Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/373

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political power. It developed .1 sodrty, which for intelligence, cul- ture, chivalry, justice, honor, and truth, has never been excelled in this world, and it produced a race of negroes the most civilized since the building of the Pyramid of Cheops and the most Christianized since the crucifixion of our Lord.

The Southern race ruled the continent from 1775 to 1860, and it became evident that it would rule it forever as long as the same con- ditions existed. The free mobocracy of the North could never cope with the slave democracy of the South, and it became the deliberate intent of the North to break up an institution so controlling and pro- ducing such dominating influences.

MORAL QUESTION SUBORDINATE.

Slavery was the source of political power and the inspiration of political institutions, and it was selected as the point of attack. The moral question was subordinate to the political and social one. The point of the right or wrong of slavery agitated but a few weak- minded and feeble men. The real great, dominating, and controll- ing idea was the political and social one, the influence of the institu- tion on character and institutions.

There was forming in the South a military democracy, aggres- sive, ambitious, intellectual, and brave, such as led Athens in her brightest epoch and controlled Rome in her most glorious days.

If that was not destroyed the industrial society of the North would be dominated by it. So the entire social force, the press, the pul- pit, the public schools, was put in operation to make distinctive war on Southern institutions and Southern character, and for thirty years attack, vituperation, and abuse were incessant.

It was clear to the States of the South that there could be no peace with them, and there grew up a general desire to get away from them and to live separate.

The Gulf States urged instant separation when this hostile Northern sentiment elected a President and Congress in 1860. But Virginia, who had given five States to the Union, Virginia, whose blood and whose brain had constructed the union of the States, Virginia abso- lutely refused to be party to the breaking of that which was so dear to her. She never seceded from the Union, but, standing serene in her dignity with the halo of her glorious history around her, she commanded peace. The only reply vouchsafed was the calling out of 75,000 troops and the tramp of hostile footsteps on her sacred soil.