Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/152

 144 Southern Historical Society Papers,

fair Creole city was already in Packenham's grasp, it was the wild soldiery of Tennessee who, laying behind their mud breastworks, peered out through the lifting fog at the scarlet array of the English veterans as the latter, fresh from their victories over the best troops of Europe, advanced for the first time to meet defeat.''

In 1836 Samuel Houston, sprung from the soil of that very county which now holds the ashes of Lee and Jackson, won the battle of San Jacinto, and achieved Texan independence. In 1845, under James K. Polk, of Tennessee, a Southern President, it was admitted into the Union, and a little later the American armies, led by two Southern generals, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, and com- posed more than half of Southern soldiers, made good the cause of the Lone Star State, enlarged its boundaries, and acquired New Mexico and California. Thus was stretched the canopy of the wide heavens that now spread over the American republic ; and, counting the constellation of forty-two stars that glitter in it. forget not, ye who have sentiment of justice, that over thirty of them were sown there by measures and by deeds in which Southern States and South- ern soldiers took a leading part, and in which the patriotism and love of Union of the South never faltered.

SECESSION.

If the people with such a history could have adopted secession, mighty indeed must have been the propulsion to it. I shall not dis- cuss its policy, for it would be as vain a thing to do as to discuss that of the Revolution of 1776. Each revolution concluded the question that induced it. Slavery was the cause of our civil war, and with the war its cause perished. But it should be the desire of all to understand each other and to think well of each other, and the mind capable of just and intelligent reflection should not fail, in judging the past, to remember the conditions and views that controlled the Southern people and their leader.

Remember that their forefathers, with scarce less attachment to the British government, and with less conflict of interest, had set the precedent, seceding themselves from the British empire, tearing down ancient institutions, revolutionizing the very structure of society, and giving proud answers to all accusers in the new evangel of the West that the people have a right to alter or abolish government when- ever it becomes destructive to their happiness or safety.

I have found nowhere evidence that Jeff*erson Davis urged seces-

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