testify that Virginia had the right in 1788 to ratify the Constitution and did it with the consent of all the other States; and that the right to enact involves the right to repeal.

This is an undisputed and undisputable proposition. Therefore, aside from her expressed condition on entering the Union, Virginia has the absolute right to resume and exercise the powers delegated to the common agent of the States."

It is now evident that the seceding States did not violate "the Constitution and laws." It is also evident that Mr. Lincoln either ignorantly or knowingly violated "the Constitution and laws." If he ignorantly violated them he is inexcusable. If he knowingly violated them he is doubly culpable. Even Mr. Adams' fatalism cannot excuse him. For if fatalism controlled the destiny of Lincoln, it controls the destiny of all of us; and we know there is such a thing as responsibility and responsibility means free will action.

We all know that Mr. Lincoln did not make known the clause and section and article of the Constitution investing him with the power to call forth "the militia of the several States" to invade other States. It is also well known that no defender of Lincoln's conduct, however ardent he may be, has placed his finger upon such a clause and such a section in the Constitution. It is therefore mathematically conclusive that no such clause is to be found in the Constitution. If no such clause can be found in the Constitution what was his act but revolutionary?

There is another item in President Lincoln's proclamation which shows that he was either supremely ignorant of the magnitude of the task Before him, or that he was deeply conscious that the North was not yet sufficiently unified to follow where he was leading. We refer to the fact that only seventy-five thousand men, were called out, and these for only three months. Compare this handful of men to the millions that marched to the field of blood; compare the three short months to the more than four long eventful years of terrible war. When you have done this tell us, do you attribute it to his ignorance of the magnitude of the task? This perhaps would somewhat ameliorate the crime of causing enough men to fall in battle to make a line of single file more than four hundred miles long, or a line of graves

each in touch with the other more than one-third the distance around the world.

Perhaps he comprehended the magnitude of the task, and was thoroughly convinced that the North was not yet ready to second such a hazardous undertaking. If so, may he not have reasoned thus: When troops are once in the field and war has actually begun the war spirit will be aflame, and the number can be increased indefinitely?

The secession of Virginia, on the 17th of April was followed by that of North Carolina on the 2nd day of May, Arkansas on the 6th of May, and Tennessee on the 8th of June. Thus Lincoln by this first call for troops forced four other States out of the Union, and then declared them in rebellion. These States were driven to the necessity of choosing between secession and taking up arms against their countrymen for exercising a right which neither they nor their countrymen had ever doubted to be their Constitutional privilege.

On the 4th of July, 1861. Mr. Lincoln in his message to Congress convened in extra session, said:

"It is thus seen that the assault upon the reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon them. They knew they were expressly notified-that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would, on that occasion, be attempted unless by resisting so much, should provoke more."

Who can read this message and not know that every word was intended to inflame the North. "They knew" indeed. Yes, they knew just as they knew "Faith fully kept. Wait and see." "They were expressly notified" indeed. Yes, "they were expressly notified," just as they were that "Fort Sumter would be evacuated before a letter could go" to Montgomery. Had they not been told by Mr. Lincoln this and that more than a dozen times in less than a month, and more than a dozen times deceived? If now Mr. Lincoln was not believed whose fault was it? This was an official disguise of fact intended for the North.

If Mr. Lincoln contemplated conciliatory measures, as he intimates in this message, why did he not relieve the hunger of those brave men on a conciliatory basis, by evacuating the fort as he published to the world, on the 14th of March, he would do? If those brave men were really hungry who but Lincoln and his advisers were to blame? These men were kept in that fort against the advice of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, against the judgment of Lincoln's wisest counselors, and against the earnest protest of the Commander of the garrison. Who was at fault?

"The assault upon and the reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants"— another disguise of fact to inflame the North.

Capt. Fox in his report flatly contradicts Mr. Lincoln when he informs us that the Commander of the Pawnee refused, without orders from a superior officer, to enter the Charleston harbor to inaugurate war." That means that Capt. Fox had "confidential orders" to enter that harbor. And confidential orders meant secret orders. But it is known this commander refused to obey an inferior officer on the ground that it meant the inauguration of war.

