A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States: Volume 1

Alexander H. Stephens was one of the leading political intellectuals of the 19th century South. Published a few years after the war (1868) the two-volume work persuasively contends that the Founding Fathers had planned that the new government should rest on the “compact theory” of union; assuming that every state had a right to withdraw from the agreement. Suffused in Jeffersonian traditions, Stephens was an expounder of the particularist view on constitutional interpretation: the principle of leaving each state in an empire or federation free to govern itself and promote its own interests, without reference to those of the whole. Stephens builds his thesis, step-by-step, from historical facts and established law. One interesting revelation is his claim that in his later years, Daniel Webster was re-considering the “compact idea” and coming around to the particularist view. Regarded as the ablest vindication of secession ever produced, Stephens’ work has stood the test of time and remains a respected study for the constitutional scholar or ordinary citizen alike. Read more