he 
 is still the genuine article. A Pharisee 
 always, he is not to be judged by any 
 common standard ; for a being of his lofty 
 pretentions, if not incomparably better than 
 other men, is bound to be immeasurably 
 worse. Moving craftily to his ends, now 
 with a flash of simulated zeal and anon 
 with a placid saintliness, but always disguis- 
 ing his tyranny and greed by special claims 
 to holiness, he is to-day the same intrusive 
 meddler, with the same inborn passion for 
 regulating other peoples' affairs, that he was 
 when England vomited him forth to the 
 Continent and when the Continent in turn 
 spewed him to the shores of the New 
 World. 
 
 Self-stjded as the apostle of liberty, he 
 has ever claimed for himself the liberty of 
 persecuting all who presumed to differ from 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 53 
 
 him. Self-appointed as the champion of 
 unity and harmon}^ he has carried discord 
 into every land that his foot has smitten. 
 Exalting himself as the defender of freedom 
 of thought, his favorite practice has been to 
 muzzle the press and to adjourn legislatures 
 with the sword. Vaunting himself as the 
 only true disciple of the living God, he has 
 done more to bring sacred things into 
 disrepute than has been accomplished by 
 all the apostates of all the ages, from 
 Judas Iscariot to Robert G. Ingersoll. Born 
 in revolt against law and order — breeding 
 schism in the Church and faction in the 
 State — seceding from every organization to 
 which he had pledged fidelity — nullifying 
 all law, human and divine, which lacked 
 the seal of his approval — evermore setting 
 up what he calls his conscience against the 
 most august of constituted authorities and 
 the most sacred of covenanted obligations, 
 he yet has the impregnable conceit to pose 
 
54 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 himself in the world's eye as the only 
 surviving specimen of political or moral 
 worth. 
 
 On two occasions he has been clothed, 
 for a brief period, with absolute power, 
 and in each instance he taught his victims 
 what ''persecution" really meant. In the 
 tide of time, men have been governed in 
 many ways — by councils and oligarchies — 
 by prophets, priests and kings — by the 
 despotism of tyrants and the despotism of 
 mobs — by fools and philosophers — by learned 
 sages and by savage chieftains — but they 
 knew not the meaning of tyranny until 
 they fell under the Puritan dominion, and 
 learned what it was to be governed by 
 a brood of world-regenerating saints and 
 vanity-inspired busybodies. 
 
 "Be you a witch?" roared the embodied 
 majesty of Massachusetts to a trembling 
 paralytic. 
 
 "No, your honor," was the reply. 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 55 
 
 "Officer," said the Court, "take her away 
 and pull out her toe-nails with a pair of 
 hot pincers, and then see w^hat she says; 
 for verily it is written that 'thou shalt not 
 suffer a witch to live ! '" 
 
 Thus with the act of cruelty goes ever 
 the perverted text. 
 
 "We were an hungered, and the savages 
 had much store of corn, and many garments 
 made of the skins of beasts, and it came to 
 pass that we went forth and fell upon them, 
 smiting them hip and thigh, even with the 
 knife of Ehud and the hammer of Jael, 
 crying aloud and sparing not, and their 
 spoil became an heritage unto us, even unto 
 us and our children." 
 
 This precious screed, which serves its 
 turn in sanctifying robbery and murder, is 
 in fair accord with that practical and profit- 
 able tenet which has so often been to him 
 a rule of action: "Thou hast said in Thy 
 Word that 'unto the saints should be given 
 
56 UNITED STATES " HISTORY " AS THE 
 
 the earth and the fuhiess thereof/ and verily 
 we are the saints." 
 
 That the press should be silenced at his 
 bidding, that courts should be reconstructed 
 and constitutions tossed aside, is simply a 
 necessity of the situation. The men of 
 Belial must be put down. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances there should 
 seem to be no particular harm in men's 
 speaking of facts which ,they had witnessed, 
 or in describing events in which they had 
 participated, or in recording the history 
 which they had made. 
 
 But the Puritan has always been a law 
 unto himself, and by virtue of his "supe- 
 rior toleration " he has now become a law 
 unto others. Moreover being guided by 
 that inner light which shines for him alone, 
 there must be no appeal from the justice 
 of his judgments or the righteousness of 
 his decrees. 
 
 The Puritan heretofore has made some 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 57 
 
 little amends by furnishing to mankind an 
 enduring target for scorn and mirth and 
 derision. But now we are to be deprived 
 of even that slight compensation — the poor 
 privilege of laughing at him. It is too bad ! 
 
 It is related of the Roman tyrant, Aure- 
 lius Commodus, that, fired by martial ardor, 
 "he entered the arena, sword in hand, 
 against a wretched gladiator who was armed 
 only with a foil of lead, and that after 
 shedding the blood of his helpless victim, 
 he struck medals to commemorate the in- 
 glorious victory." 
 
 That fame at any price was precious in 
 the sight of Aurelius is sufficiently evident, 
 yet we nowhere read that he forbade his 
 people to laugh or weep or jibe at his 
 novel way of attaining it. 
 
 On the general subject of State Sover- 
 eignty, and its relation to secession and 
 
58 UNITED STATES "hISTOKY" AS THE 
 
 nullification, it is well enough to set down 
 a few facts which the coming history will 
 doubtless fail to remember And if the 
 facts seem "calculated to impress wrongly 
 the minds of the growing generation " why 
 " so much the worse for the facts." 
 
 That sterling patriot and life-long Unionist, 
 John Janney, of Loudoun county, was chosen 
 President of the Peace Convention of 1861. 
 On being twitted by a youthful delegate 
 for his State Sovereignty tendencies, the 
 old patriarch said: "Disunion would be the 
 greatest calamity that could befall our State; 
 but, sir, secession is her lawful right, and 
 she alone must determine the expediency 
 of exercising it." * * ""' " Virginia, sir, 
 is to-day a free and sovereign State; and 
 she was a nation one hundred and eighty 
 years before the Union was born." 
 
 This principle of Statehood had been 
 everywhere recognized by Americans up to 
 the time of the war, and nowhere more 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 59 
 
 persistently than by the people of Massa- 
 chusetts and the New England States. 
 
 In her convention of 1780 Massachusetts 
 declared that her people had the sole and 
 exclusive right of governing themselves as 
 a free, sovereign, and independent State, 
 and that they, and they alone, had the 
 indefeasible right to institute, reform, alter 
 or totally change that government whenever 
 their happiness or welfare might seem to 
 require it. 
 
 Thirteen years later, when war with Great 
 Britain seemed almost unavoidable, the New 
 Englanders put forth Hon. Timothy Dwight 
 as their spokesman, and through him de- 
 clared that they would have no part or lot in 
 such a war, and sooner than have it forced 
 upon them they would go out of the Union. 
 
 So, too, when the Louisiana purchase 
 was under discussion. Massachusetts bit- 
 terly opposed it and threatened to exercise 
 what she called her "unquestioned right of 
 
60 UNITED STATES "hISTOKY" AS THE 
 
 secession " if the measure should be per- 
 sisted in. Senator George Cabot was the 
 leader on that occasion. 
 
 Indeed, from the very beginning, the 
 New England States left nothing untried 
 to prevent the Southward growth of our 
 country. The yankee, driven by rigor of 
 climate and sterility of soil to prey upon 
 his more favored neighbors, watched with 
 ceaseless jealousy the special privileges 
 which his astuteness had obtained. He 
 feared to lose his fishing bounties, his coast- 
 defence-and internal-improvement-appropria- 
 tions, and most of all he dreaded an 
 abatement of the tariff tax, which enriched 
 him at the public cost. In the words of 
 Bancroft, "An ineradicable dread of the 
 coming power of the Southwest lurked in 
 New England, especially in Massachusetts." 
 And if those States could have had their 
 way, the Mississippi river would still be 
 our western frontier. 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 61 
 
 Senator Pickering, also of Massachusetts, 
 was another distinguished secessionist. He 
 did not like Mr. Jefferson's administra- 
 tion at all. There was something about it 
 which he said was '' not congenial " to his 
 feelings or the feelings of New England. 
 So he proposed a general dissolution of the 
 Union with a view to the formation of a 
 Northern Confederacy. The scheme was 
 favored by New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
 New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and 
 Vermont, yet it was deemed imprudent to 
 act without the alliance of New York, who 
 was promised a dominant influence in the 
 new league. But New York declined with 
 thanks and the project fell through. 
 
 In 1804 the Legislature of Massachusetts 
 asserted and defined the principle of seces- 
 sion by the following enactment: "That the 
 annexation of Louisiana to the Union tran- 
 scends the constitutional power of the 
 Government of the United States. It forms 
 
62 UNITED STATES HISTORY" AS THE 
 
 a new Confederacy, to which the States 
 united by the former compact are not 
 bound 'to adhere." 
 
 In the debate on the bill for the admis- 
 sion of Louisiana, the representative of 
 Massachusetts, Hon. Josiah Quincy, said: 
 ''If the bill passes, it is my deliberate 
 judgment that it is virtually a dissolution 
 of the Union; that it will free the States 
 from their moral obligation; and, as it will 
 be the right of all, so it will be the duty of 
 some, definitely to prepare for a separation 
 — amicably if they can, violently if they 
 must." At this conjuncture a Southern 
 member raised the point that "the sugges- 
 tion of a dissolution of the Union was out 
 of order;" but, on appeal, the House sus- 
 tained Mr. Quincy, who, in an elaborate 
 argument, vindicated the rightfulness of 
 secession, saying, among other things: "Is 
 there a principle of public law better settled 
 or more conformable to the plainest sugges- 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 63 
 
 tions of reason than that the violation of 
 a contract by one of the parties may be 
 considered as exempting the other from its 
 obhgations? Suppose in private hfe thirteen 
 form a partnership, and ten of them under- 
 take to admit a new partner without the 
 concurrence of the other three, would it not 
 be at their option to abandon the partner- 
 ship, after so palpable an infringement of 
 their rights?" 
 
 This reasoning goes to the heart of the 
 matter. It asserts that the States are inde- 
 pendent political organisms — or rather that 
 they were so in those ante-bellum days — 
 and that all the massed power of majorities 
 could not drag down the principle of 
 sovereignty, altho that principle might be 
 enthroned in but a single State. 
 
 In 1812 Massachusetts and Connecticut 
 refused to allow their militia to be sent 
 beyond their State lines, and on being left 
 to their own devices they quarrelled with 
 
64 UNITED STATES '' HISTORY" AS THE 
 
 the Administration for refusing to pay them 
 for making a local defence on their own 
 account. Meantime the Governor of Massa- 
 chusetts occupied himself in calling a public 
 fast-day for deploring the war against a 
 nation which had long been the "bulwark 
 of the religion we profess." The good old 
 town of Plymouth, having risen from its 
 knees, presently got into a muscular mood, 
 and having captured one of the Congress- 
 man who voted for the war, forthwith gave 
 a free exhibition of their untrammelled 
 liberty by "kicking him through the town." 
 Finally the Supreme Court of Massachu- 
 setts poured oil on the troubled waters by 
 deciding that neither Congress nor the 
 President had anything to do with the State 
 forces, but that the Governor was the man. 
 So the Governor settled the matter by 
 refusing the request of the President for 
 her quota of troops, and the Massachusetts 
 House of Representatives clinched the whole 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 65 
 
 subject by declaring the war to be unholy, 
 and begging the people to do what they 
 could to thwart it. 
 
