The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1903-06-10
INTERESTING HISTORIC DISCLOSURE.

Narrow and bigoted sectionalists of
the North have made much controver.
sial use of the "crime" of Southern
West Pointers, in taking up arms
against the government whose bounty
educated them. This indictment fig.
ured especially in the recent outcry
against placing Gen. Lees statue in the
Capitol statuary hall. 1t is an all
sufficient answer to the charge that,
while West Point was maintained by
the United States Government, the
States all shared in the cost of supply
ing the Government treasury, and were
therefore entitled as matter of right to
all of the benefits that their respective
cadets received in that institution.
But it has been left for Mr.. Chas. Fran
els Adams to supply further COM
plete refutation of the attempted i'm
parchment of the honor of Southern
West Pointers. In foot note to his
able and much noted Charleston ad-
dress, on the constitutional ethics of
secession" he shows that what they
practiced the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
academy taught. Its text book on con-
stitutional law was "RawIes view of
the constitution" from which Mr..
Adams, in his foot note, quotes the fol-
lowing luminous passages:
eff faction should attempt to sub
vert the government of State for the
purpose of destroying its Republican
form, the paternal power of the Union
could thus be called forth to subdue it.
Yet it is not to be understood that it's
interposition would be justifiable if the
people of State should determine to
retire from the Union, whether they
adopted another or retained the same
form of government.
"The States, then, may wholly with
draw from the Union; but while they
continue they must retain the character
of representative republics.
"The secession of State from the
Union depends on the will of the peo-
pie of such State.
"The people of State may have
some reasons to complain in respect to
acts of the general government; they
may in such cases invest some of their
own officers with the power of nego-
tiation, and may declare an absolute
secession in case of their failure. Still,
however, the secession must in such
case be distinctly and peremptorily de-
clared to take place on that event;
and in such case, as in the case of an
unconditional secession, the previous
ligament with the Union would be le-
ultimately and fairly destroyed. But in
either case Conditional or uncon-
dltional secession) the people is the
only moving power"
On first reading it seems strangely
incongruous that Northern writer, a
citizen of Massachusetts, and a mem
Der of the intensely Federal Adams
family, should be the finder, or the
ferreter out, of this signal vindica-
ton of the right of State secession,
and of that brilliant array of West
Point soldiers who led the Confederate
armies against those of the Union.
But the incongruity in measure dis
appears, when 1t is recalled that the
distinguished vindicator is quite as
much Quincy as Adams. And that his
maternal ancestor as Congressman
from Massachusetts, made the first
recorded secession speech ever heard in
Congress-, on the debate over the ad-
mission of the State of Louisiana. On
that speech-which, queerly indeed,
was replied to by Mr.. Poindexter, del
egate from the Mississippi Territory
was very closely modelled the secession
doctrine under which the Southern
States left the Union fifty years later.
So that, after all, Mr.. Chas. Francis
Adams is defending the position of his
grandfather, Josiah Quincy, as we'll as
that of Gen. Lee.-Vicksburg Herald.