Gen. Rober 
 
 AND THE 
 
 Question of Treason and Perjury. 
 
 A YINISJ CATION 
 
 I3ased Kxcliisively on the Piililio P.ectvrJs of 
 Kortliern States and Statesrneii. 
 
Library of 
 
 The University of North Carolina 
 
 KENAN MEMORIAL COLLECTION 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 WILLIAM Tnr.MAN 
 
 given by ^ 
 
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 ENDOWED BY THE 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 
 10002566803 
 
 A VINDICATION 
 
 , i- 4 ' 
 
 s 
 
 c} ^ I 
 
 FROM A NORTHERN STANDPOINT 
 
 
 OF 
 
 Gen. Robt. E. Lee 
 
 AND HIS 
 
 t 
 
 Fellow-Officers who Left the United 
 States Army and Navy in i86i, 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 N0HTHEI[N CHARGE OF TREASON AND PERJUI[Y. 
 
 BY 
 
 TALBOT SWEENEY. 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 J. L. HILL PRINTING COMPANY. 
 
 1890. 
 
DKDICATIOK 
 
 TO 
 
 * 
 
 Mrs. Correlia Mercer Sweekey 
 
 AND THE 
 
 R. K. IaEE Camp, Ko. i, 
 
 « 
 
 COKFKDERATE VETERAKS. 
 
 MAY 29t?, 1890. 
 
 I now feelingly and tremblingly dedicate this humble little 
 book to my beloved wife and the R. E. Lee Camp of Yeterans, 
 without the knowledge of either. Rothing, I am sure, could 
 be more gratifying to my wife than to have her name honor¬ 
 ably associated forever, if possible, with the veterans of the 
 “ Southern Confederacy,” and, through them, with a cause for 
 which she labored and suffered and sacrificed so much; and all 
 this, too, so unostentatiously, so uncomplainingly, and so lov¬ 
 ingly: a cause which she often says ‘‘is not dead, but sleep- 
 eth,” and which will yet awaken to victory and to glory, and 
 guide into a safe port an “ Indissoluble IJnion of Indestructible 
 States.” May God in his infinite justice verify her prediction. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 

 THEjlMERICAN DOCTRINE OF jlLLEGlAN 
 
 PF 
 
 UHi 
 
 FROM THK 
 
 Deelaration of Independenee, in 1116, to the Civil Wan Inaugurated 
 by President/braham Lineoln_/gainst the States 
 of the South, in 1861. 
 
 In the halls of both houses of the Congress of the United 
 States, in public assemblies of the ISTorth, in the public press 
 of the Uorth, in pulpits of the !Uorth, and other northern 
 sources, private as well as public, ever and anon, since the late 
 civil war inaugurated by President Abraham Lincoln and his 
 party adherents outside of Congress, and in gross violation of 
 the letter and spirit of the Constitution of the United States, 
 against the Southern States, we have heard and read, and do 
 hear and read, the grave charge of Perjury and Treason pre¬ 
 ferred and denounced, without reason, but with passion, preju¬ 
 dice, and hate, against those noble and gallant officers of the 
 old Federal army and navy who resigned their commissions 
 in that army and that navy, at the call of their respective 
 native Southern States, and fought for their rights and their 
 sovereignty—chief among whom was the lamented Egbert E. 
 Lee. 
 
 It is our intention in what' we have now to say briefly to 
 notice this charge, and to justify the conduct of those patriotic 
 and brave officers in that matter, upon the authority of North¬ 
 ern States and statesmen. 
 
 Endeavoring to be concise; intending truthfully to perform 
 our promise, and to occupy you, in fact, for as brief a period 
 as will be possibly consistent with a lucid discussion of our 
 subject, we proceed at once with what we have to say, without 
 
4 
 
 a formal introduction, our real desire and design being, ^'•Fes- 
 tinare in medias res,’’ and not to linger or loiter on the way. 
 The great question, then, with General Lee and his fellow’- 
 officers who thus retired from the Federal army and navy was 
 one of allegiance, at the time of the commencement of hostili¬ 
 ties between their respective States of the South, and Abra¬ 
 ham Lincoln backed by the Republican States of the ^N’orth. 
 As we do not intend in this discussion to argue upon our 
 present relations to the Federal Power at Washington, you 
 will see that we shall confine our remarks strictly to the period 
 anterior to and up to the beginning of our late civil war. For 
 it is certainly not our intention here to revive old issues or to 
 open new issues; but simply to reason honestly and earnestly 
 with those who may feel a real concern in the grand ques¬ 
 tion itself, and in the refutation of the gravest accusations 
 which can be brought against human character and conduct. 
 Where, then, did the allegiance of the citizens of any one ot 
 the United States of America at the beginning of our late civil 
 war ultimately reside? 
 
 In reviewing the early history of our country we learn that 
 “thirteen regularly organized, distinct, and, to many purposes, 
 independent commonwealths were connected, respectively, by 
 the bond of a sort of confederacy, or allegiance, if you please 
 (the name is immaterial), with their common mother country, 
 England. Everything, however, that can constitute a separate 
 and perpetual body politic was to be found in each of them 
 before the great revolution or schism—legislation, judicature, 
 and a perfect community of interests among the inhabit 
 
 ants of a designated territory.” Indeed, we find in each, as 
 
 ♦ ^ 
 
 distinct from every other of the thirteen, a social compact as 
 clearly defined as it is possible to conceive. Even Judge 
 Story, the leading champion of consolidation, out of a due 
 regard to the truth of history, has the candor to say that, 
 “though the colonies had a common origin, and owed a com¬ 
 mon allegiance, and the inhabitants of each were British sub¬ 
 jects, they had no direct 'political connection ivith each other. Each 
 was independent of all the others; each, in a limited sense, 
 
5 
 
 was sovereign within its' own territory. There was neither 
 alliance nor confederacy between them.” Authority upon this 
 point might be multiplied ad infinitum^ but this would be need¬ 
 less here. A dispute concerning an assumed right of England 
 over this body politic, as just set forth, is determined by a 
 majority of its citizens against her demands. It is further 
 declared, by this same majority, that this colony, if you please, 
 no longer owes any allegiance to a government which has 
 affected to set at naught the principles of the great constitu¬ 
 tional compact of the British Empire. And this is the decision 
 of the majority of the people in each of these thirteen bodies 
 politic or colonies, acting each for itself and upon its own 
 responsibility. That this was the status of Virginia there can 
 be no doubt. Her resolution in convention on the 15th of 
 May, 1776, proves it: ‘‘Resolved^ unanimously^ That the dele¬ 
 gates appointed to represent this colony in the G-eneral Con¬ 
 gress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to 
 declare the United Colonies free and independent States, 
 absolved from all allegiance to or dependence upon the Crown 
 or Parliament of Great Britain; and that they give the assent 
 of this colony to such declaration, and to whatever measures 
 may be thought proper and necessary by the Congress for 
 forming foreign alliances and a confederation of the colonies, at 
 such time and in the manner as to them shall seem best: provided 
 the power of forming government for and the regulations of 
 the internal concerns of each colony be left to the respective 
 colonial legislatures.” 
 
 In Ware and Hylton, 3 Dallas, 199, Judge Chase says: “I 
 consider the declaration of independence as a declaration, not 
 that the United Colonies jointly^ in a collective ccqmcity, were inde¬ 
 pendent States^ hut that each of them was an independent State ; that 
 is, that each of them had a right to govern itself by its own 
 authority and its own laws, ivithout any control from any other 
 power upon earth.” 
 
 It would seem plain, then, from the opinion of this eminent 
 authority that the status of the body politic before described 
 was not affected by the declaration of independence. It was 
 
6 
 
 the majority of the people of each State, in the name ot the 
 whole people of each State, that declared on the 4th of July, 
 1776, the indisputable fact to the world, out of a decent regard 
 to the opinions of mankind, that they owed no allegiance to 
 the British Government; that it had been ipso jure extingiuished 
 by its own infractions of the great constitutional compact of 
 the empire, and its total disregard of the established political 
 principles therein set forth. 
 
 The arbitrament of the sword is resorted to, there being no 
 common umpirage established by the contending parties to the 
 dispute, to solve it peaceably between them, and the issue of 
 the war is favorable to each of the revolutionary bodies politic 
 or colonies, and so confirmed by the treaty of peace between 
 the mother country and the respective colonies by their several 
 names and in their several capacities, as free, sovereign, and 
 independent States. Tha first article of the provisional agree¬ 
 ment of the 30th of ISTovember, 1782, sets forth in clear and 
 explicit terms the following: “ His Britannic Majesty acknowl¬ 
 edges the said United States, viz: Hew Hampshire, Massa¬ 
 chusetts Bay, Bhode Island and Providence Plantations, Con¬ 
 necticut, Uew York, Yew Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
 Maryland, Virginia, Yorth Carolina, South Carolina, and 
 Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and independent States; that he 
 treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and succes¬ 
 sors relinquishes all claims to the government, property, and 
 territorial right of the same, and every part thereof.’^ All con¬ 
 nection with the mother country ceases, and the internal gov¬ 
 ernment of each State goes on as it did before. By what 
 process of reasoning is it attempted to be made out that the 
 majority of the body politic, which had thus determined the 
 question of allegiance in the name of the State, and thus main¬ 
 tained it by force, had not a right to decide upon this most 
 vital concern, as it was wont to do upon all others, at the time 
 of the breaking out of our late civil war ? 
 
 As an abstract proposition it is undoubtedly true and univer¬ 
 sally admitted that the allegiance of the citizen, primary and 
 paramount, is due to the State or sovereign:— 
 
7 
 
 That obedience from the citizen is due to the government 
 as it represents the sovereign, and as it is ordained by the 
 sovereign, and, of course, no obedience can be claimed by the 
 government inconsistent with the allegiance due the sovereign. 
 
 Admit, then, the sovereignty of the State, and you inevitably 
 admit also its correlative right to the allegiance of its citizens. 
 
 In every page of the journals of the old Congress, both be¬ 
 fore and after the adoption of the articles of confederation, the 
 separate sovereignty and independence of each State stands out 
 in bold relief. 
 
 "We find the same great fact through the pages of the fed¬ 
 eralist, which is to the present moment accepted as the book 
 of constitutional authority. In Ho. 31 of that great work, 
 prepared by Hamilton, Jay, and our own Madison, who is re¬ 
 membered as the Father of the Constitution as it was, we read: 
 
 The State governments, by their original constitutions, are 
 invested with complete sovereignty.’’ Again, in Ho. 32: The 
 State governments clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty 
 which they before had, and which were not by that act exclu¬ 
 sively delegated to the United States.” Again, in Ho. 52: 
 ‘‘ The rule that all authorities of which the States are not ex¬ 
 plicitly divested in favor of the Union remain with them in full 
 vigor, is clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the instrument 
 which contains the articles of the proposed constitution.” 
 
