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"I was among those who, from the beginning, predicted war... not because our right to secede and form a government of our own was not indisputable and clearly defined in the spirit of that declaration which rests the right to govern on the consent of the governed, but because I saw that the wickedness of the North would precipitate a war upon us. Those who supposed that the exercise of this right of separation could not produce war have had cause to be convinced that they had credited their recent associates of the North with a moderation, a sagacity, a morality they did not possess. You have been involved in a war waged for the gratification of the lust of power and aggrandizement, for your conquest and your subjugation, with a malignant ferocity and with a disregard and a contempt of the usages of civilization entirely unequaled in history. Such, I have ever warned you, were the characteristics of the northern people.... After what has happened during the last two years, my only wonder is that we consented to live for so long a time in association with such miscreants and have loved so much a government rotten to the core. Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such a people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves.... There is indeed a difference between the two peoples. Let no man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between them."
-- President Jefferson Davis, December 1862
Monk has finally resumed Shelby Foote's narrative with his second volume, The Civil War: Fredericksburg to Meridian. The war is closing out its second year, and President Davis has gone out on a speaking tour in order to boost the morale of the South as the war drags on and on. It is always interesting to hear the high moral tone of the South, as they fight to defend slavery.
This bitterness between the sections seems rather fitting soon after our elections, with the heightening of the differences between our Red and Blue states, with the discourse being filled with its own invective and bitterness.
One will quote one more significat piece, illustrating that people aren't so different deep down after all, even if the murderousness is still there:
"...the military bands of both armies began to play their respecitve favorite tunes. Carrying sweet and clear on the windless wintry air, the music of any one band was about as audible on one side of the line as on the other, and the concert thus became something of a contest, a musical bombardment. 'Dixie' answered the taunting 'Yankee Doodle'; 'Hail Columbia' followed 'The Bonnie Blue Flag.' Finally, though, one group of musicians began to play the familiar 'Home Sweet Home,' and one by one the others took it up, until at last all the bands of both armies were playing the song. Soldiers on both sides of the battle line bagan to sing the words, swelling the chorus east and west, North and South. As it died away on the final line - 'There's no-o place like home' - the words caught in the throats of men, who, bluecoat and butternut alike, would be killing each other tomorrow in what already gave promise of being one of the bloodiest battles in that fratricidal war."
.
"I was among those who, from the beginning, predicted war... not because our right to secede and form a government of our own was not indisputable and clearly defined in the spirit of that declaration which rests the right to govern on the consent of the governed, but because I saw that the wickedness of the North would precipitate a war upon us. Those who supposed that the exercise of this right of separation could not produce war have had cause to be convinced that they had credited their recent associates of the North with a moderation, a sagacity, a morality they did not possess. You have been involved in a war waged for the gratification of the lust of power and aggrandizement, for your conquest and your subjugation, with a malignant ferocity and with a disregard and a contempt of the usages of civilization entirely unequaled in history. Such, I have ever warned you, were the characteristics of the northern people.... After what has happened during the last two years, my only wonder is that we consented to live for so long a time in association with such miscreants and have loved so much a government rotten to the core. Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such a people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves.... There is indeed a difference between the two peoples. Let no man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between them."
-- President Jefferson Davis, December 1862
Monk has finally resumed Shelby Foote's narrative with his second volume, The Civil War: Fredericksburg to Meridian. The war is closing out its second year, and President Davis has gone out on a speaking tour in order to boost the morale of the South as the war drags on and on. It is always interesting to hear the high moral tone of the South, as they fight to defend slavery.
This bitterness between the sections seems rather fitting soon after our elections, with the heightening of the differences between our Red and Blue states, with the discourse being filled with its own invective and bitterness.
One will quote one more significat piece, illustrating that people aren't so different deep down after all, even if the murderousness is still there:
"...the military bands of both armies began to play their respecitve favorite tunes. Carrying sweet and clear on the windless wintry air, the music of any one band was about as audible on one side of the line as on the other, and the concert thus became something of a contest, a musical bombardment. 'Dixie' answered the taunting 'Yankee Doodle'; 'Hail Columbia' followed 'The Bonnie Blue Flag.' Finally, though, one group of musicians began to play the familiar 'Home Sweet Home,' and one by one the others took it up, until at last all the bands of both armies were playing the song. Soldiers on both sides of the battle line bagan to sing the words, swelling the chorus east and west, North and South. As it died away on the final line - 'There's no-o place like home' - the words caught in the throats of men, who, bluecoat and butternut alike, would be killing each other tomorrow in what already gave promise of being one of the bloodiest battles in that fratricidal war."
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