Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1886-05-15
EXPLODED PALACES.

Davis has been preaching in the
South within the past few weeks are
the same that were brought to an
issue in 1861. The theories of gov.
eminent and the constitution which
he now maintains are the same
which went down in the shock oil
battle when the attempt was made
to put them into practical operation,
They are theories which were hon.
estly held By many Of the leading
public men of the South. and some
Of the North, but all Democrats, un-
til arbitrament of the sword deter
mined that they were not-a part Of
our institutions or government econ
omy. They are theories which had
their birth in the fertile brain of Mr..
Jefferson, fresh from the revolution.
airy scenes of France and the lnspir-
alton of Red Republicans, who held
to misty notion that a pure De.
mocracy was the only system of gov
eminent consistent with the dignity
and natural rights of man. These
theories had their origin in dreamy
speculations and not in the practi.
cal tests of government machinery.
They were the product OF refining
intellections, which found ready
disciples in the cultured classes of a
slave holding community where leis-
ure and idleness were the natural
outgrowth of the labor institution.
No government necessity inspired
them. No practical deficiency in
the experience of the people, affec-
ting their rights or interests, de-
manded them. No well grounded
apprehension of perversion Of the
original design of the Republican
theory, called for them. They were
conceived and brought forth in the
speculative fancy Of minds nurtured
and matured under the influences of
an industrial system which divorced
the cultured and favored few from
the harsh attrition of the practical
things of life, and set them apart to
indulge their speculations in abstrac-
tions and refining notions of a gov
eminent which would administer it.
self without the intervention and
controlling agency of a central pow
er. In such utopian atmosphere
State sovereignty and free trade
had their birth. 70 the ear and the
imagination there was something
very winning and attractive in them.
They were accepted as fundamental
truths in government and religious
~ maintained as the only true theory
upon which the Republic could ex-
list.
But like all ajr-castles, when
forced to encounter the practical, to
answer to the demands of the ne
cessities of a pressing condition,
they collapsed, and left nothing but
the regrets which fostered decisions,
when disslpated, always leave as an
inheritance. When the heresv of
secession, the elimination of the
theory of State Sovereignty, was
brought in Issue with the preserva-
ton of the Union-with the predi-
cate that the government instituted
by the constitution was to be per-
petual-its hollow pretense, it's ideal
nature, its unreal, impractical char
acter could not stand before the
stern bulwark of the central power
which had it's source in the funda-
mental condition that the govern
ment was supreme and its authority
must go unchallenged. The great
mass of the people of the South, and
even the leaders in public thought,
have honestly surrendered their be-
lief in the doctrine of secession as
remedy for any ills that may affect
the State. They recognize that it
was brought to bloody trial and
proved a delusion and snare. The
constitutions of the several States
which attempted 10 put in practice
the theory contain a formal acknow-
ledgment of its fallacy. 1t is left
for Mr.. Davis to resurrect the ex.
ploded notion and flame it before
the country as a living reality, when
all the people recognize that it was
buried for all time to come twenty
years ago.
The spasmodic enthusiasm and
wild craze with which Mr.. Davis
was greeted IN his appearance at
Montgomery, and the ovation which
attended his journey to Atlanta, to
Macon and Savannah, ought not to
be accepted as serious approval of
the ideas he has presented in sever
al of his addresses. Rather should
it be taken as an expression OF SYM
pathy for the mental suffering and
the modification he has endured in
the failure of his ambition for the
establishment of Southern Confed-
federacy, in which the people of
the South were as earnest as