The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1892-12-01
GEN. JOSEPH {. JOHNSTON.
AN INTERESTING BIOGRAPH
ICAL SKETCH
Of the Life and Services Of the
Distinguished Confederate
Leader.
BY GEN. BRADLEY T. JOHNSON

Leader.
BY GEN. BRADLEY T. JOHNSON.
We wish we could see this book,
recently published, in every Southern
home. Every word and line of it is
! instinct with lessons to our people that
conform with their history and tradi-
tions. 1t contains no single remark
apologetic of the past, but is brimfull,
from its first line to its last, of robust,
manly assertions of the dignity and
rights of the Southern people 1t is a
source to which they may always re-
sort for light and knowledge.
The chief incidents of General
Joseph E. Johnston's life during the
late war, in which his part was SO con-
spicuous and important, are of course,
known to most of the people, but his
career from its beginning has been
romantically interesting, and his biog-
rapher has told the story of it in
way that arouses un1agging interest.
Whether, as young lieutenant, with
cool self-possession, extricating party
of United States regulars from an
Indian ambuscade, in which enter
prise he was shot in the head and had
his coat pierced by thirty bullets or,
when his ladder was too short, mount
ing upon soldiers shoulders, and
thrusting himself first into an embra-
sure of Fort Chapultepec, he was al
ways on the field of battle foremost
amongst gallant men. He was noble
Virginian, that did honor to the best
aspirations and traditions of our peo-
pie.
But his biographer has done more
than give US a chronicle of General
Johnston's life. The book is full of
profound and philosophical political
thought. We know of no writer who
has presented his argument in favor
of the right of secession as he has done,
and we know of no argument in favor
of that right SO powerful as that he has
made. The war, of course, settled the
question of secession as practical
matter, but there is no reason why, as
a matter of literature, we shall not
state the ground upon which our peo-
pie asserted it. We shall, therefore,
present the argument for it that Gen
eral Bradley Johnson makes.
He says that each State was in its
inception nothing but corporation
chartered by the English Crown. No
political body to be called the State
of Virginia was set up, but a corpora
ton to trade and establish trading
stations within certain parallels of lat-
tude and longitude was chartered. So
of all the other twelve. These trading
corporations were in all respects sub
ject to the laws of England. They
could be proceeded against in the
Kings Bench Court by scire facias or
quo warranto for neglect of duty or
breach of duty, and they could be re-
strained in the courts from exercising
powers not granted to them, and their
charters could be taken from them for
an abuse of their powers.
When the expressions of the Eng
lish Government justified the people
that each corporation had planted on
its territory, in throwing off their al
legiance to the British Crown, the
people of each corporation acted all
together and each separately from the
people of any other. In starting, then,
the people of each corporation started
as separate entities and without union
with the other, and this is an historical
fact that cannot be gainsaid.
When allegiance to the British
Crown was thrown off the first step
taken was a meeting at Philadelphia
in 1777 of delegates from each of the
old corporations, the delegates from
each acting separately and by them
selves, to discuss the terms Of union
of all thirteen. These delegates agreed
to the terms of a union Of free, equal
and sovereign States, which was to be
a perpetual union"
Now, after ten years trial of union
which was to be, by its terms, "per-
petual,' eleven Of the thirteen became
convinced that their union was not
what they wanted, and they seeded
from the "perpetual unlon' and
formed ga more perfect union" For
some time North Carolina and Rhode
Island refused to secede from the I" per
petual union and remained together
in it. But, after awhile, they also
seeded and joined the &c more perfect
union Virginia, New York and
Massachusetts, in seeding from the
perpetual union" and joining the
"more perfect union" had expressly
: reserved to each the right to withdraw
when they saw fit from the " more per
feet union," and they expressly dis
; claimed the right or power to bind th'
hands of posterity by any form o
, government whatever. Most of tn
. States on agreeing to enter the " NOR
perfect union" had insisted on certain
amendments to the d" ordinance Of sc
cession'' from the perpetual unionF
q which the present Constitution of tn
United States in effect is in order tha
the nature Of the new compact Nigh
I be placed beyond doubt or cavel, an
the first Congress that met under tn
ordinance Of secession, l. e., the pre-:
n ent Constitution, as its first busine:
n submitted to the States amendment
to it, one of which, adopted by all til
States, declares
e "The powers not delegated to tt
o United States by the Constitution, NJ
prohibited by it to the States are n