Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1900-07-31
So in Advaneei sa il nOt Paid in Advanee.
The Lost Cause.

! The New York Press appears to be sur
prised because the Southern people do
not readily accept such school histories
of the civil war as are approved in the
North, says the Washington Post. 1t is
an old and familiar subject. For more
than thirty years the South has been
protesting against such school books, and
the North has been expressing astonish-
ment thereat. 1t would seem that in all
those years a clearer view of the situation
might have found lodgmenti in the North
ern mind. If the. conditions were re-
versed, if the people of the North were
situated as the Southern people are, they
would object as strenuously as the South
objects to school books which class the
fathers of the school children as rebels
and, therefore, traitors.
The Southern people do not believe
that they or their fathers were rebels
They hold that they We're patriots, fight
ing for what they believed to be their
rights, for cause they believed to be
just. And if the New York Press and
the Northern people generally would re-
view the ground on which the Southern
contention is based, they would get a
broadening of ideas that might be whole
some. In the first place, it is an unde-
niable fact that our more perfect union
could not have been formed had it been
understood that State once in could
not, of its own motion, go out. However
preposterous that idea may seem in the
light of recent history, it is simply a
statement OF fact The claimed right of
secession was an open question from the
infancy of the republic until it was finally
and forever settled by the great war that
ended at Appomattox in 1865.
Secession was fearful mistake, but it
was not crime. Jefferson Davis, Gener-
al Lee, General Jackson, and their as
sociates, just as sincerely believed in the
right of State, or any number of States,
to secede, as Abraham Lincoln, General
Grant, General Sherman, and their as
sociates believed in the right of the gener-
al government to protect and preserve
the territorial integrity of the Union.
That extreme doctrine of State rights was
the dominant belief in the South. Men
are largely what education and environ
ment make them. That is why Robert
E. Lee, than whom a more honest and
honorable man has never lived, deemed
it his duty in the sight of God and his
fellow men to resign his commission in
the United States and go with his State.
That is the reason why Stonewall =
Jackson prayed and fought and died for
the Confederacy. That's the reason why
the people of the South gave an example
of such sublime devotion. such courage,
such self-sacrifce, such fortitude as will
stand forever as a glorious attestation of
American heroism.
Isitstrange that the people of the South
are sensitive on this school history ques-
ton? Would it not be stranger still if they
were Indifferent Could intelligent and
honest men of the North respect them if
they were willing to have their children
to condemn their fathers and look with
plying charity mingled with contempt
on the graves of those who died for the
Confederacy.
In this restored, happy and prosperous
Union there is, or ought to be, sufficient
broadmindedness to do justice to all who
bore a part on either side in our great
internal conflict. There were no rebels,
for the question around which the con
fiict ragged had never been decided. 1t is
well for the South, well for the country
and for the world that the Union was
saved and that the curse of the South
human slavery-was abolished. But no
good end could be served, or anything
but base purpose promoted by teaching
the Preseut and future generations of
Southern children to dishonor the men
who fought for Southern independence.