He tried to possess his troubled soul with the severe
intellectual ardor of the law. But his gift of second sight
would not rest. He could not overcome his intuition that, for all
the peace and dreaminess of the outward world, destiny was upon
him. Looking out from his spiritual seclusion, he beheld what
seemed to him complete political confusion, both local and
national. His despairing mood found expression a little later in
the words: "Indeed if we were now to have a Southern convention
to determine upon the true policy of the South either in the
Union or out of it, I should expect to see just as much
profitless discussion, disagreement, crimination, and
recrimination amongst the members of it from different states and
from the same state, as we witness in the present House of
Representatives between Democrats, Republicans, and Americans."
Among the sources of confusion Stephens saw, close at home, was
the Southern battle over the reopening of the slave trade. The
reality of that issue had been made plain in May, 1859, when the
Southern commercial congress at Vicksburg entertained at the same
time two resolutions: one, that the convention should urge all
Southern States to amend their constitutions by a clause
prohibiting the increase of African slavery; the other, that the
convention urge all the Legislatures of Southern States to
present memorials to Congress asking the repeal of the law
against African slave trade.
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