MAJOR J. SCHEIBERT (OF THE PRUSSIAN ARMY) ON CONFEDERATE HISTORY
[In Southern Historical Papers, Volume 18, pages 425-428.]
Tariff
Besides the differences of race and religion, nature itself, through the varied geographical position of the States, had created relations of varied character that not only must conflict ensue, but the least law affecting the whole Union often aroused diametrically and sharply opposed interests; the consequences of which were to embitter sectional opinions to an intolerable degree.
When the North demanded tariff protection for their industries as against European competition, the Southern States insisted upon free trade, so as not to be compelled to buy costly products of the North. The New England States strove for concentration of power in the national government; the Southerners believed that the independence of the individual States must be maintained, and when the Southerners demanded protection for their labor, which was performed by imported negroes, the North answered with evasion of the laws, while, in direct opposition to these laws, it denied to the master the right to his escaped negroes. From any point of view, there existed, and exist to-day, interests almost irreconcilably opposed, which make it difficult for the most earnest student of American affairs to find a clew in such a tangled labyrinth. The difficulty in the present undertaking is to make good the fact that the so-called Confederates, who have been by almost all the German writers represented as “Rebels,” stood firm upon a ground of right of law.
If the central government at Washington was the sovereign power, then the (Southern) States were in the wrong, and their citizens were simply rebels. If, on the other hand, the individual States were separate and sovereign political bodies, then their secession, independent of consideration of expediency or selfishness, was a politically justifiable withdrawal from a previous limited alliance; and in this case it was the duty of citizens of 269 the States to go with their States. As a proper consequence of these different views, the Federals considered as a traitor every citizen who opposed the central government, however his individual State may have determined; while the Confederates, after the declaration of war on the part of the Union, looked on the Federalists indeed as enemies, but considered as traitors only those citizens who, in opposition to the vote of their States, yet adhered to the Union. * * * * Instead of inquiring into emotion and sympathies, the question is an historical one as to the origin of the Union; that is, to seek in the founding of the United States in what relation,—at that time, the States stood to the central government, the mode of their covenant, and how the relation of the several States to the common union was developed. The colonies, therefore, united not because the citizens in general were oppressed by the British Government, but because one colony felt, whether rightly or not, that it was oppressed and insulted as an independent political body. In the first movement of independence was exhibited clearly the consciousness that the colonies felt themselves separate political bodies. Even at that time the assembly of delegates designated itself “as a congress of twelve independent political bodies,” and in the Union each of the colonies issued its separate declaration. When the delegates of the thirteen colonies met in their first Congress the first permanent Union was founded; which was ratified by each colony as a separate body, as one by one they entered the Union.
Slavery
With the question as to the origin of the war, the enemies of the South have mingled another—the slavery question—which strictly does not belong to it. This slavery question was inscribed on the banners of the war when it was seen that thereby could be enlisted on the side of the North the sympathies of the old world, and of a great part of their own inhabitants, especially of the German immigrants. This question could never legally be the cause of the war, for the Constitution expressly 270 says that the question of slavery should be regulated by the State legislatures. * * * * At the time of the founding of the Union, eleven of the thirteen States were slave-holding, and it is a remarkable fact that it then occurred to no writer nor humanitarian in America or Europe even to think that this ownership (of slaves) was a wrong or a crime. It is enough to say that the institution was accepted not only as a matter of course, but that it was also especially protected, the farming interest being granted an increased suffrage in proportion to the number of negroes on their plantations. * * * * * Even in the last days, before the outbreak of war, when the press and demagogues raised the slavery question in order to inflame the masses, the statesman (of the North) carefully avoided such a blunder, since the slavery question was not the ground of the war, and could not be proclaimed as such.