The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-10-21
Save Your Honor.

Save Your Honor.
The evils of the stupendous folly of those
mad DAYS Just prior to and at the breaking.
out Of tbe late war might have been partial
l.. svcrted had not the stubborn selt-wlll OF
the leaders kept the people in the dark in re-
pard to the real situation and prevented any
sensible view oraction in the premises. The
leaders had staked the wealth and the blood
of the people upon the issue and pitted eight
millions against twenty millions in an un-.
eoual struggle in arms-had arrayed sec
tion without manufacturing aptitude or
element, without means for constructing guns,
cannon. cloth or ships upon any adequate
scale AGAINST section which, when its re-
sources were called out, could produce all
these upon such scale as the world has
never seen. They had relied upon aid from
England through fear of cotton famine,
and she at once responded by building up
cotton production in the East, which for
long years to come will leave American cot
ton beggar instead of a king in the English
market; and from France came the attempt
to grasp Mexico, so that in due time when
both belligerents were exhausted and the
country divided she could absorb the Con-
federacy.
Later, the question of slavery was put
souarelv in the issue by both Sides Even
then, the proposition of Mr. Lincoln to the
border States to accept " compensated eman-
cipation" met from Richmond the same
"horse laugh" which went up from the same
august body of far-seeing statesmen when the
first call for federal troops caused so much
laughter at Montgomery; but would the
South refuse such an offer to-day
Later still, when in September, 1862, Mr..
Lincoln gave notice that if hostilities were
not suspended within ninety days, he would
proclaim emancipation, it was sneeringly
styled the "Pope's bull against the comet"
and scornfully rejected; but does the South
think to-day, that she acted wisely in throw
ing away an opportunity to save what she
might have saved Men? And yet the lead
ers and the people blindly following them,
allowed that three months to pass and the
time arrive when the weight of the federal
sword was thrown into the scale against
slavery, and the public faith was forever
pledged before the world, to give absolute
freedom to the negro, and from that day on
ward it was indeed lost cause.
Did the leaders accept the real facts and
act like sensible men then or afterwards ?
No; but the ever delusive Save your
HONOR" was the pretext which sent tens OF
thousands of brave Confederates to slaughter
upon hundred battlefields within the next
two years; Save your honor" came from
Richmond to the decimated columns of the
army of Virginia, as it re-crossed the Potomac
for the last time, having left every third man
at Gettysburg Save your honor" came
from the leaders of that fated band of brave
men who starved and bled their way from
Nashville to Mobile; Save your honor"
justified the wholesale burning of cotton
acHes and mansions in the minds of those
WHO had sufficient brief authority to embody
such combined imbecility and madness in
official orders g" Save your honor" was the
chivalrous reply to the widow made desc
late, as she begged for bread and prayed for
peace.
Even at the very last moment, when the
Confederacy had the death rattle in the
throat and was growing stiff and cold in
every extremity, when theleaders must have
known that the cause was lost and the peo-
pie, could they have known the facts as the
leaders did, would have hailed the PROPOSE
tons with one universal shout of JOY, Pres
ldent Lincoln and some of his Cabinet met
the representatives of the Confederacy upon
the deck of man-of-war in Hampton Roads,
land said to them that, if their pretended
government would lay down their arms and
save the further etfusion of blood, satisfac-
tory terms would be readily granted and the
matter OF reconstruction be definitely settled
10 induce that wise action. the situation was
'auVerted to, and the erroneous proposition
'iof the coming campaign pointed out. "You
must decide for your people" said Lincoln
whether with Sherman cutting his way
10 the sea; with Grant waiting only the
happening OF other combinations. to fall
upon the army which guards YOUR capital.