Year: 1867



 The late civil war did not end by any formal treaty of peace. The United States, though recognizing, by all the departments of their Federal Govern ment, the Confederate States as bel ligercnt party, would not recognize the right of making treaty by their ene- my lest sort of separation or inde- pendence should be implied.

 We must, therefore, look to the grounds of difference which brought on the conflict; to the declaration by the United States of the purposes of the war as made at the beginning and during the progress of the war, and to the conditions or stip- ulations of surrender, for the terms of peace, and the consequent rights of the victor and the obligations of the van- pushed. For we must admit that the doctrines oy the issue As insisted upon by the United States, and the purposes and demands of the United States in making and carrying on the war, and the terms of surrender, were agreed to by us in the act of surrender, and, therefore, make the law of the peace for both psrtics-being thus demanded by one party and conceded by the other.+

 The Southern States insiste1s

 l. That the Federal Constitution was a compact, to which the States were parties as separate and independent States, and, therefore, were parties with the right, by virtue of their sepa- rate sovereignty, of withdrawal from the compact when, in the judgment of the State withdrawing, her interest or safety required withdrawal.

 ?. That the administration of the common government by sectional party-sectioAai because organized on principles of avowed hostility to a right of property held by the citizens of the Southern States, and recognized in the Constitution-would endanger the isterest and safety of such States and, therefore, justified the exercise of the right claimed to withdraw.

 Many in the South believed this right to withdraw would be conceded by the party then coming into power in the United States, and that, there- fore, the secession would be peaceable. They were encouraged to believe this, because this doctrine, though now and for years advocated at the South, did really originate in New England and first came as threat from that quarter of the Union; because, also, many of tho prominent organs and leaders of the new party did concede the right, and some declared if the Southern States chose to exercise it, they should do so in peace.

 But this impression proved to be . very fatal mistake; and it Is very cer. tain that the United States, and every department of their government in the beginning and throughout the dura- tion of the struggle, and until after the final surrender, did deny, in every off, cial form, both the right of withdrawal the validity of the attempt to with. draw, as well as the sufficiency of the case made to justify the attempt.

 Thus the right of State to with draw from the Upipn beraiue the great leading question of difference between the parties to the conflict as made by all the official records, and was the main question to be decided by the conflict. The South insisted the Union was dissolved; tho North denied it; they joined in battle to decide the question. Now let us see the official proof that this was the original issue.

 In Mir. Lincolns first Inaugufal Ad-