courage to accept the only practicable peace. Their subsequent course
in Congress, in the Cabinet, and in the field, exposed in very striking
outline the strong points and the weak points of Southern character.
It exhibited Southern men as possessed of the utmost physical
courage--often carried indeed to foolish audacity. It exhibited them
at the same time as singularly deficient in the attribute of moral
courage. When the Southern leaders knew the Confederate cause to be
hopeless not a single man among them displayed sufficient heroism to
brave public opinion with the declaration of his honest belief. The
absolute suppression of free discussion which had long prevailed in
the South, the frequent murder of those who attempted to express an
unpopular opinion however honestly entertained, had deprived brave
men of every trait of that higher form of courage which has given
immortality of fame to the moral heroes of the world.

Not individually alone but in combined action this weak trait of
Southern character was made manifest. Only a month before the time
when the Confederacy was in ruins and the members of its Congress were
fugitives from its Capital, they united in an inflammatory address to
the people of the South, urging them to continue the contest. They
made assertions and employed arguments which as men of intelligence
they could not themselves believe and accept. They strove by exciting
evil passions and blind animosities to hurl the soldiers of the
Confederacy once more into a desperate fight with all its suffering and
with certain defeat. In this address, which was the unanimous vote of
the Confederate Senate and the Confederate House of Representatives,
the people were told that if they failed in the war, "the Southern
States would be held as conquered provinces by the despotic government
at Washington;" that they "would be kept in subjugation by the stern
hand of military power as Venice and Lombardy have been held by
Austria, as Poland is held by the Russian Czar." A still more terrible
fate was foretold. "Not only," continued the address, "would we be
deprived of every political franchise dear to freemen, but socially we
would be degraded to the level of slaves. . . . Not only would the
property and estates of vanquished rebels be confiscated, but they
would be divided and distributed among our African bondsmen."

Even the extravagance and absurdity of the foregoing declarations were
outdone in o