Glass ^tij^a. 
 
 Book 
 
 Copyright }J"_?o|gL 
 
 COPyRIGHT DEPOSnV 
 
Strauss Photo. 
 
 ROBERT CATLETT CAVE. 
 
THE 
 
 MEN IN GRAY 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT CATLETT CAVE 
 
 'Their spirits were victorious; their 
 bodies onlp fainted and failed." 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENN. 
 
 CONFEDERATE VETERAN 
 
 1911 
 
Copyright, iqii 
 
 BY 
 ROBXRT CATLETT CAVE 
 
 
THE MEMORY OF 
 
 THE MEN IN GRAY, 
 
 who, with matchless 
 courage, fought to 
 maintain the prin- 
 ciples of the Con- 
 stitution and per- 
 petuate the Govern- 
 ment established by 
 their fathers, and 
 whose heroic deeds 
 crowned the South 
 with deathless glory. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Foreword 7 
 
 The Men in Gray iQ 
 
 A Defense of the South 52 
 
 Cavalier Loyalty and Puritan Disloyalty in America. . 96 
 
 (5) 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 When I delivered the oration at the unveiling of 
 the monument to the soldiers and sailors of the 
 Southern Confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia, on 
 May 30, 1894, I supposed that the war was over; 
 that the animosities engendered by it had been bur- 
 ied ; that it might be discussed as freely as any oth- 
 er historical event; and that at the dedication of a 
 monument to the Confederate dead a Southerner's 
 attempt to free their memory from reproach by 
 plainly stating the reasons that moved them to take 
 up arms and justifying their action would be re- 
 ceived by the people of the North with patience and 
 kindly toleration, if not with approval. However it 
 may have seemed to those who read extracts from it, 
 the speech was not prompted by a malevolent spirit. 
 Indeed, I think I can truthfully say that never, either 
 during or after the war, was I moved by a feeling 
 of enmity toward the brave men who fought under 
 the Stars and Stripes in obedience to what they be- 
 lieved to be the call of duty. I deplored the fact that 
 they had been deceived into taking up arms against 
 what I regarded as the cause of truth, justice, and 
 freedom ; but toward them personally I had no feel- 
 ing of ill will or hostility. I had friends among 
 them — ^young men of admirable qualities, whom I 
 
 (7) 
 
8 FOREWORD. 
 
 had met before the war and esteemed highly, and 
 whom I loved none the less because their uniforms 
 were blue. 
 
 Not only was I conscious of no feeling of enmity 
 in my own heart, but, so far as I knew. Southern 
 men generally entertained no such feeling. We of 
 the South believed most firmly that the North had 
 unrighteously made war on us; but we credited the 
 Northern soldiers w4th the same loyalty to honest 
 conviction that we claimed for ourselves, and freely 
 conceded to them the right to speak without restraint 
 in justification of what they had done. We had so 
 far allayed whatever of animosity we may ance have 
 felt that we could read misrepresentations of the 
 South and her cause with an indulgent smile, and 
 excuse them on the ground that those who made 
 them believed them to be true. 
 
 Knowing this to be the attitude and feeling of the 
 conquered, to whom the war had brought incalcula- 
 ble loss and suffering, I supposed that the conquer- 
 ors, who had suffered and lost comparatively little, 
 would be equally magnanimous. But I was speedily 
 undeceived. The storm of unjust criticism and 
 bitter denunciation which the speech called forth 
 showed but too plainly that the embers of hate were 
 still smoldering in some Northern hearts, needing but 
 a breath to fan them into flame, and that the time 
 was not yet come when plain speech in justification 
 of the South would receive calm consideration or 
 even be tolerated. 
 
FOREWORD. 9 
 
 Deeming it unwise and unpatriotic to add fuel to 
 the flame which I had unintentionally kindled, I did 
 not reply to these animadversions; but I think it 
 well to notice here the objection to the speech as a 
 violation of Decoration Day proprieties. In the 
 words of one of my critics: "Decoration Day in 
 both sections belongs to the bravery of the dead. 
 [May 30 has never been Confederate Memorial 
 Day.] Old issues belong to other places of discus- 
 sion." With this sentiment I am in full sympathy. 
 When we meet w^iere sleep the heroic dead, to pay a 
 tribute of respect to their high courage and soldier- 
 ly virtues, and, following a custom which originated 
 with the women of the South, reverently to deco- 
 rate the graves of Federals and Confederates alike, 
 the calling up of the old differences that arrayed 
 them in opposing lines of battle is a gross improprie- 
 ty. Had I been speaking on such an occasion, I 
 would have raised no question as to whether Feder- 
 als or Confederates had fought for the right. But 
 the speech was not made on such an occasion. Al- 
 though delivered on National Decoration Day, it was 
 not at the graves of any dead, but at the unveil- 
 ing of a monument to the soldiers and sailors of the 
 South. It was a ceremony which pertained not to 
 both sections, but to the South alone — a ceremony 
 in which the Southern people were formally dedi- 
 cating a shaft that would bear witness to their ap- 
 preciation of the worth of the men who fought un- 
 der the flag of the Confederacy and to their desire to 
 
10 FOREWORD. 
 
 perpetuate the memory of those men. Since the 
 highest courage, if displayed in defense of an un- 
 just cause, cannot deserve a memorial, it seemed to 
 me that this shaft was intended to commemorate 
 not only the valor of the Southern soldiers and sail- 
 ors, but also the righteousness of the cause in de- 
 fense of which that valor was displayed. Hence I 
 thought it appropriate to speak in justification of 
 their cause, as well as in praise of their courage. 
 
 Many Northern orators seem to think it altogeth- 
 er proper to discuss the old differences between the 
 sections, even in the usual exercises on Decoration 
 Day. On the same day that the Confederate monu- 
 ment was unveiled in Richmond Judge J. B. Mc- 
 Pherson, as a part of the Memorial Day services 
 held at Lebanon, Penn., delivered an address from 
 which I take the following : 
 
 But, while our emotions give this anniversary its pecuHar 
 character, we must not forget that its more enduring value lies 
 in the opportunity^ it affords to repeat and strengthen in our 
 minds the truths of history for which this tremendous sacri- 
 fice was made. . . . Our school histories to-day are largely 
 at fault because they do not tell the truth distinctly and 
 positively about the beginning of the war. It is too often 
 spoken of as inevitable. . . . This is not only not true, but 
 it is a dangerous falsehood, because it tends to lessen the guilt 
 of the rebellion and suggests that after all the South was not 
 to blame. I would be the last to deny that a contest of some 
 kind was inevitable between freedom and slavery until one or 
 the other should prevail over the whole nation. . . . But I 
 do deny that an armed conflict was inevitable ; I do deny that 
 it was impossible by constitutional means to find a peaceful 
 solution. The solutions which other countries have found for 
 
FOREWORD. II 
 
 similar problems were surely not beyond our capacity, .... 
 but the opportunity to try them was refused by the action of 
 the South alone. . . . This, I repeat, was rebellion, and I 
 am willing to call the Southern soldiers Confederates, since 
 they prefer that title ; and while I welcome the dying away of 
 personal bitterness between the soldiers and citizens of both 
 sections, I am not willing to speak of the war as the Civil 
 War or the War between the States, or to use any phrase other 
 than that which the truth of history demands, and that which 
 ought to be taught to every child in our schools for all time to 
 come — ^the War of the Rebellion. A crime like this, a de- 
 liberate attack upon the nation's life, ought not to be glossed 
 over by a smooth turn of speech or half concealed for the 
 sake of courtesy. 
 
 The papers of the country had nothing to say of 
 the impropriety of the speech of which the foregoing 
 extracts are fair samples. On the contrary, it was 
 pubHshed under double-leaded headlines and declared 
 to be "especially appropriate to the occasion." Here 
 and there in the North speeches containing such mis- 
 representations of the South are still made on Deco- 
 ration Day without calling forth any expressions of 
 disapproval from the press. And if it be especially 
 appropriate in the ''customary Memorial Day serv- 
 ices" to charge that the South refused to give the 
 country an opportunity to find a peaceful solution of 
 the questions at issue by constitutional means, and 
 was guilty of the ''crime" of deliberately and cause- 
 lessly drawing the sword and attacking the nation's 
 life, how can it be especially inappropriate, when 
 dedicating a monument to Southern soldiers, to at- 
 tempt to refute the charge? Does the propriety of 
 discussing the causes of the War between the States 
 
12 FOREWORD. 
 
 belong exclusively to Northern writers and speak- 
 ers ? Did the South, when she laid down her arms, 
 surrender the right to state in self-justification her 
 reasons for taking them up? If not, I fail to see 
 how it can be improper, when perpetuating the mem- 
 ory of the Confederate dead, at least to attempt to 
 correct false and injurious representations of their 
 aims and deeds and hand their achievements down 
 to posterity as worthy of honorable remembrance. 
 
 Other comments on the Richmond speech I do 
 not care to notice. In no one of them was there a 
 calm and dispassionate attempt to refute its state- 
 ments. For the most part they consisted of in- 
 vective — the means to which small-minded men are 
 prone to resort when they can find no available ar- 
 gument. Apparently this invective proceeded from 
 misconceptions of my meaning, resulting from a 
 hasty and prejudiced reading of what I said ; and I 
 am not without hope that, published now with other 
 matter, the speech may be considered more calmly, 
 be better understood, and, perhaps, be more favor- 
 ably received. 
 
 Surely now, when nearly half a century has 
 elapsed since the flag of the Confederacy was furled 
 in the gloom of defeat; when the loyalty of the 
 South has been placed beyond all question by the fact 
 that her sons^ in response to the country's call, have 
 fought as bravely under the Stars and Stripes as they 
 once did under the Starry Cross ; when, of those who 
 were engaged in the conflict between the sections, all 
 
FOREWORD. 13 
 
 save an age-enfeebled remnant are numbered with 
 the dead; when new men, most of them too young to 
 have taken part in the war and many of them un- 
 born when it closed, have come to the front and are 
 directing the affairs of the nation — surely now our 
 Northern friends will be tolerant and charitable and 
 magnanimous enough to concede to a Southerner 
 freedom of speech in defense of his dead comrades 
 and refrain from heaping abuse on him, even though 
 they may wholly dissent from what he says. 
 
 It is said, however, that it is disloyal to maintain 
 that the South was right. Disloyal to what? Cer- 
 tainly not to the existing government. The contro- 
 versy does not involve any question of loyalty to the 
 government as it now is^ but only a question of loy- 
 alty to a theory of government which was enunciat- 
 ed by the leaders of the Republican party prior to 
 the war, which, by an unfortunate combination of 
 circumstances, triumphed at the polls and elected its 
 representatives to power in i860, and the triumph 
 of which led to the withdrawal of the Southern 
 States from the Union. That theory the existing 
 government does not profess to uphold. I believe 
 that no prominent statesman of any party will open- 
 ly advocate it to-day. Has any President since the 
 war been willing to say in his inaugural address 
 that in shaping the policy of the government in re- 
 gard to vital questions he would not be bound by 
 the decisions of the Supreme Court? Has any Sec- 
 retary of State since the war been willing to say 
 
14 FOREWORD. 
 
 that ''there is a law higher than the Constitution," 
 and that a pledge to administer the government ac- 
 cording to the constitution as construed by the Su- 
 preme Court would be ''treason ?" I think not. The 
 existing government, professedly at least, repudiates 
 that unconstitutional and "higher law" theory. It 
 professes to respect the Constitution as the supreme 
 law of the land. Surely there can be no disloyalty to 
 it in maintaining that fifty years ago the South re- 
 pudiated and withdrew from the Union rather than 
 accept what it repudiates now. 
 
 But is it consistent with loyalty to the existing 
 government to claim that the secession of the South- 
 ern States from the Union was not rebellion ? Most 
 certainly. The war changed conditions. It estab- 
 lished new relations and obligations. It nationalized 
 States that were previously federalized. It changed 
 the union of independent States, held together by 
 mutual consent, into a union of dependent States, 
 held together by national authority. It abolished 
 State sovereignty and changed the federal govern- 
 ment, which derived its powers from the States, 
 into the national government, which exercises au- 
 thority and power over the States. Some things 
 that may not be lawful under the national govern- 
 ment established by the war may have been alto- 
 gether lawful under the federal government that 
 existed before the war. Secession is one of them. 
 To maintain that a State now has the right to with- 
 draw from the Union mav be disloval to the exist- 
 
FOREWORD. 15 
 
 ing national government; but there is no such dis- 
 loyalty in maintaining that a State had that right 
 under the old federal government, and hence that 
 the secession of the Southern States was not rebel- 
 lion. 
 
 But it may be asked, Why seek to revive these old 
 issues? What good can possibly result from dis- 
 cussing them? Wliy not, as a well-known Southern 
 editor puts it, "pay a tribute to the conspicuous val- 
 or of the Southern soldiers without a revival of 
 bootless discussions?" Why not acquiesce in all 
 that has been said and done and ''take up the old, 
 sweet tale of Bunker Hill and Yorktown, and pur- 
 sue it, under God's blessing, to the end of time? 
 What'cause has the South lost which remains to be 
 vindicated or which can be recovered?" 
 
 If, as this distinguished editor— somewhat to the 
 discredit of his reputation as a well-informed think- 
 er—affirmed, slavery and secession were the only is- 
 sues involved in the War between the States, it must 
 be admitted that the South has no cause which re- 
 mains to be vindicated and has lost nothing that 
 can be recovered. The war abolished slavery, and, 
 with the exception of a few negroes who found that 
 freedom brought them cares and hardships such as 
 they had not known in slavery, I never heard a 
 Southerner say he regretted it. If the war did not 
 abolish the constitutional right of a State to secede 
 from the Union, it clearly demonstrated that the 
 exercise of that right is altogether impracticable 
 
l6 FOREWORD, 
 
 when the seceders are the weaker party. In the 
 South slavery and secession are dead, and no discus- 
 sion of old issues can possibly bring them back to 
 life or excite in the Southern heart a desire to re- 
 store them. 
 
 Nor can a discussion of the old issues add in any 
 way to the rights of citizenship now enjoyed by the 
 Southern people. As the editor quoted above said, 
 in all save pensions ''it is one with the men who fol- 
 lowed Grant and with the men who followed Lee. 
 They sit side by side in Congress ; they serve side by 
 side in the Cabinet ; they have represented the coun- 
 try and are representing it in its foreign diplomatic 
 service with an ability and loyalty which, as between 
 the two, cannot be distinguished the one from the 
 other." The discussion of old difference is not ex- 
 pected to increase the number of Southern office 
 holders, gain for the South any larger share of Fed- 
 eral patronage, cause any inflow of Northern capital 
 to develop her resources and enrich her people, or 
 add to her material wealth in any way whatever. 
 From the viewpoint of one who has an eye for the 
 "loaves and fishes" only, it must seem altogether 
 bootless. 
 
 But there are some who do not see in 'loaves and 
 fishes" the only thing worth striving for, who think 
 that unsullied honor is better than material wealth, 
 and who are unwilling to prosper and grow fat by 
 acquiescing in perversions of history that tarnish 
 the fame of their heroic dead. In discussing the 
 
FOREWORD. 17 
 
 causes of the war they have no thought of restoring 
 the ante helium conditions of Southern life ; they do 
 not aim to recover any material wealth or political 
 place and prestige that the South may have lost; 
 they are not ^'seeking to raise up a generation of 
 young vipers to undo the good that God has done ;" 
 they are not "seeking to make traitors of the fair 
 lads whom we are sending to West Point and An- 
 napolis." Their sole purpose is to state fairly the 
 South's side of the case, to refute the false charge 
 that she plunged the country into a long and bloody 
 war without the semblance of just cause, to bring 
 into prominence the real reason of her withdrawal 
 from the Union, to present her action to the world 
 in a truer and fairer light, and to free her from 
 the reproach which unfriendly and calumnious writ- 
 ers have heaped on her. 
 
 I acknowledge to its utmost lawful extent the ob- 
 ligation to heal dissensions, allay passion, and pro- 
 mote good feeling; but I do not believe that good 
 feeling should be promoted at the expense of truth 
 and honor. I sincerely desire that there may be be- 
 tween the people of the North and the people of the 
 South increasing peace and amity, and that, in the 
 spirit of genuine fraternity, they may work together 
 for the prosperity and glory of their common coun- 
 try ; but I do not think the Southern people should be 
 expected to sacrifice the truth of history to secure 
 that end. 
 
 It has been truthfully said that "history as writ- 
 
l8 FOREWORD. 
 
 ten, if accepted in future years, will consign the 
 South to infamy ;" and only by refusing to acquiesce 
 in it as it is now written can we possibly prevent fu- 
 ture generations from so accepting it. By keeping 
 these politically dead issues alive as questions of his- 
 tory, freely discussing them, and reiterating the truth 
 in regard to them, we may possibly counteract to 
 some extent the effect of the misrepresentations 
 found in history as it is now written, add something 
 to the luster of the page that records the deeds of 
 the men and women of the South, and hand their 
 story down to posterity so that their children's chil- 
 dren will think and speak of them with pride rather 
 than shame. 
 
 With this end only in view and conscious of no 
 feeling of bitterness, I delivered the speech at the 
 unveiling of the monument to the soldiers and sail- 
 ors of the South. \Mth the same end in view and 
 in the same kindly spirit, I now give this little book 
 to the public. If it shall excite any feeling of enmity 
 in the North or the least disloyal and traitorous feel- 
 ing in the South, I shall be sincerely sorry; but if it 
 shall give to any one a truer and juster conception 
 of the South's motives, aims, lofty patriotism, and 
 unwavering devotion to principle, I shall be very 
 glad. R. C. C. 
 
CONFEDERATE SAILORS AND SOLDIERS MONUMENT, LIBBY 
 PRISON PARK, RICHMOND, VA. 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 TT 7'HEN I was honored with the invitation to 
 ^ ^ speak on this occasion of the valor and worth 
 of those in memory of whom this monument has 
 been erected, I felt somewhat as I imagine one of 
 old felt when, contemplating the infinite, he said: 
 "It is high; I cannot attain unto it." I keenly felt 
 my inability to rise to ''the height of this great ar- 
 gument" and fitly eulogize the soldiers and sailors 
 of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 And yet I felt impelled to speak some word, how- 
 ever weak, in honor of those tried and true men who 
 fearlessly fronted the foe in defense of home and 
 country and battled even unto death for a cause 
 which was dear to my heart while its banner proudly 
 floated over victorious fields, and which I have re- 
 garded with an affection sanctified and strengthened 
 by sorrow since that banner was furled in the gloom 
 of defeat. 
 
 As death paints our loved ones in softer, fairer 
 colors, and brings us to see as we did not see before 
 
 'Their likeness to the wise below, 
 Their kindred with the great of old ;" 
 
 so the overthrow of the cause we struggled to main- 
 tain gave me a still higher appreciation of it and 
 
 (19) 
 
20 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 brought me to realize more deeply its oneness with 
 the cause of human freedom in every age and land. 
 
 I am not one of those who, clinging to the old 
 superstition that the will of heaven is revealed in 
 the immediate results of ''trial by combat," fancy 
 that right must always be on the side of might, and 
 speak of Appomattox as a judgment of God. I do 
 not forget that a Suvaroff triumphed and a Kosci- 
 uszko fell; that a Nero wielded the scepter of empire 
 and a Paul was beheaded ; that a Herod was crowned 
 and a Christ was crucified. And, instead of accept- 
 ing the defeat of the South as a divine verdict 
 against her, I regard it as but another instance of 
 *'truth on the scafifold and wrong on the throne.'' 
 
 Appomattox was a triumph of the physically 
 stronger in a conflict between the representatives of 
 two essentially different civilizations and antagonis- 
 tic ideas of government.* On one side in that con- 
 flict was the South, led by the descendants of the 
 Cavaliers, who, with all their faults, had inherited 
 from a long line of ancestors a manly contempt for 
 moral littleness, a high sense of honor, a lofty re- 
 gard for plighted faith, a strong tendency to con- 
 servatism, a profound respect for law and order, 
 and an unfaltering loyalty to constitutional govern- 
 ment. Against the South was arrayed the power of 
 the North, dominated by the spirit of Puritanism, 
 
 *Subjoined Note A, page 42. 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 21 
 
 which, with all its virtues, has ever been character- 
 ized by the pharisaism that worships itself and is 
 unable to perceive any goodness apart from itself; 
 which has ever arrogantly held its ideas, its inter- 
 ests, and its will to be higher than fundamental 
 law and covenanted obligations; which has always 
 "lived and moved and had its being" in rebellion 
 against constituted authority; which, with the cry 
 of freedom on its lips, has been one of the most 
 cruel and pitiless tyrants that ever cursed the world ; 
 which, while beheading an English king in the 
 name of liberty, brought England under a reign of 
 oppression whose little finger was heavier than the 
 mailed hand of the Stuarts; and which, from the 
 time of Oliver Cromwell to the time of Abraham 
 Lincoln, has never hesitated to trample upon the 
 rights of others in order to effect its own ends. 
 
 At Appomattox Puritanism, backed by over- 
 whelming numbers and unlimited resources, pre- 
 vailed. But mere force cannot settle questions of 
 right and wrong. Thinking men do not judge the 
 merits of a cause by the measure of its success. 
 And I believe 
 
 "The world shall yet decide 
 In truth's clear, far-off light," 
 
 that the South was in the right;* that the cause was 
 just; that the men who took up arms in her defense 
 
 * Subjoined Note B, page 42. 
 
22 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 were patriots who had even better reason for what 
 they did than had the men who fought at Concord, 
 Lexington, and Bunker Hill ; and that her coercion, 
 whatever good may have resulted or may hereaft- 
 er result from it, was an outrage on liberty. 
 
 I cannot here discuss at length the merits of the 
 Southern cause; but, in justice to the memory of 
 those who died in the struggle to maintain it, I wish 
 to protest against the aspersion that they fought to 
 uphold and perpetuate the institution of slavery. 
 Slavery was a heritage handed down to the South 
 from a time when the moral consciousness of man- 
 kind regarded it as just and right — a time when 
 even the pious sons of New England were slave 
 owners and deterred by no conscientious scruples 
 from plying the slave trade with proverbial Yankee 
 enterprise. It became a peculiarly Southern insti- 
 tution not because the rights of others were dearer to 
 the Northern than to the Southern heart, but be- 
 cause conditions of soil and climate made negro la- 
 bor unprofitable in the North and led the Northern 
 slave owner to sell his slaves "down South." 
 
 With slavery thus fastened upon them by the 
 force of circumstances, the Southern people sought 
 to deal with it in the wisest and most humane way. 
 They believed that the immediate and wholesale 
 emancipation of the slaves would be ruinous to the 
 whites and blacks alike, and that, under the then ex- 
 isting conditions, the highest interests of both them- 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 23 
 
 selves and the colored wards committed to their 
 keeping demanded that the relation of master and 
 servant should continue. 
 
