The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-13
SCHOOL HISTORIES.
Jefferson Davis Once More Explains His
Idea of the Union and the States.

Jefferson Davis Once More Explains His
Idea of the Union and the States.
The Jackson Miss Clarion prints the
following letter from Jefferson Davis in response
to one in which allusOn had been made to a
favorable expression of opinion by the West
Station Miss Educational Journal concerning
Northern school History Of the United
States"
"BEAUvoIR, Miss. June 20. 1885.
"Co!. J. l.. Power Clarion Office:
Dear Sir; Enclosed with this I send to you a
letter on a subject of such importance as will no
doubt commend it to your attention. AS there
can be no higher duty than to guard against
false impressions in the instruction of children
so there can be no care more essential than the
proper selection of the school books. II them
to pervert history and propagate untrue doc.
trine is to poison the sources Of political
streams have not seen the book referred to,
but judging it by extracts given am surprised
that it should have received such an lndorse-
ment as is cited.
Among the less informed persons at the
North there exists an opinion that the negro
slave at the South a nero chattel, having
neither rights immunities protected by law
or public opinion. Southern men knew such
was not the case, and others desiring to know
could readily learn the fact. On that error the
lauded story of Uncle Toms Cabin was founded,
but it is strange that unitarian and shrewd
people did not ask why slave especially val,
liable was the object Of prvation and abuseF
able to Judge, and would most probably have
rejected the story for its improbability. Many
attempts have been made to evade and mlsrep-
resent the exhaustive opinion of Chief-justce
fancy in the bred Scott case; but 1t remains
unanswered.
From the statement in regard to Fort Sum-
ter, child might suppose that a foreign army
had attacked the United States-certainy could
not learn that the State South Carolina was
merely seeking possession of fort on her own
CLAIMING
become void
''The tyrant's plea of necessity to excuse des-
potic usurpation is offered for the unconstitu-
tonal act Of emancipation, and the poor resort
to prejudice is invoked in the use of the epithet
rebellion'-a word inapplicabe to States gener-
ally and most especially so to the sovereign
members Of a voluntary union. But alas for
their ancient prestige; they have even lost the
plural reference they had in the Constitution
and seem small to this utilizing tuition as to
be described by the neutral pronoun itn Such
language would be appropriate to an imperial
government which in absorbing territories re-
quired the subjected inhabitants to swear allie
glance to it.
Ignorance and artifice have combined so to
misrepresent the matter of official oaths in the
United States that it may be we'll to give the
question more than passing notice. When the
sovereign, independent States Of America
formed a constitutional compact of union it was
provided in the sixth article thereof that the
officers of the United States and of the several
States shall be bound by oath or affirmation to
support this Constitution and by the law of
June l, 17S9 the form of the required oath was
prescribed as follows: Il, A B. do solemnly
swear or affirm las the may be- that
will support the Constitution of the United
States
That was the oath. The obligation was to
support the Constitution. 1t created no new OBJ
| legation, for the citizen already owed allegiance
his respective State, and through her to the
! Union Of which she was a member. The con-
cluslon is unavoidable that those who did not
| support but did not violate the Constitution
| were they who broke their official oaths. The
| general government had only the powers dele
gated to it by the States. The power to coerce a
State was rot given, but erlphatically refused.
Therefore, to invade State, to overthrow its
government by force of arms, was a palpable
violation of the Constitution, which officers had
sworn to support, and thus to levy against
States which the federal officers claimed to be-
notwithstanding their ordinances of secession
still in the Union, was the treason defined III the
third section Of the third article Of the COnstitu-
ton: the only treason recognized by the funda-
mental law of the United States
"When our forefathers assumed for the several
States they represented a separate and equal
station among the powers of the earth, the cen
trail idea around which their political institu-
tons were grouped was that sovereignty be-
longed to the people, inherent and unalienable;
therefore, that governments were their agents.
instituted to secure their rights and deriving
their Just powers from the consent of the gov
erned,' whence they draw the corolary that
whenever any form of government becomes
destructive Of these ends it is the right of the
people to alter or abolish it, etc. What was
meant by the word people in this connection is
manifest from the circumstances. 1t could only
authoritatlvely refer TO the distinct communi-
ties who each for itself, joined in the decara-
ton and in the concurrent act of separation
! from the government of Great Britain.
SPY ali that is revered in the memory of orr
Revolutionary sires and sacred in the principles
| they established, let not the children of the
United States be taught that our federal govern
ment is sovereign that our sires, after having
| by long ard bloody war won community indie
pendence, used the power, not for the end
sought, but to transfer their allegiance, and by
oath or otherwise to bind their posterity to be
the subjects of another government from which
they could only free themselves by force of arms
Respectfully, JEFFERSON DAVIS"