 John Dickinson, the celebrated friend and advocate of the 
 then proposed constitution, in Ho. 9 of his Fa bins Letters, 
 asks: ‘‘ What bodies are there in Britain vested with such 
 capacities for inquiring into, checking, and regulating the con¬ 
 duct of national afiairs as our sovereign States? ” 
 
 These extracts might be multiplied to clearly show that in 
 the whole tenor of the discussions of the period nothing was 
 further from the minds of the friends of the proposed consti¬ 
 tution than the destruction of the State sovereignties. If the 
 States themselves, by any plain, solemn act to be found any¬ 
 where in the whole history of legislation, renounced their 
 sovereign character as States, and surrendered it and the re¬ 
 sultant alleo^iance due from the citizen to the Federal Govern- 
 
8 
 
 ment as the only paramount sovereign at any time prior to the 
 late civil war, then we must resign our argument as untenable. 
 If the fact existed, doubtless it would long since have been 
 traced out to view by the advocates of consolidation. The 
 Constitution of the United States surely nowhere mentions 
 even once the word sovereign. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States has over and over 
 again affirmed the sovereignty of the several States of the 
 Union. “They (the several States) form a confederated gov¬ 
 ernment; yet the several States retain their individual sover¬ 
 eignties.’’ 2 Peters, 579; 12 Wheaton, 334. Again: “The 
 powers retained by the States proceed not from the people of 
 America, but from the people of the several States, and remain 
 after the adoption of the Constitution what they were before.” 
 4 Wheaton, p. 193. Judge Baldwin, a most distinguished and 
 certainly one of the ablest justices of the United States Supreme 
 Court, expressly said: “ The Constitution is a cession of juris¬ 
 diction only, made by the people of a State.” Sovereignty, then, 
 according to the great authority of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, was neither ceded, nor delegated, nor surren¬ 
 dered, nor renounced, by the States of this Union or their 
 people; they ceded “jurisdiction only” by the Constitution. 
 
 Senator Andrew Johnson, on the 18th day of December, 
 1860, declared in the Senate of the United States that “the 
 Federal Government possesses no sovereign power. All its 
 powers are derivative and limited; and those that are not 
 expressly granted are reserved to the States respectively. Con¬ 
 gress has no sovereign power. All its powers are derived; it 
 can exercise no single primitive, original power.” By this 
 authority, then, we see, the powers of the Federal Government 
 are alone delegated powers—delegated by the several States 
 which composed the Union and established the Government 
 thereof. And we have the high sanction of Mr. Madison for 
 saying that “a delegated power is not a surrendered power.” 
 In that same great speech Senator Johnson said: “I do not 
 believe the Federal Government has the power to-coerce a 
 State; for by the eleventh amendment to the Constitution of 
 
9 
 
 
 the United States it is expressly provided that you cannot even 
 ^ put one of the States before one of the courts of the country 
 as a party.’’ Such as I have quoted to you is the very language 
 of Senator Andrew Johnson from his seat in the Senate of the 
 United States, delivered at the eve of the great civil convul¬ 
 sion, and who afterwards, in the very zenith of that war, was 
 nominated and elected by the I^orthern States as Vice-Presi¬ 
 dent of the Northern Union, on the same ticket with their 
 chosen champion, Abraham Lincoln, and who, upon the death 
 of President Lincoln, became the President of this same 
 Northern Union, and, upon the reconstruction of the Union, 
 was President of the wLole Union, as it again exists at this 
 day. High authority on this point, for the North, at least, we 
 should say. 
 
 This was the very position taken by that ablest of American 
 statesmen, President Buchanan, and for it he was soundly and 
 sorely condemned and denounced by the very party that so 
 handsomely honored and rewarded Senator Andrew Johnson. 
 
 Now let us inquire how some of the most prominent of our 
 northern sister-States were wont to answer the great question 
 . of Allegiance propounded in the beginning of this discussion. 
 And first we will commence with our sister, 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 The oath required by her on March the 2d, in the year 1780, 
 of her ofiicers, was the following, to wfit: “I, A B, do truly 
 and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify, and declare that 
 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is, and of right ought to 
 be, a free, sovereign, and independent State; and I do swear 
 that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the said Common¬ 
 wealth, and that I will defend the same against traitorous con¬ 
 spiracies and all hostile attempts whatsoever.” We see from 
 this part of the oath administered by the State of Massachu¬ 
 setts, after the great Declaration and during the Confederation^ to 
 her officers, what she thought about this matter of Allegiance, 
 and to whom it was due. Now let us see if, in her opinion, there 
 was any power residing anywhere that could divest her of any 
 
10 
 
 portion of the allegiance which her citizens acknowledged that 
 they owed to her. • 
 
 Upon this point we will quote another part of the same oath, 
 to wit: ‘^And I do further testify and declare that no man or 
 body of men hath or can have any right to absolve or discharge 
 me from the obligation of this oath, declaration, or affirma¬ 
 tion,’’ &c., &c. 
 
 The portions of the oath here quoted may he found in the 
 first article of the sixth chapter of the Constitution of Massa- 
 setts—March 2, 1780. 
 
 By an amendment hearing date June 5, 1821, Art. VI., the 
 following was substituted for the oath of 1780, to wit: ‘‘I, 
 
 A B, do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance 
 to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and will support the 
 Constitution thereof. So help me God.” In this oath, thirty- 
 two years after the Constitution of the United States had gone 
 into efiect, we do not find the slightest allusion either to the 
 General Agent at Washington or to the Constitution of the 
 United States. Uo such solecism in language as a divided 
 allegiance can we discover in this form of her adopted oath, 
 but here is a paramount and exclusive right to allegiance , 
 claimed by Massachusetts of her citizens, and acknowledged 
 by her citizens to Massachusetts. If it was in anything dif¬ 
 ferent from this at the breaking out of hostilities we are not 
 aware of it. 
 
 On the 30th day of January, 1787, General Lincoln, com¬ 
 mander-in-chief of the military forces of Massachusetts in the 
 field during the Shays’ rebellion, addressed a letter to Shays 
 and his officers, of a firm and dignified yet humane character, 
 informing them that if they laid down their arms and took 
 the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
 they would be recommended to the General Court for mercy. 
 Uothing said here about any allegiance to the old confedera¬ 
 tion existing at that time. 
 
 Again: When she ratified the Constitution of the United 
 States in her convention of 1788 she did so with a requisition 
 for the adoption of sundry suggested amendments and altera- 
 
11 
 
 tions, the chief of which, in her own language, was, “ That it 
 be explicitly declared that all powers not expressly delegated by 
 the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several States, to 
 be by them exercised.” Did she, then, by her acceptance of 
 the Constitution of the Dnited States, transfer to the General 
 Government her right to the exclusive allegiance of her own 
 citizens ? If so, let her point it out in any provision contained 
 in the said Constitution. If so, she will please show to the 
 world her explicit declaration of her express delegation of that 
 sovereign right, either in her form of ratification of the Fede¬ 
 ral Constitution or in the Constitution itself. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Adams, a distinguished and honored son of Mas¬ 
 sachusetts in Revolutionary times, pronounced her suggested 
 amendment, as above recited, to he “ consonant with the 
 second article in the present Confederation, that each State 
 retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every 
 power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the Confederation 
 expressly delegated to the Dnited States in Congress assem¬ 
 bled.” 
 
 In the same convention to consider the adoption of the Fed¬ 
 eral Constitution, Fisher Ames, one of her most cherished 
 sons, who stood in the first rank as statesman and orator, knd 
 who was afterwards a distinguished member of Congress 
 during the whole of President Washington’s administration, 
 said : “ It is necessary to premise that no argument against the 
 new plan has made a deeper impression than this, that it will 
 produce a consolidation of the States. This is an efiect which 
 all good men will deprecate.” Again, he says : The senators 
 represent the sovereignty of the States.” Again, he says: ‘‘A 
 consolidation of the States woulcl ensue, which, it is conceded, 
 would subvert the new Constitution, and against which this 
 very article, so much condemned, is our best security. Too 
 much provision cannot be made against a consolidation. The 
 State governments represent the wishes, the feelings, and local 
 interests of fhe people. They are the safeguard and ornament 
 of the Constitution; they will protract the period of our liber¬ 
 ties; they will afford a shelter against the abuse of power, and 
 

 12 
 
 will be the natural avengers of our violated rights.” And 
 once again said he: “ This^article seems to be an excellence of 
 the Constitution, and affords just grounds to believe that it will 
 be in practice, as in theory, a federal republic.” 
 
 In January, 1788, in the Convention of Massachusetts, 
 alluding in his speech to the checks upon any attempted usur¬ 
 pation of the Federal agent. Judge Parsons used the following 
 language: ‘‘But, sir, the people themselves have it in their 
 power effectually to resist usurpation without being driven to 
 an appeal to arms. An act of usurpation is not obligatory—it 
 is not law. Any man may be justified in his resistance to it. 
 Let him be considered as a criminal by the G-eneral Grovern- 
 ment, yet his own fellow-citizens alone can convict him. They 
 are his jury; and if they pronounce him mnocent^ not all the 
 p.oivers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly 
 will pronounce him if the supposed law which he resisted was 
 an act of usurpation.” In this opinion of Judge Parsons the 
 authority to decide upon the conduct of the “ General Gov¬ 
 ernment” resides in the citizen himself; and if he should 
 conclude to resist its acts, “ not all the powers of Congress can 
 hurt him.'’^ Why? Because the people of the State of Mas¬ 
 sachusetts, if he were a citizen of her’s, would interpose State 
 authority to shield him, to whom she would consider her pro¬ 
 tection to be due in return for the allegiance which she 
 demanded from him. 
 
 According to this view of Judge Parsons, there could be no 
 allegiance due from the citizen of Massachusetts to the “ Gen¬ 
 eral Government.” If so, the people of Massachusetts would 
 be guilty of a gross usurpation to attempt even to shield the 
 man of Massachusetts from flie penalty denounced against him 
 for daring to resist an act of his sovereign—the “ General 
 Government.” For in this case the “ General Government ” 
 would certainly be his sovereign. IN'ow, if the citizen, pur¬ 
 suant to the doctrine laid down by Judge Parsons in the speech 
 referred to, has the right to decide between himself and the 
 “ General Government,” surely he could not hesitate in his re¬ 
 sistance to that power when the decision was made by his own 
 
13 
 
 State that her sovereignty was being invaded, and the com¬ 
 mand came down to him from her to resist that invasion by all 
 the means which she might place at his command. If he did 
 hesitate, he would stand to her in precisely the relation in 
 which Tories stood in the Revolution of ^76; and for this vio¬ 
 lation of his allegiance to her, treason would, indeed^ be pro¬ 
 nounced against him. This, we think, is the legitimate con¬ 
 clusion from the position of Chief-Justice Parsons. 
 
 And just here allotv us to remind the reader that Chief- 
 Justice Parsons, in his day and generation, was called “ the 
 giant of the law.’’ He was a member of the convention which 
 framed the Massachusetts Constitution, as well as of that which 
 ratified the Federal Constitution, in which he delivered the 
 speech from which we have taken the above extract. He suc¬ 
 ceeded Chief-Justice Dana, and continued to preside over the 
 deliberations of the Supreme Court of his State down to the 
 close of his life, on the 30th day of October, 1813, at the vene¬ 
 rable age of sixty-three (63), and left behind him the reputa¬ 
 tion of being one of the most learned and able judges that 
 ever appeared in any court.” 
 
 Surely such high authority on constitutional law cannot fail 
 to command the respect and confidence of even the Massachu¬ 
 setts of the present day. 
 
