Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/98

68 deuce in American institutions. This sentiment led to the magnanimous cession by Virginia of the Northwest Territory, appeasing jealousy and establishing the confederation. It brought the reluctant state, Rhode Island, finally to ratify the Constitution, controlled the West in the crisis of the Spanish intrigues, restrained New England at the Hartford convention, and made the Confederate soldier &quot;love the Star Spangled Banner while he fought it.&quot; This sentiment led to the offer and acceptance of honorable terms of surrender, and to the restoration of peace, and now disposes the hearts of the American people to recall the Civil war with emotions of national pride, rather than sectional malice.

This war did, indeed, arouse deep passions, and threatened to implant sectional animosities which time could never heal, but it was fought on questions of principle and public policy; it did not spring from feelings of mutual antipathy. During its progress, resentments were aroused, but the sentiment of American brother hood was never destroyed, and feelings of fixed hatred were not engendered. The American people belong to a race of strong passions, but not of sullen temper. They belong to the great Anglo- Saxon- Norman race, the race of heroes, of warriors and of statesmen. After the conquering races had commingled their blood in the British Isles, the nursing ground of the heroic English race, their descendants began to spread over the world, and have everywhere been its leaders. The Southern people inherit the strong passions of their ancestors. They know how to love, how to hate and how to forgive. They could be bound permanently to no country by humiliating ties. The only ties which can bind people of English blood are the ties of love and pride. The Southern people love American institutions, and they are educating their children to be patriots.

If any one doubts the patriotism of the Southern people, let him visit their schools, and listen to the lessons