Richardson's defense of the South

Front matter

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Preface

The writer makes no apology for issuing this volume. Its prime object is to refute the atrocious accusations against the South before, during and after the war ; and to do this within such a limited space as will be adapted to the wants of the general reader.

We have written this book in the spare moments of a busy life. It has required about three years to accomplish our task. During that time ou rresearches have been extensive and thorough. We challenge an investigation of the facts upon which our conclusions are based. They are incontrovertible.

Before the war, we were most bitterly and world-widely denounced because of the institution of slavery, for which both sections were equally responsible.

During the war, we were officially, and otherwise, denounced as traitors to our common country, and as rebels against the plan of the Constitution we had sworn to obey ; and this, too, by those who had declared this same Constitution, "A Compact with Death and a league with Hell."

After the war, we were still called rebels and traitors. As late as July 12, 1911, Senator Heyburn, of Idaho, in the United States Senate, denounced our cause as "infamous." When rebuked by John Sharp Williams, he asked, "Well, was it a glorious cause?" .We propose to enlighten this benighted Westerner and others, and to prove that it was a glorious cau^-e.

If in this volume any expressions seem harsh and bitter let it not be attributed to any lingering animosity on the part of the author, but to the facts that falsely proclaimed him a traitor. Let it not be attributed to the passing of slavery, for, as we have shown in the proper place, that this institution \>rouId have been abolished without the war ; and, besides, eighty per cent of the Southern soldiers did not own slaves. Nor let it be attributed to the failure of the Confederacy, but to the base misrepresentations and vituperations heaped on the people of the South. The home of secession was not in the South, but in the North, in the midst of the enemies of the Constitution, the anti-slavery agitators of the North. It was there the abusers of the South and the Constitution Hved, and there they multiplied till they were sufficiently strong to disregard both the demands of the Constitution and the rights of the South.

We, therefore, ask that all our words which are seemingly severe be regarded in the light of the facts. If still It is believed they are too severe, write them by the side of the words of James G. Blaine, found in this volume (Chap. XXXIX) and if they prove to be one-tenth as cruel and unauthorized as the words of "the plumed knight," our apologies are already made.

Just one other word here; every true Southern veteran is an American citizen of the truest type, as loyal as the loyalest, as willing to imperil his life in the interests or defense of the common country, as the most patriotic son of any section of this great American Republic. But they zvill never confess that their cause zcas not that of the fathers — that of the common Constitution of the American States forming the American Union.

They believe that their unparalleled devotion to the American Constitution has a tendency to enshrine it in the American heart as never before ; and to give it a place of security unknown before their great sacrifice for its principles. If constitutional government is to be preserved unimpaired for the coming generations, it must be, and it zvill he through the conservative spirit of the South.

The Author.

Table Of Contents

I.— The Part Played by the South in Establishing American Independence 17

II. — The Institution of Slavery 33

III. — The Two Compacts, The Two Federations 53

Introduction

In these pages it is assumed that all arguments not based on the Constitution are irrelevant.

In discussing questions of right under the Constitution we necessarily deal with fact\s, authorities, Legislatures, Conventions, and the Constitution itself.

1787. — The Government itself, in its very formation, declared the right of secession, in expressed terms of the Constitution, by granting the right of nine States to secede from the former Union, zvhich was declared to be "perpetual."

1788. — The Federalist, in answer to questions, often declared that the proposed Constitution required "the States to be distinct and independent sovereignties."

1790. — Hamilton," as Secretary of the Treasury, under Washington, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "Unless the Bill for the Assumption of the State Debts be passed there will be a separation of the States." He regarded the right of secession as an indisputable fact; and this at the time of the first administration of the Government.

1799. — During the next administration the Assembly of Virginia passed a set of resolutions, and sent them to all the States. The following six States replied, endorsing them : New Hampshire (Webster's native State), New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Massachusetts, Webster's adopted State. These resolutions declare, not less than four times, that the Constitution is a Compact between the States. They are in part as follows : "That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare that in view of the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the Compact, to which the States are Parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument, constituting the Compact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that Compact', and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said Compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities, rights and liberties appertaning to them.