 In short, on all occasions of domestic • 
 disquiet or foreign war the history of New 
 England has been a history of revolt, and 
 threatened separation, and nullification, and 
 secession, and persistent defiance of the 
 authority of Congress and the Federal 
 Courts. 
 
 Jefferson's Embargo was never really tried, 
 because the New England States threatened 
 to secede if its provisions should be carried 
 out, and it was accordingly repealed in the 
 vain hope of appeasing them. 
 
 But it was on the actual breaking out of 
 hostilities that New England showed the 
 real quality of her "devotion to the Union." 
 She not only did her best to nullify every 
 law passed by Congress for raising men 
 and money, but some of "her best citizens" 
 intrigued with British agents for an alliance 
 
66 UNITED STATES " HISTOEY " AS THE 
 
 with Canada, while others hung out signal 
 lights to enable the enemy's fleet to capture 
 our disabled cruisers — deeds which would 
 have richly deserved the halter if committed 
 by ordinary mortals, but which won for 
 them the enthusiastic plaudits of their kind. 
 That the Hartford Convention of 1814 was 
 not siiTiply a secession but a treasonable 
 body admits of no rational doubt. The 
 object was not merely to destroy the Union, 
 but to enleague the revolted States with 
 Great Britain, so that the new Confederacy 
 and its ally might be in a position to 
 subjugate the adhering States. The present 
 race of New England apologists pretend 
 that the Convention was "merely an assem- 
 blage of some of the Federal leaders," but 
 the plain facts of history discredit their 
 claim. The delegates from Connecticut, 
 Rhode Island, and Massachusetts were regu- 
 larly elected by the Legislatures of those 
 States, and constituted in every respect an 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 67 
 
 official body acting in a representative 
 capacity. Their deliberations were held in 
 secret, and no full account of their pro- 
 ceedings has ever been published, but they 
 publicly announced their adherence to the 
 doctrine of State Sovereignty, full and 
 absolute, declaring that: "When emergencies 
 occur which are either beyond the reach of 
 judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit 
 of delay incident to their forms. States 
 which have no common umpire must be 
 their own judges and execute their own 
 decisions." 
 
 In 1861 the Southern people, weary of 
 discord, exercised this sovereign right. They 
 withdrew from their restless and conten- 
 tious neighbors, and formed a more harmo- 
 nious Union among themselves, asking only 
 to be let alone. The " emergency " which 
 confronted them was the enthronement of 
 a hostile and revolutionary faction — a fac- 
 
68 UNITED STATES " HISTOEY " AS THE 
 
 tion which at a fatal moment had come 
 into power through a triple division among 
 the law-abiding classes. 
 
 These new rulers had chiefly distinguished 
 themselves as the enemies of existing insti- 
 tutions — their political and social creed 
 being, in effect, "Whatever is, is wrong." 
 They were fond of execrating the Union as 
 " a league with hell," and denouncing the 
 Constitution as "a covenant with death." 
 They derided the highest courts of the 
 land as " crimping houses of iniquity," and 
 villified the old flag as "a flaunting lie!" 
 
 But on coming into power they threw 
 off all disguise, and shamelessly started a 
 war of conquest in pretended defence of 
 the very principles and symbols which they 
 had so bitterly reviled. 
 
 With paralyzing logic they mutilated the 
 States on the plea that the States were 
 "indestructible;" they debarred them from 
 the Union while declaring the Union to 
 
YANKEE MAKES AND TAKES IT. 69 
 
 be "indissoluble," and they tore the Consti- 
 tution to tatters while pretending that 
 they were the only class who reverenced 
 its "inviolability." Having thus approved 
 themselves the only true champions of "the 
 sacred principle of government by consent," 
 they rounded out their perfect work by 
 converting the States into satrapies, and 
 holding them under bayonet rule until the 
 conquered peoples consented to ratify the 
 whole of their rump performances. No 
 wonder they are yearning for a historian 
 of their own! — no wonder they are drafting 
 laws to give that historian sole control of 
 the facts! 
 
 As for the South, she accepted war when 
 no other recourse was left her. And she 
 has borne its results, bitter tho they have 
 been, with the serenity of fortitude and the 
 dignity of silence. Conscious of rectitude 
 in aim and deed, she has been willing to 
 leave her cause to the tribunal of posterity. 
 
70 UNITED STATES "HISTORY." 
 
 Like the princess in the Eastern stor}^, she 
 has held her course, unshaken by clamor, 
 unmoved by taunts and sneers, and without 
 one backward glance has swept on toward 
 the Golden Fountain of the Future. She 
 has been content to leave her name and 
 memory "to men's charitable speeches, to 
 foreign nations and the next age." She 
 frankly concedes that under the new Union, 
 and the revised Constitution, and the im- 
 proved laws, and the generally amended 
 polity, there may have been innovations 
 with which she has not kept pace, and 
 which she does not fully comprehend. But 
 when she is threatened with pains and 
 penalties for presuming to relate to her 
 own children the simple annals of her life, 
 she believes that it is fairly within her 
 right to enter a mild and respectful yet 
 earnest protest. 
 
CRITICISMS 
 
— ON 
 
 A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY 
 
 I2ino. ; cloth; pp. 172; Price $1.00 
 
 Published by Cussons, May & Co., Inc., Glen Allen, Va. 
 
 From The Picayune, New Orleans, La. 
 
 The author is a veteran of the Confederacy and for 
 some time served as Grand Commander of the veteran 
 association in Virginia He was made chairman of the 
 History Committee of that organization, and for it made 
 an examination of the school books su^^plied to the 
 Southern children, particularly with reference to their 
 treatment of the civil war. The results of this inquiry 
 appear in this book, which contains a scathing arraign- 
 ment of several popular text-books, particularly of Prof. 
 Goldwin Smith's work. In addition to the essays and 
 addresses on this subject, the author includes a speech 
 on the " treachery " of the Indians. Mr. Cussons is a 
 
74 PKESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 polished and vigorous writer, and his opinions cannot 
 fail to awaken a responsive thrill in the heart of every 
 candid reader. 
 
 From T}iE Bookman, London. 
 
 There is no doubt as to Captain Cussons' vigour and 
 directness of speech, nor much as to his just cause. As 
 Past Grand Commander of the Confederate Veterans of 
 Virginia he protests, very rightly, against the misrep- 
 resentations of the attitude of the South in the great 
 war which pass current as history, and has also some 
 forcible words to say "On Granting Forgiveness Before 
 it is Asked," and "On the 'Treachery' of the American 
 Indian." His contentions are worth the notice of all 
 who feel that what everybody says is not always, in 
 every respect, right. 
 
 From the Saiurday Re\iew, London. 
 
 * * * The author's remarks on the " Treachery " 
 of the American Indian will shed a flood of light on 
 the "tender mercies" of the white man. Sitting Bull, 
 we are reminded, only trusted the United States once, 
 and then the American seized the opportunity to mur- 
 der him. "And the Great White Chief (our late worthy 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 75 
 
 President Mr. Benjamin Harrison) congratulated the 
 country on this achievement, and assured us that the 
 Indian Question was a simple matter now that Sitting 
 Bull had been put out of the way." " Is it to this," 
 asks Mr. Cussons, " that our vaunted civilization has 
 brought us?" 
 
 From The Outlook, London. 
 
 * * * The author, a veteran of the Civil War, 
 is well worth studying. The " current history " he re- 
 views is that produced by Mr. Goldwin Smith and the 
 historians of the North, whose utter lack of chivalry he 
 eloquently and scathingly rebukes. Very interesting is 
 a chapter devoted to the brutal and hypocritical war 
 of extermination which is rapidly extinguishing the Red 
 Indian. 
 
 From The Literary World, London. 
 
 This is a spirited attempt to defend the traditions 
 of the Southern States of the Union from the trenchant 
 pen of Prof. Goldwin Smith and the other historians, 
 who have assumed that the Northerners had all the 
 justice, as well as most of the strength, on their side in 
 the war of the Pievolution. Colonel Cussons, himself. 
 
76 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 fought in the war, and wielded a good sword if he were 
 as formidable a soldier as he proves himself a contro- 
 versialist. * * * The chapter on the Eed Man is an 
 eloquent plea for the just treatment of a barbarian foe. 
 
 From Thk Times, Stewartsville, Minn. 
 
 * * * It is a very interesting book, well written, 
 and presents the subject in a very different light from 
 that commonly accepted in the North. We believe the 
 cause of truth and justice would be well served if that 
 book were widely read. The ignorance of the North 
 regarding the real situation in the South, and of the 
 standpoints of Southern action is surprising, and the 
 narrow bitterness of sectional spirit so prevalent is Hue 
 to ignorance of both principles and facts. 
 
 From Woman's Work, Montgomery, Ala. 
 
 "A Glance at Current History." — We have re- 
 ceived from the press of Cussons, May & Co., Glen 
 Allen, Va., a volume bearing the above title. Its author, 
 Colonel John Cussons, wields his pen with the dash, 
 force, and precision with which he bore arms in the 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 77 
 
 war of the Southern Confederacy. Indeed it was Col- 
 onel Cussons who made, by one of the essays collected in 
 this book, the first brilliant and effective sortie against 
 false histories in Virginia schools; and he has main- 
 tained the struggle with a persistence worthy of him 
 and of his cause. That he succeeded will be no wonder 
 to any one who reads "A Glance at Cui-rent History." 
 That his success will be an inspiration to others is sui'e, 
 and his book will point the way to all who like him, 
 in writing and fighting and daily doing, live the words: 
 " Mine honor is mv life." 
 
 From The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 
 From Messrs Cussons, May & Co., Glen Allen, Va., 
 comes a book of miscellaneous addresses and other occa- 
 sional pieces by Colonel John Cussons, a Confederate 
 soldier, who is well known and eagerly listened to in 
 his own State as a defender of the Southern ideas. It 
 takes its title from its principal essay, "A Glance at 
 Current History," which defends the South against the 
 views rendered current by such orthodox histories as 
 Professor Goldwin Smith's, and contends with force that 
 the Southerners should have their children taught his- 
 tory on quite different lines. The remaining papers are 
 
78 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 addresses delivered by Colonel Cussons on such occasions 
 as the presentation to the Confederate Museum of a 
 portrait of Jefferson Davis. The interest of the book 
 is mainly local to Virginia, but its vigorous eloquence 
 makes it stimulating reading for any one. 
 
 From the Gazette, Terre Haute, Ind. 
 
 * * * The writer served through the war on the 
 Confederate side, doing his duty as he saw it, until the 
 end of the conflict. And now, though persuaded that 
 American greatness can be best achieved under one 
 flag, he insists that "a true spirit of national unity will 
 never be attained by a distortion of historic truths." 
 His contention is that such distortion has been sedu- 
 lously pursued, with the scarcely disguised purpose of 
 giving future generations a false notion of the honesty 
 and honor of the people of the South. His aim is to 
 present the Southern view of the men and issues of 
 the period of the civil war. In the six papers and 
 addresses which constitute the book the author corrects 
 what he believes to be errors in the historical record 
 of the country as commonly accepted. He denounces 
 the treatment of the American Indian, and is of the 
 opinion that a mistake has been made in use of text- 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 79 
 
 books which are tinged with sectional prejudice and 
 cause Northern school children to cherish biased opinions 
 regarding the people of the South. The work apart 
 from any intrinsic interest it may have, throws some 
 light on the conditions of sentiment at the present 
 time among the officers who took a prominent part in 
 the Confederate armies, and who, while they now stand 
 firmly for a united nation, still feel that it is not in 
 human nature that they should look upon the civil war 
 with quite the same feelings as those of their fellow- 
 countrymen who were on the other side. The book is 
 written in an earnest and honest spirit with the manly 
 purpose of vindicating the courage and the conscience 
 of his people and is deserving of the candid and careful 
 consideration of the Amei'ican people as a whole. It 
 is especially deserving of the attention of the people of 
 the North., who are apt, by much reading and hearing 
 of only one side to get a mistaken or distorted impres- 
 sion of a great epoch in the nation's history. 
 
 From The Sun, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 * * * The writer's attack on Goldwin Smith's 
 histories, as regards the South, is keen and vehement in 
 "A Glance at Current History." An attack is also 
 
»U PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 made with force on " History as Taught in Onr Schools." 
 The remaining papers are " On the Outworn Theory of 
 Government by Consent," " On Granting Forgiveness 
 Before It is Asked," and on "The 'Treachery' of the 
 American Indian." 
 
 PVom the Pail Mall Gazette, London. 
 
 A Plea for Historical Fair Play. — It appears the 
 school histories of the United States are badly in need 
 of revision. Last year they were condemned by Anglo- 
 Americans for their bias against England ; now comes 
 a bitter cry from the South that the history of the War 
 of Secession has been grossly doctored by the Federalist 
 Educationists. Things certainly have come to a pretty 
 pass when a small child can say to its grandfather, " I 
 don't care, grandpa, if you were an old rebel ; I love 
 yon." Captain Cussons' indignant appeal for impartiality 
 seems all too well-timed, and there is much truth in his 
 contention that the Puritanical North has done its best 
 to dishonour with the pen those whom it defeated with 
 the sword. Certainly the trouncing he administers to 
 Professor Goldwin Smith seems thoroughly well merited, 
 though he somewhat spoils his case by his over-exuberant 
 rhetoric. All the same, we .sympathize with the fierce 
 indignation of the writer at seeing the cause for which 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 81 
 
 he fought and bled trailed in the dust and its ideals 
 derided. 
 
 For the South did stand for a great deal more than 
 Northern writers are willing to admit. The wish of 
 perpetuating slavery may have persuaded those of the 
 baser sort, but the better men were actuated by the 
 desire to uphold freedom, the freedom of sovereign States 
 to withdraw from a partnership in which the majority 
 of the partners were trying to oppress the minority. 
 Granted that the better cause won — Providence, we 
 know, is generally on the side of the big battalions — no 
 one can help sympathizing with the South. It was the 
 blood of the country against the money, and as in the 
 struggle between Cavalier and Roundhead, "it was the 
 last sou of the trader that won." Still, the loss the 
 South sustained was the loss to all America of many 
 aristocratic instincts of the better sort that she may one 
 day have to regret. The ruin of the Virginian gentle- 
 men from whose ranks Washington sprang means the 
 loss of much precious tradition in manners and morals. 
 No wonder Captain Cussons hopes that from this noble 
 wreckage much may yet be rescued and preserved in 
 the pages of an impartial history. 
 
 The last article in the book deals with the Indian 
 question from the Indian point of view. The Indian 
 has been, in a way, to America what Ireland has been 
 
82 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 to England, Alsace to Germany, and Poland to Russia, 
 a sort of skeleton in the national closet. Captain Cus- 
 sons had little difficulty in showing that if the Redskin 
 is not the noble savage that Fenimore Cooper and his 
 tribe loved to depict, it is still a gross libel on the race 
 to say, " There is no good Indian but a dead Indian." 
 In fact, the chapter of American history that deals with 
 the Indian is certainly the one that honest Americans 
 have least to be proud of. 
 
 From Southern History Association, Washington, D. C. 
 
 * * * There is a field for a new school of historians 
 in this country, men that can be accurate and interesting 
 at the same time. This need is really the prompting 
 spirit of Mr. John Cussons' utterance. He vigorously 
 stands up for a faithful adherence to truth in repro- 
 ducing the past. He urges this not only with regard 
 to the mighty chasm behind us but with regard to our 
 treatment of the Indians. Naturally a large proportion 
 of his pages deal with what he considers misrepresen- 
 tation of the South and considerable attention does he 
 give to Goldwin Smith's History of the United States. 
 The quotations from this work would indicate that in 
 his hunger to be bold and pictures-que, Prof. Smith 
 was as reckless and sweeping in his statements as the 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 83 
 
 prophet was when lie said that all Cretians were liars. 
 Certainly some of Goldwin Smith's views as shown in 
 this volume are so utterly at variance with facts that 
 an American can only treat them with the good humor 
 that he bestows on Brother Jasper when he solemnly 
 preached that "the sun do move." Caustic comment 
 does Mr. Cussons make on the attitude of many of our 
 historical text books in dealing with slavery and leading 
 events of the civil struggle. He closes with a chapter 
 of severe strictures on our traditional denunciations of 
 the Indians as "treacherous" when they were only loyal 
 to their interest in using their best means of warfare. 
 One seeming defect in the book should not have been 
 allowed by a man of Mr. Cussons' independence and 
 breadth. Notwithstanding his passionate demand for 
 truth he has confined himself to one side only, and this 
 goddess is not to be wooed and won by that method. 
 Sectional bias and partisan coloring must be firmly 
 corrected by devoted friends on each side. This rigid 
 temper and luminous charity would soon bring us into 
 the pure, white light. 
 
 [SouTHEEN History Association assumes 
 equality of influence between the Rev€»*end 
 John Jasper and Professor Goldwin Smith — 
 between the poor darkey who honestly 
 
84 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 believes that " the sun do move " and one 
 of the ablest and most dangerous writers 
 that ever perverted history by a systematic 
 distortion of facts. Each may be left to 
 neglectful silence, thinks Southern History 
 Association. Yet surely it should seem 
 that the most virulent traducer of the South 
 could ask for nothing more than this — the 
 privilege of freely diffusing his slanders 
 without exposure or rebuke. 
 
