Some Things For Which The South Did Not Fight In The War Between The States
by Henry Tucker Graham , D, D,, L, L, D.
Foreword
This pamphlet dedicated to the Public Schools of North Carolina by the Anson County Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy, in honor of it's author , Dr. Henry Tucker Graham, who died January 7, 1951, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. H. G. Bedinger, in Pineville, North Carolina.
The author's purpose in preparing this historical treatise was to correct certain prevailing misconceptions concerning the ideals and motives which prompted our Southern leaders to engage our people in a bloody contest of arms with our Northern neighbors, and by a truthful presentation of some generally unknown data., thus to remove any stigma which might unjustly have accrued to their memory because of a distortion of certain facts surrounding their participation in the War Between the States. The author's interest in this subject was intensified by the fact that his minister father was a personal friend of General “Stonewall” Jackson and often entertained the General and his wife at the manse in Winchester, Va. Dr. Graham, a former president of the Hampden-Sidney College, and for twenty years the beloved pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Florence, South Carolina., was well qualified for this self imposed task, both from the standpoint of scholarship and personal integrity. Because of his burning desire to clear the gallant leaders of his beloved Southland of the unjust charges of petty prejudice and political inconsistency, the arduous task of research and investigation necessary for the preparation of a historical paper of this kind has been, for the author, a labor of love. It is not the purpose or desire of the publishers of this pamphlet to disparage or detract from the character or the courage of our Northern neighbors in the waging of that conflict. But believing that the information contained in this little booklet will serve a legitimate purpose in helping to establish certain important facts of history pertinent to the Southern Cause, in connection with the War Between the States, we heartily recommend this brochure as parallel reading in teaching history in the public schools of our State. Joseph Orlando Bowman Superintendent of Anson County Schools Wadesboro, N. C.
Some Things For Which The South Did Not Fight In The War Between The States Out of the First World War there came many things of interest- some tragic , some pathetic, and some comic. I recall one song the Doughboys loved to sing: “I don't what this war's about but you bet by jinks, I'll soon find out.” I speak largely, if not altogether, to those whose kinsmen wore the gray in the War for Southern Independence. In a vague sort of way you probably think they were
“right”- but I am wondering how many of you could give a clear-cut statement of the real causes of that great struggle that ended so disastrously for the South, and thus repel the false charges laid against our Fathers and our section? I am especially concerned lest these young people, or their children , should someday be led to think of our gallant Fathers as traitors and rebels. There is grave danger that our school children are learning more about Massachusetts, than about the Carolinas, and hearing more often of northern leaders than of the splendid men who led the Southern hosts alike in peace and war.
Not many years ago the High School in an important South Carolina town devoted much time to the celebration of Lincoln's birthday – while Lee, Jackson, Hampton, and George Washington received no mention. You have all heard of Paul Revere's ride made famous by the skillful pen of a New England writer. He rode 7 miles out of Boston and was back in a British dungeon before daybreak. But how many of you have heard of Jack Jouett's sucessful and daring ride from a wayside tavern to Charlottesville to warn Governor Jefferson and the Legislature of the coming of a British squadron bent upon their capture. You have heard of the Boston Tea Party, but how many know of the Wilmington ,North Carolina Tea Party? At Boston they disguised themselves as Indians and under cover of darkness, threw the tea overboard. At Wilmington they did the same thing without disguise in broad daylight. With the utter disregard of the facts they blandly claim that the Republic was founded at Plymouth Rock, while all informed persons know that Plymouth was 13 ½ years behind the times, and when it's Colony was reduced to a handful of half-starved immigrants on the bleak shores of Massachusetts, there was a prosperous Colony of 2000 people along the shores of the James under the sunlit skies of the South. The fact is that New England has been so busy writing history that it has'nt had time to make it. While the South has been so busy making history, it has'nt had time to write it. Hence to correct this false impression I would talk to you about some of the things for which our Fathers did not fight.
1. They did not fight for a Rebellion. That termed was “coined” by the demagogues to stir the lagging zeal of the North , and to cast discredit on the South. The government itself in publishing the official record of that historic struggle chose this title: “The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion”- a title as false as it is misleading. Our Fathers fought for rights that had never been seriously challenged until 1861. Five times before 1861 Massachusettes threatened to secede and there was no talk of an army to force her back into the Union. There was never but one great Rebellion in America, that began in 1775. There was but one great Rebel- that was George Washington. The Government tried to indict Mr. Davis for treason, but was forced to abandon the case. They threatened , but did not even dare file charges vs. General Lee. In his first Inaugural ,Mr. Lincoln refers to the seceding States and to the threat of hostilities, but never speaks of rebellion. But by March 1864 he has caught the infection now so prevalent in the North and speaks sharply of rebels and rebellion.
