Hunter Wallace has an interesting piece at Occidental Dissent in which he quotes from Frank A Alfriend’s A Southern Republic and a Northern Democracy which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond in May 1863:
We advance no new theory in the interpretation of the philosophy of this revolution, when we ascribe the necessity of separation to the irreconcilable antithesis and utter incompatibility of the civilization of the two sections. That Cavalier element predominating in Southern civilization, and giving tone to Southern society, and character to Southern politics, had its representatives in the early days of the Union in those who opposed the surrender of the liberties of the States to a necessary inimical, centralized power. That Puritan element which underlies the fabric of Northern civilization, clearly manifested its antagonism to the other, by seeking in the very incipiency of the government, to deprive the States of all their power, and to establish with an irresponsible supremacy, a monster consolidated empire, which like that of Augustus, should have the name of Republic, but the character of an unmitigated despotism. The former, in later periods of our history, had a worthy champion in Carolina’s great son, who on all occasions nobly sustained the eminence of his mother State, as the most vigilant of all the vessels in her jealously of Federal encroachment. The later found an early and powerful advocate in Webster, who despite that professed comprehensive patriotism, embracing equally all sections of his common country, and despite the concealed splendour of his eloquence and statesmanship, was yet an appropriate representative of New England selfishness, and descends to history as the author of the ablest and most elaborate vindication of that policy now applied to the extinguishment of the liberties of a free people.
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