Many books over the years have given me insights into history—insights that occasionally cause things to come together to produce a “Road to Damascus” moment. Recently the remembrance of one caused me to revisit my long-held belief that the attempt by the States of the South to establish a confederated republic upon the North American continent was doomed to failure from the beginning. Of course, this is hardly an unreasonable assumption. The strength of the North was overwhelming. Manpower, money, industry, even the production of foodstuffs from wheat to cattle made the South’s enemy too powerful to be successfully resisted for any length of time especially as the war would be waged in the South! A war lasting longer than two years must see the Confederacy fall of attrition if nothing else—that, in fact, was the case. Indeed, General Jubal Early declared that the Army of Northern Virginia had been forced to surrender because it was exhausted from defeating the foe, a not altogether preposterous assessment. Only the courage and fortitude of the Southern people allowed them to resist as long as they did.
In the same vein, I also considered the claim of those who believed that the South might have prevailed had certain actions been taken early on. General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson—among others—believed that the failure of Confederate forces to follow up the smashing victory at First Manassas (First Bull Run) and take Washington City was the most critical of the South’s lost opportunities. In like manner, Jackson opined that the invader should have been met with the black flag from the moment federal armies crossed the Potomac and entered onto Virginia’s soil. Jackson, a true Christian gentleman, was not shy in expressing his belief, stating:
“I myself see in this war, if the North triumph, a dissolution of the bonds of all society. It is not alone the destruction of our property…, but … the prelude to anarchy, infidelity, and the ultimate loss of free responsible government on this continent. With these convictions, I always thought we ought to meet the Federal invaders … and raise at once the black flag … ‘No quarter to the violators of our homes and firesides!’ It would … have proved true humanity and mercy. The Bible is full of such wars, and it is the only policy that would bring the North to its senses.”
Had the black flag been raised, it is probable that the federal government would not have been able to sustain a lengthy war at that time. Massive casualties involving ordinary Northern citizens rather than the dregs of European jails would soon have led to a demand by the people of the Union to bring the war to an end before more of their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands were dispatched on Southern soil. Indeed, it is possible that had these stratagems been utilized, the war might well have ended in 1862 with the establishment of the Confederate States of America as a nation rather than Lincoln’s contention that it was a cover for treason and insurrection.
Yet something about even this idea bothered me. Yes, there would not have been defeat by attrition. And, yes, there might even have been victory—for a time! But would that victory and the country born from it been permanent—or even of any real duration? Remembering the cultures of the South and its Northern foe made me recall something in another story about another war—the War of the Ring in the book, The Lord of the Rings by British author, J. R. R. Tolkien. What brought the South of 1860 to my mind in that book, was a conversation between the worldly-wise wandering wizard Gandalf the Gray and the stay-at-home, naïve hobbit, Frodo Baggins. Frodo had received a found token—a mighty Ring of Power. What brought the North to mind for me was the fact that the existence of this Ring, long thought lost, had become known to its evil creator who had sent forth his wicked minions to retrieve the Ring and kill its present Bearer. In other words, two diametric forces were abroad in the same land. Knowing the strength of the Ring’s creator, Gandalf warns Frodo that “Middle Earth,” the world outside of the hobbit’s prosaic, parochial homeland of the “Shire,” was daily falling into darkness as the necromancer sought his possession using all of his strength. But the hobbit—himself prosaic and parochial and knowing little of matters outside of his own door including the danger of the talisman he holds—naively declares that all he wants is just to be left alone to live his life in peace. Sound familiar? At this point, Gandalf gives Frodo a warning, a warning from which ante-bellum Southerners too would have profited had they received it; that is, while a people—hobbits and Southerners—can wall themselves in, they cannot wall the world out! And this, of course, is the crux of the matter. The South could—and did—attempt to live as if there were peace for many years while events turned against them. However, ignoring their danger did not prevent war.
