Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/349

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riiminality on the part of those who venture to express them, it seems to mi-, it is pertinent again to enquire of the Northern people

What did nearly one-half of your own voters think of that cause, not thirty-two years after, but when the war was raging, and when all the passions enkindled, and horrors wrought by it, were fresh in the minds of those voters ?

(2) What did enlightened, distinguished and unprejudiced for- ri^iuTs think of that cause; the way the war was waged, and the con- duct of the leaders, and the people on both sides at that time ?

(3) What do some of your most intelligent and distinguished writers think now of that cause, and its great civil leader ?

(4) And why did the people of the North refuse to test the ques- tion of which side was right, when they had instituted the case for that purpose in their own courts ?

It seems to me, that the facts here set forth furnish such answers to these enquiries as ought to give pause to those of the North, who still love to revile and defame the people of the South ; many doubtless delighting in this task now, who did not dare to come to the front when their professed views of duty called them there; some of whom have been convinced of the justice of their cause, only by the savor of the "flesh pots," and the allurements of the pension rolls, which the results of the war and the achievements of others, have put within their grasp.

I would fain hope too, that these pregnant facts will be pondered by our young people of the South, and if there be more than one young Southerner who has said, as I heard that one did say not long ago, of his old Confederate father, " the old man actually thinks he was right in the war," that these facts will make any such, not only feel and know that the cause of the South was right, and that the people of the South, almost as a unit, espoused and loved that cause, but that as true men they love it still, and that their children ought to feel alike proud of that cause and those who defended it with their lives, their blood and their fortunes.

As some of the writers to whom I have referred have said: ' There never was a people engaged in any struggle who were more united or determined than were the people of the South, in behalf of the cause of the Confederacy.' They almost to a man, and certainly to a woman, believed in that cause, and as I have said, supported it with their lives, their blood and their fortunes. The sayings that " might makes right," and that "success is a test of merit," have