SHALL THE GOVERNMENT CONFER PERMANENT HONORS ON CONFEDERATE HEROES?

The magnanimity which dictated the terms of surrender at Appomattox was typical of the treatment extended by the Government of the United States to its defeated opponents. Well might this be so. The sinews of strength of the mighty North had through the four years of desperate conflict grown strong indeed.

A Confederate Major General declared that the veterans of General Sherman’s army, pushing their winter way through the swamps and rivers of the South; foraging widely for subsistance and always ready to fight, illustrated a type of soldier that the world had not seen since the days of Julius CÆsar.

The final parade of the Union army along Pennsylvania avenue before the President, the Cabinet, prominent Generals and notables of other nations, displayed a vast procession of seasoned veterans whose effectiveness had never been surpassed. They were the choice, steel-tempered residue of more than two millions of citizen soldiery who had enlisted to preserve the union of States, “one and inseparable,” against the folly of secession.

In the plentitude of their invincible strength, nursing no lust of power, they disbanded to peaceful homes from whence they came; subsiding from their regnant military life as the mighty storm-waves of the ocean sink away into pacific calm.

Apart from wide-spread personal bereavement the North bore no serious scars of war. The perfection of agricultural machinery enabled rich harvests to be gathered in season notwithstanding the dearth of farm help which had gone to the army. Factories of every kind were, with large profits, turning out abundantly all sorts of goods. Our commerce with the world was unhindered, save by the eccentric raids of the Alabama; the muscle and brawn of an ample labor immigration supplied the manual force necessary to national expansion; as illustrated in the building of the trans-continental railroads. The huge war debt instead of being felt as an incubus was but a process of turning into ready cash the prosperity of the future.

Contrast with this picture the condition of the Southern States at the close of the four dreadful years. Within a goodly portion of her borders the country was war-swept and harried by the consuming necessities of vast armies of both friend and foe; for hungry men and beasts on the march and in the fight must subsist largely upon the supplies which the foragers gather from the adjacent regions.

Manufacture, as compared with the North, was a neglected art south of Mason’s and Dixon’s line.

The most extensive and effective naval blockade of history hermetically sealed nearly every Southern port, thereby hopelessly shutting in untold wealth of cotton, the returns of which were otherwise available to every need.

No millions of stalwart immigrants reinforced Southern industry; on the contrary her labor system and property tenure in human beings were shattered in pieces.

The flower of her masculine youth perished; the prestige of ruling intelligence, culture and wealth was dethroned and, to crown her afflictions although she knew it not, the South lost her best and most powerful friend in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Then followed the agonies of political reconstruction and the ignoble invasion of carpet-bag adventurers who, in many instances, were valiant only for pelf.

Surviving this wide-spread chaos the South, for the most part, believed in their lawful right of withdrawing from the Union. By many of their leading minds this contention had been long held, and that conception of government doubtless had filtered down through all classes of society so far as thought was developed on the subject.

The defense of State rights probably was a more powerful incentive to civil war than was at first the purpose to defend slavery.

The bravery of Southern soldiers has never been surpassed. The self-sacrificing patriotism of Southern women reached the high-water mark.

The vitality and moral force of Southern chivalry was distinguished even in the remarkable loyalty of the slaves.

If the foregoing briefly stated considerations form a truthful presentation of the case, why, it may be asked, may not the National Government expand the magninimity of President Lincoln and General Grant by engaging with Congress to erect monuments and other memorials to heroes of the army and navy of the Confederacy? The first step towards such procedure has already been taken in the form of proposed legislation at Washington.

We would not imply that the most eminent leaders of the Southern forces were personally unworthy of posthumos honor.

On the contrary it is our privilege to bear testimony to the exalted individual worth, the consecrated devotion to country as they understood the duty, and the pre-eminent ability in action that characterized the most noted leaders of the Confederacy.

Nevertheless their relation to national history is determined, not by individual excellencies, but by the fact that they rebelled against the Government they were sworn to defend. To the utmost they did all they could to dismember the Union of which they were an integral part, to dishonor the flag that emblazoned the glory of a common origin and history.

In the interest of perpetuating a far-reaching sentiment of loyalty to national life and well-being we would strenuously deny the moral right of Congress to make appropriations for the erection of memorials that are designed to crown Confederate valor with renown. If by private subscriptions admirers wish to build monuments they undoubtedly will be allowed to do so.

Our Government has wisely extended high courtesies to prominent Southern Generals, and has on many occasions held out the olive branch of peace. But we must not forget that brotherly kindness and neighborly good-will cannot cancel the fact that the Southern conception of government by state rights, as against National sovereignty, meant the destruction of the Nation as such and was so intended.

Had the war for the Union been a failure this fair continent on which has been nourished the hopes of the world would have been the arena of two general governments separated by no natural dividing lines and probably at last to be succeeded by contending states and communities.

Thus the last condition of free civilization in America would have been more disgraceful than was the situation of the warring principalities of ancient Greece, because we had sinned against a greater light than they possessed.If National monuments are dedicated to commemorate Southern gallantry will not a subtle influence steadily flow out from these reminders of civil war to the effect that assault upon the Nation’s existence is an offense so trivial as to be expiated by bravery on the field of battle?

Who can tell what crises of peril may in the future break in upon our beloved land? And what if the youth of the North and of the South are, from generation to generation, taught by the influence of public memorials that there is no real distinction between those who fought to save the Nation and those who did all they could “that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall (not) perish from the earth.”

We present a quotation from the judgment of the Supreme Court, as given by General N. P. Chipman on page 503 of his recent and informing book on Andersonville:

“The rebellion out of which the war grew was without any legal sanction. In the eye of the law it had the same properties as if it had been the insurrection of a country or smaller municipal territory as against the State to which it belonged. The proportion and duration of the struggle did not affect its character. Nor was there a rebel government de facto in such a sense as to give any legal efficiency to its acts.... The Union of the States, for all the purposes of the constitution, is as perfect and indissoluble as the union of the integral parts of the States themselves; and nothing but revolutionary violence can in either case destroy the ties which hold the parties together.

“For the sake of humanity certain belligerant rights were conceded to the insurgents in arms. But the recognition did not extend to the pretended government of the Confederacy.... The Rebellion was simply an armed resistence of the rightful authority of the sovereign. Such was its character, its rise, progress and downfall.”