From the beginning of the new nation, there had been considerable differences, cultural, social, religious and political, between the sections. After the Revolutionary War, as the effort to create a working union among the thirteen disparate “States” continued, those differences not only persisted but were exacerbated as sectional views regarding the concept of nationhood became more incompatible. Eventually, the “confederation” and then the “union” began to fracture along those lines, a rupture further intensified by the addition new territories to the body politic. With every new State, the original grievances played out over and over again, never being entirely resolved and creating more ill will and suspicion as well as more “players” in the game. In fact, it is more accurate to say that there were from the beginning, two nations and not one. Murray Rothbard in his essay “Just War” described one of those nations thusly:
“The North’s driving force, the ‘Yankees’—that ethnocultural group who either lived in New England or migrated from there to upstate New York, northern and eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois—had been swept by . . . a fanatical and emotional neo-Puritanism driven by a fervent ‘postmillenialism’ which held that as a precondition of the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, man must set up a thousand-year-Kingdom of God on Earth. The Kingdom is to be a perfect society. In order to be perfect, of course, this Kingdom must be free of sin . . . . If you didn’t stamp out sin by force you yourself would not be saved. This is why the Northern war against slavery partook of a fanatical millenialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle. They were ‘humanitarians with the guillotine, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of their era.’”
By the middle of the 19th Century, Yankee philosophy had swept through most of the rest of the country with the exception of the South. Thus, as the majority of the States were rushing towards New England’s glorious future, they found themselves continually stymied and frustrated by a people whom they considered profligate, sinful and slothful—Southerners. The matter reached such a pass that at one point, after a Southern Senator had voted down some “progressive” Northern legislation demanding instead that the federal debt be satisfied, he found himself approached by two of his Northern colleagues. One of the gentlemen railed against the South’s continuing efforts to stymie “progress”—as they saw it—and suggested that perhaps it was time for the two sections to part company with the South seceding from the union and forming its own country! The Southern gentleman—who had more affection for the union glorified by Virginian George Washington—was aghast and asked if it would not be simpler—and less draconian—just to pay off the debt!
And therein lies the insoluble problem! Unlike the rest of the nation caught up in the Spirit of the Age of Empire, the South was perfectly content to live according to the ways of Jefferson and the rest of its forefathers, following the teachings of Western Civilization with all that that entailed. Of course, Southerners embraced “progress,” but often that which their Northern brethren called “progress” deviated from what they properly believed to be right and true. They had seen such “progress” make war on Christianity and morality and preach egalitarianism and the cult of the State. To the people of the South, far more important than mere progress was Christianity, knowledge, family, honor, friendship and loyalty to one’s Section and State. Seeking a type of Middle Earth in that united States, the South represents the Shire for it was filled for the most part with (reasonably) contented inhabitants who possessed a reverence for history, a delight in food and drink, a love of home and hearth, a strong strain of faith and family, a fervent spirit of independence and a natural inclination to mind their own business and a belief that others should do the same.
Southerners regarded their beloved South as a whole—and their beloved State in particular—as a garden to be cultivated and enjoyed, not a utopian citadel to be forced upon others. Parenthetically, nowhere is the difference between these sectional attitudes made more clear than in the fate of the South’s virgin forests after the War! Harriet Beecher Stowe had declared that Southern forests were not harvested for profit because Southerners were too lazy and stupid to do so. When profit-driven Northerners obtained these treasures through theft, they were decimated, never to recover. A translation of Tolkien’s Middle Earth into 19th Century America, makes it is easy to see the Southerner as the author’s beloved hobbit—and the Yankee as the hated orc. The major sticking point between the Sections was, as always in such circumstances, economic. From slavery to tariffs and the so-called “American system,” the matter was one of money and, of course, political power for which money is, as the old adage goes, the “mother’s milk.” In 1828 over thirty years before South Carolina signed its Articles of Secession, Missouri Senator Thomas H. Benton clearly delineated that ongoing problem on the floor of the Senate:
“Before the (American) revolution [the South] was the seat of wealth … Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north of the Potomac: and this in the face of the fact, that the South, … has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North has exported comparatively nothing. Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth, but what is the fact? … Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue …Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures. That expenditure flows…northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North. Federal legislation does all this!”
The manufacturing economy of the North wanted protection for their goods through high import tariffs. The Southern States wanted reasonable tariffs to protect their exports and to keep the price they paid for manufactured goods both domestic and imported at a reasonable rate. For though Southern produce such as cotton, tobacco and sugar, were particularly valuable, the tariff situation affected their price. And unlike Northern industries, the cost of production was dependent upon matters over which the planter had no control such as weather, pests and blight. Nonetheless, Southern cotton—which was superior to that grown anywhere else—was so valuable that during the War, many a Yankee officer spent more time stealing cotton than fighting the enemy.
