Louisiana's single star - no more and never again
Secession from the Confederate States of America, that is
From The New-York Times April 1, 1861 (The New York Times Archive):
SECESSION REBUKES SECESSION.
The politicians of the Southern Confederacy are entitled to take rank as a peculiar people. They deny the proposition to-day in favor of which they invoked the God of Battles yesterday. The ordinary standard of fact does not obtain amongst them, but all matters are proclaimed true or otherwise just as it may suit their pride, their interest, or temporary convenience.
It is but a few days, comparatively, since the seceded States declared it to be their inviolable right to withdraw at pleasure from any bond or confederation, contract or union, into which they may previously have entered, — the consent of their partners being not in the least needful. For this doctrine they were willing, as they always declare themselves to be when excited, to “shed rivers of blood;” but judging from the records of the Louisiana Convention, now in session, a change of the most marked nature has come over the spirit of their very disorderly dream.
It seems that the delegate named ROZIER had become so thoroughly imbued with the theory of secession as advocated two months ago, that he actually strove to incorporate in the ordinance adopting the Confederate Constitution a “clause declaring the right of Louisiana to withdraw peaceaby from the Southern Confederacy whenever her interests demanded.” Nothing could be more clearly in order than this motion; nothing more tersely expressing the idea which every Confederate fire-eater was urging on the stump and through the newspapers about the beginning of last December. But Mr. ROZIER’s motion was nevertheless tabled by the decisive vote of ninety-two against eleven, — the military disposition which JEFFERSON DAVIS and his associates are attempting to build up, requiring this prompt reversal of the very doctrine on which the new order of things is founded.
James P. Taliaferro - one of the few who voted with Mr. Rozier
The is a book (page 589) by Edward McPherson at Google Books that supports the facts in this editorial by The Times. Earlier Mr. Rozier was voted down when he proposed letting the people of Louisiana vote on representatives to a convention to ratify the CSA constitution.
One of the people who voted in favor of Mr. Rozier’s motions was James P. Taliaferro. You can read more about him and look at his Protest Against Secession at KnowLA.