 But it was not to perpetuate slavery that they 
 fought. The impartial student of the events lead- 
 ing up to the "Civil War" cannot fail to perceive 
 that, in the words of Mr. Davis, ''to whatever extent 
 the question of slavery may have served as an oc- 
 casion^ it was far from being the cause of the con- 
 flict." That conflict was the bloody culmination of 
 a controversy which had been raging for more than 
 a generation, and the true issue in which, as far as 
 it pertained to slavery, was sharply stated by the 
 Hon. Samuel A. Foote, of Connecticut, when, re- 
 ferring to the debate on the admission of Missouri 
 to the sisterhood of States, he said : "The Missouri 
 question did not involve the question of freedom or 
 slavery, but merely whether slaves now in the coun- 
 try might be permitted to reside in the proposed new 
 State, and whether Congress or Missouri possessed 
 the power to decide." And from that day down to 
 1 86 1, when the war cloud burst in fury upon our 
 land, the real question in regard to slavery was not 
 whether it should continue in the South, but wheth- 
 er the Southern man should be permitted to take his 
 slaves, originally purchased almost exclusively from 
 Northern slave traders, into the territory which was 
 the common property of the country, and there, 
 without interference from the general government, 
 
24 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 have an equal voice with his Northern brother in de- 
 termining the domestic poHcy of the new State. The 
 question was not whether the negro should be freed 
 or held in servitude, but whether the white man of 
 the South should have the same privileges enjoyed 
 by the white man of the North. It was not the de- 
 sire to hold others in bondage, but the desire to 
 maintain their own rights that actuated the South- 
 ern people throughout the conflict. And it behooves 
 us to insist on this, that the memory of those who 
 "wore the gray" may be handed down to posterity 
 freed from the slanderous accusation that they were 
 the enemies of liberty and champions of slavery, 
 who plunged the country into a bloody war that 
 they might the more firmly fasten fetters on human 
 limbs.* 
 
 And it also behooves us, in justice to the men who 
 served under the banner of the Confederacy, to in- 
 sist that they were not rebels fighting against law- 
 ful authority and seeking to destroy the Union 
 formed by the fathers of American independence. 
 That Union was dear to the hearts of the Southern 
 people. They regarded it as a fraternal federation 
 founded in wisdom and patriotism, and in no case 
 were they disloyal to the obligations which it im- 
 posed upon them. 
 
 The impartial student of .'American history will 
 
 *Subjoined Note C, page 43. 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 25 
 
 find that the sons of the South were always among 
 the foremost in the battles of the Union against 
 foreign foes, and that they were ever readiest to 
 make sacrifices in the interest of harmony between 
 the sections. 
 
 For the sake of maintaining the Union the South 
 made concession after concession, surrendered right 
 after right, submitted to unjust taxation, consented 
 to compromises every one of which tended to weak- 
 en herself and strengthen the North, and for more 
 than forty years clung to the national compact in 
 flagrant violations of its spirit and letter by North- 
 ern men. 
 
 If history affords an instance of loyalty to an 
 established form of government more unswerving 
 and self-sacrificing than that of the Southern peo- 
 ple to the Union, I fail to recall it. Mr. Davis voiced 
 the feeling of the South when he said in the Senate 
 chamber: "If envy and jealousy and sectional strife 
 are eating like rust into the bonds our fathers ex- 
 pected to bind us, they come from causes which our 
 Southern atmosphere has never furnished. As we 
 have shared in the toils, so have we gloried in the 
 triumphs of our country. In our hearts, as in our 
 history, are mingled the names of Concord and Cam- 
 den and Saratoga and Lexington and Plattsburg 
 and Chippewa and Erie and Moultrie and New Or- 
 leans and Yorktown and Bunker Hill." Had the 
 South loved the Union less and clung to it less tena- 
 
26 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 ciously; had she refused to make concessions and 
 sacrifices for its preservation; had she, instead of 
 weakening herself by compromises for its sake, 
 withdrawn from it when first her rights were as- 
 sailed, the pen of the historian would never have re- 
 corded the story of Appomattox. It was her at- 
 tachment to the Union — her unselfish loyalty and 
 patriotism — which caused her so long to endure 
 Northern aggression, yield again and again to 
 Northern demands and place herself in a position in 
 which her defeat was possible. 
 
 ' But the Union which the men of the South loved, 
 and which they were willing to make concessions 
 and sacrifices to perpetuate, was that formed by the 
 fathers "to establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
 quillity, provide for the common defense, promote 
 the general welfare, and secure the blessings of lib- 
 erty." It was a fraternal federation of sovereign 
 States, guaranteeing equal rights to all and leaving 
 each free to regulate its domestic affairs in its own 
 way. It was a union in which, in reference to ques- 
 tions of foreign policy, every citizen would echo the 
 sentiment expressed by Patrick Henry when, after 
 Concord and Lexington, in a message to Massachu- 
 setts, he said: "I am not a Virginian; I am an 
 American." And yet it was a union in which, in 
 reference to questions of domestic policy, every citi- 
 zen, like that same great orator and patriot, would 
 recognize the right of his own State to his highest 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 27 
 
 allegiance. It was a union in which the people of 
 each State would enjoy the blessings of local self- 
 government and find in "home rule" a safeguard 
 against any possible attempt of the Federal power 
 to interfere with their peculiar interests. 
 
 When it became evident that this Union was to 
 exist in name only ; when its essential principles had 
 been overthrown and trampled in the dust; when 
 the spirit of fraternity had given place to a bitter 
 feeling of sectional hostility; when New England 
 speakers and writers were heaping abuse and slan- 
 der upon the South and teaching the people that 
 they "would be poor children of seven years' disobe- 
 dience to laws" if they supposed that they were 
 obliged to obey the law of the land which protected 
 the Southern people in the peaceful possession of 
 their institutions; when the men of the North, in- 
 stead of permitting the South to enjoy that domes- 
 tic peace and tranquillity which the Union was in- 
 tended to secure to every section of the country, 
 were persistently striving to stir up insurrection in 
 the Southern States and glorifying those who at- 
 tempted to carry outrage and massacre into South- 
 ern homes ; when the tendency to centralization was 
 threatening to destroy State independence and build 
 on its ruins a despotism akin to that which enslaved 
 France when it was said that "the government was 
 sent down to the subject provinces by mail from 
 Paris, and the mail was followed by the army, if 
 
28 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 the provinces did not acquiesce;" when the reins of 
 government had passed into the hands of a purely 
 sectional party avowedly hostile to Southern inter- 
 ests and declaring the Constitution to be "d, covenant 
 with death and a league with hell" which ought to 
 be supplanted by a so-called "higher law" — in a 
 word, when it became evident that Northern power 
 was to sit on the throne in Washington and make 
 the Yankee conscience rather than the Constitution 
 the fundamental law of the land, the Southern peo- 
 ple felt that the preservation of community inde- 
 pendence and liberty, won at Yorktown and be- 
 queathed to them by their- fathers as an inalienable 
 birthright, demanded the resumption of the powers 
 intrusted by them to the Federal government. 
 
 Not as a passion-swept mob rising in mad rebel- 
 lion against constituted authority, but as an intelli- 
 gent and orderly people, acting in accordance with 
 due forms of law and within the limit of what they 
 believed to be their constitutional right, the men of 
 the South withdrew from the Union in which they 
 had lived for three-fourths of a century, and the 
 welfare and glory of which they had ever been fore- 
 most in promoting. 
 
 They did not desire war, nor did they commence 
 the war. It is true that they fired the first gun ; but 
 every one who is familiar with the history of those 
 stormy days knows that the North committed the 
 first overt act of war, which justified and necessi- 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 29 
 
 tated the firing of that gun.* They made every ef- 
 fort consistent with their safety, self-respect, and 
 manhood to avert war. They parted from their 
 Northern brethren in the spirit in which Abraham 
 said to Lot : "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, be- 
 tween me and thee." 
 
 But the North would not have it so. Every pro- 
 posal looking to peace was rejected by those in pow- 
 er at Washington. Says an English historian of 
 the time: "Twice the Republicans were asked sim- 
 ply to execute the existing law and sustain in the 
 future that exclusive constitutional right of the 
 States over their internal affairs and that equality 
 in the common territories which scarcely admitted 
 of rational dispute; and twice the party pronounced 
 against the least that the South could safely or hon- 
 orably accept." 
 
 At length, on April 15, 1861, the newly inaugu- 
 rated President, transcending the authority vested 
 in him by the Constitution which he had just sworn 
 to support, issued a proclamation calling for seven- 
 ty-five thousand men to coerce the States which had 
 withdrawn from the Union.f 
 
 This call for troops destroyed the last lingering 
 hope of peace. It left no doubt as to the purpose 
 of the party in power. It meant a war of invasion 
 and subjugation. It left the South no choice but be- 
 
 *Sub joined Note D, page 44. tNote E, page 46. 
 
30 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 tween cowardly surrender of rights held sacred and 
 manly resistance to the invading foe. Between these 
 alternatives she was obliged to choose. States which 
 had been hesitating on the ground of expediency, 
 hoping for a peaceable adjustment of issues, wheeled 
 into line with the States \Vhich had already seceded. 
 
 Virginia, mother of States and statesmen and 
 warriors, who had given away an empire for the 
 public good, whose pen had written the Declaration 
 of Independence, whose sword had flashed in front 
 of the American army in the war for independence, 
 and whose wisdom and patriotism had been chiefly 
 instrumental in giving the country the Constitution 
 of the Union — Virginia, foreseeing that her bosom 
 would become the theater of war, with its attendant 
 horrors, nobly chose to suffer rather than become an 
 accomplice in the proposed outrage upon constitu- 
 tional liberty. With a generosity and magnanimity 
 of soul rarely equaled and never surpassed in the 
 history of nations, she placed herself in the path of 
 the invader, practically saying: "Before you can 
 touch the rights of my Southern sisters, you must 
 cut your way to them through my heart." 
 
 From the Potomac to the Gulf, from the Atlan- 
 tic to the Rio Grande the sons of the South sprang 
 to anns. From stately mansion and from humble 
 cottage, from the workshop and from the farm, 
 from the storeroom and from the study, from ev- 
 ery neighborhood and from every vocation of life, 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 31 
 
 with unanimity almost unparalleled, they rallied for 
 the defense of the land they loved and of what in 
 their inmost souls they felt to be their sacred and 
 inalienable birthright. 
 
 Traitors and rebels verily they were not. They 
 were true-hearted patriots, worthy to rank with the 
 noblest souls that ever battled for freedom. They 
 fought for home and country and to maintain the 
 fundamental principle of all free government — that 
 the right to govern arises from and is coexistent 
 with the consent of the governed. 
 
 And if patient self-denial and cheerful self-sacri- 
 fice and unquailing fortitude and unfaltering devo- 
 tion to country and unwavering loyalty to duty and 
 dauntless courage in defense of the right make her- 
 oism, the men whom we honor to-day, and whom 
 we would not have our children forget, were sublime 
 heroes. History has no more illustrious page than 
 that which tells of their achievements. Poorly^ 
 equipped, poorly clad, poorly fed, and virtually with- 
 out pay, they confronted more than three times 
 their number of as well-equipped, well-clothed, well- 
 fed, and well-paid soldiers as ever marched to bat- 
 tle, wrested from them a series of victories unsur- 
 passed in brilliancy, and for four years, stormy with 
 the red blasts of war, successfully resisted all their 
 power. In dangers and hardships that "tried men's 
 souls" the defenders of the South were tried and 
 always found ''true as tempered steel." Laboring 
 
32 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 under disadvantages which even their friends can 
 never fully appreciate, supplementing their scanty ra- 
 tions with weeds and grasses, their bare feet often 
 pressing the frozen ground or blistered on the burn- 
 ing highway, their garments as tattered as the battle- 
 torn banners that they bore, they bravely fought on 
 for the cause they loved and sealed their devotion 
 to it with their blood. 
 
 I need not name the many glorious fields on 
 which the soldiers of the Confederacy, by their 
 splendid courage, hurled back army after army, each 
 one outnumbering them and supposed by the North 
 to be strong enough to crush them. I need not re- 
 count the battles in which the sailors of the Con- 
 federacy made up in skill and daring for lack of 
 equipment and fought with a valor unsurpassed in 
 naval warfare. On the land and on the sea they 
 made a record to which their country may point 
 with a just and noble pride. History bears witness 
 to their unrivaled martial qualities. By their deeds 
 they ''set with pearls the bracelet of the world" and 
 won for themselves a place in the foremost rank of 
 mankind's Legion of Honor. And although, worn 
 out by ceaseless conflict, half famished, and over- 
 whelmed by numbers, they were at last forced to 
 yield, those to whom they surrendered might well 
 envy the glory of their defeat. 
 
 And the glory of that great struggle for constitu- 
 tional liberty and "home rule" belongs not alone to 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 33 
 
 those who wore the officer's uniform and buckled 
 on the sword, but as well to those who wore the 
 coarser gray of the private and shouldered the mus- 
 ket. We do w^ell to honor those who served in the 
 ranks and faithfully and fearlessly performed the 
 duties of the common soldier or sailor. It was their 
 valor and worth, no less than the courage and gen- 
 ius of the officers who led them, that won for the 
 battle flag of the South a fame which 
 
 ". . . on brightest pages 
 Penned by poets and by sages, 
 Shall go sounding down the ages." 
 
 In education, intelligence, and thought they were 
 from training and associations far above the average 
 soldiery of the world. Notwithstanding all that has 
 been said about the illiteracy of the South, I be- 
 lieve that no country ever had a larger percentage 
 of intelligent and thinking men in the ranks of its 
 army. Thousands of them were highly educated, 
 cultured, refined, and in every way qualified to com- 
 mand. Sitting on the brow of the mountain over- 
 looking the winding Shenandoah and the little town 
 of Strasburg and the beautiful valley stretching 
 away toward Winchester, at that time dark with the 
 blue columns of Federal soldiers, a Louisiana pri- 
 vate, idly talking of what he would do were he in 
 command, gave me almost every detail of the plan 
 w^hich, afterwards perceived and executed by the 
 
 commanding officer, carried confusion and defeat to 
 3 
 
34 
 
 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 the Federals. Had the need arisen, as in the case of 
 the Theban army in Thessaly, more than one Epami- 
 nondas might have been found serving as a private 
 in the Confederate ranks. 
 
 And I beheve that no army was ever composed of 
 men more thoroughly imbued with moral principle. 
 With comparatively few exceptions, they were men 
 who recognized the obligation to be just and honest 
 and merciful and to respect the rights of others even 
 in time of war. Never flinching from conflict with 
 armed foemen, their moral training and disposition 
 forbade them to make war upon the weak and de- 
 fenseless. To their everlasting honor stands the 
 fact that in their march through the enemy's coun- 
 try they left behind them no fields wantonly laid 
 waste, no families cruelly robbed of subsistence, no 
 homes ruthlessly violated. "In no case," says an 
 English writer, "had the Pennsylvanians to complain 
 of personal injury or even discourtesy at the hands 
 of those whose homes they had burned, whose fami- 
 lies they had insulted, robbed, and tormented. Even 
 the tardy destruction of Chambersburg was an act 
 of regular, limited, and righteous reprisal." The 
 Pennsylvania farmer whose words were reported by 
 a Northern correspondent paid the Southern troops a 
 merited tribute when he said : *T must say they acted 
 like gentlemen, and, their cause aside, I would rather 
 have forty thousand rebels quartered on my premises 
 than one thousand Union troops/' 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 35 
 
 And they acted like gentlemen not merely because 
 the order of the commanding general required them 
 so to act, but because the spirit within themselves 
 was in harmony with and responded to that order. 
 In the ranks of the Southern army, uncomplainingly 
 and cheerfully performing the duties of the humble 
 soldier, with little hope of promotion when intelli- 
 gence, ability, and daring were so common, were 
 men 
 
 "True as the knights of story, 
 Sir Launcelot and his peers." 
 
 And these humble privates no less than their lead- 
 ers deserve to be honored. It was Jackson's line of 
 Virginians rather than Jackson himself that resem- 
 bled a stone wall standing on the plains of Manassas 
 while the storm of battle hissed and hurtled and 
 thundered around them. And if I mention the name 
 of Jackson rather than that of the ruddy-faced boy 
 who fell, pierced through the brain, and was buried 
 on one of Virginia's hills, in a lonely grave over 
 which to-day the tangled wild weeds are growing, it 
 is not because the one was more heroic than the oth- 
 er, but because Jackson, by his greater prominence, 
 more fully embodies before the eyes of the world the 
 patriotism and courage and heroism that glowed no 
 less brightly and steadily in the heart of the beard- 
 less boy. These noble qualities, possessed by both 
 and displayed by each as his ability and position per- 
 mitted, bind them together in my thought, not as of- 
 
T^S THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 ficer and private, but as fellow-soldiers and brother 
 patriots. Exalted virtue, like deepest shame, ever 
 obliterates rank and brings men into a common 
 brotherhood. 
 
 As my mind recalls the persons and events of 
 those years in which the Confederacy struggled for 
 life, there rises before me the majestic figure of the 
 great Southern chief — the peerless soldier and the 
 stainless gentleman ; the soldier who was cool, calm, 
 and self-possessed in the presence of every danger, 
 and who, with marvelous foresight and skill, planned 
 masterly campaigns, directed the march of war, 
 ruled the storm of battle, and guided his men to vic- 
 tory on many a well-fought field ; the gentleman who 
 was as pure as a falling snowflake, as gentle as an 
 evening zephyr, as tender as the smile of a flower, 
 and as patient as the rock-ribbed mountains. I need 
 not name him, for his name is written in ever-endur- 
 ing letters on the heart of the South and honored 
 throughout the civilized world. Around him I see 
 a company of intrepid leaders whose achievements 
 have surrounded their names with a glory which 
 outshines the luster of coronets and crowns. I 
 would not pluck one leaf from the laurel with which 
 they are garlanded. I would, if I could, lift to a 
 still higher note and sing in still loftier strains the 
 paeans that are chanted in their praise. But I see 
 also the men whom these noble captains led — men 
 unswerving in their devotion to a noble purpose, 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 37 
 
 self-forgetful in their fidelity to what they saw to 
 be right, and sublimely self-denying and self-sacri- 
 ficing in their adherence to the cause they espoused ; 
 men who loved their country with a love stronger 
 than the love of life, and who, with no thought of 
 compensation beyond that country's freedom and 
 honor and safety, bravely toiled and suffered and 
 endured and gave their bodies to be torn by shot 
 and shell, and shed their blood like water to the 
 thirsty ground. And with uncovered head and pro- 
 foundest reverence I bow before those dauntless he- 
 roes, feeling that, if the greatest suffering with the 
 least hope of regard is worthy of the highest honor, 
 they deserve to stand shoulder to shoulder with Lee 
 and his lieutenants in the brotherhood of glory. 
 
 They are honored by all the true and brave who 
 have heard the story of their valiant struggle. Cour- 
 ageous self-sacrifice resulting from honest convic- 
 tion of duty touches an answering chord in all man- 
 ly hearts. The heroic soul greets all heroes as kin- 
 dred spirits, whether they are found fighting by its 
 side or leveling lance against it. It is the narrow, 
 ungenerous, and selfish soul that can find nothing to 
 admire in the courage, devotion, and heroism of its 
 enemies. Hence the Northern writers who have 
 disparaged and ridiculed the valor and devotion of 
 the Southern troops have shown themselves to be 
 wanting in true nobility. In vain have they sought 
 to dim the fame of the Confederate warriors. That 
 
38 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 fame will emblaze the pages of history when they 
 and all that they have written shall have perished 
 from the memory of man. 
 
 "Though the earth 
 Forgets her empires with a just decay, 
 The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth; 
 The high, the mountain majesty of worth 
 Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, 
 And from its immortality look forth 
 Into the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow, 
 Imperishably pure above all things below." 
 
 Yes, the high, majestic worth of the Confederate 
 soldiers and sailors shall be "survivor of its woe," 
 and, sun'iving, shall help to lift the world into high- 
 er life. Although they were defeated, their struggle 
 was not in vain. In the world's life wrong has of- 
 ten triumphed for a season. There have been many 
 times of oppression when human rights were tram- 
 pled in the dust by despotic power and the hopes of 
 men seemed dead. But the student of history will 
 find that every chaos has been followed by a cosmos. 
 The agony and sweat and tears and blood of every 
 age have brought forth a new and better era. 
 
 "Step by step since time began 
 We see the steady gain of man," 
 
 And reasoning from what has been to what shall 
 be, I believe that not in vain were the battles and not 
 in vain was the fall of those who battled and fell un- 
 der the banner of the Confederacy. Having by 
 their glorious deeds woven a crown of laurel for the 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 39 
 
 brow of the South that drew to her the admiring 
 mind of the world, by their fall they entwined in 
 that crown the cypress leaves that draw to her the 
 sympathizing heart of the world. The land in which 
 we live is dearer to our hearts since it has been hal- 
 lowed by their sacrifices and watered with their 
 blood. Though dead, they still speak, admonishing 
 us to prove ourselves worthy of kinship with them 
 by being heroes in peace as they were heroes in war. 
 In our country "the war drum throbs no longer, 
 and the battle flags are furled." The quiet stars 
 that, thirty years ago, looked down on sentineled 
 camps of armed and march- wearied men, resting for 
 the morrow's conflict 
 
 ". . . 'midst flame and smoke, 
 And shout, and groan, and saber stroke, 
 And death shots falHng thick and fast," 
 
 now look down night after night on quiet homes 
 where the sleepers, disturbed by no call to arms, 
 peacefully slumber until singing birds wake them to 
 the bloodless labors of a new-born day. Fields that 
 were clouded by the smoke of battle and trampled 
 by charging thousands and torn by the hoof beats 
 of the war horse and plowed by the shot of cannon 
 and drenched with the blood of dead and mangled 
 men are now enriched by tillage and contributing 
 their fruits to sustain the life and increase the wealth 
 of the people. "Peace folds her wings over hill and 
 valley." 
 
40 
 
 THE MEN IN GRAY: 
 
 But peace as well as war demands of us high de* 
 votion and unswerving loyalty. If with peace we 
 have decay of patriotism and loss of virtue and the 
 triumph of private over public interests and the sac- 
 rifice of law and justice to secure partisan ends — if 
 with peace we have the accumulation of wealth at 
 the cost of the country's welfare and the honest 
 manhood of its citizens, that peace must prove but 
 the slippery, downward path to the ruin in which so 
 many nations, once great and prosperous, have been 
 swallowed up. Better far the desolations and hor- 
 rors of war than such peace. 
 