By contrast, the industries of the North were frequently plagued with corruption or were profligate and thus failed to create the type of wealth seen in the South even with the protection of high tariffs. It thus became apparent to Northerners over time that they could not gain the wealth they desired except by confiscation of Southern wealth through high tariffs. And as the South was permanently isolated by strictures against the spread of slavery into new territories (strictures which Southern States themselves had helped put into place!) the balance of power in the Congress inescapably fell into the hands of the North and those States and territories sympathetic to its views. This, of course, assured that the South would be their permanent economic colony.
Of course, the failure of the “glorious Constitution” to protect States from the economic depredations of other States certainly contributed to the problem. But in the end, no, it wasn’t the federal government that was the problem, but rather the means that that government gave to the States to use their power within that government to take advantage of States and groups of States that were less powerful. The blame put on the concept of “government” by those who decry the ill-use and the eventually treasonous attack on the South is very akin to the blame that supporters of “gun control” put upon that weapon for the crimes committed with it. The weapon isn’t to blame whether it is guns or government! It is the people who misuse that weapon who are to blame, but it is so much easier to blame the object rather than who or whatever makes use of it.
And so, by 1860, the permanent minority condition of the Southern States within the federal government together with the rise of radical abolitionism had led to the complete degeneration of what little “national sentiment” remained. Indeed, by that time, the desire of Southerners to be “left alone” and to live according to their own customs was barely tolerated by the rest of the nation and then only so long as their wealth kept moving North. Few were the Southerners who did not understand that the only thing standing between them and the desire of their countrymen to destroy their way of life under the guise of “ending slavery” was the fact that they—through slavery—were paying for the nation’s economic health. Yet, by 1860 even money no longer restrained the voices raised against the South. Remove that tribute and there would no longer be any reason to restrain violence and subsequent conquest. The proof of this contention is most clearly found in the war immediately waged upon the South by the North—led by the federal government under Lincoln—when the Cotton States sought to withdraw from the Union taking their wealth with them. It was not the States and the People of the South that Lincoln and the rest of the Union wanted to retain, but the wealth of the South and if that wealth could not be obtained through peaceful union—and political theft—then it would be obtained through murderous conquest. There is a reported quote by Lincoln – though whether it is true or a jest I cannot say – that the South could secede at any time as long as they paid their taxes to the federal government! Certainly, true or not, it defined the existing situation.
Then there remains the question of why the South was so hated, especially by New England. Of course, the first answer is always slavery! The licentious and indolent planter aristocracy with their brutal taskmasters enslaved, debauched and exploited the innocent Negro while the rest of the Union stood by helpless to put an end to this moral monstrosity because it was protected under the Constitution. At least that is the way the matter is portrayed today. However, back in the day as they say, with a few exceptions, a very different rhetoric was in play. Oh, the “planter aristocracy” was indeed portrayed as licentious, greedy, evil and indolent without a doubt and the rest of the whites of the South who were not of that class were seen as morally deficient or just plain stupid, violent and brutal. From the highest to the lowest, the people of the South were regarded by their fellow Americans as only slightly better than the savage aborigines with whom they had been at war since the first ships landed in the New World.
It was only because of their race that Southerners were tolerated at all and, in fact, even that was called into question. When Jefferson was elected president, Northern newspapers wrote of “our first black President” and not simply because Jefferson owned slaves! There were a lot of Northerners who also owned slaves. It was the amicable relationship between the races in the South that caused New Englanders to look with disgust on men with whom they had but lately fought—and triumphed—against the forces of King George! Yet, it is obvious that New England’s disgust and contempt for the South and her people could not very well have been centered around slavery or the slave trade, which was a very “going concern” North of the Mason-Dixon line in the immediate post-Revolutionary period. In fact, early on, there were more abolitionist societies in the South than in the North until the rise of “radical abolitionism” put an end to the movement in that Section.
But radicals had no love or concern for the Negro, only contempt and hatred for the white Southerner. Their plan of action was simple: foment servile insurrection as had happened in Santo Domingo and, it was hoped, encourage blacks to murder whites which would, in return, lead to the local militias killing blacks. This series of events would, of necessity, destabilize the region’s society, creating room for growing Northern influence—and profit, not to mention, of course, ridding the world of the accursed Southerner, white and black. For those who can find little excuse for the secession of the Cotton States, it must be remembered that some of the writings of these radical groups were placed into the Congressional Record by members who supported their anti-Southern sentiments and plans.
