Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-01-22
The Question Of Fact Between
Gen. Sherman and jefferson
Davis.

AHSIc lS uO reason why our DetDO-
cratic friends in the Senate should
have opposed the resolution calling for
documents in the archives of the War
Department that may throw light up
OH the issue raised by the epistolary
controversy between Gen.. Sherman
and Jefferson Davis. No matter what
may have been Gen. Hawley's motive
in demanding them, the production of
all relevant papers can harm nobody.
If the purpose was to rake the dead
embers of sectional animosity and tear
open wounds that times healing touch
had closed, it is sure to fail. 1t was
wise, therefore, to let the Senator from
Connecticut have the information
which, in his role as historical stu
dent, he processes to desire, SO ardent
ly, for the question mooted with re-
gard to the relations of the defunct
Southern Confederacy to its constituent
members is one, undoubtedly, of much
historical interest.
The question whether Mr.. Davis was
a leading spirit in an elaborate con-
spiracy started long before the actual
outbreak of the secession movement,
was not raised in the original charge
made by Gen. Sherman, and was inap-
propriately dragged into the Senatorial
dabete by Gen. Hawley. The Senate
chamber is no place for the bandying
of vitupsrative epithets like 'conspira-
cy" and treason" about events which
long ago passed into history, and
which, as fair-minded men everywhere
now acknowledge, were but the logical
outcome of rival theories of constitu-
tional interpretation, both plausible,
both commended by famous names,
and both dating from the very birth of
the Union. For the germ of the South
ern Confederacy we must 60 back to
the Kentucky resolutions of 1798; and
thenceforward the disruptive tenden-
cies, though dormant at intervals, on
the whole went on gaining cohesion,
energy, and definite Director.
It is obvious that if the plans of those
who organized secession had not mis-
they would not now be de-
scrlbed as conspirators, any more than
treason, when it prospers, keeps the
name of treason. 1t is small business,
therefore, for Senators to wrangle over
words which borrow their whole sig
nificance from the fortultous results of
war, and which merely affirm in an
offensive way the notorious failure of
the attempt to break up the Union.
We should add. in simple justice to
Jefferson Davis, that, from all the evil
dence thus far before the world, he
seems to have been reluctant rather
than eager to precipitate the rupture,
and to have held aloof for some time
from the active measures taken to give
effect to Southern discomfort by organ
izing separate Government.
As to the famous discovery which |
Gen. Sherman believes himself to have
made in a private letter, this may be
coarsely designated as mares nest. |
He alleges that in the dying throes of
the rebellion, President Davis threat |
ened to coerce one of tae Confederate
States (said to have been recalcitrant)
into forwarding the help imperatively
needed to save Richmond, which, as |
the event proved, had come to be the
sole bulwark of the Confederate cause.
But suppose this to be true OF Jeffer-
son Davis, will any Southern, or, in
deed, any Northern man, think worse
of him for that? Amid the narrowing
and paramount demands of
war, Mr.. Lincoln himself did some