details of its inexpressibly pathetic ruin. What is higher humanity than to grieve with those who grieve? Brothers and sisters
of the north, you will never find your higher selves until you fitly admire the titanic fight which these champions made for their sacred cause, and drop genuine tears over their heart-breaking failure.
The foregoing summarizes the larger obstacles which[Pg xv] bar true sight of the south and the north. The devastation attending Sherman's march beyond Atlanta, the alleged inhumanity at Andersonville, and many other things that were bitterly complained of during the brothers' war, and afterwards, by one side or the other, seem to me almost forgotten and forgiven. Brothers who wore
the gray with me, brothers who wore the blue against me, I would have all of you freed from the delusions which still keep you from that perfect love which Webster, Lincoln, and Stephens gave south and north alike. I am sure that you must make the corrections indicated above before you can rightly begin the all-important subject of this book. With this admonition I commit you to the opening chapter, which I hope you will find to be a fit introduction.
JOHN C. REED. Atlanta, Ga.,
September, 1905.
[Pg xvi]
[Pg xvii] Contents
Chapter Page
I. Introductory 1
II. A Beginning made with Slavery 35
III. Unappeasable Antagonism of Free and Slave Labor 45
IV. Genesis, Course, and Goal of Southern Nationalization 51
V. American Nationalization, and how it made the Bond of Union stronger and stronger 62
VI. Root-and-Branch Abolitionists and Fire-eaters 84
VII. Calhoun 93
VIII. Webster 130
IX. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 161
X. Slavery impelled into a Defensive Aggressive 208
XI. Toombs 212
XII. Help to the Union Cause by Powers in the Unseen 282
XIII. Jefferson Davis 296
XIV. The Curse and Blessing of Slavery 330
XV. The Brothers on Each Side were True Patriots and Morally Right--both those [Pg xviii]who fought for the Union and those who fought for the Confederacy 346
XVI. The Race Question: General and Introductory 359
XVII. The Race Question: the Situation in Detail 378
Appendix 429
Index 451
5
[Pg 1]
THE BROTHERS' WAR
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY
THE inhabitants of the English colonies in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are all of the same race, language, religion, and
institutions of government. Such homogeneousness, as has long been recognized, works powerfully for the political coalescence of separate communities. With the adjacent ones of the colonies just mentioned there has always been trend to such coalescence, as
is impressively illustrated by the recent establishment of the Australian Federation. The thirteen colonies out of which the United States developed were likewise English, and there was the same homogeneousness in their population, which made in due time, and also maintained for a few generations, a union of them all--a continental union. But there had crept in a heterogeneity, overlooked for many years, during which time it acquired such force that it at last overcame the homogeneousness just emphasized and carried
a part of the inhabitants of the United States out of the continental union. African slavery dying out in the north, but prospering in the south, was this heterogeneity. By a most natural course the south grew into a nation--the Confederate States--whose end and purpose was to protect slavery,[Pg 2] which had become its fundamental economical interest, against the north standing by the original union, and which having gained control of the federal government was about to use its powers to extirpate slavery. The
continental or Pan-American nation--the American union, as we most generally think of it--could not brook dismemberment, nor
tolerate a continental rival, and consequently it warred upon and denationalized the Confederate States. The last two sentences tell how the brothers' war was caused, what was its stake on each side, and the true result. This compendious summary is to serve as a proposition, the proof of which we now purpose to outline.
Our first step is to emphasize how the free-labor system which prevailed in the north, and the slave-labor system which prevailed in the south, were utterly incompatible. Free labor is far cheaper and more efficient than slave labor. It had consequently superseded slavery in the entire enlightened world. But certain exceptional peculiarities of climate, soil, and products planted made slavery profitable in the south.
To maintain the market value of the slaves two things were needed: (1) the competition of free labor and the import of cheap slaves must be rigorously prevented; (2) a vast reserve of virgin soil, both to replace the plantations rapidly wearing out and to afford more land for the multiplying slaves. The fact last mentioned made it vital to the south to appropriate such parts of the soil of the Territories as suited her cotton and other staples. Therefore whenever she made such an appropriation she turned it into a slave State; for thus the competition of free labor would be effectually excluded therefrom. The much more rapid increase of her population made appropriation of lands in the Territories likewise vital to the north. Hers were all free-labor interests, as the[Pg 3] south's were
all slave-labor interests; and whenever the former appropriated any of the Territories, she made a State prohibiting slavery in order to protect her free-labor interests. The north was not excluded by nature from any part of the public domain as the other section was. Her free labor could be made productive everywhere in it, and she really needed the whole.
Thus the brothers of the north and the brothers of the south commenced to strive with one another over dividing their great inheritance. The former wanted lands for themselves, their sons, and daughters in all the Territories possible made into States protecting their free-labor system; the latter wanted all of the Territories suiting them made into States protecting their slave-labor system. What ought especially to be recognized by us now is that this contention was between good, honest, industrious, plain, free-labor people
on one side, and good, honest, industrious, plain, slave-labor people on the other, those on each side doing their best, as is the most common thing in the world, to gain and keep the advantage of those of the other. It was natural, it was right, it was most laud-
able that every householder, whether northerner or southerner, should do his utmost to get free land for himself and family. This fact--which is really the central, foundation, and cardinal one of all the facts which brought the brothers' war--must be thoroughly understood, otherwise the longer one contemplates this exciting theme the further astray from fact and reasonableness he gets.
The foregoing shows in brief how there came an eager contention for the public lands between parents, capitalists, workers, employers, manufacturers, and so forth, bred to free labor and hostile to slavery on the one side--that is, in the northern States; and the same classes bred to slavery and hostile to free labor on the other[Pg 4] side--that is, in the southern States. The contention grew
to a grapple. As this waxed hotter the combating brothers became more and more angry, called one another names more and more opprobrious; and at last each side, in the height of righteous indignation, denounced their opponents as enemies of country, morality, and religion. Here the root-and-branch abolitionist and the fire-eater begin their several careers, and get more and more excited
6
audience, the former in the north and the other in the south. Both were emissaries of the fates who had decreed that there must be a brothers' war, to the end that slavery, the only peril to the American union, be cast out.
Under the necessity of defending slavery against free labor there came early an involuntary concretion of the southern