 This doctrine of State sovereignty and consequent State 
 allegiance was carried so far by that State in those patriotic times 
 that in 1789, when President Washington visited her, the 
 patriot Hancock, at the time her Governor, out of a most 
 tender and scrupulous regard to State rights and State dignity, 
 took the position with much feeling, it is told, that as the rep¬ 
 resentative of State sovereignty in his own dominion he should 
 be first visited by the President of the United States. It is 
 true that he yielded his own views of etiquette on that occasion, 
 but those who knew him best thought that he would hardly 
 have done so in honor of a less man than George Washington. 
 We are told by his biographer (the elder Adams), in Sander¬ 
 son’s series, that Hancock, “in favoring a confederate republic, 
 did not vindicate with less scrupulousness the dignity of the 
 
14 
 
 individual States; and that in a suit brought against the State 
 
 of Massachusetts in the court of the United States, in which 
 
 * • 
 
 he was summoned as Governor to answer the prosecution, he 
 resisted the process, and maintained inviolate the sovereignty 
 of the Commonwealth.” And it is worthy of notice that Mr. 
 Adams states these facts approvingly. It was this same John 
 Hancock who, when reluctant to accept the chair of the first 
 Continental Congress in 1775, as the successor of Peyton Ran¬ 
 dolph, who was stricken with apoplexy iii October, 1775, Ben. 
 Harrison, of Virginia, took him up in his arms and placed him 
 in it, exclaiming at the' same time, ^‘We will show Mother 
 Britain how little we care for her by making a Massachusetts 
 man our president whom she has excluded from pardon by a 
 public proclamation.” It was a high eulogy, indeed, on him, 
 both as a statesman and patriot, that when the British Govern¬ 
 ment ofiered pardon to all the rebels, as it suited her to style 
 our Revolutionary fathers, of all their offences, Hancock and 
 one other (Samuel Adams) were the only persons to whom this 
 grace was denied.” 
 
 Again: On the 3d of February, 1808, the Senate of that 
 State oflicially declared that ‘‘ on such occasions (the embargo 
 was the occasion) passive submission would, on the part of the 
 people, be a breach of their allegiance, and on our part treach¬ 
 ery and perjury. For the people are bound by their allegiance, 
 and we are additionally bound by our oaths, to support the 
 Constitution and the State, and we are responsible to the 
 people and to our God for the faithful execution of the trust.” 
 
 But this is not all. In the following year (1809) the Legis¬ 
 lature of Massachusetts ‘‘Besolved, That the said act of Con¬ 
 gress passed on the 9th of January, in the present year, for 
 enforcing the act laying an embargo, and the several acts sup¬ 
 plementary thereto, are, in the opinion of this Legislature, in 
 many respects unjust^ oppressive^ and unconstitutional^ and not 
 legally binding on the citizens of this State.” What!! Hot 
 legally binding on the citizens of this State!! Would this 
 have been so if the citizens of Massachusetts had in the sliMit- 
 est degree owed allegiance to the General Government at 
 
 
15 
 
 Washington? We have high, authority for saying that alle¬ 
 giance means “the tie v^hich binds a citizen to be faithful to 
 the sovereign power, wherever that power may reside”; and 
 that sovereignty means “ that ultimate power in the State 
 which no other power can rightfully control within its territo¬ 
 rial limits.” 
 
 In the third session of the Eleventh Congress of the United 
 States, assembled on the 3d of December, 1810, among the 
 political and constitutional questions of interest which attracted 
 the attention of Congress was the erection of Orleans Ter¬ 
 ritory into a State. Louisiana was applying for admission into 
 the Union as a State. She was opposed in this exclusively by 
 northern members on constitutional grounds. The great con¬ 
 stitutional objection urged by them at the time was that new 
 States could not be formed out of territory not originally belong¬ 
 ing to the United States—that is, out of territory acquired by 
 the Union since the adoption of the Constitution. Then it 
 was that the Jeffersonian school of strict construction best 
 * suited the Uorth and her representatives in Congress. Mr. 
 Quincy, of Massachusetts, took a very distinguished part in 
 this debate, and was justly regarded as the great embodi¬ 
 ment of Northern sentiments and feelings when he hotly con¬ 
 tended that this was a violation of the Constitution, which, 
 in its grossness and violence, wmuld lead to a dissolution of the 
 Union, “amicably if they might, forcibly if they must.” And 
 an accurate historian of the Constitution of the United States 
 tells us that “ this was the earliest indication of the doctrine 
 of secession, which, upon its announcement, fell like an electric 
 shock upon the Congress of the nation.” And, anomalous as 
 it may appear, this would-be agitator of secession and dissolu¬ 
 tion from Massachusetts was called to order by the distinguished 
 delegate, Mr. Poindexter, from the Mississippi Territory, 
 stating that no member of the House ought to be permitted to 
 incite any portion of the people to insurrection and a dissolu¬ 
 tion of the Union. Mississippi, when yet a territory, lecturing 
 Massachusetts against her threatened “ Rebellion''!! Mr. Yar- 
 num, the Speaker of the House at that time, and a Massachu- 
 
16 
 
 setts representative, decided that his colleague, Mr. Quincy, 
 was in order, no one having the right to object to the opinion 
 that the admission of Louisiana would lead to a dissolution of 
 the Union. Here, then, we have this distinguished represen¬ 
 tative of Northern sentiments and feelings, Mr. Quincy, con¬ 
 tending for the very strictest construction of the Constitution 
 of the Union, and claiming that the clause in the Constitution 
 authorizing the admission of new States must, from the very 
 context, be interpreted to relate only to the formation of new 
 States within the limits of the Union as then existing. This 
 was, in truth, a mere abstraction, as Mr. Clay would say (not 
 a Virginia abstraction, however), to the advocacy of which 
 political considerations, blended with sectional jealousy, were 
 the chief incentives. 
 
 And yet, unless this narrow and mistaken policy to restrict 
 our territorial limits should be adopted, in accordance with the 
 sectional views and interests of the Northern and Eastern States, 
 a dissolution of the Union was threatened “ amicably if they 
 might, forcibly if they must.” How precisely did Mr. Quincy, 
 in behalf of his section, employ the language of secession! 
 
 This was the identical Josiah Quincy who afterwards op¬ 
 posed, with much vehement power, the embargo, and confessed 
 that, in connection with some of his colleagues, he had sent 
 expresses to the Eastern States announcing the undoubted 
 establishment of the embargo, and said: “ We did it to escape 
 into the jaws of the British lion and of the French tiger, 
 which are places of repose, of joy, and delight, when com¬ 
 pared with the grasp and fang of this hyena embargo.” 
 
 Do these official acts of the Senate and Legislature of Mas¬ 
 sachusetts, the language of Chief-Justice Parsons and Fisher 
 Ames in 1788 in State Convention, General Lincoln’s offer of 
 mercy to her rebellious citizens in 1787, and the solemn oaths 
 prescribed in her organic law from March 2,1780, down to the 
 year 1861 (we are not aware of any change in this particular 
 to the present moment), in any manner conflict with the defl- 
 nitions of allegiance and sovereignty given in a prior part ot 
 
 0 
 
I 
 
 17 
 
 •this discussion? Do they not, on the contrary, unqualifiedly 
 adopt and sustain them ? 
 
 These evidences are by no means all from that distinguished 
 State, but we deem them sufficient to remind her officials, 
 editors, divines, statesmen, and other citizens, that in throwing 
 their missiles at Southern Heroes, Patriots, and Martyrs, they 
 may discover a glass house’’ at home that needs to be guarded. 
 We might easily show that her own cherished Webster— 
 ‘‘Defender of the Constitution’’—was not altogether blameless 
 upon this subject, to her modern vision. We might exhibit him 
 as abetting proceedings in his State going to sustain her 
 ancient view of State allegiance and State sovereignty, and 
 industriously employing his talents in embarrassing the Fede¬ 
 ral councils and paralyzing the powers of the Federal Gov¬ 
 ernment—in holding up President Madison before the country 
 and the world as an “ imbecile menial of France.” 
 
 And this bitter, unjust, and unfeeling language was applied 
 to that brave, wise, energetic, and patriotic executive. Presi¬ 
 dent Madison, for recommending to the constituted authorities 
 of the United States, in congress assembled, a declaration of 
 hostilities against an implacable and haughty foe—England— 
 for her cruel and despotic policy and practice of “impress¬ 
 ment” and her “orders in council,” by which our citizen 
 sailors were enslaved and scourged, and compelled to fight the 
 battles of their oppressors against even their own unofiending 
 and defenceless countrymen, and our harbors insulted and 
 outraged, and our commerce with fifty millions of friendly 
 people most wantonly and ruthlessly plundered and spoliated 
 in every sea. Yes, astounding as it may now, in this day, 
 appear, simply because he recommended a war for the liberty 
 of our own citizens on the high seas, for our national honor 
 and interest, for our free and rightful commerce, in accordance 
 with the law of nations, with our foreign friends, and for the 
 preservation of our republican form of government against 
 the machinations of insolent and whimsical tyranny, Daniel 
 AV'ebster denounced James Madison, “the Father of the Ameri¬ 
 can Constitution,” and the then President of the United States, 
 
18 
 
 as an imbecile menial of France.” And this, too, in the face of 
 the fact, well known to him at the time, that the United States, 
 from the pure and simple love of peace alone, had actually 
 drank the chalice of British outrage, insult, injury, insolence, 
 and depredation to the very last dregs. At the remembrance 
 alone of such scenes enacted by Great Britain in that day, 
 even at this distance of time, the American bosom glows fiercely 
 with indignation, and can hardly keep down the horrid feelings 
 of vengeance. We think we should have no difficulty in tell¬ 
 ing where this distinguished champion of the ‘‘ Proclamation 
 and Force Bill ” would have been found had Massachusetts, 
 instead of South Carolina, been the devoted victim of Federal 
 domination in 1833, and Uew England instead of the South in 
 ’61. The countr}^ would have learned from him something 
 more of the Eastern doctrines of State Sovereignty, State Al¬ 
 legiance, and a Northern Confederacy. 
 
 But, peace to his ashes! For, although his harsh and unjust 
 criticism upon President Madison, when remembered, is not 
 to be patiently endured, yet it would be a kind of sacrilege as 
 well as presumption to detract from the deserved glory of a 
 man who, in his life, speeches, and writings, advanced human 
 nature to high perfection and added new lustre to the already 
 splendid fame of his country. We shall ever warmly cherish 
 the name and memory of Daniel Webster, and claim an interest 
 in him as well as in James Madison. The adopted son of Mas¬ 
 sachusetts and the son of Virginia were alike the sons of 
 America, and their splendid fame equally belongs, not only to 
 their own country, but to the civilized world. This is some¬ 
 what a digression. We did not intend to introduce it. But 
 since it is here, and faithfully represents the truth of history, 
 let it remain for its truth. 
 
 Neither Massachusetts then, nor her sons, surely, should have 
 rebuked that noble band of Southern patriots and martyrs 
 who, in rallying to the defence of their respective States, were 
 but following out her own teachings in pure State allegiance 
 and lofty patriotism. If those gallant souls are to be forever 
 infamously decried as ‘Graitors and perjurers,” Massachusetts 
 
19 
 
 and her citizens should, at least, be silent. There was nothing 
 in their conduct that should have horrified her, who absolutely 
 absolved her own citizens from all obedience to the General 
 Government,” and who in her “Frame of Government” 
 solemnly declared herself to be a “free, sovereign, and inde¬ 
 pendent body politic, or State, by the name of The Common¬ 
 wealth of Massachusetts.” With her this great doctrine of 
 allegiance has been forever decided; it has passed into the gen¬ 
 eral frame of her polity; it is by her laws res adjudicata —a 
 settled principle—conceived and established, as we have seen, 
 by her public record in her ancient days; those days, which 
 may have passed from her memory, when Virginia, sacrificing 
 the favor of the British Crown, endured side by side with her 
 a common suftering, battled for a common cause, and rejoiced 
 in a common and glorious triumph—a victory which thrilled 
 the world; for the proud British Lion lay prostrate under the 
 talons of the young American Eagle at Old Yorktown. Oh t 
 that Massachusetts had enabled us to say of her in 1861:: 
 ^‘Moribus antiquis Stat Roma! ”—“Rome stands by her ancient 
 morals! ” 
 
 Maine. 
 
