The Heritage of The South / A History of the Introduction of Slavery; Its Establishment From Colonial Times and Final Effect Upon the Politics of the United States

by Jubal Anderson Early

The war was thus inevitable, and the Federal authorities were quietly preparing for it, in order to entrap the border states. The threat to supply Fort Sumter indicated a purpose of war; was then the Confederate Government to wait until the measures of the Government at Washington had been so completely taken that the former would find itself helpless in the hands of its enemy? The port of Charleston was necessary to it as an inlet for obtaining supplies and arms for its defence, was it then to allow the port, which could block the entrance to that harbor, to be placed in a condition to render the blockade complete, the harbor worthless and Charleston untenable?

There can be no question of the right of the Confederate Government to force a surrender of the fort, which had been refused, and that it was fully warranted in pursuing the course it did. I must confess that, at the time, I deeply deplored and condemned the attack on Fort Sumter, on the score of policy, because I regarded the threat of the Washington Government as designed to provoke a commencement of the conflict by the firing of the first shot, and not intended really to be carried into effect. It is now manifest that war had already been resolved upon, and the firing of the first gun on Fort Sumter was not its commencement. The war was begun by the attempt to hold the forts in the Confederate harbors.

It has been alleged that the Southern States had previously controlled the policy of the government, and that they seceded because they had now lost that power. There had never been a president elected from any of the Cotton States, which established the Confederate Government except from Louisiana, of which state General Taylor was a nominal resident, but really a native of Virginia, and an officer in the army, and he lived but a little over a year after his inauguration. These Cotton States had furnished comparatively few cabinet ministers, and they had in the main been opposed to the policy pursued by the government in regard to the most important branches of legislation, such as internal improvements, the public lands, tariff, etc. Their leading interest, the culture of cotton, had received no fostering care whatever from the government, and South Carolina had been complaining for more than thirty years that her interest had been sacrificed to Northern cupidity by high tariff and at one time she had taken steps to nullify the laws on that subject. In no sense could the state which initiated secession, be said to be actuated by disappointment at the loss of Federal power.

It is true that they had lost the power to protect themselves in the Union, as the Constitution had been so flagrantly violated and were now threatened with submission—and for this they seceded.

The state of Virginia had given four of the Southern presidents to the Union, and Tennessee the other two. Washington had been the unanimous choice of all of the states; Jefferson, Madison and Munroe had been national men in their policy and had received the support of a large majority of the Northern vote; Munroe being accepted without opposition at his last election and receiving all of the votes, North and South, but one northern electoral vote. Munroe was the last Virginian elected or nominated as President. It is true Tyler had succeeded to the office by the death of Harrison, but he had not received the vote of Virginia even as vice-president.

Virginia had voted against Clay, Harrison, Taylor and Scott, all natives of the state, when they were candidates for the presidency, and she had cast her vote three times against Mr. Clay, and in the cases of Harrison, Taylor and Scott, her vote had been cast for Northern men against them. All of the presidents she had given had been re-elected, because there was nothing sectional or local in their policy, while no Northern president had been re-elected, though three out of the six had been candidates again. In the election of 1860, the state of Virginia cast its vote for Bell and Everett, by a plurality vote over Breckenridge and Lane, and Douglas and Johnson, showing that in this election she was not liable to the charge of sectionalism, even if that charge could be brought against the supporters of Breckenridge and Lane, which is by no means admitted. No interest of Virginia had at any time been fostered by the action of the government, in any stage of its history, and the government had not even taken steps to obtain from foreign countries a diminution of the enormous duties placed on her leading staple, tobacco, but her statesmen, when in office, had pursued a policy looking to the general welfare and prosperity. If she had furnished many statesmen to the common councils, it was because of the general confidence in their patriotism, and freedom from all selfish ambition and narrow-minded notions of policy.

Her history from the beginning of the controversy with Great Britain had been one of sacrifices for the benefit of all of the states. She had promptly sent troops to Massachusetts on the commencement of the war of the Revolution in that state, all of its battlefields were red with the blood of her sons; and that war had been terminated on her own soil. With a territory larger than that of all of the other states at the conclusion of peace, she had surrendered an empire beyond the Ohio river, for the sake of Union and for the common benefit; and subsequently, she had consented to the erection of the state of Kentucky within her remaining territory.

As the acknowledgement of the independence of the states had left her, she would have been amply able to take care of herself, and erect a powerful government of her own, yet she had contracted her power and narrowed her limits for what she considered the common good.[A]