Year: 1861

1t is one OF the well known deductions from
history that Republics are warlike, and our trans
atlantic brethren proving its truth by the
dreadful spectacle which they are at present ex-
hibiting to the astonished world. Unfortunately
for them, and for the cause of civilization and
humanity everywhere, they are not demonstrating
the proverbial pugnacity of democratic forms of
government, by rushing into hostilities with some
! European Power, or any other such Quixotic cru
sade, but by the unnatural and more tragic hor-
rors of civil war. In such an internecine strug
\ gle every frown from the dark brow of the God of
Battle wears its backest aspect. All the ordinary
miseries which this fearful scourge of the Al
mighty usually inficts upon mankind, are aggra
waited when father and son may draw their swords
in opposing legions. and brother strike brother to
the earth with fratricidal hand "In peace" as
we read in the quaint and picturesque pages of
Herodotus, ''children bury their fathers-in war.
fathers bury their children" But in civil war,
not only is the order of nature in this manner in
verted, but the tenderest and fondest natural ties
are burst asunder-the holiest instincts of our
moral economy violated and trampled in the dust,
and life, with all its softest and sweetest assoca
tons, is poisoned with that gall of bitterness that
/ flows from hate, malice and revenge. The moral
poet, Wordsworth, said, with n boldness which
savored of blasphemy, that slaughter" was the
daughter of the Almighty. However true in one
sense this may be- it only be said of patriotic



war, where men of the same creed, language
race and country, point the murderous weapons
at each others breasts. Such must be more
closely allied TO that spirit OF evil who, according
| to the fine imaginings OF our mighty bard, led on
the embattled seraphim over the plains of heaven
and shook ths very throne of the Deity.


! The causes of the fearful conflict between the
/ North and South we have had ample time to con
slider, and we do not contemplate discussing them
| here but the real causes of the disastrous defeat
which has discomfited and demoralized the Federal
| armv have given rise to numerous rash and and
misiudged specula!ions, and we therefore propose
to offer suggestions which may help TO solu-
ton of the problem which has puzzled others.
Writers on American questions are too prone to
\ forget the strong contrast which has from the
first existed, and which still exists between North
and South. These differences are so great that,
after careful consideration of them it is rather
| a matter of wonder, not that the Union has
been rent asunder, but that the severance has not
taken place many years ago. 1t is said that to
make the matrimonial state more happy than il
appears TO be from the revelations of the Divorce
Court, certain dssimilarity in moral tempera-
ment should exist between husband and wife. And
so, upon this fanciful hypothesis, the Union be-
tween the aristocratc and exclusive shareholders
of the South, and the ruder but more virtuous
and more energetic population of the North, was
durable because of their dissimilaIity. At any
rate, no one who has visited America, or is well
acquainted with the history of its people, can
doubt for instant that these points of difference
exist The early settlers, for instance, were as
unlike as Englishmen can be to each other. To
the North fiocked the Puritans and Covenanters,
and other men who, from an earnest desire to
have freedom to worship God" fed from the
dangers TO which they were here exposed by the
tyranny of priestcraft and kingcraft. They were
hardy, ascetic and gloomy men, but with their
sincere desire to attain the Kingdom of Heaven,
they were sensibly aware of the advantages of
comfortable, though not a snowy or ostentatious
position on earth, and they were Industrious, fru-
gal and money-loving, as well as religious and
devout. On the other hand the settlers in Vir-
ginia and other Southern States were men of
very different stamp-they were courters and
gentlemen. They thought a long pedigree as
important long purse. They nourished their
youth in the spacious times of great Elizabeth"
or in the midst of the pomp and show and cere-
mony of the courts of the House of Stuart. They
either went, Raleigh did, TO search for gold,
and to enjoy the luxuriant climate and tropical
vegetation of the new world in spirit of romantic
adventure or they were subsequently driven there
in the time when Cromwell and his warlike saints
enjoyed their day of power and their pride Of
place. 1t would have been strange if much SYM
pathy could have existed between those who set
tied upon the same continent for reasons and un-
der circumstances so different. A modern histo-
rian might prove that there was as much antago-
nism between them as Thucyddes pointed out
between the Athenians and Spartans. Normans
and Saxons were not more unlike.


With such opposite mental and moral endow-
ments, it is only natural that the inhabitants of
the North should have devoted themselves to
commerce, and should have set up and partially
believed in theory of social equality and that
the denizens of the South should have become
extensive landholders, exercised a pseudo -feuda-
listc rule over their slave population and, in fact


displayed all the virtues and vices which they in
herited from their cavalier ancestors. The mod
ern Puritans became thrifty traders, laborious
farmers, crafty artisans and successful profession
al men. The modern cavaliers despised the coarse
energy of the humber democrat of the North
sneered at his dreams of slave abolition and ridi-
culed his love of pelf-but they had vices of their
own ; they had all the intolerance of disposition
which so often belongs TO an aristocracy, CON-
bined with the elegance, the accomplishments and
the proud bearing which are among the cherished
traditions of men of ancient descent What more
likely than that such race would produce men
in whom success in the profession of arms would
be natural endowment-and what more likely
than that struggling commerce, which has moth
ing in common with the pride and pageantries of
war, should fail-signally fail-when 1t seeks to
convert the ploughshare into sword, or handle
TIE flue ln>ledu OF tue pen


The North, though great in numbers, and rich
in military stores, is strangely deficient in CON-
petent officers. There is no difficulty in account
ing for this. The two great national schools
the Military Academy at West Point and the
Naval Academy at Annapolis-have been crowd
ed with the younger sons of the aristocracy of
the South. Hence, upon the breaking out of this
intestine war, the majority of officers in the army
were from the South, they resigned their CON-
missions and carried their talents to the side to
which their ties of kindred and all their synipa-
thies and associations naturally bore them. These
vacancies were, in the absence of better men,


filled up by the appointment of such men as ex-
President Pierce, and ex-Speaker Banks. Even
Lieutenant General Scott, Commander in Chief
of the Federal army, is one of the Southern pro-
prietors, having considerable possessions in the
Gulf States. This veteran soldier, and some few
others, stood faithful by the standards of the
North. 1t easily be understood that the
wealthy merchants of New York and Boston ed
ucated their sons in the same position in life as
themselves, and taught them to tread the peace
full paths of trade and commerce.


The wealthy landholders of the South handed
down TO their eldest sons the wide hereditary
acres and the thousands of slaves, and looked, as
an aristocracy usually does, to the army and navy
as presenting professional pursuits for their young


er progeny. And so ardent were the desires of
the Southerners for admission at the military
academies, that when they had exhausted all to
which they were entitled, they, in some cases,
naturalized their children ard made them citizens
of the Northern States, in order to gain the right
of admission on ground All this might
have benn prevented by the keen, acute people of
the North; but they were busy worshping the al
| mighty dollar, and they have now had bitter
practical proof of the folly of their conduct. in the
defeat which they have suffered from the superior
strategy of Gen. Beauregard. The Roundheads,
however, who were at first inexperienced, beat the