The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-05
The Irreversible Record.


quick succession for four years; myrads OF
lives were sacrificed the land was peopled
with orphans and widows; and the loyal oiti-
zens bowed themselves willingly 70 receive
the burden of prodigious national debt. we
have compressed the history OF ages into
span; heroes have risen aud disappeared
almost with the rapdty OF a stage perform
ance; great deeds, both of benevolence aud
valor, thronged into being, thick and close,
like the stalks of q cornfeld; war has sown
the soil Of the country with monuments and
biographies, all fresh from the baptism Of
blood. And, now that we are emerging from
the smoke and din of conflict and cropping
about for the materials and implements OF
Reconstruction, it is well to ask what we
have had all this fuss about. What meant
the great storm of fire and blood that shook
the world
The plain story requires but word TO tell
it. The South had become impatient of con-
tradiction; the free printing and free speech of
the free North had come to indulge themselves
with greater and greater boldness, and slavery
seemed to be in jeopardy. Wont to rule and
to find bringing submission on the other side,
they resolved on secession. The only condi-
tion on which they could have been persuaded
to forego their scheme was that slavery should
be permitted to intrench itself in the supreme
law in the form of an amendment, putting
Northern cattle and horses and Southern slaves
native:-"Put slavery into the Constitution, or
we separate" With the loyal people of the
country neither Of these was possible or even
to be thought of. Neither could slavery 20
up, nor the South go off. Upon this issue tRe
war began. ltwas at once broadly national
and profoundly moral. II involved the whole
ness of the flag, and the integrity of the deca-
logue. Men who cared nothing for religion,
or for the profound. Questions of ethics, rallied
with boundless ardor to the rescue of the
Union. The impulses OF patriotism were to
them in the place of deeper considerations.
The Christian churches of the North felt with
the crowd the emotions of patriotism; but
below these the moral and spiritual aspects of
the contest heaved and struggled for utter
ance in moral earthquake.
we appeal to the loyal, virtuous millions all
over the country to testify whether they were
not impelled to enthusiasm and perseverance
IN the struggle even more by the motives of
conscience than by those of simple patriot
ism? We felt that we were watched by heaven
and earth, by God and man; that we were
fighting the battle of humanity: that we
were meeting a foe bent on setting up an
empire which would have been monstrosity
among Governments, an anachronism in the
history of the century-in which every known
crime would safely repose in the arms of the
law; in which the law, naturally the sanctuary
of the weak against the strong and wicked,
hand OF the white man, the other about the
neck of the black man.
While we fought, and spent our treasures,
and gave up our children, we looked up to
heaven and said:-We are right. God de-
maids this at our hands; enlightened
humanity demands it. Not to 90 on is in
famy-not the infamy of defeat merely, but
the deadlier infamy of great public crime
which shall plead against us, trumpet
tongued, in the presence of the Kissing nations
and the pitying but despising angels. We
went on. We demanded Of Congress to be
taxed; we raised our flag on every church,
amid prayers and hymns; we taught our
children to lisp the names of our defenders;
we encouraged the soldiers with our best SER
mons; we sent the ministers of religion and of
good nursing after them into the field; we
kept commemorative lists of the "boys''
neatly framed and hung up on the walls of
our Sunday Schools; we read their letters as a
part of the Sunday School and prayer meeting
exercises we remembered and named them
In our supplicatiOns. In a word, We threw
our whole heart and soul, our patriotism, our
conscience, our religion, into the war for the
Union-in this way making up the stupen-
dous record.
We may be told, indeed, that our foes were
equally persuaded that they were right. Sup.
pose 1t to have been so-yet we know they
were wrong-theirs was war against Christ's
Law VI ioFoj ~ was Ioppery anu kiunaPplnS
defending their acquisitions with the pilfered
forms of honorable war. Robbery finally fell
under the strokes of Justice and Providence.
The nation ID victor. She looks back to read
her record, and what are the lines she traces
To what principles do they commit us 7 What
party in politics does she look upon with plea
sure? Whom oan'she trust to take care of the
Union just saved Who will keep inviolate our
war record Is it Wade Hampton, Howell
Cobb, Robert Toombs, and their confederates in
rebellion, who are making the whole country,
North and South, to ring with the defiant
assertion that their revolt is not the ''lost
cause Z" Is it the Democratic party of the
North, who, with honorable exceptions,
labored to prevent this success of car arms
during the war, and gave the Rebels public
and private said and comfort? ?' Is it the
Democratic Convention, lately sitting in New
York, in which Copperhead and Rebel united
their inspiration and their patriotism for the
public good; and where Forrest, Val
lsndigham, and the spirit of Wilkes
Booth entered into a compact to
johnson, the Tennessee Moses, the famous
plebeian of the 4th OF March, 1865, who fur
nishes to the "poor whites'' of the country
such an example of getting up in the world
and of pulling down the representatives of the
peoplei Is it he, at once gymnast and geome-
trician, Swinging" to admiration, and yet
always sober enough to keep the ''circle ?" Is
1t Merry Andrew, the hero of vetoes Or,
finally, is it Seymour and Blair, who, fighting
in opposite camps during the war, have re-
Gently effected compromise by mutually
Joining hands with the oddly reconstructed
Hampton, the whole three of them giving
their sacred pledge to rip up the work of Con-
gress, if need be, with the broken sword OF the
chivalry9 Who ia it2