Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/316

302 the immediate results of "Trial by combat." We know that the Christian civilization of the first centuries went down in the darkness of mediaeval times; we know that Paul was beheaded and Nero crowned and Christ crucified. Our defeat was but another instance of "Truth on the scaffold and wrong on the throne."

The North succeeded because they mustered over 2,555,000 men and had the world to draw supplies from; while the South failed because she only mustered 600,000 and was confined to her own territory for supplies.

Northern writers and speakers have attempted to show that the South plunged this country into desperate war for the purpose of perpetuating slavery. Do the facts of history sustain this contention? The colonies protested time and again to the King of England against sending slaves to these shores. The House of Burgesses enacted laws on twenty-three different occasions against the importation of slaves. The King of England vetoed each act.

In 1832 the Legislature of Virginia came within one vote of passing a law of emancipation.

On page 88, vol. I, of Henderson's Life of Stonewall Jackson you will find an interesting letter written by General Robert E. Lee, showing what he thought of slavery before the war. Lee set free his slaves before the war began, while Grant retained his until freed by the proclamation. Not one man in thirty of the Stonewall Brigade owned a slave. A Northern writer says: "Slavery was the cause of the war just as property is the cause of robbery."

If any man will read the debates between Lincoln and Douglas just prior to the war, or the Emancipation Proclamation, he will see that slavery was not the cause of action or its abolition its intent. Emancipation was a war measure not affecting the border States.

Mr. Webster said at Capon Springs in 1851, "I do not hesitate to say and repeat, that if the Northern States refused to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, the South would no longer be bound to keep the compact."

Did you ever see a soldier who was fighting for slavery? A