The North’s Victory Unmasked

An aspect of preserving the Southern tradition is rescuing books of wisdom that have been lost and forgotten. That is the case with The United States Unmasked,  published in 1879 by Gabriel Manigault (1809—1888).

Manigault was born in Charleston to distinguished patriot families on both sides and married into another such family.  After serving in the defenses of Charleston and the fall of the Confederacy, he moved his family to Canada and remained there permanently.

His book was a strong and eloquent critique of United States’ decline as a result of The War and Reconstruction. It could not find an American publisher, and  was published in London. You need to look at the historical context of 1879 to appreciate Manigault’s subtitle, A Search Into The Causes Of The Rise And Progress Of These States, And An Exposure Of Their Present Material And Moral Condition.

The Panic of 1873-1879, the longest depression in American history, was still in full sway when Manigault wrote. It had been caused by failed massive and immoral speculations of New York bankers and stockbrokers.  Unemployment reached one million.  Wages for the employed declined by one-quarter, according to official statistics. Thousands of businesses failed, leaving more than a billion dollars in debt.  Labour strife was larger and more violent than ever before.

In 1876-1877 President Grant had militarized Washington to prevent the installing of the Democrat Samuel Tilden, who had won the presidential election. The standard mainstream American historian, Allan Nevins, described this period:  “Various administrations have closed in gloom and weakness . . . but no other has closed in such paralysis and discredit as (in all its domestic affairs) did Grant’s.  The President  was without policies or popular support” and incompetence and corruption marked his Cabinet.

According to Manigault the North had prosecuted the war against the South in expectation of acquiring a cornucopia of Southern riches with its natural resources and by replacing with “free labour” the costs of inefficient and lifelong care of slaves.  This was done after a long history of exploitation of the South by  tariff abuse.  Northerners had set their hearts on control of the national government by which they would get power and money.  By distortion of the Constitution with “necessary and proper” national banks and conversion of a revenue tariff to a protective tariff, the federal government, a child of the States, had eaten up its parents.

Southerners had erred by thinking they could win a war of independence: “Now it is flying in the face of all history and all experience in human nature to suppose that any people or government, with large means of waging war, will abandon possession of  rich tributary territories without first striving to retain them by force of arms. . . They will fight rather than give it up.”

By the War and Reconstruction Northerners had outsmarted themselves.  They had impoverished the South and the regime they installed did not work,  fostered immense corruption,  and created a government controlled by the rich. They had perpetrated a new regime that was despicable compared to the noble Old Union. He writes:

“The rich men in the United States are not the proprietors of the fields, meadows, and pastures, the broad acres, the visible and tangible property of the country. They do not much care for this kind of property.  Its annual yield is too moderate and comes in too slowly for them. . . . The rich men of the country, or the reputed rich, are bankers, merchants, manufacturers, and above all, successful gamesters in in stock-jobbing of all kinds, in government, and State, and municipal bonds, and railroad corporation stocks, in government contracts got by official favouritism for a high fee . . . Most of these millionaires have lately been raised into notice by some lucky speculation or peculation . . . .  But they are the leading spirits of the day—the objects of envy and admiration . . . .”

Manigault comments that the Republican government of by, and for the people has “been very successful in making the fortunes of those who could obtain office under it, or exercise influence over those who are in office.  It has made many men rich;  but it has increased, not diminished the number of the poor, and deepened their poverty.”  The victory of the Northern regime  has “utterly failed to elevate the material and moral welfare of the country.”

Perhaps even better evidence of decline was in the moral area:  corrupt big city machines, an increased rootless population,  crime greater than ever before, “society” composed of vulgar new rich.  The loss of Southern republican and Constitutional ethics had turned the government into the plaything of those seeking profit. The prosperity of the country was now dependent on debt and paper rather than production, and the gap between the tiny minority of the super rich and the rest had become immense.

Manigault prophetically described the American economy of debt and paper that has been fully consummated in our time and was the inevitable consequence of the outcome of the War between the States.

Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina where he was the editor of the multivolume The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the M.E. Bradford Distinguished Chair at the Abbeville Institute. He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews and is co-publisher of www.shotwellpublishing.com, a source  for unreconstructed Southern books.

View all posts