to the States which bordered on the Gulf of Mexico.  Whilst acknowledging that the South had grievances, they saw no reason to believe that redress might not be obtained by constitutional means.  At the same time, although they questioned the expediency, they held no half-hearted opinion as to the right, of secession, and in their particular case the right seems undeniable.  When the Constitution of the United States was ratified, Virginia, by the mouth of its Legislature, had solemnly declared “that the powers granted [to the Federal Government] under the Constitution, being truly derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury and oppression.”  And this declaration had been more than once reaffirmed.  As already stated, this view of the political status of the Virginia citizen was not endorsed by the North.  Nevertheless, it was not definitely rejected.  The majority of the Northern people held the Federal Government paramount, but, at the same time, they held that it had no power either to punish or coerce the individual States.  This had been the attitude of the founders of the Republic, and it is perfectly clear that their interpretation of the Constitution was this:  although the several States were morally bound to maintain the compact into which they had voluntarily entered, the obligation, if any one State chose to repudiate it, could not be legally enforced.  Their ideal was a Union based upon fraternal affection; and in the halcyon days of Washington’s first presidency, when the long and victorious struggle against a common enemy was still fresh in men’s minds, and the sun of liberty shone in an unclouded sky, a vision so Utopian perhaps seemed capable of realisation.  At all events, the promise of a new era of unbroken peace and prosperity was not to be sullied by cold precautions against civil dissensions and conflicting interests.  The new order, under which every man was his own sovereign, would surely strengthen the links of kindly sympathy, and by those links alone it was believed that the Union would be held together.  Such was the dream of the unselfish patriots who ruled the destinies of the infant Republic.  Such were the ideas that so far influenced their deliberations that, with all their wisdom, they left a legacy to their posterity which deluged the land in blood.

Mr. Lincoln’s predecessor in the presidential chair had publicly proclaimed that coercion was both illegal and inexpedient; and for the three months which intervened between the secession of South Carolina and the inauguration of the Republican President, the Government made not the slightest attempt to interfere with the peaceable establishment of the new Confederacy.  Not a single soldier reinforced the garrisons of the military posts in the South.  Not a single regiment was recalled from the western frontiers; and the seceded States, without a word of protest, were permitted to take possession, with few exceptions, of the forts, arsenals, navy yards and custom houses which stood on their own territory.  It seemed that the Federal Government was only waiting until an amicable arrangement might be arrived at as to the terms of separation.