----- Original Message ----- From: "Margie Daniels" <margie@majorinternet.net> To: <GACRAWFO-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 4:03 PM Subject: [GACRAWFO] Confederate Veteran July 1894 William Jones > > OPPOSED TO THE NAME REBELLION. > > Rev. J. William Jones, University of Virginia, July 18: Let me add my > earnest and hearty protest against calling our war the " Rebellion. " It was > not a rebellion, and we were not rebels or traitors. George Washington was a > rebel because he fought against properly constituted and legal authority, > and if he had failed he would probably have been tried as a rebel, and > executed as a traitor. But Jefferson Davis was no rebel when he led the > great struggle to maintain proper authority, to uphold law and constitution, > and when the Federal Government held him as a prisoner they never dared to > bring him to trial, because they knew, under the advice of Chief Justice > Chase and the ablest lawyers at the North, that they could, never convict > him of treason under the Constitution and laws of the United States. > > I remember that one day down at Beauvoir, several years before his death, > the grand old chief of the Confederacy said to me alluding to this question: > "Rebellion indeed! How can a sovereign State rebel? You might as well pay > that Germany rebelled against France, or that France, who was overwhelmed in > the conflict, rebelled against Germany, as to say that the sovereign States > of the Confederacy rebelled against the North or the government. O that they > had dared give me the trial I so much coveted, and for which I so earnestly > begged, in order that I might have opportunity to vindicate my people and > their cause before the world and at the bar of history! They knew that I > would have been triumphantly acquitted, and our people purged of all taint > of treason, and they never dared to bring my case to trial." > Is it not time, then, for those people to cease talking about treason and > rebellion, and to stop their insults in calling us rebels? If there were any > rebels in that great contest) they were north of the Potomac and the Ohio > the men who trampled under foot the Constitution of our country and the > liberties bequeathed us by our fathers. > > Gen. Lee always spoke of the war as the "great struggle for Constitutional > freedom," and that is a truthful and distinctive title which I prefer. " The > War Between the States" was the title given by A. H. Stephens, and is a good > one. "Confederate War" would do, but that implies that we made the war. > which, of course, we did not, our policy being peace. The " War of > Coercion," or the "War against State Sovereignty" would express it, but the > "Rebellion," never > > > > > ==== GACRAWFO Mailing List ==== > Check the Macon County Georgia Web site for old newspaper articles http://www.rootsweb.com/~gamacon/index.html > >