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most absurd stories were told concerning starvation, riots, and anarchy in the Free-labor States, by the brawling politicians, the newspapers, and the men in public office who were under the absolute control of the conspirators ;1 and every thing calculated to inflame the prejudices and passions and inflate the pride of the people — inspire an overweening confidence in their own prowess and the resources of their so-called government — and to fill them with contempt and hatred for “the North,” was used with great prodigality.
A military despotism was suddenly erected.
It was supreme in power and inexorable in practice; more withering to true manhood and more destructive of national prosperity than any written about by historians.
It prevailed from this time until the close of the terrible war that ensued.
It took the place of civil government everywhere, permitting only the skeleton of the latter to exist.
Press, pulpit, courts of law, were all overshadowed by its black wing; and its fiat produced that “united South” about which the conspirators and their friends prated continually.
It raised great armies, that fought great battles so valiantly, that American citizens everywhere contemplate with honest pride their courage and endurance, while loathing the usurpers who, by force and fraud, compelled the many to combat for wrong for the benefit of the few.
The foolish boastings of the newspaper press in the Slave-labor States were imitated by many of the leading journals in the Free-labor States.
“The nations of Europe,” said one,2 “may rest assured that Jeff. Davis & Co. will be swinging from the battlements at Washington at least by the 4th of July.
We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice.” --“Let us make quick work,” said another.3 “The ‘rebellion,’ as some people designate it, is an unborn tadpole.
Let us not fall into the delusion, noted by Hallam, of mistaking a ‘ local commotion’ for a revolution.
A strong, active ‘pull together’ will do our work effectually in thirty days.”
Another4 said that “no man of sense could for a moment doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing would end in a month,” and declared that “the Northern people are simply invincible.
The rebels — a mere band of ragamuffins — will fly like chaff before the wind on our approach.”
A Chicago newspaper5 said :--“Let the East get out of the way; this is a war of the West.
We can fight the battle, and successfully, within two or three months at the furthest.
Illinois can whip the South by herself.
We insist on the matter being turned over to us.”
Another6 in the West said:--“The rebellion will be crushed out before the assemblage of Congress.”
There were misapprehensions, fatal misapprehensions, in both sections.
Neither believed that the other would fight.
It was a sad mistake.
Each
1 A contributor to De Bow's Review for February, 1861, wrote as follows:--
“Our enemies, the stupid, sensual, ignorant masses of the North, who are foolish as they are depraved, could not read the signs of the times, did not dream of disunion, but rushed on as heedlessly as a greedy drove of hungry hogs at the call of their owners. They were promised plunder, and find a famine; promised ‘ bread, and were given a stone.’ Our enemies are starving and disorganized. The cold, naked, hungry masses are at war with their leaders. They are mute, paralyzed, panic-stricken, and have no plan of action for the future. Winter has set in, which will aggravate their sufferings, and prevent any raid into or invasion of the South. They who deluded them must take care of them. The public lands will neither feed nor clothe them; they cannot plunder the South, and are cut off by their own wicked folly from the trade of the South, which alone could relieve and sustain them.” And so the readers of this magazine were wickedly deceived.2 New York Tribune.
3 New York Times
4 Philadelphia Press.
5 Chicago Tribune.
6 Cincinnati Commercial.
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