National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-04-30
LEE DANGER OF LIE FurnRE.


For generations the people of the South
have been accustomed TO educate their chill
dren TO peculiar social and political ideas.
Their earnest endeavOrs in this regard re-
suited in 1901 in the ready formation of
large volunteer armies accustomed to the
use Of arms, to Craftsmanship, devoted to
the cause of slavery, and ready to die ia
behalf of the reasonable fallacies of such
State Rights''believers as John c. Calhoun.
In short, the principles which inspired the
rebellion were born and bred in the very
marrow Of the natural leaders of the Sec
ton. Their statesmen, politicians, clergy
men, professional Den, planters, and their
few intelligent mechanics were imbued
with the same spirit, and the "overseer
class, the poor white trash, and piney-
woods people were ignorant of the exist
ence of any other political belief The few
exceptions to this general rule only served
to show the completeness with which it
prevailed in spite of adverse reasoning.
In the North these Southern leaders had
many followers, and for Administra-
ton after Administration, if not for gen.
Grafton after generation, the Southern in
fiusnce predominated. But there were
other elements at work among the North
ern people, the greatest of which was
paramount love of the General Govern
ment anda Venerstion for the glories of our
common country. While the Southern
idea was cramped by the small confines of
loyalty TO distinctive and conflicting allie
glance, the Northern idea was broad, ex-
PansiVe and loyal to State authority as
municipal and subordinate to the superior
strength represented in the power of the
country at large. These diverse ideas
could not exist without eventual collision.
When the collision came, the social pecu-
iarities of the South enabled that section,
as we have said, to march armies into the
field which were encouraged and sus-
tanned by familiarity with many of
the requisites of success in war. The
North, on the contrary, began its
education in this respect under the discour-
agement of defeat and the disadvantage of
a necessity for experience and training.
The clash of arms tried the mettle of the
contestants, and was prolonged until the
North gained the victory of force. There
were those who thought they saw in that
victory, and there are those who think they
see it now, the overpowering success of
principle, and the resultant abandonment
by the vanquished of the reasonable falla-
cies to which we have alluded. But this
was and is a false assumption. The two
sections have relapsed to some extent into
their old customs, and each individual now
pursues the path he walked before The
North, satisfied with an earnest show of
magDaDimity to former foes, teaches rising
generations the creeds Of the patriots, and
has fallen asleep, so to speak, in blissful
ignorance of the startling fact that the
source of all our national woe has not been
effectually checked. The South pursues a
different course. For patriotic creeds it
substitutes the infamous theories of Sec
tioual pride and the heterodoxy of State
SUPREMACY, added to which are false con-
structiops to the War Amendments to the
Constitution and garbled statements of his
torical facts. 1t requires no especial gift
of prophecy to, foretell the consequence.
The conflict of theory will again assert
itself-has, in truth, asserted itself-and
The future will most assuredly witness
renewal of the civil strife from which the
two sections are now only in part recov-
cred
There must be q preventive for this
threatened disaster. Is it in some system of