 Maine, we know, was originally a part of Massachusetts and 
 formed out of her territory, and her admission into the Union 
 as a separate sovereign State was completed on the 15th of 
 March, 1820; so that, of course, she w^as a part of Massachusetts 
 during that portion of her history which we have just recited. 
 What said the State of Maine on this great question in the year 
 1831, when “resolving^^ on the subject of the treaty or conven¬ 
 tion between the United States and Great Britain had in the 
 year 1827, for establishing the northeastern boundary of the 
 States by the decision of a common umpire? Uowq a treaty 
 with a foreign nation, we all know, is termed by the Constitu¬ 
 tion of the United States “the supreme law of the land,” and 
 agreed to be such by the States—the States themselves made 
 it so. Yet, nevertheless, let us notice some of the language 
 of that State through her legislative body on the memorable 
 occasion of her condemnation of the said treaty. “The State 
 
20 
 
 of Maine, by the force and effect of the Act of Separation from 
 Massachusetts, became vested with the Eights of Sovereignty 
 of Massachusetts.” Again: Among the rights and powers 
 not delegated (to the United States) are the rights and powers 
 in tbe States respectively to retain their entire territories^ and 
 of exercising Sovereign Power over them.” In denying any 
 power to Congress under the Constitution of the United States 
 to dismember a State, she said with great emphasis that ‘‘ The 
 exercise of such a power ought to he^ and always will be, resisted 
 by a free people.” 
 
 Ah! dear old Yirginia thought so, too! She, also, had seen 
 that provision in the Constitution of the Union which declares 
 that ‘‘Uo new State shall be formed or erected within the 
 jurisdiction of any other State without the consent of the legis¬ 
 latures of the States concerned, as well as of Congress.” ^ But 
 what did all this avail her in the presence of an armed usurpa- 
 ■tion, in which this very State of Maine bore a conspicuous 
 part ? 
 
 These things, and more like them, were said by Maine on the 
 28th of February, 1831. But, again, on the 30th March, 1831, in 
 another report on the same subject drawn up by her, pursuant 
 to a special message of her Governor, she made the* following 
 solemn declaration: “And, further, should the United States 
 adopt the document as a decision, it will be in violation of the 
 constitutional rights of the State of Maine, which she cannot 
 yield.” Uow, what did this language mean? If it meant any¬ 
 thing, it meant fight. But fight whom? The United States 
 Government, of course. With what force? The citizens of 
 Maine, over whom she claimed to be sovereign, and from whom 
 she demanded undivided allegiance and obedience in peace and 
 in war. 
 
 And to carry out this intention more successfully she deemed 
 it necessary to advise with and, if possible, procure the co¬ 
 operation of her sovereign co-State, Massachusetts—^her old 
 mother. For this purpose she despatched a minister plenipo¬ 
 tentiary—in the person of her citizen Mr. Parks—who was 
 regularly accredited by the Government of Massachusetts, 
 
21 
 
 and negotiations actually opened, and successfully concluded, 
 so far, at least, as relates to the adoption of the resolutions 
 asserting the principles on which the State [of Maine relied. 
 Massachusetts was solicited not to speak out^' merely, but to 
 stand side by ^de, shoulder to shoulder, wutfi Maine in some¬ 
 what vigorous measures, if there should need he in the matter. 
 
 As this question of dividing the territory of a State without 
 her consent has been, and will ever be with the States of the 
 Union, a great and solemn question, and having alluded in this 
 connection to the case of Virginia, pardon the digression if 
 •we state in this her ancient doctrine touching it. There was a 
 time in her history [when she had a question of disputed 
 boundary with her sister State of Maryland. That State 
 threatened to bring suit against her in the Supreme Court of 
 the United States for a decision of the case, and to obtain by 
 the compulsory process of that tribunal a partition of the 
 sovereignty, jurisdiction, and territory of the Commonwealth. 
 Virginia, under the gallant lead of that great statesman and 
 jurist, Littleton Waller Tazewell, then her Governor, declared 
 her unalterable purpose not to submit a question involving the 
 extent of her sovereign limits to any tribunal not of her own 
 selection. Speaking for Virginia, he said, after disclaiming 
 any distrust of the jDerfect rights of Virginia, or of the integrity 
 or intelligence of the'forum selected to pass upon them : “ If 
 we could submit questions involving matters of such high con¬ 
 cern to any judicial tribunal, perhaps none better could be 
 selected than that before which the General Assembly of the 
 State of Maryland desires to force us to appear. But it befits 
 not sovereignty to submit the question of its own existence to 
 any judiciary whatever. The same authority which is equal to 
 despoil a State of any portion of its territory, contrary to its 
 own consent, is also equal to annihilate the very being of the 
 State itself. In consenting to appear and defend our rights 
 before any tribunal not chosen by ourselves we virtually admit 
 its authority to determine the matter in controversy, and as 
 Virsiinia can never consent to hold her territory at the will of 
 
any other, she never ought to give countenance to the idea that 
 she will abide by the expression of any such will.’’ 
 
 Mr. Jefierson, John Taylor, of Caroline, Judge Roane, and 
 their compeers, in a more questionable case, utterly denied the 
 jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and denounced and repu¬ 
 diated its decision. We allude to the case of ‘‘Cohen vs. The 
 State of Virginia,” in the Supreme Court in 1821 (6 Wheat. 
 R. 264). 
 
 It is very true that the Federal G-overnment, through its 
 Supreme Court, has taken jurisdiction of questions of boun¬ 
 dary between States; but in those cases the parties voluntarily, 
 appeared, and the court acted very much in the character of 
 arbitrators selected by the parties, to whose judgment they 
 would, in good faith, be bound to submit. But the question is 
 a vastly difierent one altogether whenever the Federal Govern¬ 
 ment, through any of its departments, assumes such authority 
 in violation of the dignity and the sovereignty of any one of 
 the several States. How can any one at all familiar with the 
 history of our Constitution believe that the States, in ratifying 
 it, ever contemplated the submission to the Supreme Court 
 or any other power of questions involving the corpus of their 
 sovereignty ? If the Supreme Court, as Governor Tazewell 
 well says, can deprive a State of a part of her territory, it maj^, 
 as far as the question of power is concerned, deprive her of all 
 that she claims, and thus annihilate her very existence itself. 
 Can any rational being suppose for one moment that any 
 such thing could ever have been contemplated, either by tlie 
 Convention that framed the Constitution or the • States that 
 adopted it ? 
 
 But, it may be asked, if the Supreme Court has not jurisdic- 
 diction in such a case, where is a final arbiter to be found ? 
 We answer, emphatically. Nowhere. The Constitution of the 
 United States provides none, nor did it design to provide any. 
 Our Federal Constitution is a compact between sovereign 
 States, who reserved to themselves respectively all such ques¬ 
 tions. They are to be adjusted by negotiation, mediation, arbi¬ 
 tration, and the other resources, which are almost infinite, of 
 
23 
 
 amicable adjustment; and beyond this no remedy is provided, 
 and it is scarcely possible any can be necessary. They are to 
 be settled as they were in the case between Virginia and her 
 good sister Maryland, not to mention any others. 
 
 In the case of Jonathan Robbins, John Marshall, afterwards 
 Chief Justice, of the Supreme Court, expressly said that the 
 jurisdiction of the Supreme Court “ cannot be extended to 
 political compacts, as the establishment of the boundary line 
 between the American and British dominions.” 
 
 Did not the Constitutional Convention of May, 1^87, express 
 the same opinion when it twice rejected propositions giviug 
 the power to settle disputes between the IJnited States and a 
 State respecting territory ? Also rejected the proposition to 
 decide generally controversies between a State and the Ilnited 
 States ? 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 Let us hear from the State of Connecticut. We find Roger 
 Sherman writing to John Adams, July 20, 1789: “I fully 
 agree with you, sir, that it is optional with the people of a State 
 to establish any form of government they please; and I am 
 also of opinion that they may alter their form of government 
 when they please, any former act of theirs, however explicit, to 
 the contrary notwithstanding.” 
 
 Judge Ellsworth, of Connecticut, afterwards Chief-Justice 
 of the United States Supreme Court, speaking of the Federal 
 Government, said: “It can only embrace objects of a general 
 nature. I turn my eyes, therefore, for the preservation of my 
 rights to the State governments. From these alone I can 
 derive the greatest happiness I,expect in life. This happiness 
 depends on their existence as much as a new-born infant on its 
 mother for nourishment.” • 
 
 In a speech of Mr. Hillhouse, a senator in Congress from 
 Connecticut, in 1809, he thus expresses himself upon the nul¬ 
 lity of the embargo: “ However painful the task, a sense of 
 duty calls upon me to raise my voice and use my utmost exer¬ 
 tions to prevent the passing of this bill. I feel myself bound in 
 conscience to declare, lest the blood of those who should fall in 
 
24 
 
 the execution of this measure may lie on my head, that I con¬ 
 sider this to be an act which directs a mortal blow at the liber¬ 
 ties of my country; an act containing provisions 
 
 to which the people are not hound to submit, and to which, in my 
 opinion, they will not submits What!! The people of Con¬ 
 necticut not bound to submit to the laws of their own Congress, 
 if in their opinion they be not constitutional!! 
 
 We find Connecticut on the 1st of March, 1809, at an extra 
 session of h(^' Legislature, indulging, among others, the follow¬ 
 ing resolutions: “That this assembly highly approve of'the 
 conduct of his Excellency the Grovernor in declining to desig¬ 
 nate persons to carry into effect, by the aid of military power, 
 the act of the United States enforcing the embargo, and that 
 his letter, addressed to the Secretary for the Department of 
 War, containing his refusal to make such designation, be re¬ 
 corded in the public records of the State as an example to 
 persons who may hold places of distinguished trust in this free 
 and independent republic.” 
 
 “ That the persons holding executive offices under this State 
 are restrained by the duties which they owe this State from 
 affording any official aid or co-operation in the execution of 
 the acts aforesaid; and that his Excellency the Governor be 
 requested, as commander-in-chief of the military force of this 
 State, to cause these resolutions to- be published in general 
 orders; and that the Secretary of State be and he is hereby 
 directed to transmit copies of the same to the several sheriffs 
 and town clerks.” 
 
