The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-09-18

the quicksands of sectionalism in 1860.
1t will be seen that this was necessarily
so from the nature of its organism, and
the dominancy of centralism procured
by the subtle genius of Hamilton over
the commanding intellect of Thomas JEFF
fcrson. And yet in this mighty wrest-
ling between these two great giants Mr..
Jefferson secured the recognition of the
doctrine Of States rights, the sovereignty
Of the States, upOn the pleasing yet de-
iusiye basis Of beautiful theory. The
Republican party in its contests with the
Federal party and later on the Democrat
ic with the Wing and Republican par
ties. have always been able to point to
tine 1T is written in the Constitution"
iu yiudicatiUn Of their doctrine of State
sovereignty. Yet the skillful intellectual
acrobat. MIR Hamilton, the MachiayeI-
lin mastrr Of statccraft in the applica-
ton II these principles claimed by Mr..
jefferson. battered, hampered and con-
trollrd by the mode in which the ballot
vas exercised. always came out of the
contest, If not in his lifetime, in that
Of his followers. more than successful.
The election Of Mr.. Lincoln in 1860. the
for the Presidency, has been mistaken
by many as the cause of the war. Sla-
very in that campaign in which it was
the Shibboeth, was not the cause of the
rupture of the States and the dismem-
,bcrment Of the Republic. 1t was simply
the occasion. and was the medium only
through which centralism asserted it's
anita gonism to States sovereignty. 1t
may be asked thus why did not this rup-
ture occur earlier in the history of the
country as threatened in 1920 and in
1850. The easy answer is close at
hand and will suggest itself at once to
any mind enriched by the philosophers
of history. The northern people, al
most entirely commercial, never knew
the blessing at any time in their history
which presented itself to the Southern
people in their exemptions from the
anita gonism between capital and labor.
For n long, long time the South was
exempt from the curse which attaches
to this irrepreSsible conflict between
these two mighty giants, because our
capital was our labor and our labor was
our capital. And it was during that
blessed repose that the conservatism of
a unified South was brought to bear up
on these two constitutional organic an
which threaented from time
to time the dissolution of the reunion.
When it was swept away it was like cut,
ting the dixie which surrounds Holland;
the angry waters of the North Sea swept
over her fair borders. The South rec
ognized the fact that in the carrying
trade Of negroes from the coast of Afri7
On to the United States, the trans
Susquehanna people had added largely
TO the wealth which had come to them III
changing West India sugar into New
England Rum. They knew the fact, and
know it to-day, that. when climate and
soil at the North had declared against
the profitableness of African slavery mt
the North. in the closing years of the
last. and in the early decades of the
present centuries. with the same f0d
and the same Bible, instead of lberat-
ing. they sold out their cOlored slaves to
the rcople of the South, and then posed
as philanthrop;sts. Hence it was that
when Mr.. Lincoln issued his correction pro-
clamatiOn calling for seventy thousand
troops to coerce the sovereign States and
whip us back into object submission
to centralized federalism (the Hamilton
ian theory of the government Southern
State after Southern State, clothed mp
on with all the powers of organic law.
under the Constitution one by one re-
sumed their former status occupied by
them before the compact had been en-
tered into, under the plain principle in
law and equity that a contract void in
part is void in whole. North Carolina,
whose people had been divided some
what, on the Goth of May, 1861, the
anniversary of the declaration of the
Mecklenburg Independence slowly stern
ly. silently and with tears in her eyes.
called her children around her and
started for the field of battle. 1t would
not be germane to this occasion to enter
into any details of this terrible struggle
Suffice it to say. that with their two
millions of men called out to battle ON the
part of the North, six hundred thou
sand Southern troops engaged them SO
heroically from Big Bethel to App0mat-
toX as to put the whole world in admir-
alton of the splendOr Of our hero;sm
and our, devotion to the cause. Mis-
takes there were and honest ones too
upon the mind OF the some of the Eu-
ropean governments, touching the causes
which led up to this fearful struggle.
Upon the part of England, however, it
may he asserted with marked emphasis
that she clearly understood the situation
and has ever been and is to-day JeSul-
tical fomentor of the strife between the
different sections of this country. Great