Full text of "The historic significance of the southern revolution. A lecture delivered by invitation in Petersburg, Va., March 14th and April 29th, 1864. And in Richmond, Va., April 7th and April 21st, 1864"

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SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

A^ LECTURE

Pelivered by Invitation in Petersburg, V'a , March 14th
and AtDril 29th, 1864, And in Richmond, Va.,
' April 7th and April 2lst, 1864.

BY
OF NeHjWs ORLEANS

liAT^i'ALioN Washington" artillery.

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J (.3

PETERSBURG:

FEINTED BY A. F, CRUTCHFIELD & CO., BANK, !5TKj5t:i,

1864.

THE

^hUvit ^ipnfUntut

OF THK

SOUTHERN REVOLUTION

A. LECTURE

Delivered by Invitation in Petersbu'^g. Va , March 14th

and April 29th. 1864. And in Richaicnd, Va.,

April 7th and April 21st, 1864.

REV. ^V^ILLIA-M A.. HA.LL,

OP NEW ORLEANS

BATTALION WASHINGTON ABTILLERY.

PETERSBURG:

PRINTED BY A. F. CRUTCHFIELD & CO., BANK, STREET,

1864.

COllRESPONDENCE.

Head-Quarters Battalion WAsniNGToN Artillery, )
Nior Petrrshurg, Ya., May 2n(^, 18C4. )

Rev. Wm. A. Hall, Chaplain B W. A.:

Dear Sib : — In accordance with the expressed wish of many
members of the Battalion, and of many gentlemen of Petersburg and
Richmond who have heard your Lecture on the '^ ITisforic Siijnijicance
of the S'juthern Revolution," we desire to obtain a copy of it for pub-
lication. Believing that a wide-spread dissemination of your well
matured views, on a subject of such import, will be conducive of much
good to our great cause, and hoping our request will meet your ap-
probation. We are, sir, with sincere regard,

Your Obedient Servants,

E. S. DREW, Surgeon.
B.F. ESHLEMAN, X<. Col Comdg, W. H. WiLKINS, 2nd Co.,
"\V. M. Owen, Major, W. H. Ellis, Srd Co.,

lA (r. B. DkRussy, '2nd Co., Jno B. Gretter, "

Lt.'R A. Battlvs, 4//i Co., Saml. Bland, "

Capt. J. B Richardson '2nd Co., P. W. Plttiss, "
E. J. KuRSHEEDT, A'ljutant, p. 0. Fazende, 1st Co.,

Capt. Jos. NoRCOM, 4th <'o., Van Vinson, " .

Capt. Andrew Hero, jR.,'3rc? Co., Jno. R. McGauohey, *'
Lt. Jno. M. Galbraith, 1st Co., A. G. Knigut, "Znd Co.,
Capt. Edward OwiiNs, " Jno. S. Fish, Uh Go.

Head-Quarters Battalion Washington Artillery, )
Near Petersburg, Va., May bth, 1864. j

Gentlemen : — Agreeably to your very kind invitation the manuscript
of the Lecture to which you refer is submitted to your disposal. A few
slight but appropriate changes have been made. Several paragrahs appear
T?hich could not be delivered on the occasions of my public discourse.
I have quoted more perhaps than is usual in productions of this kind ;
but I preferred that what I believe to be the truth on some points
should receive that support which it may properly derive from the
sanction of weighty names. Please accept, gentlemen, my grateful
acknowlegmenta of the honor which has been done me in this request.
I am, Gentlemen,

Very Respectfully,

Your Obedient Servant,
WM. A. HALL,

Chaplain, B. W. A.

To Dr. !E. 8. Drew, Surg.; Lt. Col. B. F. Eshleman, Gomdg.; Maj.
W. M. Owen, Lt. G. B. De Russy, and others.

i/V • fU.

THE HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOUTHERN
REVOLUTION.
The Southern Revolution has been already discussed in
various aspects, social, political, economic, through thought
and blood. But we propose a distinct and wider view. We
propose to inquire, what does this great revolution mean when
considered as a movement in history ? For that it deserves to
be studied as a great historic movement, inferior to none pre-
ceding, is evident from its relations to the past, the present and
the future. Let us ascertain, if possible, the real causes of
this unprecedented struggle.

" Our siege of sorroic,
Projvjrtioned to its cause, no greater is
Than that which makes it "

What also is the great historic design of this Revolution ?
And what historic results will ensue from its successful issue?
All of which we may now anticipate, though we may not be
able to calculate the measure of their fulness. I would con-
duct this inquiry upon the idea that ihe meaning of any
periodic or national life is to be ascertained by consulting the
nature and the bearings of the philosoph}", the inmost ideas,
which make up and control that life. For human history,
considered as to its matter, is a manifestation of the human
mind ; as to its outward, written form, it is a record of the
action of that mind in all the directions in which it has
wrought. Withal there is the double truth that God and man
are the two great factors of history; both co-operating to
accomplish the heavenly purpose ; the One working with the
independent free-agency proper to a self existent, indepen-
dent Being ; the other working with the dependent free-agenc}'"
proper to a created and therefore dependent being ; yet God
all in all, working in and through and over man. History is
therefore, in a higher sense, the manifestation of God in his
providence ; it is also a record of that divine providence.
Prophecy is history yet to come, the God of providence yet

1>lJfa,^ ^

4 THE SOUTHEKN REVOLUTIOX.

unrevealed, untraced, ever adding to the canon of the provi-
dential scriptures. Without accepiing the entire development
theory of the German school, I believe that all historic ideas
do beget and influence and modify each other ; and control,
through a sort of genetic development, the periodic and national
lifes of history ; so that each succeeding period of history is,
so to speak, a development out of the preceding. Each
gathers up the hij=toric forces of the preceding, and adding
new and modifying elements of its own passes on to the accom-
plishment of its appointed mission — the working out of the
great principles which each embodies within itself.

Truly the prosecution of such an inquiry, involves no easy
task. It demands that we divest ourselves of all that is tem-
porary or special. We must rise above the present if we
would reach the highest solution of our case. We must
survey this great movement, ni'>t as politicians merely, not as
religioni.^ts, not even as Southrons, but as thinkers, controlled
by the noble spirit of the philosophy of history. It is no
affected humility, but the simple truth to acknowledge, that
I do not hope to prove equal to the high demands of this sub-
ject. But I would endeavor to establish from historj'- itself
four distinct propositions. First, that this Eevolution marks
the beginning of the last application of the great law by
which all history is governed ; Secondly, that it is a remarka-
ble historic protest against philosophic infidelity and disor-
ganizing wrong ; Thirdly, that it aims to conserve the perfec-
tion of republican government, and therein to vindicate the
orgituic law under which civil government was first constitu-
ted by God; Fourthly, that it marks the begiLining of what
would seem to be the last period of human history on its
present conditions. I therefore solicit your kind attention
while I endeavor to present in this form, as briefly as possible,
what I take to bo the answer to this earnest question, — Vihat
is the Historic Sigrcificance of the Southern Revolution?

I. This Revolution has a grand significance, in that it marks
the herjinning of the last application of the great laiv by which
all history >■■? governed. The history of our race properly

THE SOUTHLiKN IJEVOLUTloX. J

starts froni that event known as the Fall. Viewed from u
secular stand-point it is amenable to this historic law that —
2}0iver seeks an equiUbrium. Hence power is constantly tend-
ing from the individual to L,he miss — by m'jss I mean a con-
solidated despoti.-ra of j^aysical force — and from the mass
back to the individual. Moreover this history seems to be
logically divisible thus far, on this idea of power, into five
distinct periods ; each governed by one characteristic principle,
The .First Period of* history we may describe as the Period
of Formation; it extends from the Fall of man to the rise of
the earliest of the Ancient Empires. The Second Period is
the Period of Conquest; extending from the rise of that
Empire to about 100 B. C. when Julias Ca3sar began that
career of Conquest Avhich ended in the culmination of tue
Roman Empire. The Third Period is the Period of Consoli-
dati(m; extending from the opening of Ca3sar's career to the
Downfall of the Koman Empire in A. D. 470. The Fourth
Period is the Period of Disintegration, accompanied by the
predominance of the church; extending from the downfall of
the Roman Empire to the rise of the Reformation in Europe
in 1516. The Fifth Period is the Period of Reformation, or of
Individual Freedom ; extending from the rise of the Reforma-
tion in Europe to the 3'ear 1860, as it seems to me. 1 hen we
would seem to have the Sixth, and, as it would appear, the last
period of history on its present conditions, the Period of Con-
servatism. On this we would seem to have just entered, and
the South, unconsciously to herself does seem to have led the
way. Let us now trace, as rapidly as possible, through these
periods, the application of this law of power ; and please to
observe the distinction that while there are six periods of his-
tory, there are but three movements of power.

In the Period of Formation man appears before us first as
an individual. All the essential ^elements of the Primeval
Constitution pass over into this period, but all radically modi-
fied b}'' two new ideas, Sin and Redemption. These are the
twa fundamental conditions of human history which underlie
and pervade the providential government of God through the

"Ti l^ d> f\ jj Zi

<i> TUE SOUTHERX UliVOLUTIOX,

whole administration of tlie economy of grace. The law of
love being dethroned in the human breast, that of selfishness
reigns. Man seeks his own irrespective of all else. Especiallv
does he aim at the possession of unchecked 2)ower ; first, per-
haps, for self-protection and then for advantage over liia
fellows. Owing partly to physical causes and chiefly to the
-collective force of this law of power, man undergoes a sort of
formative process; he passes out of his individuAl posture,
through the family, into larger associations, until finally great
and powerful communities rise before us.

This introduces the Second Period of History, the Period
of Conquest. The idea of selfish power passes over into this
period ; but it is no longer the power of man the individual,
or of man in smaller associations, but of man in large and
powerful communities, swaying the besom of aggregate poioer,
chiefly for the conquest of his fellows. Each of these Entires
lives its allotted time and , after achieving its historic mission,
gives way to another more mighty and imposing. This period
ends in the bosom of the Roman life, about 100 B. C, when
Julius Csesar began that remarkable career of Conquest which
ended in the Culmination of the Roman Empire.

