Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/425

 Major J. Scheibert on Confederate History. 425

Despite, however, this adverse opinion, so prejudicial to us, intelli- gent thinkers in Europe have been puzzled to account for the display of intellect, courage and devotion exhibited during four long years in the achievements and endurance of a people whom they have been taught to look on as a horde of semi -barbarous rebels.

That Major Schiebert has endeavored to dispel this prejudice and enlighten his countrymen by presenting to them an able statement and argument of the case, on historical grounds, is a fact honorable to him as the acknowledgment of it is grateful and pleasing to his friends here.

The following translation of a few of the more important para- graphs of Major Scheibert' s article will illustrate his style and mode of presenting this subject :

" Besides the differences of race and religion, nature itself, through the varied geograpical position of the States had created relations of such varied character that not only must conflict ensue, but the least law affecting the whole Union often aroused diametrically and sharply opposed interests; the consequences of which were to embitter sectional opinions to an intolerable degree.

"When the North demanded tariff protection for their industries as against European competition, the Southern States insisted upon free trade, so as not to be compelled to buy the costly products of the North. The New England States strove for concentration of power in the national government ; the Southerners believed that the independence of the individual States must be maintained, and when the Southerners demanded protection for their labor, which was performed by imported negroes, the North answered with evasion of the laws, while, in direct opposition to these laws, it denied to the master the right to his escaped negroes. From any point of view, there existed, and exist to-day, interests almost irrecon- cilably opposed, which make it difficult for the most earnest student of American affairs to find the certain clew in such a tangled laby- rinth. The difficulty in the present undertaking is to make good the fact that the so-called Confederates, who have been by almost all German writers represented as ' Rebels,' stood firm upon a ground of right and law.

"If the central government at Washington was the soverign power, then the (Southern) States were in the wrong, and their citizens were simply rebels. If, on the other hand, the individual States were separate and sovereign political bodies, then their secession, inde-