"That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret that a spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the Federal Government to enlarge its pozvcrs by forced constructions of the Constitutional Charter, which defines them; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound certain phrases (which having been copied from the very limited grant of powers in the former Articles of Confederation were the less liable to be misunderstood) , so as to destroy the meaning and efifect of the particular enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases, and so as to consolidate the States, by degrees, into one Sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable result of which would be, to transform the present Republican System of the United States into an absolute, or, at least, a mixed Monarchy." (Works of Hamilton, Vol. 6, page 530).

These are the resolutions of seven States at a time when the meaning of the Constitution was not debatable.

1799. — New Hampshire, revising her Constitution, copied from that of Massachusetts these words: "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence."

1803. — Judge Tucker, Professor of Law in the William and Mary University in Virginia, a jurist and publicist of acknowledged ability, a strong Union man and a distinguished patriot, said, in the Appendix to his edition of Blackstone's Commentary : "The Federal Government, then, appears to be the organ through which the United Republics communicate with foreign nations and with each other. Their submission to its operations is voluniary; and its councils, its engagements, its authority, are theirs, modified and united. Its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame in which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which thev have been szvallowed up. Each is still a perfect State, still a Sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent."

1814. — It is universally conceded by reputable historians that the New Endand States would have seceded in 1814 had not the war with England terminated when it did. (Portland, Oregonian, 1902).

1824. — William Rawle, an eminent jurist of Pennsylvania, U. S. District Attorney under Washington, and, by Washington offered the Attorney Generalship of the United States, wrote "Razvle's Viezv of the Constitution'' a celebrated work, adopted as a text-book at West Point. In this work Mr. Rawle says, "The Union is an association of the people of Republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those Republics. The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and the best, is not essential to the being of a Republic : but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved ; and, therefore, the guarantee must be so construed. Tt depends on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation ; because it depends on itself zvhether it unll continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principles on whch all our political systems are founded : which is that the people have, in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed ; a right ingredient in the original composition of the Government ; which though not expressly avowed, was mutuallv understood.

"As to the remaining States, among themselves, there is no opening for doubt. Secession may reduce them to the smallest integer admitting combination. They would remain united under the same principles, and regulations, among themselves, that now apply to the whole. For a State cannot be compelled to withdraw from the Union, and, therefore, if two or more States determine to remain united, although all the others desert them, nothing can be discovered in the Constitution to prevent it."

1830.. — In the United States Senate, speaking on the Foote Resolutions, Daniel Webster said: "// (Constitution) is the original bargain — the Compact — let it stand — let the advantage of it be fidly enjoyed. The Union is itself too full of benefits to be hazarded in propositions for changing its original basis. I go for the Constitution as it is. But I am resolved not to submit in silence to accusations which impute to us (the North) a disposition to evade the Constitutional Compact." Note the fact that Webster here calls the Constitution "the Compact" and "the Constit/utional Compact."

1833. — In the Senate of the United States, speaking on Calhoun's Resolution, Daniel Webster said of the Constitution : "If contract, it rests on plighted faith, and the mode of redress would be to declare the whole void. States may secede, if a League or Compact." It is true, in this speech, he denied that the Constitution is a compact, saying-, "The Constitution means a Government, not a Compact, flatly contradicting the Webster of three years ago, contradicting the the ratifying ordinances of his native State and adopted State, contradicting Washington, Hamilton, JeflFerson and every other authoritative expounder of the Constitution. But he admits in this speech all that the South demanded in the Sixties, viz : "States may secede, if a League or Compact."

