not be unmade by less than all parties thereto, and no state can by its own motion legally get out of the Union; "that acts of violence within any state or states, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary, or revolutionary, according to circumstances."

John Fiske states (In his work entitled, "The Critical Period of American History, "1783-1789," pp. 343-344), that "the decisive struggle was over the question whether New York could ratify the constitution conditionally, reserving to herself the right to withdraw from the Union in case the amendments upon which she had set her heart, should not be adopted. Upon this point Hamilton reinforced himself with the advice of Madison, who had just returned to New York. Could a state once adopt the constitution and then withdraw from the Union if not satisfied? Madison's reply was prompt and decisive. No, such a thing could never be done. A state which had once ratified was in the federal bond forever. A constitution could not provide for, nor contemplate its own overthrow. There could be no such a thing as a constitutional right of secession."

The constitution contains no provision for the secession of a state. It is not a contract between absolutely sovereign states like the confederation between the twenty cantons of Switzerland, was originally. A clause should have been inserted at the time, plainly stating that no state could secede from the Union, except by the consent of all, or two-thirds of the states. Had this been done, it might have held the southern states in check. But the southern states would not have ratified the constitution in that shape probably.

Had the constitution contained an amendment providing for a referendum, the "slave question" could have been submitted to the people of all states and settled in that way constitutionally.

know how earnestly President Lincoln regarded this subject, on the eve of the Civil War, read the last clause of his first inaugural. "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

When Gen. Robert E. Lee assumed the presidency of Washington College October 1865, which position he occupied until October, 1870, he said, "I think it the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony, and in no way to

oppose the policy of the state or general government directed to that object."

To the Confederate Government of Virginia, he said: "The duty of citizens appears to me too plain to admit of doubt. All should unite in honest effort to obliterate the effects of war, and to restore the blessings of peace. They should remain if possible in the country; promote harmony and good feeling; qualify themselves to vote, and elect to the state and legislature wise and patriotic men, who will devote their abilities to the healing of all dissensions.. I have invariably recommended this course since the cessation of hostilities and have endeavored to practice it myself.

After fifty years the veterans of the Blue and the Gray fraternized and meet in brotherly love and forgiveness on the historic battle ground of Gettysburg, and Chattanooga-this is the best result of times soothing and restoring influence. We have accomplished peace between the North and the South. Northern capital enterprise is used to build up the Southern states and a new spirit of northern prosperity is gaining a sure foothold there. The vast tracts of uncultivated lands of Louisiana and Florida are being reclaimed and cultivated by northern capitalists. The prejudice of Southerners against the old time Yankees is an incident of the past, and one of the most honored and loved heroes of the common country is Abraham Lincoln.

SECESSION A NEW ENGLAND DOCTRINE.

"John Quincy Adams, a supporter of the embargo act of 1807, privately informed President Jefferson (in February, 1809) that further attempts to enforce it in the New England states would be likely to drive them to secession. Accordingly, the embargo was repealed and the non-intercourse act substituted for it. Secession is not exclusively a New England doctrine. When the constitution was adopted by the vote of states in popular conventions, it is safe to say there was not a man in the country from Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment, entered into by the states, and from which each and every state had the right to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised."-(See "American State Documents and Federal Relations," page 21, and Henry Cabott Lodge's "Webster," page 176.)

"In discussing the bill for the admission of Louisiana in 1811, Josiah Quincy said: 'Why sir, I have already heard of six states, and some say that there will be at no great distance more.

I have also heard that the mouth of the Ohio will be far to the east of the contemplated empire. * *It is impossible that such a power could be granted. It was not for these men that our fathers fought, it was not for them this constitution was adopted. You have no authority to throw the rights and liberties and property of this people into hotchpot with the wild men on the Missouri, or with the mixed, though more respectable race of Anglo-Hispano-Americans who bask on the sands in the mouth of the Mississippi. * * * I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion that, if this bill passes, the bonds of the Union are virtually dissolved; that the states which compose it are free from their moral obligations; and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation-amicably, if they can, violently, if they

must.'

June 15, 1813, the Massachusetts legislature endorsed the position taken in this speech.

"As late as 1844 the threat of secession came again from Massachusetts. Its legislature resolved that the commonwealth, faithful to the compact between the people of the United States according to the plain meaning and intent in which it was understood by them, is sincerely anxious for its preservation; but that it is determined, as it doubts not other states are, to submit its undelegated powers in no body of men on earth." And that "the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested at the threshold, may tend to drive these states into a dissolution of the Union."

This was just seventeen years before the Commonwealth of Massachusetts began to arm her sons to put down secession in the South.

GROWTH OF THE SOUTH.

1912.

Since obtaining control of their state governments the whites in the southern states have as a rule increased appropriations for common schools by at least four hundred per cent, and though paying themselves by far the greater proportion of these taxes, they have continued to divide revenues pro rata between the white and the colored schools.

Industrial results have been amazing. The following figures, taken from the Annual Blue Book, 1911 edition, of the Manufacturers' Record, Baltimore, Maryland, include West Virginia among the reconstructed states.

The population of these states was, in 1880, 13,608,703; in 1910, 23,613,533.

Manufacturing capital, 1880, $147,156,624. In 1900 (twenty years after) it was $1,019,056,200.

Cotton crop, whole south, 1880, 5,761,252 bales. In 1911 it was about 15,000,000.

Of this cotton crop southern mills took, in 1880, 321,337 bales, and in 1910, 2,344,343 bales.

In 1880 the twelve reconstructed states cut of lumber, board measure, 2,981,274,000 feet; and in 1909 22,445,000,000 feet.

Their output of pig iron in 1880 was 264,991 long tons; in 1910, 3,048,000 tons. The assessed value of taxable property in 1880 was $2,106,971,271; in 1910 $6,522,195,139.

The negro, though the white man, with his superior energy and capacity, far outstrips him, has shared in this material prosperity. His property in these states has been estimated as high as $500,000,000.

The north had the army and navy, factories of every description, and free access to the ports of the world.

The population of the north was 22,339,978.

The population of the south was 9,103,332, of which 3,653,870 were colored. The total white male population of the Confederacy, of all ages, was 2,799,818.

The reports of the Adjutant-General of the United States, November 9, 1880, show 2,859,132 men mustered into the service. of the United States in 1861-65. General Marcus J. Wright, of the United States War Record Office, in his last estimate of Confederate enlistments, places the outside number at 700,000. The estimate of Colonel Henderson, of the staff of the British army, in his "Life of Stonewall Jackson," is 900,000. Colonel Thomas J. Livermore, of Boston, estimates the number of Confederates at about 1,000,000, and insists that in the AdjutantGeneral's reports of the Union enlistments there are errors that would bring down the number of Union soldiers to about 2,000,000. Colonel Livermore's estimates are earnestly combated by Confederate writers.

It has been estimated that since the war this country has paid its soldiers over $5,000,000,000. The South has paid of this amount $1,800,000,000.

RECONCILIATION.

The time has now happily come when, to use the language of Senator Hoar, "as Americans, we can, north and south, discuss the causes that brought about our terrible war, in friendly

and quiet spirit, without heat, each understanding the other, each striving to help the other as men who are bearing a common burden and looking forward with a common hope.'

"The country, it is believed, has already reached the conclusions that the south was absolutely honest in maintaining the right of secession and absolutely unswerving in its devotion to its ideas of the constitution, and that the north was equally honest and patriotic in its fidelity to the Union.”—(Hilliard A. Herbert, LL. D. in "The Abolition Crusade and its Consequences." Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912.)

In recent years a large amount of Northern capital has been invested in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and other Southern states. Some parts of marsh land have been worked and put under cultivation. Mills have been built for lumber industry and manufacturing of different kinds. There is little or no hostility manifested toward Northerners and the enterprise of the North has been gradually extended.