"In this whole series of devices and measures for raising men, this Convention discerns a total disregard for the Constitution, and a disposition to violate its provisions, demanding from the individual States a firm and decided opposition. An iron despotism can impose no harder service upon the citizen than to force him from his home and occupation to wage offensive war, undertaken to gratify the pride or passions of his master. _In cases of deliberate, dangerous and palpable infraction of the Constitution,_ _affecting the sovereignty of a State and the liberties of the people, it is not only the right but the duty of such State to interpose its authority for the protection, in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur, which are either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own decisions._" I think that is pretty strong secession doctrine. I do not see that it is possible, in terms, to state it more distinctly. Well, it is true that candid people in that section of the country did not approve these views, but disapproved them; and yet they were the views, clearly and forcibly expressed, of a large number of intelligent and moral people. Now, this enables me to repeat, with a clearer view derived from history, the proposition that the Confederate States are--_under the law of nations_, and the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, sustained in the Revolution, and recognized by our people--in a condition not distinguishable from that of the Colonies in '76, except that, if there be a difference, the position of the Confederates, _in reference to legality, as a judicial question_, is more justifiable, as it is certainly more formidable. This word "secession" is, after all, only a word; a word, as MR. WEBSTER said in one of his great speeches, answering Mr. Calhoun, of fearful import; a word for which he could not according to his views, too strongly express condemnation. But whether you use the word "secession," or the familiar expression, "going out of the Union," or, "not consenting to remain in the Union," the idea is one and the same. Much acumen and ingenuity have been displayed, even by a mind profound as that of Mr. Calhoun--a most acute man and a pure man, as Mr. Webster eloquently attested in the Senate chamber, after the decease of that South Carolina statesman--I say a good deal of acumen has been spent on the question whether a State, or any number of States, have _a_ RIGHT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION _to secede from the Union_. It is a quarrel about phrases. It is not necessary in any point of view, political, philological or moral, to use the word "secession" as either excusing or justifying the act of the Confederate States. Suppose I grant, as a