s in parting with its subjects
or citizens, that they shall enter into the new relation without
discrimination against them and with no lower degree of civil rights
than had already been enjoyed by those who form the nation to which
they are about to be annexed. Louisiana, when she was transferred
to the United States, received no further guaranty than Napoleon
in effect gave to Spain at the treaty of San Ildefonso, or than
the Spanish Bourbons had given to the French Bourbons in the treaty
of 1763 at the close of the Seven Years' War. In each of the three
transfers of the sovereignty of Louisiana, the same condition was
perfectly understood as to the rights of the inhabitants. Mr.
Benjamin drew the conclusion which was not only diametrically wrong
in morals, but diametrically erroneous in logic. Instead of
inferring that a State, situated as Louisiana was, should necessarily
become greater than the power which purchased it, simply because
other States in the Union which she joined had assumed such power,
a discriminating mind of Mr. Benjamin's acuteness should have seen
that the very position proved the reverse of what he stated, and
demonstrated, in the absurdity of Louisiana's secession, the equal
absurdity of the secession of South Carolina and Georgia.

THE ARGUMENT OF MR. BENJAMIN.

It seemed impossible for Mr. Benjamin or for any other leader of
Southern opinion to argue the question of State rights fairly or
dispassionately. They had been so persistently trained in the
heresy that they could give no weight to the conclusive reasoning
of the other side. The original thirteen, they averred, were "free,
sovereign, and independent States," acknowledged to be such by the
King of Great Britain in the Treaty of peace in 1783. The new
States, so the argument ran, were all admitted to the Union of
terms of equality with the old. Hence all were alike endowed with
sovereignty. Even the historical part of this argument was strained
and fallacious. Much was made in the South of Mr. Toombs's
declaration that "the original thirteen" were as "independent of
each other as Australia and Jamaica." So indeed they were as long
as they remained British Colonies. Their only connection in that
condition was in their common dependence on the Crown. But the
first step towards independence of the Crown was to unite. From
that day onward they were never separate. Nor did the Ki