At this point we mark the beginning of the Third Period,
the Period of Consolidation ; extending from the opening of
Caesar's career to the Downfall of the Roman Empire in 476.
The Roman Empire, the last and grandest of the old-world
powers, embraces all the civilized world. Having reached
apparently the utmost limits of conquest, having even satia-
ted the demands of an almost superhuman ambition, the imn
perial Mistress of the Earth labors to consolidate all the peoples
and elements of the age beneath her own control. This era
is grandly featured by the sum of old-world's life — by the
highest development of law and government and social civil-
ization in the Roman State ; by the highest aesthetic and
intellectual culture in Greece ; by the transition ui that
culture to the Roman mind ; by the Incarnation of the Son of
God, in which God over man becomes God in man, and the
idea of Redemption is completed for its work ; by the passing

THE SOUTH KRN REVOLUTION. i

over of a pure Theism from the Hebrew nation to- the chris-
tain church ; by the perfection and universal spread of the
Greek language as the vernacular in order to its being the
organ of a more profound and spiritual statement of religious
truth ; and by the establishment of a vast system of military
roads and lines of intercommunication, extending from Rome
as. the centre throughout this consolidated world ; all concen-
trated and, as it were absorbecl, by this great consolidating
power; and all conducing to the most fruitful event of this
era, the- universal spread of the Gospel through the evangel-
istic agencies of the christian church. But the time has now
come for another great historic movement. The Old-world
has done its work ; it has exhausted all of its historic forces.
These having reached their utmost limit, they begin to pro-
duce only evil fruits which appear in the fearful corruptions of
the day. Not even the church of God escapes the contami-
nation. The law of selfishness, the love of power, returns to
punish itself. A new and more vigorous element must be
added to the decaying energies of the Old-world's life in order
to conserve and perpetuate religion and civilization through,
out the world. The decree uttered by the Roman Senate
against Carthage rebounds upon the cruel Empire — Delenda
Roma. And now the Northern Tribes, the great Teutonic or
German element, rush down upon Italy, the Imperial Seat
of the Caesars, beautiful even in her corruption, majestic
even in her weakness, and, as the rod of Jehovah, dash her in
pieces like a potter's vessel. The field of history is strewn
with the fragments of a magnificent Empire, and the light of
liberty, long dimly burning, seems to be entombed forever
in the darkness of the Middle Ages.

The Fall of the Roman Empire not only marks the close
of the Third Period of history and the opening of the Fourth,
but it marks the close of Ancient history with all that distin-
guishes it from that which we term Modern history. The
essential characteristics of the latter as distinguished from the
former are the addition of this Teutonic or German element
to the previous historic forces, and the consequent recession of

O THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTIOX.

povrer from the mass to the individual. During this period
all pre- existing political bodies and relations are broken up,
disintegrated. Chaotic ruin threatens all that is precious to
society. But, as the only ipstitution that could survive the
crash of dynasties and the collision of newly combining ele-
ments, the Eomau church controls the storm. Within her
bosom, as the only refuge, gather the elements that are to
civilize the world to come. All the corruptions of the pre-
vious era, which adhere by an almost physical affinity ; all its
aesthetic and intellectual culture ; its grandly developed
law and science of government ; its administrative skill and
ability ; and strange to say, this gigantic idea of consolidated,
imperial power, which was wrought upon the church by
Hildebrand as it had been wrought upon the state by the
C^sars — all pass over into the bosom of the christian church.
There they are indeed preserved, but almost at the expense
of her religioits life. This period is, therefore, strongly mark-
ed by the predominance of the church. It is in this respect the
opposite of the preceding era; in which the political pre-
dominated over the religious element, except during a brief
transition-epoch when church and state were in alliance
under Constantine the Great. Its life was a vast church-life.
All of its intellectual energies were expended upon the vari-
ous topics of theology, under the guidance of the Aristotelian
philosophy, in the unavoidable though misdirected effort to
mediate between reason and revelation, to reconcile faith and
knowledge ; and, therefore, as a means to this end, to give a
logical statement and consistency to the truths of revealed re-
ligion. That whole series of efibrts has been described by the
term Scholasticism ; which, being necessarily confined to the
church and thus to the universities which were controlled by
the church, Avas the only form in which the intellectual life of
that age could utter itself. In the almost exact language of a
living German writer ; — the whole Scholastic Theology be-
came divided into two schools — " the one exalting the under-
standing, the other the will as its highest principle ; both be-
ing driven into essentially differing directions by this opposi-

THE SOUTHSRX REVOLUTION. 9

tion of a theoretical and a practical principle. Even with
this began the downfall of Scholasticism." Although while,
standing wholly in the service of the church, it had never-
theless grown out of a scientific impulse and so naturally
awakened a spirit of inquiry and a sense of knowledge ; al-
though it made the objects of faith the objects of thought ;
though it raised men from the sphere of unconditional faith to
that of doubt, of investigation, 'and of knowledge, and by its
very effort to demonstrate the principles of theology establish-
ed, though against its kno*wlcdge and design, the authority of
reason; although it introduced to the world another principle
than that of the old church, the principle of the thinkino-
spirit, or at least prepared the way for the victory of that
principle ; though even its deformities — the many absurd
questions upon which the Schoolmen divided, their thousand-
fold unnecessary and accidenial distinctions, their inquisitive-
ness and subtleties — all grew out of a spirit of investigation
which could utter itself only in this way under the all-power-
ful ecclesiastical spirit of the time, — still this highest point of
Scholasticism was the turning point to its self-destruction.
The reasonableness of revealed truth, "the oneness of faith
and knoweldge. had always been the fundamental premise of
the Schoolmen ; but this premise fell away, and the whole
basis of their philosophy was given up in principle the mo-
ment Duns Scotus placed the problem of theology in the prac-
tical. When the practical and the theoretical became divid-
ed, philosophy broke loose from theology and knowledge from
faith ; the great principles of Scholasticism came to an end •
knowledge assumed a position apart from faith and above
authority — this gave birth to modern philosophy — and the re-
ligious consciousness broke loose from the traditional dogma
— this begat the Reformation."* Thus this period carries
through the Roman church the same effort to wield the sceptre
of consolidated power ; but by the very nature of its inward,
intellectual life, it breaks down upon the Sixteenth Century
in precisely analogous results.

•Schwcgler'8 Flistory of PailcsoDhy, Transition to MoJ. 1 hil.

10 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION,

Those results brightly define the begiEming of the Fifth
Period of history, that wonderful protest of religion and of
thought, which asserted itself early in the Sixteenth Century
in the German Ee formation. That period closed, it seems to
'me, in the year 1860, when the rise of the Southern Eevolu-
tion announced the opening of the Sixth, and, as it would ap-
pear, the last period of human history oi< its present conditions.

"All the elements of the new era, the struggle against Scholasticism
the advancement of the natural sciences, the revival of letters and the
more enlarged culture thus secured, th'e striving after national inden-
pendence, the attempts of the State to free itself from the church and
the hierarchy, and above all the desire of the thinking spirit for free-
dom from the fetters of authority — all these elements found their focus
and point of union in the Grcrman Reformation. Though having its
root, at first, in practical and religious and national interests, and expen-
ding itself mainly upon the christian doctrine and the church, yet was
the Reformation, in principle and in its true consequences, a rupture of
the thinking spirit with authority, a protesting against the fetters of
the positive. The purely human as such, the individual heart and con-
science, the subjective conviction, in a word, the rights of the subject
now began to be of worth. In the same way on the side of knowledge
the individual man came back to himself and threw off the restraints of
authority. He was impressed with the conviction that the whole pro-
cess of Redemption must be experienced within himself, that his recoij-
ciliation to God and salvation was his own concern for which he needed
no mediation of clergy. Be found his whole 'being in his faith, in the
depths of his feelings and convictions. For religion reduced to its
simplest elements will be found its have its source, like philosophy, in
the self-knowledge of the reason."*

And yet religion, unlike philosophy, is the growth of a
soul, a loving reason, renewed, empowered and taught by the
Holy Ghost. Thus we perceive that the leading principle of
this era, was fi-eedom of individual thought ; this was the chief
historic force that generated and controlled its grand and
fruitful life. Its work now done, that period has detached
itself from the present and put on the robes of a kingly past.

It is also clear that Ancient History, taken as a whole, was

*Dr. Schwegler,

THE SOUTHEEN EEVOLUTION. H

a movement of power from the individual to the mass ; reacli-
ing its highest development* when power massed itself in the
massive Eoman State. On the other hand Modern History
has been a recession of power from the mass to tte individual.
The era of tlfe Middle Ages did, indeed, carry the same effort
at consolidated power in another direction, namely through
the Roman church; but nil along that verv effort, moving in
that direction, power was descending to the individual ; be-
cause religion, which is the soul of the church, works upon
the most individual of all man's relations, those which he
sustains to God. That tendency has been moving from the
bosom of Scholasticism within the Eoman church, but more
especially of the Sixteenth Century, to the present day. Per-
verted in part, as we shall see, into modern philosophical athe-
ism, it reached its extreme development in the Northern portion
of the late United States. Against this we are now contending.
It is also true that in both these cycles, Ancient and Modern,
we discover many lesser movements, actions and reactions ;
but these, like the billows on the Gulf Stream, or the eddy-
ing currjents of the Mississippi, are either lesser applications
of the same grent law or of collateral andx)onnected principles •
they all move on in the same general direction in obedience
to the same great law. Now the movement which power has
already begun is the last which it can possibly make. Let it
be observed that history on its saci'ed side is, likewise, sus-
ceptible of a threefold division. In the ancient dispensation
God the Father, God absolutely considered, was more singly
revealed. During the time of the Incarnation God the Son,
to whom was committed all power in heaven and earth, was
more specially revealed; and that upon the summit of the
consolidated Eoman Empire which gathered together the very
energies that were to aid the universal spread of His Gospel.
The Day of Pentecost began the more special revelation of
God the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Trinity, oper-
ating most fully upon the individual man in the most individ-
ual of all his relations. So likewise on the one side of power
— and, it would seem, by virtue of the inward connecting

12 THE SOUTHERN REVOIA'TIOX.

principles of the Divine ecoAomy, — Ancient history was a
movement of power from the individual to the mass ; Modern
history has been a recession of power from the mass to the
individual. The reaction from the extreme of individual au-
thority, which has now begun, cannot result again in the mass,
because the God of History never repeats himself in such great
movements, eonducted a,s they are, upon those inward, con-
necting principles. History seems to have reached on the side
of power a place analogous to that which it has reached on the
side of redemption, that is, the dispensation of the Holy Ghost
operating most intensely on the individual man in the most
individual of all his relations, those which he sustains to
God. The last days of this dispensation are yet to be com-
pleted. " Then cometh the end, when the Son shall deliver
up the kingdom of God, even the Father ; when he shall
have put down all rule and all authority, and power. Then
shall the Son also himself be subject to him that put all things
under him, that God may be all in all."* The idea of God in
his tri-personality will pass back into that of God in his unity •
the dispensations of God, in the Trinity, will have passed back
ijato that of God in his unity. Power must, therefore, settle on
a point where it will find its equilihrium, between the despot-
ism of the individual and the desy^otism of the mass. This is
last and the only movement v/hich it can make ; and this will
complete the trinity of historic developments.

