Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 13

If the circumstances are faced frankly it is not reasonable to expect this to be true.

The situation of the South since 1865 has been unique in the western world.

Regardless of rights and wrongs, a population and an area appropriate to a pre-World-War- 1 great power have been, following conquest, ruled against their will by a neighboring people, and have had imposed upon them social and economic controls they dislike.

And the great majority of these people are of Anglo-Saxon or Celtic descent.

This is the only case in modern history of a people of Britannic origin submitting without continued struggle to what they view as foreign domination.

The fact is due mainly to international wars, both hot and cold.

In every war of the United States since the Civil War the South was more belligerent than the rest of the country.

So instead of being tests of the South's loyalty, the Spanish War, the two World Wars, and the Korean War all served to overcome old grievances and cement reunion.

And there is no section of the nation more ardent than the South in the cold war against Communism.

Had the situation been reversed, had, for instance, England been the enemy in 1898 because of issues of concern chiefly to New England, there is little doubt that large numbers of Southerners would have happily put on their old Confederate uniforms to fight as allies of Britain.

It is extraordinary that a people as proud and warlike as Southerners should have been as docile as they have.

The North should thank its stars that such has been the case ; ;

but at the same time it should not draw false inferences therefrom.