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

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

each State adopted or rejected the Constitution for itself, and for itself alone.

"the State and the people of the State, are equivalent expressions.”

each State, for the sake of union, agreed that it would abstain from the exercise of the right to wage war, to coin meney, and to make treaties. She delegated these high powers to the government of the Federal Union. She entered into the compact of the Constitution,

All the control to which she was liable in the Union was self-imposed; and not one particle of it was laid upon her by any authority but her own.

all I want to know is, where resides the one power from which all such delegated powers proceed. The difference between this.one power and the powers of the government it creates, is the difference between the sun and its rays,

It is no longer a sisterhood of free States, but the vassalage of some, and the dominion of others.

The treason of the weak is the patriotism of the strong.

Thus, it was said "no man has a right to be surprised at this state of things. It is just what we have attempted to bring about. It is the first sectional party ever organized in this country. It does not know its own face, and calls itself national; but it is not national-it is sectional. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS A PARTY OF THE NORTH PLEDGED AGAINST THE SOUTH."~

And still is!

The South did not enter into the "new Union" to be governed by any such faction. She entered into the new Union, on the contrary, in order to secure her freedom, her independence, her happipiness, her glory; and she lost them all-except her glory.