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(CIVIL WAR.) Who is Responsible for the War? Who Accountable for its Horrors and Desolations?
"THE NORTH WILL BE GLAD TO LET US GO"--JEFFERSON DAVIS (CIVIL WAR.) Who is Responsible for the War? Who Accountable for its Horrors and Desolations? 4 pages on one leaf, 212 x 290 mm. 8vo, soiled, minor dampstaining, creasing, some wear at margins, but entirely legible. Np, [1865]
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Notes: important and possibly unique leaflet, consisting of 3 sections. The first and most significant is "Early Dreams of Secession." It recounts an 1854 conversation between Charles Coffin Jewett of the Smithsonian Institute and future Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis (then Secretary of War) and James Murray Mason (then a U.S. Senator), in which Davis expresses his conviction that the North will let the South secede peacefully. A compressed version of this dialogue appeared in 1867 in The Pictorial Book of Anecdotes and Incidents of the War of the Rebellion, 643, and its later editions, but appears to be otherwise largely unknown. This section concludes: "We think the stern logic of events during the last four years has led both Mr. Davis and Mr. Mason to a somewhat different conclusion. The former is now a prisoner of state, awaiting his trial for treason, while the latter is an exile." This places the date of publication firmly in 1865.
The second and longest section is titled "Extracts from a Speech by Alexander H. Stephens . . . Delivered in the Secession Convention of Georgia," and the third is "Who Commenced the War?", a timeline of the march toward secession before Lincoln's election. These last two sections were published in several broadside editions during the Civil War under the same title, "Who is Responsible for the War?. . ." The broadsides are fairly common, and are found in several libraries across the country. However, this expanded leaflet with the "Early Dreams of Secession" anecdote appears to be otherwise unknown. -
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June 5, 2008 10:30 AM EDT
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