We refer our readers particularly to the telegraphic dispatches in our paper of today. We give them in full and to the exclusion of much other matter. As to their reliability, we can assure our readers there is no doubt of it. They are but too true. Our country is enveloped in the flames of a civil war. To what extent it will rage, how far it will reach, or how long it will last, it surpasses our poor ability to predict. It is enough for us to know that war has been levied upon the South, and that the North have determined if possible to overwhelm and destroy us. The northern people are marshalling and arming and offering their services to Mr. Lincoln by thousands. He only called for seventy-five thousand men, and already over a half million have tendered their services. It has been said that, our troubles were not to be attributed to the people, but to the politicians of the North. Therein has been the mistake. It was the people, not the politicians. The people goaded the politicians up to the fighting point, and they are now hut carrying out the mandates of the people. The evil lies deeper and beyond the mere politics of the North. It exists in the religious and moral education of the people. They have been taught to despise and hate us at their mother’s knee, in the school room, and before the altar of the church. The sentiment of hostility to the South has grown with their growth, and strengthened with their strength. It will he satisfied with nothing less than our complete overthrow and thorough subjugation. Neither the laws, the constitution, nor the decisions of the supreme court have afforded us any protection. All have been overridden and trampled under foot when they have afforded the slightest obstacle to the accomplishment of their cherished object.
The people of the North are our inveterate foes. It is impossible for us to live in peace or harmony with them. They will not tolerate us as equals. They desire our complete subjugation. The dread alternative is presented to us to live as the subjects of northern tyranny and avarice, or to fight for our independence. As one man the people of Arkansas will choose the latter. They had rather die as freemen than live as slaves.
Many of our people thought, or rather hoped, that it was impossible that Lincoln would levy war upon the South. All know that though such a step might bring temporary suffering upon the South, in the end it would he fatal to the people of the North. The separation that has now been effected, finally and forever, will lay the best interests of the North in hopeless ruins. It does seem that such a step could never have been taken, that such a calamity could never have been courted, but the ways of Providence are indeed inscrutable. “Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.”
Arkansas True Democrat, Little Rock, AR, April 18, 1861