II. This Eevolution has a profound significance in that it is
a great historic protest, the only one of the sort in history, against
philosophic infidelity and disorganizing wrong. We are com-
batting a fanaticism, without foundation in the Bible or in
philosophy, which assails all the fundamental principles of
human and of divine nature, as they are revealed in the Word
and expounded in the providence of God ; as they are embodied
in the worthy social, political and religious systems of the
present day. Previous history discovers no such assault, so
profound, so comprehensive. The French Eevolution, the
final fruit of materialism, moved more upon the surface : it

*lCtr XV : 24, 28.

THE SOUTHERX REVOLUTION. 13

•ran its course with Frencli vivacity through the ghastly reign
of terror. But this crusade lays hold with ideal strength upon
the age-laid pillars of society. The fruit of the extremest
individualism, it is the most fearful illustration in history of
the truth — that the intellectual and moral philosophy of a
people, which educate their heart and conscience and intellect,
determine their whole inward and outward life, their charac-
ter, form of government, of society, and of religion — and de-
cide their destiny.

We may rest assured that this war is not designed to abol-
ish or to injure slavery. It may be intended to produce in us
a willingness to part with the institution when God's time
shall have come, if ever it does come. But no further can it
aim, unless the Almighty is working, contrary to the analogy
of all his pasfa dealings with our race, to carry out an ultimate
purpose aftecting deeply the interests of his creatures, without
giving them the slightest indication of such design. For
touching the question of slavery in its moral bearings, this
revolution clearly aims to vindicate the word of God, which
approves that institution and the providence of God, which
has wisely preserved it. Stated essentially in the primeval
law of nature; restated under the Covenant of Grace, with
modifications suited to a condition of mixed good and evil ;
sanctified and regulated by statement and by precept through-
out the word of God, which puts the relaiion of master and
slave, as one of the four essential relations of the household ;
pervadiJag the basis and the structure of the whole economy
of Redemption through its earthly stage ; standing under the
eye of Jehovah in the patriarchal era, the first period of his-
tory, and reappearing in the identical system of these States
in this last period ; upheld and illustrated, for the wisest pur-
poses, by the providence of God throughout the entire history
of our race ; and now assailed in this last period of history by
the combined infidelity of the ages — the doctrine of domestic
slavery and the system of labor which time has built upon it
are in a true sense divine ; they are the sum and the condition
of the African's welfare ; and they will probably continue on

14 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. .

some part^of Ccarth until the last day, when the economy of
grace will demit whatsoever is peculiar to its earthly stage
and passover its enduring glories on the Lamb's Book of
Life * Has not this Revolution already done what no other
instrumentality could have effected? Confronting, as we do_,
the only case in history of a senseless fanaticism controlling
most of the leading minds in Christendom, what, upon the
analogies of history, could be expected to break the grasp of
such a fanaticism, except just such a revolution ? This war
has set the seal of providence before the eyes of the world
upon the stability of domestic slavery and of Southern Socie-
ty ; it has refated the slanders of our enemies upon the char-
acter of the Southern people ; it has torn off the silver veil
from the face of Northern character and revealed to a disgust-
ed world the hideous features of the false Prophet. With all
reverence I believe that we have come too far in civilization,
that we are too near the latter day glory, for a godless fanati-
cism to master and desolate the church of the living God,
and put back that civilization several hundred years. Above
all, it is this that lends an awful sacredness to this contest
on our part — that the rightful claims of Jehovah are deeply
involved. Grrand as the contest is " for independence and
liberty, for the altars and the graves of our fathers, and for
the more sacred rights of conscience and freedom to worship
God, it rises to the moral sublime " when we consider that
we are permitted to vindicate the supremacy of Jehovah's word
and the purity of his government. This explains why the
Southern Clergy, standing aside for the time from all their
previous practice, have shown such an active sympathy with
this political revolution. " It is not only from the impulse of
a lofty patriotism, grand as that sentiment may be ; but out of
loyalty to God against whose rightful supremacy a wicked in-
fidelity has lifted its rebellious arm. Of all men they are
best qualified to appreciate the moral bearings of this con-
troversy. Much as they desire their country to be free, with

*Gen. 2: 5,8, 20—9: 25—27. Ex. 20: 19, 11. Ps. 40; 6 with Ex. 21: 6 and
Heb. 10: 6, 7, 10. Phil. 2: 7. Rom. 6: 14, IC, 22. Rev. 19. 18.

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 15

an infinitely deeper fervor do they desire that God should
reign."'-^

Let nothing in this statement imply the least condemnation
of anything that was true in the Eeformation era — that noble
^protest of individual freedom. Kever can we too highly esti-
mate the value of that great intellectual and moral movement.
It has conferred upon us all the glory and blessedness of mod-
ern civilization and religion. We simply discover that, as in
former ages so in this, men have acted upon the fallacy that
the reverse of wrong as such is right. Protestantism did
spring out of the same essence that begat modern philosophy ;
and in their subsequent progress the two have gone hand in
hand together. But as the deathly Upas flourishes on the
richest soil, so have false philosophies, bearing the deadliest
fruits, groAvn up on the soil that bears the true. Out of that
very movement was dragged a needless tendency, whose re-
sults have culminated in the fearful crusade that clothes the
South in mourning to-day. Nearly all the world-lffe at the
present day — and especially this American war — may be
traced largely and directly to these causes — the Transcenden-
tal Philosophy of German}^ — the atheistic philosophy of the
later and earlier French School — and the selfish utilitarian
Moral Philosophy of Dr Paley, a divine of the church of
England, It is eminently true that the Northern mind, by
its education during the last seventy years under,' these false
philosophies, has been prepared for this inhuman crusade upon
the existence of the Southern States. Let us trace the pro-
cess, and in order to its clearer comprehension let us define in
passing, the nature of philosophy, and the aim of mordern
philosophy.

Philosophy is a science distinct in itself The science,
commonly so called, get the material of truth from observa-
tion— "they find it at hand and take up just as they find it.
Philosophy, on the other hand, is never satisfied with receiv-
ing that which is given simply as it is given, but rather fol-

Rev. B. M. Palmer, D. D., of Xew Orleans — Discourse before ibe Legislature^
of Georgia, March 27tb, 1863.

16 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION,

lows it out to its ultimate grounds ; it examines every individ-
ual thing witli reference to a final principle and considers it
one link in the whole chain of thought," Philosophy, there-
fore, is the science of final principles — of ultimate ideas.
Scrutinizing the material and the spiritual world — the world
of mind and the outward world of varied life and manifold
relations divine and human, it seeks to understand these, and
to refer their glorious facts to some ultimate principles by
which they may be bound together and classified. Hence
philosophy is inseparable from man as a thinking being;
and, as Mr. Pearson well remarks* — " the rise of speculative
philosophy in any age or country where there are thinkers
seems inevitable.. It is the natural conseq,uence of the mind's
desire to penetrate into the mysteries of existence and to
know all things. Man himself is a mystery, the world around
him is a mystery, the great God above him is a mystery,* and
the relations between each and all of these are profoundly and
impressively mysterious. And while the great majority of
men are content with the knowledge that lies upon the surface
of things, there are those who must endeavor to get beyond
and solve the problems of mysterious existence. This, in its-
self, is not to be regarded as an evil. It indicates a reflecting
age and marks tthe advancement of a community in mental
culture. The evil is, when it spurns the investigation of pal-
pable facts and indubitable evidence, treats as empirical the
honest method of induction, and passing the bounds of all
fair and legitimate inquiry," transcends the proper limits of
human thought.

Now it has been the aim of modern philoso|)hy, with per-
haps larger success, to ascertain the final principles of all truth.
Especially has it labored in the sphere of mental science
There it has raised this fundamental inquiry — what is the
origiQ ot our knowledge ? We seem to derive our impressions
of the external world through the senses. But is the mind
simply a hlanh sheet upon which those impressions are stamp-
ed ? Or does it essentially modify them ? Or does the mind

*lDfideIity, p. ?o2.

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 17

contain within itself the types of the world without, certain
innate ideas, which are only aroused into activity — whenever
we behold the external world ? Briefly, does our knowledge
originate in the senses, or within the mind itself, or is it a sort
of compromise between the workings of both thought and
sense — of reflection and sensation ? Now precisely as men
have given undue prominence to the ideal, or the sensational
origin of knowledge, in that proportion have they developed
a philosophy grossly material, and sensual, or vaguely ideal,
and transcendental. Such, precisely, have been the painful
and needless developments in two branches of modern phi-
losophy. Beneath their united eft'ects we are staggering to-
day. Mr, Locke announced with much truth, that our know-
ledge is the combined result of sensation and reflection. Mr.
Hobbes, seizing upon the purely material side of this theory,
made knowledge to be simply transformed sensations. Others
resolved the soul itself into a mere collection of atoms — a
material substance; thus overturning the doctrine of»the
immortality of the soul, with its consequent religion and mo-
rality. From these, Condillac in France, Diderot, D'Holbach,
and the Systems de la Nature, carried materialism to its
bitterest fruits in that beautiful land of the vine. Starting
with the idea that knowledge originates wholly in the senses,
this philosophy soon identified man with material nature,
made death an eternal sleep, piety the superstition of the
senseless, and morality the religion of the fool. Absorbing
the Deity in his own creation, it declared that God was the
universe. At last, seizing with Celtic frenzy, and yet with
sensual weakness, upon the very foundations of society, as it
had upon the throne of Jehovah, it enthroned the Goddess
of material reason and rioted through the terrible reign of
1793. On one side we are now combatting the last results of
that atheism. The theory of "human rights," which Thos.
Paine sowed deeply over the receptive North, after the first
Revolution, was derived from the French atheism. And the
very text upon which this Abolition crusade is discoursing so
bloodily the dogma, that "all men are created free, and have

18 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

equal riglits to liberty," wns incorporated into the Declaration
of Independence by Mr. Jefferson, a Southern statesman, who
imbibed his philosophical sentiments from the schools of
France.

