Abraham Lincoln's proclamation shattered all hope of such peaceful
adjustment.
Thousands of the best men in Virginia and North Carolina had voted
against secession. Not one of them, in the face of this proclamation,
would dispute longer with their brethren. Whatever they might think
about the expediency of withdrawing from the Union, they were absolutely
clear on two points. The President of the United States had no power
under the charter of our Government to declare war. Congress only could
do that. If the Cotton States were out of the Union, his act was illegal
because the usurpation of supreme power. If they were yet in the Union,
the raising of an army to invade their homes was a plain violation of
the Constitution.
The heart of the South beat as one man. The cause of the war had been
suddenly shifted to a broader and deeper foundation about which no
possible difference could ever again arise in the Southern States.
The demand for soldiers to invade the South was a bugle call to Southern
manhood to fight for their liberties and defend their homes. It gave
even to the staunchest Union men of the Old South the overt act of an
open breach of the Constitution. From the moment Abraham Lincoln
proclaimed a war without the act of Congress, from that moment he became
a dictator and a despot who deliberately sought to destroy their
liberties.
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