Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/373

 I'n <-,;/,,,,/ the &tl-' Minium, nt. :;r, |

between the representatives of two essentially different civilizations and antagonistic ideas of government. On one side in that conflict was the South, led by the descendants of the cavaliers who, with all their faults, had inherited from a long line of ancestors a manly con- tempt for moral littleness, a high sense of honor, a lofty regard for plighted faith, a strong tendency to conservatism, a profound respect for law and order, and an unfaltering loyalty to constitutional gov- ernment. Against the South was arrayed the power of the North, dominated by the spirit of Puritanism, which, with all its virtues, has ever been characterized by the Pharisaism that worships itself and is unable to perceive any goodness apart from itself; which has ever arrogantly held its ideas, its interests, and its will to be higher than fundamental law and covenanted obligations; which has always 41 lived and moved and had its being " in rebellion against constituted authority; which, with the cry of freedom on its lips, has been one of the most cruel and pitiless tyrants that ever cursed the world; which, while beheading an English King in the name of liberty, brought England under a reign of oppression whose little finger was heavier than the mailed hand of the Stuarts; and which, from the time cf Oliver Cromwell to the time of Abraham Lincoln, has never hesitated to trample upon the rights of others in order to effect its own ends.

At Appomattox, Puritanism, backed by overwhelming numbers and unlimited resources, prevailed. But brute force cannot settle questions of right and wrong. Thinking men do not judge the merits of a cause by the measure of its success; and I believe

" The world shall yet decide In truth's clear, far-off light,"

that the South was in the right; that her cause was just; that the men who took up arms in her defence were patriots who had even better reason for what they did than had the men who fought at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and that her coercion, what- ever good may have resulted or may hereafter result from it, was an outrage on liberty.

THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

I cannot here discuss at length the merits of the Southern cause, but in justice to the memory of those who died in the struggle to maintain it, I wish to protest against the aspersion that they