Reconstruction.
--It must have struck our readers that, in commenting upon the
battle of Manassas, the foreign journals gave it as the opinion of the leaders of public opinion abroad that a compromise between the two sections is no longer possible.
To the people of the
Southern Republic such language was scarcely intelligible, for the simple reason that no one here had entertained from the moment of secession the most remote idea of such a possibility.
It was difficult, therefore, to understand why it required a grand battle like that of
Manassas to open the eyes of the foreign public to a fact so evident to ourselves.
When, however, we hear in mind that the foreign public see only Northern journals, and that in the
North the idea of permanence in the secession movement is as universally scouted as the idea of reconstruction is in the
South, we cease to be surprised that
Europe should require some such grand decisive event as that at
Manassas to open its eyes and make it understand that reconstruction of the late Union is not as likely even as the reconstruction of the
British Empire precisely as it existed before the
American Revolution.
A more injurious idea to the
Southern cause abroad than this most mischievous one of reorganization it is not possible to conceive, and yet up to the
battle of Manassas it has been universal in
Europe, and, even now, there are those in the
North, who, professing to be our friends, endeavor to propagate the same insidious notion.
Even the
Journal of Commerce publishes elaborate articles, arguing that are organization of the old Union is but a question of time, that ‘"diplomacy"’ must be substituted for the ‘"sword,"’ and the Southern Confederacy recognizes as a
preliminary step to a reorganization of the Union. For ourselves, if we thought such a thing possible; if we believed that after all the heroic lives which have been freely laid down in this war; all the sacrifices which glorious wives, mothers and sisters of the
South have made with a faith in God and a conviction of duty as stern as that of the patriarch Abraham, when he laid his first born son upon the sacrificial pile; all the prayers of the pious, and the tears of the bereaved, all the self-denial, the anxieties, the superhuman valor, and even more wonderful patience and constancy of such an army of patriots and gentlemen as the world never saw before; if, after all the gigantic efforts of the
North to crush, to humiliate, to exterminate such a people; the proclamation of its
Fremont to shoot like a dog every man found in arms in defence of his liberties; the arrest and imprisonment of Southern men, and even women for daring to breathe a free thought; the contemptuous trampling down of the
Constitution beneath the heel of an armed soldiery; the proclamation of an intention to treat our privateers as pirates, to hang our
President,
Cabinet, Congress and every prominent Secessionist; to sequestrate Southern property, to subject Southern women to a worse fate than death; the handcuffs and fetters that accompanied the
Grand Army,--if after all this, a single man in the
North should suppose a reconstruction of the
Union possible with Southern consent, he would be an idiot or a madman; and a single man in the
South who would desire it, the most degraded creature that ever crawled upon the earth; a vile ingrate to the martyred dead, a foul traitor to the race, the
State, the church, the family, the honor and the happiness of his own native land; a traitor to his own wife, and to the honor and safety of his own hearthstone; false not only to every relation, human and Divine, but even to himself.
Traitors we have had in the last as in the first Revolution; Judas Iscariots there have been many in the church, and
Benedict Arnolds in the
State, but never did a political traitor merit so black a doom as that of the reprobate who will dare to whisper in his dreams of reconstructing the old Union.
The solemn earnestness, the clear and irrevocable purpose of the
South must be thoroughly understood abroad before we can expect recognition by
European powers.
Every tie with the
North must be broken; industrial, social and commercial bonds between the two sections must be snapped like the withes which bound
Samson; not a pile of the bridge which we have crossed should be left standing.
The policy and purpose of the
Southern Government and people must be made clear to all mankind as the noonday sun. Then, and not till then, will
European nations deem it safe to recognize our independence.
If one
Manassas has not convinced them of the fact, we must multiply
Manassas; we must answer the insidious arguments of Northern reconstructionists with sword, bayonet and artillery.
Those are the only language of the
South that can ever come to
European eyes and ears.
At the same time, we do not attach any vital importance to foreign recognition.
We can achieve our independence without their friendship.
They are dependent on us, not we on them.
We can live and live well; we can feed and clothe our population without their aid. They can do neither without the
South.
