Document 7

Confederate General John B. Gordon was a civilian-turned-soldier who became one of General

Robert E. Lee’s most trusted commanders.

… The South maintained with the depth of religious conviction that the Union formed under

the Constitution was a Union of consent and not of force; that the original States were not the

creatures but the creators of the Union; that these States had gained their independence, their

freedom, and their sovereignty from the mother country, and had not surrendered these on

entering the Union; that by the express terms of the Constitution all rights and powers not

delegated were reserved to the States; and the South challenged the North to find one trace of

authority in that Constitution for invading and coercing a sovereign State.

The North, on the other hand, maintained with the utmost confidence in the correctness of her

position that the Union formed under the Constitution was intended to be perpetual; that

sovereignty was a unit and could not be divided; that whether or not there was any express power

granted in the Constitution for invading a State, the right of self-preservation was inherent in all

governments; that the life of the Union was essential to the life of liberty; or, in the words of

Webster, “liberty and union are one and inseparable.”…

Source: John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904

b According to John B. Gordon, what was the Northern point of view regarding the Union created under the

Constitution?