Year: 1868

too soon. There were periods in the Rebellion
when Peace would have been greater curse
than q score of battles fought on Northern
soil. and the capture of a dozen Northern cities
Better that the Rebel flag had floated in 1853
over the old State House in Philadelphia,
wherein the first Congress declared American
Ipdependence than that the armistice had
been granted which the Democratic party urged
and the Rebel Government desired. Better,
far better that the war were raging now with
Grant still before Richmond, and Sherman at
Atlanta, than that the people of the North had
indOrsed the declaration of the Democratic
party in 1864, that the war was failure, and
compromise with traitors necessity. Peace
hath her blessings, and War, even i'll the noblest
cause, cannot be other than giant evils but
false Peace comes sometimes to nation,
crowned with thorns and rObed in shame, OIL
ferng short respite as the price of long misery
and perpetuating the strife which she pretends
to end. BlOOdshed is not the worst OF evils
1t is better that men should die than that prin-
ciples should be destroyed. For such reasons
many of us feared that peace would come too
soon. After Bull Run the whole North repu-
dated the idea with Indignation; the Union
could not treat with victorious Rebellion AS
the war grew older men trusted that vic
tory would not come till Slavery had been
abolished. Long before May, 1865, the loyal
men Of the United States were resolved that
the Rebellion should bo utterly crushed, and that
the elements of treason should be extirpated.
! When Leo surrendered TO Grant we thought
! that the Rebellion was ended.


Is it ended7 No. From all parts of the


South and from many men in the North comes
| the assurance that the War for the Union
! ended too soon. Their voices tell us that Nc
! Clellan's weary and costly delays were not
biuuders that Grant made an error when he
closed up the war in the West and forced the
fighting in Virginia; that Sherman should have
waited at Atlanta, and delayed for another
year his triumphany march to the sea. Those
magnificent combinations, by which the superior
strength of the Union was brought to bear
upon every pOiut of resistance simultaneously,
were fatal mistakes. We are taught every day
that the war should have been indefinitely
prolonged; that the Rebellion should have
been crushed inch by inch till its leaders had
! died in battle or fed from the country till its
armies had dwndlcd into bands of robbers /;
! till it had been driven into the woods and





! negro had starved aid 'perished in the days
when Rebellion was only an uplifted menace
in that insulting hand which Slavery shook
in the face Of the Republic. Victory was
as premature, we are assured. in 1865 as
it would have been in 1862. Nothing was de-
cideG by the war, if we may trust the defiance
now hurled at us by the South. 1t has gone
back to 1860, and proposes to begin over
again.


But there is a difference. In 1860 the coun-
try was warned that Rebellion would follow
the election of Republican President. In
1868 Rebellion is promised in case of Repub-
lican defeat The election of Seymour and
Blair is to be the signal of another war. The
Rebels of the South have made it unmistak-
ably clear that they intend that Democratic
victory shall pay them for what they lost at
Vicksburg, and Gettysburg, and Richmond.
The Lost Cause of the South is found again,
and lives in the Democratic party. The Re-
bellion declares that Grant did not subdue it,
and that it is ready to fight again Let us
hear it speak.


Frank Blair promises Revolution if he is
elected. Robert TOOmbs declares that "the
Reconstruction acts are null and void and
81 shall not stand The grinning skeletons that
have been set up in our midst as legislators
" shall be ousted by Frank Blair, whom our
party has expressly appointed for that pur-
"pOse." Said Howell Cobb: "In war we drew
{" the sword, and bade them defiance; in peace
eve gather up the manhood of the South, and
"raising the banner of Constitutional equality,
land gathering around it the good men Of
" the North, as we'll as the South, we hurl into
their teeth the same Defiance and bid them
come on to the struggle. We are ready for
ait, if you are" Albert Pike calls upon the
young men of the South to swear that the
SnsQuehannah and Ohio shall be like rivers of
fire, which no Northern Hun shall attempt to
cross and live Secession is not dead" says
Gov. Wise; d" il is more alive to-day than ever
" | support Blair because he promises RevOlu-
"tiOn." J. NJ. Ramsey of Georgia declares
that the true men of the South are ready to
rally once more under the Rebel flag "and
"try the issue at the cartridge-box," and
promises that there are men in the North who
will lead their battaliOns. "If we are success
Z" full in the approaching contest" says The
Mobile Tribune, ave shall gain all that we lost
"in the Lost Cause" The country is by
far too large to remain very long under one
Government" says The MemphiS Appedl,
and the day will come when the South will
be independent" BY the election of Sey-
mour and Blair" says Gov. Vance Of North
Carolina, "all that the Confederacy fought for
will be won" The Mobile Tribune declares
that " the great Democratic party will rise in
its might, and the dagger of Brutus may aid in
accomplishing our redemption from Radical !
rule. ruin, and usurpation." "There are