these States, is nothing but bald and naked assertion, which cannot be maintained against the facts of history. The question was as thoroughly discussed as any ever was before the people. Conventions were regularly called by the duly constituted authorities of the States, and members duly elected thereto, according to law in all the States, which seceded before Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of War. These elections were as orderly as elections usually are in any of the States on great occasions. In these Conventions, Ordinances of Secession were passed by decided majorities! It is true that a large minority in all these Conventions, save one, and in all these States, were opposed to Secession as a question of policy; very few in any of them questioned the Right, or doubted their duty to go with the majority. But after Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of War-, after his illegal and unconstitutional call for troops after his suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, no people on earth were ever more unanimous in any Cause, than were the people of the Southern States, in defence of what they deemed the great essential principles of American Free Institutions! There was not one in ten thousand of the people, in at least ten of the Southern States, whose heart and soul were not thoroughly enlisted in the Cause! Nor did any people on earth ever make greater or more heroic sacrifices for its success, during four long years of devastation, blood, and carnage!

A majority of the people overawed and terrorized by a minority! Indeed!

If so, what became of this majority when the Confederate Armies, which stood between them and their deliverers, were overpowered? Where is this majority now, even with the sweeping disfranchisement which silences so many of the overawing tyrants? Why has it not been permitted to exercise the inalienable right of Self-government, even with the reinforcement of the enfranchised Blacks? Why are so many of these States, till this day, held under Military rule, with their whole populations "pinned" to very bad Government by Federal bayonets, under the pretext of their continued disloyalty? This assertion as to the state of things in the beginning, is as utterly

groundless in fact, as it is utterly inconsistent with the gratuitous assumptions on which the present pretext is based!

Is it not amazing, Messrs. Editors, that Mr. Greeley in the face of the facts for the last four years, to say nothing of those of the war, when according to his own showing the Administration at Washington in rushing into it, were in "the wrong-" I say, to omit all mention of the wrongs of the war, its immense sacrifices of blood and treasure, is it not amazing in the highest degree, that Mr. Greeley, in the face of the facts of the last four years only, should now repeat to us the Principles of American Independence as his creed? Have not the Constitutions of ten States, as made and adopted by the People thereof, founded on such principles and organized in such form as seemed to them most likely to effect their safety and happiness, been swept from existence by military edict? Have not the People in these ten States, including the arbitrarily enfranchised Blacks, been denied the right to form new Constitutions "laying their foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness?" Have they not been required and literally compelled to form such Constitutions as seemed most likely to effect the safety and security of the dominant faction at Washington?

Is this holding up to our gaze these immutable and ever-to be-reverenced Principles of the Declaration of Independence, at this time and under the present circumstances, intended only as mockery added to insult, injury, and outrage!

Liberty Hall, Crawfordville, Ga., 5th April, 1870.

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

CONSTITUTIONAL VIEW OF THE WAR.

COLLOQUY XIII.

BRIEF RECAPITULATION OF THE ARGUMENT-SOVEREIGNTY AND PARAMOUNT AUTHORITY DISCUSSED BY MR. STEPHENS AND PROF. NORTON-SOVEREIGNTY NOT DIVISIBLE BUT SOVEREIGN POWERS ARE-THE WAR SPRUNG FROM A CONFLICT OF PRINCIPLES-SLAVERY OR LEGAL-SUBORDINATION OF THE BLACK RACE THE IMMEDIATE AND EXCITING QUESTION WHICH BROUGHT THE PRINCIPLES IN CONFLICT-SLAVERY AS IT EXISTED AT THE SOUTH CONSIDERED-WHICH SIDE INAUGURATED THE WAR DISCUSSED BY MR. STEPHENS AND JUDGE BYNUM-WAR NOT THE OBJECT OF THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES-FALL OF FORT SUMTER-SOUTH CAROLINA AS A SOVEREIGN STATE HAD A RIGHT TO DEMAND ITS POSSESSION-BREACH OF FAITH BY NORTHERN CONFEDERATES—EVIDENCE DEMANDED BY MAJOR HEISTER-PROOFS ADDUCED-SOUTHERN STATES EVER TRUE TO THE CONSTITUTION-WHICH SIDE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR DISCUSSED.

MR. STEPHENS. We have now, gentlemen, gone through with the preliminary questions; we have taken that historical review, which was necessary and essential for a correct understanding of the nature and character of the Government of the United States, from a violation of the organic principles of which, as I stated in the outset, the war had its origin. We have seen from this review that ours is a Federal Government. In other words, we have seen that it is a Government formed by a Convention, a Foedus, or Compact between distinct, separate, and Sovereign States. We have seen that this Federal or Conventional Government, so formed, possesses inherently no power whatever. All its powers are held by delegation

only, and by delegation from separate States. These powers are all enumerated and all limited to specific objects in the Constitution. Even the highest Sovereign Power it is permitted to exercise-the war power, for instance is held by it by delegation only. Sovereignty itself the great source of all political power-under the system, still resides where it did before the Compact was entered into, that is, in the States severally, or with the people of the several States respectively. By the Compact, the Sovereign Powers to be exercised by the Federal Head were not surrendered by the States-were not alienated or parted with by them. They were delegated only. The States by voluntary engagements, agreed only to abstain from their exercise themselves, and to confer this exercise by delegation upon common agents under the Convention, for the better security of the great objects aimed at by the formation of the Compact, which was the regulation of their external and inter-State affairs.

Our system, taken altogether, we have seen, is a peculiar one. The world never saw its like before. It has no prototype in any of all the previous Confederations, or Federal Republics, of which we have any account. It is neither a "Staaten-bund" exactly, nor a "Bundesstaat," according to the classification of Federal Republics by the German Publicists. It differs from their "Staatenbund" in this, that the powers to be exercised by the Federal Head are divided into three departments, the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive, with a perfectly organized machinery for the execution of these powers within its limited sphere, and for the specific objects named, upon citizens of the several States without the intermediate act or sanction of the several States. In the "Staaten-bund," or "States' Confederation," accord