The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1903-03-18

pIaccu In their hands.
Loyalty to our heroic dead and a
reasonable faith in their wisdom and
foresight forbid any such idea as that
INDUCED in by those Southerners who
say-thoughtlessly, we feel sure-that
it is better that the war should have
ended as it did"
In the opinion Of the Lee Camp
orators, and in our judgment, neither
sentiment nor fact, neither experience
OF the past nor proper forecasting of
the future, sustaiDs that view. If
the C~onfederacy had won in it's appeal
to arms it would have been optional
with it to maintain q separate govern.
ment or to propose q reunion Of the
States upon those lines and with those
safeguards which experience had
taught us were necessary.
So far as slavery was concerned it
vas doomed anyway. The Southern
people were unwilling that a gang of
meddling aud murderous John Browns
should make" them do this or that
thing, but, left to themselves, freed
from tho nagging and tagging Of Abo-
litionists, they would have provided
for the gradual emancipation Of their
negroes. Then we should have had
none OF the distress Of reconstruction
times. mono of the spoliation of the
post-bellum period, none Of the hor-
rors OF negro acknowledgements. Wheth-
er we should have chosen to set up a
separate republic or to have made
terms for q reunion Of the States, all
those miseries aud more we should
have escaped. :
The suggestion Of q reunion after
secession is no new idea born Of the
necessities Of an argument; no, it was
advanced early and emphatically in
the first days Of secession.
in that valuable repository Of learn
ing and patient research, the "oAioial
report Of the history committee of the
Grand Camp, Confederate Veterans,
department of Virginia." by Judge
George L. Christian, made October
II, 1900, we find the following:
"On the secession Of Mississippi
her convention sent a commissioner
from that State to Maryland, who at
that time, it may be sure, expressed
the real objects sought to be obtained
by secession by the great body of the
Southern people. He said:
Secession is not intended to
break up the present Government, but
to perpetuate it. We do not propose
to go out by way of destroying the
Union as our fathers gave it to us, but
we go u for the purpose Of getting
further guarantees and security for
our rights etc.
"And 80 we believe that with the
success Of the South the union Of our
fathers, which the South was the
principal factor in forming, and to
which she was far more attached than
the North, would hAve been restored
and re.established; that in this Union
the South ~or!d hs=s been again the
dominant people, the controlling
power, and that its administration Of
the Government in that Union would
have been along constitutional and
just lines, and not through military
districts, attempted CONVERSATIONS.
force bills, and other oppressive and
illegal methods, such as characterized
the conduct of the North for four
years after the war, in it's alleged res
,toration Of a Union which it denied
had ever been dissolved.
"As to the abolition Of slavery:
While we know Of no one in the South
who. does not rejoice that this has
been accomplished, we know Of no
one, anywhere, 80 lost to every se1se
of right and Justice as not to condemn
the Ubiquitous way in which this was
done. But we feel confident that no
matter how the war had ended, il
would have resulted in the freedom Of
the slave, and as surely with the suo-
cess Of the South as with that Of the
North, although perhaps not SO
promptly. ."
So We insist that in either event.
victory or defeat for the C~onfederates
the abolition Of slavery was certain,
and we shall aver maintain that the
Southern people would have been as
prudent and sensible had victory been
vouohsafed them as they have been
patient and loyal under q contrary
condition. The prosperity that now
attends the South is chiefly due to the
exertions of her own people. Aud
they would have done bester-not
worse-if their hands had been en-