 Uow, we find in these proceedings the doctrine of State 
 ♦ allegiance in perfection. It was ordered to be proclaimed bw 
 the Governor, in his military capacity as commander-in-chief 
 of the' forces of the State, and also to be transmitted by her 
 State secretary to her several executive officers everywhere, 
 that their duties to their State “ restrained ” them from yield¬ 
 ing either “ official aid or co-operation,” either allegiance or 
 obedience, to the laws of the General Government at Wash¬ 
 ington, and, if need be, they must prepare to resist the acts of 
 that government—her own Federal power. Is not this a fair 
 
and impartial interpretation of the resolutions quoted ? Again, 
 the Constitution of the United States provides that “ no State^ 
 except in time of war, shall keep on foot troops, &c., 
 
 Connecticut availed herself of this negative clause of the 
 Constitution, construed it into an express admission that any 
 State in time of war may keep on foot troops, and actually 
 organized a corps elite for her defence against foreign or domes¬ 
 tic foes. Uow, by this latter expression— ‘‘domestic foes^’ —it 
 was well understood at the time that she meant t^ include the 
 Federal Government and its officers. We might mention upon 
 the authority of a distinguished Uew England statesman of 
 that day—John Quincy Adams—some other things which our 
 sister Connecticut said and di^, in conjunction with her other 
 ^N’ew England sisters, in a memorable convention called ‘‘ the 
 Hartford Convention,” about these embargo and war times, in 
 support of the great theory and practice of State sovereignty 
 and State allegiance. But as these sayings and doings consti¬ 
 tute a part of her arcana, and as it would no doubt he dis¬ 
 agreeable to the sister to have such reviewed and laid bare in 
 these times of her consolidation triumph and glory, and as 
 the politeness of such a disclosure of her private aflairs might 
 be questioned, we respectfully forbear to pry into her State 
 secrets further than to give a few extracts from the journal 
 of the Hartford Convention. 
 
 Rules of proceeding adopted 15th December, 18H, the first day of 
 
 the meeting, 
 
 1. The most inviolable secrecy shall be observed by each 
 member of this Convention, including the secretary, as to all 
 propositions, debates, and proceedings thereof until this injunc¬ 
 tion shall be suspended or altered. 
 
 2. The secretary of this Convention is authorized to employ 
 some suitable person to serve as a door-keeper and messenger,, 
 together with.a suitable assistant, if necessary, neither of whom is- 
 at any time to he made acquainted loith any of the debates or proceed¬ 
 ings of the Board. 
 
26 
 
 January S, 1815. 
 
 After the acceptance of the final report, on motion, 
 
 Resolved, That the injunction of secrecy in regard to the 
 debates and proceedings of this Convention, except in so far as 
 relate to the report finally adopted, be and hereby is continued. 
 
 B.—This injunction of secrecy was never removed. The 
 Convention adjourned the 5th of January, 1815. 
 
 JJxfhacts from the final report of the Convention. 
 
 Finally, if the Union be destined to dissolution, by reason of 
 the multiplied ^uses of bad administrations, it should, if pos¬ 
 sible, be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent. 
 Some new form of confederacy should be substituted among those 
 States which shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other ; 
 therefore 
 
 Resolved^ ‘‘ That it be and hereby is recommended to the 
 legislatures of the several States represented in this Conven¬ 
 tion to adopt all such measures as may be necessary eflectually 
 to protect the citizens of said States from the operation and efiects 
 of all acts which have been or may be passed by the Congress 
 of the United States w'hich shall contain provisions subjecting 
 the militia or other citizens to forcible drafts, conscriptions, or 
 impressments not authorized by the Constitution of the United 
 States.” Such were the proceedings of the Uew England 
 States in unjustifiable opposition to the regular and necessary 
 war measures of the Gieneral Government at a time when that 
 Government was in the extremest peril and embarrassment in 
 defending our country from the assaults of a gigantic foreign 
 adversary. And the proceedings of the War Congress of 
 June 4, 1812, show that it was a measure of the South and 
 West to protect the interest of the North. 
 
 But what was the conduct of the much-abused and down¬ 
 trodden State of South Carolina at this critical conjuncture ? 
 Governor D. B. Williams, of that gallant State, on the 22d of 
 December, 1814, addressed a letter to the Secretary of the 
 United States Treasury, in answer to a letter received by him 
 
from Major-General Pinckney, informing him that the funds 
 of the General Government at his disposal loere exhausted, and 
 said: ‘‘I have the pleasure to inform you that two hundred 
 and sixty thousand dollars have been put at the disposition of 
 the General Government by the Legislature last evening. I 
 hope it is unnecessary to add that my individual and official 
 efforts will not be w^anting in aiding the Government when¬ 
 ever in my power.” Thus it is a historical fact that at the 
 very time of the Hartford Convention, and in one of the dark¬ 
 est periods of our country’s existence, the embarrassment of 
 the Union was communicated to the Legislature of South Car¬ 
 olina in the morning, and before their adjournment in the even¬ 
 ing the representatives of the people of South Carolina freely 
 and at great sacrifice opened their treasury to relieve and sus¬ 
 tain the Union. 
 
 The embargo and non-intercourse laws grew out of the war 
 power of the United States Government, and was, outside of 
 the Hartford Convention movement, universally regarded at 
 that time as a necessary war measure—of defensive as well as 
 of offensive hostility—and, therefore, as most undoubtedly 
 within the powers of Congress. 
 
 We stood in a relation to the world which no other nation 
 occupied, as a great granary, from which many other countries 
 were supplied, and some had been occasionally fed. To with¬ 
 hold for a time, by means of the embargo and non-intercourse 
 acts, those necessary supplies from a national foe committing 
 aggressions against us, was a measure of fair, obvious, and 
 • eflectual hostility on the part of our General Government, by 
 which the offending nation might be reclaimed to a just course 
 of conduct toward us. And yet these very States that were 
 then engaged in the Hartford Convention in adopting measures 
 to withdraw their resources from the aid of the Federal Gov¬ 
 ernment, and to embarrass and resist it in all possible w^ays 
 and means, are now vituperating and vilifying that grand hero 
 and patriot, Pobert E. Lee, and his splendid and noble com¬ 
 peers in arms, as traitors and perjurers, simply because they 
 bid a honorable, though sad, farewell to the old regulars of the 
 
28 
 
 United States army and navy and joined their respective States 
 in a just, legitimate, and boldly-avowed opposition and open- 
 field resistance to an unconstitutional and unnecessary war 
 against those States—not a foreign foe, but their own sisters— 
 in the midst of the peace, prosperity, and highest power of the 
 Federal Government. 
 
 It is worthy of especial notice that these Hartford Conven¬ 
 tion States, so to call them, were in 1814 anxious and urgent 
 for an amendment of the Constitution of the United States 
 ‘‘ requiring the concurrence of two-thirds of Congress to declare 
 war or authorize acts of hostility against any foreign nation, 
 except in defence and in cases of actual invasion,” and yet, in 
 1861, eagerly rushed forward to invade the rights and peace 
 of their own sister Southern States at the instance of a mere 
 executive proclamation, issued in the absence of Congress and 
 in open violation of the Federal Constitution. General Lee 
 and his old army and navy comrades from the South in 1861, 
 had but to take a casual review of the political history of Mas¬ 
 sachusetts and the rest of her sister Eastern States from the 
 adoption of the Constitution of the United States to the war 
 of 1812-’14, and on through the period of the annexation of 
 Texas, and that of the passage of the fugitive-slave law of 1850, 
 to find abundant teachings in favor of State allegiance. State 
 sovereignty, the separation of the States, and the formation of 
 a i^orthern confederacy. Whether this latter project was 
 ventured by its promoters and advocates before the public 
 earlier than 1796, we are not aware. But of its promulgation 
 in that year in the elaborate essays of Pelham—the joint pro¬ 
 duction of an association of men of inordinate wealth, great 
 energy, and of the first talents and influence in the State of 
 Connecticut, and well approved and sustained in the Eastern 
 States generally—^^is indubitable and well known. And from 
 that time for eighteen years onward the most unceasing, unpa¬ 
 triotic, and virulent endeavors were used by leading and dis¬ 
 tinguished editors, preachers, and politicians, in and out of 
 office, to poison the minds of the people of the Eastern States 
 towards and to alienate them from the people of the Southern 
 
29 
 
 States. And it is important to know that when these efforts 
 to sow discord, jealousy, and hostility between the different 
 sections of the Union, in order to accomplish their favorite 
 and darling object of a dissolution of the Union, first began 
 in the Uew England States, every feature in the afiairs of the 
 country was exactly according to their fondest wishes. The 
 immortal and good Washington was President; John Adams, 
 an Eastern man, was Vice-President. There was then no 
 Virginia dynasty,” no‘^French infiuence,” no “embargo,” 
 no “non-intercourse,” no “terrapin policy,” no “Democratic 
 madness,” and no “war.” The noble, the august, the splen¬ 
 did fabric of our Union, and the unparalleled form of our 
 government, were in the hands and in the keeping of rulers of 
 their own choice. 
 
 Before proceeding further we deem it proper to say, by way 
 of parenthesis, that in the foregoing allusions to England a 
 vnde distinction is always to be made between the English 
 Grovernment and the English people. For while England is 
 most rapacious and unjust as a nation, she stands proudly pre¬ 
 eminent in the sterling moral worth and the elevated, practical 
 character of her people. The general character of England, 
 then, should not be contaminated with the avarice, injustice, 
 and ambition of her statesmen and warriors. While Finland 
 and our own Union endure, they have, in spite of manifold 
 differences, political and social, an unity in the solemn guardian¬ 
 ship of religious and constitutional freedom—the only freedom 
 which has been other than a curse to mankind. They are enno¬ 
 bled by many of the same ancestral memories, associated by 
 the same language and literature, and encouraged by the same 
 hopes of civilization. 
 
 Uew York State. 
 
 The Convention of the State of Yew York ratified the Con¬ 
 stitution of the United States only on the condition “that the 
 power of the Government may be reassumed by the people (of 
 ^ Yew York, of course, for she was speaking for herself only) 
 whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness.” Her 
 
 
great statesman, Alexander Hamilton, declared in the Assem¬ 
 bly of i^ew York State : “ Each State possesses in itself full 
 power of government, and can at once, in a regular and consti¬ 
 tutional way, take measures for the preservation of its rights.’^ 
 Again, he said in his letter to the people of Yew York, written 
 for the purpose of persuading them that the sovereignty of the 
 States was not touched by the new Constitution: “ But it is 
 said that the laws of the Union are to be the supreme laws of 
 the land. But it will not follow from this doctrine'that the 
 acts of the larger society (the Federal Union) which are not 
 pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of 
 the residuary rights of the smaller authorities (the States), will 
 become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely 
 acts of usurpation and will deserve to be treated as such.’^ 
 Again, he said in the twenty-eighth number of the Federalist: 
 ‘‘It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system 
 that the State Governments will in all possible contingencies 
 afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty 
 by the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be 
 masked under pretences so likely to escape the penetration of 
 select bodies of men as of the people at large. The Legisla¬ 
 tures will have better means of information. They can dis¬ 
 co vet^ the danger at a distance; and, possessing all the organs 
 of civil powder and the confidence of the people, they can at 
 once adopt a regular plan of opposition in which they can com¬ 
 bine all the resources of the community.” 
 
 Chief-Justice Jay said that “thirteen sovereigns were con¬ 
 sidered as emerging from the principles of the Bevolution, 
 combined by local convenience and considerations.” 
 
