Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
Southerners were not only warmly attached to the Union, which they had
done so much to establish, but their pride in their common country, in
its strength, its prestige, and its prosperity, was very great. Why,
then, should they break away? History supplies us with a pertinent
example.
Previous to 1765 the honour of England was dear to the people of the
American colonies. King George had no more devoted subjects; his
enemies no fiercer foes. And yet it required very little to reverse the
scroll. The right claimed by the Crown to tax the colonists hardly
menaced their material prosperity. A few shillings more or less would
neither have added to the burdens nor have diminished the comforts of a
well-to-do and thrifty people, and there was some justice in the demand
that they should contribute to the defence of the British Empire. But
the demand, as formulated by the Government, involved a principle which
they were unwilling to admit, and in defence of their birthright as
free citizens they flew to arms. So, in defence of the principle of
States’ Rights the Southern people resolved upon secession with all its
consequences.
It might be said, however, that South Carolina and her
sister States seceded under the threat of a mere faction; that there
was nothing in the attitude of the Federal Government to justify the
apprehension that the Constitution would be set aside; and that their
action, therefore, was neither more nor less than rank rebellion. But,
whether their rights had been infringed or not, a large majority of the
Southern people believed that secession, at any moment and for any
cause, was perfectly legitimate. The several States of the Union,
according to their political creed, were each and all of them sovereign
and independent nations. The Constitution, they held, was nothing more
than a treaty which they had entered into for their own convenience,
and which, in the exercise of their sovereign powers, individually or
collectively, they might abrogate when they pleased. This
interpretation was not admitted in the North, either by Republicans or
Democrats; yet there was nothing in the letter of the Constitution
which denied it, and as regards the spirit of that covenant North and
South held opposite opinions. But both were perfectly sincere, and in
leaving the Union, therefore, and in creating for themselves a new
government, the people of the seceding States considered that they were
absolutely within their right.[9]
It must be admitted, at the same time, that the action of the States
which first seceded was marked by a petulant haste; and it is only too
probable that the people of these States suffered themselves to be too
easily persuaded that the North meant mischief. It is impossible to
determine how far the professional politician was responsible for the
Civil War. But when we recall the fact that secession followed close on
the overthrow of a faction which had long monopolised the spoils of
office, and that this faction found compensation in the establishment
of a new government, it is not easy to resist the suspicion that the
secession movement was neither more nor less than a conspiracy, hatched
by a clever and unscrupulous cabal.
It would be unwise, however, to brand the whole, or even the majority,
of the Southern leaders as selfish and
unprincipled. Unless he has real grievances on which to work, or unless
those who listen to him are supremely ignorant, the mere agitator is
powerless; and it is most assuredly incredible that seven millions of
Anglo-Saxons, and Anglo-Saxons of the purest strain—English, Lowland
Scottish, and North Irish—should have been beguiled by silver tongues
of a few ambitious or hare-brained demagogues. The latter undoubtedly
had a share in bringing matters to a crisis. But the South was ripe for
revolution long before the presidential election. The forces which were
at work needed no artificial impulse to propel them forward. It was
instinctively recognised that the nation had outgrown the Constitution;
and it was to this, and not to the attacks upon slavery, that secession
was really due. The North had come to regard the American people as one
nation, and the will of the majority as paramount.[10] The South, on
the other hand, holding, as it had always held, that each State was a
nation in itself, denied _in toto_ that the will of the majority,
except in certain specified cases, had any power whatever; and where
political creeds were in such direct antagonism no compromise was
possible. Moreover, as the action of the abolitionists very plainly
showed, there was a growing tendency in the North to disregard
altogether the rights of the minority. Secession, in fact, was a
protest against mob rule. The weaker community, hopeless of maintaining
its most cherished principles within the Union, was ready to seize the
first pretext for leaving it; and the strength of the popular sentiment
may be measured by the willingness of every class, gentle and simple,
rich and poor, to risk all and to suffer all, in order to free
themselves from bonds which must soon have become unbearable. It is
always difficult to analyse the motives of those by whom revolution is
provoked; but if a whole people acquiesce, it is a certain proof
of the existence of universal apprehension and deep-rooted discontent.
The spirit of self-sacrifice which animated the Confederate South has
been characteristic of every revolution which has been the expression
of a nation’s wrongs, but it has never yet accompanied mere factious
insurrection.
