Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-03-20


nd the South was wholly an Innocent VIC
i'm, aud the masses of the North were un-
hinking incapables, who went into the war
Without knowing what 1t was about, sup
,IOsing 1t to be war to preserve the Union
when it was not but only Sophism of Abb
olltion Assumption This kind of state
uent is simply mangling of history, aud
nothing better. President Johnson's idea
Is true that there were disunionists both
North and South, both traitors to American
Union; that these extremists jointly pre-
clpitated the terrible civil war just ended.
The pretense about striking the first blow
is mere moonshine. Acts of secession were
the first blow, for secession is the overt act
Of disunion, and force necessarily followed
as effect follows cause. The South nowhere
stultifes her gallant men to set up the pre-
tense that her statesmen were but puppets
moved as Abolitionists willed. The North,
though ultimately dragged into the mesh
of Abolition schemes in the prosecution OF
the war, were not a nation of asses led by
the nose by New England fanatics and
Western Reserve humbugs. That's putting
It too grossly entirely. That gives the Alb
olitionists credit for all the brains Henry
Ward Beecher claimed for them-that they
could think for the Union--whenfin truth
and In fact they rose in mental capacity no
higher than after, at the opening of the con-
test, aspiring for moment to the patriotic
height Of the Crittenden resolutions as a
war policy, they naturally fell back to their
groveling thinking Of sectional hatreds,
and seized northern enthusiasm for
National unity as means to
wreak their schemes of vengeance on
their erring Southern brethren, and by
election frauds, violations of the freedom OF
thepress and of speech and of personal lib
erty, for season, aided by weak and
vacillating President, whO.was called "the
GOvernment,n for the time being, awed and
quenched the free S. irit of the American
people, and prolonged the war to put down
secession to the uses of A Abolition, spOliation,
con6seatiOn, robbery and vengeance. This,
| it is true, was fraudulent use of the power
placed in their hands by generous people
for widely different purpose, was crime
against humanity and the American Union.
But it might have been expected of men
like Chase, Wade and Spalding, in Ohio,
who, as Abolitionists, would have gladly
inaugurated civil war In the Northern
States, or at least in this State, to put down
Federal authority for the negro, had not
Judge Swans firmness baffled their
schemes in their inception, and denied
pretense. To-day they are not a whit
more innocent than Davis, Toombs, Slidell
g. Co., of the South, who bravely and un-
successfully fought for the opposite dogma,
If naturally and practically a little more
eowardly, and infinitely more mean and
sneaking in their schemes and their modes of
accomplishment. But this does not white
wash ecession-CalhOun's elaborate idea
that the States were independent Of the
General Government, and might, in case of
difference, after submitting the question of
difference to the arbitrament of the Union
by Constitutional amendment, and finding
the decision against them, still, one or all
secede If dissatisfied, as matter Of legal
right. This dogma no doubt originated in
the effort to counteract the perniciOus
dogmas of Abolition, but it was equally
pernicious, for it set aside the rule of the
majority and made the Union a rope of
sand; it claimed practically, to sustain it,
the right to do that which Abolition is
doing to-day-to govern the Union by the
rule of minority under pain of dissolu-
tion. The South fought to sustain that
dogma, and were beaten. The Aboli-
tionists, the opposite extreme for con-
solidation, are adopting the same
programme, and IL carried out will
equally produce dissolution of the
Union; for the concentration of all power
and force at the center must necessarily
weaken the cohesive force at the circum-
ference as certainly in government as In
mechanics, and has equal tendency to de-
struction. Admitting all this, it does not
obliterate the wrong of attempted seces-
sion, though it may and does deny the
right of judgment to those who are alike
guilty of endangering the well being of
the country. This is its extent. The
0traitors to Union North and South"-Iuse
President Johnson's language when de-
scribing Sumner, Stevens, Chase & Co, as
contrasted with the Southern secessionists
are equally the enemies of the common
good, are now more so, for the Southern
secessionists are defeated, broke down, i'm
prisoned and disfranchised; while the
Northern ''traitors" Il prefer still to
use JOhnson's description, and he is Of
them, their nominee for his present posi-
ton, and knows them) are in the high
places of the land, which they abuse and
prostitute the power they hold to the COM
mon injury, and the peril of our institu-
tions. Without excusiDg or apologizing
for the opposite wrong, it is the duty Of
every friend Of his country to attack the
dangerous schemes OF its menacing foes.
And / think that will be best done by tell
ing the whole truth-haIf truths do harm
and refusing to mangle past history for
present advantage. think there is ample
verge and scope enough to do thjS; and it
may be that this is merely what your cor
respondent intended, but he did not make
his meaning clear to my comprehension.
lido not deny the main body Of the facts he
cites, but think he draws from them con-
iolns;<,a not wholly xvarranted and Dreiu-