Was the right of a State to secede from the Union taught at the United States Military Academy?
Was Rawle's work "A View of the Constitution of the United States" a text-book at the military academy at any time prior to the Civil War? Did that book advocate the right of secession, and did it inculcate the duty of the individual to be loyal to his State rather than to the Union?
Was this work the legal and authorized text-book from which General
Albert Sidney Johnston (1826), Mr.
Jefferson Davis (1828), Generals
Robert E. Lee (1829),
Joseph E. Johnston (1829),
Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson (1846),
Dabney H. Maury (1846),
Fitzhugh Lee (1856), and others graduated at West Point between the years 1825 and 1861, received instruction in constitutional law?
The above are questions which for years have been asked of the authorities at West Point as a result of statements made in public speeches, in newspapers, magazines, and books, that the right of "secession" of a State was there taught to the graduates named, and from the text-book mentioned above, and which, if unanswered, are tending toward being accepted as historical fact.
Several statements from various sources, made at different times, allege that Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, and other prominent graduates who entered the Southern Confederacy, were taught at the United States Military Academy that any State had a right to secede, and that their duty at that time was allegiance to their States. It has been asserted that the doctrine of the right of secession was inculcated at West Point as an admitted principle of constitutional law and, in each case, it has been said that "A View of the Constitution of the United States," published in Philadelphia in 1825, by William Rawle, was the text-book used.
The year of graduation is placed after each of the names mentioned above, and it will be apparent therefrom, after noting them, that instruction in the right of secession, if such instruction was given, as has been alleged, must have extended over a period of thirty years or more, or from the cadet days of General Albert Sidney Johnston, 1826, to those of General Fitzhugh Lee, 1856.