Victims of a Duplicate Despotism: R. S. Tharin's "True Conservatism"

John Hartwell

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Arbitrary arrests in the South: or, scenes from the experience of an Alabama Unionist, (1863) by Robert Seymour Symmes Tharin, "comminly known in the West as 'The Alabama Refugee.'"

Judge not the book by its title alone, for it is something quite different. The author was a South Carolina born lawyer, former law-partner of William L. Yancey, who had lived in Alabama for 30 years, and claims to have "struck the first blow against secession." Having fled the South because of persecution for his Unionist views, he went North, but found no freedom there. He contends that “arbitrary arrests have filled the bastilles of the South and of the North with victims of a duplicate despotism.” In a letter to his mother, he claims:

"I have many times essayed to write to you; but no means of transportation for letters has been offered, because Mr. Lincoln was afraid I would say something revealing the Union element of the North, which is not tainted with Abolitionism, and Mr. Davis was afraid I would say something appealing to the Union element of the South, which is untainted with Secessionism.

"The mutual jealousy of these two satraps of each other, and of every thinking mind and speaking tongue and pen in the Republic, would be amusing, dear mother, if it were not so dreadful in its results. Radicalism, or Sectionalism, South and North, delighting in extremes and rioting in anarchy, has planted the dagger into our bleeding hearts, and then commands the mother and her persecuted son to hold no intercourse in a country once free to the feet and the lips of millions of now trampled serfs."

To put it succinctly, he sees America during the war as composed of five "classes" of people:

"The first class, represented in this unhappy country by the Secessionists of the South, will have neither the desire nor the opportunity to listen to reason until mobocracy shall have received a check from the outraged people of the South.

"The second, of which the traitors of the States still loyal are an example, have the opportunity, but not the desire, to hear the truth. Because they see around them much to condemn, they discover in Jeff. Davis every thing to praise. They offer but an apology for treason.

"The third class is to be seen in the perjured leaders of the Rebellion. They seized upon an inflamed state of feeling which they themselves had excited, to bring upon the country a revolution, which they are to ride, they hope, into power and greatness. Under the cry of "Southern Rights," they openly trample upon Southern Rights.

"The other class — the Radicals of the North — seize upon the belligerent state of the country as a glorious opportunity for the consummation of their cherished plans, and, in order to bring about the emancipation of the slave, deliberately render it almost impossible to save the Union, or close the war. Under the cry of 'the war for the Union,' they fight against the Union.

"But there is another class of men, who, aware of the existence and motives of all the others, will yet pursue the even tenor of their own way, and who, before coming to a conclusion on public or private matters, will weigh the arguments on both sides, and judge for themselves, in accordance with the facts.

"I believe this class to be scattered over the length and breadth of this whole nation, both in loyal and disloyal communities, and to them I appeal for a hearing and a just verdict."

Tharin appeals to what he calls "true conservatism," Unionist, but non-Abolitionist. He asserts:

"No one denies that slavery is an evil;
No one denies that adultery is an evil;
But the Shakers, who advocate absolute non-intercourse between the sexes in order to destroy adultery, are not a whit less ridiculous than those Abolitionists who advocate the utter extermination, or provincial vassalage, of the people of the South in order to destroy slavery. They would 'make a wilderness, and call it peace.'"

Although he does stand against slavery, he "solves" it by ignoring it. One may note that all of his 5 "classes of people" are white.

I have to admit I have not read this book, nor am I likely to for quite some time (the list is already far too long), but just from skimming through it, I think there is much here that would interest other members, so I bring it to the attention of all.

cheers!

jno
 
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