American Civil War

“ For nearly fifty years the story of the Civil War has been twisted to suit local pride or prejudice in various parts of the Union, with the result that much which passes for American history is not history at all, and whatever else it may be, it is certainly not American. ”

“ From infancy I had been accustomed to hear pro and con discussions of slavery and the American Civil War. Although the British government finally decided not to recognise the Confederacy, public opinion in England was sharply divided on the questions both of slavery and of secession. ”

“ But the temporary reverses which afterwards befell the national arms, and which were exaggerated by our own disloyal citizens abroad, have hitherto delayed that act of simple justice.
The civil war, which has so radically changed for the moment the occupations and habits of the American people, has necessarily disturbed the social condition and affected very deeply the prosperity of the nations with which we have carried on a commerce that has been steadily increasing throughout a period of half a century. ”

“ I have faith that we shall do all this within a reasonable time; that as we have amazed the world by the suppression of a civil war which was thought to be beyond the control of any government, so we shall equally show the superiority of our institutions by the prompt and faithful discharge of our national obligations. ”

“ We are very prone to disentangle the web of the past, pick out the salient features, and then imagine that they, and they alone, absorbed contemporary attention as well as our own. Thus, when we speak of the Republican victory of 1861 and the inauguration of Lincoln, we think of the on-coming Civil War, and picture the men of that date as occupied wholly with the insoluble problems of slavery. ”

“ The true objects of the war ... are the suppression of the rebellion, the reëstablishment of the original Federal authority within the State, and the revival of the loyalty of the people of the State as the sole foundation and condition of all its civil rights as a State of the Union and of the right of its people to be treated as friends and not as enemies. ”

“ The civil war now raging in America, ending how it may—whether by the establishment of an independent republic in the South, or whether it ends most unexpectedly, as it would be to me, I confess, by restoring the Union—still the United States of America or the Northern States, or whatever they may be called, will then be in a totally different position to that which they were in a few years ago. ”

“ This Act of Congress, we think, recognized a state of civil war between the Government and the Confederate States, and made it territorial. The Act of Parliament of 1776, which converted the rebellion of the Colonies into a civil territorial war, resembles, in its leading features, the act to which we have referred. Government, in recognizing or declaring the existence of a civil war between itself and a portion of the people in insurrection, usually modifies its effects with a view as far as [p696] practicable to favor the innocent and loyal citizens or subjects involved in the war. ”

“ A distinguished Frenchman, as he stood among the graves at Arlington, said: "Only a great people is capable of a great civil war." Let us add with thankful hearts that only a great people is capable of a great reconciliation. Side by side, Virginia and Massachusetts led the colonies into the War for Independence. Side by side, they founded the government of the United States. Morgan and Greene, Lee and Knox, Moultrie and Prescott, men of the South and men of the North, fought shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same uniform of buff and blue,—the uniform of Washington. ”

“ Difficulties of Reconstruction.—A far more difficult question to be determined was that of the judicious reëstablishment of government in the seceded states. This difficulty was partly the inevitable consequence of a great civil war, [263] and partly the result of the peculiar circumstances in which the North and the South were now placed. The white men of the South had been at war against the Union, and the slaves had been set free. Should the former slave owners at once be allowed to vote? Should the negroes be given a vote? ”

“ The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one ‘to preserve, protect, and defend’ it;” we knew that, if neither the Federal government nor the secessionists yielded, the civil war of which the President spoke would inevitably burst upon us. ”

“ If the two portions of the confederacy should be involved in civil war, in which the effort on the one side would be to restrain the introduction of slavery into the new territories, and on the other side to force its introduction there, what a spectacle should we present to the contemplation of astonished mankind! ”

“ The effect of the Civil War upon these divisions was immediate and decisive, save in the border states where thousands of men continued to adhere to the cause of Union. In the Confederacy itself nearly all dissent was silenced by war. Men who had been bitter opponents joined hands in defense of their homes; when the armed conflict was over they remained side by side working against "Republican misrule and negro domination." ”

“ The Federal government had stood the test, proved itself too strong for the allied seceded states, overthrown their separate government, maintained by a separate people for four years, and established the fact that no state could secede or leave the Union unless by revolution and force of arms strong enough to defy and successfully resist the power of the general government. ”

“ In this whirlpool of political turmoil rebellion had time to grow and thrive in its southern strongholds, for its imminence could not be forced upon the cool consideration of a people whose traditions had so long been those of prosperous peace. The idea of a civil war, in which thousands on thousands of brave Americans would redden the soil but just denuded of its primeval timber, was an idea so horrible that the most iron-hearted man failed to recognize it as a possibility. ”

“ It is a maxim of another language, which we may well apply to ourselves, that where the voting register ends the military roster of rebellion begins; and if you leave these four million people to the care and custody of the men who have inaugurated and carried on this rebellion, then you treasure up for untold years the elements of social and civil war, which must not only desolate and paralyze the South, but shake this Government to its very foundation. ”

