The War.
Of all the wars that has ever raged upon this fighting planet,
Lincoln's war of invasion is the meanest and vilest, as well as the most absurd and unnecessary.
Of the latter fact there can no longer be any difference of opinion even among Northern men. If
South Carolina had been permitted to go in peace, the old Union would have been ultimately reconstructed without difficulty.
If the proclamation for seventy-five thousand men had never been issued,
Virginia would never have left the
Union till the crack of doom.
There was no people, community, or State, in all the North which loved the old Union with as disinterested devotion as the
South in general and
Virginia in particular.
The
North loved it for the sake of profit — the
South for the sake of liberty.
Every great name of
Virginia was associated with its creation and its history.
The Father of his Country was the son of
Virginia.
The greatest lights of its military and civic renown were children of the
South.
The poverty which grew upon the
South in that Union; the decline of the manufactures and commerce she once possessed; the desertion of her harbors; the stunted growth of her cities, and the sparseness of her population — all traceable to the legislation of the
Federal Government — never for a moment affected the loyalty of the
South to the
Union.
It held constitutional liberty in as high appreciation as the
North held the almighty dollar, and believing that the
Union was the very ark of liberty, it clung to it with a tenacity which blinded its eyes to all other perils, and made it tolerant of a companionship which, under no other circumstances, would have been endurable.
These facts show that the folly of the
Lincoln Government in drawing the sword was as great as its wickedness.
It drove the
South out of the
Union, when, by a spirit of wise forbearance and compromise, it might have placed the
Union upon a stronger basis than it had ever occupied before, and in shedding the blood and devastating the territories of those who were once the best friends of that Union, it rendered its ultimate restoration impossible.
The motives which instigated this policy were, as we have indicated, as base and ignoble as the policy itself was supremely foolish.
There never was a war so purely mercenary since the world began.
It has all the characteristics about it of an individual murder for money, except that to the base lust of money must be added, in this case, the most malignant vindictiveness and revenge.
The deluded masses are taught to believe that they are fighting for ‘"the
Union"’ and ‘"the old flag,"’ whilst they cannot explain what value either are, when ‘"the
Union"’ becomes a Union of force and ‘"the old flag"’ a symbol of despotism.
But the leaders made war for cotton, rice, tobacco, commerce, manufactures, trade; in a word, the
Almighty Dollar.
A wholesale murder for money is the true definition of the most abominable war ever recorded in the annals of civilization.
