Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/34

   for which he was indicted? It is said (though I am not at this time prepared to vouch for the accuracy of the report) that a solemn warning was sounded forth from the Supreme Court of the United States to the effect that to push such a charge against our fallen leader would be to fool with a combination boomerang and back-action buzz-saw. Be that as it may, we know that Mr. Davis, after long imprisonment, was released on bail (Horace Greeley himself being a bondsman), and the indictment was never tried.

Yes, the course of the Southern peoples was the only course consistent with peace and honor. Alas! they were ahead of their times; and, like all those who, in any age or clime, dare to be ahead of their day and generation, they have been made to suffer for their temerity. As Charles Mackay, the poet says.

Civilization takes but one step forward at a time; then pauses and rests before the next step. The Southern people of the period of 1789-1861, in the very vanguard of this slowly advancing civilization, acted on the principle that the same rule should govern in the intercourse between nations and people as between individuals : and that rule the golden rule. But they were wiser than their time. Let me explain.

Some three centuries before this the civilized, Christian (?) nations of Europe saw nothing wrong in kidnapping the defenseless heathens of Afric sands and selling them into bondage far from their native haunts. They justified such practice on the grounds alike of expediency and morals. It would bring the heathen under the benign influences of Christianity, and at the same time cause wealth to flow into the ready pockets of their