Clement Anselm Evans

“ We do not believe that any man, any neighborhood, town, county or even State may break up the Union in any transient gust of passion ; we fully comprehend that secession is an extreme, an ultimate resort — not a constitutional but a revolutionary remedy. But we insist that this Union shall not be held together by force whenever it shall have ceased to cohere by the mutual attraction of its parts; and whenever the slave States or the cotton States only shall unitedly and coolly say to the rest, "We want to get out of the Union," we shall urge that their request be acceded to." ”

“ There were horsemen picturesquely careening over the noontide sun-seared field. Tier after tier of batteries were grimly visible upon the slope, which rose in the form of an amphitheater. With a fan-shaped sheet of fire they could sweep the incline, a sort of natural glacis up which the assailants must advance. A crown of cannon was on the brow of the hill. The first line of batteries could only be reached by traversing an open space of from 300 to 400 yards, exposed to grape and canister from the artillery and musketry from the infantry. ”

“ Gentlemen of the convention, that venerable, that able, that revered jurist, the Honorable Chief Justice of the United States, trembling upon the very verge of the grave, for years kept merely alive by the pure spirit of patriotic duty that burns within his breast — a spirit that will not permit him to succumb to the gnawings of disease and the weaknesses of mortality — which hold him, as it were, suspended between two worlds, with his spotless ermine around him, standing at the altar of Justice, has given to us the utterance of the Supreme court of the United States upon this very question. ”

“ At this juncture, Lee, roused from his quarters in the rear of the salient, by the mighty roar of the conflict in progress, came riding rapidly to Gordon's line and quietly took position to lead it forward. Gordon, in a tone clear, but not loud, spoke out: "This is no place for General Lee." His men caught the words and instantly shouted, "General Lee to the rear," while Gordon, his mobile face showing the incarnation of heroic daring, fairly shouted to General Lee: "These men are Georgians and Virginians. They have never failed you; they will not fail you now." ”

“ If successful, rebellion becomes right; if unsuccessful, it is treason. It is not an appeal to reason, justice, morality, law, but to brute force. It belongs to the slave and is the mere right of self-preservation. It is a travesty on freedom, on constitutions, on civilizations. Might can never make right. It is great only in the service of righteousness. Were Satan omnipotent, he would be none the less Satan, rather all the more the incarnation of evil, in potent antagonism to the good. Our fathers do not deserve such a reproach. ”

“ The States have no motive to encroach on the Federal government and no power to do so, if so inclined, while the Federal government has always the inclination and always the means to go beyond what has been granted to it. No higher encomium could be rendered to the South than the fact, sustained by her whole history, that she never violated the Constitution, that she committed no aggression upon the rights or property of the North, and that she simply asked equality in the Union and the enforcement and maintenance of her clearest rights and guarantees. ”

“ Henry Alexander White, in his every way admirable Life of Lee, says of the army of Northern Virginia, at this time:
Winter poured down its snows and its sleet upon Lee's shelterless men in the trenches. Some of them burrowed into the earth. Most of them shivered over the feeble fires kept burning along the lines. Scanty and thin were the garments of these heroes. Most of them were clad in mere rags. Gaunt famine oppressed them every hour. One quarter of a pound of rancid bacon and a little meal was the daily portion assigned to each man by the rules of the war department. ”

“ It was the same centripetal force which held together the thirteen sparsely settled colonies and enabled them, without constitution or government, to contend successfully against the greatest power of the world on land and sea, to win the battles of the Revolution and the liberties of America. It was the same force which attracted together the scattered elements, and organized them into a confederated republic, which brought to the Union prosperity and expansion, and which has made the United States the only great power whose boundaries have never receded. ”

“ Let the murmur of the hustings be stilled — let the voices of individual citizens, no matter how great and respected in their appropriate spheres, be hushed, while the law, as expounded by the constituted authority of the country, emotionless, passionless and just, rolls with its silvery cadence over the entire realm, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the ice-bound regions of the North to the glittering waters of the Gulf. ”

“ The handful of thinly-clad men who had cheerfully waited during the long chilly night for the hour of attack to come—part of whom had unhesitatingly waded through a cold and deep river, and won a magnificent victory over nearly five times their number—had been held in battle array, with only cold rations to warm them, in the biting north winds of a late October day, ready and eager to advance again upon the foe, and do again what they had done for Stonewall Jackson upon the same ground. ”

“ The truest friends of the republic have been those who have insisted upon obedience to constitutional requirements. The real ene mies, the true disunionists, have been those who, under the disguise of a deceptive name, have perverted the name and true functions of the government and have usurped, for selfish or partisan ends, or at the demand of crazy fanaticism, powers which States never surrendered. Those who contend most strenuously for the rights of the States and for a strict construction of the Constitution are the genuine lovers and friends of the Union. ”

