The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-05-20
Reviving Fallacies.

Inc SOnleueraIes veteran, General John
b. Gordon, received a most enthusiastic
tribute Of affection yesterday in New Or
leans at the reunion of the United Confed-
crate Veterans. The old soldiers of his
command embraced him, knelt to him,
shouted over him. The veterans of Napo-
leon paid their distinguished leader no
greater expression of. devotion than did
the Confederate veterans pay to Gordon.
And the general made a most patriotic
address on the unity Of the republic and
the readiness of southern men, whose sires
fought in 1876, to do their patriotic duty
in every crisis Of the country.
The address Of Judge Rogers on this
occasion differed greatly from that Of Cen
eral Gordon. The judge admitted that
the whole question of secession and dis
union has been forever settled by the sur
render at Appomattox, and he thanked
God that the country was united after
the arbitrament of war. He, however,
acting constitutionally. "Our children. y
said he SHOULD know that the Confeder-
ate States, by the act of secession, made
no war on the United States; that the war
between the states was not rebellion, but
the result of an effort by the United States
to coerce states against their will to re-
main in the union, power not to be found
in the constitution and he affirmed that,
when the alternative came Of standing by
the constitution or giving up the union
with alacrity, the south chose the latter
This gloriflcation OF the south as acting
in great fealty to the constitution in at
tempting to destroy the union, is a habit
Of not few Confederates The late
Jefferson Davis, in his ''Rise and Fall of
the Confederate Government set the ex-
ample when he wrote: en- asserting the
right Of secession, It has not been my wish
to incite to it's exercise. recognize the
fact that the war showed it to be imprac-
ticable, but this did not prove it to be
wrong He, like Judge Rogers, would
have southern children perpetually taught
that secession is right even If It was shown
that the American nation deemed it wrong
and accentuated this belief by fighting the
seeding states for four years and showing
that whatever may be said about their
great loyalty to the constitution, and
whatever may be said about the southern
Interpretation Of the constitution, the ma
ton which made the constitution and is
greater than the constitution set the seal Of
condemnation upon the attempt to destroy
the union and the nation with it.
Jefferson Davis, who figures in history
as the apostle of secession and Of state
sovereignty, presided over the Confederacy
when Virginia, by vote of SO to As, re-
fused to pass an ordinance of secession.
The Confederate congress at Montgomery,
Ala, then passed an act forbidding the
importation into the Confederacy of slaves
from any states outside the Confederacy.
This was intended to coerce Virginia, the
leading breeder of slaves to supply the cot
ton states. The Virginia convention then
reconsidered the ordinance it had passed
and voted to submit to the people another
ordinances favoring secession The Con-
federate government, before that election
took place, crowded soldiers into Virginia.
and the secession ordinance was rushed
thru by the convention without waiting to
see whether the people would ratify it or