 From such peace — peace joined with corruption 
 and enjoyed at the expense of true and noble man- 
 hood — the soldiers and sailors of the Confederacy, 
 speaking through this monument of their self-sacri- 
 ficing and heroic devotion, shall help to save our 
 land. Their spirits, glory-crowned, hover over us 
 and beckon us on in the paths of patriotism and hon- 
 or. Their example bids us nobly live for the princi- 
 ples for which they bravely fought and died* — the 
 principles of State sovereignty and home rule ort 
 which this government was wisely founded by our 
 fathers, without which no vast territory like ours; 
 can possibly remain democratic, departure from 
 which is rapidly hurrying the country to a choice 
 between anarchy and imperialism, and return to 
 
 *Sub joined Note F, page 49. 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 4I 
 
 which is essential to the preservation of the Hfe of 
 the repubHc.* 
 
 In the fourteenth century, when the sturdy sons 
 of Switzerland confronted their Austrian oppressors 
 at Sempach, Arnold Winkelried, commending his 
 family to the care of his countrymen and crying, 
 *'Make way for liberty," rushed forward with out- 
 stretched hands and, gathering an armful of spears 
 into his own breast, made an opening in the seem- 
 ingly impenetrable line of the enemy, through which 
 his comrades forced their way to victory. Thus 
 falling in the cause of liberty, he won imperishable 
 fame ; and his deed, immortalized in song, has awak- 
 ened noble and generous emotions and nurtured the 
 love of freedom in the hearts of millions. So shall 
 the story of the men who battled for the Confed- 
 eracy go down through the ages, kindling the fires 
 of patriotism and devotion to the principles of free 
 government in the hearts of generations to come. 
 
 "Thinking of the mighty dead, 
 
 The young from slothful couch will start, 
 And vow with lifted hands outspread, 
 Like them to act a noble part." 
 
 And SO 
 
 ". . . the graves of the dead with the grass overgrown 
 May yet prove the footstool of liberty's throne, 
 And each single wreck in the warpath of might 
 Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right." 
 
 ^Subjoined Note G, page 50. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 A. 
 
 "It is a postulate with many writers of this day that the late 
 war was the result of two opposing ideas, or principles, upon 
 the subject of African slavery. Between these, according to 
 their theory, sprang the 'irrepressible conflict' in principle 
 which ended in the terrible conflict of arms. Those who as- 
 sume this postulate and so theorize upon it are but superficial 
 observers. That the war had its origin in opposing princi- 
 ples which, in their action upon the conduct of men, produced 
 the ultimate collision of arms may be assumed as an unques- 
 tionable fact. But the opposing principles which produced 
 these results in physical action were of a very different char- 
 acter from those assumed in the postulate. They lay in the 
 organic structure of the government of the States. The con- 
 flict in principle arose from different and opposing ideas as 
 to the nature of what is known as the general government. 
 The contest was between those who held it to be strictly 
 Federal in its character and those who maintained that it was 
 thoroughly national. It was a strife between the principles of 
 federation, on the one side, and centralism, or consolidation, 
 on the other. Alexander H. Stephens." 
 
 B. 
 
 "Might ! sing your triumph songs ! 
 
 Each song but sounds a shame. 
 Go down the world in loud-voiced throngs 
 To win from the future fame. 
 
 Our ballads, born of tears, 
 
 Will track you on your way, 
 And win the hearts of the future years 
 
 For the men who wore the gray. 
 
 (42) 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 43 
 
 All lost! but by the graves 
 
 Where martyred heroes rest 
 He wins the most who honor saves— 
 
 Success is not the test. 
 
 The world shall yet decide 
 
 In truth's clear, far-off light 
 That the soldiers who wore the gray and died 
 
 With Lee were in the right." — Father Ryan. 
 
 C. 
 
 Slavery was no more the cause of the war between the 
 North and the South than taxation was the cause of the war 
 between the colonies and Great Britain. Our forefathers were 
 not so unwise as to impose upon themselves the heavy tax of 
 a war with Great Britain merely to avoid the payment of the 
 comparatively light tax which Great Britain desired to collect 
 from them; and the men of the South were not so foolish as 
 to incur the enormous loss which a war with the North would 
 necessarily bring upon them to avoid the comparatively small 
 loss to which they would be subjected by the nonenforcement 
 of the fugitive slave law and the proposed prohibition of 
 slavery in the territories. What drove the colonies to revo- 
 lution was not the tax, but the British method of taxation, 
 which violated their chartered rights, denied them political 
 equality with other Englishmen, and menaced the cherished 
 principle of self-government; and what drove the Southern 
 States to secession was not the opposition to slavery, but the 
 Northern method of opposing it, which violated their con- 
 stitutional rights, denied their citizens equal privileges with 
 the citizens of Northern States in the territories, and 
 threatened such usurpation of power by the Federal govern- 
 ment as would deprive them of independence and the right 
 to regulate their own affairs. Not the tax, but the principle 
 of government involved in the method of taxation, caused the 
 revolution; and not slavery, but the principle of government 
 involved in the proposed Northern way of dealing with it, 
 caused secession. The question of taxation brought the deeper 
 
44 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 question of governmental principle to the front in the one case, 
 and the question of slavery brought the deeper question of 
 governmental principle to the front in the other case. 
 
 D. 
 
 Instead of meeting the issues of the hour frankly and 
 honestly, show^ing a disposition to treat the North and the 
 South with equal fairness, adopting conciliatory measures, 
 and using every possible means of effecting an amicable ad- 
 justment of the differences between the sections, as a wise 
 statesman desirous of peace would have done. President Lin- 
 coln, influenced by his advisers perhaps, adopted a policy which 
 made war inevitable. While professing to seek peace, he 
 secretly provoked war. While his Secretary of State, Mr. 
 Seward, was giving the representatives of the South most 
 positive assurances that Fort Sumter would be speedily 
 evacuated, he was secretly making preparations to strengthen 
 and hold it. When these preparations had been completed 
 and "transports and vessels of war, with troops, munitions, 
 and military supplies," had sailed from Northern ports and 
 been given time to reach the vicinity of Charleston, he noti- 
 fied the Governor of South Carolina that Sumter, instead of 
 being evacuated in accordance with the explicit pledge of Mr. 
 Seward, would be supplied, and that force would be used if 
 necessary. "The notice," as Mr. Greg justly says, "was a 
 declaration of war — ^the dispatch of the expedition the com- 
 mencement of active hostihties." It placed the Confederates 
 in a position in which they were compelled either to silence 
 the guns of Sumter or expose themselves to the combined 
 fire of the fort and the fleet on the arrival of the latter. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the deception that had been practiced 
 upon them and the now declared hostile intention of the gov- 
 ernment at Washington, they were unwilling to resort to 
 violence without a still further effort to maintain peace. 
 They offered to abstain from opening fire upon the fort if its 
 commander would say when he would surrender it and agree 
 not to use its guns against them in the meantime. Major 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 45 
 
 Anderson's reply to this offer, while most courteous in tone 
 and expressive of an earnest "desire to avoid the useless effu- 
 sion of blood," was such as to leave no doubt that he would 
 use his guns against them in case of any hostile act on their 
 part against the flag of his government — in other words, in 
 case they should offer any resistance to the fleet that was ap- 
 proaching. The Confederates, therefore, could not consistently 
 with the demands of prudence and safety do otherwise than 
 reduce the fort. 
 
 Referring to this action of the Confederates, IMr. Davis 
 says : "The forbearance of the Confederate government under 
 the circumstances is perhaps unexampled in history. It was 
 carried to the extreme verge, short of a disregard of the 
 safety of the people who had intrusted to that government the 
 duty of their defense against their enemies. The attempt to 
 represent us as the aggressors in the conflict which ensued is 
 as unfounded as the complaint made by the wolf against the 
 lamb in the familiar fable. He who makes the assault is not 
 necessarily he that strikes the first blow or fires the first gun. 
 To have awaited further strengthening of their position by 
 land and naval forces, with hostile purpose now declared, for 
 the sake of having them 'fire the first gun' would have been 
 as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm 
 of the assailant who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast 
 until he has actually fired. . . . After the assault was made 
 by the hostile descent of the fleet, the reduction of Fort Sum- 
 ter was a measure of defense rendered absolutely and im- 
 mediately necessary. . . . Even Mr. Horace Greeley, with 
 all his extreme partisan feeling, admitted that, 'whether the 
 bombardment and reduction of Fort Sumter shall or shall not 
 be justified by posterity, it is clear that the Confederacy had 
 no alternative but its own dissolution.' " 
 
 The Northern people generally, not knowing the facts in 
 the case, regarded the attack on Sumter as an insult to their 
 flag and an unprovoked and atrocious act of hostility to their 
 government. The Northern heart, which had not been alto- 
 gether ready to engage in fratricidal strife, was thoroughly in- 
 
46 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 flamed and fully prepared for war by the fact that the South 
 had "fired on the flag." 
 
 This, if we may accept a statement made by the New York 
 Herald a few weeks later, was what Mr. Lincoln and his 
 advisers desired, what they had planned and worked for. In 
 its issue of the nth of May that paper, which was supposed 
 to be careful and accurate in its statements, said : "The demon- 
 stration which precipitated the attack on Fort Sumter was re- 
 solved upon to prove to the country and the world the true 
 character and object of the rebellion. It was, in fact, the first 
 tangible evidence we had that the government had a poHcy, 
 and the success with which it has been attended has inspired 
 more confidence in its ability to carry us through our present 
 difficulties." But a policy cannot be rightly termed success- 
 ful unless it accomplishes its object. Hence if the policy of 
 making a demonstration against Charleston was "attended" 
 with "success," as the Herald declared, its real object must 
 have been, not to relieve Sumter, but to force the Confed- 
 erates into an act of hostility which would inflame the North 
 and destroy any sentiment in favor of peace that might exist 
 there. The relief of Sumter was only a pretext for a "silent 
 aggression, with the object of producing an active aggression 
 from the other side," that would incite the Northern people 
 to invade the South with fire and sword. This view of the 
 matter, which is strongly supported by the facts, justifies the 
 assertion that Mr. Lincoln and his advisers deliberately 
 "forced the South and tricked the North into war." Verily 
 "the times were great and the men were small." 
 
 E. 
 
 In 1832, when it was thought by some that the President 
 would employ the military to enforce the law in South Caro- 
 lina, Daniel Webster in a speech at Worcester, Mass., said: 
 "For one, sir, I raise my voice beforehand against the un- 
 authorized employment of military power and against super- 
 seding the authority of the laws by an armed force under pre- 
 tense of putting down nullification, The President has ng 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 47 
 
 authority to blockade Charleston; the President has no au- 
 thority to employ military force till he shall be duly required 
 so to do by law and by the civil authorities. His duty is to 
 cause the laws to be executed. His duty is to support the 
 civil authority. His duty is if the laws be resisted to employ 
 the military force of the country if necessary for their sup- 
 port and execution ; but to do all this in compliance only 
 with law and with decisions of the tribunals." 
 
 On the 15th of March, 1861, Stephen A. Douglas, in sup- 
 port of a resolution favoring the withdrawal of United States 
 troops from Southern forts, said: "But we are told that the 
 President is going to enforce the laws in the seceded States. 
 How? By calling out the mihtia and using the army and 
 navy! These terms are used as freely and flippantly as if 
 we were in a military government where martial law was the 
 only rule of action and the will of the monarch was the only 
 law to the subject. Sir, the President cannot use the army or 
 the navy or the militia for any purpose not authorized by 
 law, and then he must do it in the manner, and only in the 
 manner, prescribed by law. What is that? If there be an 
 insurrection in any State against the laws and authorities 
 thereof, the President can use the military to put it down only 
 when called upon by the State Legislature, if it be in session, 
 or, if it cannot be convened, by the Governor, He cannot in- 
 terfere except when requested. If, on the contrary, the insur- 
 rection be against the laws of the United States instead of a 
 State, then the President can use the military only as a posse 
 comitatus in aid of the marshal in such cases as are so ex- 
 treme that judicial authority and the powers of the marshal 
 cannot put down the obstruction. The military cannot be 
 used in any case whatever except in aid of civil process to 
 assist the marshal to execute a writ. . . . Then, sir, what 
 cause is there for apprehension that the President of the 
 United States is going to pursue a war policy unless he shall 
 call Congress for the purpose of conferring the power and 
 providing the means ? I presume no Senator will pretend that 
 he has any authority under the existing law to do anything in 
 
48 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 the premises except what I have stated and in the manner I 
 have stated. . , . But it may be said that the President of 
 the United States ought to have the power to use the military 
 to enforce the law. ... Be that as it may, the President 
 of the United States has not asked for that power. He knew 
 that he did not possess it under the existing laws, for we 
 are bound to presume that he is familiar with the laws which 
 he took an oath to execute." 
 
 That Mr. Webster and Mr. Douglas understood and cor- 
 rectly stated the law in the case cannot be denied. Yet, while 
 the President of the United States could not lawfully employ 
 military force except "in compliance with decisions of the 
 tribunals," as Mr. Webster declared, and except "in aid of 
 civil process to assist the marshal to execute a writ," as Mr. 
 Douglas declared. President Lincoln, without waiting for the 
 decision of any tribunal, without any civil process, without any 
 writ to execute or any marshal in the South to execute it, 
 called for a military force of 75,000 men to invade the South- 
 ern States and put down an alleged insurrection. He thus 
 violated the law which his oath of office required him to exe- 
 cute and assumed the power of an autocrat. But for this un- 
 lawful procedure there would probably have been no war. 
 
 It is claimed that this action of the President was justified 
 by the fact that the South had "fired on the flag." On this 
 point it is proper to note the fact that on a former occasion 
 the Northern people did not regard firing on the flag as an 
 offense sufficient to justify a lawful call for the militia to 
 invade the Offender's territory. In 1807 a British man-of-war 
 fired on an American frigate, killed and wounded several of 
 her crew, compelled her to strike her colors, carried off four 
 of her sailors, and hung one of them. The people of New 
 England did not think that this outrage called for any hasty 
 action by the President against Great Britain. On the con- 
 trary, when, some years later, after outrage upon outrage had 
 been added to this and all peaceful means of obtaining redress 
 had failed, war was declared by Congress and the President 
 called for the militia in a lawful way, New England protested 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 49 
 
 against the action of the government as exceedingly wicked. 
 And if firing on the flag when it floated over the Chesapeake, 
 in which Great Britain had not a semblance of right, did not 
 justify a lawful call for the militia to resent the insult, how 
 could firing on the flag when it floated over Sumter, to which 
 South Carolina did have some right, justify an unlawful call 
 for the militia to resent it? Was it greater love for the flag 
 or greater hate for the South that wrought this change in 
 New England sentiment? I am constrained to think it must 
 have been the latter when I recall the following lines which, 
 if I mistake not, expressed the feeling of a goodly number of 
 the people of New England a few years before the war : 
 
 "Tear down the flaunting lie, 
 Half-mast the starry flag! 
 Insult no sunny sky 
 With hate's polluted rag." 
 
 In the estimation of these New Englanders, the flag was a 
 '"flaunting lie" and a "polluted rag" when it represented the 
 fulfillment of constitutional guarantees to the Southern people ; 
 but when it represented an infringement of the constitutional 
 rights of the South, it became "Old Glory," an insult to which 
 must be quickly resented, even in defiance of the law. 
 
 But even if firing on Sumter, instead of being deliberately 
 provoked, had been an unprovoked outrage, it would not have 
 justified unlawful means of punishing or redressing it. The 
 theory that we may unlawfully punish lawlessness and enforce 
 obedience to law is the theory of the lyncher. The enforce- 
 ment of law which cannot be effected without violating law is 
 itself unlawful, and the fact that the Federal government 
 could not coerce the Southern States without trampling the 
 law of the land in the dust proves that the coercion was un- 
 constitutional and an outrage. 
 
 F. 
 
 "So, you see, my opinion is that the cause which was lost at 
 Appomattox C H. was not the federative principle upon 
 4 
 
50 THE MEN IN GRAY. 
 
 which American free institutions were based, as some have 
 very erroneously supposed. This is far from being one of 
 the results of the war. The cause which was lost by the sur- 
 render of the Confederates was only the maintenance of this 
 principle by arms. It was not the principle itself that they 
 abandoned. They abandoned only their attempt to maintain it 
 by physical force. This principle, on which rest the hopes of 
 the world for spreading and perpetuating free institutions by 
 neighboring State, in my judgment, like the principles of 
 Christianity, ever advances more certainly and safely without 
 resort to arms than with it. . . . This principle, therefore, 
 though abandoned in its maintenance on battlefields, still con- 
 tinues to live in all its vigor in the forums of reason, justice, 
 and truth, and will, I trust, continue to live forever. . . . 
 Those who are looking to and desiring ultimate centralism and 
 empire have as yet in their progress that way thus far reached 
 only to the point of attempting to induce by duress certain 
 States as States and as sovereign States to conform to their 
 action under the semblance at least of voluntary consent. 
 
 "Alexander H. Stephens." 
 
 G. 
 
 "It is well known that there have always been those among 
 us who wish to enlarge the powers of the general govern- 
 ment, and experience would seem to indicate that there is a 
 tendency on the part of this government to overstep the bound- 
 aries marked out for it by the Constitution. Its legitimate 
 authority is abundantly sufficient for all the purposes for 
 which it was created; and its powers being expressly enumer- 
 ated, there can be no justification for claiming anything be- 
 yond them. Every attempt to exercise power beyond these 
 limits should be promptly and firmly opposed. For one evil 
 example will lead to other measures still more mischievous; 
 and if the principles of constructive powers or supposed ad- 
 vantages or temporary circumstances shall ever be permitted 
 to justify the assumption of a power not given by the Con- 
 stitution, the general government will before long absorb all 
 
THE MEN IN GRAY. 51 
 
 the powers of legislation, and you will have in effect but one 
 consolidated government. From the extent of our country, 
 its diversified interests, different pursuits, and different habits 
 it is too obvious for argument that a single consoHdated gov- 
 ernment would be wholly inadequate to watch over and pro- 
 tect its interests; and every friend of our free institutions 
 should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in full 
 vigor the rights and sovereignty of the States and to confine 
 the action of the general government strictly to the sphere of 
 its appropriate duties. Andrew Jackson." 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 IT has been said : 'The soldiers of the South need 
 no apologists or defenders. Their record speaks 
 for them." With reference to their soldierly quali- 
 ties and achievements, this is indisputably true. 
 Their record shows beyond all question that they 
 were men of splendid courage, patient endurance, 
 and self-sacrificing devotion. Their valiant deeds 
 have won for them a fame which will endure as long 
 as the human heart thrills in response to heroism, 
 and which in years to come, as I believe, will outshine 
 that of the blue-clad legions to whose overwhelm- 
 ing numbers they were at last compelled to yield. 
 
 I would not disparage the valor of the Northern 
 soldiers. I saw them make magnificent charges and 
 display admirable courage on many gallantly con- 
 tested fields. I honor the bravery of the men who 
 so stubbornly resisted the onslaughts of the Confed- 
 erates in the seven days of fighting around Rich- 
 mond, who threw themselves with such reckless 
 daring against the almost impregnable position of 
 the Southern troops at Marye's Hill, who fought so 
 fiercely at Chickamauga, and who so gallantly 
 charged up the slopes of Lookout Mountain. They 
 were '^foemen worthy of any army's steel." Nev- 
 ertheless the fact remains that in the conflict be- 
 
 (52). 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 53 
 
 tween the sections^ while the North conquered, the 
 South won the larger measure of glory. As in the 
 estimation of mankind Leonidas and the little band 
 that perished with him at Thermopylae outrank 
 Xerxes and his mighty host, so I believe that in the 
 judgment of coming generations Lee and those who 
 fought under the Starry Cross will rank above Grant 
 and the Grand Army. 
 
 They were superb soldiers, those ragged, half-fed, 
 and inadequately equipped men who for four years 
 upheld the battle flag of the South against odds of 
 more than three to one. Even Northern historians 
 have been constrained to admire their superior mar- 
 tial qualities and to use such adjectives as "magnifi- 
 cent" and ''incomparable" to describe them. x-\nd 
 every paean to the Grand Army of the Republic, ev- 
 ery glorification of the two million eight hundred 
 thousand Northern soldiers who were called into 
 service to conquer the South indirectly proclaims the 
 greater glory of the six hundred thousand Southern 
 soldiers whom it took them four years to conquer. 
 
 In so far as their soldiership is concerned, it is 
 most certainly true that "the soldiers of the South 
 need no apologists or defenders." Their record 
 places them in the very front rank of the world's 
 soldiery. No men ever fought more bravely, en- 
 dured hardships more patiently, faced difficulties 
 more resolutely, made sacrifices more cheerfully, or 
 held out longer against such tremendous odds. 
 
54 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 But the verdict of the future in regard to the sol- 
 diers of the South will be determined not only by 
 their soldierly qualities, but also by the cause in de- 
 fense of which those qualities were displayed. If it 
 shall be made to appear that they were brave and 
 resolute in upholding- an unjust and shameful cause, 
 if posterity shall be led to believe that they were 
 courageous in deliberately and traitorously attack- 
 ing the life of the nation and willfully plunging the 
 country into the horrors of a fratricidal war to gain 
 selfish and unrighteous ends, their criminality will 
 outweigh their valor in the judgment of the future 
 and they will be deemed infamous rather than inglo- 
 rious. The luster of glorious achievements on the 
 field of battle is dimmed by time; but the stain of 
 treason, like the ^'damned spot" on the hand of 
 Lady Macbeth, will not ''out." 
 
 How man}^ men in this country to-day know any- 
 thing about the valiant deeds of Benedict Arnold? 
 Not one in a thousand. Yet such deeds were per- 
 formed by him. It must be admitted that only "an 
 officer of first-rate merit" could have induced even 
 the hardiest veterans to make the long, painful, and 
 difficult march by which he conducted an American 
 force to Quebec; and it is conceded that he be- 
 haved with great gallantry in the subsequent assault 
 on that city. Acting as a volunteer, he led the most 
 resolute attack made by the Americans at Saratoga, 
 in which he was badly wounded; and, it is said, to 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 55 
 
 him was largely due the credit for the victory which 
 resulted in the surrender of Burgoyne's army. In 
 soldierly qualities he had few superiors among the 
 Continental officers. Perhaps no braver man ever 
 fought under either the Stars and Stripes or the 
 Starry Cross. But his valiant deeds, obscured by 
 his treason, are no longer remembered with honor, 
 and his name suggests only the blackest infamy. 
 
 So, in some measure at least, will it be with the 
 soldiers of the South if the Southern people, by ac- 
 quiescing in what is said of them by unfriendly his- 
 torians, permit the crime of causeless rebellion to be 
 fastened upon them. In that case a hundred years 
 hence, when the last Confederate veteran shall have 
 long since gone to join his brave comrades who fell 
 on the field of battle, and his children and most of 
 his grandchildren shall have been numbered with 
 the dead, the splendid courage and heroic achieve- 
 ments of the soldiers of the South will be largely 
 forgotten, and men for the most part will think of 
 them only as rebels and traitors. Hence, while they 
 need no one to defend their record as soldiers, they 
 do need to be defended against misrepresentations 
 of their motives and of the cause for which they 
 fought ; they do need to have the false and dishonor- 
 ing accusations of Northern writers and speakers 
 refuted, so that they may appear before the future 
 with undimmed fame. 
 