Such loyalty that remained in the South was to the original union created some eighty years before in the ratification of the Constitution. Indeed, General Robert E. Lee voiced the sentiment of most of the people in the South when he stated, “All that the South has ever desired was that the Union, as established by our forefathers, should be preserved, and that government as originally organized, should be administered in truth and purity.” In a way, this is very much what Frodo the Hobbit said to Gandalf the Wizard; that is, “ . . .we only want to live as we have always lived!” However, by 1861 it was obvious that the already embattled Constitution was doomed to irrelevance with the election of Abraham Lincoln and his sectional party. Though Lincoln had promised not to “interfere” with slavery—and he meant it!—he also intended to continue the South’s economic servitude with even higher tariffs. And he planned to press forward with a vision of the nation establishing the supremacy of the central government over the States and the People. The Republican Party had no place in the South; it was a purely sectional party which now held the majority in both Congress and the White House. Between the ever-increasing millennialist fervor of the cults of New England—as described by Mr. Rothbard—and their own political impotence, the people of the South could no longer ignore the handwriting on the wall.
The above matter was succinctly summed up in a Thanksgiving sermon given by New Orleans Pastor Benjamin M. Palmer, delivered one month before his State, Louisiana seceded from the Union:
“Last of all, in this great struggle, we defend the cause of God and religion. The abolition spirit is undeniably atheistic. The demon which erected its throne upon the guillotine in the days of Robespierre… which abolished the Sabbath and worshipped reason in the person of a harlot, yet survives to work other horrors . . . Among a people so generally religious as the American, a disguise must be worn; but it is the same old threadbare disguise of the advocacy of human rights . . . the decree has gone forth which strikes at God by striking at all subordination and law. The spirit of atheism, which knows no God who tolerates evil, no Bible that sanctions law, and no conscience that can be bound by oaths and covenants, has selected us for its victims… To the South the high position is assigned of defending, before all nations, the cause of all religion and of all truth. In this trust, we are resisting the power which wars against constitutions and laws and compacts, against Sabbaths and sanctuaries, against the family, the State and the Church; which blasphemously invades the prerogatives of God, and rebukes the Most High for the errors of His administration; which, if it cannot snatch the reign of empire from His grasp, will lay the universe in ruins at His feet.”
So, finally, why could not the Confederate States of America have survived even had the war been won early on? Simple! The people of the South wished to continue to live as they had in the past. They rejected empire and the amassing of control within the central government necessary for the establishment of an empire. They rejected a large standing army—also necessary for the establishment of political and military control. They rejected New England’s “civil religion” that had now spread throughout the nation. Indeed, the rest of the nation had become New England together with its hatred for the South and her people. They rejected the Spirit of the Age that arose among the Yankee and pressed through every aspect of his culture—a humanist, atheist, pantheist-type pseudo-religion that rejected traditional Christianity in favor of “new religions” and cults foreign to the mind and soul of the people of the South. For though Southerners did not seek to inflict their culture—what we today would call Western Civilization—on the rest of the nation wishing only, as Jefferson Davis avowed, to be “left alone,” they soon learned that empires will not permit independence and religious fanatics will not spare the infidel. As with Tolkien’s hobbits, the people of the South found that they could not “wall out” this “brave new Yankee world.” Sadly, however, unlike the fate of the hobbits in their Shire, Southerners and their Dixie were eventually overwhelmed.
In 1933, James Hilton wrote a novel about a land far removed from the shadows of war gathering once again in the world. This was a place of refuge, of peace and enlightenment, a land hidden amongst the world’s highest mountains; a habitation wherein miracles occurred and love prevailed. In the story, a stranded party is rescued by the inhabitants of this paradise after their plane crashes and thus the tale begins. As it plays out, the members of that party learn that this demi-Eden exists only because it is removed from the world, unknown to men though they have now conquered the sky. They also slowly realize that they cannot simply leave this sanctuary because to do so might compromise its safety. However, trouble arises when the story’s hero—who is strangely drawn to this place—feels that he must help his brother to escape. The brother cannot live in this world of peace and contentment being very much the Yankee and filled with the need to control all around him while seeking worldly wealth and power. For the brother, this paradise is a hell.
