The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1902-02-07

from me? You vas crazy Turning to
the man, now almost crazed by excite
ment, the Colonel smiled at his extrava-
CANT denunciation, and saying, oh,
hang it, man, keep your gum walked
aWay-"-Chicago Inter Ocean.
Confederate Troubles.
The last survivor of Jefferson Davis
Cabinet. the Hon. John H. Reagan,
could, if he wanted to, tell some
strange tales Of the internal troubles
which the Confederacy encountered.
He could make an interesting story,
for example, about the way the doc
trine Of secession, after the govern
ment founded on secession got into 3D.
GRAFTON, hit back at the secessionists.
By the logic Of their position the Con-
federates were compelled to leave
themselves open to the same sort of
assault as that which they dealt
against the Federal government. The
preamble Of the Confederacy's consti-
tuition, after reciting that 1--WE, the peo-
pie of the Confederate States" in set
ting forth the objects Of that charter
departed from the United States model
by inserting the words leach State act
ing In its sovereign and Independent
character, in order to FORM" etc. Here
was the State sovereignty doctrine
which it's advocates had tried to read
into the United States Constitution, set
forth formally and explicitly in the
Confederacy's charter. BY a calamit-
GUS consistency, here, for the first time
since the world began, a government
was framed in which it's creators con-
sciously and deliberately planted the
seeds of it's own destruction.
Many of the States, before the Con-
federacy had been long in existence,
threatened to put the State sovereignty
idea into concrete form by withdraw
ing from the new government. Joseph
q. Brown, of Georgia, for example, an
gered at some of the acts of the Con-
federate government-the suspension Of
the habeas corpus, CONSUMPTION, and
other things back as robustly
at Jefferson Davis as ever Governor
Claiborne f. Jackson, Of Missouri, or
Governor Francis w. Pickens, of South
Carolina did, in April, 1861, at Abra-
ham Lincoln. Brown, in substance.
told Jefferson Davis that one State had
just as good right to secede in 1868
from ten as eleven had in 1861 from
twenty-three. And, of course, Brown
was. correct. The one State, in his
case, had far better right to secede
than the eleven had earlier, for the
intention of the trainers Of the consti-
tuition formed at Philadelphia in 1857.
was to make perpetual union, while
none Of the men who favored the State
sovereignty clause in the constitution
Of 1861 framed at Montgomery was
innocent enough to imagine that there
was any approach to perpetuity about
a charter with any such provision as
that. Every member Of the Montgom-
cry convention who projected himself
in imagination forward a year or two
in time must have seen the dynamite
which was in that State sovereignty
clause.
The ex-Postmaster General could
tell, too, about how Governor of his
own State on one or two occasions read
the riot act to the President Of the Con-
federacy. That stalwart old patriot
Sam Houston, who was Governor of
Texas in 1861, blocked the way of the
secessionists for time until they ef-
faced him; but under the Confederacy
Texas had Governor, Pendleton MUIR
rah, who, rampant secessionist,
threatened in 1853 and again in 1864,
to cut loose from the secessionists'
government. Zebulon B. Vance, North
Cardinals Governor, threatened to
drive Jefferson Davis troops out of the
State. William w. Holden, also Sc
cessionist, who was Governor Of the
State in the reconstruction era, de-
clared In his paper, the Raleigh Prog
ress, about the middle Of the war, that
IF North Carolina had the right to
break of from the Federal government
by an act of her convention, she has
the relative right to break off from Mr..
Davis government" This sort of talk
was heard in most of the States of the
Confederacy at one time and another,
although the outside world did not
know of it. Nobody in the loyal States
in the dark days of 1868 and 1864 was
aware Of the Damoclean sword which
hung constantly over the head of the
Confederacy's President.-St. Louis
Globe-Democrat.
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