"Still a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people—and save in defense will draw my sword on none."[[401]]
William C. Rives, speaking on the 19th of February, 1861, in the Peace Conference at Washington, as one of the Commissioners from Virginia, said:
"I condemn the secession of states, I am not here to justify it. I detest it, but the fact is still before us. Seven states have gone out from among us and a President is actually inaugurated to govern the new Confederacy.... Force will never bring them together. Coercion is not a word to be used in this connection."[[402]]
George Baylor, speaking on the 1st of March 1861, in the Virginia Convention, said:
"I have said, Mr. President, that I did not believe in the right of secession. But whilst I make that assertion, I also say that I am opposed to coercion on the part of the Federal Government with the view of bringing the seceded states back into the Union.... I am opposed to it first because I can find no authority in the Constitution of the United States delegating that power to the Federal Government, and second because if the Federal Government had the power it would be wrong to use it."[[403]]
The foregoing sentiments were not confined to the Virginia people, either of the Revolutionary or Civil War periods. A few deliverances by men of international reputation made during the three decades preceding the Civil War will serve to illustrate the truth of this suggestion:
M. de Tocqueville, in his work, Democracy in America, discussing the subject, says:
"However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and in uniting together they have never forfeited their nationality nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right."[[404]]
FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS
Lord Brougham in his Political Philosophy, alluding to the unique character of the government created by the constitution of the United States, writes: