The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1867-02-16

rrom the Memphis Appeal.l

LIVE
A wise Statesman, wo think, ought
m look at the late war as a war Of IDEAS,
which should not have left after 1t the
bitterness OF hate and the burning de-
sjrc for revenge. The people Of the
south would not have fought and strng.
pled and suffered as they did, unless
thoy had been inspired by ON intense
faith in the right sndjustice OF the cause
for which they imperilled all that Ia
dear to u people. La vendec fought
leroically for royalty against republi-
canism and when the armies Of the Re-
public had conquered, there were no
confscations, no acknowledgements, no
ienoble and unwise revenges. La Ven
dee became at once o part Of France,
and her voice was heard in the Legis-
latiye body; and peace, once made, was
not again disturbed, even by a local
commotion. 1t vas perhaps unwise
and unnecessary for the Southern States
to secede, wAen, and especially as, they
did; but it cannot be demonstrated that
they had not the right to do so. At
all events, they sincerely believed they
had that right, and that it was an i'm.
mense injustice to make war upon them
for exercising it.
It is a poor craftsmanship which, in.
stead demonstrating u country, and both
sections of country, ennobled by q
war in which each, at an immense sac
riice and with al energy and persevcr-
ance never surpassed, contended for its
construction of the Constitution, its
opinion of the origin and nature Of the
Government, insists OF belittling and
abasing into a rebellion, all insurrec-
ton, and the commission Of individu-
al treasons, the heroic struggle of the
eleven States that might, ON tue score
ofwcalth, and extent and population,
well have claimed the right to q sepa-
rate nationality, without regard to the
wishes or selfsl, interest ofother States.
This is a simple stupidity, and the very
drivcling of folly. II we were a French
man, or Al EngGshman, as we should
condemn the iripolicy of England's ty-
ranny over ireland, OF that of Phillip
III over tie Netherlands, Of Austria
over Italy, or Russia over Poland, so
we should deem that of the Northern
States over the Southern, the calling
insults, the petty revenges, the little,
mean acts Of spite, to be worse than
crimes--to be plumbers, d%isgraceful to
any man pretending to be a statesman.
Our "extreme Southern sentiments
are only those of one who detests
usurped power and ignoble revenge,
and who has been trained to reverence
the Constitution and the laws, and those
who minister at the affairs of the law.
We have a horror of all that tends to
anarchy and to that annihilstion Of the
rights of the States, and substitution
ofthe great, tumultuous, tickle, unrea-
soning, half-ncgro Democracy in its
stead, which cannot but end in univer-
sal decentralization and disorder, to
which the despotism OF q single will
will be preferable.
We have seen enough Of war and 1t
is with a burning anger that we see the
Radical leaders at Washington and
Nashville acting in concert in origina.
ting measures intended, meant, invented
by a devilish ingenuity, to push the peo-
pie of these poor, ruined, disheartcned
States into q resistance that shall seem
to justify the Northern armies in again
invading them. and drenching every
Gods acre, from the Ohio to the Poto-
mac to the Gulf, in blood. Judgment
has fled to british breasts, and men
have lost their reason" What can
come ola war by Congress on the rights
of the States, on the President, on the
Supreme Court, on the common rights
ofhumanity, on common sense, but the
cxcesses Of the French Revolution, and
'horrors on horrors head accumula'
ted?"