 And it is not so much a true history as a per- 
 
56 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 sistent presentation of the facts given in the his- 
 tories we have that the South needs. A number of 
 books have been pubHshed in which the cause of the 
 South is clearly and faithfully presented and her 
 course fully and unanswerably justified — ^books emi- 
 nently fair in their presentation of facts and con- 
 vincing in their reasoning, which no unprejudiced 
 man can read without being impelled to the conclu- 
 sion that the Southern soldiers were battling in de- 
 fense of truth, justice, and freedom. But if the 
 questions discussed in such books are tabooed as 
 *'dead issues," and men who dare to speak above a 
 whisper are denounced as foolish and wicked agita- 
 tors, the books themselves^ instead of being read by 
 the people and influencing public opinion, will be 
 left on library shelves to accumulate dust. What 
 the South needs is to have interest in these historic 
 questions kept alive, so that her own people, at least, 
 may be induced to read about them and thus come 
 to have a higher conception of the patriotic motives 
 and a deeper reverence for the self-sacrificing deeds 
 of the statesmen and soldiers of the Southern Con- 
 federacy. 
 
 The South has ever been too careless of her own 
 fame. She has made history and left the writing 
 of it too much to others. Many of these writers 
 have shown a disposition to diminish rather than 
 magnify her deeds and to withhold from her the 
 praise justly due her. Hence, while her people have 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 57 
 
 ever been foremost in contributing to the common 
 weal and making the country great, by far the larg- 
 er measure of that greatness is generally placed to 
 the credit of New England, w^hose people were nev- 
 er backward in recording their own achievements 
 and glorifying themselves. And if their cases were 
 now reversed and New England stood as the South 
 stands to-day, instead of regarding the questions in- 
 volved in the War between the States as "dead is- 
 sues" and discouraging all discussion of them as 
 tending to excite bad feeling, she would be flooding 
 the country with literature and would probably have 
 a score of lecturers on the platform setting forth the 
 facts and justifying herself. And something of that 
 sort the South must do if she would not stand be- 
 fore the future with the brand of shame upon her. 
 In the words of a distinguished Southern writer: 
 ''If we are willing to be handed down to coming time 
 as a race of slave drivers and traitors^ it is as well 
 to continue in our state of lethargy and acquies- 
 cence; but if we retain the instincts of men and de- 
 sire to transmit to our children the untarnished 
 name and spotless fame which our forefathers be- 
 queathed to us, we must awake to the exigencies of 
 the matter." 
 
 If the South would not have her children in the 
 years to come wish to forget rather than remember 
 the deeds of their ancestors, instead of permitting 
 the statements of those who are unable to understand 
 
58 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 her or who willfully misrepresent her to go unques- 
 tioned, she must tell her own story and tell it with 
 persistent reiteration. She must refute the charge 
 that her sons, solely to perpetuate slavery, barbarous 
 in its character and condemned by the moral sense 
 of the whole civilized world outside of themselves, 
 renounced their rightful allegiance, rebelled against 
 the government established by the wisdom and pa- 
 triotism of their fathers, and plunged this country 
 into the horrors of a war in which the lives of hun- 
 dreds of thousands were sacrificed and almost every 
 home in the land was converted into a house of 
 mourning. This is what she is charged with in most 
 of the so-called histories of the war; and this is 
 what most of her people are acquiescing in, what 
 many of her younger sons and daughters accept as 
 true, and what the outside world generally believes. 
 And yet this charge is false in every particular. 
 
 It is not true that slavery as it existed in the 
 South was barbarous. The reports that were for- 
 merly circulated in the North of horrible cruelties 
 practiced by Southern slaveholders were mostly 
 pure inventions, malicious lies, deliberately told for 
 the purpose of deceiving the credulous and creating 
 anti-slavery^ sentiment. Where such reports had the 
 slightest foundation in fact they were gross exag- 
 gerations of unusual occurrences. 
 
 It is true that there were cruel masters of slaves 
 in the South, just as there are cruel employers of 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 59 
 
 free labor in the North, and just as there always 
 have been and until the millennium dawns always 
 will be cruel men in ever}^ business and every quarter 
 of the globe. But these cruel Southern masters were 
 comparatively few, and they were restrained from 
 the practice of cruelty to their slaves by self-inter- 
 est, by public opinion, and by law. The master who 
 maltreated his slave injured himself by impairing the 
 value of his property, brought on himself the con- 
 demnation of his neighbors, and transgressed the 
 humane legal restraints of his power over the slave's 
 person. Naturally such considerations went far to 
 deter even the cruelly disposed from actual cruelty. 
 That slavery as it existed in the South was not cruel 
 and barbarous is evidenced by the almost universal 
 loyalty of the slaves to their masters. As a rule, the 
 Southerner's slaves respected and esteemed him, and 
 were devoted to his interest. In case of danger to 
 his person, they hastened to his rescue. They felt 
 honored by his dignity and shamed by his inferiori- 
 ty, and w^ere eager to uphold his standing In the 
 community. While, much in the same spirit that a 
 child takes jam from the family pantry, they some- 
 times appropriated to their own use what belonged 
 to him, they permitted no outsider to infringe upon 
 his property rights. They were genuinely interested 
 in all that concerned him — were proud of his 
 achievements, glad of his successes, sorry for his 
 failures, and moved to sincere sympathy by his be- 
 
6o A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 reavements. They honored the mistress of the 
 home, and often denied themselves to please her; 
 befriended and defended the older children of the 
 family, and loved and fondled the younger ones. 
 When the war came and the master, as in thousands 
 of cases, went to the front, leaving his wife and 
 children in their care and at their mercy, their fideli- 
 ty to the trust thus reposed in them was such as to 
 challenge admiration. Those who are familiar with 
 the facts will readily admit that rarely, if ever, in 
 the history of the world have free laborers given to 
 an employer such affectionate regard and faithful 
 devotion as the Southern slaves gave to their mas- 
 ters. This is utterly inconsistent with the idea that 
 slavery in the South was a cruel and barbarous in- 
 stitution. Had the slaveholders of the South been 
 brutal tyrants, barbarously using their power over 
 those under them, their slaves, by an unfailing law 
 of human nature, instead of regarding them with 
 kindly interest and affection, would have been filled 
 with the spirit of revenge and ready to fly at their 
 throats whenever an opportunity presented itself. 
 
 To this day the gray-haired negro who was a 
 slave and who knows what Southern masters were 
 will turn to them, even though they may be strang- 
 ers, as the men who understand the negro best and 
 are his truest friends and surest help in time of need. 
 
 The Southern people, it should be remembered, 
 were not responsible for the establishment of slav- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 6l 
 
 ery among them ; they were responsible for its char- 
 acter only. Again and again they protested against 
 the importation of slaves. Their protests were dis- 
 regarded, and their legislative attempts to prevent it 
 were vetoed by the Crown. They could only make 
 the best of conditions forced upon them. A few 
 years before the war, in a clear and able discussion 
 of slavery in the South, the Hon. Robert Toombs 
 said to a Boston audience : ''The question was not 
 presented for our decision whether it was just or ben- 
 eficial to the African to tear him away by force or 
 fraud from bondage in his own country and place 
 him in a like condition in ours. England and the 
 Christian world had long before settled that ques- 
 tion for us. At the final overthrow of British au- 
 thority in these States our ancestors found seven 
 hundred thousand Africans among them, already in 
 bondage and concentrated, from our climate and 
 productions, chiefly in the present slaveholding 
 States. It became their duty to establish govern- 
 ments for themselves and these people, and they 
 brought wisdom, experience, learning, and patriot- 
 ism to the great work. They sought that system of 
 government which would secure the greatest and 
 most enduring happiness to the whole society. . . . 
 The slaveholding States, . . . finding the Afri- 
 can race among them in slavery, unfit to be trusted 
 with political power, incapable as freemen of secur- 
 ing their own happiness or promoting the public 
 
62 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 prosperity, recognized their condition as slaves and 
 subjected it to legal control." After alluding to the 
 inferiority of the African race as "equally admitted 
 everywhere in the country/' Mr. Toombs further 
 said: 'The Northern States admit it and, to rid 
 themselves of the burden, inflict the most cruel in- 
 juries upon an unhappy race. They expel them from 
 their borders and drive them out of their boundaries 
 as wanderers and outcasts. . . . The Southern 
 States, acting upon the same admitted facts, treat 
 them differently. They keep them in the subor- 
 dinate condition in which they found them, protect 
 them against themselves, and compel them to con- 
 tribute to their own and the public interest and wel- 
 fare ; and under this system w^e appeal to facts open 
 to all men to prove that the African race has at- 
 tained a higher degree of comfort and happiness 
 than his race has ever before attained in any other 
 age or country/* 
 
 The truth is that the slavery which existed in the 
 South, instead of being barbarous in its character, 
 was in accordance with the demands of the most 
 humane civilization and was the wisest and best sys- 
 tem that could be devised under the circumstances. 
 It has been well and truthfully said: *'0f all rights 
 of man, the right of the ignorant man to be guided 
 by the wiser, to be gently and firmly held in the true 
 course, is the most indispensable. Nature -has or- 
 dained it from the first. Society has struggled to- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 63 
 
 ward perfection by conforming to and accomplishing 
 it more and more. If freedom has any meaning, it 
 means enjoyment of this right, in which all other 
 rights are enjoyed. It is a divine right and duty on 
 both sides and the sum of all social duties between 
 the two." It was in the exercise of this "divine right 
 and duty," so essential to the highest social devel- 
 opment, that the Southern people legally subordi- 
 nated the more ignorant and inferior race placed 
 among them, in spite of their protests, while they 
 were still under the rule of Great Britain. This le- 
 gal subordination was not based on the assumption 
 that ''might makes right," and hence that the white 
 race, having the power, could rightly organize socie- 
 ty for its own benefit only ; but it was based on the 
 principle that society should be so organized as to 
 bring the greatest possibly good to both races with 
 the least possible injury to either. 
 
 That the system of subordination adopted was 
 imperfect, as all human systems are, no one has ever 
 denied; but it was steadily improved as its imper- 
 fections became apparent, and, but for ignorant and 
 fanatical intermeddlers, would have been improved 
 still more rapidly. Notwithstanding its imperfec- 
 tions, it brought peace, contentment, and happiness 
 to both races and produced the highest and best so- 
 cial state that ever existed on the American Conti- 
 nent. As Dana maintained in his ''Essay on Law 
 as Suited to Man," the domestic relations in which 
 
64 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 master and servant were recognized and their obli- 
 gations and duties to each other were well defined, 
 produced "more of mutual good will, more of trust 
 on the one side and fidelity on the other, more of 
 protection and kind care, and more of gratitude and 
 affectionate respect in return, and, because each un- 
 derstood well his place, actually more of a certain 
 freedom, tempered by gentleness and by deference. 
 From the very fact that the distinction of classes 
 was more marked the bond between the individuals 
 constituting these two was closer. As a general 
 truth I verily believe that, with the exception of 
 near-blood relationships and here and there peculiar 
 friendships, the attachment of master and servant 
 was closer and more enduring than that of almost 
 any other connection in life." 
 
 That manhood of the highest order was devel- 
 oped under the system of slavery in the South, is at- 
 tested by almost every page of the country's history; 
 for Southern men played a leading part in the mak- 
 ing of that history. The men of no other section 
 contributed more or even so much to the greatness 
 and glory of the American Republic. No others 
 were braver in battle, wiser in council, more devoted 
 to the common weal, more disinterestedly patriotic, 
 more self -sacrificing in the public service. And 
 whatever may have been the faults of their social 
 and domestic life, they were exceeded by its virtues. 
 They loved pleasure, but they subordinated it to 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 65 
 
 duty. They recognized their responsibihties and 
 faithfully fulfilled their obligations. Their unfail- 
 ing courtesy and generous hospitality were proverb- 
 ial. They prized integrity and honor above gain, 
 and disdained injustice, trickery, and meanness. 
 They faced danger with a dauntless spirit and en- 
 dured adversity with fortitude. A distinguished 
 New England Senator said of them: 'They have 
 an aptness for command which makes the Southern 
 gentleman, wherever he goes, not a peer only, but a 
 prince. They have a love for home. They have — 
 the best of them and the most of them — inherited 
 from the great race from which they come, the sense 
 of duty and the instinct of honor as no other people 
 on the face of the earth. . . . They have not 
 the mean traits which grow up somewhere in places 
 where money-making is the chief end of life. They 
 have, above all and giving value to all, that supreme 
 and superb constancy which, without regard to per- 
 sonal ambition and without yielding to the tempta- 
 tion of wealth, without getting tired and without 
 getting diverted, can pursue a great public object in 
 and out, year after year, and generation after gen- 
 eration." 
 
 Not only were the ''gentlemen" of the South 
 such as Senator Hoar thus described them, but, in 
 the nature of things, their influence acted upon the 
 class beneath them in the social scale, tending to im- 
 plant in the men of that class a higher "sense of 
 
66 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 duty" and a keener ^'instinct of honor." The state- 
 ment that the slaveholding "aristocrats" looked on 
 labor as dishonoring and depressed the white la- 
 borers of the South shows either ignorance of 
 Southern conditions or willful misrepresentation of 
 them. While the planter who owned and directed 
 many slaves, like the employer of many hired men, 
 did not perform manual labor himself, he did not 
 deem such labor dishonoring^ and commended the 
 industry of his nonslaveholding neighbors who 
 plowed and sowed and reaped with their own hands. 
 To those poorer neighbors he was always courteous, 
 kind, and helpful. He met them on a friendly foot- 
 ing, felt and showed a sincere interest in their wel- 
 fare, talked with them in a neighborly way about 
 their difficulties, gave them in unobtrusive advice the 
 benefit of his larger experience and wider knowl- 
 edge, and in ways that could not offend the most 
 sensitive pride often ministered to their needs. They 
 respected and esteemed him, gathered from him a 
 larger knowledge of men and things, and through 
 association with him gained broader ideas and high- 
 er standards of life. The relations which existed 
 between the wealthy slaveholders in the South and 
 those who were unable to own slaves were free from 
 condescension on the one side and envy on the oth- 
 er — more friendly in character and less depressing 
 to the poorer man than those which existed and still 
 exist between the rich and the poor in the North. 
 
A DEFEXSE OF THE SOUTH. 67 
 
 And under the system of slaver}^ the "poor whites" 
 of the South were, in virtuous womanhood, self- 
 respecting manhood, and all praiseworthy qualities 
 of character and conduct, fully the equals of any 
 similar class in the world. 
 
 And this system trained the negro in habits of in- 
 dustry and order, impressed upon him the idea of 
 obligation and duty, taught him to restrain his ap- 
 petites and passions and to respect the rights of oth- 
 ers, and raised him to a higher level of civilization. 
 
 Nor did it subject him to excessive toil. The pic- 
 ture of the heartless slave driver scourging the 
 tired and panting negro to further exertion is pure- 
 ly imaginary. A Northern writer, telling of what 
 he supposed to be the deplorable conditions existing 
 in the South because of slavery, after looking up 
 statistics, said : 'Tt took five slaves to do the work 
 of one freeman." The freeman must, then, have 
 been driven well-nigh five times as hard as the slave, 
 for in ordinary labor on a farm the negro can ac- 
 complish almost as much as the white man. The 
 truth is that, as a rule, the negro had all his wants 
 supplied, enjoyed many privileges and comforts, and 
 was free from care, contented, and happ}^ In the 
 days of his strength he worked no more and fared 
 no worse than the boss-driven toilers under the pres- 
 ent system ; and he had, as they have not, the assur- 
 ance that when his working days were over he would 
 have an easy seat in the shade bv his cabin door in 
 
68 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 summer, a roof to shelter him and a fire to keep him 
 warm in winter, enough food and clothing and kind- 
 ly care to make him comfortable until the closing 
 hours of his life, and friendly hands to nurse him 
 tenderly through his last illness, gently close his 
 eyes in death, and reverently lay his body to rest in 
 the grave. 
 
 But whether slavery as it existed in the South was 
 humane or barbarous, good or bad, helpful or hurt- 
 ful to civilization, it is not true that the Southern 
 people withdrew from the Union to perpetuate it. 
 The belief that they did so is not only inconsistent 
 with all their previous history, which is so rich in 
 deeds of devotion to the Union and patriotic sacri- 
 fices of their material interests for the common 
 good, but it is altogether incompatible with the con- 
 ceded intelligence and statesmanship of their lead- 
 ers. Just a little intelligent consideration of the sit- 
 uation must have convinced them that secession, even 
 if it could be peaceably accomplished, would not in 
 any way establish slavery on a firmer and more en- 
 during basis. They must have seen that secession 
 would not prevent abolitionists from coming South 
 in disguise to steal negroes and incite insurrection; 
 that it would not make the Northern States more 
 willing to enforce the fugitive slave law; that it 
 would not give them any better right or greater 
 power to take their slaves into the Territories, not 
 one foot of which would have been surrendered bv 
 
A DEFEXSE OF THE SOUTH. 69 
 
 the North ; and that it would not make slavery any 
 more permanent in the Southern States themselves, 
 where the Federal authorities professed to have nei- 
 ther the right, the power, nor the desire to interfere 
 with it. If they thought about the matter at all, they 
 must have seen that secession, instead of placing 
 slavery on a firmer footing, would make its con- 
 tinued existence more precarious by hopelessly con- 
 fining it to the States in which it already existed 
 and more fully exposing it to the depredations of 
 slave stealers and the machinations of incendiaries 
 along a border stretching from the Atlantic to the 
 Rio Grande. 
 
 By remaining in the Union the South, had she so 
 desired, might have kept slavery in existence for 
 perhaps a quarter of a century longer; for then it 
 could not have been abolished against her will with- 
 out such a flagrant and tyrannous invasion of her 
 territory and rights as the Northern people would 
 not for years have been prepared to attempt. But 
 had the South been permitted to withdraw from the 
 Union in peace, she could not have maintained slav- 
 ery for a dozen years. Wendell Phillips saw this, 
 and urged that the Southern States should be per- 
 mitted to secede peaceably, for, said he, ''I believe 
 that dissolution of the Union, sure to result speedily 
 in the abolition of slavery, would be a lesser evil 
 than the slow, faltering disease — the gradual dying 
 out of slavery — constantly poisoning us." 
 
70 
 
 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Greg states the case tersely and truly when he 
 says : "To say that the South seceded and fought for 
 slavery is to accuse her of political imbecility." But 
 in the councils of the nation the leaders of the South, 
 the men to whom her people looked for guidance, 
 have ever proved themselves to be at least the peers 
 of the foremost men of the North in logical acu- 
 men, political sagacity, and all high qualities of 
 statesmanship. Their worst enemies will not say 
 that they were political imbeciles. Hence they could 
 not have seceded from the Union with the view of 
 thereby perpetuating slavery. 
 
 Thousands of Southern men who did not own 
 slaves and thousands of slaveholders who would 
 have sincerely and earnestly favored any wise and 
 just method of emancipation voted for secession, 
 volunteered to serve in the army throughout the 
 war, and bravely fought to uphold the cause of the 
 South. Mr. Stephens expressed the belief that the 
 nonslaveholders of Georgia, while devoted to the 
 Union under the Constitution, were even readier 
 than those who owned slaves to adopt the policy of 
 secession. Surely their aim was not to perpetuate 
 slavery. 
 
 But I have heard it said that slavery was the only 
 Southern interest imperiled, that no property right 
 other than that in slaves was in any way threat- 
 ened, and hence that the protection and perpetua- 
 tion of slavery must have been the reason for se- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 71 
 
 cession. Those who take that view of the matter 
 seem to think that nothing can be dearer to the 
 heart of man than his property. They cannot un- 
 derstand how the men of the South held all mere 
 property rights cheap in comparison with their rights 
 as freemen. They cannot comprehend the South- 
 erner's self-respect, his jealousy of his good name, 
 his quickness to resent insult, his disposition indig- 
 nantly to spurn any impertinent interference in his 
 affairs, his spirit of independence, his unwavering 
 devotion to self-government, and his readiness at 
 all times to imperil fortune and life in defense of 
 his honor or his principles. These characteristics, 
 roused to activity by the attacks of Northern writers 
 and speakers and by the danger to self-government 
 involved in the avowed Northern policy in regard to 
 slavery, fully account for the secession of the South- 
 ern States from the Union. 
 
 For many years the antislavery party at the North 
 had actively pursued the policy of attacking the 
 South in the most libelous and exasperating manner. 
 Emissaries in various guises, from peddlers to 
 preachers, were sent into the Southern States ''to 
 spy out the land" and to take advantage of any op- 
 portunity to further the aims of the abolitionists, 
 whether by opening the eyes of the Southern mas- 
 ter to the enormity of his wickedness and inducing 
 him to don the robe of Northern righteousness, or 
 by inciting his slaves to rise up against him and 
 
72 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 *'cut his throat/* The country was flooded with 
 writings of the most defamatory character, teUing of 
 imaginary crueUies and barbarities practiced on the 
 slaves of the South and denouncing Southerners as 
 "brutal tyrants, man-stealers, and murderers." Says 
 Mr. Lunt in his "Origin of the Late War:" "The 
 plague became at length in its degree like that of the 
 swarms of frogs and flies and locusts. Indeed, in 
 the wild conception of the more fervid devotees 
 of emancipation the 'Sunny South' was likened to 
 the land of Egypt, in which the children of Ham 
 were blasphemously symbolized as the chosen peo- 
 ple of the Almighty; and the new, self -delegated 
 prophets who were to work out their deliverance, 
 with neither visible sign nor accredited mission, 
 were these presumptuous Northern agitators and 
 pamphleteers." 
 
 Some idea of the spirit of hate that animated these 
 "self -delegated prophets" and led them utterly to 
 disregard truth, justice, and law to accomplish their 
 ends may be gathered from the following : "It is our 
 honest conviction that all the proslavery slaveholders 
 deserve at once to be reduced to a parallel with the 
 basest criminals that lie fettered within the cells of 
 our public prisons. . . . Our banner is inscribed : 'No 
 cooperation with slaveholders in politics; no fel- 
 lowship with them in religion; no afliliation with 
 them in society; no recognition of proslavery men 
 except as ruffians, outlaws, and criminals.' . . . 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 73 
 
 We are determined to abolish slavery at all hazards, 
 in defiance of all the opposition, of whatever nature, 
 it is possible for the slaveocrats to bring against us." 
 (As the "slaveocrats" had never opposed them and 
 did not intend to oppose them, except with the Con- 
 stitution, this last declaration was a distinct avowal 
 of the determination to accomplish their purpose in 
 defiance of the provisions of that instrument.) The 
 book of which the foregoing extracts are samples 
 received the written commendation of more than 
 sixty Republican members of Congress and of 
 many of the most prominent Republicans out of 
 Congress. It was specially recommended for cir- 
 culation as a campaign document. Of it Mr. Wil- 
 liam H. Seward said : **It seems to me a work of 
 great merit, . . . and I do not doubt it will 
 exert a great influence on the public mind in favor 
 of truth and justice." 
 
