The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-05-22
Who is Responsible for the Civil War p
Important Testimony.

Important Testimony.
The name OF ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS is
as familiar to the people of this nation as
a household word. For a long time he was
one of Georgias honored statesmen, and was
to a large extent the Southern leader OF the
Wing party in the House of Representatives.
When that old party, having outliyed its use
fulness, passed away, Mr.. Stephens, like
Toombs, Benjamin, Mangum, Badger, Cling
man, and many other Southern Wings, found
himself politically shelterless, and identified
himself with the Democratic party with whose
fortunes he cast his own. During the early
part of MIR. Buchanans administration he was
the administration leader Of the House, and
when it became necessary, in the opinion of
the President, to force the Infamous Lecomp-
ton Constitution upon the people of Kansas,
and to compel that territory to become State
under constitution all 'reeking with blood
and fraud"-the words of Senator Hammond,
OF South Caroina--Mr. Stephens was the man
selected by the administration to take charge
of the measure in the House and to engineer
it through that body. This fact shows the es-
timation placed upon Mr.. Stephens by the
men then in power.
Mr.. Stephens took strong ground against
theYancey movement developed in the Charles
ton Convention and knowing that that move
ment meant disunion, and only disunion, and
being himself strong Union man, Mr.. S. took
sides in support of Mr.. Douglas nomination,
and did all in his power to secure the vote Of
his State for Douglas and johnson, believing
such to be the most efectual way to counter
work the wicked designs of the dsunionists.
To show the estimation in which Mr.. Stephens
was held by the Douglas portion of the
Charleston and Baltimore Conventions, we
need only mention the iact-vouched by good
authority - that only single consideration
prevented his name from being associated with
that of Mr.. Douglas on the Democratic ticket.
That fact was this: Mr.. Stephens, in the House
of Representatives of the thirteth Congress,
on the questions connected with and growing
ty &C., Fad sSGa a z 5sRfh as Tsss asi asS
that any attempt to make capital against Mr..
Lincoln, by appeals to those votes, would re-
act upon the Democratic ticket. 1t was for
mere prudential reasons-for strategic purpos-
es-that Mr.. Stephens was passed by, and that
the Democracy were not called upon to vote
for Douglas and Stephens, instead of Douglas
and johnson.
Having shown the position occupied by Mr.
Stephens, and the estimation in which he was
held by both branches of the Democratic
party, We are prepared TO appreciate the testi-
mony afforded by one of his speeches, which
we are about to introduce. After the Presi-
Dental election Mr.. S. firmly adhered to his
Unionism. He was member of the Georgia
Convention which passed the ordinance of Sc
cession, and swept that old Wing State out oil
the Union. He resisted that ordinance with all
the energies of his powerful mind He had
no sympathy with it; regarded it as the Wild
est and madest scheme ever entered upon by
intelligent men; saw the terrible calamites in
which it would involve his people, and faith
fully did he forewarn them of the destruction
and ruin they were bringing upon their own
heads. But he was unsuccessful; the tide of
wild passion and mad ambition bore down all
before it, and Mr. Stephens bowed his head
and submitted to an event which he had been
unable to prevent. He was subsequently hon.
ored with the Vice Presidency of the Confed-
eracy,-a sop thrown by the flre-eaters to those
who had resisted their Schemes aud, betray-
ing the weakness common to humanity. Mr..
Stephens seems to have applied the newly ac-
quired honors as a balm to his wounded patri-
otism, and consoled himselfwth the reflection
that while the old Union and the Constitution
had subserved a good purpose, it was better
for the South to inaugurate a new nation,
based upon the inequality of races, negro
slavery being the chief corner stone. In the
convention referred to Mr.. Stephens made a
speech--in Jan. lS61-to which we ask the
readers careful attention. 1t silences all Dem
ocratic allies of kidnappers and traitors in the
North. The great argument used by them in
New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois
is, that the North had invaded the rights of
the South Stephens brands them all as liars.
He charges the civil war, with all its horrors,
solely on the South. He leaves the traitors
not shadow of an excuse. He declared on
the floor of the Convention called to vote
Georgia out of the Union, and plunge it into
the impossible and bottomless gulf of seces-
sion, anarchy and ruin
That this step, once taken, could never be
recalled; and all the baleiul and whitening
consequences that follow will rest on the Con-
yention for all coming time. When we and
our posterity shall see our lovely South DESC
lated by the demon of war, which this act of
yours will inevitably invite and call forth:
when our green fields of waving haryests
shall be trodden down by the murderous SOL
diery and fiery car of war sweeping over our
land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all
the horrors and desolations of war upon us;
who but this Convention will be held respon-
sible for It? and who but him who shall have
given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed
measure shall be held to strict account for this
suicidal at by the present generation, and
probably cursed and execrated by posterity
for all coming time, for the wide and desolat-
ing ruin that win inevitably follow this act YOU
now propose to perpetrate?
Pause, ! entreat you, and consider for a mo-
ment what reasons you can give that will even
satisfy yourselves in calmer moments-what
reasons you can give toyour fellow-suferers in
the calamity that it will bring upon us? What
reason can YOU give to the nations of the earth