New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-08

PVC'S' pAoNAuuc" thC iuSu VI nasty VI paSolouito
action.
Sc well pleased is he with this that he ampliies
the statement OH page 100, saying:
II has already been shown that the calmness and
the withdrawal were adopted and executed afford
the best refutaton of the charge that they the
result OF haste, passion or precipitation.
Nothing could be pretticr than that considered as
sophism or as a special plea, but if consider it
as statement of fact it is curiously absurd, as
every man will declare who happened to be in Vir-
GINA or any other doubtful State during this time
OF "calmncss and deliberations" The means used in
Virginia to create and maintain excitement to pre-
vent canness and de!iberaton, have been described
by Virginia writer The militia organizations
were called out and kept in camps; the most fiery
speakers in behalf of secession kept constantly
haranguing the multitude; preachers in their pull
pits did what they could to increase the excite
ment; alarming stories were sent out morn
ing noon and night the agitation was con-
tinued; the people bewildered, frightened,
browbeaten. The agents and advocates of secession
neglected no means of increasing the excitement,
preventing delberation, coercng the unwilling.
Men who hestated or hoped. men who wanted to
walt Tor calmer elaboration, were denounced as
towards and recreants and called by all the other
unlovely names which excited Southern orator
OF the old school was accustomed to apply to men
who differed with him in opinion; and as every
mans vote was openly given and recorded, under
the Virginia system, there very real terror
ism used at the polls in aid of secession. These
facts known to everybody but Mr. Davis can count
up the weeks between the calling of the convon-
tons and the passage of secession ordinances and
finding the intervening time to be long he SAYS,
surely here was time enough for calm deliheraton,
| and hence there must have been calm deliberations
and 1T is shameful SANDER to say that secession
was in any way the result Of haste excitement or
passion precisely it is syllogstically untrue that
the existence of the proposed extension of slavery
had anything to do with bringing about the war;
The sophistry of Mr. Davis's utterance is less mis-
leading, however, than the sophistry of his silence
tie has way of telling much of any matter as
squares with his purposes, while emitting to tell the
rest practice which has the effect of what logi-
clans call suppressio peri. Thus his account of the
rupture of the Democratic party in the Charleston
Convention must leave upon the mind of every I'M
Informed reader the impression that the quarrel
arose naturally over questions of principle, and re-
lated chiefly to certain distractions concern
ing squatter sovereignty and other questions
respecting the Territories In q sense, of course, this
Is true hut it omts to consider what is generally
believed to be the fact. that beneath and behind
these things there deliberate purpose Oh the
part of the extreme Southern in the convention
to provoke rupture in order that Mr.. Lincoln
might be elected and secession brought about. That
such purpose existed there can be little doubt in
the mind OF any man who familiar with ex
IRENE Southern sentiment at that time. The fact
was avowed in private conversations both before
and after the meeting of the con vention. 1t was
| recognized and freely discussed alike by friends
and foes of disuniOn. 1t was understood that the
advocates of disunon had deliberately determined
to force their less radical fellow Southerners join
them in breaking up the Union. Mr.. Daviss ac-
count, however pages 40 and SOY, suggests nothing
of this while in his story of his efforts secure the
| union of the Breckenridge. Bell and Douglas par
ties upon single candidate acceptable alike to all
IF ha llx, oila A..
matter.
There is no event in history, probably, which oc-
cupes so large place in Mr. Daviss thoughts as the
civil war; and yet he seems incapable of adequately
recognizing the fact that the war was fought out to
its end, or of approaching the significance of that
fact. That he should have failed to recognize the
TACT OF tho failure at the time of JOhnstOn's sur
| render, and should still think that that officer
should have kept the field after all hope of success
had vanished, is not strange, perhaps, in
view of certain traits of Mr. Daviss char
actcr but it is strange that he seems
incapable of understanding what the result of
the war was. or of approaching the peculiar diff
culties which presented themselves in connection
with reconstruction. He discusses tho history of re-
| construction at considerable length, but always
from the point of view of a doctrnaire on the side
of State Rights utterly overlooking the fact that
reconstruction was necessarily undertaken from
precisely opposite point of view. He assumes from
| first to last, that the general Government was
bound to recognize the sovereignty of the States
lately in rebellion and to deal with the problems of
reconstruction precisely if there had been no war
and that too, with most scrupulOus fidelity to the
| Constitution construed by Calhoun and his
| school, He makes allowance for the ne
cessity which existed to provide safeguards
against future trouble for the difficulty of deter
mining what constituted the legal governments of
those States what their status was, and upon what
terms 1t was safe to rcadmt the seeding States to
their former places the Union There is no recog-
milton on his part of the exceptional ma
lure OF tho situation, no conception appa-
renty, of the peculiar difficulties Of the problem
which the country was set to solve. He can see no
reason for doubling that when the Southern peope
| laid down they arms, the Southern States rs then
constituted entitled to take their places again
| In the Union. Everything should have been deter
mined, he seems to think upon the incest principles
OF constitutional relations. The war should have
| counted for nothing, and it's end should have in
volved nothing except return to the old order
of things. This, we think, is a fair Interpretation
of the ultimate meaning of Mr.. Daviss discussion of
reconstruction 1t full of bubbles about the diff
ference between guaranteeing republican form of
government already created by the people of State
and the creation of such government where it does
not exist and other such matters. II is such dis
cusson of reconstruction possible enough to
any ardent Southerner during tho actual process of
reconstruction; but doubt if it could be possible
| to-day to any other Southern man than Mr. Davis
Other men in that quarter of the country have kept
their eyes open to accomplished facts and are en-
deavoring to work out the problems of the future by
| the conditions of the present Mr. Davis sits quar-
reing with the accepted solution of q problem of
the past, which is an absurd and profitess thing to