The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1871-06-23
1NFEL1cIToUs.

regard to the ''lost cause" when he
only intended to express his de-
votion to State Rights as maintained
by Jefferson and Madison.
The New Orleans paper is unfor-
tunate in its version of the matter
If there is anything embraced in the
State Rights of Mr.. Davis it is the
right Of secession; and if there is
anything eschewed and disavowed
in the State Rights Of Jefferson or
Madison it it such a political doc
trine. The truth is Mr.. Davis can
not open his mouth on State Rights
without starting into life this princi-
pie of revolution and as the people
consider that settled matter it
would be best that it should no longer
be conjured up "to fright the souls
of fearful adversaries." We copy
the following articles from the Vir-
ginia Wing and Dispatch, relative
to Mr.. Davis and the situation
"There never was greater de-
fusion respecting any public man
than that which has prevailed in re-
spect to Mr.. Jefferson Davis. Those
n5anaczes of Stanton greatly contrib
uted to it. They saved him from
general disfavor at the South after
the war, and substituted sympathy
or respectful silence. That silence
would perhaps have been continuous
and indefinite but for his indecent
aspersion of the Southern people,
denouncing them as towards" for
attempting to repair some of the mis-
chiefs entailed upon them by his
criminal inoompetency.
We do not know how he came to
be elected President of the Confed
eracy. He was put upon us at
Montgomery, and we heard at the
time that the reasons for his selec-
ton were his supposed practical
knowledge of military affairs, and
the apprehension in some quarters
that if we did not promote him the
yankees would. A circumstance in
support of this suspicion was men
toned that after his State had seced-
ed, he wished to retain his seat in
the Senate, and his friends in the
Mississippi Legislature got up pa
per for the signature of members,
requesting him to hold on. But be
this as it may, he never was a fit
representative of Southern charac-
ter. Great as have been the suffer-
ings of the South from the war, we
have often sadly thought that its
good rcpute will suffer still more in
history in being saddled with such
man as its representative.
Early in the contest it became
manifest to many of the leading men
of the South that Mr.. Davis was an
ill-contrived and impracticable inn
competent.
AS to States rights, of which he is
held up as the exponent and cham
pion, he never had the least concep-
ton of them. In his second mes
sage 1--WE think) he made a very
creditable appearance in presenting
those doctrines; but he was stuffed
for the occasion by MIR. Hugh
Blair Grigsby, or some other Vir-
ginia statesman who did understand
the subject; but, as in every case of
SttGfng, the occasion having passed,
the impression vanished with it.
The Confederacy was failure in
everything except its fighting
There were brave men, CALAMITY led
by skillful and heroic Generals and
if they had not been trammcled and
thwarted and bafllcd by an incapa-
BILE head, success would have crown
ed their efforts. The civil branch
of the Confederacy was an utter fail
ure-altogether unworthy of the
Southern people-and mainly through
the ineompetency of this obstinate,
self-sufficient and inefficient chief
His ridiculous and absurd sensitive
ness about his dignity and the pre-
negatives of his position, was enough
of itselfto wreck any cause.
The libel upon the Southern peo-
pie that they are towards" and
that they acknowledge they were
wrong, when they merely acknowl-
edge a fact, that they were whipped
and deprived of all rights except
those of the conquered, and are seek
ing to remove the heel Of military
despotism from their necks and to
regain some semblance of liberty
though ungracious and unbecoming
from any source, is especially so
from the chief author of their ruin"
The Dispatch, replying to a state
ment of the New York Tribune, that
Mr.. Davis late speech fairly ex-
presses the average convictions of
the men of the South who fought for
secession, says:
"Whatever Mr.. Davis may say,
he cannot erase from the Southern
mind the deep-roOted and correct
conviction that the doctrine of Sc
eession is dead and buried, and can
rasurraction The sword