Webster and Mr. Calhoun, to say nothing of elucidations by previous and
subsequent jurists and statesmen, has been again and again abundantly
demonstrated to be absurd.
2. That the immediate, comprehensive pretext for the Rebellion was the
success of a legal majority having in its platform of principles the
doctrine of the non-extension of involuntary human bondage in the
territories over which the Constitution had given to the whole people
absolute control, a doctrine which the mass of the Southern populations
were educated to believe not only deadly to their local privileges, but
distinctly unconstitutional.
3. That the leaders of the Rebellion frankly admitted, that, excepting
this one point of Constitutional grievance, the interests of the
populations which they represented would be better subserved in the
Union than out of it.
4. That the leaders of the Rebellion appear not to have anticipated
coercion; but yet, from the earliest days of Secession, contemplated
the spoliation of the Southern National property, and particularly the
seizure of the Federal capital.
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