Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/261



Address of Colonel Edward McCrady, Jr. 255

tion then was the same, the incident only different. The question in 1832 and in 1860 was as to the sovereignty of the State. The incident in 1832 was the tariff; the incident in 1860 was slavery. Well would it have been for us had the question in 1860 turned upon the same incident as that in 1832. Would that we might have fought and shed our blood upon the dry question of the tariff and taxation, instead of one upon which the world had gone mad.

I cannot but think that our Convention of 1860 made a great mis- take in the declaration of the causes which induced the secession of the State, in resting our justification alone upon the conduct of the Northern people in regard to slavery, however gross a violation of the Constitution such conduct was ; and it is a matter of satisfaction to us, my comrades, that our first and beloved commander, General Gregg, as a member of that Convention, opposed the adoption of the declaration on this very ground. I cannot but agree with him, and think that the justification of the secession of the State was much more satisfactorily set out, and rested upon much better grounds in the address to the people of the other Southern States, in which was so ably and well shown that the issue was the same as that in the Revolution of 1776, and like that turned upon the one great prin- ciple, self-government, and self-taxation, the criterion of self govern- ment.

This latter address went on to show that the Southern States stood exactly in the same position toward the Northern States that the Colo- nies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States having the majority in Congress, claimed the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British Parliament. That the "general welfare" was the only limitation of either, and the majority in Congress, as in the British Parliament, were the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation this " general welfare " required. That thus the govern- ment of the United States had become a consolidated government, and the people of the Southern States were compelled to meet the very despotism their fathers threw off in 1776.

If, then, my comrades, our cause was just, as just as that of our forefathers in 1776, and one for which we might well indeed have endured hardship and risked our lives and shed our blood, need we be ashamed of the fight we made for it ?

It is said that when the war commenced we vaunted that " a single Southern soldier could whip three Yankees." Well, it was a very foolish boast, if made; as foolish as that of General Grant, about which I shall speak, and one which you, my comrades, will agree