Wall Street Journal’s Confederate Animus: "A conquered people never forget!"

 

A review of Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned the Tide of the Civil War by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. (Regnery History, 2018).

On the eve of the War for Southern Independence an article was published in The New York Times which unequivocally announced why the North had to invade and conquer the South.  The author of the article declared, “The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North….We were divided and confused [about Southern secession] till our pockets were touched.”  The Union Democrat of New Hampshire added this observation, “The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods….No—we must not ‘let the South go.’”  In an article titled “What Shall Be Done for a Revenue,” the Evening Post of New York warned that without tariff income from Southern ports, “the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up….the railways would be supplied from southern ports.”

These three citations are a small representative sample of the numerous editorials by Northern newspapers warning of the dire consequences to Northern commerce and industry if the South was allowed to establish its independence.  Rather than being the vaunted champion of freedom and equality, it is obvious that the worship of the “Almighty Dollar” was the driving force in the North’s War to Prevent Southern Independence.  Notice how the Evening Post of New York warned that Southern ports would be the recipient of railway commerce.

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