The German philosophy has been a reaction on the side of
idealism, against the French extreme. Starting from the
principle of Des Cartes, that philosophy, or the pursuit of
knowledge, should be begun with universal doubt, it moved
through the phases of Leibnitz and Wolf, until it reached the
extreme development in the transcendental Pantheism of
the later German School. 'Finding the origin of knowledge
wholly in the soul of man, this makes him the centre and the
solution of the universe. Proclaiming that the universe is
God, it destroys the distinct personality of Jehovah, Man
being a part of the universe, is theiefore a part of God ; he
is to himself the only God ; and the only Divine revelation
that is or can be made to him, is the intuition of his own
coifciousness. Being thus intensely individual, making each
man the sole criterion to himself of all truth, this philosophy
transcends every proper limit of human thought ; it refuses
obedience to any outward revelation from a personal God;
it denies every claim of an historic Christ, or an evidential
Christianity; it overrides every restraint or obligation, social
or political; and aims to adjust the universe, things human
and divine, upon the intuitions of this exalted man — God, the
self-constituted judge of all things. Pantheism has just com-
pleted its ideal course and work. According to the best his-
torians of the German philosophy, that j)hilosophy is entering
upon a new phase, which is as yet undetermined. One of the
most remarkable facts of the age is, that Strauss, who made
the famous attempt in his Life of Jesus, on this transcendental
theory, to make the historic Christ a mere idea, begotten in
the consciousness of humanity, a mere Christian myth, and the
Gospel history a mere spiritual mythology, has just recanted
his entire theory; thus verifying the beautiful remark of
Isaac Taylor, — the moment you prove the resurrection of

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 19

Jesus from the dead, tlie whole fabric of modern infidelity
falls to the ground.

But above all other causes, the intensely practical effects
of that Pantheism are upon us to day. This whole Northern
crusade is the special effect in this country of the ideal
atheism of the German School, precisely as the Revolution of
1793, was the effect in France of the material atheism of the
French School. It has appeared here because the conditions
of American life, unlike those of despotic Europe, were highly
favorable to its extremest development. The French Revol-
ution was more superficial, special, Celtic ; this crusade is
more profound comprehensive, Teutonic; the latter has been
slower in its development, than the former, because the ideal
moves more slowly than the material. It has been already
said that the moral philosophy of Dr. Paley, has had an in-
fluence in forming the present condition of the Northern mind.
John Randolph once observed, that New England derived
her morality from Dr. Paley and the Jesuits. Defining virtue
to be that which conduces to one's ow:i happiness, rather than
conformity to the outwardi}' revealed will of God, Dr. Paley's
piiilosophy has educated the Norihern heart and conscience
in selfishness, while German Transcendentalism has been in
like manner, educating the Northern intellect, until the bulk
of Northern life has become a monstrous Egoism. Imported
during the last eighty years, in the works of German philo-
sophers, and in the writings of M. Victor Col'SJXI, the
brilliant liCcturer before the University of Paris, this German
Pantheism has transformed almost all the educated mind of
the North. It has pervaded e\cry sphere of life, every rank
of society, and every department of thought. It has given
birth to almost every is7n that afflicts that people ; and these
all, representing in their varied forms the sum of modern
infidelity, have found their focus and point of union in Abo-
litionism. "^I'he lost and lawle-s spirit of the ages, up from
the vasty deep of error — this has been animating the year-
long crusade upon the Southern States. It declared through
Mr. Burlingame, some j^ears ago, on the floor of the United.

20 'i^K SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

States Congress, — "The times demand and we must have an
anti-slavery Constitution, an anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-
slavery God ! " Transcendentalism in politics! Extermina,-
tion to God ! It declared through Mr. Seward, before the
Buffalo Convention of 1855, — "Slavery must and can be
abolished. You and I can and must do it. It may bring
about a struggle which will subvert this constitution ; but
slave-holders sTaall perish in the struggle ! " Rebellion against
the government ! Extermination to the whites ! It declared
through Mr. Seward again, before the Chicago Convention
of 1860, — " There are the Southern States, with the finest
territory on the face of the earth, peopled by four millions of
blacks. That territory is wanted for the free white men of
the North; those blacks must be put out oi the way ! " Ex-
termination to the blacks ! It declared through the Reverend
Beecher, a few years ago, when lifting from a desecrated
pulpit, the word of God, he exclaimed, " If the God of that
Bible be the God of slavery, I would help dethrone Him
from the universe ! " Transcendentalism in the pulpit ! As
faithless as the arch-deceiver, more merciless than the grave;
choosing, rather like Milton's Satan, "to reign in hell than
serve in heaven ; " it has spoken through an Abolition press ;
it has declaimed from Abolition rostrums; it has deceived
through Abolition Statesmen ; it has destroyed through
menial armies; it did "subvert the Constitution," in the
election of Mr Lincoln for the perdition of slave-holders —
and the great Republic is no more ! Some noble spirits tried
to avert the catastrophe which they saw approaching. The
great Webster, a type far more of what is true than of what
was false in New England, turned first in one direction
and then in another, but with evident hope to the generous
Southerner. On one occasion in 1850, he said to an eminent
gentleman from Maryland,* — " Sir, I think it my duty to say
some things to you and other gentlemen from the South, of

* This conversation has cever before been published. It was related^ to me
some weeks ago, by the son of the gentleman referred to, now an officer of the
Confederate Government; and I have taken the liberty to insert it here.

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 21

like position and character. In my opinion, a crisis is at
hand in the history of the country. The mass of the North-
ern people have been thoroughly educated in Abolitionism.
It is preached from the pulpit, it pours from the press, it is
taught in the schools, it is imbibed at the mother's breast.
The feeling is with them a religious lentiment ; and, sir, the
day is near, when they will as one man demand of the South
the abolition of slavery, Kow, sir, I beg that 3'ou. and
gentlmen of like influence, will go among your people, and
persuade them to acquiesce in that demand ; for, sir, if it is
not peaceably met, the country is ruined ! " " Mr. Webster,"
replied the gentlem.an, "lam both surprised and grieved
to heaV such sentiments from you. I can only say to you,
from what I know of the character of the Southern people,
if that demand ever is made, the sword will be drawn, and
that will decide the issue." On another occasion that noble
statesman poured out the indignation of his agonized soul,
on the destroyers of his country, in this language, — "If
these infernal abolitionists once succeed in grasping the
powers of government, they will overturn the Constitution,
trample on all law, destroy every vested right, lay violent
hands on all who oppose them, and overwhelm the country
in irretrievable ruin." Alas ! that the tearful prophecy must
needs have been fulfilled. Alas ! that iniquity could have
power to destroy such a hopeful national life. The golden
tongue of liberty is sealed, and unless the South be faithful,
is sealed up in silence forever !

"7Ae chord, the harp's full chord is hushed;

The voice hath died away,
Whence music, like sweet waters, gushed

But yesterday."

It is evident from this discussion, that the question of
African slavery is not fundamental to this revolution, except
so far as it involves the doctrine of the providential inferi-
ority of the African race. That institution is not a cause of
this war, but simply an occasion of it. It is only the ohject
against which the radicalism of the North has arrayed

22 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

itself in Abolitionism. ITad not this object existed, that
Dragoa from the bottomless pit, would have discovered some
other eminence of Southern life, on which to' expend its fury.
There is one other topic to which I must refer, noi- only to
preserve the unity of this discussion, but to enter mv dissent
from certain impressions which have been urgently difiused
in public and private, by mouth and pen. So far as I am
aware, there has been but one prominent exception to this
general procedure. During the debate in the Confederate
Congress, respecting the adoption of our national motto, Deo
vindice, a distinguished Senator from Louisiana, uttered a brief
but able dii-'sent from the clamor which I am about to oppose.
It is proper, as well as necessary, for me to remark,- what
indeed, this argument has already established, that Purilan-
ism, iwoiierhj so called, has 7m connextion wJiaisoever, toith ihis
inhuman crusade upon the Confederate SlaV's. With all due
respect to those who think differently, I must confess my
amazement at the persistency with which some have bruited
the absurd idea, that this unprecedented struggle — the anom-
aly of all history — is a renewal of the strife between the Pur-
itan and the Cavalier ! And I know not how to account
for this singular phenomenon, unless it may be ascribed to
ignorance or _ to passion, I say, to ignorance or to passion ;
for surely there are none among us who would have this to be
the price of our incalculable sufferings — a condition of so-
ciety in church and state, that shall inure to the special
benefit of certain mythical individuals styled C ivaliers, and
their descendants or adherents ! If so, the Southern people
will repudiate an ipsue for which they are ignorantly sacri-
ficing their all. Who are these Cavaliers ? Where have
they 'ever been in any considerable numbers upon this
continent? Call up the men who composed the Virginia
Convention of 1776, and ask them from what stock they
came, by birth and training, and by election. Were they
Cavaliers in blood or in principle? Almost without ex-
ception, their descent was lluguenot, Scotch and Irish.

