The War of 1861-65 was not a rebellion, nor was it a civil war, but was, as Gen. T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson once called it, the South's "second war for independence." The author, the son of a Maryland Confederate, and himself an accomplished attorney, outlines the constitutional and historical justifications for the secession of the Southern States and their formation of a new Confederacy, and demonstrates that the fundamental principles of government for which they fought still play an important role in the advancement of free institutions in the world today.