The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-05-27
GENERAL L0GAN'S BOOK.
'sThe Great Conspiracy-Its Origin and
History'-Secession the Result
Of a Deliberate Plot.
The Solid south, Defeated at tho Polls and
In Arms, Finally Secures Control
of the Country by Subverting
Republican Forms of
Government.
From tho Chicago Tribune !

History, by General John A. Logan "a.
r. Hart & Coz, is the work of a man
who is thoroughly in earnest. Others have
forgotten that rebellion was crime; he has
not. Others have drugged their memories
that they might not remember the delib-
crate conspiracy that caused the Civil War
the sacrifices of that great struggle, the I'M
speakable infamies and cruelties of treason
in arms, and OF more cowardly Copper
heads at the rear; the pretended submission
of rebel leaders at the South; the campaign
of assassination by which the Constitution
and the laws have been suppressed IN
Southern States, and the people therein de-
prived of republican form of government;
General Logan has not.
Gen. Logan has been too much in ear
nest to polish his sentences. There Is no
pretense of literary finish, no effort at fine
writing, in this grim, soldierly recital of
fact; and yet there is at times real elo-
quence of expression, and throughout a
remarkable wealth of information mar
shaded with the power of one who feels
that others must share his own intense
convictions if he can but get the same facts
before them.
Gen. Logan begins by history of the
origin of slavery in this country. With
Characteristic frankness he states his belief
that the fathers of the Republic We're blame
worthy for conserving TO what have been
called the compromises of the Constitu-
ton.
Briefly reviewing the adoption of the
Ordinance of 1887, and the Louisiana pur-
chase by Jefferson, he points out the fact
that Mr.. jefferson could not have been I'M
aware that the acquisition of territory thus
effected insured the extension of slavery.
The annexation of Texas, the war with
Mexico, and the defeat of Mr.. Clay are
briefly reviewed; and it is shown that the
compromise of 1850 was quickly followed
by attempts to organize the Territory of
Nebraska in violation of the Missouri COM
promise. There follows very full account
of the great debate between Mr.. Douglas
and Mr.. Lincoln, in which. notwithstanding
the authors strong friendship for Mr.. Doug
las, it would seem that the argument of Mr..
Lincoln convinced his judgment Thus he
says;
But Douglas partial victory-if such it
was-so far from settling the public mind
and public conscience. had the contrary eff
feet It added to the ferment which the
pro slavery oligarchists of the Southland
especially those of South Carolina-were
intent upon increasing, until SO grave and
serious crisis should arrive as would, in
their opinion, furnish iustifiable pretext in
the eyes of the world for the contemplated
secession of the slave States from the
Union"
Gen. Logan's work is in no part stronger
than in the overwhelming array of proof
that secession was the result of deliberate
and long meditated conspiracy, having for
its ultimate end the establishment of
separate aristocratic government, in which
the detested idea of equal rights should
have no place, and of which free trade
should be the cornerstone. Even to those
who were active in public affairs In those
DAYS the recital will come like revelation,
so strongly does the author group facts
which all remember, but only as isolated
events-facts which many have forgotten.
and other facts which are now for the first
time made public. Mr.. Buchanan is not
regarded as conscious tool of the con-
spimcy of him it is said
But weak and feeble old man-still
suffering from the effects of the mysterious
National Hotel poisoning-was now in the
Executive chair at the White House. Well
meaning, doubtless, and Union man at
heart, his enfeebled intellect was unable 10
see, and hold firm to, the only true course.
He lacked cleamess of perception, decision
of character, and nerve. He knew seces-
sion was wrong, but allowed himself to be
persuaded that he had no constitutional
power to prevent 1t.
The persistent rejection of every compro-
mise by the Southern leaders is effectively
described; and, after showing the nature of
the Crittenden andpeace Congress compro-
misses. each complete surrender of all
vital points, the writer says:
"To spurn such propositions as these
with all the concessions to the slave power
therein contained-was equivalent to spurn-
ing any and all propositions that could
possibly be made; and 10y doing this the
seeding States placed themselves-as they
perhaps desired-in an utterly irreconcil-
able attitude, and hence to certain extent,
which had not entered into their calcula-
tons weakened their cause In the eyes OF
many of their friends in the North, in the
border States, and in the world. They had
become implacables. Practically consider
ed. this was their great mistake"
The latter part of Gen. Logan's book,
only two chapters of twenty three pages in
all, is devoted to the history of the country
since the war and TO the present situation.
The thirty seventh chapter begins thus
(page 65D:
And now, the war having ended In the
defeat, conquest, and capture of those who.
inspired by the false teachings OF the
Southern leaders, had arrayed themselves
in arms beneath the standard OF the rebel
lion, and fought for sectional independence
against National Union, for slavery against
freedom, and for free trade against tariff
protective alike to manufacturer, mechanic,
and laborer, il might naturally be supposed
that with the collapse of this rebellion all
the issues which made up the cause the
Lost Cause as those leaders would term
it-would be lost with it and disappear
from political sight, and we would never
again hear of section of the nation,
and last of all the Southern sec
ton, organized, banded together, sol
idifed, in the line of its own sec
tional ideas, as against the national
ideas prevailing elsewhere through the
Union; that free trade, conscious OF the
ruin and desolation which it had wrought,
and of the awful sacrifices of blood and
treasure which had been made in its behalf
by the conquered South, would stink from
sight and hide it's famine breeding front
forever; and that slavery, in all its various
DISCUSSES, was banished, never more to pro-
trude its hateful form upon our liberty
loving land That was indeed the supposi-
ton and belief which everywhere pervaded
the nation when rebellion was conquered by
the legions of the Union-and which es-
pecially pervaded the South
But the old leaders soon began to recover
their power, and were unfortunately toe