Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

It would be difficult to state in precise terms the political doctrines confessedly held by the Black Republican party. After a patient effort we have desisted from the attempt. The more responsible avowals and professions of its leaders cannot be reconciled with the fanatical utterances of its less conspicuous and more active representatives. Its policy as well as its professions were shaped to suit the hour; and changed with every varying phase of the war. The party was conservative and apologetic in moments of distrust and apprehension; but always ready to overstep the limitations of the Constitution, and to burst through the restraints of law, in seasons of confidence and success. It was as unfaithful to its own promulgated schedules of faith, and programmes of policy, as to the laws of the land. It alike disregarded its oaths of fidelity to the Constitution and pledges of adherence to specific lines of policy. It would, therefore, be quite useless to quote from its several creeds and platforms, to ascertain its principles as a party; for it would be folly to judge of its character by its professions.

In sketching the career of one of the parties of the North, we necessarily present a history of that which constantly opposed it. The immediate subject of our review will, therefore, be the Black Republican party; which had absolute control of the war throughout, and which, in claiming the credit of its results, assumes the responsibility of its transactions.

As composed at the time of the election of Mr. Lincoln, this party was not precisely the same as it had been during the first years of its career. It was a party built up, as we have seen, through many years of effort, upon the agitation against slavery. In the beginning it was despised alike for its weakness in numbers and for its fanaticism. It received its ideas from the Anti-Slavery Society of England, and there is no doubt it was fostered during its early career by pecuniary subsidies from that same organization. After a few years, it began to acquire importance in the political contests of the country, as holding a balance of votes capable of turning the scales in several of the Northern States, where the great parties were nearly equipoised. Although it finally absorbed the great mass of the Northern Whig party, it was characterized in terms of severe reprobation by both Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster. The latter said, with prophetic truth: “If these fanatics and Abolitionists get power into their hands, they will override the Constitution, set the Supreme Court at defiance, change and make laws to suit themselves. Finally, they will bankrupt the country, and deluge it with blood.”

Mr. Clay, in describing its purposes, said of it, in words well nigh verified already: “The ultras go for abolition and amalgamation, and their object is to unite in marriage the laboring white man and the black woman, and to reduce the white laboring man to the despised and degraded condition of the black man.”