GIFT OF 
 EVGENE 
 
.JKFFKKSON DAVIS 
 
The War Between 
 the States 
 
 or 
 
 Was Secession a Constitutional 
 
 Right Previous to the 
 
 War of 1861-65? 
 
 Arranged without verbal changes from 
 
 "Is DAVIS A TRAITOR" 
 
 / 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT T. BLEDSOE, A. M., LL. D. 
 
 1915 
 J. P. BELL COMPANY, INC. 
 
 LYNCHBURG, VA. 
 

 COPYRIGHT 1915 
 
 DANVILLE CHAPTER, U. D. C. 
 
 DANVILLE, VA. 
 
 ^ 
 
Introduction 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Is the Constitution a Compact? ......... . . ..................... 14 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Webster Scouts the" Idea that the States "Acceded" to the 
 
 Constitution ................................................ ^ 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The First Resolution Passed by the Convention of 1787 ........ 24 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Constitution of 1787 a Compact ........................... 20 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Constitution of 1787 a Compact between the States The 
 
 Facts of the Case ................................................................. 40 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Constitution a Compact between the States The Lan 
 
 guage of the Constitution ...................................................... 51 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Constitution of 1787 a Compact between the States The 
 
 Language of the Constitution Continued .......................... 58 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Constitution of 1787 a Compact between the States _ The 
 
 Views of Certain of the Framers of the Constitution ...... 66 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The Constitution of 1787 a Compact between tne States Mr. 
 
 Webster Again ................................................................. 79 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Absurdities Flowing From the Doctrine that the Con 
 stitution is Not a Compact between the States, But Was 
 Made by the People of America as One Nation.... 91 
 
 333710 
 
$ , -CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XII PAGE 
 
 The Hypothesis that the People of America Form One Nation 94 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 Arguments in Favor of the Right of Secession.... - 111 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 Arguments Against the Right of Secession.... - 148 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 Was Secession Treason? ............. - 1? () 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 The Causes of Secession ................ 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 The Legislators of 1787 as Political Prophets.... - 237 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is not the design of this hook to open the subject of 
 secession. The subjugation of the Southern States, and 
 their acceptance of the terms dictated by the Xorth, may, 
 if the reader please, be considered as having shifted the 
 Federal Government from the basis of compact to that of 
 conquest; and thereby extinguished every claim to the 
 right of secession for the future. Not one word in the fol 
 lowing pages will at least be found to clash with that sup 
 position or opinion. The sole object of this work is to dis 
 cuss the right of secession with reference to the past ; in 
 order to vindicate the character of the South for loyalty, 
 and to wipe off the charges of treason and rebellion "from 
 the names and memories of Jefferson Davis, Stonewall 
 Jackson, Albert Sidney Johnston, Eobert E. Lee, and of 
 all who have fought or suffered in the great war of coercion. 
 Admitting, then, that the right of secession no longer 
 exists ; the present work aims to show, that, however those 
 illustrious heroes may have been aspersed by the ignorance, 
 the prejudices, and the passions of the hour, they were^ 
 nevertheless, perfectly loyal to truth, justice, and the 
 Constitution of 1787 as it came from the hands of the 
 fathers. 
 
 The calm and impartial reader will, it is believed, dis 
 cover therein the grounds on which the South may he 
 vindicated. 
 
 ALBERT TAYLOR BLEDSOE. 
 Baltimore, 1866. 
 
EXPLANATORY PREFACE 
 
 Albert Taylor Bledsoe had been graduated at West Point in 
 1830. He was there with both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. 
 Lee, though not a classmate of either. While professor of 
 mathematics in the University of Mississippi his relations with 
 Davis were maintained with great cordiality. 
 
 He was not in favor of sesession, but with the call for her 
 quota of 75,000 men from Virginia, to enter the Federal Army, 
 like Lee and other Virginians he felt that he could not ally him 
 self with the enemies of his State, so he entered the Confederate 
 Army, receiving the title of Colonel; but he was preeminently 
 a student and a scholar, not a soldier. Later President Davis 
 gave him a position in the Confederate Cabinet : his title was 
 Chief of the Bureau of War, his duties those of Assistant Secre 
 tary of War. Later on in a consultation between Davis and Lee 
 it was decided that the greatest service he could render to the 
 seceded States was to write a constitutional history which should, 
 if the facts were made clear, justify the South in the right to 
 secede. 
 
