Overview
The Richmond, Virginia Dispatch stated, "The House of Representatives being in Committee of the Whole, on appropriations and expenditures, and having under consideration the bill to remove the charge of desertion standing against Patrick Kelleher, late private, Company C, Thirty-eighth Illinois Volunteers, Mr. Wheeler, of Alabama, as a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, made a speech."
In his speech, Wheeler argued that the North, prior to the Civil War, had failed to comply with the terms of the Constitution. In particular, he argued that slaves were property and that Northern states had infringed on the constitutional property rights of the slaveholders. He also argued that not only had the North encouraged secession, but that in the past it had, itself, sought secession, and thus that secession was a right of the South. In an aside, Wheeler insinuated that the North was to blame for slavery.
Read more about this topic: Slavery And States' Rights