The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1906-07-17
What Might Have Been.
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this policy as far as he could without
breaking with his party. How far he
could have favored the South without
going to war with his Republican fol-
lowing it is, of course. impossible to
say, though not near to the extent tina
is generally believed. During the
whole continuance of the war and
up to his death he suffered
Seward to keep suspended the right of
habeaS corpus throughout me North
to arrest. try and sentence by court
martial many of the most prominent
civilians who had comInItte1 no of
Tense save to criticige ~!tcpIhtican
policy. And this, too. il p~cacca5ie
States where legal process run inlet
and unhindcred, and where the al
legged o~ffensc, if ~coEnizablc by law,
which were not. could have been tried
in the regular Federal courts. Than
this, the old regime of Franco saw
in h amOuS lettercS de catchet no
more fragrant violation of law and
justice. and not only in this, but In
many other ways Lincoln suppressed
his importunatc s~ubordinatcs to carry
out policies wholly Unnecessary IN
their rigor and unlaWfuIness which
must nave been repugnant to him
individually. / see no reason to be
1ieve hat he would have becn less
l1tipiC y sum ilIti-I IIillttiBttN 1-I'I
the war than he was while it con-
tinued.
Therefore. probably Johnsjou's
pugnacity served us better than Lin
coins ~benevolence could have done.
probably the diversion be caused ly
bringing the pack down on himself
was worth more to US than Lincoln's
restraint would nave been. Kilkenny
cats are provcrbiaI for the harm thry
do themselves rather than others.
The sudden elevation to almost die
tatOrial power, which the president
in full accord with the Republican
party would then have had, of the
malignant, vindictive Butler. must at
this crisis have been an u~nsDeahabIe
calamity not only to the South, hat
less directly to the whole country.
The acquisition Of power and reSpOn-
sibility sobers most men. but it seems
to have intoxicated Butler. Had he
succeeded to the Presidency. I can see
10 reason to doubt tina he would
have pushed on the Stevensea. Wades.
STATIONS, Stewards and South haters
and South baiters generally instead
of pulling them back as Johnson did.
With Butler as President recon
struction must have been even a
blacker word in southern history THAI
it is, and hat page in American his
tory so dark that the shadow might
cover the whole country's future for
all time TO come. Let lis try to soc
the manner Of man Butler was. Let
us dis down if we can through The
Hima1aya of hatred. contempt, desta-
ton, e~xecration and adherence unat
the South has heaped on MIN. We
will Judge the man and his attitude
to the South. both by his words and
his deeds.
Though a lawyer by profession, 70.
other Federal officer, no other North
ern man showed as much contempt
for the law and constitution Of his
country as he did. Space permits
me to touch only on h salient POINTS
of his arbitrary conduct and that
which blazed the way for the North
to follow while it did follow in de-
stroying the old union of the states
formed by the free action OF all the
states and erecting on it's ruins a
centralized union utterly at variance
with the aims and wishes of the orig
nal founders, which could never have
been effective except by force Of arms,
and which has given the lie to the
main utterance in the Declaration of
depends that governments de
rive their just power from the conf
sent of the governed.
Buffers defiance of the law in the