 In order to do this it was necessary for him to have access to 
 the debates in the formation of the constitution, of the United 
 States as well as of the individual States, then constituting the 
 Union. 
 
 The necessary documents were not to be found south of Mason 
 and Dixon s Line. He was therefore obliged to go to England 
 to study there in the British Museum. 
 
 My mother, who was born in New Jersey, but for many years 
 had lived in the South, was an ardent Southerner. She, out of 
 a very limited inheritance, paid all of the expenses of the trip, 
 of my father s stay of several years in England, and of the 
 family while he was gone, as well as of the publication of the 
 book after his return in 1866. 
 
 He had intended to give it the title almost exactly like the sub 
 title of the published volume; but on his return to America, 
 Jefferson Davis was a prisoner in Fortress Monroe, and in peril 
 of his life. He, therefore, gave the volume when it was issued the 
 title, "IS DAVIS A TRAITOR?" 
 
 Charles O Connor, Mr. Davis s advocate in the trial for treason, 
 told my father that without the facts brought to light in his 
 book, he could not have saved Mr. Davis s life. 
 
 My mother never received any compensation for what she had 
 expended, and she always rejoiced that she had been able to aid 
 in justifying her beloved South. 
 
 These few words of explanation seem necessary in issuing this 
 volume again, as a book of reference for the schools of the South. 
 
 SOPHIA BLEDSOE HERRICK. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION 
 
 THE final judgment of history in relation to the War of 
 1861 will, in no small degree, depend on its verdict with 
 respect to the right of secession. If, when this right was 
 practically asserted by the South, it had been conceded by 
 the North, there would not have been even a pretext for 
 the tremendous conflict which followed. Is it not wonder 
 ful, then, that a question of such magnitude and impor 
 tance should have been so little considered, or discussed? 
 Perhaps no other question of Apolitical philosophy, or of 
 international law, pregnant with such unutterable calami 
 ties, has ever been so partially and so superficially examined 
 as the right of secession from the Federal Union of the 
 United States. From first to last it seems to have been 
 decided by passion, and not by reason. The voice of 
 reason, enlightened by the study of the facts of history and 
 the principles of political philosophy, yet remains to be 
 heard on the subject of secession. 
 
 CONFEDERATION AND UNION 
 
 Xo one, at present, denies that the States had a right to 
 secede from the Union formed by the old Articles of Con 
 federation. Indeed, this right was claimed and exercised 
 by the States, when they withdrew from that Confederation 
 in order to form "a more perfect Union. 7 Yet, while that 
 Union was standing and in favor with the people, the right 
 of secession therefrom was vehemently denied. Tke reason 
 of this is well stated by Mr. Madison in The Federalist. 
 Having explained and vindicated the right of the States, 
 or any portion of them,- to secede from the existing Union, 
 
10 THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 he adds: "The time has been when it was incumbent on 
 all of us to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. 
 The scene has now changed, and with it the part which the 
 same motives dictate." 1 That is to say, the time has been 
 when it became all Americans, as patriots and worshipers 
 of the existing Union,, to veil the right of secession ; but 
 now it is the time to unveil this sacred right, and let the 
 truth be seen!. Accordingly, the Convention of 1787 un 
 veiled this right, and the States, one after another, seceded 
 from the Union ; though the Articles by which it was 
 formed expressly declared that it should be "perpetual," or 
 last forever. 
 
 MADISON S ARGUMENT 
 
 The same thing happened, in a still greater degree, 
 under the new and "more perfect Union." This, unlike 
 the one for which it had been substituted, did not pro 
 nounce itself immortal. Still it was deemed incumbent on 
 all men by Mr. Madison, and especially upon himself, to 
 veil the right of secession from the new Union; which he, 
 more than any other man, had labored to establish and 
 preserve. But having exercised the right of secession from 
 one compact between the States, how could he veil that 
 right under another compact between the same parties? 
 Having, for the benefit of his age, revealed the truth, how 
 could he hope to hide it from all future ages? Having 
 laid down the right of secession from one Federal Union, 
 as the great fundamental law to which the new Union owed 
 its very existence, how could he hope to cover it up again, 
 and make the new compact forever binding on posterity? 
 There is not, it is believed, in the whole range of literature, 
 a sophism more ineffably weak and flimsy than the one 
 employed by Mr. Madison to veil the right of secession 
 from the new Union. 
 
 The first compact, says he, was made by the Legislatures 
 of the States, and the second by the people themselves of 
 the States. Hence, although the States had seceded from 
 the first compact or Union, he supposed, or hoped, they 
 would have no right to secede from the second. 2 The 
 
 1 The Ft-ilernlM, No. xliii. - "The Madison Papers," p. 1184. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 11 
 
 first compact was, it is true, originally adopted by the 
 Legislatures of the States ; but then it was approved by 
 the people themselves, who lived under it as the Constitu 
 tion and government of their choice. Were not the States, 
 then, just as much bound by this compact, as if it had been 
 originally made by the people themselves ? What would be 
 thought of an individual who should approve and adopt 
 as his own a contract made by his agent, and, having 
 derived all the advantages of it, should seek to repudiate it 
 on the ground that it was not originally entered into by 
 himself? He would be deemed infamous. Yet, precisely 
 such is the distinction and the logic of Mr. Madison, in his 
 attempt to justify the act of secession from the first Union, 
 and to deny the right of secession from the second Union 
 between the same parties ! 
 
 The two compacts are construed differently ; because the 
 one was originally made by agents and afterwards ratified 
 by the principals, and the other was originally made by the 
 principals themselves ! Could any sophism be more weak 
 or flimsy ? Is it not, indeed, in the eye of reason, as thin 
 as gossamer, as transparent as the air itself? Hopeless, 
 indeed, must be the attempt to find a difference between 
 the two cases, which shall establish the right of secession 
 in the one and not in the other; since James Madison 
 himself, with all his unsurpassed powers of logic and acute 
 discrimination, was compelled to rely on so futile a 
 distinction. 
 
 PART PLAYED BY FEELING 
 
 But the majority needed no veil, not even one as thin as 
 that employed by Mr. Madison, to conceal the right of 
 secession from their eyes. The mists raised by its own 
 passions were amply sufficient for that purpose. The doc 
 trine of secession was regarded by the reigning majority, 
 as simply equivalent to -the destruction of "the best Gov 
 ernment the world had ever seen," or was ever likely to 
 see. Hence, before the dread tribunal of the sovereign 
 majority, the touch of secession was political death. The 
 public men of the country, and all aspirants after office, 
 shrank from it as from plague, pestilence, and famine. 
 
12 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 As to whether secession was a Constitutional right or 
 otherwise, the multitude knew nothing, and cared less ; but 
 still, in their passionate zeal, they denounced it as rebellion, 
 treason, and every other crime in the dark catalogue of 
 political offences. Their leaders, having studied the subject 
 as little as themselves, were no less ignorant respecting the 
 merits of the question, and even more fierce in denouncing 
 secession as the sum of all villainies, treasons, and rebel 
 lions. Thus, what the logic of Mr. Madison failed to ac 
 complish was achieve! by the rhetoric of angry politicians 
 and the passions of an unfuriated majority; that is, the 
 right of secession was veiled. The object of this little book 
 is simply to appeal from the mad forum of passion to the 
 calm tribunal of reason. 
 
 WHY EEVIVE THE DISCUSSION ? 
 
 But why, it may be asked, appeal to reason ? Has not the 
 war of secession been waged, and the South subjugated? 
 Can reason, however victorious, bind up the broken heart, 
 or call the dead to life? Can reason cause the desolate, 
 dark, waste places of the South to sriiile again, or the 
 hearts of her downcast and dejected people to rejoice? 
 Can reason strike the fetters from the limbs of the down 
 trodden white population of the South ? True, alas ! reason 
 can do none of these things ; but still she has a high office 
 and duty to perform. For, however sore her calamities, 
 all is not yet lost to our bleeding and beloved South. She 
 still retains that which, to every true man, is infinitely 
 dearer than property or life. She still retains her moral 
 wealth, the glory of her Jacksons, her Sidney Johnstons, 
 her Lees, her Davises, and of all who have nobly died or 
 suffered in her cause. These are her imperishable jewels; 
 and, since little else is left to her, these shall be cherished 
 with the greater love, with the more enthusiastic and 
 undying devotion. 
 
