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.

[89] of the laws of God and the rights of humanity; it exerted all the moral and physical agencies that human ingenuity can devise or diabolical malice can employ to heap odium and infamy upon us, and to make us a by-word of hissing and of scorn throughout the civilized world. Yet we bore all this for many years, and might have borne it for many more, under the oft-repeated assurance of our Northern friends, and the too fondly cherished hope that these wrongs and injuries were committed by a minority party, and had not the sanction of the majority of the people, who would, in time, rebuke our enemies, and redress our grievances.

But the fallacy of these promises and folly of our hopes have been too clearly and conclusively proved in late elections, especially the last two Presidential elections, to permit us to indulge longer in such pleasing delusions. The platform of the Republican party of 1856 and 1860 we regard as a libel upon the character and a declaration of war against the lives and property of the Southern people. No bitterer or more offensive calumny could be uttered against them than is expressed in denouncing their system of slavery and polygamy as “twin relics of barbarism.” It not only reproaches us as unchristian and heathenish, but imputes a sin and a crime deserving universal scorn and universal enmity. No sentiment is more insulting or more hostile to our domestic tranquillity, to our social order, and our social existence, than is contained in the declaration that our negroes are entitled to liberty and equality with the white man. It is in spirit, if not effect, as strong an incitement and invocation to servile insurrection, to murder, arson, and other crimes, as any to be found in abolition literature.

And to aggravate the insult which is offered us in demanding equality with us for our slaves, the same platform denies us equality with Northern white men or free negroes, and brands us as an inferiour race, by pledging the Republican party to resist our entrance into the Territories with our slaves, or the extension of slavery, which-as its founders and leaders truly assert-must and will effect its extermination. To crown the climax of insult to our feelings and menace of our rights, this party nominated to the Presidency a man who not only endorses the platform, but promises, in his zealous support of its principles, to disregard the judgments of your courts, the obligations of your Constitution, and the requirements of his official oath, by approving any bill prohibiting slavery in the Territories of the United States.

A large majority of the Northern people have declared at the ballot-box their approval of the platform and the candidates of that party in the late Presidential election. Thus, by the solemn verdict of the people of the North, the slaveholding communities of the South are “ outlawed, branded with ignominy, consigned to execration, and ultimate destruction.”

Sir, are we looked upon as more or less than men? Is it expected that we will or can exercise that god-like virtue which “ beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things; endureth all things; ” which teaches us to love our enemies, and bless them that curse us? Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the sentiments, the passions, the reason, and the instincts of mankind? Have we no pride of honour, no sense of shame, no reverence of our ancestors, no care of our posterity, no love of home, or family, or friends? Must we confess our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, dishonour ourselves, degrade our posterity, abandon our homes, and flee from our country, all for the sake of the Union? Must we agree to live under the ban of our own Government? Must we acquiesce in the inauguration of a President, chosen by confederate, but unfriendly, States, whose political faith constrains him, for his conscience and country's sake, to deny us our constitutional rights, because elected according to the forms of the Constitution? Must we consent to live under a Government which we believe will henceforth be controlled and administered by those who not only deny us justice and equality, and brand us as inferiours, but