 Another emanation from the Northern press was 
 a pamphlet, said to have been widely circulated in 
 both the North and the South, declaring the pur- 
 pose "to land military forces" and "raise the stand- 
 ard of freedom" in the Southern States — a purpose 
 which John Brown attempted to carry out. The 
 pamphlet said : "Our plan is to make war openly or 
 secretly, as circumstances may dictate, upon the 
 property of the slaveholders and their abettors, not 
 for its destruction, if that can be easily avoided, but 
 to convert it to the use of the slaves. If it cannot 
 
74 
 
 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 be thus converted, we advise its destruction. Teach 
 the slaves to burn their masters' buildings, to kill 
 their cattle and hogs, to conceal and destroy farming 
 utensils, to abandon labor in seedtime and harvest 
 and let the crops perish." This is a specimen of the 
 much-boasted Northern philanthropy and superior 
 brand of morality. 
 
 For a quarter of a century before the war the 
 South was the object of such slanderous and incen- 
 diary attacks, issuing from pulpit and press; and 
 naturally they produced in the Southern people the 
 deepest indignation and a burning sense of wrong. 
 The people of the South resented Northern inter- 
 ference with slavery in any way as an insult to 
 them and an impudent obtrusion. They claimed that 
 slavery as it existed among them was exclusively 
 their business, to be managed by them as they 
 thought best. It was not attachment to slavery, but 
 indignation excited by the infamous slanders and 
 contemptible methods of Northern meddlers with it 
 that impelled them to action. Mr. Toombs truly 
 said in the United States Senate: "Well, sir, the 
 question of slavery moves not the people of Georgia 
 one-half as much as the fact that you insult their 
 rights as a community. You abolitionists are right 
 when you say that there are thousands and tens of 
 thousands of men in Georgia and all over the South 
 who do not own slaves. A very large portion of the 
 people of Georgia own none of them. In the moun- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 75 
 
 tains there are comparatively few of them, but 
 no part of our people are more loyal to their race 
 and country than our bold and brave mountain pop- 
 ulation. . . . They say, and well say: 'This is 
 our question. . . . We will tell you when we choose 
 to abolish this thing. It must be done under our 
 direction and according to our will. Our own, our 
 native land shall determine this question, and not the 
 abolitionists of the North.' That is the spirit of 
 our freemen." And that spirit actuated the people 
 throughout the South. It was not the determina- 
 tion to uphold and perpetuate slavery, but the de- 
 termination to resent the insulting interference and 
 spurn the insolent dictation of the North. 
 
 Southern statesmen — those to whom the people 
 of the South looked for advice and guidance, and 
 who were really responsible for secession — shared, 
 of course, in this general feeling of indignation; 
 but they were actuated by still higher considerations. 
 Beneath the agitation of the slavery question they 
 saw, as all the world may now see, a deliberate at- 
 tack upon the principle of confederation on which 
 the Union was formed, and which they held to be es- 
 sential to the preservation of the liberties of the peo- 
 ple. They clearly perceived, as Mr. Jefferson per- 
 ceived in 1820, that Northern Federalists or, more 
 properly, Centralists, were taking advantage of the 
 sentiment against slavery to get control of the gov- 
 ernment and enlarge its powers. They were thor- 
 
76 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 oughly convinced that, as Mr. Stephens says, ^'it 
 was the object of the Centrahsts, by using this ques- 
 tion, to accompHsh their purpose of effecting a con- 
 sohdated empire instead of continuing the Federal 
 repubHc." They firmly believed that, however hon- 
 est and conscientious the great majority of the anti- 
 slavery party might be, the men who were directing 
 that party had designs above and beyond any action 
 tending to bring about the emancipation of slaves, 
 and that their purpose was to establish a national 
 government clothed with sovereign power over the 
 States instead of a federal government acting as 
 the common agent of sovereign States and having 
 no powers except those delegated to it in the com- 
 pact of union. 
 
 The whole history of the Congressional contro- 
 versy in regard to slavery indicated such a design 
 on the part of the leaders of the antislavery party. 
 It is a fact commonly overlooked yet highly signifi- 
 cant that in all the debates in Congress relating to 
 the subject the real question was not as to the right 
 or wrong of slavery, not as to whether it ought or 
 ought not be restricted or abolished, but as to wheth- 
 er Congress was authorized to decide the matter. 
 Long and bitter as the controversy was, it was not 
 a conflict between those who favored and those who 
 opposed slavery, but a conflict between those who 
 favored and those who opposed the usurpation of 
 power by the Federal authorities; and if many pa- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 77 
 
 triotic antislavery men from the Northern States 
 had not voted against it, such usurpation would have 
 been an accompHshed fact long before 1861. 
 
 A petition asking the Federal authorities to deal 
 with the subject of slavery was presented to Con- 
 gress as early as 1700. Some members of that body 
 were opposed to entertaining it on the ground that 
 Congress had nothing to do with the matter, but the 
 majority deemed it best to consider it and to state 
 plainly that the subject was one concerning which 
 Congress had no authority to act. A resolution to 
 that effect was adopted, a majority of the members 
 from the Northern States, some of whom had been 
 prominent in the Convention that framed the Consti- 
 tution, voting for it. The resolution said nothing as 
 to the right or wrong of slavery, but merely de- 
 clared 'That Congress have no authority to inter- 
 fere in the emancipation of slaves or in the treat- 
 ment of them within any of the States, it remaining 
 with the several States alone to provide any regula- 
 tions therein which humanity and true policy may 
 require." The only question involved in this early 
 consideration of the subject by Congress was the 
 authority of that body to legislate in regard to it. 
 And the censure of Southern men in later years for 
 alleged opposition to the right of petition was all 
 based on the fact that they opposed the consideration 
 and discussion of petitions to do what they had no 
 authority to do. They regarded the consideration 
 
78 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 and discussion of such petitions as not only useless, 
 but harmful. 
 
 In the debates on the admission of Missouri to 
 Statehood, when the subject of slavery first assumed 
 a decidedly threatening aspect, the same question of 
 Congressional authority was the only real issue. 
 When the bill for the admission of Missouri into 
 the Union as a State was presented in the usual way, 
 an amendment was offered prohibiting the further 
 introduction of slavery except for the punishment of 
 crimes, and providing that all children born within 
 the State after its admission into the Union should 
 be free at the age of twenty-five years. Congress- 
 men, from the North and from the South alike, 
 aligned themselves for or against this amendment 
 not according to their views of the propriety of re- 
 stricting slavery, but according to their views of the 
 authority of Congress to restrict it. Men who were 
 thoroughly antislavery in sentiment strongly op- 
 posed the amendment on the ground that Congress 
 could not lawfully impose such a restriction on the 
 people of Missouri and thus deprive them of the 
 right to determine for themselves the character of 
 their domestic institutions. They held that such ac- 
 tion by Congress would involve the assumption of 
 power not given to that body by the Constitution. 
 Among those who held this view was the eloquent 
 and patriotic John Holmes, of Massachusetts. He 
 saw in the move an attempt to resuscitate the Fed- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 79 
 
 eralist or centralizing party of New England, and 
 after crediting most of its supporters with honesty, 
 he said : "But is it not probable that there are some 
 jugglers behind the screen who are playing a deep- 
 er game, who are combining to rally under this 
 standard as a last resort, the forlorn hope of an ex- 
 piring party? . . . For one, sir, I would re- 
 joice if there was not a slave on earth. Liberty 
 is the object of my love, my adoration. I would 
 extend its blessings to every human being. But 
 though my feelings are strong for the abolition 
 of slavery, they are yet stronger for the Consti- 
 tution of my country. And if I am reduced to 
 the sad alternative, to tolerate the holding of 
 slaves in Missouri or violate the Constitution of 
 my country, I will not admit a doubt to cloud my 
 choice." 
 
 And so in all the debates about slavery in the Ter- 
 ritories, extending down to the commencement of 
 the war and often exceedingly bitter, the only perti- 
 nent question was that as to Federal jurisdiction — 
 that as to the authority of Congress to legislate on 
 the subject. And while many Northern men, like 
 Mr. Holmes, were patriotic enough to stand firmly 
 with the representatives of the South in opposition 
 to any legislation not authorized by the Constitu- 
 tion, the leaders of the antislavery party, from first 
 to last, insisted on such legislation. 
 
 Not only by persistently urging that Congress 
 
8o A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 should exercise legislative authority not granted by 
 the Constitution, but by their speeches in and out of 
 Congress and by their general policy these leaders 
 plainly indicated a purpose to disregard the limita- 
 tions of the Constitution and enlarge the Federal 
 powers. Notwithstanding all their professions of 
 love for the negro, the course pursued by them 
 showed that they were politicians rather than philan- 
 thropists; that they aimed, in subversion of the Con- 
 stitution, to establish a strong government, con- 
 trolled by themselves or their section; and that, in- 
 stead of endeavoring to devise some just, reasonable, 
 practicable, and amicable plan of settling the slavery 
 question, they desired to keep up a constant agita- 
 tion of the subject as a means of accomplishing their 
 ambitious designs. 
 
 The purpose thus indicated by the leaders of the 
 antislavery party in Congress was still more clearly 
 manifested by the action of that party throughout 
 the country. In the Chicago Convention it rejected 
 the word ''national" as descriptive of its character 
 and placed itself on a distinctly sectional basis. It 
 thus substituted sectional animosity for the spirit 
 of fraternity and mutual assistance which brought 
 the States into alliance, politically dissolved the Un- 
 ion, and virtually declared war against the South. 
 The author of "The Origin of the Late War" very 
 truly says: *Tt is impossible to regard the proceed- 
 ings of the Chicago Convention in any other light 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 8l 
 
 than as equivalent to a proclamation of absolutely 
 hostile purposes against the Southern section of the 
 country. They were not technically a declaration of 
 war, to be conducted by arms, simply because they 
 professed only to use the pacific force of superior 
 numbers in order to deprive the minority of its rights 
 under the Constitution. While in one part of their 
 platform the Republicans made a specious profes- 
 sion of regard for the Constitution, in another part 
 they announced a dissolution of the 'political bands' 
 by which the sections were held together and even 
 refused to be called by a national name. It was an 
 attitude which ought to have given instant alarm to 
 every sincere friend of the Union." 
 
 To effect their hostile purposes against the South 
 the Republicans found it necessary to refuse to 
 fulfill their obligations under the Constitution and to 
 nullify Federal laws enacted to make its provisions 
 more effective. To justify this they enunciated the 
 doctrine of a ''higher law" — a law which, as it was 
 illustrated by the conduct of those who professed to 
 be guided by it, made all obligations and restraints 
 imposed by the government subordinate to their 
 ideas, aims, and wishes. 
 
 In obedience to this so-called "higher law," the 
 
 act of Congress intended to make the constitutional 
 
 provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves more 
 
 effective was flagrantly and boastfully set at naught. 
 
 Mass meetings were held throughout the North to 
 6 
 
82 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 create and intensify opposition to its enforcement, 
 popular assemblies adopted resolutions in regard to 
 it (which Mr. Webster declared to be tantamount 
 to "levying war against the government"), and the 
 legislative bodies of a majority of the Northern 
 States enacted laws which practically nullified it. 
 The most noted writers and speakers of the Repub- 
 lican party openly avowed their determination to 
 deal with the subject of slavery not according to 
 the provisions of the Constitution, but according to 
 their own notion of what ought to be done. 
 
 Mr. Garrison, the chief among the ultra-aboli- 
 tionists, unable to deny the fact that the Constitu- 
 tion recognized the claims of the South as just, de- 
 clared that instrument to be "a covenant with death 
 and an agreement with hell." 
 
 The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, the ablest among 
 the many clergymen who preached the gospel of a 
 ''higher law," who probably knew more about the- 
 ology than he did about the principles of govern- 
 ment, overlooking the fact that the Constitution was 
 the foundation of the Union and that without the 
 foundation the superstructure could not stand, at- 
 tempted to refute the idea that the preservation of 
 the former was necessary to the preservation of the 
 latter by denying the identity of the two, declaring 
 ''the Constitution itself" to be *'the cause of every 
 division" occasioned by "the vexed question of slav- 
 ery," and thus inferentially teaching that the coun- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 83 
 
 try could get rid of the whole trouble by getting rid 
 of the Constitution. 
 
 The Hon. William H. Seward, the most influen- 
 tial politician and the acknowledged leader of the 
 party, who would almost certainly have been its 
 candidate for the presidency had it not been deemed 
 expedient to bid for Western votes by nominating 
 a man from that section, fully exemplified the "high- 
 er law" doctrine which he enunciated. Of him and 
 his disciples an eminent jurist said : "In words per- 
 fectly free from ambiguity and by a long series of 
 public acts which admit of no doubtful construc- 
 tion, Mr. Seward taught disobedience to the Consti- 
 tution as a duty and contempt for it as a patriotic 
 sentiment. This principle (if it be lawful to call it 
 a principle) was adopted, avowed, and acted upon 
 by his party with almost entire unanimity whenever 
 and wherever they found their wishes opposed by a 
 constitutional interdict. By him and by them the 
 old notion that the law of the land ought to be 
 obeyed was scoffed at." 
 
 According to the testimony of Mr. Seward, the 
 party's candidate for the presidency was fully com- 
 mitted to the "higher law" policy and intended, if 
 elected, to make it the policy of his administration. 
 In a speech delivered in Boston Mr. Seward said: 
 "The people have for their standard bearer Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, confessing the obligations of the 'high- 
 er law' , . . and contending for weal or woe, 
 
84 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 for life or death in the irrepressible conflict between 
 freedom and slavery. I desire only to say that we 
 are in the last stage of the conflict, before the great 
 triumphant inauguration of this policy into the gov- 
 ernment of the United States." 
 
 In brief, the Republican party, with all its fanat- 
 ical reformers, meddlesome preachers, and ambitious 
 politicians, repudiated the Constitution and proposed 
 to set up in its stead a so-called "higher law," un- 
 der which those in power might exceed all constitu- 
 tional limitations and administer the government ac- 
 cording to their own judgment or interest, a "high- 
 er law" of which one of the ablest jurists in the 
 country said : "It is simply not law at all, but license 
 to use political power in any way that will promote 
 the interests or gratify the passions of him who 
 wields it. It tells those who administer the govern- 
 ment that they may do whatever they can do. It 
 abolishes all law and puts in its place the mere force 
 which law was made to control." 
 
 This presented the real issue in the conflict be- 
 tween the sections. It was not a conflict between the 
 antislavery party and a proslavery party, for there 
 never was a proslavery party — a party organized to 
 uphold slavery — in American politics. The party 
 which has been so designated had in its ranks many 
 who were opposed to slavery, and was in reality the 
 pro-Constitution party — the party which at all tim.es 
 earnestly protested against the assumption by the 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 8$ 
 
 Federal authorities of powers not conferred on them 
 by the Constitution. 
 
 The men of this party were as much opposed to 
 unconstitutional action by the Federal government 
 in favor of slavery as they were to such action 
 against slavery. For example, when Mr. Green, of 
 Missouri, offered a resolution in the Senate suggest- 
 ing the propriety of a "law for establishing an armed 
 police force at all necessar}^ points along the line 
 separating the slaveholding States from the non- 
 slaveholding States, for the purpose of maintaining 
 the general peace between those States, of prevent- 
 ing the invasion of one State by the citizens of an- 
 other, and also for the more efficient execution of 
 the fugitive slave laws," Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, 
 said : ''I do not comprehend the policy of a Southern 
 Senator who would seek to change the whole form 
 of our government and substitute Federal force for 
 State obligation and authority. Do we want a new 
 government that is to overthrow the old? Do we 
 wish to erect a central colossus, wielding at discre- 
 tion the military arm and exercising military force 
 over the people of the States ?" And, on the supposi- 
 tion that Mr. Green's resolution meant to give the 
 Federal government a power, not already possessed 
 by it, to compel States to fulfill their constitutional 
 obligation to surrender fugitive slaves, Mr. Davis 
 further said: "He is providing, under the name of 
 Union, to carry on a war against States ; and, I care 
 
86 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 not whether it be against Massachusetts or Missouri, 
 it is equally objectionable to me, and I will resist it 
 ahke in the one case and in the other as subversive 
 of the great principle on which our government 
 rests, as a heresy to be confronted at its first presen- 
 tation and put down there lest it grow into propor- 
 tions which will render us powerless before it." 
 
 This was the position of all the leading men of 
 the South. They were immovably opposed to any 
 assumption of extra-constitutional powers by the 
 Federal government, as tending to deprive the States 
 of their sovereignty and to establish what Mr. Lin- 
 coln in the Hampton Roads Conference called "na- 
 tional authority," and what he said the Southern 
 States must recognize before he would consent to 
 even a suspension of hostilities for the purpose of 
 considering terms of peace. Southern men clung 
 most tenaciously to the rights of the States — to the 
 independence of each of the original thirteen as hav- 
 ing been won from Great Britain and never surren- 
 dered, and to the independence of each of the oth- 
 ers as having been admitted into the Union on an 
 equal footing with them. They held the main- 
 tenance of State independence to be essential to the 
 preservation of their liberties, and in comparison 
 with this they regarded the subject of slavery as 
 but a ''drop in the ocean." As Mr. Stephens said : 
 "Even the two thousand million dollars invested in 
 the relation thus established, between private capital 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 87 
 
 and the labor of this class of population, under the 
 system, was but as the dust in the balance compared 
 with the vital attributes of the rights of independ- 
 ence and sovereignty on the part of the several 
 
 States." 
 
 Thus valuing the rights of the several States, the 
 representative men of the South and many wise and 
 patriotic men of the North were unalterably opposed 
 to the "higher law" policy or any other policy that 
 would authorize the Federal government to exceed 
 in any way whatever the powers delegated to it by 
 the Constitution. They urged strict obedience to the 
 Constitution as "the supreme law to every Ameri- 
 can," the "plighted faith of our fathers," and the 
 ''hope of posterity." They saw that if the provi- 
 sions of the Constitution in regard to slavery could 
 be disregarded on the ground of morality, expedi- 
 ency, necessity, or any other so-called "higher law," 
 its provisions in regard to other things could with 
 equal right be violated on the same ground ; that all 
 constitutional guarantees and safeguards would thus 
 be rendered worthless ; and that, instead of a govern- 
 ment administered according to the organic law of 
 the Union, we might thus come to have a govern- 
 ment administered according to what any party in 
 power might deem expedient and right, and there- 
 fore a "higher law." Hence they insisted that the 
 provisions of the Constitution in regard to slavery 
 and every other question should be held inviolate. 
 
88 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 However it may have been overshadowed and ob- 
 scured by giving prominence to subordinate matters, 
 this was the real issue. The claim of the South was : 
 Unreserved obedience to the Constitution. Wherein 
 it may be found inadequate^ amend it in the pre- 
 scribed way; but until it is thus amended, its provi- 
 sions must be fully carried out. The claim of the 
 North was : 'There is a law higher than the Con- 
 stitution," and wherein the Constitution conflicts 
 with that higher law it must be disobeyed. The 
 South was dominated by the principle of ''Law and 
 Order" — the principle of conformity to the lawfully 
 established order and the remedy of wrongs in a 
 lawful way. The North was dominated by what 
 Wendell Phillips called "The Puritan Principle" — 
 the principle of those whose motto, as Mr. Phillips 
 declared, was not "Law and Order," but "God and 
 Justice/" and who were ahvays ready to tread down 
 law and order in the effort to compel others to con- 
 form to their notion of God and justice. The South 
 was ever loyal to the compact of union, and in all 
 respects faithfully fulfilled the obligations it im- 
 posed; the North was disloyal to that compact, and 
 flagrantly violated its terms. Hence if the War be- 
 tween the States may be rightly called "The War of 
 the Rebellion," the rebels lived north of the Poto- 
 mac. 
 
 In "The Origin of the Late War" Mr. Lunt, a 
 Northern man, says : "Without meaning to institute 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 89 
 
 any disparaging comparison, it may be remarked 
 with justice that the middle class of men at the 
 South, whether owing to larger leisure or to what- 
 ever cause, have in general more closely attended to 
 and more clearly understood the principles of our 
 government than the same class at the North." And 
 the same author, after stating that ''there were here 
 and there zealous disunionists in the South, as there 
 were at the North," says : "But it cannot be doubted 
 that during the progress of these events the' vast 
 body of the people in every slave State, including the 
 most able, influential, and by far the most in num- 
 ber of their leading men, were heartily attached to 
 the Union, sincerely anxious to preserve it, and de- 
 sired only to maintain unimpaired in their original 
 purity and integrity those principles of the Con- 
 stitution, whether right or wrong in some of their 
 interpretations of them, upon which the Union was 
 founded and which were essential to its preserva- 
 tion." 
 
 The leading men of the South w^re so devoted to 
 the Union and so reluctant to withdraw from it that, 
 even after the triumph of the distinctly sectional 
 party at the polls and the election of a President 
 avowedly hostile to Southern institutions and inter- 
 ests, they would not have seceded if they could have 
 obtained any satisfactory assurance that the Con- 
 stitution would continue to be recognized as the law 
 of the land and that the government would continue 
 
90 
 
 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 to be administered in accordance with its plain pro- 
 visions. This assurance they vainly tried to get. 
 The testimony of Judge Black, of Pennsylvania, giv- 
 en in an open letter to the Hon. Charles Francis 
 Adams, which was published in the Galaxy for Jan- 
 uary, 1874, not only confirms this statement, but 
 throws a flood of light on the whole situation. Aft- 
 er stating the general belief at Washington that Mr. 
 Seward would be "the Wolsey of the new adminis- 
 tration, with 
 
 'Law in his voice and honor in his hand,' 
 
 while others would be subordinate and the President 
 himself little more than a figurehead," Judge Black 
 said : "When the troubles were at their worst cer- 
 tain Southern gentlemen, through Judge Campbell, 
 of the Supreme Court, requested me to meet Mr. 
 Seward and see if he would not give them some 
 ground on which they could stand with safety in- 
 side of the Union. I consented, and we met at the 
 State Department. . . . Many propositions were dis- 
 cussed and rejected as being either impracticable or 
 likely to prove useless before I told him what I felt 
 perfectly sure would stop all controversy at once 
 and forever. I proposed that he should simply 
 pledge himself and the incoming administration to 
 govern according to the Constitution, and upon ev- 
 ery disputed point of constitutional law to accept 
 that exposition of it which had been or might be 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 91 
 
 given by the judicial authorities. He started at this, 
 became excited^ and violently declared he would do 
 no such thing. That/ said he, 'is treason; that 
 would make me agree to the Dred Scott case.' In 
 vain I told him that he was not required to admit 
 the correctness of any particular case, but merely to 
 submit to it [the Constitution] as the decision of the 
 highest tribunal, from which there could be no ap- 
 peal except to the sword. ... I had never before 
 heard that treason was obedience to the Constitution 
 as construed by the courts; but this prepared me to 
 learn, as I did some time afterwards, that the correl- 
 ative virtue of loyalty consisted in trampling the 
 laws under foot." 
 