“ He must be eloquent, for he is dealing with a lofty theme the most gigantic internal struggle which history records the grandest contribution which the nineteenth century has made to human greatness—America’s proudest title to martial glory. He is painting for future ages the picture of that eventful epoch, whose memories are the joint heritage of all Americans, and which is destined to occupy in American history the pathetic place which the Wars of the Roses now occupy in the annals of England, and in the hearts of Englishmen. ”

“ We have repeatedly said, and we once more insist, that the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of American Independence, that 'Governments derive their just powers from consent of the governed, ’ is sound and just; and that if the slave States, the cotton States or the Gulf States only, choose to form an independent nation, they have a clear moral right to do so. Whenever it shall be clear that the great body of Southern people have become conclusively alienated from the Union, and anxious to escape from it, we will do our best to forward their views. ”

“ Was all the territory of the States to become the property of Congress, and form a common stock? Every sentiment of justice revolts at the thought.
Had the war been unsuccessful, each State would have returned to its colonial condition without change of boundary. Had independence been achieved, and no union established, certainly each State would have retained its charter boundaries. ”

“ Fired with the love of liberty, and struggling for their own freedom from the grasp of Great Britain, no thought entered their minds of aggression against the brethren fighting by their sides. Impelled by this spirit of her people, she devoted her efforts to bind the States in a fraternal compact, to remove all causes of jealousy, and to build up a great and permanent Federal republic, and she hastened to surrender all claims to the territory of her sister States.
The Maryland convention, however, was in no frame of mind to recognize the magnanimity of Virginia. ”

“ The forward movement announced to the army of the Northwest in special orders, No. 28, from its headquarters, of this date, gives the general commanding the opportunity of exhorting the troops to keep steadily in view the great principles for which they contend, and to manifest to the world their determination to maintain them. The eyes of the country are upon you. The safety of your homes and the lives of all you hold dear depend upon your courage and exertions. Let each man resolve to be victorious, and that the right of self-government, liberty and peace shall in him find a defender. ”

“ Should Congress assume a jurisdiction, not only unwarranted by but expressly contrary to the fundamental principles of the Confederation, superseding or controlling the internal policy, civil regulations and municipal laws of this or any other State, it would be a violation of public faith, introduce a most dangerous precedent which might hereafter be urged to deprive of territory or subvert the sovereignty and government of any one or more of the United States, and establish in Congress a power which, in process of time, must degenerate into an intolerable despotism. ”

“ I am so dull that in making use of the eyes of others I am frequently misled. Everything, therefore, points to the advantages to be derived from a new commander, and I the more anxiously urge the matter upon Your Excellency from my belief that a younger and abler man than myself can readily be obtained. I know that he will have as gallant and brave an army as ever existed to second his efforts, and it would be the happiest day of my life to see at its head a worthy leader—one that could accomplish more than I could perform and all that I have wished. ”

“ To put it in the least objectionable form, the States, in their undelegated powers, are as important, as supreme, as the general government, and the theory of State subjugation, of provincial dependencies, is a pure afterthought to justify arbitrary and ungranted authority. It is indisputable that by far the greater part of the topics of legislation, the whole vast range of rights of person and property where the administration of law and justice comes closest home to the daily life of the people are exclusively or chiefly within the power of the States. ”

“ While the northern settlements were torn and blood-drenched and fire-blasted by intolerance, when the flames of burning witches lighted New England, and the air echoed with the lash of whipped Baptists, no man was ever molested for his opinions in Maryland—while Marylanders controlled the palatinate. Several times during that stormy epoch, which cost a king his crown in England and the people their liberties, there had been struggles between the Cavalier and Roundhead parties in Maryland, in which the latter were successful as their friends and relatives in England had been. ”

“ These brilliant results have cost us the loss of many brave men, but while we mourn the loss of our gallant dead, let us not forget that they died nobly in defense of their country's freedom, and have linked their memory with an event that will live forever in the hearts of a grateful people. ”

“ There is one irritating cause, too petty to exert any controlling influence, but which tends to keep alive passions which war and political strife have failed to perpetuate. A class of partisan writers have attempted to ignore the South as a factor in American institutions, and persist in representing the Southern section as inferior or hostile to the other sections, and have even stained the page of history by false pictures of its people, representing them as drones in the national hive, ungrateful participants in the blessings which other sections have conferred. ”

“ Do you think the people will sustain us if we undertake to throw it away? I must speak to you plainly, gentlemen of the South. It is not in my heart to deceive you. I therefore tell you explicitly that if we of the North and West would consent to throw away all that has been gained in the recent triumph of our principles, the people would not sustain us, and so, the consent would avail you nothing. ”