n and potency which it
might see fit to claim. So long as that absolute domination could be
maintained within the administration of the Government, slavery and
slaveholders were content to remain nominally republican and
democratic--actually despots and unlimited rulers. But a contingency
threatened them in the future. The numerical growth of population at the
North, the moral convictions of the North--both of these united, or some
other unforeseen circumstance, might withdraw the operations of the
General Government from their exclusive control. To provide for that
possible contingency, the doctrine of paramount allegiance to the
individual States, and secondary allegiance merely to the General
Government--a perpetual indoctrination of incipient treason--was
invented, and has been sedulously taught at the South from the very
inception of the Government. Hardly a child in attendance upon his
lessons in an 'old-field' schoolhouse throughout that region but has
been imbued with this primary devotion to the interests of his State;
certainly, not a young lawyer commencing to acquire his profession, and
riding the circuit from county court-house to court-house, but has had
the doctrine drummed into his ears, of allegiance to his State; and when
the meaning and importance of that teaching was inquired for, he was
impressively and confidentially informed that the occasion might arise
of collision between the South and the General Government on the subject
of slavery; and that then it would be of the last importance that every
Southern man should be true to his section. Thus the way has been
prepared through three generations of instruction, for the precise event
which is now upon us, flaunting its pretensions as a new and accidental
occurrence.

Meantime, the North has suspected nothing of all this. Her own devotion
and loyalty to the General Government have been constantly on the
increase, and she has taken it for granted that the same sentiments
prevailed throughout the South. Hence the utter surprise felt at the
enormous dimensions which the revolt so suddenly took on, and at the
unaccountable defection of such numbers of Southern men from the army
and the navy at the first call upon sectional loyalty. The question is
not one of legal or constitutional rights in accordance with the literal
understanding of any parchment or document whatsoever. The most
triumphant arguments of President Lincoln or of anybody else have had in