but every Republican leader now shamelessly boast that this was the great object of the war.
SECESSION DEAD.
The democracy under Jackson denied the right of secession; the great majority of Southern Democrats under Calhoun believed in it. The attempt to secede resulted in war. The right of secession was decided against us by the wager of battle. We yield obedience to the judgment without even a desire to set aside the verdict. The property we sought to save was destroyed by war, and we have now neither the interest nor the inclination to assert the right, even though it were freely admitted to exist. Slavery is dead, and no Southern statesman would restore it if he could. Its destruction was perhaps as necessary to the preservation of the Union as the death of Christ was necessary to the salvation of man. But while we rejoice that the plan of salvation was accomplished, no Christian loves the Judas who for money betrayed Him with a kiss, nor the Pontius Pilate who dared not resist the clamor of the mob, crying for his crucifixion, nor the fierce fanatics who drove the nails into His flesh. And no Southern man can love the John Logans and Ben. Butlers, who were devoted disciples of secession until the hour came, and then betrayed us for office; nor the weakness of Andrew Johnson, who permitted the murder of Wirz and Mrs. Surrat; nor the fierce fanatics who dissolved the Union they professed to save, changed the constitution they pretended to fight for, and by reconstruction laws placed intelligence and virtue under the heels of ignorance and vice.
While the loss of life was fearful and the destruction of property greatly to be deplored, there was much in the war of secession that will be remembered with pride by both Union men and Confederates.
The very fact that there was a war growing out of a question of constitutional rights, should be a source of pride, as evidence that no large body of our people will ignobly submit to what they believe to be a violation of their rights. When Northern men believed it necessary to fight for the Union, we honor those who fought and those who died for their faith. When Southern men fought for their constitutional property and rights, he deserves to be a tyrant's slave who does not honor those who fought and fell for a cause they believed to be right. But while we would cherish all its glorious memories and point our children to the brilliant examples of valor on both sides in the war, we have no desire to revive the bitter hates of the strife.
BELIEF IN SECESSION A SOURCE OF WEAKNESS.
The majority in the South had been educated to believe that secession was the remedy to which a State might peaceably resort in the last extremity to redress actual or apparent wrongs, and that
