Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/32

 of them, then and there, Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, who was slated for a portfolio in Lincoln's cabinet, and therefore spoke at least quasi et cathedraex cathedra? [sic]. So the Peace Congress proved of no avail, (e)

We find a similar situation in the Congress of the United States at its regular session that winter. Of the condition there Mr. Pollard says, in his book, The Lost Cause, (49) "It is remarkable that of all the compromises proposed in this Congress for preserving the peace of the country, none came from Northern men; they came from the South and were defeated by the North."

Well might the Southern leaders have adopted for their own the language of the Psalmist, "I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war." (50)

It was by virtue of this impossible condition arising within the old union that Southern States, cotton and border, one by one, found it necessary to withdraw from that union—which was effected so far as possible, in every instance, peaceably. They had not only the historical, constitutional right to do this, as every real student of constitutional history, South and North, now admit; they had, further, let us here repeat, the general assertion of the Declaration of Independence, governing all like cases, to support them. As pointed out by President Davis, in the above quotation from his inaugural, a prime object in establishing the constitution of the United States and the federative government thereunder, was to "insure domestic tranquility." The existing form of government under this constitution having "become destructive of this end," so far as concerned the Southern States, the peoples of these States now moved to peaceably alter the form of government.

And, seldom remembered though it be now, there were at that time many in the North who believed that these Southern peoples had the inalienable right thus peaceably to withdraw. For instance, the New York Tribune itself, organ though it was of the aggressive anti-Southern party of that time, declared in November and December, 1860, after Lincoln's election, as follows: (51)