1834. — Judge Story issued his celebrated work, "Story on the Constitution," in which he made a great eflfort to prove that the Government of the Unitd Stats is a "National Government proper, not Federal. In this work he is frank to admit the right of secession, if the Constitution is a Compact between the States, thus fully agreeing with Daniel Webster of 1833. In commenting on Judge Tucker's Commentary on the Constitution, he says: "The obznons deductions, which may be, and indeed have been drawn, from considering the Constitution as a Compact between the States, are that it operates as a mere treaty, or convention between them, and has an obligatory force upon each State no longer than it suits its pleasure, or its consent continues ; that each State has a right to judge for itself in relation to the nature, extent and obligations of the instrument , without being at all bound by the interpretation of the Federal Government, or by that of any other State; and that each State retains the power to zvithdraw from the Confederacy, and to dissolve its connection, when such shall be its choice; and may suspend the operations of the Federal Government, and nullify its acts within its own territorial limits, whenever, in its own opinion, the exergency of the case may require. These conclusions may not always be avowed; but they flozv naturally from the doctrines which zve have under consideration. They go to the extent of reducing the Government to a mere Confederacy." (Story on the Constitution, Vol. 1, Book 3, Sec. 321).

Thus Judge Story is compelled to admit that if the Constitution is a Compact the right of Secession is "an obvious deduction" ; that it admits of no doubt. It is known that Lincoln called it a Compact. Therefore, according to Story and Webster, he violated "an obvious deduction of the Constitution."

1844. — When the admission of Texas was a question, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed the following resolution :

"That the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the threshold, may drive these States into a dissolution of the Union." Massachusetts still believed that the Con.<:titution 7vas a Compact up to sixteen years before the election of Lincoln ; and that Massachusetts could be driven into secession.

1845.— On the 22nd day of February, 1845, the Legislature of the same State (Massachusetts), resolved:

"As the powers of Legislation granted in the Constitution of the United States to Congress, do not embrace the case of admission of a foreign State, or foreign Territory, by Legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts." (Lunt's History of the Origin of the War, pp 467-S).

These resolutions were discussed in Congress, and no man raised his voice against them on the ground that they were unconstitutional. Besides, Nile's Register contained six leading editorials on these resolutions, but while condemning them, the editor did not question their constitutionality. Thus fifteen years before the War New England and the Country at large did not question the right of secession.

1848. — Abraham Lincoln, in the House of Representatives, said: "Any people anywhere have the tight to rise up and throw olf the existing Government, and establish one that suits them better. This is a most valuable right; — a right we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing Government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionise, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people tnay revolutionise, putting down a minority, intermingled zvith, or near about them, who niav oppose their movements. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws, but to break up both and make nezv ones."

This very strong secession speech zvas inude just thirteen rears before the war,

1855. — On the 23rd day of F'ebruary, 1855, Senator Wade from Ohio, said, in the United States Senate: "Who is to judge, in the last resort, of the violation of the Constitution of the United States by the enactment of a law? Who is the final arbiter? The General Government or the States in their Sovereignty f Why, SHr, to yield that point is to yield up all the rights of the States to protect their own citizens, and to consolidate the Government into a miserable despotism. I tell you, sir, whatever you may think of it, if this bill pass, collisions will arise between the Federal and the State jurisdictions, — conflicts in which the States will never yield ; for the more you undertake to lead them with acts like this the greater will be their resistance.

"I said there were States in this Union whose highest tribvmals had adjudged that bill to be unconstitutional, and that I was one of those who believed it unconstitutional ; and that under the old resolutions of 1798 and 1799, a State must not only be the judge of that, but of the remedy in such a case." This was only five years before the war. It was at this time the judgment of all the courts. Yet Lincoln declared in 1861 that the Federal Government was the judge in such cases ; and that he was the Government.

18G0.— On the 24th day of May, 1860, the Senate of the United States passed, by a vote of 36 to 19, a set of resolutions, introduced by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, the first of which reads as follows :

"That in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the States adopting the same, acted severally as free and independent Sovereignties, delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by the Federal Government for the increased security of each against dangers, domestic as well as foreign ; and that any mtermeddling of any one or more States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions of others, on any pretext whatever ^ political, moral, or religious, with a view to their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, insulting- to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquility — objects for which the Constitution was formed — and, by necessary consequences, tends to weaken and destroy the Union itself." Twenty States voted for this resolution. One State divided its vote. Four voted against it ,and eight refused to vote. The States refusing to vote ivere of the numbers that had nulliiied the Fugitive Slave Lazv. And this was the very year before the war — less than a year before the inauguration of Lincoln.

