THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.

Shannon News, 5 August 1924, Page 4

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.

W.E.A LECTURE. * The usual weekly University Extension lecture was given at Spooner s buildings last evening, Mr G. G.Han-r-ox presiding. The lecturer (Mr A. Ernest Mander) continued his outline of American history, picking up the threads of the story where, he had dropped them last week, when he had been dealing with the early colonial days and the War of Independence. Mr Mander then went on to give a brief description of the constitution of the United States as established in 1789, when the Union (or Federation) was formed. He showed how in America the supreme sovereignty still resides in the individual states, and not in the Union as a whole. The Federal government may not do anything which it is not expressly empowered to do by the Constitution; and the Supreme Court can even declare invalid any Act of the Union government which goes beyond the 1 limits imposed by the Constitution. This is, of course; ah essential difference between the American government and our own. Our government is., practically all-powerful, and it makes and modifies the "constitution'' as it goes along, so that no Act of the British Parliament can possibly be "unconstitutional." But thc American Union government is itself subject to the written constitution which is designed to safeguard the ultimate sovereignty of the individual states. President and Congress. The President of the United States is the Executive. He chooses his own ministers (secretaries of State), who arc responsible to him —and to him alone. He himself is not responsible,to, or subject to the control of, Congress. The President is elected (in effect) by a direct national vote. Congress consists of two houses. The Senate represents the individual states, each state (irrespective of population) having two members In I thc Senate. The house of Representatives, on the other hand, is elected to represent, not the separate states, but the nation as a whole.

President and Congress in the United States do not correspond (in power and function) with the King and Parliament in England to-day. It is more nearly true to say that the President has the power of the-sover-eign, and Congress has. the standingof the Parliament of England, in the days of Queen Elizabeth. The Senate has the power to confirm- —or refuse to confirm—treaties made by the President with foreign countries. The House of Representatives—like the early Parliament in England—is chiefly concerned with raising the revenue required by the President's administration of the country. The individaul states attend to education, state finance, and most of the ordinary laws which have a direct bearing upon the lives of the people. The nearest parallel is the double system of state and federal government in Australia; but the individual American States exercise more powers and perform more functions than do the individual states in Australia. liarly Days of the Union.

" The lecturer then dealt with the early history of the American Union, under Hie presidency of Washington, of John Adams, of Thomas Jefferson, of Madison and others. He described the very serious social and economic situation at the time when the Union war, established, when it seemed as though the newly-independent stales were going- to be involved in a financial disaster, together with the complete Breakdown of law and order and organisation. He then dealt with the second war with England, Avhich began in IS 12, a war which (the lecturer said) was thoroughly discreditable to both parties—one of the* unpleasant pages in both British and American history. During the first half of the nineteenth century, America was undergoing great industrial development, and also was engrossed in the great work of opening up the "West." Power and machinery were producing a factory system in some of- the north-eastern states of America, similar to that which had already grown up in the north of England. Railways were being laid down. Telegraph lines were being stretched

swindlers got hold of thousands of pounds worth of goods, and, of course, sold them for what" they would fetch. It is quite certain that all thc money obtained did not go into their pockets. There was someone in the background a confederate of Levene's, who rendered invaluable assistance In disposing of the stolen goodsDEAL IN LADIES' SHOES. So far as can be ascertained, about £7,000 was received by the company. All three men lived well on the proceeds. Ross and Novodvorsky went the pace up West, spent money like water, and were to be found every week-end with their wealthy compatriots at Brighton and Margate. Occasionally they may have paid a few small bills, but they only did this in order to continue with the .bigger and more profitable swindles. They wrote to the Arthur Fincham Shoe Co., of Norwich, with reference to a consignment of ladies'.shoes. A traveller called and was seen by Novodvorsky, who told a specious story of the prosperous business being done by the company and pointed with pride to the large amount of stock in the place. H e informed the traveller that he was a cash buyer for any amount, and ultimately an order was given for some hundreds of pairs of shoes.

The company asked for a reference, and wer e given the name of Levene, in New Road. That gentleman supplied a most satisfactory answer, and so the .shoe ooupany sent goods to-the value of £4OO. Of this amount they received exactly £25 and two promissory notes for the remainder. The notes were never met. A few days after tho shoes had been-received they were being offered to a job buyer at a perfectly ridiculous price. This individual bought 1683 pairs, paid cash for them, and doubtless went on bis way rejoicing, -^

