[Civil War]: "A Friend of the Union":

$950 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND STATES'-RIGHTS COMPARED;—WITH THE FATAL CONSEQUENCES OF BEING DISREGARDED [caption title]. An unrecorded circular from the early days of the Civil War, likely written by a Southern Unionist or concerned individual from the border states. The document takes the form of ten numbered points, stating that the People of the United States convened and ratified the Constitution and citing constitutional support for the illegality of secession. The anonymous author concludes in his seventh point that:"In contravention of all these Delegated Powers of National Sovereignty, and in total disregard of the explicit negations of the same to the States, the States of South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia, have, by entering into an 'Agreement of Compact' with each other, in violation of an express inhibition of the Constitution, and in flagrant rebellion against the Government of the United States…taken up at first under the promptings of a depraved ambition of a few deluded Individuals who, by perseverance, deception, and fraud, brought together a self-created Convention to pass a 'Secession Ordinance,' which only means Treason against the Government, the Constitution, and the Laws—against the Peace, the Tranquility, and the Integrity of the Union."The final points argue nonetheless that "it is desirable that the Union shall be preserved with as little impairment and as whole in al

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