Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/550

512 principles and policy it had adopted under the so-called war power. Mr. Stephens has recorded in his work on "The War Between the States&quot; that he was at any time ready to advocate the reunion of the States upon the single but fundamental principle that the States were to have supreme control of their domestic affairs. It was under the influence of this genial current that the Georgia resolutions of March, 1864, were passed which gave warm color to the report that a Peace party movement was not only contemplated but actually organized in the South. These resolutions set forth very powerfully the ultra State Rights theory of Federal government and arraigned the Federal Constitution for its "monstrous usurpations of power, and undisguised repudiation of the Constitution," but they also declare that &quot;while we regard the present war between these Confederate States and the United States as a huge crime whose beginning and continuance are justly chargeable to the government of our enemy, yet we do not hesitate to affirm that if our own government and the people of both governments would avoid all participation in the guilt of its continuance, it becomes all of them on all proper occasions and in all proper ways—the people acting through their State organizations and popular assemblies, and our government through its appropriate departments to use their earnest efforts to put an end to this unnatural, unchristian and savage work of carnage and havoc. And to this end we earnestly recommend that our government immediately after signal successes of our arms, and on other occasions, where none can impute its action to alarm instead of a sincere desire for peace, shall make to the government of our enemy an official offer of peace on the basis of the great principle declared by our common fathers in 1776, accompanied by the distinct expression of willingness on our part to follow that principle to its true logical consequences." The resolutions concluded with the avowal that defensive