to those who alone possessed the power, "in the sacred names of humanity and of Christian civilization; in the names of thirty millions of human souls;" "in the name of the great American experiment" to "give time for the play of reason," and "prevent the effusion of blood." Believing fully in the right of secession, and keenly alive to the cogency of the motives impelling the farther Southern States to exercise it, she, nevertheless, forebore to join them, and still, hoping against hope, persisted in spite of every discouragement, in earnest efforts for peace and reconciliation until President Lincoln's proclamation demanding troops for the invasion of the seceding States appeared, and the choice was abruptly presented to her of fighting either for her convictions or against them. These were the alternatives; other course, middle ground there was none.
Her construction of the Constitution was known of all men; it had been embodied in her ratification of that instrument; it had been solemnly reaffirmed by her General Assembly at a momentous crisis in the early history of the Government; it had been formulated and made the corner-stone of a great political party by some of her most illustrious sons. Moreover, it was sustained, not only by individual statesmen and jurists of the greatest eminence at the North, but by resolutions of Northern Legislatures and Conventions, by decisions of Courts, State and Federal, including the highest of all, and by the recorded judgment of the United States Senate, pronounced in solemn form upon two different occasions. As to the views of the framers of the Constitution and founders of the Government themselves, language could not be stronger or more comprehensive than that of Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts. "When," says he, "the Constitution was adopted by the votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton, on the one side, to George Clinton and George Mason, on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised." Speaking to the same effect, Woodrow Wilson declares that "the men of that time would certainly have laughed at any such idea" as that of "a national government" constituting "an indestructible bond of union for the States." Ex-President Adams, in an address delivered in 1839, said that should alienation of feeling take place, it would be far better "for the people of
