236 Southern Historical Society Papers.
with obloquy from distortion of facts and suppression of truth as to be misjudged by posterity. It devolves on the survivors of the Confederate period to preserve the truth of their history, and hand down, from generation to generation, a correct account of the im- pelling cause of the unfortunate struggle, in order that the cruelty of injustice to our motives shall not be added to the pangs of defeat. The world has done justice to Southern valor, but the just meed of merit has not been awarded to the motives of the Southern people.
If the apprehension of danger did not justify our movement, surely the anticipation of the result of subjugation, as practically illustrated in its consequences, has furnished ample vindication of the heroic effort to avert it ! What just historian of the future, with the expe- rience of the Southern people since the war, will blame their move- ment for independence, if he shall grant their prescience to anti- cipate what has befallen them at the hands of the government of the United States ? Who can view the wreck and ruin around us, the subversion of society, the ascendancy of ignorance, the elevation of incompetency, the depreciation of virtue, integrity and intelligence, and the cruel exactions from industry, as exemplied in the recon- structed States, as the direct effect of the policy of the victorious government, without according the highest praise to the statesman- ship which foresaw, and the valor which struggled to avert such dire calamities?
It is a truth that the Southern movement sprang from just such anticipation. The oft-repeated charge that ambition incited the movement is false, and proceeds from ignorance or malice. The course of the Southern people was that by many illustrated by a single individual, who seeks to avoid injury by withdrawing from an association, the continuance of which he considers to be fraught with evil to his interest.
It was an exercise of the right inherent in every people to change their governmental relations when government ceases to effectuate the object of its institution.
Government is not itself an end. It is but a means to an end, and that is for the welfare of the people for whom it has been instituted, and, failing in this, it has no sanctity. The doctrine of the Divine right of Kings and the sanctity of government in itself is an exploded fallacy of the past.
The movement of the Southern people, impelled by a sense of danger, and animated with the determination to avert it, presents one
