Religious Journals at the South.
By Editor
ONE of the saddest results of the treasonable rebellion of the South, is the singular ophthalmia which has fallen on religious men and journals. They do not, or will not, see the true issues involved in the struggle, and either mistake or misrepresent the position and aims of the national government. They seem to glory in breaking up the Union for which their fathers fought, and in trampling on the constitution which has been our common pride. They are ready even to renounce all grateful memories of our past history. Great allowance must be made for local prejudices and sectional partialities, but one is puzzled to understand how religious men can mistake utterly the relations between government and armed rebellion. So good and candid a man as James B. Taylor, of Richmond, writes to a Southern journal:— "A war of aggression and invasion has been commenced by the North. A united South will occupy the defensive attitude." A highway-robber once repelled indignantly the charge of murder. "I killed the man in self-defense," said he. "He attacked me furiously with a knife, and I was obliged to shoot him. No man ought to be blamed for defending himself." The plea sounded well, but farther inquiry proved that the highwayman began the quarrel, by seeking to rob a peaceful traveler, and when the man drew a knife in self-defense he was instantly shot. The incident illustrates exactly the "defensive" attitude of the South. Its rebellious leaders commenced a wholesale robbery of sub-treasuries, mints, forts, arsenals, and ships of war, in short, of everything within their reach. They were foiled in the attempt to seize Fort Sumpter by the loyal energy of Major Anderson. Irritated by his fidelity to the government, they surrounded the little garrison with batteries, and then refused all supplies, hoping to compel a surrender by starvation. The government could not allow its troops to perish without an attempt to relieve them, and at once announced to Gov. Pickens its intention to send in a supply of provisions. On this announcement the fort was attacked by an overwhelming force, and in violation of the common courtesies of war, a flag of truce was not respected when the fort was in flames, but the cannonading was more furious than before. When the news of the surrender of the fort reached the rebel cabinet at Montgomery, the secretary of war announced the purpose of the cabinet to follow up the blow by an immediate seizure of Washington. The government, driven to decided action by such outrages, summoned an army of volunteers to defend the capital, and retake all stolen property. This act, essential to its very existence, our Richmond brother interprets as "a war of aggression and invasion commenced by the North," and softly says, "A united South will occupy a defensive attitude." It is an adroit way of "putting the question," but not quite honest. It has no censure for treason, but depreciates enforcement of the laws. Such logic would reward the highwayman and hang the sheriff. It would overlook Adam's plucking the fruit, and bewail his expulsion from the garden. The North Carolina Presbyterian has an equally adroit way of "putting the question" from another point of view. It says: "Like our revolutionary fathers, the people of the South are battling for constitutional liberty, for the right of self-government, and for freedom from oppressive rule." This sounds well in self-justification, but so did the charge of the Jews against the Saviour that he had been guilty of "blasphemy" and of "stirring up the people." It is one thing to make charges, and quite another to prove them. The government, since its organization, with a few brief intervals, has been in the hands of southern men, and if there has been "oppressive rule," they have been its administrators. Mr. Stephens ought to be a reliable witness in the matter, and he testifies that there has been no oppression, but the South in the Union has attained a prosperity unrivaled in history. Mr. Botts challenges the whole South to specify a wrong inflicted by the government on a single citizen. As the avowed object of the Southern confederacy is to found an immense slave empire, our contemporary must mean to say, "The people of the South are battling for freedom to establish an oppressive rule." The notions of "self-government" are quite as shadowy as those of oppressive rule. The American idea of self-government is a government of law, in which the people make, and execute, and modify the laws. But the ideas of the South are radically different. The people of the United States elected a president by the ballot box, but the South would not submit to the will of the majority. They claimed that the minority should be allowed to dictate to the majority. It is a cardinal principle in self-government, that the people make and approve the laws under which they live. But in the so-called Southern confederacy, the right of the people to have a voice in framing the government is utterly denied. A constitution has been formed, and the legislatures have refused to submit it to the vote of the people. It is made the law of the land without their consent, and this is "the right of self-government" for which they are said to be battling. But worse than this, the voice of the people has been disregarded, and their instructions disobeyed. In Virginia and Tennessee (and we believe also in North Carolina, for which the Presbyterian speaks), the people voted directly on the question of secession, and decided to remain in the Union, but in defiance of these votes, their legislatures and conventions have renounced allegiance to the Union, and placed the property and arms of their respective States under the immediate control of the Montgomery congress, and Virginia is now thronged with armed troops from the so-called Southern confederacy. If this is what our contemporary calls "constitutional liberty" and "the right of self-government," we may be pardoned for doubting if they are worth battling for. We wish religious men at the South would look the issue now pending fairly in the face. It is not primarily a contest between sections, but a contest between government and anarchy, between constitutional order and mob law. A President is elected by the forms of the constitution, and the South rebels against the will of the people. The government seeks to administer the laws which it, in common with all citizens, has sworn to obey; and this enforcement of law which the South has not attempted in any constitutional way to repeal or modify, is called "oppression." The South, by open violence, seizes government property within its borders, and when the administration avows its purpose to reclaim its own, the cry is raised of "aggression and invasion." The South proscribes and imprisons government officers as traitors, banishes at the peril of life and loss of property, all loyal subjects of the Union; and when the government insists that its friends shall be protected, an alarm is raised that constitutional freedom is at stake.—Watchman and Reflector.