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 2S

"0! that the history of such a race were worthily written. 0!
that our hit-toriacs, inster'd of bt-ginning and ending with the acts of
the begjiarly governors, who for a century and a half, were sent over
to fatten on the revenues of the Colony, and calling such a record,
Virginia's hijtory, had looked to the races from which this glorious
stock h;id risen, their high spirit, tbeir burning patriotism ! These
writers tell us that, these noble qualities have been derived from a cla>*«s of
men who came over from time to time, few and far between, and under
the name of Cavaliers, sought a livelihood in the Colony. BJisertvble fig-
ment I Outrageous calumny ! Why, sir, the Cavalier was essentially
a slave — a compound slave — a slave to the king and a slave to the
cburcb. He was the last, man in the world from whom any great ele-
mental principle of liberty and law could come. He was as incapable
of transmitting such a principle to others, as he was of conceiving it
himself. It is true that some of this class did come over at intervals.
Some came with the gallant John Smith; but when he found out how
worthless they were, he implored the Virginia Company to send no
more. Even the gallant SiMiTH himself, left the colony after a short
sojourn, and was soon followed by Percy, whom the first honors of tho
Colony could not tempt to remain within its borders. But when the.
great gold shipment turned to dross, the Cavalier came no more. A
home in th% wilderness, to be cleared by his own axe, and guarded by
his own musket, against a wily foe, was no place for the voluptuary
and tho idler. — Sir, I look with contempt on that miserable figment,
which has so long held a place in our histories, and which seeks to trace
the distinguibhing and salient points of the Virginia character, to the
ii-'fluence of those butterflies of the British aristocracy, who, unable to
earn their bread at home, came over to the Colony to feed on whatever
crumbs they might gather in some petty office, or from the racecourse,
or from the gsniing table, instead of regarding those distinctive traits
as the legitimate results of a great Anglo-Saxon people, placed in a
position of all others, best adapted to the full and generous develop-
ment of their peculiar virtues. The secret of our colonial history lies
far deeper If you will look back into the reigns of Henry the Eighth,
and Eliz-ibeih, you will find some of the causes which led to the settle-
ment of V^iigiuia. — Still there was in the Colony, a distinct Cavalier
class, not vfhulij contemptible in numbers, but more potent in influence,
which partook of the character that marked the foreign original, and
which in its modes of life, imitated English manners, practiced liinglish

24 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

sports, cheribbed English prejudices, and were proud of the glory of
England, not in its loftiest development, but as casting its brightness,
of all others in the Colony, on itself. But even to this class, some,
who could trace a legitimate descent from those who came over after
the discomfiture and death of Charles, did not belong. Their descend-
ants differed materially from their ancestors. The architects of their
own fortune, reared in that noblest of all schools, the school of poverty,
they had mingled freely with the people, and shared their pursuits;
and thus not only lost their hereditary prejudices, but adopted popular
views, and became the most strenuous supporters of the very principles
from which their ancestors would have recoiled. It was the spirit of
Anglo Saxon liberty, inculf^ated for generations, by the peculiar circum-
stances of the Colony in their race, that made the names of Washington,
George Mason, and the Lees, a bulwark in the cause of independence.
But neither of these was the representative of the party to which, hy
the accident of birth he belonged. — How that Convention would
have laughed to scorn the notion that they, and those who chose them,
owed their high courage, their keen sense of wrong, their exalted love
of liberty in church and state, to a set of vagrants and office holders,
who never drew a sword but in defence of a tyrant king, and whose
highest ambition sought only the petty honors which a tjrant deemed
high enough for his tools in a distant Colony ! Pure .and devoted
patriots ! they knew full well that their love of liberty, their hatred of
wrong, their unflinching courage, came from another quarter. What-
ever merits their fathers, or their lathers' fathers possessed, were all
their own* — And let me say to you, sir, how much more noble it is, as
well as more true, how much more congenial to the pride and honor of
the Virginian, to reflect that the virtues of his fathers are to be traced,
not to a race of men whose whole career was one long, bitter and bloody
protest against civil and religious freedom; but to the fjreat Anglo •
Saxon family, whose swords were never drawn in vain, and before whom
the hosts of the Cavalier in the old world, were driven as chafi' before
the wind! — Such were the men, who in the council and in the field,
achieved the Revolution. So far from the Cavalier influence bringing
about the Revolatiou, the Revolution was brought about in spite of the
Cavalier. The three greatest test measures of that epoch, were the
resolutions of Henry, in 1765, against the stamp act; the resolutions
of the same individual in the Convention of March, 1775, for putting
the Colony into military array; and the resolution instructing the

THE SOUTHERN" REVOLUTION. 25

.delegates in Congress to propose independence. Of all these measures,
the Cavalier party, as a party, was the stoutest opponent."*

Clearly the vast majoritj of the first and later settlers in
.Virginia and the Southern Colonies, were not Cavaliers; and
the immense majority of the present population of these States,
are of any but Cavalier origin. The large majority of , the set-

•: tiers in the Northern Colonies, were not Puritans ; and the vast
majority of the present Northern population, are of, any but
.Puritan origin. It has been estimated that twelve millions of

■.the present population of twenty millions in the United
States, are foreigners, and their immediate descendants, the
worst elements chiefly of European societ}^ ; and of the re-
maining eight millions, but a small portion aye of Puritan

.descent, and a still smaller portion of any Puritan faith.
Let it be remembered that this contest is of the whole South

■against the whole North ; I mean all the representative ele-
ments of the one, against all the representative elements of

'the other.

Who were the Puritans ? The term Puritan, had a three-
fold application with reference to morals, doctrine Siud politics.

.In the almost exact language of Me. Neal, the acknowledged

standard authority upon this subject, this term came to be

applied as an epithet, iir.st in Engla^nd, in the year 1564,

when it was urged upon the clerg}^ of the several dioceses to

subscribe to the ceremonies, liturgy and discipline of the

Established Church, precisely as they then existed ; thqse

#"The Virginia Contention of 1776. — A discourse delivered before the
.Virginia Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, ia the chapel of William and
Mary College, in the city of Williamsburg, on the afternoon of July 3rd, 1855,
by Hugh Blair Grigsby. Published by a resolution of the Society." — In (his
discourse this accomplished gentlemen shows that the original stock of Virginia
was mostly Huguenot, German, Scotch and Irish ; that the Cavalier element was
small in her colonial era; that most of that class proved utterly "worthless;"
and th.it the worthy but distinct Cavalier class who did contribute to the power
of Southern life, gained influence only by adopting popular view?, aad by sup-
porting the very principles from which their ancestois would have recoiled.
These points Mr. Grigsby proves by references to historical documents and to the
law-suit history of the colonial era, and by indicating the history of some of the
leading families of Virginia, the names of whose founders he cites. — See Dis
course, especially pp. ZQ—ii. The italics are mine.

26 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION'.

■who refused were called Puritans, a name of reproacli, de-
rived from the Catliari or Puritani of the third century after
Christ ; though correct enough to signify their desires for
what they deemed a purer form of religious worship. When
the doctrines of Arminius took place in the latter end of the
reign of James T, those who adhered to Calvin's explanation
of the five disputed points — a part of which was embodied in
the Seventeenth Article of the noble creed of the Church of
England — were called Doctrinal Puritans. "At length, says
Mr. Fuller, the name was improved, to stigmatize all those
who endeavored in their devotions to accompany the minister
with a pure heart, and were unusually pure in their lives.
Queen Elizabeth, having conceived a strong aversion to these
people, turned all her artillery against them ; for, besides the
ordinary court of the bishops, her majesty appointed a new
tribunal, called the Court of High Commissions, which sus-
pended and deprived men of their livings, not by the verdict
of twelve men upon oath, but by the sovereign determination
of three commissioners of her majesty's own nomination —
their sentence founded not upon the statute laws of the realm,
but upon the bottomless deep of the canon law ; and instead
of producing witnesses in open court to prove the charge,
they assumed the power of administering an oath, ex officio,
whereby the prisoner was obliged to answer all questions put
to him, though never so prejudicial to his own defence ; if he
refused to swear, he was imprisoned for contempt ; and if he
took the oath, he was convicted upon his own confession ! "^
All who opposed this mode of procedure vf ere called Puritans.
The Puritans, therefore, included all the lovers of civil and
religious liberty in that age, but especially in the English
Church and State. Doubtless, there were extremists among
them, as there have always been among all parties. After the
Eestoration, many of them came to be known as Independents ;
and to these, especially in America, the name Puritans, has
been adroitly confined ; some of ihem came to be known as
Baptists ; some as Presbyterians ; many of them were Episco -
* Ilisiory of I he Puri'ane, Preface p.lQ

THE SOUTPIKRN PwEVOLUTIOX. 27

palians, among the brigliest ornaments of the Church of
England, some of whom were leaders even in the long Parlia-
ment though they did not all separate from the Established
Church ; and some of these Puritans were men of no religious
persuasion, who opposed the prevailing ideas in Church and
State, purely on political grounds. Especially, was this epi-
thet Puritan, flung at tho^^e who advocated purity of life in
opposition to the disgusting immoralities of the age ; the
epithet Cavalier, was hurled with equal vehemence at the
other side. The extremes of these parties, on this idea, were
extremes cf English character in two opposite directions ;
the one was licentiousness, the other asceticism; both untrue
and reprehensible.

What, then, was Puritanism ? It was the protest of a large
and influential oortion of the Established Church of En<r-
land, against what they deemed the errors and abuses of the
prevailing Mediaeval ecclesiasticisra ; '•' to which not the supe-
rior clergy of that church alone, but the princes as well, from
Elizabeth to James Second, clung with such perverse and
pernicious tenacity. The great point of divergence and con-
trovert;}-, between the Puritans and their opponents, was the
the rigid of the civil poiver, not to impose articles of belief, but
to decree rites and ceremonies, to determine the government
of tloe church, to evacuate its discipline, and to dictate its
Avorsliin. This was what the Crown claimed, what the Court
piirty coutended'foi', and what the Puritans opposed. * This,
properly speaking, was Puritanism — nothing more, nothing
loss : it asserted the freedom of the church, from the state and
from all despotic Roman ideas — the complete distinction be-
tween the civil power and the ecclesiastical, and between
their respective spheres of action. That work done, the
real posture of Puritanism was deiined, and its course
closed forever. This explains why Mr, Hume, the historian.
Lord Brougham, and Mr. Macaulay, out of no partiality
for the Puritans, unite in the brilliant testimony that, Eng-
land is indebted to the Puritans for every principle of liberty,
*5. P. Rcvieu', Oc' , 1362, A L Punians.

2S THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTIOIf.

in the constitutions of lier cliiircli and state. Comparatively,-
the Reformation freed the state from the despotism of the
church ; Puritanism freed the church from' the despotism of
the state. The one was the complement of the other; the
two were inseparable terms of the same great logic of history.
But is not this principle, the freedom of the church from the
state, recognized by all among us as a deep-laid element of
Southern life? Does it not inhere in the very essence of that
life? lu denouncing Paritanism, then, we are condemning
ourselves, unless we are prepared to renounce that blood-
bought ^3rmci^?e. And surely there is not one who will not
declare out of the heart of this civilization — by that principle
which af&rms that the church shall be free from the state,
that the civil power shall never encroach upon the majestic
prerogatives of Christ's Crown and Covenant — by that prin-
ciple I am prepared to stand, and if needs be, I am prepared
to die. The Reformers contended for their rights as thought-
nnen ; The Puritans for their rights as cliurch-men ; our fathers
in the first American Revolution, for their chartered rights
as Englishmen ; but we, merging all these ideas in one, and
standing on higher and broader ground — we are contending
for our inherent rights as men slmjily : for the rights of self-
government that inhere' in us organically, and by Covenant
as members of the race. What relation, then, does Puritanism
bear to this Revolution ? Are we battling to free the church
from the State, or the state from the' spates'? Are we com-
batting an}' Mediaeval idea, except that of brutal despotism ?
What relation then, I repeat, does Puritanism bear to this
Revolution, except as it lends a part of the inspiration which
the nobler past contributes to the grandeitr of the hour?

