The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-06-23
THE OLD s0uTH,S TREASON.

discount the results of the war and to make
participation in the Rebellion a species of
glory. The South, like the North, recognizes
the fact that one side in that great struggle
was right and one was as clearly wrong.
There can be no halfway ground in it. One
was right, and the other was wrong. The
friends and champions of the Union soldier
have insisted that he was in the right. They
have maintained that the result Of the strug-
gle, in which so many were slain, established
the principles of nationality beyond the pos
sibility of being questioned. They have in
sisted that the cause for which the Union
soldier fought was just and righteous one
aud the only one fit to survive the
issue of battle. They have felt that the
things brought out of the war for the Union
were worth preserving, and that there should
be patriotic acquiescence in the result of
the fight, in that it gave to the people un
divided and indivisible country, freed from
the blight of human slavery. The Union sol.
der could make no less claim than this with
out impeaching his own patriotism and the
justice of his cause. The North Invaded"
the South for the purpose of bringing it back
into the Union, not for conquest or aggran-
dizement or spois. The North took up the
people of the United States from the expense
and the uncertainty of divided country.
The North went into the war for the govern
ment, believing it was in the right and that
the South was in the wrong In strict accord
ance with the belief that this was one coun-
try, and not a confederation of States at the
mercy of every clique Of schemers
that might be able to form secret
and reasonable cabal, the North has had the
satisfaction of seeing all the States back in
their proper places and in the full enjoyment
of their every right, the one with all the 9TH
ers. To-day there is no distinction between
the acknowledged rights of the States lately
in rebellion and those that sacrificed so much
that the country might be perpetuated as
mighty and glorious nation. This Nation to-
day is what the North has ever insisted it
was, magnificent unit, welded by the grand
est community of interests that ever bound
people together. This is what the North
fought for, and this is what the North hoped
the South would some day come to admit
without the shadow of question. The chill
dren born in the last year of the war have
since grown to manhood, and are to-day voters.
1t is time that some settlement Of the ques-
lions over which the people of the North and
South fought should be had.
1t is discouraging, then, to realize that the
South is not satisfied with the outcome of the
struggle, and is still of the belief that it
would have been better had the South sue
ceeded in its purpose of disrupting the Union.
Tens Of thousands of good loyal men have
comforted themselves with the thought that
the war had forever settled the fact that we
have one undivided and indivisible country.
Tens of thousands of the men who fought for
the perpetuation of the Union were glad and
felt compensated in the belief that this ques-
ton had been adjudicated beyond the posi-
bility of appeal. The feelings with which
they now read in the leading paper Of the
South that this belief is pleasing bit Of folly
can hardly be described. The Charleston
News and Courier, the representative paper of
the South, emboldened by the fact that the
Democratic party is again in power, and draw
ing the not unnatural inference that this may
be accepted as an Endorsement Of that pecu-
liarly Democratic doctrine of State sover-
eighty, does not hesitate to declare that the
South was right and the North wrong. 1t
speaks in exact accordance with the sentiment
that has ever been expressed by the people of
the South on every occasion when this ques-
ton has come to a square issue. The North
was an invader, with no shadow of excuse.
The News and Courier says:
"THE SOUTHERN STATES WERE FAITHFUL
TO THE CONSTITUTION FROM THE BEGIN
MING. . THE NORTHERN STATES DERIDED IT,
Knocked IT AND NULLIFIED IT."
This is square recognition of the fact that
it was impossible that both parties to the
great struggle could be in the right One
was in the wrong and that one was not the
South. Not being in the wrong, the South
has no disposition to acknowledge allegiance
to the Union beyond what it is obliged to
give. They are in the Union, but have no
national pride in the fact and no disposition
to become part of it. Says the News and
Courier:
1.-THE UNION OF STATES CONTINUES, TT is
TRUE; BUT IT CONTINUES AS THE CREATURE
OF FORCE, NOT CONSENT; OF CONQUEST, NOT
EQUALITY"