Eventually the rest willingly choose to remain, contributing to the well-being of their kindly hosts with such talents as they possess. People who have never “mattered” suddenly find that they have a purpose in life. But the hero’s brother desperately wishes to return to the darkening outside world and realizing that he will doubless die if he makes the attempt alone, the hero accompanies him in his effort. However, in the course of their flight, the brother is killed but the hero survives and makes his way back to civilization. Yet no sooner does he return to “the real world,” then he bends all of his efforts to seek the sanctuary he had so reluctantly abandoned. In the film made of the novel, the final scene reveals the hero once again at the pass in the mountains leading to that place whose name has become synonymous with mankind’s desire for a world without war and suffering, a world of peace, love and hope—Shangri-la.
Though certainly no Shangri-la, the South, in its own way wished to maintain a culture based upon Christian moral principles and ideals, a culture that was passing away as our present world clearly demonstrates. And nowhere was its passing more swift, more heralded and more desired than in the “United States.” Alas for the South, there was no secret valley surrounded by impassible mountains to protect its inhabitants from the Yankee behemoth. Even a victory in war would only have postponed the inevitable day when that Empire assembled sufficient forces to wage war once more. Perhaps it is best that the South was defeated after only four years. Had it won, even for a brief time, the fate of the Southern people after that second “Civil War” might well have been that of the American Indian—virtual oblivion. At least today, we still have the memory of that which was defeated but not altogether lost—at least not yet.
In his book A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States (1865), British observer Fitzgerald Ross interviewed Judah P. Benjamin, who said that during the war, “the Yankees could not help showing their cruelty and rapacity; they could not dissemble their true nature, which is the real cause of this war.”
And it is just about that elementary. But try getting the “scholars” of such places even as Fox News (alleged conservative thought and historical brainchild ) and they will laugh, if not spit, in your face.
Could the Southern people have carried out a policy of “no quarter?” I am skeptical that the majority of Southerners were the kind of people who would have supported such a policy. Others — quite possibly, and perhaps likely — more knowledgeable than I may have different views.
Well, Jackson’s black flag policy would only have applied to Union soldiers, so perhaps it could have been implemented, but I doubt it. When Lincoln tried to treat Confederate commerce raiders as pirates, Jefferson Davis threatened he would execute as many Union POWs as Lincoln hanged. Lincoln backed down, and Davis was well-pleased. He probably wouldn’t have been able to make himself do it if Lincoln had called his bluff. Indeed, Davis was so shy of blood that he refused to have Confederate deserters executed, even when *Robert E. Lee* told him his clemency was harming the army’s discipline.
I don’t know if the south could have survived, but Lincoln’s forced union isn’t going to either. Dishonest Abe’s empire is dying as we speak.
And, in the words of Powers Boothe in the movie, Tombstone; “Well…….bye.”
I only hope innocents aren’t harmed by the beast’s death throes.
Dear Professor Protopapas,
This essay, as are all your Abbeville offerings, is scholarly, riveting and poetic. Oh how I wish your historical knowledge was availabe in puble schools when I was growing up. Nonetheless, thank you for hoisting high the standard of historical accuracy even during these corrupt death throes of the Yankee Republic.
God has blessed you with a brilliant mind and a true patriot’s heart. You are a Southern Treasure!
With my sincere admiration,
Tom Schaaf
Great Falls, Virginia.
Oh S**T! You summed up the larger problem very well, in my thinkings.
The way of the North, ever since day one, seems to be to “enlighten” anything and anyone that they touch. In the 1920s, say, many a northern relocating person moved to a small southern town. He created a medical clinic for the town. He “modernized” the town and brought in Industry with yet more Northern workers. the locals dragged their feet and opposed many of the changes: Freedom riders, I am looking at you all!
Now the liberals are at this too; many are Northerners. What they seem to want, these liberals is for everyone to just move to a metropolis and join the human race, called the “rat race” and just get rid of *any* culture that they have and to become Progressive.
“progressive”?!
Does not anyone ask what this word means?! Progressing to what, I ask. Some people call “progressive” the idea that one should throw out any idea of God or even the afterlife. Things Count for All. Money is the measure of a person. Invest in cryptocurrency *now*
A phrase I often heard while living in the North: “Oh, my wife does all of my feelings for me”!
Unless stopped, this trend will just make cities like Nashville to be just another northern city.
the Irony is, that as most southerners Convert, only the rural hicks and the uneducated will remain Southerners. this state of affairs will VALIDATE the liberal’s idea that Southerners are uneducated and stupid!