 Thus the recognized leader of the Republican 
 party, who was expected to dictate the policy of the 
 incoming administration, emphatically refused to 
 give the Southern leaders that assurance of safety 
 within the Union which would have settled all the 
 trouble, and declared that it would be treason to 
 pledge himself and his party to govern according to 
 the Constitution as it had been or might be expound- 
 ed by the highest judicial tribunal in the country. 
 
 When the reins of government were placed in the 
 hands of men who thus emphatically refused to 
 pledge themselves to govern according to the Con- 
 stitution as construed by the judiciary; when the 
 administration of the country's affairs was given to 
 a party that was organized on a distinctly sectional 
 
92 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 basis and, in the words of a Northern historian, 
 ''Constitution and Union and all public and person- 
 al rights and privileges dependent upon them, in 
 the North as well as in the South, stood in immediate 
 and imminent danger of utter overthrow," Southern 
 statesmen felt that, if they would preserve the gov- 
 ernment inherited from their fathers and hand it 
 down as a heritage to their children, they must with- 
 draw from the Union and establish a Confederacy 
 of their own. 
 
 They were moved by no feeling of disloyalty. 
 The South had always been loyal to the government. 
 Her sons had been most prominent in its formation 
 and most conspicuous in promoting its success and 
 glory. That they were still loyal to it is evidenced 
 by the fact that they made it their own. They 
 framed no new Constitution, organized no new form 
 of government, but adopted the old Constitution as 
 the fundamental law of their new Confederacy, 
 making only a few changes in the wording to guard 
 against any possible misconstruction, and a few ad- 
 ditional provisions looking to the remedy of evils 
 not foreseen by its framers — provisions which the 
 New York Herald at the time declared to be ''inval- 
 uable reforms" that "should be adopted by the Unit- 
 ed States with or without the return of the seceded 
 States, and as soon as possible." As President of 
 the Southern Confederacy and using the words in 
 precisely the same sense, Mr. Davis might have re- 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 93 
 
 peated the following statement made by him in the 
 Senate of the United States : "Our flag bears no new 
 device. Upon its folds our principles are written in 
 living light, all proclaiming the constitutional un- 
 ion, justice, equality, and fraternity of our domain." 
 In his inaugural address he did say : "The Constitu- 
 tion founded by our fathers is that of these Confed- 
 erate States in their exposition of it." And their ex- 
 position of it was that of the Convention which 
 framed it; of all the States that originally sanc- 
 tioned it and confederated under it ; of three-fourths 
 of the States, voting through their representatives 
 in the Senate, in 1838; of nearly two-thirds of the 
 States, voting in the same way, in the spring of 
 i860; of the ablest jurists in the country, both 
 North and South ; and of the highest judicial tribun- 
 al in the United States. 
 
 Not in the spirit of rebellion against the govern- 
 ment established by the fathers of the republic, but 
 in the spirit of loyalty to that government, the peo- 
 ple of the South refused to acquiesce in its subver- 
 sion and formed a new Confederacy to perpetuate it 
 
 unimpaired. 
 
 They earnestly desired to withdraw from . the 
 Union peaceably, and did everything consistent with 
 their safety and honor to avert the horrors of war. 
 They hoped that, notwithstanding the false and sub- 
 versive teaching of the Republican party, the great 
 body of the Northern people still held the doctrine, 
 
94 
 
 A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, that 
 "Governments derive their just powers from the 
 consent of the governed," and that, holding this 
 doctrine, they would not attempt to govern the 
 South without her consent. And this hope might 
 have been realized but for the fact that President 
 Lincoln, instead of submitting the question to the 
 representatives of the people in Congress, who alone 
 had the constitutional right to make war, usurped 
 the war-making power and began hostile measures. 
 
 When war was forced upon them, the people of 
 the South proved themselves to be brave and worthy 
 defenders of the right of self-government which 
 their fathers had won from Great Britain and be- 
 queathed to them as a priceless heritage. For four 
 years they upheld that right against an enemy great- 
 ly outnumbering them and having incalculably larg- 
 er resources, better equipments, and more effective 
 means of waging war. They displayed courage, de- 
 votion, and heroism never surpassed and rarely 
 equaled in the history of the world. Their deeds 
 of valor challenged universal admiration, and, told 
 in song and story, they will excite feelings of won- 
 der and praise in the hearts of men through the 
 ages to come. 
 
 But notwithstanding the justice of her cause and 
 the valor of her sons, the South failed. When she 
 had become a land of graves in which were sleep- 
 ing many thousands of her bravest and best, when 
 
A DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH. 95 
 
 the ranks of her armies were so depleted that she 
 could not muster men enough to form a thin line 
 of battle along the enemy's extended and doubly 
 manned front, when her resources were so exhaust- 
 ed that she could no longer give sufficient food and 
 clothing to the remnant of her brave defenders, 
 when her powers of resistance were so weakened 
 that to prolong the struggle would be but a useless 
 and criminal sacrifice of life, she lowered her flag 
 in surrender, and another chapter was added to the 
 history of successful usurpations and the triumphs 
 of might over right. 
 
 "Yet raise thy head, fair land ! Thy dead died bravely for the 
 right ; 
 The folded flag is stainless still, the broken sword is bright ; 
 No blot is on thy record found ; no treason soils thy fame." 
 
 And when thy history is impartially and fairly 
 written, disclosing the pure and patriotic motives 
 and recounting the heroic deeds of thy sons, it will 
 
 "bear 
 This blazon to the last of times ; 
 No nation rose so white and fair 
 Or fell so pure of crimes." 
 
CAVALIER LOYALTY AND PU- 
 RITAN DISLOYALTY IN 
 AMERICA. 
 
 Appomattox was a triumph of the physically stronger in a 
 conflict between the representatives of two essentially different 
 civilizations and antagonistic ideas of government. On one 
 side in that conflict was the South, led by the descendants of 
 the Cavaliers, who, with all their faults, had inherited from 
 a long line of ancestors a manly contempt for moral littleness, 
 a high sense of honor, a lofty regard for plighted faith, a 
 strong tendency to conservatism, a profound respect for law 
 and order, and an unfaltering loyalty to constitutional govern- 
 ment. Against the South was arrayed the power of the North, 
 dominated by the spirit of Puritanism, which, with all its vir- 
 tues, has ever been characterized by the pharisaism that wor- 
 ships itself and is unable to perceive any goodness apart from 
 itself; which has ever arrogantly held its ideas, its interests, 
 and its will to be higher than fundamental law and covenanted 
 obligations; which has always "lived and moved and had its 
 being" in rebellion against constituted authority; which, with 
 the cry of freedom on its lips, has been one of the most cruel 
 and pitiless tyrants that ever cursed the world ; which, while 
 beheading an English king in the name of liberty, brought 
 England under a reign of oppression whose little finger was 
 heavier than the mailed hand of the Stuarts ; and which, from 
 the time of Oliver Cromwell to the time of Abraham Lincoln, 
 has never hesitated to trample upon the rights of others in 
 order to effect its own ends. 
 
 (96) 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 97 
 
 np HE foregoing paragraph, taken from a speech 
 -*- which I dehvered in Richmond, Virginia, was 
 bitterly assailed by some of the Northern papers. 
 Notwithstanding the fact that "the grim and stren- 
 uous Puritan spirits of New England" have been 
 celebrated in song and story; notwithstanding the 
 fact that succeeding generations have hallowed their 
 memory and highly extolled their work as ''crusad- 
 ers of liberty;" notwithstanding the fact, or what 
 I supposed to be the fact, that to prove one's descent 
 from an ancestor who ''came over on the Mayflow- 
 er" was to go far toward making his "title clear" to 
 be received into the most exclusive New England 
 society — notwithstanding all this, many Northern 
 editors seemed to think it an insult to the Northern 
 people to intimate that they were in any way con- 
 nected with or influenced by Puritanism. 
 
 One editor, blinded by his resentment, I suppose, 
 failed to see what just a little attention to the con- 
 text would have shown him — that my reference was 
 to political rather than religious Puritanism — and 
 endeavored to even matters by asserting that the 
 Northern people had departed from the faith and 
 practice of the early Puritans, and that at the time 
 of the war the South was more puritanically reli- 
 gious than the North. Another fancied that in what 
 I said there was an absurd claim of Cavalier de- 
 scent for all Southerners and Puritan descent for 
 
 all Northerners, and proceeded to overthrow this 
 7 
 
98 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 imaginary claim by saying: "If there had been no 
 Southern soldiers except descendants of Cavaliers 
 and no Northern soldiers except descendants of 
 Cromwellian Puritans, the Civil War could have 
 been fought under a circus tent." Another, with 
 wonderful acumen, discovered in what I said a di- 
 viding line ''separating the sections into areas of vir- 
 tue and vice" and putting all the virtue down South 
 and all the vice up North. Yet another found in my 
 language a "denunciation of Northern men as sor- 
 did oppressors and malignant hypocrites." 
 
 Had those who thus criticised this paragraph tak- 
 en time to consider calmly its meaning instead of 
 permitting themselves to be carried away by anger, 
 I think they would have found in it nothing to ex- 
 cite their wrath or justify their criticisms. Fairly 
 interpreted, it does not reflect on or in any way refer 
 to the religion of either section. Neither does it 
 disparage the ancestry of the people of either section. 
 It does not deny, either directly or indirectly, the 
 well-known fact that there were men of Cavalier 
 descent in the North and men of Puritan descent in 
 the South, and that probably a majority of the peo- 
 ple of both sections were descended from neither 
 Cavaliers nor Puritans. There is in it nothing fair- 
 ly suggestive of the idea that the country is or ever 
 was "separated into areas of virtue and vice" — 
 nothing inconsistent with the fact that in each sec- 
 tion there are good and bad, that each has its virtues 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 99 
 
 and each has its vices, that in each there is much to 
 commend and much to condemn, and that neither 
 can justly claim to be morally superior to the other. 
 The charge that it "denounces Northern men as sor- 
 did oppressors and malignant hypocrites" is alto- 
 gether groundless. It neither praises nor censures 
 the men of the North — contains no allusion to their 
 moral qualities as good or bad. Its language refers 
 not to Northern men, but to the spirit of Puritan- 
 ism — ^the ruling temper, disposition, or principle 
 which is exhibited in the history of the Puritans, and 
 which, represented by a few radical leaders, got con- 
 trol of affairs in the North in i860. Even that spirit 
 is not characterized as "sordid" and "hypocritical." 
 
 In this whole statement there is not one word 
 about the merits or demerits of either the Northern 
 or the Southern people. The statement merely con- 
 trasts the two spirits or principles which became pro- 
 nounced and dominated the two sections just before 
 the war : the Cavalier spirit, characterized by a fidel- 
 ity to its sense of honor and a contempt for indirect 
 methods that led it to keep plighted faith, to be loyal 
 to constituted government, and to assert its rights 
 openly and boldly; and the Puritan spirit — charac- 
 terized by an absolute confidence in the truth and 
 righteousness of its own ideas and policies and a de- 
 termination to enforce those ideas and policies at 
 whatever cost — that blinded it to the good in any- 
 thing that opposed it, caused it to rebel against con- 
 
lOo CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 stituted authority, and led it sternly and uncompro- 
 misingly to pursue its ends regardless of the rights of 
 others. Some may name those two spirits Conserva- 
 tism and Progress — the disposition blindly and stub- 
 bornly to adhere to the old order and the disposition 
 to change the old order so as to bring it into accord 
 with increased enlightenment and higher ideas. But 
 however they may be named, there they were, in 
 i860, confronting each other: the one a heritage 
 from the Cavalier and the other a heritage from the 
 Puritan ; the one dominating the South and the oth- 
 er dominating the North. And the conflict between 
 them brought on the war. 
 
 The essential point in the contrast drawn between 
 these two spirits is that one is the spirit of obedience 
 to ''the powers that be" and the other is the spirit 
 of disobedience to ''the powers that be" if those 
 powers require what it does not approve. The one 
 is the spirit of loyalty to constituted government; 
 the other is the spirit of disloyalty to constituted 
 government wherein that government does not con- 
 form to its ideas. The one subordinates itself to 
 the law; the other sets itself above the law. This 
 difference between them is so clearly marked in his- 
 tory that it must be apparent even to one who reads 
 with half -opened eyes. 
 
 I have forgotten who said, "My country! May 
 she always be right ! But, right or wrong, my coun- 
 tr}^" but with the substitution of "king" for "coun- 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. loi 
 
 try," his words exactly express the sentiment of the 
 courageous and faithful hearts who rallied around 
 the royal standard in England's great civil war. It 
 is a false sentiment — a sentiment which has led 
 many brave men to battle on the side of wrong. 
 But it was the sentiment of the English Cavaliers. 
 Doubtless many of them, like the accomplished and 
 liberal-minded Falkland, disapproved the king's acts 
 and distrusted him ; but, like the chivalrous Sir Ed- 
 mund Verney, they would ''not do so base a thing 
 as to desert him." They bared their swords in his 
 defense with a devotion that was illustrated by the 
 Marquis of Winchester, who, w^hen his house, which 
 he ''had held stoutly out through the war for the 
 king," was finally taken by storm, and he stood, a 
 prisoner, viewing the flames that were reducing it 
 to a shapeless pile of ruins, said that, "if the king 
 had no more ground in England but Basing House, 
 he would adventure it as he did and so maintain it 
 to the uttermost;" for "Basing House was called 
 'loyalty.' " 
 
 These men were not fighting for Charles the man, 
 but for Charles the king. And they were not fight- 
 ing for the king in the spirit of base submission. 
 They did not take up arms in obedience to his call 
 because they dared not assert their rights against 
 him. They defended him because he stood to them 
 for the established order, which both the preserva- 
 tion of their honor and the maintenance of their 
 
I02 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 rights required them to uphold. He was the right- 
 ful heir to the throne, the ruler to whom they owed 
 allegiance; and they felt that it would be dishonor- 
 able to turn against him or refuse to draw their 
 swords in his defense. With all his faults, he was to 
 them the lawful representative of the English mon- 
 archy, with all of glory and of good that centuries 
 of struggle and growth had gathered about it. He 
 may have abused his power, as many of his prede- 
 cessors on the throne had done, but he was to them 
 still the legitimate head of the English government, 
 whom they must defend in order to preserve that 
 government. 
 
 Macaulay, while frankly declaring his belief that 
 ''the cause of the king was the cause of bigotry and 
 tyranny," "cannot refrain from looking with com- 
 placency on the character of the honest old Cava- 
 liers" who fought in defense of it. After pointing 
 out the unfairness of charging upon them the prof- 
 ligacy and baseness of the lawless crew who were 
 attracted to the standard of Charles by the hope of 
 license and plunder, he says : "Our royalist country- 
 men were not heartless, dangling courtiers, bowing 
 at every step and simpering at every word. . . . 
 It was not for a treacherous king or an intolerant 
 Church that they fought, but for the old banner 
 which had waved in so many battles over the heads 
 of their fathers, and for the altars at which they 
 had received the hands of their brides." 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 103 
 
 A goodly number of men thus loyal to that ''old 
 banner" and those "altars" had come to America be- 
 fore the outbreak of the war between king and Par- 
 liament; and when that war ended so disastrously 
 for the royalists, many crossed the Atlantic to find 
 a refuge from the pitiless vengeance of the victori- 
 ous party. Naturally they did not go to New Eng- 
 land, where the people had no sympathy with them, 
 but landed on the shores of Virginia, where Gov- 
 ernor Berkeley, a stanch adherent of monarchy, was 
 ready to receive them "with open arms and purse," 
 and the planters would entertain them with lavish 
 hospitality and give them liberal aid. In the month 
 of September, 1649, O"^ ship brought to Virginia 
 more than three hundred of these refugees, and all 
 through the years of the Commonwealth the tide of 
 Cavalier immigration continued. 
 
 These royalist exiles were, for the most part, men 
 of some prominence ; for had they been obscure ad- 
 herents of the king, they could have remained in 
 England with safety. Among them were many 
 "men of the first rate," who wanted not money nor 
 credit, and had fled from their native country as 
 from a place infected with the plague." They and 
 their descendants became the "landed gentry" from 
 whom, "with but a slight infusion of yeomanry," 
 says Doyle, the colony "drew its governing class." 
 They became the leaders of Virginia, molding the 
 opinions of her people, giving character to her socie- 
 
T04 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 ty, directing her affairs, and shaping her policies. 
 As Cooke maintains, "the mass of the Virginia pop- 
 ulation and a vast preponderance of the wealth and 
 influence of the colony were Cavalier — always tak- 
 ing the word to mean friendly to Church and king." 
 
 And, naturally, the temper, teaching, and exam- 
 ple of these stanch royalists were not without influ- 
 ence on the thoughts and sentiments of their chil- 
 dren. If, as we are told, the prominent characteris- 
 tics of men are transmitted to their progeny, and, 
 though modified by changed conditions, are inerad- 
 icable, surely the unfaltering loyalty which char- 
 acterized the men who freely staked their fortunes 
 and lives in defense of the English monarchy must, 
 in some measure at least, have been transmitted to 
 many generations of their descendants. 
 
 That the sentiment of loyalty was deeply rooted 
 in the hearts of the Virginians in subsequent years, 
 is clearly evident from the facts bearing on the ques- 
 tion. If loyalty does not mean the obedience of ab- 
 ject slaves who are afraid to urge a reasonable ob- 
 jection to burdens unlawfully laid upon them, if it 
 be not disloyal to remonstrate firmly but respectfully 
 against the infringement of chartered rights and so- 
 licit the redress of grievances, nothing done by the 
 men of Virginia during the entire colonial period 
 can be rightly termed disloyal. They faithfully 
 performed their duties as citizens and fully dis- 
 charged every obligation involved in allegiance to 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 105 
 
 the crown. When an unworthy representative of 
 the king, like the ''extortionate, unjust, and arbi- 
 trary" Governor Harvey, ''multipHed penalties and 
 exactments and appropriated fines to his own use," 
 they ''thrust him out of his government" and ap- 
 pointed another in his stead. But this action, in- 
 stead of being rebellion against the king, was made 
 subject to the king's pleasure; and when the king 
 decided against them, they took back the unjust gov- 
 ernor. If any reigning monarch, probably misin- 
 formed and misled by his advisers, attempted to de- 
 prive them of rights and privileges previously grant- 
 ed to them, they resisted with memorial setting forth 
 the facts and respectfully protesting against the at- 
 tempt; but they resorted to no violent or unlawful 
 methods of resistance. They never surrendered 
 their rights, but they maintained those rights in the 
 spirit of loyalty and by means wholly consistent with 
 their allegiance. 
 
 Bacon's Rebellion, which some have represented 
 as "armed defiance of England," was, on the part of 
 Bacon's followers at least, no intentional defiance 
 of England in any way. In the beginning it was 
 nothing more than an expedition against the In- 
 dians, unauthorized by the governor and in opposi- 
 tion to his wishes. When the governor denounced 
 those who took part in the expedition as rebels, it 
 became a fight between him and them, in which the 
 people naturally sympathized with their resolute de- 
 
Io6 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 fenders against the savages. Whatever may have 
 been in the mind of Bacon himself, it is evident that 
 few, if any, of his followers and friends entertained 
 a thought of opposing England. When, in obe- 
 dience to the popular demand, the old Assembly had 
 been dissolved and newly elected burgesses, favor- 
 able to Bacon, had convened, they proposed the re- 
 dress of "several grievances the country was then 
 laboring under," but they did not give the slightest 
 hint of an intention to "defy" England. Later, in 
 his "Remonstrance" against the governor's procla- 
 mation declaring him to be a rebel and a traitor. 
 Bacon declared that he and his followers were loyal 
 subjects of the king and in arms against the Indians 
 only. If we may put faith in what he said, we must 
 conclude that he believed Governor Berkeley to be 
 the real rebel and traitor, who, as the king's official 
 representative, had betrayed his trust and was using 
 his power contrary to the king's wishes and to the 
 detriment of the king's faithful colony. 
 
 Altogether consistent with this belief is "the oath 
 at Middle Plantation," by which Bacon sought to 
 bind his friends, "until such time as the king be fully 
 informed of the state of the case . . . and the 
 determination thereof be remitted hither," to resist 
 any force that the governor might send against him, 
 even though it should consist of English troops. 
 This "oath on the Virginia Field of Mars to fight 
 England," as it has been bombastically styled, was. 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 107 
 
 in the intention of those who subscribed it, nothing 
 more than an expression of their determination to 
 appeal their cases to the king and, until the king's 
 decision was rendered, to resist any force whatever 
 that the governor might send to capture them and 
 hang them as traitors. This was something very 
 different from swearing to fight England, and even 
 this w^as reluctantly done. Bacon's friends refused 
 to sign the paper at first ; and when, by threats, ap- 
 peals, and a suspiciously timely report that the In- 
 dians were on the warpath, they were finally induced 
 to sign it, they did so with the express understand- 
 ing that it was not intended to bind them to any- 
 thing inconsistent with their allegiance. Say what 
 we may of "these loyal prime gentlemen, who were 
 so punctilious about their allegiance to the king" 
 and yet took ''the oath to fight the king's troops if 
 they came to Virginia," the facts, fairly considered, 
 show that, whatever may have been the mistakes 
 and inconsistencies into which they were driven by 
 the stress of circumstances, they were not disloyal in 
 spirit and intention. 
 
 Referring to the sentiment in Virginia a quarter 
 of a century after Bacon's Rebellion, Cooke says: 
 "The society continues to be English throughout, 
 loyal to the king, and believing in social degrees and 
 the Established Church." 
 
 This loyal sentiment was manifested by the Vir- 
 ginians up to and even after the actual beginning of 
 
I08 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 hostilities between England and her American colo- 
 nies. In the decade preceding the outbreak of hos- 
 tilities some of them^ like Patrick Henry, seemed to 
 be strongly inclined to sever the ties of allegiance 
 that bound them to the mother country; but most 
 of them were still faithful subjects of the king. In 
 1765, in the House of Burgesses, they received with 
 cries of ''Treason" Henry's famous words : "Caesar 
 had his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; 
 and George the Third may profit by their example." 
 Among those who cried "Treason" there was prob- 
 ably not a man who dissented from the view of 
 colonial rights set forth in the resolutions which 
 Henry was urging the Assembly to adopt ; and those 
 who opposed their adoption did so because they be- 
 lieved the times called for action tending to allay 
 rather than excite animosity. They understood their 
 chartered rights fully as well as the fiery young ora- 
 tor did, and were no less determined to maintain 
 them; but, after the fashion of their fathers, they 
 wished to maintain them lawfully and with due re- 
 gard to their obligations as Englishmen, and they 
 were not disposed to approve expressions of defi- 
 ance and menace to their king. 
 
