CHAP. I. any section, clause, word, or reasonable implication that authorized an act of secession, the "Declaration of Causes" formulated the doctrine of States rights in justification. That doctrine in substance was, that the several States entered the Union as sovereignties; that in forming the Federal Government they delegated to it only specific powers for specific ends; that the Federal Government was not a sovereign over sovereignties, but was only an agent between them; that there existed no common arbiter to adjudge differences; that each State or sovereignty might judge for itself any violation of the common agreement and choose its own mode of redress; consequently that each State might adhere to or secede from the Union, at its own sovereign will and pleasure.

This doctrine, springing from early.differences of constitutional interpretation, had not been promulgated in its ultra form until South Carolina's nullification movement in 1832. It had been accepted and sustained by only a small fraction of the American people. The whole current, action, and development of the government of the United States under the Constitution was based upon the opposite theory. Washington and the succeeding Presidents rejected it in their practical administration; Marshall and the Supreme Court condemned it in their judicial decisions; Webster refuted it in his highest constitutional arguments; Congress repudiated it in its legislation; Jackson denounced it in executive proclamation as treasonable and revolutionary; and the people of the Union at large regarded it as an absurd and dangerous political heresy.

CHAPTER II

PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS

THE

HE "Declaration of Causes" and its accompanying address which the South Carolina Convention put forth to justify secession, both deal in such ambiguous phrases and vague generalities that in the main they betray their own weakness and insufficiency; and the critical student finds the same defect in the whole deluge of Southern rhetoric, spoken and written to defend the rebellion. If any denial or refutation of many of the allegations they contained were needed, it is conveniently furnished by an authority whose competency the Southern people themselves cannot deny. Alexander H. Stephens, who was soon afterwards elected Vice-President of the Confederate States, made the following frank criticism which is all the more valuable that it was written in a confidential letter to his brother and remained unpublished till after the war:

I have read the address put forth by the Convention at Charleston to the Southern States. It has not impressed me favorably. In it South Carolina clearly shows that it is not her intention to be satisfied with any redress of grievances. Indeed, she hardly deigns to specify any. The slavery question is almost entirely ignored. Her greatest complaint seems to be the tariff, though there VOL. III.-2

17

СНАР. ІІ.

CHAP. II. is but little intelligent or intelligible thought on that subject. Perhaps the less she said about it the better. For the present tariff from which she secedes is just what her own Senators and Members in Congress made it. There are general and vague charges about consolidation, despotism, etc., and the South having, under the operation of the general Government, been reduced to a minority incapable of protecting itself, etc. This complaint I do not think well founded. It arises more from a spirit of peevishness or restless fretfulness than from calm and deliberate judgment. The truth is, the South, almost in mass, has voted I think for every measure of general legislation that has passed both Houses and become law for the last ten years. Indeed, with but few exceptions, the South has controlled the Government in its every important action from the beginning. The protective policy was once, for a time, carried against the South; but that was subsequently completely changed. Our policy ultimately prevailed. The South put in power -or joined a united country in putting in power and sustaining the Administration of Washington for eight years. She put in and sustained Jefferson eight years, Madison eight years, Jackson eight years, Van Buren four years, Tyler four years, Polk four years, Pierce four years, and Buchanan four years. That is, they have aided in making and sustaining the administration for sixty years out of the seventy-two of the government's existence. Does this look like we were or are in an abject minority at the mercy of a despotic Northern majority, rapacious to rob and plunder us? It is true we are in a minority, and have been a long time. It is true also that a party at the North advocate principles which would lead to a despotism, and they would rob us if they had the power I have no doubt of that. But by the prudent and wise counsels of Southern statesmen this party has been kept in the minority in the past, and by the same prudent and wise statesmanship on our part I can but hope and think it can be so for many long years to come.

A. H.

Stephens to

Linton Stephens,

Jan. 1, 1861.

Johnston &
Browne,
"Life of
A. H.
Stephens,"

p. 375.

On one point, however, the South Carolina "Declaration of Causes" attempted to be specific,