Is Davis a Traitor: Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861?

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Excerpt from Is Davis a Or Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861?IT is not the design of this book to open the subject of secession. The subjugation of the Southern States, and their acceptance of the terms dictated by the North, may, if the reader please, be considered as having shifted the Federal Government from the basis of compact to that of conquest; and thereby extinguished every claim to the right of secession for the future. Not one word in the fol lowing pages will at least be found to clash with that sup position or Opinion. The sole object of this work is to dis cuss the right of secession with reference to the past; in order to vindicate the character of the South for loyalty, and to wipe off the charges of treason and rebellion from the names and memories of Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, and of all who have fought or suffered in the great war of coer cion. Admitting, then, that the right of secession no lon ger exists; the present work aims to show, that, however those illustrious heroes may have been aspersed by the ignorance, the prejudices, and the passions of the hour, they were, nevertheless, perfectly loyal to truth, justice.