Browsing named entities in Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 28. (ed. Reverend J. William Jones). You can also browse the collection for Constitutional History or search for Constitutional History in all documents.

Your search returned 1 result in 1 document section:

Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 28. (ed. Reverend J. William Jones), Official report of the history Committee of the Grand Camp C. V., Department of Virginia. (search)
ths. But we come now to consider, who were the agressors who inaugurated this wicked war We think it important to make this inquiry, for the reasons already given and because we apprehend, there is a common impression, that inasmuch as the South fired the first gun at Fort Sumter, it really thereby brought on the war, and was hence responsible for the direful consequences which followed the firing of that first shot. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Hallam, in his Constitutional History of England, states a universally recognized principle, when he says: The aggressor in a war (that is, he who begins it) is not the first who uses forces, but the first who renders force necessary. Now which side, according to this high authority, was the aggressor in this conflict? Which side was it that rendered the first blow necessary? What Mr. Stephens says. Says Mr. Stephens, in his War Between the States: I maintain that it (the war) was inaugurated and begun, thou