lOO
THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT AT MONTGOMERY.
it may be an agreeable sop to Southern pride to take for granted that supe-rior numbers alone effected the result. Yet, in the great wars of the world,nothing is so little proved as that the more numerous always and necessarilyprevail. On the contrary, the facts of history show that brains have ever
been more potent than brawn.The career of the ConfederateStates exhibits no exception tothis rule. Eliminate the goodsense and unselfish earnestness ofMr. Lincoln, and the great abilityand practical energy of Sewardand Adams, and of Stanton andChase from the control of theaffairs of the United States ; con-ceive a management of third-rateand incompetent men in theirplaces—will any one doubt thatmatters would have ended differ-ently ? To many it may be unpal-atable to hear that at the South allwas not done that might have beendone and that cardinal blunderswere made. But what is pleasingis not always true, and there can beno good excuse now for suppress-ing important facts or pervertinghistory. The time has come whenpublic attention may with pro-priety be directed to the realities of that momentous period at the South.
On the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina passed unanimously the firstordinance of secession, in these words:
“We, the people of the State of South Carolina in convention assembled, do declare andordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in conventionon the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, allActs and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the saidConstitution, are hereby repealed ; and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘the United States of America, ’ is hereby dissolved.”
On ber invitation, six other Southern States sent delegates to a conven-tion in Montgomery, Alabama , for the purpose of organizing a Confederacy.On the 4th of February, 1861, this convention assembled. The materialwhich constituted it was of a mixed character. There were members whowere constitutionally timid and unfit by character and temperament to par-ticipate in such work as was on hand. Others had little knowledge of publicaffairs on a large scale, and had studied neither the resources of the Southnor the conduct of the movement. A number of them, however, were men of
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