There are notable parallels between the war for the Union and the war between Great Britain and the Boers, in the issues involved and in the course of their events. Like the Confederates, the whole of the Boer population considered themselves fighting for personal lib erty as against subjection to a foreign power. Like the Confederates, the Boers fought prac tically without pay; and although they were inferior in numbers their important engagements were generally victories; or, if not victories, were drawn battles. And as the end came to the Confederates, so it came to the Boers only with their utter exhaustion— through their being wom out, rather than defeated m battle.
But a great contrast is to be found in the treatment of the two peoples after their defeat. That of the Boer was liberal and generous, fully in accord with the civilization of the day. To parallel the treatment of the South every effort must have been made to put the political control of the country into the hands of the Kaffirs. Of course the efforts to give the negro political control over the Anglo-Saxon at the South were foredoomed to failure. They pro longed ill-feeling for 10 years; but subsequent events, notably the Spanish War, at last inaugu rated a new era in which few traces of it yet linger. And it is due to history to record that it is unlikely that any such effort would ever have been made, but for the assassination of Lincoln. Although for this unspealcable crime and folly the South was in no way responsible, it brought upon her a whirlwind of resentment and at the same time it removed a President who, there is evidence to show, had already risen to the height of his great opportunity as a statesman, and was now planning terms of liberality upon which to reconstruct the Southern States.
Within the few days that intervened between the surrender at Appomattox and the assassina tion of Lincoln, one in his close confidence prophesied that his plans of reconstruction would °win over the South's good will and affection, and astonish the world.° And in giv ing his plans effect, no one can doubt that he would have had the cordial as well as powerful aid of General Grant, who had already set the example of magnanimity, and won the gratitude of Lee's army by the generosity of his terms of surrender.
History records no crime greater than that of the assassin, who cheated the civilization and humanity of the world of the great example which Lincoln would have set to all nations, and who sowed bitterness and between the sections, bringing poverty and distress to the South, to the North the mortifying failure of its political experiment and to the negro only an injury. But in connection with the
negro question, as it confronts us to-day, it may be remarked that the problem of the races can be safely committed to time and to the racial instincts implanted by the Creator.
The Constitution which was adopted by the six States in Montgomery, February 1861, and in turn accepted by the others, was modeled closely after that of the United States. It for bade the slave-trade, or the importation of slaves from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States and Territories of the United States. It forbade °bounties° or °trusts" and provided a °tariff for revenue." It allowed the President to veto any part of a bill and approve the remainder, giving his rea sons for such action; and fixed his term of office at six years and made him ineligible for a second.term.
The internal history of the Confederate States during the Civil War furnished a most instructive lesson as to the wealcness of the bond by which they had associated themselves.
Already, before the close of the war, it had proved itself but little better than the federa tion of the colonies for the Revolutionary War. The last message of President Davis to the Confederate Congress, and the answering re port upon the message by a cominittee of the Senate, contained much crimination and re crimination, and revealed an utter loss of con fidence between the executive and the legislative branches, fatally paralyzing ail action, and im possible to be healed. In a letter to the Secre tary of War, on 5 March 1865, Judge John A. Campbell, assistant secretary, wrote : °The po litical condition is not more favorable. Georgia is in a state that may properly be called insur rectionary against the Confederate authorities. Her public men of greatest influence have cast reproach upon the laws of the Confederacy and the Confederate authorities, and have made the execution of the laws nearly impossible.° In several of the other States there were also very serious issues between State and Confederate authorities.