The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-03-12

came out Of i, all poor, having lost every.
thing in . fight they never helped to force.
Ali the really responsible original con-
spirators that forced all the needless woe
and waste of war upon the nation are dead;
all the distinguished Confederate generals
are dead save Longstreet and Early. Lee
and Longstreet are not any more incom.
prehensible than Daniel 8. Dickinson,
Ben Butler, Edwin NJ. Stanton, Caleb
Cushing. John A. Dix, John A. Logan.
John A. McClernand and Isaac l. Stevens.
who after long years of persistent devotion
to the South and the pro-slavery cause
were converted into radical supposters OF
Lincoln's policy BY the same shot that
sent Southern Union men over to tho
Confederacy. The further We recede from
the civil war the easier it il to understand
how infamous was the conduct Of the
original conspirators, and yet how natural
and excusable was the feeling that made
Union men fight with their states There
was no searching logic in the decision OF
the masses on either side. It was the Inn
pulse of the North to fight for the dag that
had been shot At; it was the impulse Of
the South to fight for soil that was to b
Invaded" Constitutions have never
counted for much against that narrow but
natural impulse Of human nature to 60
with ito town, its state, it, section, it,
country, right or wrong.
Tho story of Sumter IL worth retelling
to illustrate how the reckless selfishnsss
and violence Of few unprincipled poll
ticians, like Yancey, Toombs, slidell 4
Co., can precipitate . great war between
two great peoples whom the vast mass Of
neither section wanted to slay each other.
In all probability. II Buchanan had REIN
forced S1mter amply when he might in
December. 1880, the rebellion would have
"died a-borning'' underLincoln. Truly did
Gen. Sherman say once: Politicians make
causeless wars when soldiers would make
peace. and soldiers have to spend their
best blood fighting their way back to the
peace that politicians needlessly break"
The engineers Of the great conspiracy
never lost . drop of blood in battle, but
the men who led and filed up their armies
and had no part in forcing the war lost
their all by the time the battle was over.
The Rev. Dr.. Lindsay. Of st. Pauls
church, Boston, IN ex-Confederate soldier,
in an address delivered some two years
ago. before G. A. r. post. said in ex-
PLANTATION Of the Southern rush to arms:
can speak from personal knowledge only OF
Virginia, my own state. Her sons did not 60 to
war to fight for slavery or destrov the Union,
for the majority OF them owned no slaves, and
most of them loved tho Union. But Virgins
was their country. Here was their home, some
humble cottage, the blue smoke Of whose chin.
ney they watched a. they followed the chase in
the forest or guided the pillow in the field; or
some ancestral mansion standing proudly amid
broad acres In which their fathers had lived for
generations. The laws and onicers of the gen.
ersi government were little known to her
people. Now local self-government seems
threatened, their state 10 in danger Of invasion,
she calls her sons to her defense Waiting not
to decide disputed questions Of constitutional
law, those sons answer tho mothers call and
offer their lives for that state, 20 dear to them
by all the associations of the past and the
present