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deprived by any action of Congress, because that body has not been vested with power to give our consent to any such modification of the relations between the Federal Government and the people of any State. Such modifications can only be made by an amendment of the Constitution in the manner provided for that purpose in the instrument itself.

THE FUTURE to which the nation stands committed by the instrument which alone legalizes the war, is therefore the restoration of the States and the people of the South to their former position in the Union, and that the former political rights and privileges of all the individuals within the seceded States shall remain intact, except so far as they may be affected through the regular operation of the ordinary courts of justice. I will now consider the manner in which we reaffirmed that pledge, and the circumstances which attended its reaffirmation.

CHAPTER IV.

The Theory upon which we entered into the War-The Assurances respecting its Object and Termination which were given to Foreign Nations-The Adoption of the Crittenden Resolution-Its Obligatory Character as a National Pledge.

WHEN this war broke out, it is not probable that one in fifty of the American people would have hesitated to announce his perfect concurrence in all the sentiments expressed in the two preceding chapters, and to ridicule the idea that the war would result in the slightest interference with the constitutional sovereignty of the southern States and the political independence of the southern people.

The Administration and its party, and a very large number of the opposition, were firmly persuaded that outside of South Carolina, the condition of the South in 1861 was very similar to the condition of England in 1688. It was well known that a very considerable portion of the southern people did not consider Mr. Lincoln's election a sufficient cause for secession: that in every State except South Carolina, the Union party was not overpowered without a severe struggle: that in several of the States a majority of the delegates to

the convention were elected as unionists: that in one of them the ordinance of secession was rejected by the people and then subsequently adopted by the convention: and that of the four border States which seceded after the outbreak of hostilities, in only two was the ordinance submitted to the people. In those two (Tennessee and Virginia) the State authorities had, in advance of the popular vote, assumed to form an alliance with the Southern Confederacy, introduced the armies of the latter into the territory of the State, and raised large forces of State troops for the confederate side of the war. Hence, although in Tennessee there was a majority of 57,675, and in Virginią a majority of 105,577 in favor of secession, it was argued that there had been no fair election, and that the expression of the popular will had been prevented in those States by the presence of the confederate soldiery, as it had been in other States by the treachery, timidity or venality of the members of the conventions.

The bulk of the northern people firmly believed that throughout the whole South a system of bribery and threats had been employed upon the members of the State conventions by desperate men, eager to convulse the country with civil war, in order to realize their own schemes of power and dominion; and that by such means the conventions had been induced to adopt the ordinance of

secession contrary to the known wishes of the people.

It was also believed that the executive and legislative departments of the southern States had fallen into the hands of unprincipled men, who, having obtained power, partly by misrepresentations of their own intentions, and partly by artful appeals to the prejudices, passions and interests of their constituents, had first abused the confidence and outraged the loyalty of their people by assuming with the assistance of the conventions, to precipitate the States into rebellion, and had then suppressed the indignant and active repudiation of their conduct on the part of their betrayed constituents, which would otherwise have followed, by crushing the whole country under the iron heel of a military despotism. Hence it was said that in every hamlet of the South, aching hearts were looking eagerly for that army of northern deliverers which was to rescue the people from a hated bondage; and that as soon as the national flag should be displayed, supported by a sufficient force to form the nucleus of an organization, hundreds and thousands of fighting men of the soil would array themselves under the protection of its folds, break the military power of their oppressors, inflict condign punishment upon the leading traitors, and bring the great body of their deluded followers back to their allegiance, by exposing the frauds and deceptions by which the

latter had been seduced into the infamy and folly of rebellion.

My readers' recollection will bear me out, I think, in this statement of the opinions and expectations of the northern people, without incumbering these pages.with extracts from speeches, newspapers and public documents. I shall content myself with a short quotation from one document, which, from the exalted position of its author, and the gravity of the occasion which called it forth, merits a peculiar distinction. It is from the message of President Lincoln to the extra session of the thirtyseventh Congress, held in July, 1861. Considering the caution with which a document of this kind would naturally be framed, the extract which follows may be regarded as an epitome of all the hopes, expectations, opinions and theories which I have stated more in detail :

"It may be well questioned whether there is today a majority of the legally qualified voters of any State, except perhaps South Carolina, in favor of disunion. There is much reason to believe that the Union men are the majority in many, if not in every other one of the so-called seceded States. The contrary has not been demonstrated in any one of them. It is ventured to affirm this even of Virginia and Tennessee; for the result of an election held in military camps, where the bayonets are all on one side of the question to be voted upon, can

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