“ Again, sir, section 293 of the same book and chapter says: “A civil war breaks the bands of society and Government, or at least suspends their force and effect. It produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. ”

“ From the instant that your Slave-holding States become the theatre of War—civil, servile, or foreign—from that instant, the War powers of Congress extend to interference with the Institution of Slavery in every Way by which it can be interfered with. ”

“ With most of us, the gloomy thought that civil war had begun in our own land overshadowed everything, and seemed too great a price to pay for any good; a scourge to be borne only in preference to yielding the very groundwork of our republicanism,--the right to enforce a fair interpretation of the Constitution through the election of President and Congress. ”

“ From the period when we beheld a section of your community, when defeated at the ballot box, appealing to the arbitrament of the sword, without even the pretence of a grievance, excepting the alleged danger to the institution of Slavery, we regarded free constitutional government as on its trial, and we have viewed with unvarying satisfaction the uniform consistency with which he always upheld the maintenance of the Union as paramount to every other consideration. ”

“ There is a strong and natural tendency on the part of writers to stress the dramatic and heroic aspects of war; but the long judgment of history requires us to include all other significant phases as well. Like every great armed conflict, the Civil War outran the purposes of those who took part in it. Waged over the nature of the union, it made a revolution in the union, changing public policies and constitutional principles and giving a new direction to agriculture and industry. ”

“ The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the Union emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict purified and made stronger for all the beneficent purposes of good government. ”

“ I herewith transmit, for the information of Congress, the report of the eminent citizens above named, showing that the Enemy refused to enter into negotiations with the Confederate States, or any one of them separately, or to give to our people any other terms or guarantees than those which the conqueror may grant, or to permit us to have Peace on any other basis than our unconditional submission to their rule, coupled with the acceptance of their recent legislation on the subject of the relations between the White and Black population of each State. ”

“ It is one of the great struggles for the vitality of this Nation, the second one in our days. In 1860, when the slave-power had stretched out its hand to secure its ascendancy in this Union forever, we fought to reestablish the fundamental condition of human society, which is freedom. And now, when the corrupt tendencies stimulated by the civil war and the commotions following it culminate in reaching for the prestige of National approval, we fight to reëstablish the fundamental condition of good government, which is honesty. ”

“ In this series of volumes, pertaining to the history of the Confederate States, all concerned wish to disclaim in advance any wish or purpose to reverse the arbitrament of war, to repeal the late amendments to the Constitution, to revive African slavery, or secession as a State right or remedy; or to organize any party, or cultivate an opinion, which, directly or indirectly, shall inculcate disloyalty to the Union, or affect the allegiance of citizens to the Federal government. ”

“ The class of 1860 would find their country torn apart by civil war in less than a year. Many of them would listen to their President tell them that a house divided cannot stand, and they would answer the call to save a union and free a people. ”

“ Other nations were wasted by civil wars for ages before they could establish for themselves the necessary degree of unity; the latent conviction that our form of government is the best ever known to the world has enabled us to emerge from civil war within four years with a complete vindication of the constitutional authority of the General Government and with our local liberties and State institutions unimpaired. ”

“ Moreover, the policy with which an administration charged with the duty of maintaining itself and preserving the Union shall conduct a civil war, must be confined always to the existing condition of political forces, and to the public sentiment of the whole country. ”

“ The law of 1790 providing that no one could become a citizen of the United States except free Whites was the law until the aftermath of the Civil War added the word "black" or "of African descent" to those who could be naturalized. This last provision should be repealed and the blacks with the South American and Central American Indians put on the same footing as the Orientals. ”

“ Was, then, the American Revolution effected, was the American Confederacy formed, was the precious blood of thousands spilt, and the hard-earned substance of millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace, liberty, and safety, but that the government of the individual States, that particular municipal establishments, might enjoy a certain extent of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of sovereignty? ”

“ If, before the war, any man in this country was disposed to undervalue a government thus conducted, he should have learned by this time the wisdom and the strength of a government which embraces and embodies the judgment and the will of the whole people. If the negroes of the South, four million strong, had been endowed with the elective franchise, and had united with the white people of that region in the work of rebellion, your armies would have been powerless to subdue that rebellion, and you would to-day have seen your territory limited by the Potomac and the Ohio. ”

“ Nothing has involved more constant discussion in our political history than questions of conflict between these two powers, and we fought the great Civil War to determine the question whether in case of conflict the allegiance to the state or the allegiance to the nation was of superior obligation. We should observe that the Civil War arose because the constitution did not draw a clear line between the national and state powers regarding slavery. ”

“ At the very commencement of the rebellion each House declared, with a unanimity as remarkable as it was significant, that the war was not "waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired ”