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“By enlarged intellectual culture, especially by philosophic
studies, men come at last to pursue truth for its own sake, to esteem
it a duty to emancipate themselves from party spirit, prejudices,
and passion, and through love of truth to cultivate a judicial spirit
in controversy. They aspire to the intellect not of a sectarian but of
a philosopher, to the intellect not of a partisan but of a statesman.”
-LECKY.

COPYRIGHTED, 1898, BY B. F. GRADY.

ERRATA.

On page 32, second line from bottom, read "unacknowl

edged" for "acknowledged."

PREFACE.

This work, addressed to those who hold that a public office is a public trust and that the moral law of Christendom is as binding on organized communities as on individuals, has for its primary object the removal from the public mind of some of the wrong impressions which have been made during the last thirty-seven years. few of them are:

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1. That the States of the Union are mere fractions of the "American Nation."

2. That the people of the Southern States committed treason against "the Government" in 1861.

3. That the people of the Southern States attempted in 1861-65 not only to destroy the Federal Government, but, in the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, to cause "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" to "perish from the face of the earth'; and

4. That the Southern States inaugurated the war for the purpose of preserving African slavery in their borders.

The time has not yet come when the events here recorded can be discussed with absolute freedom from passion; but the eternal verities demand that we wait not for that time, especially since a fresh movement has been made in certain quarters to "make treason odious."1 The lesson these events teach is indispensable to us when we are called on for our voice and vote in remod

1 This movement was made in the early months of 1897 by the organized veterans of the North.

eling the foundations of government, in promoting any line of policy, or in choosing our public servants.

Briefly stated the lesson is:

1. Many of the mischiefs done by governments are traceable to the ignorance of those appointed to administer them.

2. Extravagance is almost unavoidable when the method of taxation enables the Legislature to lay unperceived burdens on the shoulders of the taxpayers.

3. Whenever the Legislature is beyond the reach of the critical eye of the people, local, sectional, or class interests will encroach on the rights of the people.

4. The property of the community or of individuals. will be wasted or diverted from legitimate uses whenever placed at the disposal of a Legislature.

5. No mere quorum ought to be empowered to enact laws affecting the rights of the people; and no law ought to be valid unless it has received at least the approval of a major part of the total membership of the Legislature.

6. Written Constitutions present no effective barrier to the avarice of classes, the ambition of individuals, the schemes of party, or the machinations of fanatics; and

7. So long as the mass of the people are unable to understand the structure and administration of their Government they will continue to be dupes of callow statesmen and professional office-seekers, and victims of misgovernment.

We can not retrace our steps or right the wrongs of the past; but it is not too much to hope that a more enlightened generation now entering upon the duties of guarding themselves and their posterity from recurrences of the mistakes of the past, may strive to restore and vivify the principles on which alone any just gov