e fact is the constitution
did not apply to any such contingency as the one existing from 1861 to
1865. Its framers never dreamed of such a contingency occurring. If
they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned
the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should
be war between brothers.

The framers were wise in their generation and wanted to do the very best
possible to secure their own liberty and independence, and that also of
their descendants to the latest days. It is preposterous to suppose
that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules
of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen
contingencies. At the time of the framing of our constitution the only
physical forces that had been subdued and made to serve man and do his
labor, were the currents in the streams and in the air we breathe. Rude
machinery, propelled by water power, had been invented; sails to propel
ships upon the waters had been set to catch the passing breeze--but the
application of stream to propel vessels against both wind and current,
and machinery to do all manner of work had not been thought of. The
instantaneous transmission of messages around the world by means of
electricity would probably at that day have been attributed to
witchcraft or a league with the Devil. Immaterial circumstances had
changed as greatly as material ones. We could not and ought not to be
rigidly bound by the rules laid down under circumstances so different
for emergencies so utterly unanticipated. The fathers themselves would
have been the first to declare that their prerogatives were not
irrevocable. They would surely have resisted secession could they have
lived to see the shape it assumed.

I travelled through the Northwest considerably during the winter of
1860-1. We had customers in all the little towns in south-west
Wisconsin, south-east Minnesota and north-east Iowa. These generally
knew I had been a captain in the regular army and had served through the
Mexican war. Consequently wherever I stopped at night, some of the
people would come to the public-house where I was, and sit till a late
hour discussing the probabilities of the future. My own views at that
time were like those officially expressed by Mr. Seward at a later day,
that "the war would be over in ninety days." I continued to entertain
these views until after the battle of Shiloh. I believe