Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/72

 68 Southern Historical Society Papers.

that conflict which staggered the government and exhausted the resources of the South, the shock of ideas was as great as the shock of arms. Victor Hugo said of Waterloo, it was not a battle, it was a change of front of the universe. The surrender at Appomattox wrought a change of front of a hemisphere. William H. Seward's "Higher Law" skulking in the Hinterland of the constitution. William Lloyd Garrison's denunciation of the constitution as a league with hell and covenant with damnation, John Brown's invasion upon the soil of a soverign state, the killing of citizens within its peace, inflammatory and murderous appeals from pulpit, from vane, from innumerable seats of learning, wealth and influence. These were outward signs of the unquenchable, impetuous feelings of the great masses of the North. The South, fortified in their rights by the decision of the Supreme Court in Scott vs. Sandford, igth of Howard, commonly called the Dred Scott Case, asked that the voice of the chief justice rolling in silvery cadence from the Atlantic to the pacific, from the frozen region of the lakes to the glittering waters of the gulf, should still the tumult of the masses and com- mand obedience.

It is said -Stevenson who worked in collaboration with his step son in the composition of some of his most perfect pieces of ro- mance, would say to him when he had reached the very roof of the world of thought, "Osborn, this is magnificent, impossible, it can't be sustained."

In the Dred Scott Case the Court says that a negro of the Af- rican race was regarded by the Colonies as an article of property and held and bought and sold as such in every one of the Thirteen Colonies which united in the declaration of independence and after- wards formed the constitution of the United States. The struggle is passed. The events of it which were the most tumultuous and energetic in their accomplishment are feint, the memory of old help and common peril remains a precious heritage. "Nightly since I have dreamed of encounters 'twixt thyself and me." Our government has become a world power; it is upon the firing line of nations and engaged in raising hornets for market.

We have four constitutions instead of one. We have oversea colonies, hunting grounds in the Pacific Ocean over which we shoot. Perhaps a million of human beings have died at our hands in these aggressions. It is said that true reconcilement now obtains betwixt north and south. The word of the government is law upon this half of the globe We adorn the graves of their dead, yet my