 We must bear in mind that it is not to 
 the wise and prudent that an appeal for 
 justice need be made. The learned world 
 knew thirty years ago, as it knows to-day, 
 that the North wrongfully forced the South 
 to a rightful defence ; that the South stood 
 clearly within her institutional rights; that 
 "the North fought for conquest — the South 
 for independence." It is not the cultured 
 few, but the misled* multitude, who need to 
 be set right. And it must be borne in 
 mind that the masses reason through their 
 feelings, judging a cause by their opinion 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 85 
 
 of its supporters, and that that opinion is 
 absorbed from prevaihng sanctions. The 
 bnlk of the American people are still taught 
 and still believe that secession was a wanton 
 crime; the Government still designates its 
 official war reports as Rebellion Records; 
 countless millions of our women and chil- 
 dren still weep and moan and pray over 
 the morbid monstrosities of Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin. They still find in that peculiar 
 compound of fanaticism and cant nothing 
 but a generous outburst against Southern 
 cruelty and wrong; nothing but an inspired 
 cry for the deliverance of the oppressed. 
 They never dream that the moving story 
 over which they agonize is but a florid 
 romance, sanctioned to their use on account 
 of what is called its '' divine morality." 
 They cannot conceive of it as a mere com- 
 mercial venture — a novel of the lurid sort, 
 devised to inflame the passions and make 
 the flesh creep — the joint product of a trio 
 of habitual sensation-mongers — an emotional 
 
86 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 authoress, a drunken apostle of temperance, 
 and a libidinous priest. 
 
 SouTHEEN HiSTOEY ASSOCIATION takes 
 high ground. It is a splendid publication — 
 massive, scholarly, sedate. It follows its 
 appointed course, moving majestically on- 
 ward, its brow in the clouds, and with lofty 
 aim firing steadily over the heads of the 
 multitude. 
 
 But meantime there are lowlier tasks for 
 others. There are still a few simple truths, 
 a few elementary principles which need to 
 be enforced. For surely nothing can be 
 more incongruous than a "government of 
 consent" established by force of arms; 
 surely nothing can be more unjust than a 
 denial of the right to withdraw from an 
 equal partnership ; surely nothing can be 
 more absurd than to accuse a Sovereign 
 State of the impossible crime of rebellion ! 
 
 It is chiefly for the pressing home of 
 obvious truths of this sort that we contend; 
 and we assure our esteemed mentor that 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 87 
 
 we should be delighted to perform the task 
 more acceptably if we could but acquire 
 the art of stating disagreeable facts in an 
 agreeable manner. 
 
 It is true enough that the Puritan has 
 the merits as well as the vices of his type, 
 but the same claim has been made in vain 
 for the Cavalier, and it would surely be in 
 shocking taste for the South to take leader- 
 ship in a display of magnanimity — the 
 Puritan's chosen attribute. Hence it should 
 seem fair and necessary to unmask the 
 maligner — setting down his blemishes beside 
 the virtues which he vaunts — for to do less 
 than this would be to leave all the weights 
 in one scale. 
 
 SouTHEEN History Association places 
 generosity before justice, and while calling 
 for "white light" gives to defamation a free 
 hand. It contends that we should allude 
 to the war period only in a spirit of "lumi- 
 nous charity," yet we really fail to see any 
 necessity for relinquishing an honest con- 
 
88 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 viction even at charity's behest. Something 
 is due to principle ; something to memories ; 
 something to righteous wrath. We may be 
 faithful to the present without forsaking 
 the past. Our physical conquest was com- 
 plete, yet it could not touch us in subjuga- 
 tion of soul. That is with ourselves. And 
 it is right to rebuke those who defame 
 us. Even among savage peoples it is the 
 survivor's privilege and duty to guard his 
 fallen comrades ; to light up watch-fires, and 
 with missile or flame to drive off the evil 
 birds and beasts which else would profane 
 the sanctities of sepulchre and banquet on 
 the dead. — Ed.] 
 
 From The Spectaiok, London. . 
 
 Mr. Cu.ssons seeks to vinilicate the South from North- 
 ern attacks, reviews with severity a book of Mr. Goldwin 
 Smith, and, among other things, says a word for the 
 American Indian, who indeed has not been well treated 
 in the States, but not better by the South than by the 
 North. When large issues are challenged, it is natural 
 LofC. 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 89 
 
 to note a writer's accuracy in small matters. Mr. Gold- 
 win Smith may be a shameless partisan, but he is not a 
 "Doctor of Canon Law." The D.C.L. means •• Doctor of 
 Civil Law." 
 
 [The Spectatoe may be accurate in its 
 criticism, but its dispute should be with the 
 lexicographers, not with us. Webster gives 
 D.C.L. as the abbreviation of ''Doctor of 
 Canon Law."— Ed.] 
 
 The Vicar of Langton, in Hokncasti.e News. England. 
 
