Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/36

32 So spoke the South, wiser than her time. The North, not so wise, essayed to enslave whole States and peoples. For this is what a forcible union of one-time sovereign States means.

It is not within the scope of this address to follow the course of that memorable struggle. From the day of Thermopylae down, to battle for home and native land against the invader and the despoiler has ever called forth the utmost valor and exertion of patriots. The Southern soldiery came of an adventurous, frontier stock. Southrons generally could ride and shoot; and in this war they fought to repel the invader. The result was the Confederate warrior, since that time the synonym for all that is best and bravest in war. The fame of the Confederate soldier is deathless; his glory as eternal as the stars. Starvation, not numbers, overwhelmed him after four years of heroic endurance and brilliant feats of arms. The Crucial Banner of the South sank without a stain upon it, save only the lifeblood of thousands of its martyr defenders.

In this course of invasion and conquest, in which she was finally successful, did the North, let me ask, really "save the union," as she professed to do? NO, she did not—from the very nature of the thing, she could not. The union of the fathers, of the constitution of 1787-89, was a union of choice, of peace. That original union was and is forever gone, as between the South and the North. It was ipso facto destroyed by the withdrawal from it of the Southern States. And, like Humpty Dumpty when he fell from the wall, or like the late Mr. Morgan's scrambled eggs, all the king's horses and all the king's men could never (forcibly) put it together again. A union, indeed, a new, diverse, blood red union of force was created and pinned together by bayonets; the union was not, and could not, be saved, though it might be restored by the free consent, once more, of all the parties to the original union.

And further, the success of the Southern Confederacy would not have meant the destruction of the American union. By the victory of the revolted colonies in 1776-83, the immemorial union of English-speaking peoples was severed; but only as to these