This view of Puritanism does not imply any approval of
the wrong results, to which extremists of the Puritan party,
have too often carried their illogical notions. The exti-emes
to which a principle may be carried by professed adherents,
are never to be ascribed to the principle itself. Democracy
is not republicanism ; asceticism is not morcility ; nor is a
rational indulgence in the pleasures of this life, compatible

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTIOiS". 29'

Tvi'tli licentiousness, nor religion with superstition. The prin--
ciple of Independency is more nearly connected with that of
modern philosophical atheism, than with Paritanism. The
Independents were but a small segment of the grand Puritan^
movement. By virtue of other ideas, gotten from the Re-
formed theology which they held, but afterwards abandoned,
they wrought upon the outskirts of that great movement;
even as clouds sometimes gather around the juid-day sun.-
At best, the early settlers of New England, were extremists
of the Puritan party' Having approached from another
stand-point, though against their knowledge and design, the
principle of modern infidelity ; they carried an extreme indi-
vidualism from their doctrine of church-order into theology,
into politics, and into social order. After the ridiculous fail-
ures in speculative theology of the pigmy imitators of Jona-
than Edwards, many of their descendants took refuge from a
heartless religion and morality in genteel Deism or senti-
mental Christianity. Thus they became more readily recep-
tive of the congenial German Transcendentalism. And when
met at last by the alternative of abandoning their doctrine
of the church, for one more conservative, as the only means
of perfecting and preserving a true theolog}^, or of retaining
that doctrine and receiving a deadly philosophy ; they ac-
cepted the latter and then became, but not till then, the most
rotten and malarious element in American civilization. But
by the very laws of the moral universe, that principle must
needs have run its course ; until, like a lawless star or a
baleful meteor, it should explode upon some fairest spot of
earth, or sink into the blackness of darkness forever. Many
of the later and earlier developments of the Plymouth colon-
ists and their descendants, were not the growth of Puritanism.
The notorious Code of Blue laws, for example, was not even
a natural excresence upon the bod.y ; the sickly production
of a renegade minister from the Church of England, it had
an irregular existence, and then sank into contempt. Did
some of the Puritans incur the cletestable guilt of persecution ?
They retaliated upon Cavaliers, the vice which they had suf-

30 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

fered at their hands, and from whom they learned the art.
They persecuted at intervals, through an hundred and fifty
years ; Cavaliers and Prelates persecuted through hundreds
'of 3^ears, with a ferocity, disarmed at last only by the loss of
power. Every sect in Christendom, that has had the power,
"iias likewise persecuted. John Calvin may not be free from
the charge of persecution in the case of Servetus ; though
he certainly is more free than some would insist. Presbyterians
■of the Established Church of Scotlai>d, have conducted legal
persecutions against their brethern of the Free Church.
Archbishop Laud, of the English Establishment, hunted the
Covenanters over the bleak heathers, and through the moun ■
tain-gorges of Scotland, The once Established Church of Vir-
ginia, persecuted " dissenters " in elder days, side by side with
the New England Puritans. But is such violence to be ascribed
to the real principles of these parties, or rather to a wrong
Mediaeval education, continued through hundreds of years,
which taught the doctrine of the divine right of persecution,
and from which all Christendom has been slow to recover ?
It is a savage rule that would defame any class of men, for
the crimes of apostate descendants, or for the wrongs of mis-
taken ancestors. Did the earlier people of New England,
remove slavery ? They did so chiefly from motives of self
interest. Any of these States would do likewise to-day, and
the attempt has been made more than once in Southern his-
tory. But that is not abolitionism ; its principle is that
slavery is sinful in itself, and is therefore a moral,- social and
Ijolitical evil. On the other hand, the ablest defence of the
African slave-trade, and, by implication, of the institution of
domestic slavery, ever written, emanated from the celebrated
divine, JONATHAN" Edwards; it was reproduced in another
less able, by one of his pupils. The recent exertions of such
New England men as the Eev. Dr. Lord, of Dartmouth
College, the Key. Dr. Adams, of Boston, and Prof. S. F. B.
Morse, in the interest of the South, are well known. Least of
all has later New England fanaticism any connection with Puri-
tanism. On the contrary, it has for more than half a century,

THE SOUTHEUN KEVOLUTIOX. 32

repudiated every principle of tlie Puritan faith — all its rev-
erence for the Word of God, for the authority of the Church,
for the prerogatives of the King, or of the Constitution. Let
it be remembered that the Abolitionism of New England
lias had an existence of about forty years. Of a purely Eng-
lish origin, it was imported in the doctrines of Wilberforcc
and Clarkson, and in the lectures of George Thompson. Nor
did it take root in the New England mind until, by false
philosophies, likewise imported, that mind had been educated
away from every principle ol its earlier and'more conservative,
though very defective faith. What I distinctly assert, is that
neither the Puritanism of England nor what there teas of
Puritanism in ISiew England, held a single idea in common
with Northern fanaticism ; that is the growth of European
infidelity, farvored by the extremes to which the Pilgrims
carried the prinr-iple (d individual liberty. Surely, then, it
is to be deeply regretted, that what deserves praise, should
have been identified under the name of Puritanism, with that
which it abhors, and made the object of indiscriminate denun-
ciation. So far has this noisy spirit gone, as to apply to the
late lamented Jackson the epithets "Puritan," "Covenanter"
"stern Cameronean." As if these terms were synonymous!
As if such a cloudlet, from the low grounds of prejudice or
ignorance, could do aught else than melt away before un-
dying glory ! Let us not be led off by superficial or design-
ing thinkers,#from the real causes of our trouble. We are
fighting, not Puritanism, but a false philosophy, which would
ruin us as it has ruined the great Republic. Nor let us belie the
nobleness of Southern character, by upholding such men in
flippant or covert calumnies upon illustrious names aniong
the living and the dead.

In this connection let me say a word in passing which is
demanded by the simplest justice. Let me not be regarded as
a partisan defender of the Puritans, or as speaking in any de-
nominational sense, because I have uttered somewhat in their
favor. I speak only in the interest of an enlightened patriot-
ism and common Christianity. Born in the Presbyterian

.82 TUE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION".

'Church; a Southern Presbyterian by the training of my
'whole life, I have never been identified with the least of Puri-
tan interests through blood or policy. My family blood and
:the blcod of my fathers before me, have been shed for the priu-

■ ciples that underlie this Revolution. ^My own life beats in
•sympathy with its profoundest elements and yearns for its

highest and purest success. As a Presbyterian minister I feel

■no attraction to such a defence>other than that which fidelity
to historic truth imposes. It is far from true that the religious
economy with which I have the honor to be identified is con-
genial with New England Puritanism, or w^as congenital with

•it, as some would inculcate. Neither was derived from the
other ; much less are they identical. The Presb3'-terian .sys-
tem holds but two points in common with the elder Puyitan-

iism ; namely, the principle of the freedom of the Church from
the State, and the doctrine which, as stated by the English

.Church Puritan Eeformers, of the Genevan School of theolo-
gy, centres in the Seventeenth Article of the creed of, the
Church of England, and pervades her excellent liturgy.
•Would it not be a shameful outrage to charge the wrongs of
Puritan extremists on that noble church, because Puritanism
arose in her bosom, the protest of her evangelical life, em-

I braced. man}'- of her noblest intellects, and moved for a time

•along a common line of history with her ; or because among
the bitterest enemies of the South is the Cabinet of Great

•Britain, composed of men, who are English •Church-men as

■ well as British diplomatists? Would it not be equally un-
just to lay a similar charge upon any American Church, be-

■ cause so man}^ of her clerg}^ and laity have arrayed them-
selves on the side of New England fanaticism in bitterest hos-
tility to the Confederate States ? How much more to charge

• the errors or even the character of Puritanism upon the Pres-
byterian Church, because these two sj'^stems were at times his-
torically united, when both in their origin, principles, and
subsequent career, they have been utterly distinct, and often
fiercely antagonistic both in English and American history.
.Puritanism arose in the latter half of the Sixteenth Century ;

THE SOUTHEKX REVOLUTION. 33

"the Presbyterian Cburcli was in existence, not in decrepi-
tude, not in decay, but in unimpaired vigor, in uncorrupted
integrity, before Henry the Eighth had renounced the supre-
macy of the Pope ; before Calvin had given his immortal in-
stitutes to the world, or Luther had translated the Word of
God into the German tongue ; before the Southern provinces of
France had been stained with the blood of the martyred Al-
bigeois ; before the morning star of the Eeformation had
arisen on England ; before Charlemagne had restored the Em-
pire of the West."'-^ Puritanism arose in England, in the
church of England, of which the Puritans were a powerful
party ; the centre of Presbyterian ideas in that day was Gene-
va in Switzerland. Tlie Puritans were English, purely Eng-
lish ; Presbyterians were chiefly Swiss, French, Scotch and
Irish. The fundamental principle of Puritanism was that the
Church should be free from all control by the State, and from
all Mediaeval ideas ; the fundamental principle of Presbyte-
rianism has ever been that the written Word of God is the
only infallible rule of faith and practice ; it fosters proper
obedience to appointed constitutional authority in things hu-
man and divine. The animus and the specific relations of
Puritanism were partly political ; Presbyterianism is a system
purely religious, evangelical ; it, therefore, never has flourish-
ed, and never can, in confiection with the State. The form of
government in those congregations commonly termed Puritan
is a pure democracy, giving unrestrained freedom to all indi-
vidual tendencies ; the' form of government in the Presbyte-
rian Church is a representative republicanism, in which all
power is conserved in the hands of a few, and individual ten-
dencies are effectually checked by authoritative courts of
review and control, combining equal representation from the
clergy and the people. We fought the Cromwell Puritans
during the civil wars in England ; we fought the Indepen-
dents over the floor of the Westminister Assembly. The
famous disruption of tlie Presbyterian Church in the late
United States, into Old and New School, so early as 1837,

*^. P. Review, Oc'., 18C2, Arf. Puritans.

