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 made in the period of the active controversy on the
doctrine of State Rights.
Mr. Stephens was a clear-headed and uncompromising expositor and
defender of the doctrine of State Rights as the doctrine was accepted
by General Lee and by the inhabitants generally of the slave States.
Mr. Stephens did not disguise his opinions: "When the State seceded
against my judgment and vote, I thought my ultimate allegiance was due
to her, and I prepared to cast my fortunes and destinies with hers and
her people rather than take any other course, even though it might
lead to my sacrifice and her ruin."
When he was asked for his reason for accepting the office of vice-
president in the Confederacy, he said: "My sole object was to do all
the good I could in preserving and perpetuating the principles of
liberty as established under the Constitution of the United States."
Mr. Stephens advanced to his position by conclusively logical
processes. Standing upon the ground of Mr. Lincoln and the Republican
Party, he assumed that, inasmuch as the States in rebellion had never
been out of the Union, they had had the opportunity at all times during
the war of withdrawing from the contest and resuming their places in
the Senate and House as though nothing had occurred of which the
existing government could take notice.
If, however, there were to be terms of adjustment, then those terms
must have a "continental basis founded upon the principles of mutual
convenience and reciprocal advantage, and the recognition of the
separate sovereignty of the States." He was ready for a conference or
convention of all the States, but he did not admit the right of the
successful party to dictate terms to the States that had been in
rebellion. He expressed the personal, individual opinion, that tax
laws passed in the absence of representatives from the seceded States
would be unconstitutional. It was the opinion of Mr. Stephens that
the people of Georgia by a large majority thought that the State was
entitled to representation in the national Congress and without any
conditions.
When he was invited to consider the alternative of universal suffrage
or a loss of representation as a condition precedent to the
restoration of the State, he said with confidence that neither branch
of the alternative would be accepted. "If Georgia is a State in the
Union her people feel that she is entitled to representation without
conditions imposed by Congress; and if she is not a State in the Union
then she could not be admitted as an equal with the others if her
admission were trammeled with conditions that did not apply to all the
rest alike."
It had been his expectation, and in his opinion such had been the
expectation of the people generally that the State would assume its
place in the Union whenever the cause of the Confederacy should be
abandoned.
Such were the results of the State-Rights doctrines as announced by
the most intellectual of the Southern leaders in the war of the
Rebellion. In the opinion of Mr. Stephens a State could retire from
the Union either for purposes of peace or of war and return at will,
and all without loss of place or power.
At the close of his examination he made this declaration: "My
convictions on the original abstract question have undergone no change."
As a sequel to the doctrines of Mr. Stephens, I mention the history of
Andrew J. Lewis. When the Legislature of Massachusetts assembled in
January, 1851, Lewis took a seat in the House as the Democratic member
from the town of Sandisfield. He acted with the Coalitionists, and he
voted for Mr. Sumner as United States Senator. Lewis was returned for
the year 1852, and in General Pierce's administration he held an office
in the Boston Customs House.
Upon the fall of Port Hudson I received a letter from General Banks.
In that letter he mentioned the fact that Lewis was among the
prisoners, holding the office of captain in a South Carolina regiment.
His account of himself was this: "I was born in South Carolina. When
my State seceded I thought I must go too, and so I left Massachusetts
and returned to South Carolina."