Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-12-15

stultify his record by whatever term suits
the feelings of his censors-vanity, stub
bornness, bourbonism, if you will-the
unflswed integrity of his public and
private life elevates his action into
virtue and places its possessor on that
moral plane whose serene atmosphere is
breathed by those only who inspire
hero-worship. The courage born of con-
viction has ever commanded the respect
of mankind. It was of the essential es-
sence of the old Roman character, the
sustaining principle of the martyrs OF
every faith, of every age, Of
every nation 1t guided the Pill
grim Fathers to the shores of Mary
land and Massachusetts, and it is
today the basis OF whatever is best and
noblest in the church or in the state.
Men revere this high principle even
where the cause in which it is invoked
meets with their reputation.
The question of States Rights, as far as
seeding from the Union is concerned,
having been settled definitely by the
sword, and by the enactment subse-
quently of national legislation, which has
been cheerfully acquiescsd in by the
people who advocated this phase of ante
bellum politics, we can afford to say
word en- pGssant touching Mr..
Davis action in the premises. He has
been denounced as traitor" whereas
his part in the drama of secession was
simply obedience to the voice of public
sentiment of his own State and of all the
States of the South. No intelligent
American need be told that up to 1861
this doctrine of the right Of State to
secede from the Union, however impo-
litic, had universal tacit existence and
recognition in and by the American
mind. The doctrine of secession is by
no means of southern origin
and growth. 1t found expression
long before the civil war wss
dreamed Of in regions far north of the
Potomac. Even the highly conservative
States of Massachusetts and Connecticut,
in the earlier days of the republic, gave
forth no uncertain sound touching the
exercise OF this right, if certain condi-
tions of state rendered its exercise expe-
dent. Nor was there any express inhi-
bition of this right by the supreme law
Of the Union, the Constitution Of
the United States, nor in the CONF
stitution of any of the individual
States. Up to 1851 no public man or
paper ever claimed the right of one
State, or of any group of States, to invade,
in case of secession, the territory of an
other State and compel her by force of
arms to return to the Union which she
might have left. The threat of General
Jackson anent the notification laws of
South Carolina is not in point; for nulli
fication is, radically, different from
secession. In point of fact the
right of q State to secede from the
Union, however suicidal and disastrous
we may now esteem it, was latent Amer
ican idea-a sort of right held in reserve
to be resorted to whenever, in the
progress of events, the contingency
should arise when the people of any one
State deemed it's exercise expedient and
necessary. Jefferson Davis was called
upon, first by the State of Mississippi
and afterwards by the Confederacy, to
lead the people in the enforcement
of this right. Did he thereby be-
come a traitor? Certainly not. If
not traitor in 1861, how can any intelli-
gent man, holding the good opinion of
the American people in view, denounce
him as traitor now? Is Mr.. Davis to
be denounced for patriotically obeying
the voice of the people of the South in
their endeavor to give practical assertion
to this American idea of secession
Such denunciation ia in wretched taste
it is mere after-thought OF the days
of the so-called Rebellion" and has
nothing to sustain it either in law or
morals. There was an easy and profita-
BILE way open to Jefferson Davis in which
to conciliate even bis bitterest enemies,
and change their censure into praise.
He had but to walk in the footsteps of
certain "Rebel Brigadiers," who are now
good Republicans-"rebels" who carried
fire and sword into the lines of the Union
armies, but whose sins Though red, like
scarlet, are become white as snow" in
passing through the alembic of CONVEX
sion to the Republican faith
Everybody knows that had JEFF
ferson Davis joined the Republican
church he would have been canonized
as most patriotic saint. But having
preserved his self-respect, and conserved
the virtue of consistency, be was made
while living to feel the shaft of passionate
calumny, and now, when dead, to have
his name "most rankly abused"
But Jefferson Davis fame cannot be
sullied by the fierce vindictiveness of his
enemies.
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps WE'LL"
Those who knew him best and nearest
not only reverence his many virtues, but
love the kindly and gentle traits that
made him model husband, father and
neighbor. The splendid qualities which
in the days of his prime brought him the
honor and admiration of the people, when
not only as popular leader, but as "sol-
dier, courtier, scholar" he was in the
front rank of the public men OF the South,
and of the Union-these qualities he
retained almost unimpaired to his dying
day, with . physical and mental grasp
and vigor almost phenomenal. No won
der the whole southern people mourn
the death of this noble son OF the South,
who, whatever else men may say of him,
was as honorable, brave, consistent and
true in his public as he was pure and
upright in his private life.
J. G. MAccABE.
No. ~.
EDITORS HERALD-There are two mis-
statements made in the obituaries pub