"The weak places in his (Webster's) armor were historical in their nature. It was probably necessary (at all events Mr. Webster felt it to be so) to argue that the Constitution at the outset was not a compact between the States, but a national instrument, and to distinguish the cases of Virginia and Kentucky in 1799, and of New England in 1814, from that of South Carolina in 1830. The former point he touched upon lightly; the latter he discussed ably, eloquently and at length. Unfortunately the facts were against in in both instances."
And in this connection, Mr, Lodge then uses this language:
"When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of the States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of the States in popular convention, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered into by the States, and from which each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw—a right which was very likely to be exercised."
Mr. James C. Carter, now of New York, but a native of New England, and perhaps the most distinguished lawyer in this country to-day, in a speech delivered by him at the University of Virginia, in 1898, said:
"I may hazard the opinion that if the question had been made, not in 1860, but in 1788, immediately after the adoption of the Constitution, whether the Union as formed by that instrument could lawfully treat the secession of a State as rebellion, and suppress it by force, few of those who participated in forming that instrument would have answered in the affirmative."
NORTH'S ATTITUDE SINCE THE WAR.
And we should never forget this pregnant and, we think, conclusive fact in regard to this question, namely: the conduct of the North after the war in regard to Mr. Davis, General Lee, and others of our leaders. As is well known, Mr. Davis was indicted three times in their own courts upon charges which directly and necessarily involved a decision of the right of a State to secede from the
