Was the Confederate Soldier a Rebel? opposed to the letter and spirit of the Con stitution. It is not practicable to refer to the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas and Nebraska Bills. All that legislation in Congress affecting the limitations of slavery in the territories, as well as the compromises agreed to by the Southern States, was de clared by the Supreme Court of the United States to be entirely outside the delegated powers of Congress, and palpably uncon stitutional. This was set forth in an opinion of the court by Chief Justice Taney in the famous Dred Scott decision. That masterfuldeliverancc.familiartothe legal profession, containing as it does so much constitutional adjudication upon questions which once divided the country, should be familiar to every intelligent American. It held " that a slave was property recognized by the Constitution; that the territories acquired by treaty or conquest were the property in common of all the people, and were held by the government as their agent. . . ." " That Congress have no right to prohibit the citizens of any particular State or States from taking up their home there, while it permits citizens of other States to do so; and that every citizen has a right to take with him into the territory any article of property which the Constitution recognizes as prop erty. The act of Congress, therefore, pro hibiting a citizen of the United States from taking him in his question slaves when he removes to the with territory to reside, is an D
exercise of authority over private property which is not warranted by the Constitution" (19 Howard's Reports, page 395). The relations between North and South, growing out of the territorial question, and the civil liberty bills, became strained to the utmost tension. In the presidential cam paign of 1860, a party whose political tenets were hostile to the constitutional claims of the South elected a President of the United States upon a platform pledged to exclude slave property from the territories. Mr. Lincoln announced in his campaign, and doubtless
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believed, that the " Union could not long exist half free and half slave." Having exhausted every means consistent with honor and self-respect to secure their constitutional rights and the happiness of the people in the Union, in the judgment of some of the southern States the time had come when it was necessary to withdraw from it. The Union as established by the fathers was dear to the South. Their in heritance in it had been purchased by the blood and sacrifice of their forefathers, their soldiers and statesmen in every generation had contributed to its greatness and glory. Slavery, representing as it did two billions of property, and interwrought as it was into southern sociology, was as nothing to them as compared with the benefits of the Union. But their rights in the Union having been nullified they could see no future in it but subservience to an oppressive majority. There was nothing left but to fall back upon those inherent sovereign rights which as States they had ever possessed, which they proclaimed upon entering the Union, of which they had never divested themselves, and from which they could not alienate their people. It is a popular misconception that the southern States claimed the right of seces sion under the Constitution. It was never so claimed. It was a reserved right, under stood by the States as has been shown, and by none more emphatically asserted than by Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massa chusetts. It was considered the only peace able escape from oppression under the com pact. This was set forth by the famous Hartford convention of 1814, in which were represented the States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut; Vermont and New Hampshire being also irregularly represented. It was convened to consider their grievances connected with the war with Great Britain. They declared, " If the Union be destined to dissolution by reason of the multiplied abuses of bad administration, it
