The Southern Cause Vindicated. 323
with whatever property they might possess, and be protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such territory may be admitted into the Union, with or without slavery, as she may determine, on an equality with all existing States. As the Supreme Court has decided, and as the " originally small party " now decides in principle, when in its June platform of 1888 it declares : "The government by Congress of the territories is based upon necessity, only to the end that they become States in the Union ; therefore, whenever the conditions of population, material resources, public intelligence and morality are such as to insure stable government therein, the people of such ter- ritories should be permitted to form for themselves constitutions on State government and be admitted into the Union." Time and cir- cumstances work wonderful changes. What howls were raised by that party a few decades back, and now with what deafening cheers it greets them ! How many of you, my friends, even hoped to see the day when the party of coercion would not only endorse, but actually adopt a chief article of your faith in the right and act of secession? I answer, not one. Nevertheless, you have seen it. Wonder of wonders !
All our demands were reasonable and conformable to the Consti- tution, still they were stubbornly refused by those high in authority who had sworn to support the Constitution, and who were followed in their course by the people they represented.
After all this and after South Carolina had seceded, the other States of the South were so anxious to continue the Union under the Consti- tution and to stand by and perpetuate its principles, a peace congress was called. Virginia, taking the lead, called that congress which met in Washington city in February, 1861. Judge Chase, a leader of the anti-slavery movement, afterwards Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of State and later Chief Justice of the United States, was a delegate to that con- gress. As such delegate, he, on the 6th of March, made a speech, in which he said : "The result of the national canvass which recently terminated in the election of Mr. Lincoln has been spoken of by some as the effect of sudden impulse or of some singular excitement of the popular mind, and it has been somewhat confidently asserted that, upon reflection and consideration, the hastily formed opinions which brought about the election will be changed. It has been said also that subordinate questions of local and temporary character have augmented the Republican vote, and secured a majority which could not have been obtained upon the national questions involved in the respective platforms of the parties which divide the country. I can-