Horace, Greely also flatly contradicts Mr. Lincoln. His testimony, like that of Capt. Fox, is of the very strongest kind. All know him to have been an extreme partisan and a warm and generous supporter of Mr. Lincoln for President. Mr. Greely says "Whether the bombardment and reduction of Fort Sumter shall or shall not be justified by posterity it is clear that the Confederacy had no alternative but its own destruction."

Mr. Thorpe and other high Northern authorities are responsible for the statement that Mr. Lincoln on the 28th of March 1861, definitely decided to coerce the South, and immediately "issued confidential orders." Yet Mr. Lincoln gravely and officially tells the world "the assault upon and the reduction of Fort Sumter was not in self-defense.'

Lincoln pretended that his acts were sustained by the Constitution. It was pretense and nothing more. This is so evident that he stands "solitary and alone" in claiming the Consti

tution as his support. No creditable historian has dared to defend him on Constitutional grounds. Hence Francis Newton Thorpe, Chas. Francis Adams, John W. Draper, M. D., LL D. of the University of New York, and others of equal rank, have sought to defend Mr. Lincoln by other means. They know that the Constitution stands an eternal witness in testimony against him.

In another connection we have already quoted Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Adams as witnesses on this point. We therefore, for the present, content ourselves with the testimony of the scholarly Dr. Draper, as given by him in his "The Civil War in America," page 25; "There is a political force in ideas which silently renders protestations, provisions and guarantees, no matter in what faith they have been given, of no avail, and which makes Constitutions obsolete. Against the uncontrolable growth of the anti-slavery idea the South was forced to contend."

We have italicized these words of Dr. Draper to stress their significance He boldly asserts that the Amercian Constitution was rendered "obsolete" by the force of "the anti-slavery idea" in the Sixties. If rendered obsolete was it not by usurpation? In spite of all "force of ideas could it be anything else but usurpation?" If usurpation, was it less than treason Could it be possible to render the Supreme law of any land obsolete by the mere "force of ideas" and it not be treason? If treason, by what right did that treason cloak itself officially in the garb of the Constitution and strut before the world as the bona fide Constitution itself?

Treason is doubly treason when it turns saint and personifies the Supreme law. Treason is doubly treason, when clothed in the robes of State and seated on the throne of power, it curses, condemns and murders the friends of the Constitution who still believe that Supreme law is yet in force.

If the Constitution, in the Sixties, was rendered obsolete by "the force of ideas" or in any other way, why was it not known? Why was it not so proclaimed? On the contrary, the Constitution was declared to be of force. If of force it was not obsolete. If not obsolete no logic can make its violation anything other than treason.

Observe how emphatic, how strong, how sweeping is this assertion: "No matter in what faith they may have been given." The special attention of the impartial historian is called to these remarkable words of Dr. Draper. It is the North's best defence. It is their only defence. Two great sections of a common country had sworn, of their own free choice, eternal fidelity to a common Constitution. The weaker of the two sections was earnestly and self-sacrificingly faithful to its oath, even unto death. The stronger of the two, assuming to be justified by "the force of ideas," declared that Constitution to be annulled, "obsolete," and yet in its sacred name asserted that the weaker, or Constitutionabiding section had outraged it, and were "conspirators," "traitors" and "rebels." Were ever wrongs more wrong than this? Will not an impartial future do this noble, this brave, this Constitutional weaker section full justice?

Note again that Dr. Draper says, "Against the uncontrollable growth of the anti-slavery idea the South was forced to contend." If "forced to contend" how could she be the aggressor? If not the aggressor how could she be responsible for the war, and the rain of tears and the rivers of blood shed in that war? The time is near at hand when the South will stand exhonorated and vindicated before the bar of the world. When this shall have been done her praises will not be limited to a half, or even a full century, but they will endure the full circle of time and "the eternal years" shall be hers.

ABSOLUTISM.

unconstitutional

unconstitutional

An unconstitutional platform called for an unconstitutional policy; an unconstitutional policy for an coercion; an unconstitutional coercion for an war and an unconstitutional war for an unconstitutional Despotism-Absolutism. Neither Turkish, nor Persian, nor Russian, nor any other despot exercised mcre absolute authority than did Lincoln during THE CIVIL WAR. Authority, uncontrolled and unlimited by either men, or Constitution, or law, was enforced by him at will.

For 73 years of this American Republic of independent States the three equal and all-important Departments of Government