The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1904-12-28

| tdiuly bdNt DctD !pl!DNcu Dy ulEiS-
ion Of The old Union into two, three,
ten, twenty independent nationalities.
Better, far better such resumption Of
State sovereignty, suck distribution
| of governmental authority, than the
internecine war into which We angrily
plunged. The discovered States would
soon have coalesced again, sisters in
one family.
But the Constitution. what Of
| that?
We were not battling to save the
Constitution. As the great common.
er, Thaddeus Stevens, leader of the
House of Representatives, often de-
clarcd, all through the war we were
travelling outside OF the Constitu-
ton In the presence of military
necessity for four years the Cons,i.
tuition and laws were nowhere.
Nor we're we, as some Of US fondly
believed, fighting to destroy slavery.
Lincoln always stoutly denied such
purpose. Emancipation was with
him en- aftertbought, last resort, q
means, not an end. Whichever side
should be victorious, slavery was
doomed. If the South had succeeded
40 fugitive thence would ever have
been restored TO his master. Soon
the northern border of the Confeder-
Virginia, North Carolina, Ten
nessee, Arkansas-denuded Of slaves,
would have become free soil; and
South Carolina and the Gulf States,
sensitive TO public opinion, would not
have held out long against tho unani-
nous moral sentiment Of the civilized
world. Gradually and peacefully at
length, and perhaps very soon, the
cancer would have been extirpated.
Had it really been intensely desired
by our people to end slavery, FOR the
existence aud growth Of which the
North was as much to blame as the
South, we could probably have accom-
plished that result by kindly and per-
sistent effort without shedding drop
of blood. A sun of money equal to
one fifth of the peeuniary loss caused
by our Civil War would have sufficed
! to pay their masters more than twice
the average market value Of every
r black man. woman and child. More
, than once, in 1862, Lincoln urged
/ such action, but in vain.
No; our end was not the abolition
! of slavery, but the speedy annihilation
Of the new government. We thought
! we could accomplish it by few hard
blows. Accordingly We employed
not diplomacy, Cancellation, moral
suasion, entreaty, the just, liberal,
equitable use Of purchase money; but
cavalry, infantry, artillery, ships Of
war, fire, famine, slaughter. And
when the destruction Of Southern
J commerce. She crippling of Southern
industries, and the devastation OF
Southern fields failed to break down
, all resistance, the Washington Gov
ernment deliberately adopted the SAT-
culinary policy Of "attrition." The
, armies Of the Southern nation must
| be ground to powder. The armed men
must be killed off. To our brothers in
grey the alternative presented was
Submission or determination. AT
Cold Harbor, June 8, 1864, seven
thousand Union soldiers and three
thousand Confederates were shot
down in thirty minutes. "If this is o
fight of the Kilkenny cats, remarked
Gen. Grant, cts comfort to know
that ours has the longest taill'
Had the North stood wholly on the
defensive, and not attempted to de-
stroy the independence of the south
by invasion and conquest, all we con-
tended for would probably have been
attained by peaceful means; for, as
their wisest statesman, their Vice
President, Alexander FL. Stephens,
assured us, the seeded States would
eventually have returned to their alle-
glance. Had the South stood strictly
on the defensive. and not pushed its
armies into Maryland, Kentucky and
Pennsylvania. its independence would
at last have been recognized, and
would have continued until it chose
to come back in peace.
! And now, shutting CIR ears to the
eloquent exaggeration OF Memorial
Day and the yet reverbrating thunders
of thousand battles, what has been
the net upshot Of it all?
The Union has been re e.established-
for awhile; but our victory like the
triumph Of Cortes, in Mexico, aud
Pizarro, in Peru, proving nothing but