The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-05-20
TILLMAN ON THE RESULTS OF
THE CIVIL WAR.

Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina, must
always be sensational. His disposition
in that regard seems TO be positively NOR
bid. Whatever the situation may be, if
he puts in his car at all, and he rarely
fails to do that, he must give the matter
a sensatio turn. In the United States
Senate on Friday last, in discussing the
Philippine Island matter, Senator Nc
.Cumber, referring naturally to our civil
war and to what~he believed to be the
present feeling of the Southern people
towards the Union, said he thought that
all the people of the Union were happy
now 10 be under one flag and under one
government. There was nothing in this
statement that called in the remotest
degree for any Southern Senator to under
take a defence of the Southern people
for their position in the civil war. The
reference was exclusively to the state OF
opinion at this time, and there was no
charge or insnuation disparaging in any
degree to the loyalty of our people to the
Confederate cause. and no Southern SEN
ator was in any way called upon to make
any defence of their loyalty to that cause.
To do it was to drag into the discussion
what was utterly irrelevant, immaterial
and impertinent.
But Mr. Tillman can always be relied
on TO do any one or all three of these
things upon notice or without notice.
Accordingly he bobhed UP to say that
not 10 per cent. of the white people of
the South were to-day glad that the
they fought for had been rejected. In
fact. he thought 95 per cent of the South
ern people were sorry they had been de-
feated Il is perfectly evident that If
this be true it is a total non sequitur to
what Mr. McCumber said. 1t may be
true, and still all the people of the Union
may now be happy under one flag and
in one government. It was nothing
therefore, on Mr. Tillnan's part but the
Juggling into the discussion of utterly
impertinent and immaterial matter.
1t is useless to discuss the question
as to whether or not the people Of the
South are glad that the war "asuited as
it did That is q sacred secret in the
breast of every Southern man, with which
the public have nothing to do.
The people of the South believe to-day
as earnestly as they believed in 1861 that
the South had the right to secede from
the Union, and that the war was, there
fore, a war of justice and Righteousness
upon their part, and Of aggression and
injustice upon the part of the North.
Their opinion on this point has not I'M
dergone the slightest modification or
change; not only so, but they feel that
they fought their fight with a heroism
and a self-sacrifce that has never had any
parallel in the history of the world, and
will never have any parallel. They are
proud of the record that they made in
the war, and they will never permit it
to be srnirched or furnished in the very
smallest degree.
But for all that, they are loyal to the
Union, and are quite content to live under
the Stars and Stripes, and it matters not
one whit what are their wishes as to the
issue Of the war. This much is certain.
The Southern people would not restore
slavery nor dissolve the Union if they
could. and that is enough for the North
to know.