ld be left as to where the right
lay. This peculiar process of argument by statement had constituted his
special strength at the bar, and he now gave an excellent instance of
it. He briefly sketched the condition of public affairs at the time when
he assumed the government; he told the story of Sumter, and of the
peculiar process whereby Virginia had been linked to the Confederacy.
With a tinge of irony he remarked that, whether the sudden change of
feeling among the members of the Virginian Convention was "wrought by
their great approval of the assault upon Sumter, or their great
resentment at the government's resistance to that assault, is not
definitely known."

He explained the effect of the neutrality theory of the Border States.
"This," he said, "would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it
would be the building of an impassable wall along the line of
separation,--and yet not quite an impassable one, for under the guise of
neutrality it would tie the hands of the Union men, and freely pass
supplies to the insurrectionists.... At a stroke it would take all the
trouble off the hands of secession, except what proceeds from the
external blockade." It would give to the disunionists "disunion, without
a struggle of their own."

Of the blockade and the calls for troops, he said: "These measures,
whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to
be a popular demand and a public necessity, trusting then, as now, that
Congress would ratify them." At the same time he stated the matter of
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, which has been already
referred to.

Speaking of the doctrine that secession was lawful under the
Constitution, and that it was not rebellion, he made plain the genuine
significance of the issue thus raised: "It presents ... the question
whether a Constitutional Republic or Democracy, a government of the
people by the same people, can or cannot maintain its territorial
integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question
whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control the
administration according to the organic law in any case, can always,
upon the pretenses made in this case, or any other pretenses, or
arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus
practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us
to ask: Is there in all Republics this inherent fatal weakness? Must a
government of necessi