The evidence is conclusive to this point: That at an interview at the Executive Mansion, April 5, 1861, between President Lincoln and Colonel John B. Baldwin, then a member of the Virginia Convention that finally adopted the Ordinance of Secession, President Lincoln assured Mr. Baldwin that he would evacuate Fort Sumter if the fort could be provisioned and the Virginia Convention would adjourn sine die.
Colonel Baldwin's voluntary and qualified denial is of no value in presence of President Lincoln's report of the interview as given by Mr. Botts and in presence of the testimony that Mr. Baldwin did not deny the truthfulness of Mr. Botts' limited statement, when it was asserted by Mr. Botts in the presence of Lewis.
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS AND HIS STATE-RIGHTS DOCTRINES
Upon the death of Mr. Calhoun the task of maintaining the extreme doctrine of State Rights, as that doctrine had been taught by Mr. Calhoun fell upon Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens. That doctrine was carried to its practical results in the ordinances of secession as they were adopted by the respective States under the lead of Mr. Davis.
If Mr. Stephens advised against secession, the advice given was not due to any doubt of the right of a State to secede from the Union, but to doubts of the wisdom of the undertaking.
In form of proceedings Mr. Stephens was examined by the Committee on the Judiciary, the 11th and 12th days of April, 1866, but in fact I was the only member of the committee who was present, and I conducted the examination in my own way, and without help or hindrance from others.
It was the opinion of Governor Clifford of Massachusetts, that the examination of Mr. Stephens gave the best exposition of the doctrine of State Rights that had been made. I was then ignorant of the fact, that in the convention of 1787 the form of the Preamble to the Constitution was so changed as to justify the opinion, if not to warrant the conclusion that the State-Rights doctrines had been considered and abandoned. In two plans of a constitution, one submitted by Mr. Randolph, and one by Mr. Charles Pinckney, and in the original draft of the Constitution as reported by Mr. Rutledge, the source of authority was laid in the respective States, which were named. This form was adhered to in the Rutledge report, which was made August 6, 1787. On the 12th of September the Committee on Style reported the Preamble which opens thus: "We the people of the United States, etc." This change seems not to have been known to Mr. Webster, nor have I noticed a reference to it in any of the speeches that were made in the period of the active controversy on the doctrine of State Rights.
Mr. Stephens was a clear-headed and uncompromising expositor and defender of the doctrine of State Rights as the doctrine was accepted by General Lee and by the inhabitants generally of the slave States.
Mr. Stephens did not disguise his opinions: "When the State seceded against my judgment and vote, I thought my ultimate allegiance was due to her, and I prepared to cast my fortunes and destinies with hers and her people rather than take any other course, even though it might lead to my sacrifice and her ruin."
When he was asked for his reason for accepting the office of vice- president in the Confederacy, he said: "My sole object was to do all the good I could in preserving and perpetuating the principles of liberty as established under the Constitution of the United States." Mr. Stephens advanced to his position by conclusively logical processes. Standing upon the ground of Mr. Lincoln and the Republican Party, he assumed that, inasmuch as the States in rebellion had never been out of the Union, they had had the opportunity at all times during the war of withdrawing from the contest and resuming their places in the Senate and House as though nothing had occurred of which the existing government could take notice.