North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas likewise withdrew from the Union and became members of the Confederacy for the same reasons which influenced Virginia. Missouri subsequently passed an ordinance of secession and joined the Confederacy, but that state was soon overrun by United States troops, and the regular government was subverted and another substituted in its place by the force of Federal bayonets. Kentucky undertook to occupy a neutral position until the greater part of that state was in the power of the Federal troops, when an irregular government was formed which passed an ordinance of secession and joined the Confederacy. The situation of Maryland was such that she was soon overrun by troops and prevented any legislative expression of opinion, the members of her legislature being seized and imprisoned. Little Delaware was so situated that its voice was never heard at all. CHAPTER VI =The Right to Withdraw= The causes which led to the secession of the Southern States have never been given, and when they are compared with those which led to the American Revolution as given by the First Continental Congress, the latter sink into comparative insignificance. A large portion of the wrongs complained of in the Declaration of Independence were acts committed after the commencement of the collisions between the British troops and the Colonists, and if these were compared with those committed by the Federal troops in the beginning of the war, in Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, to say nothing of the long list of outrages perpetrated during its progress, the indictment against King George contained in the eloquent language of the Declaration of Independence, would be a very tame affair in comparison with that which could be preferred against the Government at Washington. The third article of the Confederation had specified the object for which it had been formed, and that it was "A firm league of friendship" for the common defence, the security of the liberties and the mutual and general welfare, and that the states bound themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attacks made upon them or any of them "on account of religion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretense whatever." The preamble to the Constitution recites that it was made "to form a more perfect union." More perfect how? To the subversion of the liberties and sovereignty of the states? Had the conduct of the Northern States been that of the members of "a firm league and friendship?" And when they had so flagrantly violated and neglected the plain stipulations of the Constitution, did not the Southern States have the same right to withdraw from the connection with them, that the colonies had to withdraw from the connection with Great Britain, because the government which had been instituted for "the common defence and general welfare" had become "destructive of those ends?"