Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-12-07
Jefferson Davis-The Sacrifice for
the South.
[By JOHN SHIRLEY wARD.l

the south.
[BY JOHN SHIRLEY WARD.
The long and eventful life of Jefferson
Davis has been rounded with sleep.
The time has not yet come for true
history of the man or his deeds. The
next generation will raise up its
Plutarch, who, unbiased by sectional or
party hate, will give his true history.
What that history will be, we will not
attempt to outline. Times change, and
we change with them. For decade
after the war of the revolution Englieh
historians and the English press held up
George Washington as the incarnation of
treason. Since that time English bards
have apotheosized his name, English
statesmen have hald him up as the ex-
emplar of uneullied patriotism, and the
descendants of those against whom he
fought would now gladly enthrone him
amid the mighty dead of Westminster
Abbey.
Had Abraham Lincoln lived in the
South, in all human probability he
would have been the leader in the seces-
sion movement. 1t was his good fortune
VI nave 0SpOub0o blht oloO VI u AOoe AAe
tional question which could throw
almost 5000, 900 men and a large navy
in the balance. 1t was the bad fortune
Of Jefferson Davis to have espoused the
cause of people weak in numbers and
without navy. As Mr.. Lincoln, great
as he was, was not entitled to all the
glory of saving the Union, MIR.
Davis should not bear all the
odium of having tried to destroy it.
question which profoundly stirred the
minds of the trainers of the original
Constitutions question which evoked
the grand intellectual combat between
Webster and Calhoun-was certainly q
question on which honest men might
differ, without all the patriotism being
on one side or all the treason being on
the other.
The nation has long since forgiven
Alexander II. Stephens, General Lee
and Stonewall jackson. Jefferson Davis
was not whit more guilty than they.
Lee and Jackson executed in the field
the plans devised by Davis and Stephens
in the Cabinet. Every intelligent man
who fought on the side of the South was
as guilty of treason as was Mr.. Davis.
When the war closed and the banner
which had been incarnadined with the
best blood of the South was furled, the
people of that section were willing for
Mr.. Davis to retire from the public gaze.
Like all unsuccessful leaders, he was, to
some extent, under the ban of public
sentiment. If left alone, he would soon
have dropped out of the worlds thought.
But he was arrested and imprisoned for
two long, weary years. The Sins of the
South must be expiated by some vicsri-
ous sufferer. Mr.. Davis was the
victim. Figuratively impaled on the
cross, he was lifted up for
two sad years-the scorn of the victor,
the uncrowned hero Of the vanquished.
The South, standing amid the ashes of
her desolation, lifted her streaming eyes
to him who had become the vicarious
sacrifice for her sins. Those who had
before criticised Mr.. Davis, now became
his ardent admirers, and the Govern
ment, by this policy or impolicy, made
him the idol of the southern heart.
Every man living on the Pacific Coast
owes something to Jefferson Davis.
When our little army on the field of
Buena Vista was about to be over
whelmed with q superior force, when the
Mexican lancers we're driving back on
their lines, it was Jefferson Davis, with
his Mississippi regiment who shattered
the Mexican legions and snatched VIC
tory from almost certain defeat. Wounded
as he was, he sat on his horse during the
fight, while his blood, which was part
of the price paid for California, trickled
down from his stirrups.
That Mr.. Davis had faults, no one will
deny, but grievously has he suffered for
them.
At the close of the war the United
States came very near attaining the high
est position in the family of nations by
extending to Mr.. Davis the same mag
unanimous terms accorded by General
Grant to General Lee. This she failed
to do.
General Grant, or the now lamented
Davis in the general amnesty, just as were
included Lee and others, had not the
political hate of bomb-proof non. combat
ants arrayed itself against it. The
armies Of the North, when 100000
answered to the roll-call, never inflicted
on the South a blow go terrible az the
fatal bullet which took away the life of
Abraham Lincoln. While Mr.. Lincoln
was striking exempli6cation of the in
tellectual force of the nation, he was
one of those who believed that love and
forgiveness more subdued brave though
fallen foe than words of hate and meth
ods of torture.
The men who followed the fortunes of
MIR. Davis for four years, while now loyal
to the very core TO the United States
Government, will drop a tear to his
memory as a representative of the
highest culture, the broadcast patriotism
and the noblest manhood of the South.
John Dorsey, of Santa Anita ranch,
was afflicted with deafness; watch
only heard on pressure to the ear; COM
pletely cured by DIR. S. M. Slocum, the
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