The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-12

Toonbs. slidell and Wigfall, men of ex-
ceptional courage and energy of intellect.
Yancey's eIoquence swept Alabama and
Mississippi; Toombs was too powerful for
Stephens in Georgia, but the conspirators
wanted North Carolina and Virginia.
These real conspirators understood ex-
actly what they were about. and when
Alexander II. Stephens, with merciless
logic, exposed the weakness of the
argument for secession and disunion
they saw that further discussion
and debate would be fatal to their design;
that their only hope was to smother all
discussion, to cut off all debate, by firing
on Sumter and forcing Lincoln's hand.
They knew that Lincoln was patient, but
they also knew that if the flag was fired
on he would appeal to arms, and that this
appeal would make Virginia and North
Carolina cast their lot with secession. SO
they shot at Sumter. Lincoln answered
with his proclamation. Lee, Joe john
ston and Virginia left the union.
From the standpoint of men resolved on
rebellion and anxious to make the South
Sumter was masterstroke of statesman
ship; of skill, vigor and courage on the
part of the conspirators who created the
Confederacy. The shot was fired. Virginia
seeded; both sides rushed to arms; the
conspirators had fired the Southern
had destroyed the only bridges be-
tween North and South that preserved
the connection between lovers of peace and
union on both sides. The military brains
of the Confederate armies, Lee, Joe Johns
ton, Hill, Bragg, Longstreet, Heth, Early.
were none of them secessionists, but frank
opposers of secession, none of them joining
the Confederacy until after the secession of
their states. Longstreet, Georgian, did
not resign until June ., 1861, which shows
how hard it was for him to follow his
state. Joe Johnston remained in the war
department under Cameron, Lincoln's Sec
rotary of war, until his state, Virginia,
seeded.
War begun. there was only one natural
course for the mass of men North and
South to take, and that was for neighbors
to stand shoulder to shoulder in both Sec
tons and fight it out to the bitter end.
The secession conspiracy was frightful
political crime. The war it forced was a
bloody blunder, but there is nothing more
mysterious in the South's universal up
rising after Sumter than that of the North.
II huy
who had steadily fought against disunion
and secession in Virginia followed Virginia
out of the Union just as men very eminent
on the Union side never took that side
until the wave of sectional feeling swept
them off their feet after the firing on
Sumter. Thousands of Democrats were
converted into radical supporters of Lin
coins cause by the same shot that sent
Lee, Johnston and Longstreet over to the
Confederacy. 1t was the impulse of the
North to fight for the flag; it was the i'm
pulse of the South to fight for soil that
was to be invaded. The bulk of
the Douglas Democracy took off
their hats and cheered the flag
which Lincoln waved from the capitol
as he cried rescue" Thousands of Demo-
Gratis marched the weary march, faced the
deadly hail of battle, and the bones of
thousands of them fairly corduroyed our
great military roads through rebellion,
just as thousands of Southern Unionists
rallied around the Confederate flag after
Sumter.
On the eve of the firing on Sumter Hor-
ace Greeley urged the North 'to forget the
negro and remember only the Union"
Every leader of the Republican party,
from Lincoln down, was willing to give
the South blank bit of paper and accept
any terms she might dictate. The
Corwin compromise was more abb
ject than that of 1850. Greeley,
Adams, Corwin, Seward, Stanton and
Chase were all willing to let the South go
or stay on its own terms. The slave.
holders did not want war; the poor whites
did not want war; the negro had neither
the courage, the capacity or the ambition
to feel any interest in peace or war, and
spiracy of 1000 angered, disappointed
politicians who had been left out in the
cold by the election of Lincoln was able
to lead 100000 of people into war, not by
logic. but by sentimental stroke at
Sumter, which provoked shot in reply
that fired both the Southern and Northern
heart.
The story of Sumter illustrates how the
recklessness and violence of few unprin-
cipled politicians like Yancey, Toomos,
Slidell, Davis and his clan can precipitate
a great war between two great peoples
when the vast mass of neither section
wanted to STAY each other. In all proba-
bility had Buchanan reinforced Sumter
amply when he might the rebellion would
have died i'll childbirth under Lincoln.
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