"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES.
With the success of the South, we believe emancipation would have followed by some method of compensation for the property rights in slaves, just as the North had received compensation for the same property, when held by it. Certainly it would not have been accomplished by putting the whites under the heel of the blacks, as was attempted by the North. In the contest between Lincoln and McClellan, in 1864, the people of the North were nearly equally divided on the issues involved in the war, Lincoln having received 2,200,000 votes in that contest, whilst McClellan received 1,800,000 in round numbers). We know, too, that Lincoln was not only a "minority" President, but a big "minority" President, his opponents having received a million more votes in 1860 than he received. So that, with a divided North, and a united South, on the principles for which we contended, if the South had been successful in the war, her people would have dominated and controlled this country for the last thirty-five years, as they did the first seventy years of its existence, and, in our opinion, both the country and the South would have been benefited by that domination and control.
Again, think of the difference between the South being made to pay the war debt and pensions of the North, and the latter having to pay those of the former. And again, we reason, that if the South, in all the serfdom and oppression in which it was left by the results of the war, has accomplished what it has—(it has made greater material advances in proportion than any other section)—what could it not have done, if it had been the conqueror instead of the conquered?
We simply allude to these material facts, with the hope that these, and every consideration dictated by self-respect, love of, and loyalty to, a sacred and glorious past, will prevent a repetition of the
