Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/33

Rh "We hold with Jefferson to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious, and if the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless, and we do not see how one party can have a right to do what another party has the right to prevent. Whenever a considerable section of our union shall deliberately decide to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets. ... If ever seven or eight States send agents to Washington to say, 'We want to go out of the union,' we shall feel constrained by our devotion to human liberty to say, 'Let them go !' And we do not see how we could take the other side, without coming in direct conflict with those rights of man which we hold paramount to all political arrangements, however convenient and advantageous."

Not such men as revolutions generally bring to the front, said Stephens, of the Confederate leaders. True. For be it remembered that these men represented, officially represented, long existent and independent republics, already fully organized. The formation of a league or confederacy between these republics was but an incident, an arrangement of convenience, as pointed out by Mr. Davis in his inaugural address. How, then, could States, republics, independent nations, be said to revolt or rebel? A people or a faction rebels against a superior; not against an equal or an inferior. Therefore, a creator State of inherently sovereign powers could not possibly rebel against either the creature central government of strictly limited and delegated powers, or against co-equal, confederate States. This being so, and Southern individuals acting only as citizens of their respective States, there could be no treason in their conduct.

Why was Jefferson Davis, although long held a prisoner after the war, never brought to trial on the charge of high