ページの画像
PDF
ePub

PREFACE.

It is not the design of this book to open the subject of secession. The subjugation of the Southern States, and their acceptance of the terms dictated by the North, may, if the reader please, be considered as having shifted the Federal Government from the basis of compact to that of conquest; and thereby extinguished every claim to the right of secession for the future. Not one word in the following pages will at least be found to clash with that supposition or opinion. The sole object of this work is to discuss the right of secession with reference to the past; in order to vindicate the character of the South for loyalty, and to wipe off the charges of treason and rebellion from the names and memories of Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, and of all who have fought or suffered in the great war of coercion. Admitting, then, that the right of secession no longer exists; the present work aims to show, that, however those illustrious heroes may have been aspersed by the ignorance, the prejudices, and the passions of the hour, they were, nevertheless, perfectly loyal to truth, justice,

and the Constitution of 1787 as it came from the hands

of the fathers.

The radicals themselves may, if they will only read the following pages, find sufficient reason to doubt their own infallibility, and to relent in their bitter persecutions of the South.

The calm and impartial reader will, it is believed, discover therein the grounds on which the South may be vindicated, and the final verdict of History determined in favor of a gallant, but down-trodden and oppressed, PEOPLE.

IS DAVIS A TRAITOR?

CHAPTER I.

Opinions respecting Secession determined by passion, not by reason.

THE final judgment of History in relation to the war of 1861 will, in no small degree, depend on its verdict with respect to the right of secession. If, when this right was practically asserted by the South, it had been conceded by the North, there would not have been even a pretext for the tremendous conflict which followed. Is it not wonderful, then, that a question of such magnitude and importance should have been so little considered, or discussed? Perhaps no other question of political philosophy, or of international law, pregnant with such unutterable calamities, has ever been so partially and so superficially examined as the right of secession from the Federal Union of the United States. From first to last, it seems to have been decided by passion, and not by reason. The voice of reason, enlightened by the study of the facts of history and the principles of political philosophy, yet remains to be heard on the subject of secession.

No one, at present, denies that the States had a right to secede from the Union formed by the old Articles of Confederation. Indeed, this right was claimed and exercised by the States, when they withdrew from that Confederation in order to form "a more perfect Union." Yet, while that Union was standing and in favor with the people, the right of secession therefrom was vehemently denied. The

reason of this is well stated by Mr. Madison in "The Federalist." Having explained and vindicated the right of the States, or any portion of them, to secede from the existing Union, he adds: "The time has been when it was incumbent on all of us to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. The scene has now changed, and with it the part which the same motives dictate."* That is to say, the time has been when it became all Americans, as patriots and worshippers of the existing Union, to veil the right of secession; but now is the time to unveil this sacred right, and let the truth be seen! Accordingly, the Convention of 1787 unveiled this right, and the States, one after another, seceded from the Union; though the Articles by which it was formed expressly declared that it should be "perpetual," or last forever.

The same thing happened, in a still greater degree, under the new and "more perfect Union." This, unlike the one for which it had been substituted, did not pronounce itself immortal. Still it was deemed incumbent on all men by Mr. Madison, and especially upon himself, to veil the right of secession from the new Union; which he, more than any other man, had labored to establish and preserve. But having exercised the right of secession from one compact between the States, how could he veil that right under another compact between the same parties? Having, for the benefit of his age, revealed the truth, how could he hope to hide it from all future ages? Having laid down the right of secession from one Federal Union, as the great fundamental law to which the new Union owed its very existence, how could he hope to cover it up again, and make the new compact forever binding on posterity? There is not, it is believed, in the whole range of literature, a sophism more ineffably weak and flimsy than the one employed by Mr. Madison to veil the right of secession from the new Union.

*Federalist No. xliii.

The first compact, says he, was made by the Legislatures of the States, and the second by the people themselves of the States. Hence, although the States had seceded from the first compact or Union, he supposed, or hoped, they would have no right to secede from the second.* The first compact was, it is true, originally adopted by the Legislatures of the States; but then it was approved by the people themselves, who lived under it as the Constitution and government of their choice. Were not the States, then, just as much bound by this compact, as if it had been originally made by the people themselves? What would be thought of an individual, who should approve and adopt as his own a contract made by his agent, and, having derived all the advantages of it, should seek to repudiate it on the ground that it was not originally entered into by himself? He would be deemed infamous. Yet, precisely such is the distinction and the logic of Mr. Madison, in his attempt to justify the act of secession from the first Union, and to deny the right of secession from the second Union between the same parties! The two compacts are construed differently; because the one was originally made by agents and afterwards ratified by the principals, and the other was originally made by the principals themselves! Could any sophism be more weak or flimsy? Is it not, indeed, in the eye of reason, as thin as gossamer, as transparent as the air itself? Hopeless, indeed, must be the attempt to find a difference between the two cases, which shall establish the right of secession in the one and not in the other; since James Madison himself, with all his unsurpassed powers of logic and acute discrimination, was compelled to rely on so futile a distinction.

But the majority needed no veil, not even one as thin as that employed by Mr. Madison, to conceal the right of secession from their eyes. The mists raised by its own passions were amply sufficient for that purpose. The doc*The Madison Papers, p. 1184.

« 前へ次へ »