When, in process of time, the history of Secession comes to be viewed
with the same freedom from prejudice as the history of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, it will be clear that the fourth great
Revolution of the English-speaking race differs in no essential
characteristic from those which preceded it. It was not simply because
the five members were illegally impeached in 1642, the seven bishops
illegally tried in 1688, men shot at Lexington in 1775, or slavery
threatened in 1861, that the people rose. These were the occasions, not
the causes of revolt. In each case a great principle was at stake: in
1642 the liberty of the subject; in 1688 the integrity of the
Protestant faith; in 1775 taxation only with consent of the taxed; in
1861 the sovereignty of the individual States.[11]
The accuracy of this statement, as already suggested, has been
consistently denied. That the only principle involved in Secession was
the establishment of slavery on a firmer basis, and that the cry of
States’ Rights was raised only by way of securing sympathy, is a very
general opinion. But before it can be accepted, it is necessary to make
several admissions; first, that the Southerners were absolutely callous
to the evils produced by the institution they had determined to make
permanent; second, that they had persuaded themselves, in face of the
tendencies of civilisation, that it was possible to make it permanent;
and third, that they conscientiously held their progress and
prosperity to be dependent on its continued existence. Are we to
believe that the standard of morals and intelligence was so low as
these admissions would indicate? Are we to believe that if they had
been approached in a charitable spirit, that if the Republican party,
disclaiming all right of interference, had offered to aid them in
substituting, by some means which would have provided for the control
of the negro and, at the same time, have prevented an entire collapse
of the social fabric, a system more consonant with humanity, the
Southerners would have still preferred to leave the Union, and by
creating a great slave-power earn the execration of the Christian
world?
Unless the South be credited with an unusual measure of depravity and
of short-sightedness, the reply can hardly be in the affirmative. And
if it be otherwise, there remains but one explanation of the conduct of
the seceding States—namely the dread that if they remained in the Union
they would not be fairly treated.
It is futile to argue that the people were dragooned into secession by
the slave-holders. What power had the slave-holders over the great mass
of the population, over the professional classes, over the small
farmer, the mechanic, the tradesman, the labourer? Yet it is constantly
asserted by Northern writers, although the statement is virtually an
admission that only the few were prepared to fight for slavery, that
the Federal sentiment was so strong among the Southerners that
terrorism must have had a large share in turning them into Separatists.
The answer, putting aside the very patent fact that the Southerner was
not easily coerced, is very plain. Undoubtedly, throughout the South
there was much affection for the Union; but so in the first Revolution
there was much loyalty to the Crown, and yet it has never been asserted
that the people of Virginia or of New England were forced into sedition
against their will. The truth is that there were many Southerners who,
in the vain hope of compromise, would have postponed the rupture; but
when the right of secession was questioned, and the right of coercion
was proclaimed, all differences of opinion were swept away, and
the people, thenceforward, were of one heart and mind. The action of
Virginia is a striking illustration.
The great border State, the most important of those south of Mason and
Dixon’s line, was not a member of the Confederacy when the Provisional
Government was established at Montgomery. Nor did the secession
movement secure any strong measure of approval. In fact, the people of
Virginia, owing to their closer proximity to, and to their more
intimate knowledge of, the North, were by no means inclined to make of
the Black Republican President the bugbear he appeared to the States
which bordered on the Gulf of Mexico. Whilst acknowledging that the
South had grievances, they saw no reason to believe that redress might
not be obtained by constitutional means. At the same time, although
they questioned the expediency, they held no half-hearted opinion as to
the right, of secession, and in their particular case the right seems
undeniable. When the Constitution of the United States was ratified,
Virginia, by the mouth of its Legislature, had solemnly declared “that
the powers granted [to the Federal Government] under the Constitution,
being truly derived from the people of the United States, may be
resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury
and oppression.” And this declaration had been more than once
reaffirmed. As already stated, this view of the political status of the
Virginia citizen was not endorsed by the North. Nevertheless, it was
not definitely rejected. The majority of the Northern people held the
Federal Government paramount, but, at the same time, they held that it
had no power either to punish or coerce the individual States. This had
been the attitude of the founders of the Republic, and it is perfectly
clear that their interpretation of the Constitution was this: although
the several States were morally bound to maintain the compact into
which they had voluntarily entered, the obligation, if any one State
chose to repudiate it, could not be legally enforced. Their ideal was a
Union based upon fraternal affection; and in the halcyon days of
Washington’s first presidency, when the long and victorious struggle
against a common enemy was still fresh in men’s minds, and the sun of
liberty shone in an unclouded sky, a
vision so Utopian perhaps seemed capable of realisation. At all events,
the promise of a new era of unbroken peace and prosperity was not to be
sullied by cold precautions against civil dissensions and conflicting
interests. The new order, under which every man was his own sovereign,