Is Davis a Traitor‪?‬

It is not the design of this book to open the subject of secession. The subjugation of the Southern States, and their acceptance of the terms dictated by the North, may, if the reader please, be considered as having shifted the Federal Government from the basis of compact to that of conquest; and thereby extinguished every claim to the right of secession for the future. Not one word in the following pages will at least be found to clash with that supposition or opinion. The sole object of this work is to discuss the right of secession with reference to the past; in order to vindicate the character of the South for loyalty, and to wipe off the charges of treason and rebellion from the names and memories of Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, and of all who have fought or suffered in the great war of coercion. Admitting, then, that the right of secession no longer exists; the present work aims to show, that, however those illustrious heroes may have been aspersed by the ignorance, the prejudices, and the passions of the hour, they were, nevertheless, perfectly loyal to truth, justice, and the Constitution of 1787 as it came from the hands of the fathers.


The radicals themselves may, if they will only read the following pages, find sufficient reason to doubt their own infallibility, and to relent in their bitter persecutions of the South.


The calm and impartial reader will, it is believed, discover therein the grounds on which the South may be vindicated, and the final verdict of History determined in favor of a gallant, but down-trodden and oppressed, People.


This Lost Cause classic includes the following chapters:


I. Opinions Respecting Secession Determined by Passion, Not by Reason

II. The Issue; or Point in Controversy

III. “The Great Expounder” Scouts the Idea, That the States “Acceded” To the Constitution

IV. The First Resolution Passed by the Convention of 1787

V. The Constitution of 1787 a Compact

VI. The Constitution of 1787 a Compact

VII. The Constitution of 1787 a Compact

VIII. The Constitution of 1787 a Compact Between the States.—The Facts of the Case

IX. The Constitution a Compact Between the States—The Language of the Constitution

X. The Constitution of 1787 a Compact Between the States the Language of the Constitution

XI. The Constitution of 1787 a Compact Between the States. The Views of Hamilton, Madison, Morris, and Other Framers of the Constitution

XII. The Convention of 1787 Describes the Constitution Formed by Them as a Compact Between the States

XIII. Mr. Webster Versus Mr. Webster

XIV. The Absurdities Flowing From the Doctrine That the Constitution Is Not a Compact Between the States, But Was Made by the People of America as One Nation

XV. The Hypothesis That the People of America Form One Nation

XVI. Arguments in Favor of the Right of Secession

XVII. Arguments Against the Right of Secession

XVIII. Was Secession Treason?

XIX. The Causes of Secession

XX. The Legislators of 1787 as Political Prophets