 In the Legislature of Yew York, on the 8th of Yovember, 
 1824, Mr. Tallmadge, in the House of Assembly, offered a reso¬ 
 lution against the - right of Congress‘to license and to demand 
 tonnage duties from canal-boats in that State, which was 
 adopted almost unanimously, declaring that, “ Whereas it 
 appeal's to this Legislature, after due consideration, that the 
 claim on the part of the United States to require boats which 
 navigate our canals to be enrolled or licensed to pay tonnage 
 
31 
 
 duties is a claim not founded on any legal right, and in regard 
 to the circumstances to which it is made such claim is so 
 evidently unjust and oppressive that the interference of this State 
 is called for in defence of its citizens; therefore 
 
 Resolved (if the Senate concur), That the senators of this 
 State in the Senate of the United States be directed, and the 
 representatives of this State in the House of Kepresentatives 
 of the United States be requested, to use their utmost endeavors 
 to prevent any such unjust and oppressive exaction for tonnage 
 duties on boats navigating the canals from being carried into 
 effect.’’ 
 
 This was the beginning of Hew York’s resistance. A year 
 and a half after this resolution her senator (Mr. Yan Buren) 
 in the United States Senate gave notice that his State “ would 
 resist to the last extremity.” We here give his language in 
 that body May 19, 1826: “ From that time (1824) to the 
 present, or until very recently, no steps have been taken by 
 the Government to enforce its claim, nor in behalf of the State 
 to shield herself against injustice.^^ And further on in the course 
 of the same remarks he said: The act itself was unauthorized 
 by the Constitution of the United States—an encroachment on 
 the rights of the State, which she ought and would resist to the 
 last extremity.” How, we ask. What more did Mr. Calhoun 
 ever declare in behalf of his State? What more could any 
 State do than ‘Ho resist to the last extremity” ? 
 
 The Rochester Telegraph of that period has this to say of the 
 demand of licenses at the time of its occurrence: “ We regret 
 to learn that the collector of the United States revenue at Buf¬ 
 falo requires a coasting license from all the canal boats that 
 clear from that place. It was hoped that after the eloquent 
 and conclusive arguments of General Tallmadge on State 
 rights, the strong expression of the Legislature in 1824, and the 
 resolution of Mr. Martindale in Congress, there would be no 
 more encroachments of the General Government upon the 
 artificial waters of this State.’’ 
 
 Congress did not despise her application ibr redress, or Hew 
 
32 
 
 York wouldjjdoubtless have confirmed the threat of her senator 
 (Yan Buren), who was speaking under her instructions, 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 In our examination of the proceedings of the Ohio Legisla¬ 
 ture of 1820 against the United States Bank we find the views 
 of the Yew England States referred to by us in the preceding 
 pages of this discussion most ably and boldly sustained. In 
 those proceedings she approved and adopted as her own the Vir¬ 
 ginia and Kentucky resolutions of ’98 and ’99, and declared 
 that their principles had been “ recognized and adopted by a 
 majority of the American people.” She protested “.against 
 the doctrine that the political rights of the separate States that 
 compose the American Union and their powers as sovereign 
 States may be settled and determined in the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, so as to conclude and bind them in cases 
 contrived between individuals, and where they are—no one of 
 them—parties direct.” And she passed an act denying to the 
 bank all protection from the State laws and depriving it of 
 almost all civil rights. It was recommended to her by a com¬ 
 mittee of her Legislature to forbid by law “ the keepers of our • 
 jails from receiving persons committed at the suit of the Bank 
 of the United States or for any injury done them, prohibiting 
 any judicial officers from taking acknowledgment of convey¬ 
 ances where the bank is a party or when made for their own 
 use, and our recorders from receiving or recording such con¬ 
 veyances ; forbidding our courts, justices of the peace, judges, 
 and grand juries from taking cognizance of any Wrong 
 alleged to have been committed upon any species of property 
 owned by the bank, or upon any of its corporate rights or 
 privileges, and prohibiting our notaries public from protest¬ 
 ing any notes or bills held by the bank or their agents, or 
 made payable to them.” And following up this recommenda¬ 
 tion, she did pass just such a law through her Legislature. 
 Could anything have been more thoroughly searching than 
 these proceedings It will be seen that in them no such com¬ 
 mon arbiter as the Supreme Court of the United States is 
 
allowed for a moment, but that the great State of Ohio pro¬ 
 claimed to all concerned that, in a question between herself 
 and the General Government, she was judge in her own politi¬ 
 cal character, and instructed her officers, bj a solemn act of her 
 Legislature, that in such a contest her orders alone were to be 
 acknowledged—that their allegiance and’their consequent obe¬ 
 dience were due to her and to her alone. Her distinguished 
 son, the Hon. Judge John McLean, wrote to a gentleman in 
 the State of Horth Carolina on the 23d of October, 1834, from 
 Knoxville, as follows: 
 
 “In my view no powers can be exercised by the Federal Gov¬ 
 ernment except those which are expressly delegated to it; and 
 I should think that the ex]3erience we have had ought to con¬ 
 vince every one that any extension of the Federal powers must 
 endanger the permanency of the Union.’’ Again he writes : 
 “ But if a political power be asserted by the Federal Govern¬ 
 ment which is controverted by a State, and which nfleets the 
 interest of such State, and it cannot be made a JudiGal ques¬ 
 tion under the Constitution or laws of the Union, there is na 
 tribunal common to the parties, and in such a case effect can- 
 ' not be given to the power. The decision of a sovereign State 
 in such a case is as good as the decision of the Federal Gov¬ 
 ernment, and of necessitv there must be mutual forbearance. 
 An uncoi^titutional act of Congress imposes no obligation on 
 a State or the people of a State, and may be resisted by an 
 individual or a community. Ho one, I believe, will contro¬ 
 vert this.” This last is exactly the view that was taken by 
 Chief-Justice Parsons, of Massachusetts, as we have already 
 seen under the head of “ Massachusetts.” The whole letter 
 of Judge McLean is filled with just such sound State rights 
 and constitutional doctrines. And now, my readers, who was 
 Judge McLean? He was an associate justice in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, so appointed by President Jackson 
 in 1829. Kather a Whig than a Democrat, when his name 
 was suggested by a friend to an eminent Whig as the right 
 man for the Whigs to make President of the United States in 
 1848, he replied: “Do not wish that; Judge McLean is canon- 
 
ized; if he were taken away from the Supreme Court, where is 
 the guardian of the Constitution ? ” It is well known that 
 there were other such guardians on and off the Supreme Bench 
 at the time, but such was the compliment paid to the virtue 
 and talents of the Judge in that day after a trial of him for 
 seventeen years. His whole public and private life presented 
 one bright page of ability, integrity, and honor, and threw a 
 lustre on the entire profession to which he belonged. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 We now proceed to close this discussion of the great ques¬ 
 tion of allegiance, based upon the actions and declarations of 
 our Northern sister States and their statesmen, by presenting 
 a few extracts from the public speeches of some of the eminent 
 statesmen and judges of the old Quaker State the great State 
 of Pennsylvania—and from her own well-authenticated public 
 
 records. 
 
 James Wilson, afterwards one of the supreme judges of the 
 United States, when a member of the Convention of Pennsyl¬ 
 vania, in endeavoring to persuade the people of Pennsylvania, 
 there assembled through their representatives, to adopt the 
 Constitution, said: “Those who ordain and establish have the 
 power, if they think proper, to repeal and annul.” That is, 
 they (the people of Pennsylvania) would lose non® of their 
 sovereignty by the act of ratification. 
 
 The celebrated John Dickinson, of the same State (Penn¬ 
 sylvania), in urging the people of the old thirteen States seve¬ 
 rally to ratify the Constitution, wrote: “Why should we be 
 thus alarmed, when we know that the rights to be delegated 
 by the several States to the Confederation are simple, defined, 
 and so limited to particular objects that they cannot possibly 
 be applied by any construction to other objects, without such 
 a distortion of interpretation and such a violation of propriety 
 as must oflend every sound head and every honest heart.” 
 
 Again he says, in the same written address: “As some persons 
 seem to think a Bill of Bights is the best security of rights, the 
 sovereignties of the several States have this best security by the 
 
35 
 
 proposed Constitution, and more than this best security, for they 
 are not barely declared to be rights, but are taken into it as 
 component parts for their perpetual preservation—by themselves. 
 In short, the government of each State is, and is to be, sover¬ 
 eign and supreme in all matters that relate to each State onlyJ^ 
 
 Again, in speaking of the interference of the Federal Govern¬ 
 ment with the respective jurisdictions of the several States, he 
 says: “An instance of such interference with regard to any 
 single State will be a dangerous precedent as to all^ and there¬ 
 fore will be guarded against by all, as the trustees or servants 
 of the several States will not dare, if they retain their senses, 
 so to violate the independent sovereignty of their respective 
 States— that justly darling object of American affections —to which 
 they are responsible, besides being engaged by all the charities 
 of life.” 
 
 Again he says, in speaking of the varied representation of 
 sovereignties and people in the Constitution then proposed: 
 “It has been said that this representation was a mere compro¬ 
 mise. It was not a mere compromise. The equal representa¬ 
 tion of each State, with equal suffrage in one branch of the legis¬ 
 lature, was an original substantive proposition, made in the 
 Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, very soon after the draft 
 oflered by Virginia, to which last-mentioned ’State United 
 America is much indebted not only in other respects, but for 
 her merit in the origination and prosecution of this moment¬ 
 ous business. 
 
 “ The proposition was expressly made by the delegate who 
 brought it forward upon this principle: that a territory of such 
 extent as that of United America could not be safely and advan¬ 
 tageously governed but by a combination of republics, each retain¬ 
 ing all the rights of supreme sovereignty, exeegtinq such as 
 ought to be contributed to the Union; that for the securer 
 preservation of their sovereignties they ought to be represented 
 in a body by themselves—meaning the Senate of the United 
 States—and with equal suffrage; and that they would be anni¬ 
 hilated if both branches of the legislature were to be formed 
 
36 
 
 of representatives of the people in proportion to the number 
 of inhabitants in each State/’ 
 
 Again he says : “America is, and will be, divided into several 
 sovereign States, each possessing every power proper for gov¬ 
 erning loithin its own limits for its own jnirjjose^ and also for acting 
 as a memher of the Union. 
 
 “A stroke, a touch upon any part,” he says, “ will be imme¬ 
 diately felt by the whole.” 
 
 AVhen the monarchists of the Constitutional Convention 
 who labored for the destruction of State sovereignty had 
 thrown everything into confusion and downright disorder, and 
 Dr. Franklin had advised the Convention to go to praying, 
 and the members were returning home in despair of anything 
 being accomplished but mischief, Gunning Bedford, a noble 
 patriot of the State of Delaware, turned the fortune of the day 
 by warning them if they dared to touch the sovereignt}^ of his 
 State, that State would call in the aid of foreign powers to pro¬ 
 tect her sovereignty; and so the Constitution passed, explicitly 
 recognizing that sovereignty by the organization of the Senate^ 
 and not in the least impairing it by the representation of the 
 people of each State in the House of Representatives. The 
 sovereignty and equality of the several States were expressly 
 guarded by that clause of the fifth article of the Constitution 
 of the United States which provides “that no State, without 
 its consent, shall be deprived of its equal sufirage in the 
 Senate.” It is here seen that while all other rights are confided 
 to that power of amendment which is reposed in three-fourths 
 of all the States, this right is entrusted only to the separate, in¬ 
 dependent, and sovereign will of each State—each State, in its 
 own case, having an absolute negative upon all the rest. 
 