2. They did not fight to “Destroy the United States”. The existence of the U.S.A. was never for a moment imperiled.
It's constituency would have been changed and it's boundries altered, but it's destruction was never attempted, or even desired. Whatever the outcome of war the U.S.A. would have still continued to be a great, growing,and powerful Republic. That indeed was one great reason for our failure. Because the existence of the U.S.A. was not even endangered, her bonds and notes could always command a market, whereas the value of Confederate Bonds depended wholly upon the success of the South and so in the last twelve to eighteen months of the war, it was without these “sinews of war' defeat became inevitable- for a nation cannot fight very long without money. Now let us glance at the history of the American Constitution. In May 1787 there met in Independence Hall in Philadelphia ( the same Hall in which the Declaration of Independence had just made eleven years before) the representatives of thirteen free independent Republics to draft a Constitution and so “form a more perfect union” than the loose and ineffective Confederation which then existed. Each State (or Republic) was intensely jealous of it's sovereign rights. Rhode Island soon withdrew because it feared that it's rights as a small state would not be adequately safeguarded. Later it adopted the Constitution as drawn and amended by the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) as part of the instrument. William E. Gladstone, the British Statesman, later declared that our Constitution is “the greatest political document ever drawn by a single body in the history of the world”. When the constitution had been adopted by the requisite number of States, the U.S.A. was launched upon the stormy sea of political life with the novel and happy device that populations were represented in the Lower House, while each state, large and small, enjoyed equal representation in the Senate, and thus safeguarded each state vs. the possible tyranny of numbers. The Constitution represented a partnership into which each party entered freely and was equally free to withdraw if it felt that it's best interests so demanded. Did you ever hear of a political or business partnership that could not be dissolved- once a partner ,always a partner? The right to secede was not written into the Constitution but was tacitly understood by every member of the Convention, and by their constituents back home. Why write into the document that which no one questioned for a moment? But George Mason, astute and farsighted Statesman that he was, saw the danger which that omission may someday provoke, and voiced it in his shrewd comment: “I see the poison beneath the eagle's wing”. Had Daniel Webster been present and given voice to the startling view later uttered by him- and often quoted since- that the U.S.A. is an indissovable union of indestructable States he would have been “laughed out of court”, for whoever heard of an “indissolvable partnership”? Or had Abraham Lincoln been present and declared as he later did; “The Union is older than States”, his sanity would have been gravely questioned, for that would have been the exact equivalent of claiming that this building in which we are gathered is older than the bricks of which it is composed. There must have been separate and individual states before there could be a United States. But the word Secession, though assumed by all, was not written into the Contract of Union ,and thereby hangs a tale of “blood, sweat, and tears”. Are you aware in his Inaugural Address (March 4/61) Lincoln made this statement: (Quoting from Repub.
Platform 1860) “We denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes”. Yet less than 6 weeks later he called for
75,000 troops to invade the South. Surely, “Consistency, thou are indeed a jewel “rare. Incidentally this drove Virginia (in April) and North Carolina (in May) out of the Union- and these two states furnished half of the total armed forces of the C.S.A. Strangely enough the right to secede was never seriously questioned until after Sumter fell. Wm. Howard Russell, the brilliant correspondent of the London Times , was sent to America early in '61 to give first hand reports on the situation. He landed in Boston early in February, and after some days moved on to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. He talked with leading men everywhere and was surprised to find that no one questioned the right of the South to secede if it so chose. This was true even of the members of the President's Cabinet.
They questioned the wisdom of the step, but no one denied the right of a State to secede if it felt that it's best interests demanded it- and each State must be the judge as to it's own actions in the premises.
Moreover the textbook used at West Point when Lee was a student, was Rawle on the Constitution. Rawle ,a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, taught the right of secession and that a citizen's first duty was to his own State. Hence, in withdrawing, Lee was not merely following the principles imbibed with his Mother's milk, but was carrying out the instruction which the Federal Government once had given at it's great War College. Surely this is not rebellion. The late Senator Lodge of Massachusetts says; “When the Constitution was adopted, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country......who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the states and from which each and every state had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised.” Charles Francis Adams ( also of Massachusettes) asks; “To whom was allegiance due in the case of direct conflict between a state and the Federal government?” I do not think the answer admits any doubt at any time anterior to 1825.
Nine out of ten men in the Northern States and 99 out of 100 in the Southern States would have said as between the Union and the State, “ULTIMATE ALLEGIANCE WAS DUE TO THE STATE” - cj. Latane's History of the U.S pp.346-7 Perhaps a word should be inserted here as to which side was the aggressor in this historic conflict. Who bears the guilt of starting the war? The North has sought to lay this stigma upon the South since we fired the first shot. But the courts (and common sense as well) have decreed that the aggressor is not the one who strikes the first blow, but the one that makes that blow necessary. The ground on which Ft. Sumter stood had been lent to the Federal Government by the State of South Carolina for the erection of a fort to guard it's chief harbor, but when South Carolina withdrew from the Union, the property automatically reverted to the State. A commission was sent to Washington by the C.S.A to make peaceable adjustments of all matters at issue between the two Governments. Chief of those was the evacuation of Ft. Sumter, then manned by Federal troops. Secretary of State Seward, speaking for the U.S.A., gave positive assurance that he was “in favor of peace,” and that “Sumter would be evacuated in less than ten days”. But it later developed that a fleet was being secretly fitted out at New York for the reinforcement of Sumter, and not until this fleet was nearing Charleston was the commission notified of this change of purpose. They at once filed an earnest protest coupled with the warning that the arrival of a hostile fleet before Sumter must be accepted by the South ,and regarded by the world, as a declaration of war against the C.S.A. The protest was ignored and the fleet continued on it's fateful way. Then on April 12, 1861, as a defense against invasion, “the gun was fired whose sound echoed round the world”.
Morally and legally, the first blow was struck not at Charleston, but when this fleet with hostile intent weighed anchor in the harbor of New York. Hence the guilt of aggression lies at the door of the Federal Government at Washington. (See Stephens Hist. Of
U.S..,pp.421-429)