Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/403

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The reform attempted by the Confederates, whereby they sought to amend and improve the Constitution of 1787, so as to perpetuate liberty and secure the right of every man to labor, to home and to happiness, failed, and the revolution inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln and his adherents succeeded. The Confederate reform sought to secure the rights of all sections, States, classes and individuals by constitutional guarantees. The Federal revolution sought to concentrate all political power in the Government.

They have succeeded, having overthrown a Constitution with limitations and guarantees, and instituted one of absolute power, controlled ostensibly by popular will, but, in fact, directed by a heartless plutocracy for its own benefit. They have fixed the precedent that all property depends on force, and not on justice and right, for they have destroyed five thousand millions dollars' worth of property on the pretence that it was injurious to permit it to exist. They have fixed the precedent that the Constitution of 1787 can be altered by force, for they compelled its amendment by the bayonet. They have settled the precedent that the Supreme Court can register their decrees and be reversed on their decision, as they caused the court to reverse their legal-tender decision, and they packed that court so as to make it conform to its wishes.

And when in the future all corporate property becomes more obnoxious than it is now, and the Government of the Union takes possession of all the railroads, telegraphs, mines and manufacturing establishments, and pays for them with legal tender money made out of wood pulp, and turned out by ten thousand printing presses, then the very people who have brought all this on themselves will cry aloud for the constitutional liberty for which the Confederates fought and died. Or when the Congress, on demand of the industrial interests, shall decree that twelve hours shall be a day's work, and that fifty cents a day shall be legal pay for the legal day, then the great mass of the people, who always must earn their daily bread by their daily toil, will understand that the Confederate theory, that Government has no right to interfere with the industry of the citizen, and that every man should have an equal opportunity for happiness, is the only one which secures liberty to people and security to home. And when New England is represented in the Senate of the United