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8
, THE
WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN
A Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian
Theory of Government.
PUBLISHED BY
THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON
Editors and Proprietors
Austell Building, Atlanta, Ga.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE - . $i oo PER YEAR.
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Entered at Postoffice, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, I()O7, as second class mail matter
ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1907
At Last it is to be Called the Cibil War
and Not the War of the 'Rebellion.
For publication in the first number of the
New York Watson Magazine the Socialist
book-writer, Mr. W. J. Ghent, offered a most
interesting article entitled “The Butcheries
of Peace.”
Tn this, he compared the loss of life in the
various battles of the Civil War to the annual
slaughter which we endure at the hands of
our corporation bosses who operate our pub
lic roads for their private profit. '
As often as it became necessary for him to
refer to The Civil War, it pleased Mr. W. J.
Ghent to call it The War of the Rebellion.
I told him that no such term could be used
in my magazine, and I struck it out.
The term was never correct. It was always
used more as an expression of sectional hatred
than of historical description..
Alexander H. Stephens was quite accurate
in calling this great conflict “The War be
tween the States.” It bore to a greater extent
the character of a war between the states,
North and South, than of a civil war, dividing
the people throughout the country.
During the month of January 1907, Con
gress was asked to admit to the pension rolls
all of those who had served ninety days in
the military or naval service of the union in
The Civil War. The usual phraseology of
“War of the Rebellion” had been used in the
original draft of the bill.
The entire South owes a vote of thanks to
Senator Carmack, of Tennessee, for his cour
age in making a successful stand against this
insulting epithet. It was he who moved to
strike out “War of the Rebellion” and to sub
stitute “Civil War.”
Senator Money, of Mississippi, suggested
that the strife between the North and South
should be described as the war between the
states. Said he: “It was in no sense a civil
war. It was a war between sovereign states.”
Mr. McCumber and others dissented from
Senator Money’s view and recalled the fact
that “in Kentucky, Missouri, and other border
states, the population was divided, sending
men to both sides, so that it was in the strict
est sense, a civil war.”
Nevertheless, Senator Money was absolute
ly correct in his contention that it was a war
between sovereign states. While it is true
that some of the individual citizens of Georgia,
the Carolinas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia
and other Southern states joined the Union
Army and fought beneath the old flag, yet it
is also a fact that each state of the South
which went into the Southern Confederacy
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
acted in its capacity of sovereign state, voting
itself out of the union by state action.
Had there been in each state throughout the
union a division of the people into two great
warring factions, one for the government and
the other against it, the war would have been
both a rebellion and a civil war. But, inas
much as each state which made up the South
ern Confederacy went into it by state action
and as a state organization, just as they had
gone into the Union itself or into the old Con
federation, the conflict was between Southern
states going out of the union and those North
ern, Eastern and Western states which re
mained in the union.
The mere fact that thousands of Southern
people fought against the Southern Confed
eracy has no more to do with changing the
character of the war than the action of the
Tories during the Revolutionary War had to
do with the true character of that struggle for
independence.
Consequently, it would really have been bet
ter had Senator Money’s term of “War ‘be
tween the States” been accepted.
But the fact that Senator Carmack could
secure the adoption of his designation “Civil
War” as a substitute for the old false and in
sulting term, “War of the Rebellion,” is suffi
cient to gratify the whole South.
Really, it is a wonder that Southern Sena
tors and representatives have so long submit
ted to what was so palpably untrue and offen
sive.
M *
A Curious Literary Forgery.
As our readers know, we have been publish
ing for some time, one after the other, the
sketches in that rare old book, “Georgia
Scenes.” One of these sketches published
some time ago is called by the author “Geor
gia Theatrics.” It is usually alluded to in
conversation as the sketch in which a Lincoln
County man who was “jist sein how I could
’a’ fout.”
Perhaps, there is no one of the sketches in
“Georgia Scenes” better known than this. The
old people will tell you that the hero of the
story was a man by the name of
one of whose grandsons is now a minister of
good standing in one of the great religious
denominations of the state.
To my utter surprise, I received soon after
the publication of “Georgia Theatrics,” a letter
from Mr. S. A. Black, of Manhattan, Kans.,
in which he says, in the postscript to a letter
upon other subjects: “Since writing the
above, I picked up the Weekly Jeffersonian of
January 10, and read ‘Geeorgia Theatrics.’
After a little time it began to sound familiar.
I went back to my bookcase and picked up the
Life of Col. David Crockett, written by him
self. On page 256 begins the story of the man
fighting out in the bushes. Then clear
through to the finish it is word for word as
you published in January 10, Weekly Jeffer
sonian. You claim those Georgia Scenes
were written by Judge Longstreet, while
Crockett’s life was written by himself. Judge
Longstreet says this happened in Georgia and
Crockett says it happened on his trip from
Tennessee to Texas in 1835. Now which is
true? The stories are exactly alike, names and
all”
Strange as it may seem, Mr. Black’s state
ment is true. I have looked the matter up in
my copy of David Crockett’s Autobiography
and on the page cited by Mr. Black I find the
beginning of exactly the same story as is told
in Judge Longstreet’s Georgia Theatrics.
Now who can explain this? Judge Long
street’s book was published in 1840. Previous
to the publication of these sketches in book
form, they had been printed in one of the Ga
zettes of the state in 1839. David Crockett
was killed in the Alamo in 1836. His Journal
was published after that time, but just when
I am not at present able to say. My copy of
the Life of David Crockett, by himself, was
published by A. L. Burt of New York, but
there is no copyright date-mark, nor is there
any date anywhere in the book to show when
it was published. This of itself is suspicious.
The name of the Editor who prepared the pa
pers of David Crockett for publication it not
given. Just how much padding was given to
his Journal it would be impossible to say.
If any of the readers of the Jeffersonian has
a copy of the early editions of the Autobiog
raphy of David Crockett we would be glad
to have them examine the book and see wheth
et these first editions contain this story whose
authorship is thus drawn in question. It
is incredible that Judge Longstreet would have
dared to purloin bodily a story from a recent
ly published life of a man so interesting to
all the South as David Crockett of Tennessee.
On the other hand, Georgia Scenes has always
been a local book. It has had no national rep
utation. Therefore it is not a violent pre
sumption that an editor should have conceived
the idea of adding to the interest of the Crock
ett diary by cribbing from an unknown book
like “Georgia Scenes” the story of the man
who was out in the bushes showing to himself
how he could ’a’ fout.
At all events, Mr. Black has unearthed a
very curious case of literary forgery.
* M M
Col. Bill Farmer, One of the
Old Guard.
In the year 1889, I was a namby-pamby
Democrat —prepared to believe that a partly
name was a holy talisman, a nomination suffi
cient to turn a black billy-goat into a snow
white lamb.
To be anything but a namby-pamby Dem
crat was foreign to my plans and purposes.
I was a Reformer, all right, but I was going
to drive the burglars out of my father’s house
and was going to get the reformers inside the
dear old Democratic party.
To this effect I was making ardent, fool
harangues in all the adjacent regions wherever
a dozen or so curious listeners could be assem
bled.
The burden of my little song was:
Bad men, it is true, have come into the par
ty and have had things pretty much their own
way: but we must drive these bad men out,
put the good men in control, and thus get re
form inside the Democratic Party.
Oh, I had it figured out very convincingly,
I assure you.
At the same time, I was against Railroad)
abuses and wanted to cure them with govern
ment control. No government ownership for
me.
Well, sir, in the course of my careering