The Great Conspiracy, Volume 4Logan, John Alexander
History
The Great Conspiracy, Volume 4
Logan, John Alexander
Slavery -- United States; United States -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865
"To discover why they are so, we must glance at Southern society, and
notice the classes into which it has been divided, and which still
distinguish it. They are in arms, but not for the same objects; they
are moved to a common end, but by different and even inconsistent
reasons.
"The leaders, which comprehend what was previously known as the State
Rights Party, and is much the lesser class, seek to break down National
Independence and set up State domination. With them it is a War against
Nationality.
"The other class is fighting, as it supposes, to maintain and preserve
its rights of Property and domestic safety, which it has been made to
believe are assailed by this Government. This latter class are not
Disunionists per se; they are so only because they have been made to
believe that this Administration is inimical to their rights, and is
making War on their domestic Institutions. As long as these two classes
act together they will never assent to a Peace.
"The policy, then, to be pursued, is obvious. The former class will
never be reconciled, but the latter may be. Remove their apprehensions;
satisfy them that no harm is intended to them and their Institutions;
that this Government is not making War on their rights of Property, but
is simply defending its legitimate authority, and they will gladly
return to their allegiance as soon as the pressure of Military dominion
imposed by the Confederate authority is removed from them.
"Twelve months ago, both Houses of Congress, adopting the spirit of your
Message, then but recently sent in, declared with singular unanimity the
objects of the War, and the Country instantly bounded to your side to
assist you in carrying it on. If the spirit of that Resolution had been
adhered to, we are confident that we should before now have seen the end
of this deplorable conflict. But what have we seen?
"In both Houses of Congress we have heard doctrines subversive of the
principles of the Constitution, and seen measure after measure, founded
in substance on those doctrines, proposed and carried through, which can
have no other effect than to distract and divide loyal men, and
exasperate and drive still further from us and their duty the people of
the rebellious States.
"Military officers, following these bad examples, have stepped beyond
the just limits of their authority in the same direction, until in
several instances you have felt the necessity of interfering to arrest
them. And even the passage of the Resolution to which you refer has
been ostentatiously proclaimed as the triumph of a principle which the
people of the Southern States regard as ruinous to them. The effect of
these measures was foretold, and may now be seen in the indurated state
of Southern feeling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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