THE BROTHERS’ WAR
THE BROTHERS’
WAR
BY
JOHN C. REED
OF GEORGIA
AUTHOR OF “AMERICAN LAW STUDIES,” “CONDUCT OF LAWSUITS”
“THE OLD AND NEW SOUTH”
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1905
Copyright, 1905,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published October, 1905
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
PREFACE
I would explain the real causes and greater consequences of the bloodybrothers’ war. I pray that all of us be delivered, as far as may be, frombias and prejudice. The return of old affection between the sectionsshowed gracious beginning in the centennial year. In the war with Spainsoutherners rallied to the stars and stripes as enthusiastically asnortherners. Reconcilement has accelerated its pace every hour since. Butit is not yet complete. The south has these things to learn:
1. A providence, protecting the American union, hallucinated Garrison,Wendell Phillips, Mrs. Stowe, Sumner, and other radical abolitionists, asto the negro and the effect of southern slavery upon him, its purposebeing to destroy slavery because it was the sine qua non of southernnationalization, the only serious menace ever made to that union. Thisnationalization was stirring strongly before the federal constitution wasadopted. The abolitionists, as is the case with all forerunners of greatoccurrences, were trained and educated by the powers directing evolution,and they were constrained to do not their own will but that of thesemighty powers.
2. The cruel cotton tax; the constitution amended to prevent repentance ofuncompensated emancipation, which is the greatest confiscation on record;the resolute effort to put the southern whites under the[Pg vi] negroes; andother such measures; were but natural outcome of the frenziedintersectional struggle of twenty-five years and the resulting terriblewar. Had there been another event, who can be sure that the south wouldnot have committed misdeeds of vengeance against citizens of the north?
3. We of the south ought to tolerate the freest discussion of every phaseof the race question. We should ungrudgingly recognize that the differenceof the northern masses from us in opinion is natural and honest. Let ushear their expressions with civility, and then without warmth and show ofdisrespect give the reasons for our contrary faith. This is the only wayfor us to get what we need so much, that is, audience from our brothersacross the line. Consider some great southerners who have handled mostexciting sectional themes without giving offence. There is no invective inCalhoun’s speech, of March 4, 1850, though he clearly discerned thatabolition was forcing the south into revolution. Stephens, who had beenvice-president of the Confederate States, reviewed in detail soon afterthe brothers’ war the conflict of opinion which caused it, and yet in histwo large volumes he spoke not a word of rancor. When congress was doingmemorial honor to Charles Sumner, it was Lamar, a southerner ofsoutherners, that made the most touching panegyric of the dead. And theother day was Dixon’s masterly effort to prove that the