The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-03-16

mels of party. Col. Mcclure himself
tells how the Federal President after
after having written out in 1864 a pro-
position to pay the South $500. 900 900 for
their slaves, suppressed 1t for fear that
if known it would cause his defeat at the
election then approaching. Again in
February, 1865, he proposed a message
to Congress recommending that bonds 10
that amount be issued to pay for the
slaves, provided that resistance to tho
United States cease on or before GER
tain date. This message the Cabinet
killed so dead that it was never heard of
again.
other evidence could be adduced to
show that while a we'll meaning man.
Lincoln did not arise above party suffi-
GENTLY to do all or near all that his
eulogist now claims that he would and
could have done. l do not believe that he
would have allowed the humiliation and
tortures-tortures as refined as Torque-
mazda ever devised-to have been in
flicted upon President Davis during q
large part of his two years incarcera-
tion at Fortress Monroe. Still, there is
small Justification for the general belief
that his influence, even if exerted, could
have thwarted the Republican scheme to
perpetuate itself by enfranchising the
negroes.
In short, President Lincoln never in
any substantial degree failed ultimately
to concur in or at any rate, to carry out,
the truculent ends of the Republican
party. Again and again and again did
he violate his solemn oath to uphold the
Constitution, under the plea of military
necessity. Has tyranny and oppression
ever since Cain lifted his hand against his
brother had or sought other plea than
necessity?
The Constitution that Lincoln had
sworn to maintain expressly declares
that no State should be erected from the
territory of State or States without
the consent of the State or States in
terested. Lincoln carried out that monu-
mental piece of highway robbery by which
Virginia was rent in twain, taking as his
authority therefor. the sanction of a
handful of renegades, virtually his own
creatures, sitting at Alexander and
styling themselves the Legislature of
Virginia.
The constitution expressly provides
that any person held to service Or labor
in one State, escaping to another State.
shall be surrendered to the proper au-
came. Lincoln by his own ipse dixit an
nulled this clause and invited four mil
lions of persons lawfully held to service
in the South, which he regarded as part
of the Union, to escape and invited them
under circumstances which carried tacit
invitation to cut the throats of unpro-
tected Southern women and children be-
fore they fed.
lief OF ncI ffONG
might be carried to great length were
it necessary. l simply cite them as an
example of the attitude of this man to
the South and to the Constitution.
Violating the Constitution in making
war on the Southern States, he never
in a single instance stickled to violate
it to gain military advantage or to
further the aims of his party to subju-
gate or if necessary to destroy us.
Some may think that seek to keep
alive Or rekindle sectional strife. / seek
no such thing. What | do seek is that
the truth be upheld and the self-respect
of Southern people be maintained. If
this involves the keeping alive of sec
tionalism then let it live. Strife is bad.
but ignominy and the acquiescence in
falsehood is worse.
At this moment Southern tongues are
buster lauding Lincoln than vindicating
Davis. Taking the cue of opinion, just
as they do the fashion of dress, from the
North, we are coming to place the
Northern usurper higher than the South
ern patriot and martyr. We decry or
damn with faint praise Davis, man
who despite some errors in judgment
and some deficiencies in temperament,
was great and gifted, and who to his own
ruin exerted all his manifold gifts to the
defense of the constitutional rights OF
the Southern States while with concur
renee rather than protest we see raised
almost to godhood Lincoln, man VINO
while honest enough in himself, was the
instrument of Northernism in the ruin
and degradation of the South.
The time for President Lincoln to
manifest the concliatory spirit was be-
fore the clash came. Had he listened
to the Confederate peace commissioners
who so persistently knocked at his door
in March and April, had he, according to
promise, withdrawn the Federal garri-
sion from Southern forts, or even from
Sumter and Pickens, strong reaction
both North and South would in all like
lihood have prevented war. 1t is an in
disputed fact that large number of
clear headed Southern statesmen, among
them Alexander H. Stevens himself. did
not think that secession would result in
war or bring permanent separation.
Seeing that the constitutional rights
OF the States, on which the safety of the
South, the weaker section, depended, was
imperilled, they believed that better
terms could be made while temporarily
severed from the North than while
joined to and dominated by it's numerical
superiority. Jefferson Davis was not
among the Southern men who
thought this way. Better informed and
more president than most of his com
peers he saw that secession would be
resisted and that a great war must fol-
low. For this cause he regarded it as
expedient in only the last extremity aud
saw the secession of Mississippi, his
native State, in which he had no hand,
being then in the United States Senate.
with deep and openly avowed reluctance.
But to return to the question in hand.
President Lincoln was undoubtedly {,
kind hearted man. What l deny is that
his friendliness for the South and his