Thus we have an unbroken chain of evidence from the time the Constitution was framed to the inaugural address of President Lincoln that each State was an "independent Sovereignty," and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent." All the evidence we have given is based, principally, on the fact that the Constitution is a Compact betzveen the States. That it was a Compact is sufficiently shown by the evidence produced in this introduction. No eminent jurist ever denied it till 182fi, when Chancellor Kent's Commentaries appeared : and he makes no argument based on the Constitution, but simply deals in bare assertions.

The Constitution itself says,

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form of Government : and shall protect each of them against invasion and domestic violence."

This is the language of a Master, or a Lord, to his servant. Mark the words, "shall protect." They are compulsory. The servant has no choice except to obey. To refuse is disloyalty — rebellion. The United States themselves zvere no exception. What then shall be said of the invasion of the Southern States of this Union by the Federal Government? Can the Government justify itself on the ground that these States had actually seceded? Did not that Government assert to the contrary? If, then, from the standpoint of the Federal Government, these States were still in the Union, how could that Government invade them without violating the Constitution? May we not ask if

Booth's bullet did not do more to establish Lincoln in the affection of the ,s:reat American heart than did his loyalty to the Constitution ?

Forty Years After the War, the "American Crisis Biographies" was written. In its preface are words like these: "The Civil War will not be treated as a rebellion, but as the great event in the history of our Nation, which after forty years it is now recognised to ha^r been."

1914. — Today Robert E. Lee, the great military leader of the Southern cause, is in the Hall of Fame — placed there by the Federal Government. Thus the Government itself, in less than a half century after the war, has declared that the cause of the South was not the cause of rebels, but of patriots, true to the Constitution of the Union and all its sacred pledges.

If Lincoln Had Failed where would be his honors today? Does success in violating a Nation's Constitution merit imperishable honors? The glare of success amid the shouts of triumph may conceal, for a time, the wrongs of a violated Constitution, but not forever. Would he not have used the same means in either case? Has unconstitutional success any real merit greater than unconstitutional failure^

If Lincoln Had Survived the War with what difficulties would he have been confronted? Deprived of the sympathy his assassination brought him from all civilization, including the South, he would have heard in the halls of Congress the cry from the lips of Thaddeus Stevens and his followers, "there is no longer any Constitution." He would have been called upon to justify, on a Constitutional bases, a policy that sacrificed eight billions of property, and, approximately, one million of patriotic lives. Could he have done it, and been the recipient of the honors now bestowed on his name?

Chapter I. The Part Played By The South In

ESTABLISHING AMERICAN

INDEPENDENCE.

The South sounded the first note that fired the Colonial heart and pointed the way to independence. It was in 1764 in the House of the Burgesses of Virginia. The man who sounded that note was no other than the eloquent orator in homespun clothes, known simply as Patrick Henry. That speech immortalized him and the occasion. Thomas Jefiferson is the high authority that "Mr. Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the ball of the Revolution."

The correctness of this position is easily established. At the same time the facts present a most interesting chapter in the history of the American Colonies. It was in March 1764 when the British Parliament passed resolutions preparatory to levying a revenue on the colonies by a stamp act. The passage of these resolutions was communicated to the House of Burgesses of Virginia by the colonial agent. After mature consideration a committee was appointed to prepare "an address to the King, a memorial to the Lords, and a remonstrance to the House of Commons." On the 18th day of December 1764 this committee made its report which was amended and then concurred in. They were firm, clear and strong in declaring the Constitutional exemption of the Colonies from taxation. Yet the tone was that of the suppliant, and the picture it drew was that of anticipated suffering. It thus indicated no opposition beyond remonstrance.

In January 1765, the famous Stamp Act was passed, to be effective the next November. The act was regarded as a great wrong from one extremity of the Colonies to the other, yet no sign of resistance was manifest. Both the press and the people seemed disposed to submit as the only alternative. The Pennsylvania Gazette on the 30th of M^y, 1765, said, "We hear the sum of money arising from the new stamp duties in North America, for the first five years, is chiefly to be applied towards making commodious post-roads from one province to another, erecting bridges where necessary, and other measures equally important to facilitate an extension trade" — the tone of conciliation and submission.

