The Portland daily press., 1895-12-31


In fact we need not go far from home.
All knew that there was war impend-
ing, human nature being what it is, ssbe-
tween theaa North and South. We should
favor compromise. We are not prepared
Tor war. According to my view the poll
oy OF the North would have been to hold
off until ready, and had it grownEsix
years more as it had between go and
20 probably war would have been avert
ed, for the simple reason that the North,
belng SO much stronger, the South would
nave seen the case to be hopeless. Are
we not to learn from such examples as
tnese, one In our own country and one
abroad? .
So much of this as relates to Louis
Nepoleon's attack upon Germany is just
enough. But the part that relates tc our
own civil war, both, by its juxtaposit-
ion to the French aggressive war and by
the language in which it is itself phrased,
conveys the impression, perhaps not
intended, that the war between the
North and the South was pre-
cipitated by the former; and that the
North might have postponed it
i've or six years and thus prevented it
altogether. This is not history. There
never was man less anxious for war
or more anxious for peace than was
Abraham Lincoln when he took his seat
in March, 1861. Almost everything in the
shape of compromise short of the abso-
lutte disruption Of the Union was tried
and proved unavailing. No compro-
mise was possible that did not destroy
the Union. Disruption was what the
South was after. The leaders of that seq
| tion had become convinced that there
was an irrepressible conflict between
freedom and slavery, they had beno me-
convinced that their peculiar institution
could never exist in peace while one part
of the Union they belonged to was free
and the other slave. Disruption was
practically their ultimatum to the North,
and no compromise short OF this was
possible. Had The North held off six
years to grow stronger, the Southern Con-
federacy would have been an esta blishe d
fact, recognized by all the nations, Of
the world, and the tacit consent of the
North would have forever estopped her
from attempting to restore the Union
by force. There was peace at any price
party then, just as there always will be
whose shibboleth was "Let the erring
sisters go in peace, but the great mass
OF the people and of the prominent men
of the North were with President Lin
coin in refusing assent to this kind Of
compromise which was nothing but sur
render. In his Twenty Years of Congress
Mr. Blaine has this to say concerning
Mr.. Lincoln's attitude when he took
office in 1851:
| Before and beyond all things, Mr.. Lin
coin desired to prevent war, and he felt
that every day OF peace gave fresh hope
that blood-shed mighJ be avoided. In
his inaugural address he had taken the
strongest ground for the preservation
of the union, and had carefully refrained
from every act and every expression
which would justify, even in the public
opinion OF the South, an outbreak of vio-
lence Of the part of the Confederates.
He believed that the Southern revolt
had attained it's great proportions in
consequences of MIR. Buohanan's assertion
that he had no power to coerce a seeding
stats. Mr.. Lincoln had announced a
different creed, and every week that the
South continued peaceful, his hope of
amica bls adjustment grew stronger.
He believed that with the continuance of
peace, the Seoessionists could be brought
to see that Unions was better than war
for all interests. and that in an especial
degree the -institution of slavery would
be imperiled by a resort to arms. He had
faith in the sober second thought If the
Southswould deliberate the Union would
be saved. He feared that the Southern
mind was III condition in which sim
gle untoward circumstance might pre-
cipitate conflict, and he determined that
the blood OF his brethren should not be
on his hands.
Mr.. Lincoln saw, moreover, that war
| between a divided North and united
South would be remediless calamity.
Ii, after all efforts at peace, war should
be found unavoidable, the administra-
tion had determined SO to shape it's poll
cy, SO to conduct its affairs, that when
the shook came 1t should leave the South
entirely in the wrong, and the govern
ment OF the Union entirely in the right
Consolidated as might be the front
| which the rebellion would present, the
administration was resolved that it
able. more courageous, than that with
which the supporters of the government
should meet it. Statesmanship cannot
be judged upon theories. 1t must be de-
oided by the results. When that oonolu-
siye test is brought to bear, Mr. Liucoln's
administration Of the government in tho
weeks Immediately following his inaugu-
all the more because it was compelled to
disregard the clamor and disappoint the
expectations of many who had been con-
spicuously influential in bringing it into
power, and who. therefore, thought
themselves entitled to give counsel.
| This is the picture of a man shrinking
from war, avoiding day after day any
hostile act in the hope that war might
be avoided altogether. 1t is the picture
of man trying to do just what Dr.
i, Dalton now thinks ought to have been
done; and not succeeding because. success
was impossible. From the attack of
Louis Napoleon on Germany may fairly be
deduced the lesson, which DR.. Dalton un-
dertakes to enforce. of the danger of a
nations rushing recklessly into war.
No snch lesson can pc deduced from our
civil war. Into that we were forced by
a slaveholding oligarchy bent on ruin
ing the Union if it could not rule it.