//The blame put on the concept of “government” by those who decry the ill-use and the eventually treasonous attack on the South is very akin to the blame that supporters of “gun control” put upon that weapon for the crimes committed with it. The weapon isn’t to blame whether it is guns or government!//
You quote Murray Rothbard in his essay ‘Just War’. But this quote is the antithesis of him.
Any government that has eminent domain, asset forfeiture, qualified immunity, and taxation will ultimately progress to Yankee-ism.
Great comparison! I tend to feel that as the geographical South continues to be compromised, the South itself grows through ideological diaspora. There are “Southerners” all over the world. When stripped down to bare principles, maybe at the expense of some cultural specifics, the South is very much alive. Our numbers may be small, but in every country there are hearts who will never surrender to Yankee Mammon.
Dear Valerie Protopapas,
You have a very good writing style and make things clear. You are also very knowledgeable. I hope you will share your wisdom and knowledge by writing some books about the South.
Great, fascinating article, Valerie, thanks. Excellent points made. Even if the South had won, how were they going to keep the bully Yankees away, indefinitely? Great, interesting points about the influence of post-millenialism on the North’s mindset about things. It’s because post-millenialist’s don’t understand the Bible rightly divided. They don’t understand God temporaily interrupted the Jewish-kingdom- Pentecostal program and began something new and unprophesied with Paul. The literal, physical, earthly, Davidic kingdom is in abeyance. When this parenthetical age of grace is concluded, then God will resume the prophetic program with Israel where it was situated in Acts ch. 7, and the kingdom will come shortly thereafter.
I totally disagree with this nihilistic and fallacious approach. I am no fan of the way Yankees have behaved in the past 160 or so years especially, but the truth is that we were one nation at one point. You say, “In fact, it is more accurate to say that there were from the beginning, two nations and not one[,]” but this is tantamount to denying the union as well as basic history altogether! Yankees signed the declaration of independence, they ratified the constitution, they fought in the Mexican-American war, the war of 1812, etc. Being able to point to contentious bad apples early on is no proof of your assertion because the same can be said of the South. Do you really believe there were no factions of Southerners with bad morals? Have you ever heard of the Knights of The Golden Circle? And the extreme nihilism betrayed by the idea that the war was doomed from the start is to deny the power and justice of God! You quote Benjamin Palmer as saying, “Last of all, in this great struggle, we defend the cause of God and religion[,]” so do you really believe that the cause of God is one that is doomed to failure? That the cause of truth and religion can’t win against the cause of atheism? I think that position is reprehensible. I reject the idea that Jefferson Davis is at all to blame for the Confederacy’s failure. He was not naive. I love him, and view him as the true representative of the Southern cause.
“Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southern man apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance. Our cause was so just, so sacred, that had I known all that has come to pass, had I known what was to be inflicted upon me, all that my country was to suffer, all that our posterity was to endure, I would do it all over again.” – Jefferson Davis
“The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered on a new and enlarged arena. The champions of constitutional liberty must spring to the struggle, like the armed men from the seminated dragon’s teeth, until the Government of the United States is brought back to its constitutional limits, and the tyrant’s plea of “necessity” is bound in chains strong as adamant: […] When the war closed, who were the victors? Perhaps it is too soon to answer that question. […] But the question still lives, and all nations and people that adopt a confederated agent of government will become champions of our cause. While contemplating the Northern States – with their Federal Constitution gone, ruthlessly destroyed under the tyrant’s plea of “necessity,” their State sovereignty made a byword, and their people absorbed in an aggregated mass, no longer, as their fathers left them, protected by reserved rights against usurpation – the question naturally arises: On which side was the victory? Let the verdict of mankind decide.” – Jefferson Davis
Today, since the apostle Paul, it has not been about “the power and justice of God,” save through the gospel of grace. Biblically, our world is in a unprophesied parenthetical time in which God is dispensing grace. The power and justice of God, as far as righteousness reigning on this Earth, is on hold. When this age of grace ends, then the world will see God’s power and justice, and wrath. “…when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” 1 Cor. 15:24. I do think “The South Was Right,” (Kennedy twins), but in my opinion it was based on the Constitution, the rule of law, Jefferson and Calhoun’s writing’s on the Republic. Also, the book taught at West Point defending secession (Can’t recall that author’s name. Rawls?). That, along with good Christian morals and values underlying it all. But God was not on any side, so to speak.