 If we look to the Constitution of Pennsylvania, September 
 2, 1790, article 8, we will find the following provision: “Mem¬ 
 bers of the General Assembly and all officers—executive and 
 judicial—shaU be bound by oath, or affirmation, to support the 
 Constitution of this Commonwealth, and to perform the duties 
 of their respective offices faithfully.” Here, then, in the early 
 history of her State Government near up to the patriotic times 
 
37 
 
 : of the Revolution and the formation and adoption of the 
 
 American Constitution, when the true intent and interpreta- 
 . I tion of that instrument was best known to her and understood 
 , I by all, we discover her, in her form of oath, leaving out the 
 
 ' Constitution of the Union, ignoring the ‘^G-eneral Grovern- 
 / ment,” and demanding for her citizens exclusive allegiance. 
 
 • V 
 
 Her first Constitution was adopted in 1776, her second in 1790, 
 
 . and her third in 1838. 
 
 In the celebrated case of Gideon Olmstead what do we 
 observe to be the action of her Governor, Simon Snyder, in 
 jyuTSuance of an act of her General Assembly^ passed on the 2d 
 day of April, 1803? Among other things in his military order 
 to General Michael Bright, commander of the First brigade 
 of the First division of the Pennsylvania militia, the Governor 
 said: 
 
 “ I, Simon Snyder, Governor of the said Commonwealth, 
 reposing special trust and confidence in you, Michael Bright, 
 commander of the First brigade of the First division of the 
 Pennsylvania militia, do authorize and require you imme¬ 
 diately to have in readiness such a portion of the militia under 
 your command as shall be sutficient for the purpose expressed » 
 ordi&Y, and to employ theni to defend the persons and prop¬ 
 erty of the said Elizabeth Sergeant and Esther Waters/7’om 
 and against any p^rocess founded on the decree of the said Rich¬ 
 ard Peters (United States judge), and in virtue of which any 
 officer under the direction of any court of the United, States may 
 attempt to attach either the persons or property of the said Eliz¬ 
 abeth Sergeant and Esther Waters.’’ 
 
 , Does not this action of the chief executive ofiicer, taken by 
 
 the direction of her Legislature, clearly establish her opinion 
 to be that she was the sovereign of her citizens, to whom she 
 owed protection against the “ General Government,” and from 
 whom she claimed allegiance in return for that protection ? If 
 this were not so, what other ground could have warranted such 
 a stand against the decree of the General Government pro¬ 
 nounced through one of its courts”? It is true that in this 
 particular case Pennsylvania was in error in denyhig to the 
 
38 
 
 Federal courts full jurisdiction in admiralty cases, and that 
 she gracefully yielded her opposition. But in obedience to 
 whose opinion did she abandon her high position ? To that 
 of her distinguished and trusted citizen and officer, Chief- 
 Justice Tilghman, who in his day was regarded as one of the 
 brightest judicial stars in America. He sustained the United 
 States courts in this 'particular case, we all know, but in his 
 opinion he fully recognized the grand principle embodied in the 
 act of the General Assembly of his State and the military 
 order of the Governor thereof. He expressly declared that in a 
 case clearly made up he would have exercised, in the name of 
 Pennsylvania, control over the prisoner, Mrs. Sergeant, whose 
 person the United States marshal, by an evasion of General 
 Bright and his militia, had successfully attached. To employ 
 his own language in that opinion, he said that the State courts 
 should, in cases brought properly before them, give redress. 
 There is no law which forbids it—their oath of office exacts itd^ 
 That is, defy the proceedings of the General Government 
 against the citizens of Pennsylvania, whose sovereign she is 
 and to whom their allegiance is due. Again, in the well- 
 known case of “ The Commonwealth vs. Cobbett,^’ the Supreme 
 Court of Pennsylvania, with . Chief-Justice McKean at its 
 head, unanimously, overruled the motion of the defendant to 
 remove his case into the Federal court on the ground that the 
 sovereign State of Pennsylvania could not, on account of its dignity, 
 be carried before the Federal court. This grave and moment¬ 
 ous question was debated in the Virginia Convention called to 
 consider the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, 
 as proposed to the several States by the general convention at 
 Philadelphia, by Mason, Madison, Henry, and Marshall, the 
 ablest of American statesmen. Mason and Henry, with a 
 sagacity indeed remarkable, suggested that the day might come 
 when a Federal court, under the letter of the Constitution, might 
 presume to summon a sovereign State to its bar and assume 
 authority to sit in judgment upon her rights. Madison and 
 Marshall opposed the idea with great vehemence. Marshall, 
 afterwards Chief-Justice of the United States Supreme Court 
 
bench, actually denounced it as an irrational supposition that 
 the sovereign power shall be dragged before a court/’ Said he : 
 “ I hope no gentleman will think that a State will be called at 
 the bar of the Federal court.” This was precisely the ground 
 taken by that grand old man, Governor Hancock, in 1793, in 
 respect to a summons of the Circuit Court of the United 
 . States served on him as principal officer of that State, and in 
 which position he was supported by the Legislature of his 
 State and endorsed by his biographer, John Adams. In 1812 
 we find Governor Strong, of Massachusetts, occupying similar 
 ground. In the case of Hunter and Martin, 3d Dallas, 52, 
 Judge Koane, of Virginia, alluding to the case of Pennsylva¬ 
 nia and Cobbett, said : It contains no principle which every 
 friend to the federative system of government will not readily 
 subscribe to; it exhibits no sentiment alarming to any but 
 the friends of consolidation.” This decision of the Supreme 
 Court of Pennsylvania, as delivered by Chief-Justice McKean, 
 in the month of December, 1798, may be found in 3d Dallas 
 Reports, page 473. We all have read of the manner in which 
 Pennsylvania treated an excise officer of the United States in 
 1791, in what has been styled her ‘‘ Whiskey Insurrection,” 
 and the proceedings of her Legislature on that celebrated occa¬ 
 sion. Here, then, was the sovereign State of Pennsylvania, 
 as may be seen from the extracts which we have made from 
 her Constitution, her Legislature, and judicial records, claim¬ 
 ing the allegiance of her citizens against all powers whatsoever, 
 and taking upon herself to decide what was the extent of the 
 Federal authority. In fact, we find that every State in this 
 Union which had at any time prior to the Civil War been oj;- 
 joressed or even insulted in her dignity by Federal tyranny had 
 in some shape or other invariably asserted this her sovereign 
 right, though in the year 1861 it was and has since then been 
 convenient for the Korthern States—always claiming it for 
 themselves, however—to forget and to deny its existence in the 
 Southern States, and unconcernedly or interestedly and cruelly 
 to disregard their complaints of their grievances and to tram¬ 
 ple with the red hoofs of war upon their sacred constitutional 
 
40 
 
 and reserved rights. And we see, too, that the honor ot 
 having originated this American doctrine belongs especially to 
 Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Connecticut—honest old 
 Pennsylvania, as. she used to he called—the land of Quakers 
 and of peace in those good old- days—being the parent. 
 
 And it could hardly in those days have been regarded as in¬ 
 compatible with the rights or the safety of the Pnion or it 
 would not have been originated, as it was, by^ a patriot of 
 1776—Judge Poss—who was one of the delegates of Pennsyl¬ 
 vania that signed the immortal Declaration of Independence. 
 The SoutheVn States, then, can only claim to divide the glory 
 with the North on this great point. We have now gone 
 through with our account of some of the principal official acts 
 and opinions of some of the principal of our Northern sister 
 States in support of the action taken by the Southern States, 
 and the necessarily consequent conduct of those of their citi¬ 
 zens who happened to be in 1861 in the immediate service of 
 the General Government of the United States. 
 
 In the historical details, as well as in our comments, we have 
 honestly endeavored to pursue the good advice of Othello : 
 
 Naught extenuate, nor aught set down in malice.” 
 
 And we have especially aimed to keep in mind faithfully 
 that it is not magnanimous either in individuals or nations to 
 treasure the resentments of war after the seal of peace has 
 been affixed. 
 
 “ A brave man knows no malice, but at once 
 Forgets in peace the injuries of war. 
 
 And gives his direst foe a friend’s embrace.” 
 
 Our sole object has been truth—historical truth—which we 
 hope and believe we have steadily followed without undue bias 
 or one grain of sectional prejudice. But it is said that Gene¬ 
 ral Robert E. Lee and those who departed with him from the 
 Federal command had taken each for himself an oath to sup¬ 
 port the General Government of the United States. Well, it 
 is true that they did swear to support that Government in its 
 strict pursuit of its legitimate ends as defined^by the Constitu- 
 
41 
 
 tion of the United States, and as might be interpreted by 
 their respective States,' without whose authority and permis¬ 
 sion they would never have taken such an oath at all. It was 
 simply an oath of office to be kept only so long as the incum¬ 
 bent remained in the service, and carried with it no allegiance 
 in its technical sense; for that, as we have seen upon the 
 authority of Northern States and statesmen, belonged exclusively 
 to their respective States. Indeed, were those officers any 
 other than representatives of their several States in the army 
 and navy which belonged to those States in common with the 
 Northern States ? Did not their respective States*supply each 
 its proportionable share of the expenses necessary to establish 
 and maintain the United States army and navy? Does anj^ 
 man or set of men suppose for an instant that the Southern 
 States, or either of them,or the Northern States, or either of them, 
 furnished men and money and property to their general agent 
 and servant at Washington—the General Government—with 
 which to overrun them and scatter desolation and blood and ruin 
 over their territory and population, and that those men, who 
 are their own lojffi citizens, took a solemn oath upon their 
 consciences with any such intent ? The idea even is too pre¬ 
 posterous for the credulity of the most simple-hearted and 
 credulous. They were there only as their agents to carry out 
 their behests as laid down in the compact between the States, 
 and the laws made by Congress in pursuance of that compact, 
 and subject to be recalled by them whenever in their judgment 
 that compact had been violated in letter and in spirit. 
 
 Daniel Webster declared that a compact broken on one 
 part is broken on all,’’ and proceeded to argue that if the North 
 really refused to execute in good faith that clause of the Con¬ 
 stitution which provides for the rendition of fugitive slaves the 
 South would be absolved from its share of the compact of the 
 Union. This, it is well known, is exactly what the North did 
 do, and thus, according to Mr. Webster, thereby absolved the 
 South from all obligation to observe the compact between the 
 States which formed the Union. And this very refusal on the 
 part of the Northern States to obey the constitutional com- 
 
42 
 
 pact ill that particular was exercised*by them down to the very 
 beginnino; of the great civil war in pursuance of their ancient 
 doctrine of State sovereignty and State allegiance and their 
 peculiar modern doctrine of the Higher Law.” 
 
