It was a complaint,
certainly, which the South had had ever since the Constitution was
formed, and which could with no plausibility be brought forward as a
justification of war, while there existed a Constitutional tribunal for
adjusting difficulties of Constitutional interpretation. Yet, as it
was almost universally asserted, of course, by the Northern partisan
presses, and by Northern Congressmen, that the Rebellion was utterly
causeless, and as the writer was therefore exceedingly anxious to
obtain, concerning their grievances, the latest opinions of the Southern
leaders, as stated by themselves, he ventured to propose, in a pause of
Mr. Toombs's somewhat rapid rhetoric, a question which, at that moment,
seemed of central importance to the candid philosophical inquirer into
the moving forces of the times:--
"Are we, then, Sir, to consider Mr. Calhoun's old complaint--the
non-recognition of slave-property under the Federal Constitution--as
constituting now the _chief grievance_ of the South?"
"Undoubtedly," was Mr. Toombs's instant reply, "_it all turns on that.
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