The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-15
TEN YEARS OF ALABAMA
No. 58-A General Look Backward
1865-1874

The unprecedented political experiment, the scheme of a dismembered Congress. that would have commanded only the contempt of the world had its acts been perpetrated at any point on the earth s surface, ten miles distant from the na- tional capitol. had now reacher the crest. The fact of failure of the experimenter was manifest, the humiliation of the promoter was poignant, the joy of the self rescued victim was expressed in renewed endeavor and reinforced energy, so con trolled by a calm spirit and so masterly in execution that, we stand face to face with the record of miracle. The lad s basket, with a few small fishes and five barley loaves." answered the pur- pose The purpose was less to satisfy the hunger of the multitude than to open to it's mental view the fountain of eternal truth. from which generations in all time must draw sustenance.
 The redsmption of Alabama without riot. the uses made by her sons of the vicious forms and machinery of civil gov ernment, set up to make permanent her subjugation, is the phenomenon of intel lectual prowess that surpassed and tram pied under foot the ever shadowins physical researches of the conqueror.
 Abraham Lincoln came of the best southern blood. There was no minglinG to depreciate the native caste of the mans political instincts. He had no men, tai or sentimental debility of sympathy with the fanaticisms of the people who gave to him the office of President.
 The leaders who caused the election of Lincoln were the leaders of the post mortem Congress that enacted the recon struction laws, abhorrent to him alive.
 Common information, an ordinary knowledge of the habits and springs of political power indicate that with or without the rise of the Confederacy, the pIopelling force of rivalry for prece- dence would have inspired the north to an attempt to reduce the south in the federal government The foregone, the fated attempt could in the nature of things have but one open seasame to fail- ure and that was in the organization of q separate Southern Confectionery, under a civil government incompetent to admin ister it's doubly assured military re- sources.
 There was no southern movement pos- hiDle Wilen d iH1lllOn Wlue dWdhtS ol the north organized, uniformed them selves, drilled themselves to make Lin coin President, whether elected in Mo- yember 1860, or defeated. There was no southern revolution contemplated when within six months after Appomattox every state of the late Confederacy except Texas, restrained by authority, sent full representation to the doors of Congress at Washington.
 The lower stratum of civilized society may hate all above, however ambitious to promote itself. Thadeus Stevens Of Pennsylvania and his colleague, W. b. Kelley, in the House: Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and his colleague, Henry Wilson, in the Senate: Fessenden, sherman, Chandler Carpenter, Roscoe Conkling, the magnificent" and many others of the first rank of intellects, en- gagged to revolutionize the federal sys- tenn of government The attempt of AL exander Hamilton to do the same thing, in the Philadelphia convention of 17S7, was not less audacious and not more viola tive of the confidence of his constituency. The later threat of the supporters of Aaron Burr to elevate him to the pres!- dency over Jefferson elected and the actual displacement of Tilden elected, by Hayes defeated, stand out as remark able evidences of liability in the United States to political revolution in high places. But the instance of the success of the southern states in their organized resistance of the attempts of the Con gress and in the later stage of the con- fict, the sympathetic attempt of Presi- dent Grant to amalsanate an inferior and superior race of people, occupying the same territory. stands off to itself, Hike a peak above the submerged world"
 Conditions in Alabama antedating the election of Lindsay. democrat, to be gov ernor and. the election of democratic or white mans house of representatives. show the frame of the scheme of revolu- tion controlled by the fragment of Con gress, and to present them very concisely in epitome. as it were, is deemed of value to the narrative
 President Lincoln. in April, 1861. called upon the governors of all the states rep resented then in Congress for a quota of militia from each to the aggregate of 75,000 The Presidents explanation was that Combinations too strong to be suppressed by ordinary course of ju- diciai procedure had been formed The proclamation did not aver that certain 'states' were insurrecsory. but that in the states of Virginia. etc. there were Combinations" He called on "the per sons composing the combinations afore- said to disperse," etc.
 In the same month and the same week that the first battle of Manassas