Note 297:1 — Chapter XVII

For the close historical parallel to the exscinding acts of 1837 see page 167, above. A later parallel, it is claimed, is found in the "virtually exscinding act" of the General Assembly of 1861, which was the occasion of the secession of the Southern Presbyterians. The historian of the Southern Presbyterians, who remarks with entire complacency that the "victory" of 1837 was won "only by virtue of an almost solid South," seems quite unconscious that this kind of victory could have any force as a precedent or as an estoppel (Johnson, "The Southern Presbyterians," pp. 335, 359). But it is natural, no doubt, that exscinding acts should look different when examined from the muzzle instead of from the breech.