34 THE SOUTHEEN REVOLUTION.

was tlie result of an effort on tbe part of Ne w Englandism^
to engraft its radical tendencies on the government, faith and
practice of the Presbyterian Church, * In this Kevolution,
the Presbyterian Church in the Coni^derate States, true to
her historic principles, has taken her full 'share, as one re-
lio-ious element of the South, of toil and suffering and success.
But her record needs no illustration from me. The once
living Jackson, was her type and representative. So in their
measure were such as Cobb, and Semmes, 'and Tracy, and
D. H. Hill, and Dabney Carr Harrison. Such as Inglis,
of South Carolina, and the lamented Yancey, of Alabama,
NiSBET, of Georgia, and Tucker, of Virginia, have repre-
sented in politics, her training. The lamented Thoenwell,
of South Carolina, and the living Palmer, of Louisiana,
Dabney, and Hoge, and Moore, of Virginia, and Stiles, of
Georgia, have represented her in the pulpit. Her clergy and
her people, at home and in the field, have followed these illus-
trious spirits with utmost devotion to the Southern cause.
It is, therefore, a gross historical anachronism, to confound or
identify the Presbyterian Church, with Puritanism, real or
alleged. The bare intimation of such an idea, is a perver-
sion of historic truth.

My own antipathies, therefore, and they are as stern as the
mountain-crags of Scotland, or as the Alps around Geneva —
would have induced me, at least, to pass over this popular fal-
lacy with assenting silence. But in considering the subject be-
fore us, I found it impossible to avoid noticing the historic pos-
ture of Puritanism, because some have labored to force it upon
the public mind, in a false relation to this American war.
And in presenting such notice, it is equally impossible for
any candid student of history, to avoid giving the Puritans
their due. Whatever may be our aversion to any phase of

* This statement does not involve the New School Presbyterians of these
States, in the charge of fanaticism. Most, if not all, of these withdrew, with
the New School party, -from the General Assembly of 1837, on the ground that
the exscinding acts were unconstitutional. Oa the question of slavery, they sepa-
rated from the Northern portion of their own body, sometime before the
secession of these States from the Federal Union.

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 35

Puritanism, historic fidelity compels the acknowledgement,
that the Puritans with all their faults, accomplished great
good in their day — they freed the church from the despotism
of. the State, and I honor them for the work ; that they have
ceased to be a special influence in American life, for more
than sixty years ; and they must be denied all claim to a
place ymong the causes that have hurled this appalling cru-
sade upon the existence of the Confederate States. In the
name of all that is grand in this Revolution, I enter my pro-
test against the malignant bombast that would degrade it in-
to a renewal of the mythical strife between the Puritan and
the Cavalier. It is infinitely removed from that petty feud.
Nor does the contest between the Puritans and their real
opponents, bear any analogy to this uniDrecedented struggle,
except in the common point of resistence to oppression ;
though in that point, the analogy is as grand as the issues at
stake. Contending, as Ave are, for the right of self-govern-
ment, and for purity of faith and practice in politics, in
religion, and in social order, we — not the Pantheistic despots
of New England — but we of the South, are the Puritans of
this controversy, if any Puritans in it there be. Gathering
up all the elements of Southern life — religious, political, and
social, againtt all the elements ot Northern life — religious,
political, and social — this Revolution is a grand historic
protest against philosophic infidelity and disorganizing
wrong. Obeying an imperative historic law, ordained by
Providence, it is tlie inevitable re-action against the extremes
of individual power, which are to-day asserted through a
lawless Northern democracy. It aims to save to us all that
was true, and to cast out all that was false in the Reformation
era. As such, therefore, this Revolution is the van of a
great historic movement, whose design is to conserve all that
is precious to living and, for us, to American society — the
historic treasures of the past, all the blessedness of the pres-
ent, and all the hopes of the future.

Considered in reference to American civilizatinn, this Rev-
olution has a more special and, to us, valuable significance.

36 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION".

The first epocli of American civilization lias just closed."*
Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. Cavalier and Puritan, Celt,
and Teuton, Hollander* arid Huguenot, Massachusetts and
South Carolina, 1776 and 1812, the purchase of Louisana, the
occupancy of the Mississippi Yalley, the Mexican War, the
Locomotive and the Telegraph — each and all of these historic
forces have finished their special works, and gone to make up
the distinct and royal personality of an age that has departed.
Whatsoever of hope or aim they specially carried has been
fulfilled. Whatsoever of true and beautiful, of great and
good, distinguished them, has been absorbed in the essence of
American life ; they belong to the massive stratum of the
past. "The doctrine of self-sovereignty, first a metaphysical
abstraction, then a formal experiment on a scale of magnificence
never known in the history of a principle of political science,
is now passing through its third stage of development, and to-
day it is stronger than ever before. It is purifying itself by
its own action ; the action is tremendous, but this only shows
the vitality of the sentiment. It is redeeming itself from its
own prejudices and passions ; the redemption is bloody, but
this only shows how tenacious are the issues at stake. Hith-
erto its battles have been with foreign enemies ; against them
it has made good its chosen ground, cleaving with its own
sword a broad standing-place, and carving out of the mate-
rials of half a hemisphere its indestructible fortunes. Now
it is self-conflict, the last and perfected form which that dis-
ciplinary conflict assumes. As with individuals, so with na-
tions, this law of self-conflict ordained by Providence as a
means of discipline, a source of strength, a condition of pro-
gress through all tlie possibilities of growth, presents itself in
two distinct forms, the inward and the outAvard. These are
distinct, not separate. Eacli involves the other ; each is a
complement to the other. This lav,^ of progressive conflict
expounds itself in the career of individuals, nations, and re-
ligion. It presents its facts over a large surface of human ex-
perience, attests its divineness in manifold forms, and chal-

*A'1an'a Regix'er, Jan, 5, 1864 Plii/o3'~]:iJiy of fhe ReiOAi'ion. ,

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 37

lenges our faitli by wonders that would be miracles buL they
belong to a system of uniform action. Under this great law
our struggle takes its place. Self- originated, it is self-disci-
plinary, and hence the very nature of the conflict shuts it up
within ourselves, insulates it from foreign sj'-mpathy, and re-
signs the fate of republican liberty to ihe hands of its imme-
diate friends. The period of American civilization just closed
was purely initial and preparatory. It was simply an intro-
ductory stage, providentially ordained to effect a certain end
and then make way for other and better forms of political and
social," of religious and philosophic life. It prophesied a
grander and nobler career.

III. This Revolution has a most valuable significance, in
that it aims to conserve tlie perfection of republican government ;
and therein to vindicate the organic laio, under which civil govern-
ment was first constituted by Qod. That political system, in
which each state of a' confederacy is balanced against each
other state, while each or all of these states combined, are
balanced against the central authority to which certain well
defined powers are by them delegated, is the perfection of
republican government. That system is not democratic, but
republican. It involves the doctrine of state sovereignty,
" the providential principle of American civilization, and the
germ of all the industrial and social grandeur of this hemi-
sphere " — a principle derived from the bosom of European
civilization, and which this Revolution will establish upon
this continent It involves representation, the political race-
feature of the Anglo-Saxon race"" — representation, not of the
individual directly, but of the state, of classes, through which
alone the individual should be felt. Such, contrary to ihe
Northern idea, was the government of the late United States;
and but for the poison of foreign and radical ideas, working
out through the pestilent heresy of universal suffrage, that

* We belong to that combination of races which, for want of a better term,
we call the Anglo-Saxon race. "In politics, its race-feature is representalion ;
in science, induction ; in art, utility and then beauty; in society, domesticity:
in trade, cosmopolitanism; in religion, protestantism." Address of ihe Atlanta
Register to the lyeople of the Confederate Sla'cs.

38 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

government might have proved a success. If the Soutli re-
peats that heresy, her doom is sealed.

The institution of domestic slavery is an element of ines-
timable value in our political system. It naturally consigns
the whole power of government to the hands of those who
are best qualified to use it. The dogma, that all men are
entitled to equal rights, is a fatal error. The rights, the
liberty which belong to a man, are determined wholly by his
character and conditiou. He is entitled naturally, as a mat-
ter of right, to that form of government which is suited to
that character and condition. The African slave being un-
fitted in every respect for self-government, or for a share in
the government of others, is, therefore, entitled, as a right, to
a complete government by qualified superiors. The system
of Bible, domestic slavery is, therefore, the sum of the Afri-
can's rights, and the sole condition of his welfare. It is not
a wrong, nor an oppression to him, but his proper liberty,
because it is precisely that form of government which is
adapted to his nature and condition, and to which, therefore,
he is entitled as a right of nature. It is eminently proper,
that society should contain an aristocracy — of virtue, of intel-
lect, of blood and wealth, and worth; and they alone should
control the powers of government, because they are most
deeply interested in the public weal, and are best qualified to
conserve it. The political and social system of these states,
this is the finest result of modern political philosophy. It is
eminently conservative, and eminently suited to the wants of
the Southern people. It opposes, on the one hand, the des-
potism of the individual, which appears in a lawless demo-
cracy like that of the United States; it opposes, on the
other, the despotism of the mass, which appears in an empire
like that of Russia, the only living representative of the ex-
treme of ancient history. With a menial class of contented
and governable slaves, whose welfare is ensured by the inter-
est of the owners, it is safe from the danger of popular insur-
rection, and able to build up a new, more fruitful and powerful
civilization. Bestowing a complete and adapted liberty on

THE SOUTHEKN REVOLUTION, S9

one class, and a complete and adapted slavery on another, it
presents the truthful anomaly of a free republican govern-
ment, resting upon the rightful paradox — liberty and slavery
— proper obedience to qualified superiors. So the universe,
with all the systems of truth which it includes, is a system of
paradoxes. In religion is the fundamental paradox that God
is sovereign, while man is responsible and perfectly free; in
philosophy, the paradox that all our knowledge is derived
through the senses, and yet man knows nothing, which is not
perceived in his conciousness ; and the whole system of ma-
terial nature is governed by the two opposing forces of
attraction and repulsion.

Intensely this Revolution is another assertion to the world
that — " governments derive their just powers from the consent
of the governed " — and that, " whenever any form of govern-
ment becomes destructive of the ends for which it was insti-
tuted, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to
institute a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such forms, as to them
shall seem most likely to aftect their safety and happiness."
The epithet, reheU, so fiercely hurled upon us by the North-
men is sadly amusing when it is remembered, that we are
simply contending for the inherent right of self-government,
which was so nobly vindicated by their fathers and by ours.
The tribunal of history, when it shall come to pronounce
upon this Revolution, will convict our enemies of a greater
crime than they would fasten upon us. The only expiation
they can offer will be a repentance less humiliating than the
merciful defeat which awaits them. But higher still, in the
sense of a distinguished living speaker ;* — " I base the vindi-
cation of the South upon a far older record than the Declara-
tion of 1776, and assert her rights under a more authoritative
charater than the Federal compact. I affirm that in the or-
ganic law under which human governments were constituted
by God, not consolidation but separation is recognized as the
regulative and determining principle." From the day when

*Rev. Dr. Palmer — Same Discourse.