 When analvzed we find that the oath of an ofiicer or soldier 
 
 %j 
 
 of the United States army and navy was, after all, but an oath 
 of obedience to his own State, to whom his allegiance was alone 
 due. This, we think, may be clearly illustrated by a supposed 
 case—not at all impossible. Suppose in 1861 the Northern 
 States had declined to make war on the Southern Confederacy, 
 but had corgtented themselves with declaring such States to be 
 simply beyond the pale of the Union—in peace friends, in war 
 enemies—as Wendell Phillips, Greeley, and others of their 
 brain-men counselled them to do ? Where, in this case, would 
 General Lee and his brave fellow-otficers in the old army and 
 navy hailing from the Southern States have been found, think 
 you ? In the then foreign confederacy of the Northern States ? 
 We cannot believe it. Unquestionably they would have been 
 found in the new confederacy of which their respective States 
 would have formed a part. Would this have been pronounced 
 'perjury and treason on their part to the old United States Gov¬ 
 ernment, to whom they had taken this much-vaunted oath ? 
 Surely, surely not. But again, let us suppose that this new 
 Southern Confederacy had afterwards agreed to dissolve itself 
 into as many distinct governments as it had States, where 
 would these ofiicers then have been found? Would they not 
 have abided with and followed their respective States ? 
 Would not the same have been true of the ofiicers of the 
 United States army and navy from the respective Northern 
 States in the event of a final dismemberment of the United 
 States into its original elements—the States ? Does not this 
 show plainly where the allegiance of the citizen of a State 
 resides ? Does it not prove indisputably that in all possible 
 changes and revolutions it belongs to his State, and that \yhile 
 his State may by her act release him from other obligations to 
 which she has subjected him, that no authority here below can 
 divest his State of his obligations to her? What said the 
 
43 
 
 V 
 
 Continental Congress upon this very point ? We will remind 
 you. On the 24th of June, 1776, in anticipation of the Decla¬ 
 ration of Independence then being prepared, the Congress de¬ 
 clared by resolution ‘‘ That all persons abiding within any of 
 the United Colonies and deriving protection from the same 
 owed allegiance to the said laws, and were members of such 
 • colony ; and that all persons passing through or making tem¬ 
 porary stay in any of the Colonies, being entitled to the pro¬ 
 tection of the laws during the time of such passage, visitation, 
 
 or temporary stay, owed, during the same, allegiance thereto^ 
 
 « 
 
 This ought to be conclusive to every intelligent and impartial 
 mind that the duties of protection and allegiance are recipro¬ 
 cal ; that the right of allegiance belongs to the sovereignty, 
 and the right of protection to the citizen ; that every citizen 
 owes obedience to the laws of his State, and is entitled there¬ 
 for to protection and security in his life and property. 
 
 Reverdy Johnson, a distinguished Republican senator, and a 
 constitutional lawyer of the first rank, hailing from the State 
 of Maryland, said on the 11th day of January, 1866 (months 
 after the war), in the United States Senate : I am sure no 
 member of the Senate would doubt that there is no power 
 given to Congress or to any other department of the Govern¬ 
 ment to make war against any State.’’ He then supported his 
 opinion by the following quotation of the language of Justice 
 Graham, of the Supreme Court of the United States : “ By 
 the Constitution alone Congress has the power to declare a 
 national or foreign war. It cannot declare war against a State 
 or any number of States by virtue of any clause in the Consti¬ 
 tution.” Senator Johnson adds: “We have the unanimous 
 opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States that domes¬ 
 tic trouble and insurrection and refusal to obey the Constitu¬ 
 tion of the United States is not a state of things which author-' 
 izes Congress to declare war against the State in which 
 such insurrection exists^ It is not a condition of things in 
 which the President has any power to carry on war by virtue 
 of the war power.” It cannot now be said that it was a war 
 individuals in insurrection merely; for the proclama- 
 
44 
 
 tioiis of President Lincoln and the acts and resolutions of both 
 houses of Congress were declared to be against ‘‘ rebellious 
 States,” and the whole bloody and illegal and unconstitutional 
 power wielded hy the Federal Government was aimed at the 
 organic life of the States. Instead of raising by executive 
 proclamations the standard of civil war and shedding the inno¬ 
 cent blood of his oppressed countrymen who simply asserted 
 the sovereignty of their respective States and resisted their 
 prostration, it was in the power of President Lincoln to recom¬ 
 mend the call of a convention of the States of the IJnion that 
 formed the Constitution, and who were the fit and proper 
 judges of questions involving sovereignty between themselves 
 as sovereigns, and to have wisely and patriotically invoked 
 them, as the most exalted tribunal on earth, to restore the Con¬ 
 stitution to its virgin purity and to bring back and preserve 
 the Union in its unsullied brightness. 
 
 This peaceful and rightful and constitutional remedy the 
 great and patriotic Jefferson would have advised and pursited. 
 
 But, no ! exclaimed Mr. Lincoln. The Southern States are 
 
 * 
 
 in rebellion; my revenue is at stake; they must be put down !” 
 And thus he consecrated his usurpations by the innocent blood 
 of those he would oppress. State constitutions and State laws 
 were overthrown; State legislatures dispersed; State archives 
 seized and destroyed; a State capital wantonly and ruthlessly 
 burned; State territory torn and divided and a new State 
 formed out of it, as in the case of Virginia and West Virginia, 
 and in reckless violation of the Constitution of the Union, as 
 we have already shown in a prior part of this discussion. In¬ 
 deed, no appliances of a most unjust and inexcusable war 
 against States were left unemployed, notwithstanding the solemn 
 declarations and decisions of lawyers, statesmen, patriots, sov¬ 
 ereign States—Uorth as well as South—and the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, “ that the Constitution gives the Federal 
 Government no power to make war against a State.” The 
 Southern States in ‘^Rebellion,’’ indeed! Against whom did 
 they rebel ? Against whom could they have rebelled ? Pebel- 
 lion means the resista^ice by an inferior to the lawful authority 
 
45 
 
 of a superior. It implies the violation of allegiance. To what 
 power did the Southern States, or either of them, owe alle¬ 
 giance? The very idea is preposterous and utterly inadmissi¬ 
 ble in the science of politics that a sovereign State can owe 
 allegiance to any earthly power, and therefore be capable of 
 committing treason, rebellion, or any crime whatever in any 
 .legal or political sense. The idea of treason or any other crime 
 whatever carries along with it invariably that other idea of a 
 tribunal before which the culprit can be arraigned. Is there a 
 conceivable or possible tribunal existing anywhere before which 
 a sovereign State could be arraigned and tried for treason or rebel¬ 
 lion or any other crime in the calendar of crimes ? Surely not. 
 Ho individual, then, who obeyed the command of his State to 
 resist an unconstitutional invasion by President Lincoln and his 
 Congress in 1861-’65 can be deemed guilty of treason or per¬ 
 jury, or both, within the meaning of the United States Consti¬ 
 tution. For the State to which his allegiance was due, as we 
 have shown by the authority of Horthern States and statesmen 
 and others who were high in the confidence of the Lincoln 
 administration, had not given the Federal Government—its 
 own creature—power or authority to coerce her by arms, and 
 his resistance of Federal armed coercion, by her command, 
 was not an act of treason against the United States Govern¬ 
 ment according to any fair interpretation of the Constitution 
 of the United States, and which fair interpretation we have 
 labored to arrive at and to present to you, in accordance with 
 the true and fundamental rule of all statutory construction, and 
 the one which overrides all others, which is, to seek the inten¬ 
 tion of the legislators wFo framed the law. 
 
 Mr. .Blackstone, in his Commentaries (pages 59-60, Volume 
 I), says: “As the meaning and intention of the Legislature, 
 when ascertained, is the law itself, it follows necessarily that 
 such intention must be referred to the time of its enactment; 
 and the terms and language used to express the intention must 
 be taken as then understood by those who employed them, and 
 not according to any subsequent definition or acceptation 
 varying from the then settled^ received meaning.’’ Again he 
 
46 
 
 saj'S, page 70 : subsequent judge can alter or vary from 
 
 the law according to his private sentiments, but according to 
 the known laws and customs of the land; not delegated to pro¬ 
 nounce a new law, but to maintain and expound the old one.” 
 And these rules of interpretation as laid down by this eminent 
 legal authority have been ofttimes affirmed by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, as expressed in the following 
 words of Justice Baldwin: The Constitution ought, there 
 fore, to be expounded, as all such grants and charters are, ac¬ 
 cording to what the law was at the time of making them.” 
 
 The illustrious Jefferson said : On every question of con¬ 
 struction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitu¬ 
 tion was adopted; recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, 
 and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of 
 the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in 
 which it was passed.” Yes, let all concerned do this, as that 
 wise statesman and great constitutional lawyer and patriot has 
 advised ; look to the explicit contemporaneous declarations in the 
 convention which framed the Constitution and in those that 
 ratified it, and elsewhere expressed in different forms of lan¬ 
 guage, but all tending to the same conclusion, and we ask if 
 there can be a doubt left on the mind of any fair and reasona¬ 
 ble man as to the true intent of the framers of the Constitution 
 respecting this great question of State allegiance and its recip¬ 
 rocal duty—State protection? 
 
 We have unfolded ‘‘records from ancient times derived,” 
 and brought out into the light of the present day doings and 
 sayings of the leading States anfi statesmen of the Yorth upon 
 this question, to point out their inconsistency in ever attempt¬ 
 ing in the past, and still continuing their efforts in the present 
 day, to degrade conduct and doctrines which they in a large 
 measure originated and to which they gave currency and 
 authority by their legally authenticated public documents and 
 public utterances. We have gone among their own antique 
 records and have recited therefrom with impartiality, fidelity, 
 and accuracy, we hope and believe, their own actions and 
 declarations, in successful vindication of General Robert E. Lee 
 
47 
 
 and his comrades who retired with him from the United States 
 army and navy in 1861, from the foulest and most monstrous 
 slanders which the IS^orthern people, with some honorable ex¬ 
 ceptions, in the very prodigality of scandal have heaped upon 
 their names and memories, against whom, we believe, they 
 • were never heard to express the smallest feeling of unkindness. 
 It is true, like the gallant veterans that they were, they made 
 no child’s play of the war in which they had taken up defensive 
 arms; but their weapons were not dipped in poison, nor did 
 thQy stab in the dark; they asked that daylight and the sun 
 might witness their victory, or grace a defeat that should, at 
 least, be undeserved. They flung the javelin of Achilles with 
 a steady hand, but it was with hearts free from all malevolence 
 and guile. When the battle was over they carried no reeking 
 malevolence in the ambush of their own bosoms to be brought 
 out on some safer occasion for vengeance. It was not for 
 malice or for vengeance that they fought, but for the rightful 
 sovereignty and freedom of their respective States, to whom 
 their allegiance was due. 
 
 General Egbert Edward Lee. 
 
 Elustrious and loyal Virginian! When in the spring-time 
 of the ever-to-be-remembered year of 1861, the great question 
 arose involuntarily in your mind, What are the obligations 
 which the action of my old mother State, Virginia, creates in 
 me, and what are the duties I am thus called on to perform ? ” 
 your answer could not be slow or difficult! To you who 
 inherited glory, the line of your duty was instantly prescribed. 
 
 The shades of your patriotic and distinguished Eevolutionary 
 ancestors appeared to your vision and pointed out to you the 
 only path w'hich you could and should tread. Among the 
 brave and patriotic names celebrated in the early councils of 
 Virginia and America, not one is invested with a purer lustre 
 than the name of Lee. It is radiant all over with the glories 
 of the Revolution of ’76. And it has been most eloquently 
 said of the reputation of Richard Henry Lee, that the fame 
 of almost all his distinguished brothers was lost in the bright- 
 
 I 
 
 
} 
 
 
 48 
 
 ness of its blaze. It has been illustrated by the sword, by the 
 pen, and by the tongue.’’ But what shall be said of the repu¬ 
 tation of one of his illustrious line—Eobert Edward Lee? 
 Steeped in the red and black of Treason and Perjury, as his 
 enemies declare ? What monstrous and wicked absurdity and 
 stupidity to think it! 
 
 E^o ! No ! The brightness of the glory of Eichard Henry 
 Lee, in the character and fame of Eobert Edward Lee, is 
 awakened as if with accumulated lustre, shedding a splendor 
 over the name of Lee unknown in any previous age! 
 
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