untrymen!') became the second officer of its
traitorous government, is conclusive evidence on this point. The
Southern rebellion is simply and entirely the effort to secure exclusive
control where formerly the South had a joint control. Robert Toombs
said, in a conversation, in Georgia, in the winter of 1860-'61: 'We
intend, sir, to have a government of our own and we won't have any
compromises.' To the same import is the letter of Mason to Davis, in
1856, which has lately seen the light. To one not blinded by prejudice,
indeed, the evidences are overwhelming of a long-plotted conspiracy on
the part of certain leading politicians, without the knowledge and
contrary to the known intentions of the Southern people. The Southern
rebellion is simply the attempt to break up a constitutional government,
by politicians who had become dissatisfied with the natural and
inevitable workings and tendencies of it, even though administered by
themselves. It is simply, therefore, the question of anarchy that we
have to deal with. Therefore, we say that the North is fighting for the
idea of government.

We are not seeking to perpetuate oppressive power. On the other hand,
the rebellion is a flagrant attempt to organize oppression. We are
seeking to perpetuate power, it is true, but a power which has stood for
nearly a hundred years, and must continue to stand, if it stand at all,
as a bulwark against oppression. We are vindicating our right to be, as
a nation. We are proving our title to rank among the powers of the
earth. We are vindicating the majesty of our supreme organic law. That
supreme organic law is the Constitution. It ordains for itself a method
of amendment, so as to leave no right of revolution against it. It
admits no right of revolution, because in ordaining and establishing it
the parties to it expressly merged that right in another principle,
adopted to avoid the necessity of a resort to revolution. In other
words, the right of revolution is in our Constitution exalted into the
peaceful principle of amendment. Instead, therefore, of really being
denied, the right of revolution is, indeed, enlarged and consecrated in
our system of government, which rests upon that right. In vindicating
and maintaining, therefore, that system, we vindicate and maintain with
it the right of revolution. But we deny any such thing as a right of
revolution for the sole sake of revolution; because it leads to anarchy.
We deny the right of revo