Page:Boissonnas, Un Vaincu, English, 1875.djvu/48



Resignation in bad luck is as rare as moderation in success. This old truth was to be confirmed once more. The South saw, approaching slowly but surely, the day when new laws would be imposed on her. These laws, she was convinced, would be her ruin and she would not be able to repel them. Weren′t there any means to escape the fate she was foreseeing ? “Yes !” answered her lawyers. “The pact by which the states have bound themselves to one another is a contract that can be broken by those who make it. Their right in this respect is expressly reserved. The Southern states have but to ask for it and they will return to their situation before the Union : isolated but sovereign states ; free to contract new allegiance ; they will recover their independence already shackled ; they will escape the yoke of the North and the impending ruin that is forthcoming.”

As a note : Here is the text of the ratification by the ''Virginia delegation of the U. S. A.′s act of constitution. :''

"We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly, and now met in Convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the federal Convention, and being prepared, as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us, to decide thereon, Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power, not granted thereby, remains with them, and at their will ; that, therefore, no right, of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged,