or the resolutions in which this language was embodied, would be
justly liable to censure, if it were not positively certain that they
were _insincere_; and that they _were_ insincere is abundantly proven by
their subsequent action, and the fact that many of them held commissions
in the "armed forces" sent to invade the South. On the 11th of February
the Legislature resolved, "That we protest against the use of force or
coercion by the General Government against the seceded States, as unwise
and inexpedient, and tending to the destruction of our common country."

At the Union State Convention, held at Louisville on the 8th of January,
certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States were
"recommended," and it was resolved, "that, if the disorganization of the
present Union is not arrested, that the States agreeing to these
amendments of the Federal Constitution shall form a _separate
Confederacy_, with power to admit new States under our glorious
Constitution thus _amended_;" it was resolved also that it was
"expedient to call a convention of the border free and slave States,"
and that "we deplore the existence of a Union to be held together by the
sword."

It almost takes a man's breath away to write such things about the most
loyal men of the loyal State of Kentucky. For a Union Convention to
have passed them, and Union men to have indorsed them, the resolutions
whose substance has been just given, have rather a strange sound. They
ring mightily like secession.

"If the disorganization of the present Union is not arrested," the Union
men of Kentucky would also help it along. A modified phrase much in
vogue with them, "separate State action" expressed their "conservative"
plan of seceding. Unless the proper distinctions are drawn, however, the
action of this class of politicians will always be misunderstood. They
indignantly condemned the secession of South Carolina and Georgia. No
language was strong enough to express their abhorrence and condemnation
of the wickedness of those who would inaugurate "the disorganization of
the present Union." But they did not, with ordinary consistency,

"Compound for sins they were inclined to
By damning those they had no mind to!"

They committed the same sin under another name, and advocated the
"separate Confederacy" of "the border free and slave States," under our
glorious Constitution thus amended.

"Orthodoxy," was their "doxy;" "Heterodoxy," was "anothe