Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/29

Rh Truly, as Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, one of the delegates to this Montgomery Congress, says in his history of the United States, (42) these "were not such men as revolutions or civil commotions usually bring to the surface. . . . Their object was not to tear down, so much as it was to build up with the greater security and permanency." And we may add that they meant to build up, if so permitted, peaceably.

In this spirit of amity and justice, the first act of the Louisiana State convention, after passing the ordinance of secession, was to adopt, unanimously, a resolution recognizing the right to free navigation of the Mississippi river (which flows down from the Northern States of the great inland basin and empties into the sea within the confines of Louisiana), and further recognizing the right of egress and ingress at that river's mouth and looking to the guaranteeing of these rights. (43)

President Davis' inaugural address, delivered February 18, 1861, breathed the same spirit of friendship toward our brothers of the North. He said, in part: (44)

"Our present political position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established. The declared purpose of the compact of the union from which we have withdrawn was to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, (d) provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;' and when, in the judgment of the sovereign States composing this Confederation, it has been perverted from the purposes for which it was ordained, and ceased to answer the ends for which it was established, a peaceful appeal to the ballot box declared that, so far as they are concerned, the government created by that compact should cease to exist. In this they merely asserted the right which the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, defined to be 'inalienable.'. ..