All was confusion. What to hope, what to fear, what to be done were questions on every lip. Some entertained faint hopes that a united remonstrance from all the colonies would induce England to change her policy. But these were comparatively few. Many considered submission unavoidable. The idea oi resistance by force seemed to have had no advocates. No heart seemed bold enough to conceive it. The most intrepid now skulked, yet it was an unwilling skulk. They were not bold enough to speak words of defiance.

It was now that Patrick Henry stepped to the front, the dauntless hero of the hour. His friends knew his worth, and earnestly desired that he should be a member of the House of Burgesses. William Johnson had been elected a member of the Burgesses. He was induced to resign and accept the position of coroner. Henry was elected to fill the vacancy on the firtt of May 1765. On the 20th of May he was added to the committee on the Courts of Justice.

In that House of Burgesses was Peyton Randolph, the King's Attorney-General, distinguished for his eloquence and virtues of heart; Richard Bland, the finished scholar and profound logician ; Edmund Pendleton, accurate and clear in speech, having few equals ; George Wythe, the logician, keen and sarcastic in repartee; and Robert Henry Lee, called the Cicero of the House, at home in all the walks of literature and science. Among these illustrious orators now stood the Plebian Henry. He had not their polish nor their erudition. But he had a constancy of soul that no power could shake ; a genius that no erudition could cope with; a boldness that knew no fear; and an imagination "that colored with the felicity of Titian."

With becoming modesty he waited for those who had remonstrated with the King, the Lords, and the House of Commons to renew their opposition to the Stamp Act. He waited till within three days of the close of the session and then introduced his celebrated resolutions on the Stamp Act.

These resolutions were as follows :

"Resolved : That the first adventurers and settlers of this, his Majesty's Colony and dominion, brought with them, and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his Majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this, his Majesty's Colony, all the privileges and immunities, that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.

"Resolved : That by two royal charters, granted by King James the First, the colonists aforesaid, are entitled to all the privileges, liberties and immunities of denizens and natural born subjects, to all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within the realms of England.

"Resolved: That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient Constitution can not subsist.

"Resolved : That his Majesty's liege people of this most ancient colony, have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their taxes and internal policies, and that the same have never been forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath been constantly recognized by the King and people of Great Britain.

"Resolved : Therefore, that the General Assembly of this colony have the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to visit such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British, as well as American freedom."

Mr. Henry retained a copy of these resolutions. They were found among his papers on his death. They were sealed and thus endorsed : "These written resolutions passed the House of Burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the Stamp Act, and the scheme of taxing America by the British

Parliament. All the Colonies, either through fear, or want of . opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had remained silent, I had been for the first time elected a Burgess, unacquainted with the forms of the house, and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law book wrote the wthin. Upon offering them to the house, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered and much abuse cast on me, by the party for submission. After a long* and warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with astonishing quickness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the colonies. This brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse, will depend upon the use our pveople make of the blessings a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation.

"Reader ! whoever thou art, remember this ; and in thy sphere, practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.

P. Henry."

These are the celebrated resolutions introduced by Patrick Henry in the Virginia Burgesses in May 1765. He was justly proud of them. He therefore most carefully preserved a copy, by sealing them, and directing that they be opened only by his executor. They are therefore genuine.

These resolutions differ from all previous remonstrances and addresses as to the time and circumstances, and as to the legislative body addressed. All previous state papers and remonstrances against the Stamp Act were addressed to the legislature of Great Britain. These resolutions of Henry's were addressed to the legislature of Virginia. All previous remonstrances were couched in most respectful terms, and in tones of submission. These resolutions of Henry's were in defiance of Great Britain. All previous remonstrances were made before the Stamp Act was passed. These resolutions of Henry's were introduced and passed after the Stamp Act had become a law, and further remonstrance was useless. All previous remonstrances induced Great Britain to believe the Colonies would submit gracefully to encroachments upon their rights. The fifth and last resolution of Henry's charged, "that any attempt to visit such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the general assembly aforesaid has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom," a direct charge that the King and lords, and commons of Great Britain were guilty of tyranny and despotism.