Northern Rule and Ruin

 

The South was a dominant force in American government for most of its existence since the Revolution, its leaders preeminent as presidents, jurists and legislators, and its long record of leadership honorable and productive. Within four years of its inception in 1856, the Republican party of the North had forced sufficient internal strife and political turmoil to cause one State to withdraw from the voluntary Union, to be followed by many more. Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission www.ncwbts150.com "The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial" Northern Rule and Ruin: “No comparative act in the history of any civilized nation of the world is to be found which is on par with the results brought forth by the wartime amendments and the Reconstruction Acts. It all grew out of results a new party in power initiated when, about 1858, the old regime of Southern hold upon the Congress gave way to Northern newcomers. Senator [James Henry] Hammond of South Carolina in a speech on the Kansas Bill then used words of solemn and historical accuracy when he said, “You have complained of the rule of the South; that has been another cause that has preserved you….We have kept the government conservative to the great purposes of government. We have placed her and kept her upon the Constitution, and that has been the cause of your prosperity. The Senator from New York (Mr. Seward) says that is about to end; that you intend to take the government from us; that it will pass from our hands. Perhaps what he says is true, but do not forget – it cannot be forgotten – it is written on the brightest page of human history that we took our country in her infancy, and after ruling her for sixty out of seventy years of her existence, we shall surrender he to you without a stain upon her honor, boundless in her prosperity, incalculable in her strength, the wonder and admiration of the world….Time will show what you will make of her; but no time can diminish our glory or your responsibility.” Time had indeed shown – a mere decade of it, from 1858 to 1868 – a Civil War and an attempted overturn of the American form of government. The South had been charged, she would “rule or ruin”; but it is shown that the North, “taking over the government,” as the Southern senator stated, did “rule AND ruin” nigh half a great nation. As the truths of 1861-65 emerge, we see but the barren Pyrrhic victory won on false pretenses, and memorialized on labored perversions and obscurities, a Lincoln of fabulous creation and facultative dimensions, the false god of idolatrous devotees, an “Olympian” that never was!” (The constitutions of Abraham Lincoln & Jefferson Davis, A Historical and Biographical Study in Contrasts, Russell Hoover Quynn, Exposition Press, 1959, pp. 44-45)

Northern Rule and Ruin