Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/187

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And \\c should never forget this pregnant and. we think, conclu- sive tact in regard to this question, namely: the conduct of tin- North after the war in regard to Mr. Davis. < ".cneral I AT. and others of our leader^. As is well known. Mr. Davis was indicted thr<-<- times in their own courts upon charges which directly and nec< - rily involved a decision of the right of a State to secede from the I'nion. Immediately on the finding of these indictments, he (through his eminent Northern as well as Southern counsel), appeared at the bar of the court and demanded a speedy trial, in order that he might judicially vindicate his course and that of his people before the world. This right of trial was postponed by the Federal Govern- ment for nearly three years. During two of these years he was confined in a casemate at Fortress Monroe and subjected to indig- nities and tortures, by which it was attempted to break the spirit of the distinguished captive; and at the same time to degrade the peo- ple whom he represented, and for whom he was a vicarious sufferer. It is hardly necessary to say that this conduct is to-day universally regarded as not only unworthy of the representatives of the gov- ernment which held Mr. Davis as its prisoner, but that it has made a page in its history of which it ought to be, and we believe is, ashamed.

When at last the Government consented to try the case, it declined to meet the real question involved, in its own chosen tribunal: and having been advised by the best lawyers and statesmen at the North, that the decision must be against the North and in favor of the South, in order to evade the issue, the Chief Justice himself sug- gested a technical bar to the prosecution, which was adopted, and the cases dismissed. The South was entirely in the power of the North, and could do nothing but accept this, their own virtual con- fession that they were wrong and that we wore right.

CRTKI. UK KKI), KKI.ENTI.KSS WAR.

And s.. we say, our comrades, that just because the States of the South did, in the most regular and deliberate way, exercise their constitutional and legal right to withdraw from a compact which they had never violated, but which the Northern States had confessedly violated time and again, a right which, as we have seen, was not only recognized by the leading statesmen of the North, but which it had threatened on several occasions to put into execution we say,