en a member of the Virginia Convention that finally
adopted the Ordinance of Secession, President Lincoln assured Mr.
Baldwin that he would evacuate Fort Sumter if the fort could be
provisioned and the Virginia Convention would adjourn _sine die_.

Colonel Baldwin's voluntary and qualified denial is of no value in
presence of President Lincoln's report of the interview as given by
Mr. Botts and in presence of the testimony that Mr. Baldwin did not
deny the truthfulness of Mr. Botts' limited statement, when it was
asserted by Mr. Botts in the presence of Lewis.

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS AND HIS STATE-RIGHTS DOCTRINES

Upon the death of Mr. Calhoun the task of maintaining the extreme
doctrine of State Rights, as that doctrine had been taught by Mr.
Calhoun fell upon Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens. That
doctrine was carried to its practical results in the ordinances of
secession as they were adopted by the respective States under the lead
of Mr. Davis.

If Mr. Stephens advised against secession, the advice given was not due
to any doubt of the right of a State to secede from the Union, but to
doubts of the wisdom of the undertaking.

In form of proceedings Mr. Stephens was examined by the Committee on
the Judiciary, the 11th and 12th days of April, 1866, but in fact I was
the only member of the committee who was present, and I conducted the
examination in my own way, and without help or hindrance from others.

It was the opinion of Governor Clifford of Massachusetts, that the
examination of Mr. Stephens gave the best exposition of the doctrine
of State Rights that had been made. I was then ignorant of the fact,
that in the convention of 1787 the form of the Preamble to the
Constitution was so changed as to justify the opinion, if not to
warrant the conclusion that the State-Rights doctrines had been
considered and abandoned. In two plans of a constitution, one
submitted by Mr. Randolph, and one by Mr. Charles Pinckney, and in
the original draft of the Constitution as reported by Mr. Rutledge,
the source of authority was laid in the respective States, which were
named. This form was adhered to in the Rutledge report, which was made
August 6, 1787. On the 12th of September the Committee on Style
reported the Preamble which opens thus: _"We the people of the United
States, etc."_ This change seems not to have been known to Mr.
Webster, nor have I noticed a reference to it in any of the speeches
that were