"The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied. But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme. The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.
"If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise of its proper constitutional functions.
"I am, very respectfully, yours, etc.,
"J. S. BLACK."
ERRATUM.
In Chapter VIII., there is some inaccuracy in regard to the number of killed in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. According to the official report of Colonel Robert E. Lee, U.S.A., who commanded the military force that relieved Harper's Ferry, the insurgents numbered in all nineteen men,—fourteen white, five colored. Of the white men, ten were killed; two, John Brown and Aaron C. Stevens, were badly wounded; Edwin Coppee, unhurt, was taken prisoner; John E. Cooke escaped. Of the colored men, two were killed, two taken prisoner, one unaccounted for.
THE APPENDICES.
The progress of the country, referred to so frequently in the text, is strikingly illustrated and verified by the facts contained in the several appendices which follow.
The appendices include a variety of subjects, and they have all been selected with the view of showing the progress and development of the Nation in the different fields of enterprise and human labor.
The tabular statements as to the population and wealth of the country will be found especially accurate and valuable. The statistics relating to Education and the Public Schools, to Agriculture, to Railways, to Immigration, to the Army, to Shipping, to the Coal and Iron Product, to National and State Banks, to the Circulation of Paper Money, to the price of Gold, and to the Public Debt, will be found full of interest.