 Their grievance was not a king, but a Parliament 
 that had unlawfully come between them and the 
 crown and was seeking to deprive them of the self- 
 government granted to their fathers by the crown 
 and held by them as an inalienable heritage. They 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 109 
 
 claimed that the relations of Virginia had been, and 
 still rightfully were, with the crown alone; that the 
 crown, by the charter granted in 1621, had con- 
 ferred on her people the right to be governed by 
 their own representatives convened as her "General 
 Assembly;" that, therefore, she was lazi'fuUy a king- 
 dom ruled by her own Parliament, in constitutional 
 subjection to the king, in the same way that England 
 was; and that the English Parliament had no more 
 right to make laws for her people than her Parlia- 
 ment had to make laws for the English people. It 
 was this infringement of their chartered rights by a 
 legislative body in which they had no representa- 
 tion and the authority of which they did not ac- 
 knowledge that they were determined to resist. They 
 were loyal subjects of the crown, but they did not 
 intend to become slavish subjects of the British 
 Parliament, \^^lat they desired, and but for the 
 hotspurs of the time might possibly have secured, 
 was not separation from England, but self-govern- 
 ment as an English kingdom. Few Virginians then 
 wished to break loose from the mother country and 
 set up an independent government. Of the senti- 
 ment of the people at that time Cooke says: "The 
 old attachment to what was called 'home' was still 
 exceedingly strong. It had been shaken^ but not de- 
 stroyed, and was still a controlling sentiment. To 
 openly resist the crown would invite coercion; and 
 that meant war, which would be deplorable. Even 
 
no CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 if the colonies were successful, separation from the 
 mother land would probably follow; and not one 
 Virginian in ten thousand desired such a separa- 
 tion." 
 
 In the other Southern colonies, as in Virginia, loy- 
 al feeling was strong, and there was little disposition 
 on the part of the people to renounce their allegiance 
 to the crown. Englishmen, with whom the Hugue- 
 nots rapidly assimilated, were dominant. Dissenters, 
 it is said, outnumbered the adherents of the Church 
 of England; but the evidence goes to show that 
 many, if not most, of the Dissenters were royalist 
 in sentiment. 
 
 In the history of these colonies we read of the 
 lawlessness and turbulence which are more or less 
 characteristic of all newly settled countries. There 
 were outbreaks of personal enmities, factional fights, 
 violent attempts to redress local grievances, upris- 
 ings in resistance to the injustice and oppression of 
 corrupt and tyrannical officials; but through all the 
 better part of the people were ever loyal to the 
 crown. 
 
 Of these Southern colonies Lodge says that North 
 Carolina was "an offshoot, in large measure, of the 
 great colony of Virginia," whose ''planters closely 
 resembled those of Virginia;" that in South Caro- 
 lina "the Virginian type of manners and society be- 
 comes wholly Southern, while all the essential pe- 
 culiarities of the Virginian group of colonies are in- 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. m 
 
 tensified and are not only predominant, but reign 
 alone;" and that in Georgia ''there was more loyalty 
 and dependence upon the crown than elsewhere.'' 
 Doyle says: "The Southern colonies were in full 
 what England always was in part : communities gov- 
 erned by an unpaid aristocracy of wealth and birth." 
 Had there been no influences of blood, tradition, and 
 training binding these Southerners to loyalty, the 
 fact stated by Doyle would doubtless have made 
 them reluctant to renounce their allegiance to the 
 crown; for aristocracy and wealth are naturally 
 conservative — naturall}^ uphold constituted govern- 
 ment and the established order of things, and oppose 
 radical and violent measures of reform and progress 
 as dangerous. 
 
 But however reluctant the Southerners may have 
 been to sever the political ties that bound them to 
 the mother country, when war was determined on 
 and they were constrained to choose between loyalty 
 to the land of their ancestors and loyalty to the 
 land in which they had made homes for themselves 
 and their children, the great majority of them chose 
 the latter and, with whole-hearted devotion, periled 
 their lives and their fortunes in the long struggle for 
 independence. Their descendants can read with just 
 pride the story of how they acquitted themselves in 
 that struggle. 
 
 When the struggle was brought to a successful 
 issue and the colonies, separately and by name, were 
 
112 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 recognized by Great Britain as independent States, 
 the Southern people gave their undivided allegiance 
 to their respective States. When these States en- 
 tered into a federal union on the conditions set 
 forth in the Constitution, they felt that loyalty to 
 their States obliged them to be loyal to the terms of 
 the compact. - Hence Southern men never spoke of 
 the Constitution with contempt. On the contrary, 
 through the press, from the platform, in the halls of 
 Congress, in the Senate Chamber, always and every- 
 where they upheld it and clung to it as the palladium 
 of their liberty. They were called "strict construc- 
 tionists" because they protested against any latitudi- 
 narian construction of the Constitution to justify 
 party policies or expedient measures, and insisted 
 that it should be interpreted and obeyed according to 
 its plain meaning and as it was understood by the 
 men who framed it and the States that ratified it. 
 They regarded it as the instrument in which the 
 States had solemnly pledged themselves, each to the 
 others, and the terms of which could not be violated 
 in any manner or degree without dishonor. They 
 faithfully fulfilled the obligations it imposed on 
 them, and insisted on the faithful observance of all 
 its provisions as necessary to the common weal. 
 They freely conceded the rights it granted to oth- 
 ers, and asked only that others would concede the 
 rights it granted to them. 
 
 When we turn to the history of the Puritans, we 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 113 
 
 read an altogether different story. We find them at 
 first a strictly religious sect, called Puritans in de- 
 rision because they professed to follow "the pure 
 word of God." They regarded themselves as the 
 "chosen of God/' and looked with contempt on the 
 richest, noblest, and best who were not of his cho- 
 sen company. Their "bond to other men," says 
 Green, "was not the sense of a common manhood, 
 but the recognition of a brotherhood among the 
 elect. Without the pale of the saints lay a world 
 which was hateful to them because it was the enemy 
 of their God." It is, then, no great exaggeration to 
 say that they were "characterized by the pharisaism 
 that worships itself and is unable to perceive any 
 goodness apart from itself." 
 
 Holding that their duty and interests alike re- 
 quired them, under all circumstances, to follow "the 
 pure word," they were determined to obey every 
 command which they believed to be divine, even 
 though it might be to disobey the law of the land or 
 to violate their plighted faith. Thus they were char- 
 acterized by the spirit that "holds its ideas, its inter- 
 ests, and its will to be higher than fundamental law 
 and covenanted obligations." Many of them un- 
 questionably were, and most of them may have been, 
 honest and sincere. They diligently searched the 
 Scriptures, and followed what they believed to be 
 the divine will revealed therein. Practically they ad- 
 mitted no possibility of error in their understanding 
 8 
 
114 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 of the Scriptures and no possibility of truth in any 
 interpretation at variance with their own. They 
 held their own notion of ''the pure word" to be the 
 supreme law, which must be obeyed without the 
 slightest concession. 
 
 This was well enough so long as their notion of 
 **the pure word" was held to be the law for the reg- 
 ulation of their own conduct in things religious and 
 pertaining to themselves only, for in all such things 
 every man ought to be obedient to his own idea of 
 what is right. But the Puritans were not content 
 with that. As they gained in numbers and power 
 they entered the political arena and sought forcibly 
 to regulate the affairs of the whole country accord- 
 ing to their notion of "the pure word" — forcibly to 
 mold English politics and English religion into ac- 
 cord with their idea of the will of God. 
 
 Since the Puritans fought for the Parliament 
 against the king, and since the purpose of the Par- 
 liament was to compel the king to exercise his power 
 within constitutional limits, a superficial view of the 
 case might lead to the conclusion that they fought 
 for constitutional government. But their purpose 
 was altogether different from that of the Parlia- 
 ment; and while it was not openly declared in the 
 beginning, it became clearly evident after Cromwell 
 was placed in command of the army. From that 
 time on they were obedient to Parliament only in so 
 far as it did what they wished it to do. They over- 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 115 
 
 threw the king in the name of the Parliament, and 
 then overthrew the ParHament to effect their own 
 ends. 
 
 An EngHsh historian, who highly praises them 
 as "si brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body," 
 says: "In politics the Independents [the Cromwell- 
 ian Puritans] were, to use the phrase of their time, 
 root and branch men, or, to use the kindred phrase 
 of our own time, radicals. Not content with limit- 
 ing the power of the monarch, they were desirous to 
 erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old Eng- 
 lish polity." To express it a little more plainly, yet 
 in accord with the facts, they were desirous to over- 
 throw the English government and establish in its 
 stead a theocracy under the name of commonwealth, 
 ruled by them as the vicegerents of God, having 
 their idea of the divine will as its supreme law and 
 visiting dire punishment on all who might refuse to 
 obey it. To effect this end they "rebelled against 
 constituted authority," practiced "the most cruel and 
 pitiless tyranny," beheaded the king, oppressed the 
 country, and "trampled upon the rights of others." 
 The king, the Parliament, the law, all things that 
 stood in the way of the accomplishment of their 
 purpose were ruthlessly set aside. They seemed to 
 find a grim pleasure in humiliating superiors, defy- 
 ing authorities, and heaping contempt on things that 
 others regarded as sacred and inviolable. 
 
 In telling how they brought about the execution 
 
Il6 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 of the king, Macaulay, who seems to have disap- 
 proved the deed only because it was inexpedient, 
 says : "And now a design to which at the commence- 
 ment of the civil war no man would have dared to 
 allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the 
 Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law 
 of England, began to take distinct form. The aus- 
 tere warriors who ruled the nation had during some 
 months meditated a fearful vengeance on the cap- 
 tive king. . . . The military saints resolved 
 that, in defiance of the old laws of the realm and of 
 the almost universal sentiment of the nation, the 
 king should expiate his crimes with his blood. . . . 
 They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they 
 caused. That the ancient constitution and the public 
 opinion of England were directly opposed to regicide 
 made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party 
 bent on effecting a complete political and social revo- 
 lution. In order to accomplish their purpose, it was 
 necessary that they should first break in pieces every 
 part of the machinery of the government; and this 
 necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. 
 The Commons passed a vote tending to accommoda- 
 tion with the king. The soldiers excluded the ma- 
 jority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected 
 the proposition that the king should be brought to 
 trial. Their house was instantly closed. No court 
 known to the law would take on itself the office of 
 judging the fountain of justice. A revolutionary 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 117 
 
 tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced 
 Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public 
 enemy, and his head was severed from his shoulders 
 before thousands of spectators in front of the ban- 
 cjueting hall of his owm palace." 
 
 Such were the Puritans of England — a religious 
 sect that entered the political arena, overthrew both 
 king and Parliament, and, exulting in their lawless- 
 ness, ''broke in pieces every part of the machinery 
 of the government;" a political party composed oi 
 religious zealots who regarded their idea of right as 
 a law higher than royal decrees, legislative enact- 
 ments, and constitutional requirements, and, in obe- 
 dience to that "higher law," set at naught the tra- 
 ditions, customs, and laws of the realm. "The Puri- 
 tan," says Green, "was bound by his very religion 
 to examine every claim made on his civil and spir- 
 itual obedience by the powers that be, and to own or 
 reject the claim as it accorded with the higher duty 
 which he owed to God." He incarnated the spirit 
 that exalts itself above all human laws and follows 
 the dictates of its own judgment in defiance of con- 
 stituted authorities and regardless of the rights of 
 others. 
 
 A little more than twenty years before the out- 
 break of the civil war in England a small company 
 of these Puritans crossed the Atlantic in the famous 
 Mayflower, landed at Plymouth, and, overcoming 
 obstacles that seemed almost insurmountable, estab- 
 
Il8 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 lished themselves in the new country. It has been 
 said that ''no event in American history has been fol- 
 lowed by results more potent in the making of this 
 country than the settlement of the Pilgrims at Plym- 
 outh;" but, as the facts show, the Plymouth colony 
 never exerted any considerable influence, and was 
 finally annexed by the Massachusetts Company, 
 which settled at Salem eight years later. It was this 
 stronger colony that became so influential in shaping 
 the destiny of the country. 
 
 These New England Puritans were one in spirit 
 with the Puritan brethren whom they had left in 
 Old England. This spirit was, of course, modified 
 by its new environment and developed along differ- 
 ent lines; but it was essentially the same as that 
 which "put its foot on the neck of the king." It was 
 the spirit that sets itself above the law, judges the 
 law, and rebels against any law that does not ac- 
 cord with its judgment. 
 
 This spirit of rebellion against law may be traced 
 throughout the history of the New England fa- 
 thers and their descendants. Palfrey reveals the 
 disloyal temper and intent of those who founded the 
 Massachusetts colony when he says in their defense 
 that "those were not times for such men as the Mas- 
 sachusetts patentees to ask what the king wished 
 or expected, but rather how much of freedom could 
 be maintained against him by the letter of the law 
 or by other righteous means/' 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 119 
 
 They had hardly become comfortably settled in 
 their new home before they began to violate the 
 spirit, if not the letter, of their charter by acts re- 
 pugnant to the laws of England. Instead of being 
 loyal subjects, they and their descendants during the 
 entire term of their colonial life not only went to the 
 utmost length allowed by the letter of the law in 
 disobedience to the home government, but resisted 
 that government by every illegal expedient which 
 they judged to be safe and good. The deeds for 
 which the children of our country are taught to hon- 
 or them most highly — such, for example, as the 
 famous ''Boston tea party" — were prompted by the 
 spirit of disloyalty and done in defiance of law. It 
 was by such lawless deeds that they precipitated the 
 Revolutionary War — deeds which, whatever of 
 good may have resulted from them and however we 
 may laud them as displaying patriotism and love of 
 liberty, were exhibitions of the old Puritan spirit of 
 rebellion. 
 
 This rebellious Puritan spirit continued to mani- 
 fest itself after the colonies had won their independ- 
 ence and, as independent States, had formed the 
 Union. For many years the men of New England, 
 paying little regard to the government on the other 
 side of the sea, had been doing much as they pleased ; 
 and they had become so habituated to having their 
 own way that they found it difficult to fall in grace- 
 fully with the ways of others. It has been aptly 
 
I20 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 said: **New England was partial to strong govern- 
 ment, but was equally fond of governing." There 
 was the stronghold of the Federalists, who, as Mr. 
 Stephens says, "acted generally upon the principle 
 that the Federal government was a consolidated 
 Union of the people of all the States in one single, 
 great republic," but ''still kept the party name of 
 Federal because it was popular." Distrusting the 
 ability of the people to govern themselves, they fa- 
 vored a general government vested with much pow- 
 er, and they also desired to dictate its policy. In- 
 deed, their letters and other documents of the peri- 
 od indicate a belief on their part that they alone 
 were fit to govern, and that, if not governed by 
 them, the country would speedily go to ruin. Hence 
 when Jefferson, representing political principles at 
 variance with their own, was elected to the presi- 
 dency, and the acquisition of Louisiana threatened 
 permanently to debar their section from dominance, 
 they plotted to form a Northern Confederacy. 
 
 A prominent leader in this project was Timothy 
 Pickering, who had been in Washington's cabinet, 
 and who represented Massachusetts in the Senate. 
 The success of Jeffersonian Democracy greatly dis- 
 pleased him and led him to say in a letter to George 
 Cabot : "And shall We sit still until this system shall 
 universally triumph ? until even in the Eastern States 
 the principles of genuine Federalism shall be over- 
 whelmed? . . . The principles of our Revolu- 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 12 1 
 
 tion point to a remedy — a separation. . . . The 
 people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, 
 views, and interests with those of the South and 
 West. ... A Northern Confederacy would 
 unite congenial characters and present a fairer pros- 
 pect of pubHc happiness; while the Southern States, 
 having a similarity of habits, might be left to man- 
 age their own affairs in their own way.*' 
 
 Similar views were entertained by Governor Gris- 
 wold, of Connecticut, who, in a letter to Oliver Wol- 
 cott, said: ''I have no hesitation myself in saying 
 that there can be no safety to the Northern States 
 without a separation from the Confederacy. The 
 balance of power under the present government is 
 decidedly in favor of the Southern States; nor can 
 that balance be changed or destroyed. The ques- 
 tion, then, is, Can it be safe to remain under a gov- 
 ernment in whose measures we can have no effective 
 agency? . . . The project which we had formed 
 was to induce, if possible, the legislatures of the 
 three New England States who remain Federal to 
 commence measures which should call for a reun- 
 ion of the Northern States." 
 
 That such a ''reunion of the Northern States" 
 was desired by more than "a little knot of politi- 
 cians," is clearly indicated by a letter from Judge 
 Reeve to Senator Tracy, in which the writer said: 
 'T have seen many of our friends, and all that I have 
 seen, and most that I have heard from, believe that 
 
122 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 we must separate, and that this is the most favorable 
 moment. ... I have heard of only three gen- 
 tlemen as yet who appear undecided upon this sub- 
 ject." But Cabot, Ames, and others, while favor- 
 ing the idea of separation, thought it impracticable 
 at that time, as the people did not then *'feel the ne- 
 cessity of it." *'The separation will be unavoidable," 
 wrote Cabot, "when our loyalty is perceived to be 
 the instrument of impoverishment." 
 
 Because of the timidity of some and the jealousy 
 of others enlisted in it, and because of the failure 
 of the plot to make Burr Governor of New York 
 and swing that State into line with it, the project to 
 form a Northern Confederacy came to naught; but 
 the fact remains that the political leaders of New 
 England plotted to take the Northern States out of 
 the Union. 
 
 These men could not claim, as the Southern peo- 
 ple could, that they had been, or probably would 
 be, deprived of any rights guaranteed to them by 
 the Federal compact. Their only ground of com- 
 plaint was that the people had not indorsed their 
 idea of government, that their political party had 
 been defeated, that Jeffersonian Democracy had tri- 
 umphed, and that they had lost power. John Quincy 
 Adams described them as "a. faction which has suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining the management of this com- 
 monwealth, and which aspired to the government of 
 the Union. Defeated in this last object of their am- 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 123 
 
 bition and sensible that the engines by which they 
 had attained the mastery of the State were not 
 sufficiently comprehensive nor enough within their 
 control to wield the machinery of the nation, their 
 next resort was to dismember what they could not 
 sway and to form a new confederacy, to be under 
 the glorious shelter of British protection." 
 
 A few years after the failure of this project to 
 form a Northern Confederacy New England was 
 in still more pronounced rebellion against the Fed- 
 eral government. When Great Britain was en- 
 forcing unjust restrictions on i\merican trade; when 
 English war vessels were lying in wait to overhaul 
 American merchantmen; when American seamen 
 were being outraged and impressed, and American 
 ships were being seized and sold; when the coun- 
 try's maritime and commercial rights and the lib- 
 erties of her citizens were assailed and every effort 
 to secure them by peaceable means had failed ; when, 
 as President Madison said, there was actually "on 
 the side of Great Britain a state of war against the 
 United States," and nothing short of a resort to 
 arms by this country could satisfy the demands of 
 national honor and protect the national interests, 
 Congress authorized the President to call out the 
 militia of the States and formally declared war. 
 
 As soon as war was declared. New England Fed- 
 eralists began to concert measures to hinder the gov- 
 ernment in its prosecution. The men who, while 
 
124 
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 efforts were being made to secure the country's 
 rights by negotiation, had jeered at the administra- 
 tion as ''incapable of being kicked into war," now 
 vehemently denounced the administration for plung- 
 ing the country into a "needless war." Mr. Clay 
 said of them : "They are for war and no restrictions 
 when the administration is for peace. They are for 
 peace and restrictions when the administration is 
 for war. You find them, sir, tacking with every 
 gale, . . . steady only in one unalterable pur- 
 pose — to steer^ if possible, into the haven of power." 
 They promptly took steps in opposition to the 
 government's policy. The Federalists in Congress, 
 in an address to the people of New England, protest- 
 ed against the war as unnecessary and unwise. The 
 Massachusetts House of Representatives declared 
 that it was opposed to the interests of New England, 
 called for town meetings fearlessly and strongly to 
 express disapprobation of it, and urged that there 
 should be "no volunteers except for defensive war." 
 The Supreme Court of Massachusetts denied the 
 right of the President or Congress to determine the 
 conditions under which State militia may be called 
 into the service of the United States, and affirmed 
 that such right belonged to the governor only. The 
 governor refused the President's request for the 
 State's quota of militia, and proclaimed a public 
 fast because of the declaration of war "against a na- 
 tion from which we are descended, and which for 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 125 
 
 many generations has been the bulwark of the reli- 
 gion we profess.'' 
 
 Every possible influence — legal, financial, social, 
 and religious — was exerted to prevent men from en- 
 listing or loaning money to the government. Laws 
 were passed to embarrass recruiting officers. En- 
 listed men were arrested on real or fictitious charges 
 of indebtedness and prevented from leaving the 
 State. Citizens were threatened with public con- 
 tempt and financial loss if they loaned money to the 
 government. "It is very grateful to find," said the 
 Boston Gazette, "that the universal sentiment is that 
 any man who lends his money to the government at 
 the present time will forfeit all claim to common 
 honesty and common courtesy among all true friends 
 of the country. God forbid that any Federalist 
 should ever hold up his hand to pay Federalists for 
 money lent to the present rulers; and Federalists 
 can judge whether Democrats will tax their constit- 
 uents to pay interest to Federalists." The New En- 
 gland clergy thundered against the war, heaped 
 abuse on its "authors," and pronounced the curse of 
 God on all who in any w^ay aided in its prosecution. 
 Some idea of the eloquence that flowed from the 
 New England pulpits of those days may be gathered 
 from the following sample, extracted from the out- 
 pourings of Rev. Mr. Osgood at Med ford, Massa- 
 chusetts : "If at the command of weak or wicked rul- 
 ers they undertake an unjust war, each man who vol- 
 
126 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 unteers his services in such a cause or loans money 
 for its support or by his conversation, his writings, 
 or any other mode of influence encourages its prose- 
 cution — that man is an accompHce in the wicked- 
 ness, loads his conscience with the blackest crimes, 
 brings the guilt of blood upon his soul, and in the 
 sight of God and his law is a murderer. . . . Were 
 not the authors of this war in character nearly akin 
 to the deists and atheists of France; were they not 
 men of hardened hearts, seared consciences, repro- 
 bate minds, and desperate wickedness, it seems ut- 
 terly inconceivable that they should have made the 
 declaration." 
 
