MEN OF THE SOUTH WERE NEVER REBELS.
Confederates and Federals Were Patriots
Settling a Constitutional Question,
Says Ex-Secretary Herbert.
In an oration over the graves of the Confederate dead in Arlington Cemetery a few weeks ago, Hilary A. Herbert, former Secretary of the Navy, gave force to the opinion that General Robert E. Lee, and those who fought with him during the Civil War, though secessionists, were not "rebels." He said:
Was Robert E. Lee and were these dead comrades of ours traitors? With the great war in which they fought far away in the dim past, what we have a right to ask is, Were they, the history and Constitution of the United States considered, either technically or legally traitors?
This may be purely an academic question. In one sense it is, because all admit that practically the union of these States is indissoluble; but in another sense it is not, because there are those in the North who are fond of repeating, even to this day, "The North was eternally right, and the South eternally wrong."
This is declamation with which history will have nothing to do.
Then, again, there are those in the South who say that if the South ever had the right to secede, it has, though it will never exercise it, that right to-day, because war never settles a principle. This too is declamation; it loses sight of history.