What the war is for.
--There are a good many theories on this subject, but if we are not mistaken, it would puzzle the
Northern people themselves to give a satisfactory answer to the question what the war is for. The general reply is that it is to preserve ‘"the glorious Union,"’ but besides this vague and unmeaning generality, there seems to be no unity of design or purpose even among our enemies.
If there is, we look in vain for its expression in any manifestation of public opinion that we have yet seen.
As every-body has a speculation on the object of the war, we may as well have ours.
From the moment that it became obvious the border States would not promptly make common cause with the
Gulf States, we believed that war was inevitable.
We are not sure that even with the united action of all the
Southern States separation could have been accomplished without war, but it hold out, as we thought, the best chance of a pacific solution; and for this, among other reasons, we advocated the early secession of
Virginia.
War once commenced, no one who understands the interests of the
North in the
Union, and the temper of the
Northern people, could anticipate a short struggle.
If we had been able promptly to follow up the
battle of Manassas, as far even as the occupation of
Arlington Heights, so as, without occupying
Washington, to hold a rod
in terrorem over it, we should be a good deal nearer peace than we now are.
But what is this war for?
We think it is just for what
Mr. Lincoln says it is — the subjugation of the
Southern people.
It is useless to say that no sane Yankee can indulge such an idea.
No Yankee is sane upon this subject.
The consolidation idea in the
Northern mind is universal and ineradicable.
You might as well attempt to convince a Northern man that the city and county of New York are not part of the
State of that name, or that
Boston does not belong to
Massachusetts, as that the Southern Confederacy is not a part of the
Union.
They look upon it as we look upon
Northwestern Virginia, and mean to bring it back just as we mean to bring back the ‘"State of
Kanawha"’ to where it belongs.
They think they can do it, for they have capital, numbers, great cities, all the outside show of wealth and power, whilst the
South has a large, sparsely settled territory, with a comparatively small population, with no money, no manufactures, no commerce, its ports all closed to the outside world.
If they cannot whip us at once in the field, they think they can tire us out and starve us out. If education and intelligence were as universal in the
North as they pretend, they would never entertain such absurd notions.
They do not understand either Southern resources, Southern character, or the decisiveness and solemnity of this great occasion.
It is evident that they expect all this commotion will pass away like a summer cloud; that, here and there, the lighting will scathe some homestead and the hail desolate some field, but that, on the whole, the atmosphere will be purified, and the future more healthful and brighter than the past.
The value of the
Union to the
North shows us the precise amount in dollars and cents of what the
North is fighting for. Calculate the amount of Southern contributions to Northern commerce, manufactures, trade, and enterprise in every form, and you have what the
North is fighting for in figures which cannot lie. We do not say that this is the only spring and motive of the war. The Northern mind has of late years been abolitionized, and the anti-slavery element adds its sullen fire to the threatening flame.
The irritation, arising from the carefully disseminated idea that the
South looks upon the
North as a race of cowards, has also more to do with the persistency with which this war is and will be waged than is generally imagined.
Another object was disclosed in a speech of
G. A. Grow,
Speaker of the
Black Republican House of Representatives.
After speaking of the purchase of
Louisiana and
Florida, he remarked as follows:
‘
Your fathers believed that it was one of the questions of vital importance for the future of the country, that no foreign jurisdiction should have a home at the mouth of the
Mississippi or in
Florida; and yet to-day the man who settled those territories you permit to organize into States, and to set up an independent jurisdiction over them — an act for which your fathers were ready to wage war and peril their lives to prevent.
To-day you are ready to permit traitors at home to do what no foreign power heretofore dare attempt. * * * * * * * *
Let there be but one war; better it should cost millions of lives than that we should live in hourly dread of wars, contiguous to a people who could make foreign alliances and land armies upon our shores to destroy our liberties.
Though it may cost blood and treasure, the experiment must be made.
’
The New York
Tribune, commenting on this somewhat significant and remarkable observation, said that the considerations suggested by
Mr. Speaker Grow were practical, and that the dangers and necessities alluded to by him were wholly outside of the text of the written constitution.
Said the editor:
‘
The abstract right of secession might be proved clear as the noonday sun, and its assertion be recognized by all the powers of
Europe, but yet the
United States could never concede it, and will never concede it, till their power as a nation is utterly broken and gone.
Secession may be proved in the schools; dismemberment of the
Republic can only come by the sword.
’
There is, in fine, no end to the variety of motives and objects of this war. We predict that it will end when the
North becomes unable to prosecute it, and not before.
Our only wonder is, that anybody could ever doubt what the war was for, or imagine that it would be of short duration.
