The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1905-06-04
MEMORIES OF THE SOUTH RE
EIVFD BY CONFEDERATE
MEMORIAL DAY.

birthdate of Jefferson Davis,the Presl
dent of the Southern Confederacy, is re
called the gigantic struggle between tn
Northern and the Southern States, ane
on this day is fixed the observance O
Confederate Memorial Day, as provided
by resolution OF the camps of thu
United Confederate Veterans, in con
vention assembled. 1t is intended tina
the Memorial to the Southern Heroe:
shall be observed throughout the South
land on this day and it is also tribute
to the memory of the Southern Chieftair
who, in his personality, was the active
the actual and the official representative
OF the people engaged in their deter
mined effort to maintain a cherished
principle of the Constitution-the re-
served right of each State to with draw
from the Union of the States.
The war was not waged to keep the
negroes in slavery.
The struggle resulted from section
alsm
Lincoln was elected President of the
United States by the vote of the North
ern States exclusively. The Southern
States opposed him solidly. However,
the spirit of jealous aninosity against
the South, long manifested, reached its
climax with Llncoln's election and was
resented by South Carolina, Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana
and Texas exercising the right of with
drawing from the compact Of States.
Later, after Lincoln had been inaugu-
rated and the mask of deception and
treachery had been stripped from the
face of the war party at the North,
whose attitude and intent had become
clear, the other States of the South
joined the Confederacy in their deter
mination Of resisting the threatened CO.
ercion of the States of the South Lin
coin had issued a call for seventy-hve
thousand volunteers to crush the Re-
bellion, as it was called.
Our purpose in reverting to this fact
historical, is direct and is appropriate
for the reason that it has been charged
repeatedly by the North that Jefferson
Davis waged the war to keep the negroes
in slavery. Let no young man be de-
ceived or msled. by such perversions Of
facts. Lincoln had declared that the
war was to restore the Union and not
for the emancipation of the slaves, and
still more remarkable and extraordinary
may be the statement that Jefferson
Davis, foreseeing the eventual loss of
the slaves, had set his slaves free before
the fate of the Confederacy had been de-
termined by the arbitrament of the
sword.
The liberation of the slaves sub
sequently by Lincoln. was not
suggested in spirit of philanthropy, but
as war measure designed to cripple the
South and hasten the end Of the con-
f1ict, as the Southern armies were de-
pendent on the products of the field,
which were mostly cultivated by the
Southern slaves.
The war, then, on the part of the
North, was sectionalism, and on the
South the right of the States to with
draw from the compact of States, as re-
served in the Constitution, and so broad
ly affirmed was this principle that before
the secession of South Carolina four at
tenpts at dissolution were INDUCED in
the North with Massachusetts, in the
lead, first over the acquisition of the
Louisiana Territory; second over the
admission of Louisiana into the Union
third over the dissatisfaction occasioned
by the war with Great Britain; and
fourth over the annexation Of Texas.
In these efforts at dissolution the New
England States were governed by self
interest.
After Jefferson Davis had been inn
prisoned in Fortress Monroe as a traitor
and where he was subjected to the
greatest indignities, he was refused a
trial, for the reason that there would
be involved this right of secession.
In the contention for this principle the
greatest statesmen of the South met the
opposition of Daniel Webster, who lived
to concede that this right was reserved
in the Constitution of the Fathers to the
States and, in later years, the South had
no greater or more noble or loyal cham
pion than Jefferson Davis, but this right
has been settled. the right OF secession
was arbitrated finally and forever at
Apponatis. O.
Il is forty years since Appomatox.