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false exaggeration find kindred expressions all through this speech? Is this the true characteristic of a great statesman? Can a statesman be truly great without being just and true?

On the contrary did not the spreading of the slave population into the territories tend to limiting the number of slaves Did not all, except Lincoln, know that if these territories, on entering the Union as States, should adopt anti-slave Constitutions it would free all the Slaves within their borders, just as it did in the case of Massachusetts ? Would not this diminish the number of slavese? We have here another conspicuous illustration of that character of "evidence so conclusive and argument so clear that even the Fathers' great authority, when fairly considered and weighed cnanot stand."

"We can yet let it alone where it is" had its own peculiar and emphatic meaning for the South, and carried its own admonition to that section, so favored by the Constitution and so loyal to that instrument. What other construction could be put on it than this: We will now prohibit slavery from entering the territories, and when the yet-time shall have come, we will then exclude it from the States as well? Had not Seward already said "we will invade your States?" With more than a million of men known to have endorsed these rabid sentiments had the South no cause for alarm? Will the brave veterans of the North declare to the contrary? Will they declare these words of Lincoln do not also bear testimony that Lincoln was assailing the Supreme Court's decision under the guise of "the wrong of slavery?"

We have now discussed this speech sufficiently to determine its true character. If the reader is astonished at its exaggerations, extravagancies, absurdities, and its abuse of the Supreme Court, so is the writer. It is a sad thought that one's exalted opinion of a fellowman should be thus discounted. No friend of Lincoln defends this speech from the standpoint of the Constitution. It is not less a surprise for its want of fact than for its exalted self-laudations;-not less a surprise for its absurd basis of proof that a majority of the 39 signers of the Constitution did "disclose their real sentiments" in the Convention and

in signing the Constitution, than for its very extraordinary claim as to the conclusiveness of the evidence and the clearness of the argument; not less a surprise at the character of this speech than at its wonderful influence on the audience, and on a very large percent of the Northern people. To them "the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart"— for the South and for the Supreme Court.

That a political party could rightfully overrule a decision of the Supreme Court was a most dangerous theory. It is fortunate that it did not survive the war it inaugurated. Had it become an established principle of this Government it would have virtually abolished the Supreme Court, one of the three fundamental departments of the Government.

Ten years earlier than this speceh there was another delivered in strong contrast to this. This time it was delivered in the hall of the United States Senate. The speaker was a Southern man, and no less than the great South Carolinian, John C. Calhoun, one of the "immortal trio." Earnestly desirous of averting the danger of disunion, so imminent because of the policy of a few Northern agitators, he asked and answered this question: "How Can the Union Be Saved?"

His answer was: "There is but one way by which it can be with any certainty; and that is by a full and final settlement, on the principles of justice of all the questions at issue between the sections. The South asks for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not to take. She has no compromise to offer but the Constitution, and no concessions or surrenders to

make.

"Can this be done? Yes, easily! Not by the weaker party; for it can of itself do nothing-not even protect itself-but by the stronger...... But will the North agree to this? It is for her to answer the question. But I will say she can not refuse if she has half the love of the Union which she professes to have, nor without exposing herself to the charge that her love of power and aggrandizement is far greater than her love for the Union." Was Calhoun a rebel when he said, "The South asks for justice-simple justice?" If not, was he in rebellion when he fin

ished the sentence with these words: "Less she ought not to take." If not yet in rebellion was he when he said, "She has no compromise to offer but the Constitution," the common pledge of all the States, the one instrument by which all the States had sworn to be governed? construed by himself? meaning, including the construed.

Did Calhoun mean the Constitution as He meant the Constitution with its full Supreme Court, by which it was to be

If the demands of the South did not constitute her in rebellion in 1850, how could the same demands declare her in rebellion in 1860? What political party, what State, what Section had any right to reject the Constitution as a basis of compromise? Was there a party, a State or Section that did not profess to love and revere the Constitution? Yet the South, in 1860, for demanding her rights-her simple rights-under the Constitution, to be determined according to the provisions of that instrument, was declared to be disunionists, traitors and rebels; and was so published to the world, while the party that denounced the Supreme Court's decision, and, therefore, the Supreme Court itself, was declared to be the only loyal and patriotic defenders of the Constitution they had openly and boldly defied.

WHAT THE SOUTH DEMANDED IN THE

SIXTIES.

All her demands were in one word-the Constitution with its All her declarations, guaranties, this, no more and no less. public or private, and all her acts, legislative or otherwise, atAll history is challenged for test the truth of this declaration. If in demanding the Constia contradiction of this statement. tution the South erred, she erred with the Supreme Court and all the States of the Union up to 1861. If, therefore, she was a rebel so was the Supreme Court; so were all the other States, North as well as South. We have said, and said truly,-to assail a part of the Constitution is to attack it all.

What construction of the Constitution by the South and by the Supreme Court resulted in so much trouble in the Sixties? Simply this: That the States were equal under the Constitution, and therefore had equal rights in the territories which belonged to all alike. It was this Construction of the Constitution that This is one of the established facts of inaugurated the war. history. It lifts the blame for that great war from the shoulders of the South.

As the utterances of the leaders on both sides have much to do in determining this question we have given, in previous chapters, Lincoln's views as contained in his celebrated Cooper Institute Speech; and shall now procede to present the South's views from one or more of her truly representative statesmen. That we may be absolutely just we select a speech delivered in the United States Senate, by one recognized throughout the entire North as one of the most extreme, if not the extremest. If the demands of this of all the South's representatives. Southern extremist were moderate and limited to the Constitution, may we not in fairness, at the least, conclude that the prevailing sentiment of the South was characterized by the same. We refer to the speech of the celebrated virtue of moderation? Robert Toombs of Georgia, delivered in the United States

Senate on the 7th of January 1861, more than two weeks after South Carolina had passed her ordinance of secession, and more than eleven months after Lincoln's Cooper Institute Speech. Two days before this speech was delivered it had been falsely charged that "the slavery oligarchy" had formed a conspiracy to withdraw from the Federal Union. It was the hour, therefore, of excitement, passion an antagonism. Yet if in all this speech Mr. Toombs uttered a disloyal sentiment the writer has been unable to find it. If it be charged that the writer is a Confederate veteran and therefore biased, he is bold to say all the research by historians, North and South, has been unable to disclose it. If the researches of a half century, made by friends and foes, can not reveal a disloyal sentiment there must be none.

Mr. Toombs said: "Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new government; they have demanded no new Constitution. Look to their record at home and here from the beginning of this strife until its consummation in the disruption of the Union; and they have not demanded a single thing except that you shall abide by the Constitution of the United States, that their constitutional rights shall be respected, and that jusice shall be done."

"My countrymen have demanded no new government, no new constitution," are not the words of a traitor. "They have not demanded a single thing except that you shall abide by the Constitution of the United States," are not the words of a rebel. "They demand that their constitutional rights shall be respected and that justice shall be done" are antipodal to treason. The South did but ask that the North be true to her plighted faith as given in the Constitution of the States, and for simple justice. Could she have asked for loss? These every individual, however humble, and every State and every Government have a right to demand, and in demanding them they have a right to be exempt from rebuke or reproach.

"Look to their record at home and here from the beginning of this strife until its consummation in the disruption of the Union" is both a challenge and an implied charge;—a challenge as to the integrity of the conduct of the South, and an implied

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