The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-10-07
Hancock, the Union Soldier.
Against the Yankee Soldiers Service to
the Union.
Meridian Miss, Mercury. seutember 81.

Meridian (Nliss.) Mercury, September 20.
Colonel Forney didn't write his campaign
life of General Hancock for Southern readers,
unless he regards Southern people as having
been all converted into loyal saints, said con-
version to relate back to the war, and especial
Iy to that critical period when was fought the
battle of Gettysburg, which he seems to re-
gard as the turning point in the struggle. Nor
again unless he considers the Southern people
as prepared to acquiesce in his speculations
about all the great things that were saved by
the Union army on that eventful day. If Col
onel Forney is pleased with the favor with
which the Southern people regard Ills favorite
for the Presidency it is not a gracious thing
for him to do to so magnify the importance of
General Hancock's military deeds upon that
field upon which in his opinion, our cause
was lost, unless he imagines we have all ar
rived at the conclusion that it was best for us
to have lost it then and there, and that Han
cocks victory over us was for us who shed so
much blood in the great endeavor to vanquish
his hosts on that day, as for the Union side--so
called. Now, to be honest, while we have
long ago taken off our war paint, and so far
laid aside all the feelings and preiudices we
carried into and through the war, we have to
confess that we can admire General Hancock's
splendid military record, but more the high
qualities of the statesman he has exhibited
with small opportunities for their display, and
can take him unreservedly for our Presidential
candidate. The picture Colonel Forney draws
of wha might have been with a different re-
suit is tantalizing to every true Southerner
and gives keener edge to our regrets that we
failed Colonel Forney'S lugubriOus concep-
tions OF the catastrophe to the American I'M
ion'' is rather imaginary than having any ade-
quate cause. If it had so happened that the
Confederates had occupied Washington and
taken possession OF all the public buildings,
and Pennsylvania had become Confederate
State Tin which case, we fancy, General Han
COCK like General Lee, would have resigned
and offered his sword to his native State) Bal
timore had become Confederate seaport,
New York Confederate metropolis, slavery
restored, the national debt repudiated, and
the Confederate Constitution adopted, we ap-
prehend the, world would not have come to an
end, nor American liberty, nor American Un-
ion. A greater calamity might have befallen
the Union-loviDg people of the North, and
may yet. Colonel Forney knows what the
Confederate Constitution was, and knows that
it was, in the main, re-enactment of the Fed
eral Constitution OF 10 reasserting all of the
great principles OF that instrument. The Un-
ion as it was would have been go Instant re-es-
tablished. The "Wayward Sisters of the
North would have been kindly invited to re-
turn to the fold in peace, though their right to
stay out in peace and unmolested would have
been recognized. The distinctive difference
between what has been and what might have
been, is, there would have been no forcible re-
construction with all the attending diabolism
that has been and is known of all men to the
disgrace OF the nation. Slavery would have
remained i'll the Constitution, as it had been
at its birth, TO have been abolished, as it
would have been in the end, by peaceable and
satisfactory methods, and not through "blood
and tears and woes innumerable.' "The
recognition of the re-established Union as it
was by all the foreign powers" need not have
been followed by the downfall of free institu.
tions ali over the word,'' because we would
have been the same free people with the same
free institutions, only more intensified and
hardened into public law, and the influence
OF our example in the world would have re-
manned, only somewhat reinvigorated.
Colonel Forney says he has drawn mo fancy
sketch, but We maintain he has: and we are
borne out in saying this by the history Of the
secession movement and the known aims and
purposes OF the leaders Of it. Northern writ
ers. like Colonel Forney habitnally fall into
the error OF ascribing caamities to the Union
and American liberty in the event the Con-
federate arms had been successful And all
this time, Southern writers, taking counsel of
ill-timed prudence, let it go so without a word
OF dissent In our judgment, this cowardly
indisposition to vindicate Southern leaders
from meditating dire and diabolcal calamities
to the country and its free institutions, and
even the American Union itself, is to prolong
indefinitely the ill-feeling between the sections.
To convince decent, respectable and intelli-
gent Northern man of the contrary, is. in meas
ure, 10 disarm him of his prejudices and ami
moslties. 1t is with this view we write this
class of articles in ouI paper. And with an
other-as a sacred duty, to soften or turn aside
unmerited opprobrium from being visited up
on the heads of the living actors in the strug-
gle and upon the memory Of the dead
Hancock, great Union chieftain, a hearty
and magnanimous support