 In his eagerness to save the members of his flock 
 from the heinous crime of aiding their own country- 
 men, the New England shepherd apparently neglect- 
 ed to warn them against the sin of "giving aid and 
 comfort to the enemy." They furnished the British 
 troops with greatly needed supplies, and thereby put 
 much British gold into their own pockets. It was 
 largely on the provisions furnished by New England 
 that the British army in Canada subsisted. 
 
 New England money, as well as New England 
 provisions, went to aid the enemy. Boston banks, 
 which, instead of helping, tried financially to crip- 
 ple the United States government, paid millions for 
 British government bills. In the Olive Branch Mat- 
 thew Carey said : "That these bills to an immo(i^r- 
 ate amount were transmitted from OuebeCj that 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 127 
 
 they were drawn for the support of the armies em- 
 ployed in hostiHties against the country, that they 
 were paid for in specie devoted to the support of 
 those armies, are facts too stubborn to be set aside." 
 Mr. Carey claimed to have specific proof of these 
 charges, and publicly defied any man in the Union to 
 refute them. And while millions were being paid 
 for British government bills, no citizen of Massa- 
 chusetts could let it be known that he had taken 
 any part of his own government's loans without 
 bringing upon himself the denunciations of the pul- 
 pit and press and the condemnation of the people 
 generally. 
 
 Throughout the war New England was practical- 
 ly in rebellion. Her people sympathized with and 
 aided Great Britain, heard with satisfaction of Brit- 
 ish successes, and deplored American victories. 
 When loyal citizens were rejoicing because of the 
 capture of the Peacock by Captain Lawrence, Jo- 
 siah Quincy reported and the Senate of Massachu- 
 setts adopted a preamble and resolution opposing a 
 vote of thanks to Lawrence on the ground that it 
 might be considered "as an encouragement and ex- 
 citement to the continuance of the present unjust, 
 unnecessary, and iniquitous war," and declaring 
 that *'it is not becoming a moral and religious people 
 to express any approbation of military or naval ex- 
 ploits which are not immediately connected with the 
 defense of our seacoast and soil." The Salem Ga- 
 
128 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 zette plainly revealed its sympathy with the enemy 
 by thus announcing Harrison's victory over Proc- 
 tor: "At length the handful of British troops, which 
 for more than a year have baffled the numerous ar- 
 mies of the United States in the invasion of Cana- 
 da, .. . have been obliged to yield to superior 
 power and numbers." Harrison's victory was des- 
 ignated by one New England journal as "the tri- 
 umph of a crowd of Kentucky savages over a hand- 
 ful of brave men." 
 
 It is evident that the ultra-Federalists desired to 
 see the American army vanquished and the Ameri- 
 can flag lowered in defeat in order that the political 
 party then in power might be brought into disre- 
 pute. The facts clearly prove that they conspired to 
 reduce the country to such straits, create such wide- 
 spread dissatisfaction, and bring the administration 
 into such discredit as would enable them either to 
 get control of the government or, failing in that, 
 take the Northern States out of the Union. In leg- 
 islative halls, in newspapers, and from the pulpit 
 this was substantially avowed. 
 
 At what seemed to them a propitious time the 
 Massachusetts Federalists, in keeping with their de- 
 sign to control or dismember the Union, by a three 
 to one vote of the State legislature called for a con- 
 vention of the States concurring in the belief that 
 the Constitution of the United States had failed of 
 its purpose, that the provisions for its amendment 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 129 
 
 were inadequate, and that it therefore devolved on 
 the people to take such steps as their safety demand- 
 ed. In response to this call the famous Hartford 
 Convention met on the 15th of December, 18 14. It 
 was composed of delegates appointed by the legis- 
 latures of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode 
 Island, and representatives, not thus formally ap- 
 pointed, from New Hampshire and Vermont. 
 
 This Convention declared that "a, severance of 
 the Union by one or more States, against the will of 
 the rest and especially in time of war, can be justi- 
 fied only by absolute necessity. . . . But in 
 cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infrac- 
 tions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty 
 of a State and the liberties of the people, it is not 
 only the right, but the duty of such a State to inter- 
 pose its authority for their protection in the manner 
 best calculated to secure that end. ^^^hen emergen- 
 cies occur which are either beyond the reach of the 
 judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit of the de- 
 lay incident to their forms, States which have no 
 common umpire must be their own judges and exe- 
 cute their own decisions." 
 
 After thus asserting the "right" and "duty" of a 
 State to withdraw from the Union when, in its judg- 
 ment, such action may be necessary to protect its 
 "sovereignty" and "the liberties of the people," the 
 Convention recommended that the legislatures of 
 the States represented therein should adopt and per- 
 9 
 
I30 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 severe in their efforts to obtain certain sweeping 
 amendments of the Constitution of the United 
 States; that they should pass laws authorizing the 
 governors to make detachments from the militia or 
 form voluntary corps and ''cause the same to be 
 well armed, equipped, and disciplined, and held in 
 readiness for service;" that they should request the 
 government of the United States to empower the 
 said States, "separately or in concert, to assume upon 
 themselves the defense of their territory," and to 
 appropriate therefor a portion of the revenue raised 
 within them ; and that, in case of the failure of their 
 application to the government, another convention 
 should be held, ''with such powers and instructions 
 as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may re- 
 quire." 
 
 Stripped of circumlocutions and boiled down, the 
 proceedings of the Hartford Convention, so far as 
 they are known, amount to about this: "We, the 
 States herein represented, assert that it is our right 
 and duty to withdraw from the Union if in our judg- 
 ment such a step should be necessary to our protec- 
 tion. We recommend such changes and ask such 
 concessions as we judge to be necessary to protect 
 us; and in case of the government's refusal to grant 
 what we ask, we will hold another convention and 
 take such steps as we may deem necessary to protect 
 ourselves." The inference that they intended to se- 
 cede from the Union and form a new confederacy 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 131 
 
 if the government refused to submit to their dicta- 
 tion is too plain to be avoided. 
 
 The legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecti- 
 cut appointed commissioners to proceed to Washing- 
 ton and submit the Convention's demands to the 
 government; but the news of Jackson's victory at 
 New Orleans and the treaty of peace signed at Ghent 
 completely changed the situation, and the demand 
 on the government was never made. The commis- 
 sioners returned home as quietly as possible, and 
 in the general rejoicing caused by the successful 
 issue of the war the public indignation excited by 
 the conduct of New England gave place to good 
 humor. 
 
 The rebellion of New England in the War of 18 12 
 was far more shameful than anything that her bit- 
 terest enemy can charge against the South. Never 
 did a Southern State officially condemn the Federal 
 government for declaring a war which could not be 
 averted by honorable means. Never did a Southern 
 State refuse to respond loyally to the call of the gov- 
 ernment for its quota of men to uphold the honor 
 and maintain the rights of the country. Never did a 
 Southern State turn against the government in its 
 hour of need and give aid and comfort to its ene- 
 mies. The South openly and boldly contended for 
 what she believed to be her unquestionable right, and 
 fired on the old flag when it was unfurled with hos- 
 tile intent in her own territory and was waving over 
 
132 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 an army invading her soil to deprive her States of 
 their independence and reduce them, in fact if not 
 in name, to the condition of subject provinces; but 
 never did she, either by refusing aid to those uphold- 
 ing it or by giving aid to its enemies, attempt to 
 lower that flag in defeat when it was unfurled 
 against a foreign foe. In the New England rebel- 
 lion there was no open, courageous, and manly as- 
 sertion of rights that were threatened; no sacrifice 
 of material interests to maintain a cherished prin- 
 ciple; no display of high and disinterested patriot- 
 ism ; not a single redeeming feature unless it be that 
 the war was really opposed to her notion of right, 
 and that, after the manner of her rebellious Puritan 
 ancestors, she held her notion of right to be above 
 her allegiance to her government and her obliga- 
 tions to the other States. 
 
 Some of New England's sons deeply and keenly 
 felt the disgrace of their States and bitterly ar- 
 raigned those who were responsible for it. Among 
 these was John Holmes, who had been a Federalist, 
 but had left that party when he perceived its ''rule 
 or ruin" policy. In the Massachusetts Senate he 
 said : ''Afraid to overthrow the Constitution, you try 
 to undermine it by pretense of amendment. You 
 called it perfect while you were in pay. The friends 
 of peace, declaring that the country could not be 
 kicked into war, forced it on, and, failing to repos- 
 sess themselves of the administration, tried to de- 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 133 
 
 stroy the government. An unauthorized and uncon- 
 stitutional assemblage at Hartford is to change a 
 Constitution declared unfit for war or peace, but 
 which you dare not attack openly." And again : 
 "You boast of forbearance, but you forbore only be- 
 cause you were afraid to go further. You complain 
 of Southern aggrandizement with ten members in 
 the Senate — an undue proportion according to your 
 population. Massachusetts has become contempti- 
 ble, a byword of reproach. Your conduct has dis- 
 gusted the people everywhere." 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that, 'Svith this wretch- 
 ed display of treachery, Federalism vanished for- 
 ever from American politics." Its body — the po- 
 litical organization calling itself the Federal party — 
 was killed; but its rebellious soul, like that of John 
 Brown, kept "marching on." It only burrowed 
 deeper and worked more assiduously. Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, with clear and prophetic political vision not- 
 withstanding his advanced age, perceived its pres- 
 ence in the controversy about the admission of Mis- 
 souri to statehood and foretold its purpose. In a 
 letter to General Dearborn regarding the Missouri 
 question he said : "I see only that it has given resur- 
 rection to the Hartford Convention men. . . . 
 Desperate of regaining power under political dis- 
 tinctions, they have adroitly wriggled into its seat 
 under the auspices of morality, and are again in the 
 ascendency from which their sins had hurled them." 
 
134 
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 To William Pinkney he wrote : "The Missouri ques- 
 tion is a mere party trick. The leaders of Federal- 
 ism, defeated in their schemes of obtaining power 
 by rallying partisans to the principle of monarch- 
 ism — a principle of personal, not of local, division — 
 have changed their tack and thrown out another bar- 
 rel to the whale. They are taking advantage of the 
 virtuous feelings of the people to effect a division of 
 parties by a geographical line. They expect that 
 this will insure them, on local principles, the major- 
 ity they could never obtain on principles of Federal- 
 ism." Writing to Lafayette on the same subject, he 
 said : *Tt is not a moral question, but one merely of 
 power. Its object is to raise a geographical princi- 
 ple for the choice of a President, and the noise will 
 be kept up till that is effected. All know that per- 
 mitting the slaves of the South to spread into the 
 West will not add one being to that unfortunate 
 condition ; that it will increase the happiness of those 
 existing; and, by spreading them over a larger sur- 
 face, will dilute the evil everywhere and facilitate 
 the means of finally getting rid of it — an event more 
 anxiously wished by those on whom it presses than 
 by the noisy pretenders to exclusive humanity. In 
 the meantime it is a ladder for rivals climbing to 
 power." 
 
 Hildreth, in his "History of the United States," 
 virtually admits that the agitation of the slavery 
 question in connection with the admission of Mis- 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 135 
 
 souri to statehood had its origin and purpose in the 
 desire of the Federahsts to effect Northern suprem- 
 acy and place themselves in power. He says : "J^^^" 
 ous}^ of Southern domination had, as we have seen, 
 made the Northern Federalists dissatisfied with the 
 purchase of Louisiana. It had led them to protest 
 against the erection of the territory of Orleans into 
 a State, and had moved the Hartford Convention 
 to propose the abolition of the slave representation. 
 . . . The keeping out of new States or the alter- 
 ation of the Constitution as to the basis of represen- 
 tation . . . were projects too hopeless as well 
 as too unpopular in their origin to be renewed. The 
 extension to the new territory west of the Mississip- 
 pi of the ordinance of 1787 against slavery seemed 
 to present a much more feasible method of accom- 
 plishing substantially the same object. This idea, 
 spreading with rapidity, still further obliterated old 
 party ties, tending to produce at the North a polit- 
 ical union for which the Federalists had so often 
 sighed." 
 
 Thus Federalism, instead of 'Vanishing from 
 American politics" with its "wretched display of 
 treachery" during the War of 181 2, merely dis- 
 guised itself in the garb of morality and adopted new- 
 means to accomplish its purpose. Cloaking its real 
 object under the profession of conscientious opposi- 
 tion to slavery, it now posed before the people not 
 as the advocate of monarchical principles, but as 
 
136 
 
 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 the devoted friend of the slave and the righteous 
 advocate of universal freedom. Its opposition to 
 slavery, however, was always such as tended to ex- 
 cite sectional feeling and further its political ends 
 rather than such as tended to the discovery and 
 adoption of wise and pacific means of ameliorat- 
 ing and ultimately eradicating the evil which so of- 
 fended its conscience. Through it all could be 
 detected more hate for the Southern whites than 
 love for the Southern blacks, a desire to humiliate 
 the slave owner stronger than the desire to liberate 
 the slave. 
 
 In due time it organized Its forces into the Re- 
 publican party, which was, in reality, the old Federal 
 party resurrected, masquerading under the name of 
 the party that had defeated it in the beginning of the 
 century and using the widespread sentiment against 
 slavery as a stepping-stone to political power and 
 control. 
 
 This party plainly showed the earmarks of the old 
 New England Federalists. It was no whit behind 
 them in claiming superior wisdom and virtue, in 
 abusing and slandering the men of the South, in 
 speaking of the Constitution as unworthy of respect 
 and obedience unless construed in accordance with 
 its ideas, in refusing to obey the laws of the land 
 that its righteous judgment did not approve, and in 
 practically asserting for itself the right "to decide 
 above the nation and for the nation." 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 137 
 
 The antislavery element in this party was com- 
 posed, for the most part, of men who contemplated 
 their own enlightenment and righteousness with the 
 utmost complacency; thanked God that they were 
 not as the ignorant, wicked, and barbarous slave 
 owners of the South ; and felt, or professed to feel, 
 that they were divinely called to extirpate the evil 
 of slavery. Like the Puritans who followed Crom- 
 well, they were ''root and branch" men, bent on do- 
 ing their work of extirpation thoroughly, in defiance 
 of law and regardless of constitutional provisions. 
 If the Constitution did not accord with their views 
 and purposes, they held it to be "a. covenant with 
 death and an agreement with hell," which all honest 
 and godly men should regard with contempt. They 
 made their conscience the supreme law not only for 
 themselves, but for the whole country; and in their 
 determination to compel obedience to it they rebelled 
 against all obligations and restraints imposed by the 
 government. 
 
 That such was their rebellious temper is evidenced 
 by the speeches of their representative men, the acts 
 of legislatures controlled by them, the resolutions 
 adopted in their mass meetin|2:'s, their refusal to obey 
 the law, and their openly avowed approval of law- 
 less acts. 
 
 Northern speakers, engaged in propagating anti- 
 slavery sentiment, very plainly taught that the pa- 
 triotic citizen should set his individual judgment of 
 
138 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 the country's duty to God and mankind above the 
 law which expressed the pubhc judgment of that 
 duty and obey no law which his judgment did not 
 approve — a rule of action which, if generally adopt- 
 ed, would result in anarchy. Of course these speak- 
 ers did not mean that this rule of action should be 
 followed in all cases; but they did mean, and were 
 understood to mean, that it should be applied to 
 the Federal laws relating to slavery. It was with 
 reference to the Federal law for carrying out the 
 constitutional provision for the return of fugitive 
 slaves that Mr. George William Curtis said: 'The 
 name of law has always been the glove muffled in 
 which the hand of Tyranny has taken Liberty by the 
 throat. . . . You are not to suppose that a 
 law is, under all circumstances, to be obeyed; you 
 would be poor children of seven years' armed dis- 
 obedience to laws if you believed that." 
 
 Speaking to the same effect, another distinguished 
 champion of abolition said : ''Men say it is anarchy, 
 that the right of the individual to sit in judgment 
 cannot be trusted. It is the lesson of Puritanism. 
 If the individual criticising law cannot be trusted, 
 then Puritanism is a mistake ; for the sanctity of in- 
 dividual judgment is the lesson of Massachusetts 
 history in 1620 and 1630. We accepted anarchy as 
 the safest." Set your individual judgment above the 
 judgment of the country as expressed in the laws, 
 and refuse to obey any law that your individual 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 139 
 
 judgment does not approve, was substantially the 
 teaching that issued from the Republican platform 
 and press throughout the North. 
 
 The Puritan conscience, deeming itself higher 
 than the Constitution, refused obedience to the "bar- 
 barous" and "inhuman" law for the rendition of 
 fugitive slaves. Such a law had been altogether hu- 
 mane, just, and right in 1643, when the first fugitive 
 slave law enacted in America was incorporated into 
 Articles of Confederation formed for mutual bene- 
 fit by the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Con- 
 necticut, and New Haven; for then New England 
 herself held slaves, and her conscience was blinded 
 by a considerate regard to her own interest, as it has 
 too often been. But when this blinding influence 
 was removed, when she could no longer be profited 
 by the return of fugitive slaves and only the inter- 
 est of cruel Southern slave owners was involved, 
 such a law became a moral monstrosity and her en- 
 lightened and tender Puritan conscience revolted at 
 it. Throughout the North mass meetings were 
 held in which the people denounced the law and de- 
 clared their determination to resist all attempts to 
 enforce it. Daniel Webster characterized the reso- 
 lutions adopted by one of these meetings as "dis- 
 tinctly treasonable," and said of them generally: "In 
 the North the purpose of overturning the govern- 
 ment shows itself more clearly in resolutions, agreed 
 to in voluntary assemblies of individuals, denounc- 
 
I40 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 ing the laws of the land and declaring a fixed intent 
 to disobey them." 
 
 The legislatures of most of the Northern States 
 fell into line with the "treasonable" resolutions of 
 the mass meetings and passed no less treasonable 
 laws, making the clause of the Constitution and the 
 acts of Congress, in relation to the rendition of fugi- 
 tive slaves, inoperative and void. The law of Ver- 
 mont made any attempt to carry out that provision 
 of the Constitution a penal offense, for which one 
 might be fined as much as ten thousand dollars and 
 imprisoned for twenty years. Think of the loyalty 
 of a State that made it an offense, punishable by a 
 heavy fine and long imprisonment, to obey the law 
 of the land and attempt to carry out a provision of 
 the Constitution of the United States. As Dr. Cur- 
 ry said : *Tt is a singular political nemesis that nul- 
 lification and rebellion as terms of reproach should 
 attach to the South, while the North has escaped any 
 odium attaching to the terms, although she openly 
 and successfully nullified the Constitution, and the 
 flag of rebellion against the Federal compact and 
 Federal laws floated over half her capitols." 
 
 Not content with resisting the enforcement of the 
 law in their own States, Northern men attempted to 
 destroy the peace and tranquillity of the Southern 
 States. The Puritan conscience, which was so ten- 
 der that it could not consent to the return of a fugi- 
 tive slave to his master in obedience to law^ could 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 141 
 
 find nothing to shock its sensitiveness in unlawful 
 attempts to incite the slave to put a torch to his 
 master's house and a dagger in his master's heart. 
 John Brown went into Virginia to convert the 
 peaceful homes of that law-abiding commonwealth 
 into scenes of conflagration, outrage, and murder. 
 He was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed ac- 
 cording to law. In glowing eulogies Northern men 
 applauded his act, represented him as a saintly hero 
 and martyr whose example should be followed, and 
 characterized as brutal despots those who legally 
 punished his atrocious crime. In an address before 
 the Congregational Society at Boston Wendell Phil- 
 lips extolled him as a glorious exponent of the "Pu- 
 ritan principle," and said: "He went down to Vir- 
 ginia, took possession of a town, and held it. He 
 says : 'You thought this was strength ; I demon- 
 strate it is weakness. You thought this was civil 
 society; I show you it is a den of pirates.' Then he 
 turned around in his sublimity, with his Puritan de- 
 votional heart, and said to the millions: 'Learn!' 
 And God lifted a million hearts to his gibbet, as the 
 Roman cross lifted a million hearts to it in that 
 divine sacrifice of two thousand years ago. To-day, 
 more than a statesman could have taught in seven- 
 ty years, one act of a week has taught eighteen mil- 
 lions of people. That is the Puritan principle. 
 What shall it teach us? 'Go thou and do likewise.' 
 Do it by a resolute life; do it by a fearless rebuke; 
 
142 CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 
 
 do it by preaching the sermon of which this act is 
 the text; do it by standing by the great example 
 which God has given us; do it by tearing asunder 
 the veil of respectability which covers brutality call- 
 ing itself law." 
 
 This was the spirit dominating the North in i860. 
 It was not the spirit of a majority of the Northern 
 people, but it was the spirit of a fanatical minority 
 that dominated the country, just as it was the spir- 
 it of a fanatical minority that dominated England 
 when Charles I. was beheaded. The spirit that 
 moved John Brown and those who glorified him was 
 marching through the Northern States, contemning 
 the Constitution, defying the laws, inciting to crime, 
 and preparing the way for the overthrow of the gov- 
 ernment established by the fathers of the republic. 
 
 And, like the Puritans who followed Cromwell, 
 these Northern rebels seemed to find a ferocious 
 pleasure in resorting to lawlessness in order, as they 
 said, to rouse those who "still slumbered in submis- 
 sion to law;" and in defying government in order, 
 as they said, to expose the ^'tyranny" hidden under 
 it. They exulted in their treason, and seemed to 
 think it an evidence of their superior enlightenment 
 and more exalted virtue. "Thanks to God," said 
 Wendell Phillips, "a hunker cannot live in Massa- 
 chusetts without being wider awake than he imag- 
 ines. He must imbibe fanaticism. Insurrection is 
 epidemic in the State; treason is our inheritance. 
 
CAVALIER AND PURITAN. 143 
 
 The Puritans planted it in the very structure of the 
 State/' 
 
 No Southern State can boast of such an inher- 
 itance. In whole-hearted loyalty to the government 
 as it was established by the fathers; in unfailing 
 fidelity to the Constitution as it was construed by the 
 men who framed it and understood by the States 
 that adopted it; in unswerving devotion to the Un- 
 ion which was founded on that Constitution and 
 recognized the sovereignty and political equality of 
 the federated States; in magnanimous sacrifices of 
 her own interest to promote the public good ; in pa- 
 triotic responses to the country's calls for men and 
 money to maintain her rights, carry out her policies, 
 and defend her honor; in respect for the legal and 
 moral rights of all men, bond and free; in holding 
 unsullied honor above selfish gain ; in fulfilling obli- 
 gations unto the uttermost; in keeping plighted faith 
 at whatever cost ; in redeeming the spoken promise 
 as though it were a written bond ; in all social and 
 moral virtues and all manly qualities; in all things 
 commonly held by civilized men to be honorable 
 and praiseworthy, perhaps the South may rightly 
 claim to be the equal of New England. But in fa- 
 naticism, insurrection, treason, and other such proud 
 distinctions, inherited or imbibed, she is compelled 
 to admit that New England far surpasses her. 
 
^'■^s 
 
One cofpy del. to Cat. Div. 
 MAY 17 1911