Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States
This book written by a lawyer Raphael Semmes who served in navy forces during the Civil war reveals his conception of the part of the American history. The author takes a difficult task to explain why there were so many misunderstandings and contradictories between the North and the South states which led to the American civil war. He fights for his opinion stating that it was the question of civil rights and not slavery as everyone is used to think that led to the war between the South and the North. Semmes applies all his knowledge that he possesses as a lawyer to show the insight of the political situation of that period. He also considers why US navy officers who served during the Civil were are not recorded and remembered. The author provides a thorough course of events taking place at first in Annapolis and New Orleans and then in the South Pacific and Gibraltar and finally to the coast of France. When reading his story, we ask ourselves a question: why people like him were forgo
...tten? Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOWN TO 1830, BOTH THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH HELD THE CONSTITUTION TO BE A COMPACT BETWEEN THE STATES. ONE of the great difficulties in arguing the question of the relative power of the States and of the Federal Government, consists in the fact that the present generation has grown up under the shadow of the great Federal monster, and has been blinded by its giant proportions. They see around them all the paraphernalia and power of a great government ? its splendid capital, its armies, its fleets, its Chief Magistrate, its legislature, and its judiciary ? and they find it difficult to realize the fact, that all this grandeur is not self-created, but the offspring of the States. When our late troubles were culminating, men were heard frequently to exclaim, with plaintive energy, " What ! have we no government capable of preserving itself? Is our Government a mere rope of sand, that may be destroyed at the will of the States ?" These men seemed to think that there was but one government to be preserved, and that that was the Government of the United States. Less than a century had elapsed since the adoption of the Constitution, and the generation now on the theatre of events had seemingly forgotten, that the magnificent structure, which they contemplated with so much admiration, was but a creature of the States; that it had been made by them for their convenience, and neces- saiily held the tenure of its life at sufferance...
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