 * * * There are always two sides to every subject 
 of public interest, and the key-note of Colonel Cussons' 
 book is the onlv fair one, audi alteram partem. The 
 emigrant. Professor Goldwin Smith, has used his literary 
 position and influence in America to spread exaggerated 
 ideas on both sides of the Atlantic, regarding the de- 
 merits of the settlers of the Southern States, their ante- 
 cedents, and system of life. Colonel Cussons espoused 
 the cause of the Southerners (as he does in this book) 
 and played a not unimportant part in their heroic strug- 
 gle against the aggressive operations of the Northern 
 Fedei'als. That struggle brought. into prominence lead- 
 
90 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 ers — with whom he was frequently in contact — such as 
 "Stonewall" Jackson and General Lee, whose names 
 will go down to posterity as scions of the Saxon race, 
 not unworthy to rank with its greatest commanders ; 
 since they fought, and often fought successfully, under 
 almost unparalleled difficulties. More than once it was 
 quite " on the cards " that the Confederates would win 
 the game. Had it been possible for them to make a 
 dash at a critical moment the North would have been 
 at their feet. But a Fabian strategy was fatal. The 
 unlimited access to munitions of war enjoyed by the 
 Federals was bound, in a prolonged contest, to give 
 them the mastery over forces which, however patriotic, 
 were at last reduced to firing old nails instead of bullets. 
 Professor Smith has only hardness and villification for 
 these strugglers for what they deemed their rights; and 
 Colonel Cussons, as one who does not compile his state- 
 ments from garbled extracts, or " cook " his accounts to 
 suit the Northern appetite, writes from the experience 
 of actual events, and a knowledge acquired by taking 
 his part in many of the leading episodes of a struggle, 
 which has rarely, if ever, been equalled for its intensity, 
 or for the interest which it created among the nations 
 looking on. Of all wars civil wars may be said to be 
 the most uncivilised ; their bitterness seeming to be 
 increased in proportion to the proximity of kinship 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 91 
 
 between the contending parties; and they leave behind 
 them a legacy of corresponding hatred, to rankle in the 
 breasts of generations to come. By the law of nations 
 our own country was bound to stand aloof, rigidly neu- 
 tral ; but there can be no doubt that the British heart 
 glowed with a general and generous sympathy for the 
 oppressed. Once only did England depart from that 
 attitude, when, in the famous Slidell and Mason incident, 
 the violation of English soil, by their forcible seizure, 
 while on board an English steamer, compelled the British 
 lion to plant his foot down, and to vindicate the national 
 honour. The writer of this notice may here say that 
 he was in Florence when the news arrived that the 
 American Government had bowed before the peremptory 
 demand of England, and released the two prisoners, 
 and well he remembers the pleasure manifested among 
 the Italians that England had so promptly and success- 
 fully stood up for the right of sanctuary. That same 
 sense of justice should make us welcome any work, 
 which, like this of Colonel Cussons, aims at a fairer 
 estimate of the parties concerned in that great Ameri- 
 can contest, than has hitherto been propagated. In these 
 historic essays we find the convictions of a mind having 
 the capacity to grasp large issues, along with a mastery 
 of small details, and the power to express them in lan- 
 guage graphic and forcible. His exposure of the one- 
 
92 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 sided representations of the professor is complete and 
 trenchant, while not the least pleasing part of the book 
 is his defence of the Eed Indian ; a striking specimen 
 of creation, much abused, not seldom unfairly down- 
 trodden at the present day, too often individually de- 
 generate, the effect of the onward march of the Avhite 
 man, and. his concomitant brandy, and destined, it is to 
 be feared, in a not distant future, to final extinction ; 
 but originally a race, as Catlin has well shown to us, 
 possessed of some fine characteristics. We only will add 
 that we have read Colonel Cussons' book with pleasure 
 and jDi'ofit) 'I'li''^ we commend it to those who would 
 acquire wider and more impartial views of a subject 
 which has too often been treated with bias and in a 
 narrow spirit. 
 
 From Glasgow Hki<.'\i.1), Scotland. 
 
 The author of this volume is a Confederate soldier, 
 and is still true to the cause for which he fought with 
 conspicuous bravery. As such he enters a vigorous and 
 pathetic protest against the teaching of history as it has 
 been imposed by the victors. " Those Northern friends 
 of ours," he says, "have been diligent in a systematic 
 distortion of the leading facts of American history — 
 inventing, suppressing, perverting, without scruple or 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 93 
 
 shame — until oiir Southland stands to-day, pilloried to 
 the scorn of all the world, and bearing on her front 
 the brand of every infamy." He points out that this 
 is particularly the case in Professor Goldwin Smith's 
 " History of the United States," and gives instances of 
 prejudice and partisanship in that well-known work. 
 The result of the one-sided teaching of which he com- 
 plains is shown in a pretty and touching picture. "Our 
 grandchildren," he says, " trained in the public schools, 
 often mingle with their affection an indefinable pity, a 
 pathetic sorrow — solacing us with their caresses while 
 vainly striving to forget 'our crimes.' A bright little 
 girl climbs into the old veteran's lap, and hugging him 
 hard and kissing his gray head exclaims : ' I don't care, 
 grandpa, if you were an old rebel ! I love you ! ' " 
 
 Another cause which Mr. Cussons champions is that 
 of the American Indians. Speaking from knowledge 
 and experience acquired from actual intercourse with 
 them, in his early days, as scout on the plains, he denies 
 that they are the cruel, heartless, treacherous savages 
 so often described by American writers. Here, too, he 
 protests against the onesidedness of contemporary his- 
 tory, which sees nothing but good generalship when the 
 Indians are surprised and massacred, but which at once 
 raises the cry of treachery when they, as in the case 
 of Custer, outgeneral, outmanceuvre, and outfight their 
 
94 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 adversaries. Such subjects as these do not, it is true, 
 appeal very directly to any but American readers ; 
 nevertheless, they are treated with an earnestness and 
 a vigour which make the reading of the several papers 
 and addresses very attractive, and which can hardly fail 
 to excite the interest even of outsiders. 
 
 From The Times, Kansas City, Mo. 
 
 History always favors the victor at the expense of 
 the vanquished. Had the fortunes of war been less pro- 
 jjtitious, George Washington, "the father of his country," 
 would likely to this day have been to all of us a bloody 
 handed traitor. We should have been taught so to re- 
 gard him in the school histories, and any attempt on 
 the part of fair minded investigators to give us the facts 
 as they really were would be apt to move us about as the 
 occasional mitigations of the treason of Benedict Arnold. 
 Washington we should be called upon to view from child- 
 hood's earliest primers as a man who had, in the French 
 war of 1765, held a commission with the armies of His 
 Majesty George III of Great Britain, and who yet, but ten 
 years later, took the field against his liege sovereign at 
 the call of the colony of Virginia — 0, crime unutterable ! 
 
 This is no wild flight of fancy. We have ample 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 95 
 
 evidence of the tendency. Look at the history of our 
 civil war that is served our children in the schools pub- 
 lic schools. Even in the South the children are taught 
 the story of the terrible struggle of a generation since 
 from books poisoned, cover to cover, with prejudice and 
 misrepresentation. 
 
 This is a matter of immense significance in the 
 South — of even greater significance now than heretofore, 
 as those who personally recall the true spirit, the earnest 
 patriotism, mistaken though it may have been, the sacri- 
 fices of '61 to '65, pass away and a generation rises up 
 that must depend for its premises in judging of the war 
 upon the printed chronicles of the historians. The gross 
 partisanry of these chronicles is soon apparent to the 
 conscientious investigator, but the evil still obtains. 
 
 In a strong new book, "A Glance at Current History," 
 this tendency of the school histories to warp and misstate 
 the cause of the South is ably handled by Captain John 
 Cussons, Past Grand Commander of the Confederate Vete- 
 rans of Virginia. This book is aggressively Southern in 
 tone. In not "one line" is it apologetic. Yet it is 
 straightforward and fair. Captain Cussons reviews a 
 number of the school histories, the "text books" from 
 which Young America is supposed to gain his knowledge 
 of his country's past. Bitterly the old soldier points out 
 the false coloring so persistently thrown over every phase 
 
96 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 of the Confederate struggle. There is invective, sharp 
 and cutting ; there is irony and sarcasm. But there is 
 pathos, too. "Our grandchildren, trained in the public 
 schools," he says simply "often mingle with their affec- 
 tion an undefinable pity, a pathetic sorrow — solacing us 
 with their caresses while vainly striving to forget our 
 crimes. A bright little girl climbs into the old veteran's 
 lap, and, hugging him hard, and kissing his gray head,, 
 exclaims: '1 don't care, grandpa, if you w^ere an old 
 rebel, I love you.' " 
 
 Captain Cussons insists it is a duty incumbent on the 
 people of the South and of the whole nation to teach our 
 children the truth about the Confederate struggle for 
 independence. 
 
 The book makes 172 pages and is printed upon good 
 paper, in large type, and is handsomely bound in cloth. 
 
 From The Dispatch, Richmond, Va. 
 
 * * * The contents of the book are as follows : 
 A Glance at Current History ; On History as Taught 
 in Our Schools; On "Teachable" History; On the 
 Outworn Theory of Government by Consent ; On Grant- 
 ing Forgiveness Before it is Asked; On the " Treachery " 
 of the American Indian. 
 
A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 97 
 
 The cause of the South is championed with that 
 incisiveness and directness for which Captain Cussons is 
 noted. His review of Professor Goldwin Smith's History 
 of the United States is a paper of great ability and 
 force, showing the gross prejudice and vicious partisanry 
 of that distinguished man, who has written a History 
 of the United States which, unfortunately, has a large 
 sale on both sides of the Atlantic 
 
 Captain Cussons emphasizes the views he has fre- 
 quently expressed as to our duty to teach our children the 
 truth about the Confederate struggle for independence. 
 
 The article on the American Indian is cjuite unique,. 
 in that it takes issue with the saying of Phil. Sheri- 
 dan's, that "there is no good Indian but a dead Indian.'" 
 Captain Cussons was a famous scout on the plains when 
 he was a very young man, and his wide acquaintance 
 with the tribes that then roamed over that territory 
 enables him to speak as an expert observer. He under- 
 takes to show that the utterance in question is outrage- 
 ously untrue. On the other hand, he shows that the 
 treatment of the Indians by the American people has 
 been barbarous in many cases. He gives instances of 
 treachery on the part of our people, which certainly 
 would seem to show that some of the reprisals of the 
 aborigines npon our border settlements were not without 
 justification. 
 
98 PRESS COMMENTS ON 
 
 The book makes 172 pages, and is printed upon good 
 paper, in large type, and is handsomely bound in cloth. 
 We have not found a dull page m it. It is aggressively 
 Southern in its tone. In no respect is it apologetic. 
 And it is written in a style characteristic of the author, 
 showing a luxuriant vocabulary, with the ability to con- 
 centrate much in little, and an uncommon power to 
 convey a flood of invective in a few' ironical sentences. 
 
 From The Times, Richmond, Va. 
 
 * * * No one question during the past several 
 years has so engrossed the attention of the Confederate 
 Veterans as the question of school histories for the chil- 
 dren of the South. It has been shown time and again 
 that histories were in use in the Southern schools which 
 were written from the standpoint of the North, which 
 treated the war between the States as a rebellion, and 
 which made the impression upon the child that the 
 Southern veterans w'ere rebels and traitors. 
 
 Captain Cnssons, who is Past Grand Commander of the 
 Confederate Veterans of Virginia, and former chairman 
 of the History Committee, in his book, reviews a number 
 of such histories, showing how utterly false they are and 
 how utterly unfit they are for the children of the South 
 
MAR 11 1901 
 
 A GLANCE AT CURRENT HISTORY. 99 
 
 to read. With a pathos akin to sadness, he says that 
 "the world has decided against us," and that "there 
 remains to us now but a single hope — the hope of win- 
 ning and holding something better than a dishonored 
 place in the hearts of our own children." 
 
 Captain ' Cussons' book is written in an attractive 
 style, vigorous yet chaste, and is a valuable addition to 
 Southern literature. 
 
^idt ^uzbitia, T^uat (Qcslvrq. 
 
 LB S '04 
 
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 C-^O