Lee's figure stiffened the least bit, though his words were uttered in the friendliest tones.
"Virginia is also calling me, Mr. Blair. Your own State of Maryland has not seceded. For that reason you cannot feel this tragedy as I feel it. Put yourself in my place. I ask you the question, is not the command of a State that of a mother to a child? We are citizens of the State, not of the Union. There is no such thing as citizenship in the Union. We vote only as citizens of a State. We enlist as soldiers by States. I was sent to West Point as a cadet by the State of Virginia. Even President Lincoln's proclamation calling for volunteers to coerce a State, revolutionary as it is, is addressed, not to individual men, but to the States. He must call on each to furnish her quota of soldiers—"
"Yet the call is to every citizen of the Nation!"
Lee's hand was raised in a gesture of imperious affirmation.
"There is no such thing as citizenship of the Nation! We don't pay taxes to the Nation. We may yet become a Nation. We are as yet a Union of Sovereign States. Virginia has refused to furnish the troops called for by the President and has withdrawn from the Union. She reserved in her vote to enter, the right to withdraw. I am a Virginian. What is my duty?"
"To fight for the Union, Robert—always!" Mrs. Marshall answered.
"I love the Union, my dear sister, my heart aches at the thought of its division—"
He turned sharply to Blair.
"But is not the South to-day in taking her stand for the rights of the State asserting a principle as vital as the Union itself? All the great minds of the North have recognized that these rights are fundamental to our life. Bancroft declares that the State is the guardian of the security and happiness of the individual. Hamilton declares that, if the States shall lose their powers, the people will be robbed of their liberties. George Clinton says that the States are our only security for the liberties of the people against a centralized tyranny. These rights once surrendered, and I solemnly warn you, my friend, that your children and mine may live to see in Washington a centralized power that will dare to say what you shall eat, what you shall drink, and what you shall wear!"
Blair laughed incredulously.