The weekly clarion., 1873-06-19
THE SECTIONAL WAR
What Caused it and What Led to the
Defeat Of the South.
Extract from an Article i'm the
London Standard, from the
Pen of Jas. Smith, For
merIy of jackson,
Mississippi.


movement in the documents of the tim
without seeing that though slavery was tn
open sore that kept the passions of Nortl
and South in constant Irritation, and afford
| ed occasion for the violent collisions o
Kansas and Harper's Ferry, which precipi
| tated the issue and made its decision by any
other arbitration than that of the sWorC
| impossible. it was not the issue itself Sla
| very had no place in the councils which
hurried State after State out OF the Union
for slavery was the interest of the
few, and it was by the many that Sc
| cession was precipitated. The Southern peo-
pie resented Northern dictation, Northern
| assertions of superiority, Northern preten-
sions TO an exclusive right in their Terri
| tories, Northern intermeddling, and North
ern invasions, as the most furious of English
| Dissenters would resent the interpOsirion Ot
| the Roman Catholic Powers in the question
| of Church Establishment in England. When
| the seven Southern States lad withdrawn,
the Border States, which were most deeply
| concerned in the Northern attacks on
| slavery. still clung to the Union; Virginia,
| despite the piratical invasion of her terri
| tory and the midnight robbery ard murder
passsonately sanctioned by her New Eng
| land sisters, still refused to secede; and
only when the treacherous attempt Of the
Federal Government to reinforce the fort it
had promised to evacuate, and surprise
Charleston with an armed fleet, precipatated
the reluctant sections into war, and when
tween fighting for Southern freedom and
State rights, or Northern ascendency and
Federal despotism. did she throw in her lot
with the COntederates. Slavery, then. was
not her determining motive. Slavery makes
no appearance In the private letters of the
men who. one after another, went with their
States. 1t is a remarkable fact, that while
scores of leading Northern men denounced
the war. not single Southerner of high
character. education, and influence deserted
n H..
held that their allegiance was due TO their
native States; and on that ground alone
they threw up career, fortune, fame, and
placed themselves at the disposal of those
who claimed their fealty. 1t is absurd to
call such men rebels; they were loyalists to
all that they had been taught to obey. to all
the principles recognized, up to that mo-
ment. by three Americans in four. To Gen
Lee the Federal service offered everything
that ambition could desire. He was its fore ;
most man; he was the favOrite of General
Scott; he might have had the chief COM
mand as the price of treason to Virginia.
His feelings were divided; his interests
were all on the Federal side; but, as his let
ters now show, he was convinced that his
duty was TO Virginia, and he decided ac-
cordingly. With him went StOnewall
Jackson, the two Johnston every Southern
soldier in high or low command. The cause
so espoused, and by such men, cannot have
been what English RanterS and Radicals
call it. Good or bad in essence, it was so
strong in apparent justice that not one man
of character and weight whose allegiance 1t
pretended to claim declined to support it.
Its failure had nothing to do with its
alleged demerits. The South was crushed
by weight, not broken by weak ness. Three
things determined the fate of the war-the
closing of her ports, the superior wealth,
and, far above all, the overwhelming num-
bers of the enemy. The North was corn
growing aud manufacturing country, and
had open to her the markets of Europe; she
had unlimited command of all the resources
of the civilized world. The South was sub
ject TO the disadvantages both of an agri-
cultural and of a agricultural country,
She had no manufactures, and yet she lived
by manufactures and not by agriculture:
by producing clothing, not by producing
food. Her wealth was at once annihilated
by the blockade, which prevented her from
selling her cotton and tobacco and sugar;
her supplies were cut off, and she had bare
sut1iclency of food, and a total want OF every
other necessary OF life and war. She OBJ
tanned powder and arms from the enemy;
boots and clothes ana blankets she had to
want. Her finances broke down at once
for her exports were her wealth, and eX-
ports had ceased. But, above all, she was
crushed by numbers; the North could re-
cruit at home four men for one, and could
hire the off-scourings of Europe. And it
was this alone that decided the issue. The
Edinburgh Reviewer adds the want of dis
cipline; but we believe that in the essen
tials of military discipline the Southerners
were always superior to her foes. and that
if the troops of Grant and Mcclellan had
been tried as Lees were tried. they would
have melted like snow or died like rotten
sheep. Lee won almost every battle he
fought, aid against odds of from two to one
to four to one. What destroyed him was
Grants cold, cruel policv-which only a
Yankee, Napoleon, or a Prussian could
have deliberately adOpted-Of sacrificing
men without stint, whom ne could replace,
TO wear out an enemy who could not recruit
Under different circumstances such a pro-
cess might last longer. But a General who
can afford TO sacrifice three men to kill one
must always end by leaving his enemy
without soldiers; and therefore greatly
superior numbers. thus used must prevail
in the long run. 1t is no longer possible in
wars between civilized nations for proves
to prevail against numerical odds of great
weight. And this terrible lesson a state
| like England will do well to lay to heart.
| This, and this alone, was the cause of the
| fall of the Coz federacy; this is the dark
and painful moral of the Virginia cam
paign. Against everything but sheer sat
| triton" Lee was victorious.