.across the Continent. The "West" was being opened up, and millions of hard-working, but crude, smallminded and completely culture-less folk were going west to settle as farmers and to build up new raw little towns out on the western prairies. The Struggle Against Slavery. •Mr Mandcr referred to what he said last week about the institution of slavery in the southern states. In the early colonial days there had been some slaves in the north as well; but this was no longer the case. The North did not need labour; and so humanitarian sentiment was free to develop there. But in the South the indolent sham "aristocrats, the planters, still lived

r upon slave labour. j During the last 30 or 40 years, said ! the lecturer, there has been a crop ! of silly romantic fiction (in novels and J on the screen) dealing with the -good j ! old days," the "happy days" in the i southern states, especially in Virginia the "oid Dominion" as it is often called. But this modern fiction must not be allowed to deceive us as to the real state of affairs in the South in the bad old days These Southern "gentlemen" were, as a rule, by no means admirable specimens of humanity. Thev were usually men of debased morals, of cold-blooded cruelty, with a vulgar love of ostentation which only accentuated their utter lack of real culture and good taste, of education, of intelligence. Conditions in the plantations were very bad, the slaves could be handled only with all the ugly paraphernalia of bloodhounds, iron fetters and chains, while the lash was in constant use. There were, of course, exceptional cases; but we ?iave ample evidence that in most cases the slaves were treated with great brutality. Before The War. , ■ln the North, as the facts became more and more widely known, the popular outcry against; slavery became stronger and more insistent. Three things prevented the North from making a stand long before it did. First, much of the capital invested in the industries of the North was owned by the wealthy planters in the South. Secondly, churches in the North were unable to raise their voices against slavery as long as those in the" South were ardently defending it —as they were until the end. Thirdly, the already huge and solid Irish Vote in the North was against abolition. Mr Mander read a quotation from Goldwin Smith, who showed what an unmitigated curse to American politics the "Irish vote'' has been. It took thirty years of agitation in the North to work the people up to the point of making a stand. Such men as Garrison, Lovejoy, Lundy, Emerson, Whittier and Channing were prominent and active in this agitation; and the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (published in 1850) did much to fan the smouldering indignation of the North into a flame of fury.

A brief sketch was then given of the political struggles and intrigues and compromises that were going on during this period,. Avhile things were steadily working up to a climax. Republicans and Democrats.

By this time the nation was divided into two great political parties—the Republicans and the Democrats. The chief issue was slavery. The Democrats were for slaved, and the Republicans against it. The Democrats were also more or less Free Traders and strongly anti-British; while the Republicans were, in favour of a high tariff protection, and were rather more friendly to Britain. The strength of the Democrats lay in the South, and the Irish vote in the North (the Irish vote accounting, of course, for the anti-British sentiment in the party.) The Republicans were the main party of the North. In 1859 an anti-slavery fanatic, John Brown (who was really hardly sane at all) made a raid in Virginia and called upon the slaves to revolt. Fortunately, they did - nothing of the sort—or,the lid would have been off hell, John Brown was captured and hanged. In 1861 things reached a climax. At the presidential election, the Democrats split their own vote and the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected. Secession and Civil War. Mr Mander devoted some time to a description of the character and career of Lincoln, showing him as a man of many sterling qualities and many serious weaknesses. When Lincoln was elected as president,. the South knew that at last the attack upon slavery was going to begin in earnest. The southern states took the initiative. They withdrew from the Union, claiming that, .since it was simply a voluntary federation of essentially sovereign states, they were quite at liberty to withdraw if they wished to. The North was filled with dismay at this move on the part of the South, and even offered—by a resolution passed in both Houses—to waive the slavery question if only the South would remain in the Union,

Nevertheless, the southern states hauled down the Union flag and declared themselves independent.

So the war began. The lecturer discussed the relative fighting strengths of the two parties, the difficulties that each had to contend with and the different ways m which the two sides set about the business of making war # He then gave a very brief outline of the course of the war, showing how, in time, it became evident that it must be simply a war of attrition —in which simple arithemetic showed that the South must inevitably bleed to death first. At length, after four long years of agony and fury, of slaughter and destruction, the army of the South was worn down to nothing. The Presdent of the South (Jefferson Davis) fled, was captured and imprisoned f" and at last the long and terrible war was at an end. Alter the War.

Fortunately, both Lincoln and Grant (the Commander of the army of the North) proved themselves too big to be harsh and ruthless with the vanquished army and people of the South. Lincoln was murdered within a. week of peace being ; declared; - but his policy of conciliating the South and trying to heal the wounds made by ihe war, was more or less continued. There were no hangings (such as popular clamour in the North, demanded) and there was very little disposition to wreak venegeance on the southerners. As a result of the war the Union was again firmly established. Slaverywas abloished, and the negroes - became wage-workers. But what was more (and of doubtful wisdom) the blacks were enfranchised— while the whites who had been in arms were disfranchised. This gave a chance for hundreds of shady politicians from the North to swarm down and, relying upon the neg.ro vote, capture all the political offices in the South.

Many of the negroes too —as was to be expected—behaved very badly in their newly-found freedom, for which they had never been trained. There were many horrible atrocities committed by these people, who did not cease to be savages simply because they had been legally constituted citizens and voters. Then the men of the South formed an evil, devilish secret organisation, Ku Klux Klan, which retaliated upon the negroes by committing equally horrible atrocities upon them.