There is no disputing the verdict of events. Let us relate them truly and interpret them fairly. If the South would have the North do justice to its heroes, the South must do justice to the heroes of the North. Each must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's even as each would render unto God the things that are God's. As living men, standing erect in the presence of Heaven and the world, the men of the South have grown gray without being ashamed; and they need not fear that History will fail to vindicate their integrity.
When those are gone that fought the battle, and Posterity comes to strike the balance, it will be shown that the makers of the Constitution left the relation of the States to the Federal Government and of the Federal Government to the States open to a double construction. It will be told how the mistaken notion that slave labor was requisite to the profitable cultivation of sugar, rice and cotton, raised a paramount property interest in the Southern section of the Union, whilst in the Northern section, responding to the trend of modern thought and the outer movements of mankind, there arose a great moral sentiment against slavery. The conflict thus established, gradually but surely sectionalizing party lines, was as inevitable as it was irrepressible. It was fought out to its bitter and logical conclusion at Appomattox. It found us a huddle of petty sovereignties, held together by a rope of sand. It made and it left us a Nation.
A War Episode--I Meet my Fater--I Marry and Make a Home--The Ups and Downs of Life Lead to a Happy Old Age
In bringing these desultory--perhaps too fragmentary--recollections to a close the writer may not be denied his final word. This shall neither be self-confident nor overstated; the rather a confession of faith somewhat in rejection of political and religious pragmatism. In both his experience has been ample if not exhaustive. During the period of their serial publication he has received many letters--suggestive, informatory and critical--now and again querulous--which he has not failed to consider, and, where occasion seemed to require, to pursue to original sources in quest of accuracy. In no instance has he found any essential error in his narrative. Sometimes he has been charged with omissions--as if he were writing a history of his own times--whereas he has been only, and he fears, most imperfectly, relating his immediate personal experience.