In
answer to a letter suggesting that North Carolina negotiate a peace with
the North in August1863, Governor Zebulon Vance replied that “the
terms of the North were, lay down your arms & submit, the terms of
the South -- leave us alone.” He added, “What would be the result of
submission?....the confiscation of our property, the hanging of enough
of our principal citizens to sate the Northern appetite for
slaughter….and a public debt greater than that of any nation on earth –
in short, the fate of the conquered….is what we should expect.”
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Submission is Slavery:
A
Northern student of the war once said to me, “If the Southern people
had been of a statistical turn, there would have been no secession,
there would have been no war.” But there were men enough of a
statistical turn in the South to warn the people against the enormous
expense of independence, just as there are men enough of a statistical
turn in Italy to remind the Italians of the enormous cost of national
unity.
“Counting
the cost” is in things temporal the only wise course, as in the
building of a tower; but there are times in the life of an individual,
of a people, when the things that are eternal force themselves into the
calculation, and the abacus is nowhere.
“Neither
count I my life dear unto myself” is a sentiment that does not enter
into the domain of statistics. To us submission meant slavery, as it
did to Pericles and the Athenians; as it did to the great historian of
Greece, who had learned this lesson from the [Peloponnesian] war, and
who took sides with the Southern States, to the great dismay of his
fellow radicals, who could not see, as George Grote saw, the real point
at issue in the controversy.
Submission
is slavery, and the bitterest taunt in the vocabulary of those who
advocated secession was “submissionist.” But where does submission
begin? That is a matter which must be decided by the sovereign; and on
the theory that the States are sovereign, each State must be the judge.
A tall stele was erected on Pack Square in Asheville in memory of Gov. Vance. I passed it twice a day going to and from Jr. High School. I do not remember ever hearing a word about him in a history class, and yet he was certainly one of the outstanding men of those Confederate war days and long afterwards. His championing of Jews was unparalleled. See http://www.mountainx.com/article/11424/Ashevilles-monument-to-tolerance
ReplyDeleteI had no idea of his greatness. Thanks for continuing my education.
& thank you. Looks like a good article.
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