40 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

God divided the earth between the Sons of Noah, impressing
upon each branch of the I'ace, the character fitting it for its
mission: from the day Avhen He dispersed the i3abel builders
on the plains of Shinar bj the radical confusion of human
speech; from that day to this the Almighty has ruled the hu-
man race and restrained its abounding wickedness by divid-
ing it into parts, and balancing one nation, kingdom, state,
against another. I, therefore, recognize in the rupture of the
great American Republic a new application of this law, in
order to the development of a better life ; that Republic had
grown too strong for its virtue. And I believe that vre have
reached one of those great junctures in history, when Jeho-
vah will manifest His own power in the establishment of our in-
dependence by the application of this organic law to the con-
ditions of American nationality. " When, therefore, we are
aspersed before the tribunal of nations as fehels against the
Federal government, the Statesman may lay his hand upon the
documents drawn up by our fathers, and from them may just-
ify the South ; but we may ascend to that fundamental law,
by which in the first organization of society God constituted
civil government, and say that this law of separation is the
'law of nature and of nature's God,' which entitles us to as-
sume a separate and equal station among the powers of the
earth," And yet the American dream of universal empire
was not wholly useless. " Impulse and imaginative activity
are essential to the first stages of national life; but as we had
no feudalism, no crusades, no El Doradoes to furnish this
food of lusty growth and exuberant vigor, the enthusiasm of a
grand empire, holding half a hemisphere in its grasp, sup-
plied the needed nectar to this modern. Jupiter. Its work
perfected, its volcanic muscle embodied in iron, iis finer
ideals sculptured in marable, the great Union passed away."*
This idea of consolidated power failed even in the congenial
Roman life. When wrought upon the church by Hildebrand
and his successors, it wrecked her power on the rock-bound
shore of the Reformation era. The First Consul sought to

* Address of (he Atlanta Register.

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 41

enthrone it upon the fickle life of the French ; it recoiled be-
fore the flames of Moscow ; it strewed the fields of Europe
with the flower of France ; hy destiny it was vanquished at
Waterloo, and then buried with Napoleon at St. Helena. Now
we behold the strange anomaly of the United States, a Re-
public built on the idea of individual liberty, asserting every
control over the thoughts and the consciences of men, over
every interest of society in State and Church, that has been
claimed by the worst despotisms of the past. Like all other
Babel empires, it must fall before the logic of history. No
nation, which identifies itself with an Imperial civilization,
or with its congenial element, a despotic churchism, can suc-
ceed. Both are at war with the genius of modern history ;
chiefly for this reason poor Poland has bled and struggled in
vain ; and sweet Erin lies shorn of her strength and beauty.
Let us not be anxious or in haste to form alliances with any
of the powers of imperial Europe. Our best dependence is
the God of the historic covenant, and the principles which,
derived from that covenant, inhere in our civilization and
political structure.

IV. This Revolution has an intense significance, in that it
marks the beginning of what certainly seems to be the last period
of human history on its or present conditions. For the reasons
suggested in the preceding discussion, it seems proper to de-
scribe the present period as the Period of Conservatism. The
whole tendency of the age is eminently conservative. The
world everywhere, but especially in these Confederate States,
is reacting in one form or other against the extremes of in-
dividual authority ; and that with an intensity and rapidity
which mark no previous era. The United States and Eng-
land and France, which lead the van of modern civilization,
all feel the workings of this intense individualism. Russia, is
the only exception, and yet she is fast becoming a part of our
actual history. Power has begun a third movement which
must complete itself' It will advance, perhaps through many
conflicts, perhaps through blood and suffering to its destined
end ; but harmony will at last crown all human relationships.

42 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

It would seem also tliat this is the last period of History ; for
several reasons which I will briefly mention, in closing. If
the views of the most sensible and learned students of pro-
phecy during the last three hundred years be accepted as
true, we are living in the last day of the World's Prophetic
or Sabbatic Week. I do not refer to such writers as the author
of Armageddon, nor even to the celebrated Dr. Cummings of
London. The latter is a brilliant, cultivated enthusiast ; and
the theory of the former, though ingenious, is fundamentally
untrue. But it is remarkable that the most profound and
jiidicious Students of prophecy during the last three hundred
years, have referred with singular unanimity to this decade of
years between 1860 and 1870, as one that would be marked^
by decisive changes in Church and State ; and would at least
set agoing that immediate train of influences which would
usher in the millenial era. Some, you are aware, have
specially mentioned the years 1866 and 1867 as decisive
years ; and some have dated from these years the commence-
ment of the millenium itself. This supposition however
would seem to be improbable, because the continent of Africa
remains to be evangelized before the Gospel-promise can be
fulfilled, and this will probably require more than one hun-
dred years for its accomplishment. But still this singular
unanimity on the part of most worthy men, impresses us with
the conviction that we are indeed living in the last era of human
history. Especially was it a favorite idea with some of these
men, that the world would last during six periodic days of one
thousand years each, and that the seventh thousand years, would
be the day of the World's Sabbatic Eest. Now according to
the commonly received chronology we arc living in the last of
these Prophetic Days, All the elements of national and his-
toric life which the world can furnish are now employed, so
that when the present period shall have done its work, there
will remain no new elements or races to take up and complete
what we leave imdone. What Dr, Arnold beautifully said^
twenty-five years ago, concerning modern history in general,
may be applied with great force to- present history. "I

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 43

mean that present history appears to be not only a step in
advance of previous liistory but ike last step ; it appears to
bear marks of the fulness of 1)imc, as if there would be no
future history beyond it. For the last eighteen hundred years
Greece has fed the human intellect ; Eome, taught by Greece,
and improving upon her teacher, has been the source of law and
government and social civilization;" Judea has given to the
world a pure Theism and the idea of expiatory sacrifice ; and
what neither one nor all of these could furnish, '' the perfec-
tion of moral and spiritual truth, has been given by Christian-
ity. The changes which have been wrought, have arisen out
of the reception of these elements by new races • races en-
dowed with such force of character that what was old in
itself seemed, when exhibited in them, to become something
new. But races so gifted are and have been from the begin-
ning of the world few in number ; the mass of mankind have
no such power ; they either receive the impression of foreign
elements so completely that their own individual character is
absorbed and they take their whole being from without • or
being incapable of taking in higlier elements, they dwindle
away when brought into the presence of a more powerful life
and become at last extinct altogether. Now looking anxious-
ly round the world for any new races which may receive the
seed, so to speak, of our present history, into a kindly yet a
vigorous soil, and may reproduce it, the same and yet new,
for a future period, we know not where such are to be found.
Some appear exhausted — others incapable ; and yet the sur-
face of the whole globe is known to us. The Eoman colonies
along the banks of the Danube looked out on tlie countrj^ be-
yond those rivers, as we look out upon the stars, and actually
see with our eyes a world of which wc know nothing. The
Romans knew that there was a vast portion of the earth which
they did not know ; how vast it might be was a part of its
mysteries. But to us all is explored ; imagination can hope
for no new Atlantic Island to realize the vision of Plato's
Critias ; no rising continent peopled by youthful races, the
destined " restorers of worn-out generations. Everywhere

44 THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION.

the search has been made and the report has been received ;
we have the full amount of earth's resorces before us, and
they seem inadequate to supply life, for another cycle of hu-
man history. I am well aware that to state this as a positive
belief would be the extreme of presun-iption; there may be
nations reserved hereafter for great purposes of God's provi-
dence, whose fitness for their appointed work will not betray
itself until the work and the time for doing it be come. But,
without any presumptuous confidence, if there be any signs^
howerver uncertain, that we are living in the last period of
the world's history, that no other races remain behind to per-
form what we have neglected or to restore what we have
ruined, then indeed the interest of present history does be-
come intense, and the importance of not wasting the time still
left to us many well be called incalculable. When an army's
last reserve has been brought into action every single soldier
knows that he must do his duty to the utmost ; if he can not
win the battle now he must lose it. So if our existing nations
are the last reserve of the world, its fate may be said to be in
their liands — God's work on earth will be left undone if they
do not do it,''''*

Such are some of the reflections that have led me to take
this view of the meaning of the Southern Eevolution.
AVhether they shall be verified in detail, history alone can
determine. But being deeply convinced of at least their
general truth, I have ventured to lay them upon your candid
consideration. Whatsoever a just criticism may reject, or his-
tory may refute, enough will remain to show that the position of
the South is sublime. We are leading the great battle for the
sum of modern history — for the regulated liberty and civiliza-
tion of the age. It is conservative religion against atheism —
constitutional law against fanatical higher law — social stability
against destructive radicalism. Upon this conflict, in the
highest sense of Napoleon, the eighteen christian centuries
are looking down. Our subjugation would be the only inex-
plicable anomaly of history and its most shameful fact. Na-

*Dr. Arnold Lfcturcs on Mi.iath Ltis'cry pga. 46 — 48.

THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION. 45

tions, one has said, are never murdered ; they commit sui-
cide— never destroyed by external power, they sink under
their own corruptions and cowardice. If, therefore, the
Southern people are what they profess to be ; if they are
what they have proved themselves to be, through toil, and
sacrifice and blood ; if they carry any great historic trusts,
which are to be held for themselves and their children ; if
they embody any great principles, which render them worthy
of a distinct historic existence; if they are able to be an im-
portant element in the civilization of the present age ; then is
the subjugation of the South an absolute historical impossi-
bility. The independence of these States, is already an es-
tablished fact ; it is ordained by the saving demands of the
age, and by the inexorable logic of history. It, therefore,
only remains to us to stand in our appointed lot, patient,
faithful, till our work is done. Cloudless, happy days are in
store for you and your children. Before other battle storms
shall beat upon the continent, and perhaps upon the world,
let us strive to be where " the wicked cease from troubling,
and the weary are at rest."

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Full text of "The historic significance of the southern revolution. A lecture delivered by invitation in Petersburg, Va., March 14th and April 29th, 1864. And in Richmond, Va., April 7th and April 21st, 1864"

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