whence the origin of the title to the services of the adult
offspring of the Slave mother? or is it not manifest that there is
no just title? Is it not a mere usurpation without any known mode
of justification, under any existing Code of Laws, human or
Divine?"]

He also undertook to justify Secession on the singular ground that "we
are sprung from a Race of Secessionists," the proof of which he held to
be in the fact that, while the preamble to, as well as the body of the
Convention of Ratification of, the old Articles of Confederation between
the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, declared that Confederation to be a "Perpetual Union," yet,
within nine years thereafter, all the other States Seceded from New
York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island by ratifying the new
Constitution for "a more perfect Union."

He also endeavored to maintain the extraordinary proposition that "if
the Senate of the United States were to adopt this Joint-resolution, and
were to submit it to all the States of this Union, and if three-fourths
of the States should ratify the Amendment, it would not be binding on
any State whose interest was affected by it, if that State protested
against it!" And beyond all this, he re-echoed the old, old cry of the
Border-state men, that "the time is unpropitious for such a measure as
this."

Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, however, by his great speech, of April
5th, in the Senate, did much to clear the tangle in the minds of some
faltering Union statesmen on this important subject.