Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/38

30 manly, silent way—without self-consciousness or mental reservation—he sought by precept, and yet more by a great example, to build up the shattered community of which he was the most observed representative in accordance with the new conditions imposed by fate, and through constitutional action. Talk of tratiorstraitors [sic] and of treason! The man who pursued that course and instilled that spirit had not, could not have had, in his whole being one drop of traitor's blood or conceived a treacherous thought. His lights may have been wrong—according to our ideas then and now they were wrong—but they were his lights, and in acting in full accordance with them he was right.

But, to those thus speaking, it is since sometimes replied—"Even tolerance may be carried too far, and is apt then to verge dangerously on what may be better described as moral indifference. It then, humanly speaking, assumes that there is no real right or real wrong in collective human action. But put yourself in his place, and, to those of this way of thinking, Philip II and William of Orange—Charles I and Cromwell—are much the same; the one is as good as the other, provided only he acted according to his lights. This will not do. Some moral test must be applied—some standard of right and wrong.

"It is by the recognition and acceptance of these the men prominent in history must be measured, and approved or condemned. To call it our Civil War is but a mere euphemistic way of referring to what was in fact a slave-holders' rebellion, conceived and put in action for no end but to perpetuate and extend a system of human servitude, a system the relic of barbarism, an insult to advancing humanity. To the futherancefurtherance [sic] of this rebellion, Lee lent himself. Right is right, and treason is treason—and, as that which is morally wrong cannot be right, so treason cannot be other than a crime. Why then because of sentiment or sympathy or moral indifference seek to confound the two? Charles Stuart and Cromwell could not both have been right. If Thomas was right, Lee was wrong."

To this I would reply, that we, who take another view, neither confound, nor seek to confound, right with wrong, or treason with loyalty. We accept the verdict of time; but, in so doing, we insist that the verdict shall be in accordance with the facts, and that each individual shall be judged on his own merits, and not stand acquitted or condemned in block. In this respect time works wonders, leaving few conclusions wholly unchallenged. Take, for instance, one of the final contentions of Charles Sumner, that, following old world