By a similar process, similar
ordinances were adopted by the State Conventions of Mississippi (Jan.
9th), Florida (Jan. 10th), Alabama (Jan. 11th), Georgia (Jan. 19th),
Louisiana (Jan. 25th), and Texas (Feb. 1st),--seven States in all.

Outside of South Carolina, the struggle in the States named turned on
the calling of the convention; and in this matter the opposition was
unexpectedly strong. We have the testimony of Alexander H. Stephens that
the argument most effective in overcoming the opposition to the calling
of a convention was: "We can make better terms out of the Union than in
it." The necessary implication was that secession was not to be final;
that it was only to be a temporary withdrawal until terms of compromise
and security for the fugitive-slave law and for slavery in the
Territories could be extorted from the North and West. The argument soon
proved to be an intentional sham.

There has always been a difference between the theory of the State
Convention at the North and at the South. At the North, barring a few
very exceptional cases, the rule has been that no action of a State
Convention is valid until confirmed by popular vote. At the South, in
obedience to the strictest application of State sovereignty, the action
of the State Convention was held to be the voice of the people of the
State, which needed no popular ratification. There was, therefore,
no remedy when the State Conventions, after passing the ordinances of
secession, went on to appoint delegates to a Confederate Congress, which
met at Montgomery, Feb. 4, 1861, adopted a provisional constitution
Feb. 8th, and elected a President and Vice-President Feb. 9th. The
conventions ratified the provisional constitution and adjourned, their
real object having been completely accomplished; and the people of
the several seceding States, by the action of their omnipotent State
Conventions, and without their having a word to say about it, found
themselves under a new government, totally irreconcilable with the
jurisdiction of the United States, and necessarily hostile to it. The
only exception was Texas, whose State Convention had been called in
a method so utterly revolutionary that it was felt to be necessary to
condone its defects by a popular vote.

No declaration had ever been made by any authority that the erection of
such hostile power within the national boundaries of the United
States would be followed by war; such a declaration would hardly