It is just as far wrong to regard the controversy between anti- and pro-slavery men—which was at bottom but a quarrel between north and south at first over the division of the Territories between the free labor system and the slave labor system, and later over the other question whether a slave republic should divide the continent with the United States—as a contest over a moral question, as it would be to make either the American or the French revolution such a contest. All three—the intersectional struggle as to slavery and the two revolutions—were mainly impelled by a desire of each side in every one to better or hold on to its material resources—that is, the leading impulsion was economic. Of course the combatants on each side claimed that they themselves were right and their adversaries wrong in morals. The rencounter between free labor and slave labor was very much like that now on between capitalists and labor organizations. Note how each side denounces the conduct of the other, alleging it to be against moral justice. The most superficial observer discerns that the real cause of difference between them is not one of conscience, but one of interest. We ought to understand that the crimination of the root-and-branch abolitionist and the recrimination of the fire-eater were each but stage thunder. The southern master must be wholly exonerated from the charge that in working his slave he committed moral offence against the dearest American rights; the claim for the African, who was in a far lower circle of development, of equal civil and political privileges with the white must be disallowed; and it be fully conceded that the southern people, leaders and all, were but doing their conscience-commanded duty throughout. Also we of the south must learn that the root-and-branch abolitionist, even in his wildest moments—Sumner refusing in the United States senate to show respect to Butler’s gray hairs, Wendell Phillips degrading Washington below Toussaint, Garrison denouncing the slavery-protecting constitution as a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, John Brown’s raid into Virginia—was just as conscientious as Robert Lee was when he was defending the soil of his native State. They were each irresistibly constrained by the powers working to save the union to think his particular action right and the highest patriotism.
When the quarrel is over, when the broil and the feud have been fought out and the survivors have shaken hands, when the lawsuit has become a thing of the past and the litigants have renewed their old relations, no wise and good man keeps repeating the accusations of bad faith and of unrighteous conduct which he passionately hurled against his adversary during the variance. Rather he confesses to himself, “I wronged him when I said those hot words;” and his repentance does not bring complete peace until he has found his brother and taken all of them back.
If it only could be, the nation ought to have a great reunion, a feast of reconcilement, where, with proper solemnities, the people of each section, with their forefathers and leaders, should be fully and finally exculpated as to everything done for or against slavery by the people of the other section. It is plain that both ought to forget and forgive. They ought to do still more. They ought to compete each in utmost effort to vindicate the favorites and loved ones of the other the more intelligently, and to admire and praise them the more enthusiastically. This would be to bring the millennium nearer, and give our country “a nobleness in record upon” all others. It only needs for this consummation to cast aside the remnant of greatly diminished prejudice, and make a brief study of a small volume of material evidence and of the ordinary principles which guide the conduct of the good citizen. Such study will show that southerner and northerner throughout their fell encounter have each the very highest claims to the respect and love of the entire nation.
What a golden deed it was of President McKinley when, December 14, 1898, fully using a rare opportunity, he spake in his high place to the members of the Georgia legislature this message of reunion:
“Sectional lines no longer mar the map of the United States. Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we bear each other. Fraternity is the national anthem, sung by a chorus of forty-five States and our Territories at home and beyond the seas. The union is once more the common altar of our love and loyalty, our devotion and sacrifice. The old flag again waves over us in peace with new glories, which your sons and ours have this year added to its sacred folds. What cause we have for rejoicing, saddened only because so many of our brave men fell on the field or sickened and died from hardship and exposure, and others returning bring wounds and disease from which they will long suffer. The memory of the dead will be a precious legacy, and the disabled will be the nation’s care.
Every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor. And while when those graves were made we differed widely about the nature of this government, these differences have been settled by the arbitrament of arms. The time has now come, in the evolution of sentiment and feeling, under the providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you the care of the graves of the confederate soldiers. The cordial feeling now happily existing between the north and south prompts this gracious act. If it needs further justification, it is found in the gallant loyalty to the union and the flag so conspicuously shown in the year just passed by the sons and grandsons of these heroic dead.”
By the favor given Fitzhugh Lee, Joe Wheeler, and other old confederates, and his earnest and successful efforts for universal amnesty to all who had helped our cause, Mr. McKinley had already won the hearts of the southern people. This speech increased our love a hundred fold. We repeated the “soft words” over and over, companioning them with
“O they banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead.”
On each one of our three subsequent Memorial Days during his life he was thought of as tenderly as the precious dead. And since the death of Jefferson Davis there has been no sorrow of the south equal to that over his assassination. This is the age of funerals that crown with supreme popular honor the doers of high deeds for country and race. The imposing obsequies given the president, the demonstrations in his own section, and those in foreign lands, have rarely been outdone. But he had a greater glory. It was the genuine lamentation over him that day by reconciled brothers and sisters in every southern household. You that know history better, tell me when and where a whiter and sweeter flower was ever laid upon a coffin.
Let all of us on each side of the old dividing line strive without ceasing to give the good work which the great peacemaker begun so well its fit consummation.