Birmingham age-herald., 1895-09-21

demands of reason, caused an ocean of tears to be shed, drenched the land fin blood and sacrificed the lives of a million of men and untold millions of treasure. Contentious as to strict or latitudinous construction of the constitution, as to partial legislation unjust taxation and unequal commercial advantages, while producing temporary irritation and ex- citement, would never of themselves have influenced any of the states of the south to have attempted secession. from the union
 Slavery.
 Every well-informed person knows that the agitation of the slavery question was the immediate and provoking cause of secession.
 The presence in our midst of the Afri- can race, for which they are i'll no wise responsible. has ever been the Pandora 5 box Of our American politics.
 Slavery, it must be conceded, is con trary to natural right, but it was lawful state institution, and was so recognized by the constitution of the United States.
 Being a sate institution it was the right of state in which it existed to con tinue or abolish it. The responsibility, moral and otherwise, for its continuance belonged alone to the people of the state wherein 1t existed
 The institution had come down to the southern people through several genera  slaves. Its nature and character were not generally understood by the people of the north, in whose states it once ex- isted, but had been abolished for many years.
 They professed to believe that men owned the flesh, blood and souls of their slaves, treated and disposed of them with no more regard for their well being than if they were lifeless chattels. The owner of a slave only had a right to control and dispose of>his labor and inf1ict upon him such punishment as was allowable at the common law.
 Of course it was contrary to the black mans natural right to freedom, but was the road by which he reached civiliza- ton.
 Interest and humanity united in mak- ing the master careful of the health and life of his slave.
 It was abuse, threats and impending assaults upon the right of the state to regulate it's own local and domestic al- fairs voiced by leading men of the Pur1" tancal type, who abused and traduced justices of the supreme court for deciding that slavery was lawful, and who de- nounced the institution of slavery and polygamy as twin relics of barbarism, as the sum total of all villainy as league with death and conVenant with he'll until their doctrines melted band of fanatics to believe that they were ln-
  revolution in southern homes and to in- wade a southern state for the purpose Of melting the slaves to insurrecuon, arson and indiscriminate murder of white peo- pie; and when the chief of these male factors was executed church bells were tolled in some Of the northern cltleS to canonize him as martyr.
 These were the irritating causes which aroused the feelings of indignation anu prepared the minds of the southern peo- pie for secession from the union. Then when a great and growing polltl- cal party, confined alone to the northern states, whose slogan was hostility to the institution of slavery, and whose orators were full of incorporate denunclatlon or the southern people succeeded in electlng their president, who had proclaimed the irrepressible conf1ict-that this country must all be slave or free lab Dor, the appre- hensions of the southern people were awakened to a common danger--not about slavery alone, but that their an- cent and well defined right to govern their own internal affairs in their own way would be denied and destroyed not directly, but by attrtion, under the guise of law and constitutional administration.
 Secession.
 Conventions were called and assembled in the different states of the south. each to decide for itself what should be done.
 Eleven of these conventions holding that the union was a voluntary one, ana that it was no longer safeguard ana protection. but a menace to their rights resolved to withdraw from it and form another union in which it was believed there would be peace, harmony and se- curity of rights resulting from homeeen- city of interests.
 They did not stop to consider collateral questions, nor what might logically fol- low their action in case of success.
 They reasoned sylogistically thus: v If the union was a. voluntary one, en- tered into by the states for their mutual benefit and protection, then when in the opinion of a state such security was no longer guaranteed, but jeopardized, or denied, it had the right lo withdraw from such a union and if a state had the right to withdraw or secede, it followed as logical sequence that the union had no right to coerce such q state to remain within it or to return after having with drawn from it.
 But the union denied that it was voluntary one and asserted paramount and perpetual nationality, and under the constitution 1t claimed the right to coerce the states to remain with 1t. However illogical, this was the doctrine of the un- ionlst.
 Thus was presented a great issue which unfortunately our constitution provided for no umpire to peaceably adjudicate and hence the question was necessarily submitted to the arbltrament or arms the court of last resort among nations.
 It was not the hatred we bore toward our northern brethren. It was not their successful rivalry of us in trade and commerce.
 It was not ambitious lust for power, nor a spirit of unrighteous dictation which led the serrid ranks of the south to battle.
 It was not for slavery as such, for the majority of our men never owned a slave. A large majority of our soldiers were poor la aboring men. They were hor- rified a the idea of 100000 emancipated slaves being turned loose in their midst, raised to the equality of citizenship, in vested with the elective franchise and brought into competition with them as free la borers; the pride of race superb ority and the invasion of their right of local state government offended alike the dignity of these men and the slave owner; they stood united and fought like devils, as every union veteran will testify, and their flag f1oate triumphantly on nearly 100 fields of battle. We fought with the same spirit of our revolutionary sires, who bought with their precious blood the liberties we,now enjoy.
 We fonpht for. Inc ripht of Onr ct toe