The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-01-27
Influencs of Enveronment.

yn like manner, the residence of Jeff ferson Davis in the very heart or the South. where he lived in touch with lta institutions and imbfbed It's conservative traditions; where bis associates, his p0- litical affiliations, his training in the theory of government. even his military education at West Point, all tended to make him magnify the importance of government upon the underlying prtnei- ole that sovereign States had formed the Federal Union; that sovereignty was one and 'indivisible, that it inhered inaiien- ably In each State: that to the state and not the nation allegiance was due, and that the salvation of the Republic de- pended upon the unfiinching maintenance of State sovereignty and independence.
 In brief. the contrast between Lincoln and Davis is, that the one beiievedein the inahenable rights of man. the other in the inalienable rights of State sovereign tv. Both were sincere, both honest and both in large measure right.
 It was not Lincoln, 1t was not Davis, nay, 1t was not even the "Abolitionists' of the North or the .fire-eatersf of the South who made the war inevitable.
 1t was the preservation of the confed- eratIon in 17S7. through the evasions and compromises of the Federal Constitution and the Federal constitutional convention that made the ultimate conflict of secrs tions hideous necessity; but necessity of political assimilation and national growth.
 l do not mean that the same result might not have been attained without war. That is possible. But do mean to say that agree with Lincoln that 1t was impossible for this nation to endure "half slave and half free" and that 1 regard all attempts that were made by way of compromise to evade the final settlement of this great issue as but barriers of straw between opposing force of fire.
 We can see, if our brethren of the North cannot. that the conflict was in- deed '1rrepresslble,' and that it came into being at the biI tn of our nation and was but the frightful afterbirth of events and causes that antedated the American revolution.
 We fought to a finish the fight that our fCrefathers left for us to fight. They ervation union was an immediate neces- sity. We could not avoid 1t because for us continued union was impossible under a constitutional compromise that cheated
 Crittenden Compromise.
 When another compromise was pro- posed fin lSG0--the Crittenden compromise measure J Jefferson Davis was willing to accept 1t. He hoped thereby even after the secession oa South Carolina to avoid war and maintain the Union.
 That compromse measure failed because Abrahain Lincoln, President-elect of the United States would have none of 1t Lincoln and the Republican Senators un-
 
 compromise, and Lincoln did right to de- feat it. Efe wrote at the time. '"rhe tug has to come, and better now than later.a When the Crittenden compromise failed, Davis followed his State out of the Union and he also did right as he understood the Constitution and his duty.
 Jefferson Davis was as much a product of his environment as Abraham Lincoln, and he, as much as Lincoln. died q mar tyr to the principles in which he be- Heved.
 Abraham Lincoln gave his life for the Union and the freedom of man.
 Jefferson Davis died politically. and hia heart died then. when Grant refused the sword of Lee at Appomattox
 Who shall say that the man who lived on did not suffer more for the cause and the people he loved than the one who died untimely and over whose tomb the blue and the gray shall evermore join in wreathing immortelles?
 Jefferson Davis lived to typify a Host cause" Abraham Lincoln died amid tha glories of a reunited people universal freedom and restored Federal Union, tndissoluble' except by revolution.
 The career of Jefferson Davis no Amer iean need be ashamed of. and none should reviie or condemn. It is one of which We of the South may well be grandly. however sadly, proud
 Vest Point he mastered the art .oE
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