 Let no one ask, then, except a dead soul, why argue the 
 question of secession? For it is precisely as this question 
 is decided that the Jacksons, the Johnstons, the Lees, and 
 the Davises of the South will be pronounced rebels and 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 13 
 
 traitors,, or heroes and martyrs; that the South itself will 
 be disgraced, or honored, in the estimation of mankind. 
 History is, at this moment, busy in making up her verdict 
 on this momentous question, which is^ to determine so 
 much that is most dear to every true son of the South. 
 Shall we, then, remain idle spectators, mere passive lookers- 
 on, while the North is flooding the world .with volumes 
 against the justice of our cause? Shall we stand, like the 
 dumb brutes around us, having no word to utter in the 
 great cause of truth, justice, and humanity, which is now 
 pending at the bar of history? Or shall we, on the con 
 trary, contribute our mite toward the just decision of that 
 glorious cause ? 
 
 The radicals themselves might, perhaps, derive some 
 little benefit from our humble labors. For, if duly weighed 
 and considered by them, these labors might serve to miti 
 gate their wrath, and turn their thoughts from schemes of 
 vengeance to the administration of justice, from persecu 
 tion and ruin to peace and prosperity. Be this as it may, 
 however, I shall proceed to argue the right of secession ; 
 because this is the great issue on which the whole Southern 
 people, the dead -as well as the living, is about to be tried 
 in the person of their illustrious chief, Jefferson Davis. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IS THE CONSTITUTION A COMPACT? 
 
 THE QUESTION STATED 
 
 IT is conceded, both by Webster 1 and Story, that if the 
 Constitution is a compact to which the States are the 
 parties, then the States have a right to secede from the 
 Union at pleasure. Thus says Webster: "If a league 
 between sovereign powers have no limitation as to the 
 time of duration, and contain nothing making it perpetual, 
 it subsists only during the good pleasure of the parties, 
 although no violation be complained of. If, in the opinion 
 of either party, it be violated, such party may say he will 
 no longer fulfill its obligations on his part, but will con 
 sider the whole league or compact at an end, although it 
 might be one of its stipulations that it should be perpetual." 
 In like manner Mr. Justice Story says : "The obvious 
 deductions which may be, and, indeed, have been, drawn 
 from considering the Constitution a compact between 
 States, are that it operates as a mere treaty or convention 
 between them, and has an obligatory force no longer than 
 suits its pleasure or its consent continues/ 2 etc. Thus the 
 great controversy is narrowed down to the single question- 
 Is the Constitution a compact between the States? If so, 
 then the right of secession is conceded, even by its most 
 powerful and determined opponents; by the great jurist, 
 as well as by "the great expounder" of the North. 
 
 The denial that the Constitution was a compact is pre 
 sented in every possible form, or variety of expression. 
 We are told that it was not made by the States, nor by 
 the people of the States, but "by the people of the whole 
 United States in the aggregate. " ?> The States, we are 
 assured, did not accede to the Constitution; it was ordained 
 by the sovereign people of America as one nation. Echo 
 ing the bold assertion of Webster, Mr. Motley says, that 
 
 1 Daniel Webster. 
 
 - Commentaries on the Constitution." vol. iii. p. 287. first published 
 in 188.,. 
 
 :: Webster. 
 
Tin: WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 15 
 
 "the States never acceded to the Constitution, and have 
 no power to secede from it. It was ordained and estab 
 lished over the States by a power superior to the States, 
 by the people of the whole land in their aggregate 
 capacity/ 71 It was not made by the States, and it was not 
 ratified by the States. It was, on the contrary, made and 
 ordained by the people of America as one nation, and is, 
 therefore, the constitution of a national government. Such 
 is the doctrine which, in every mode of expression, is 
 inculcated by the Storys, the Websters, and the Motleys of 
 the North. 
 
 When we consider, in the simple light of history, the 
 manner in which the Constitution of the United States 
 was made, or framed, and afterwards ratified, such asser 
 tions seem exceedingly wonderful, not to say inexplicable, 
 on the supposition that their authors were honest men. 
 But who can measure the mysterious depths of party spirit, 
 or the force of political passions in a democracy? I know 
 something of that force; for, during the greater part of 
 my life, I followed, with implicit confidence, those blind 
 leaders of the blind, Mr. Justice Story and Daniel Webster. 
 History will yet open the eyes of the world to the strange 
 audacity of their assertions. 
 
 Ever since the Declaration of Independence there have 
 been two great political parties in the United States : the 
 one, regarding the American people as one nation, has 
 labored to consolidate the Federal Union; while the other, 
 attaching itself to the reserved rights of the States, has 
 zealously resisted this tendency to consolidation in the 
 central power. Even under the old Articles of Confeder 
 ation, or before the new Constitution was formed, these 
 political opinions and parties existed. For, however 
 strange it may seem, there were those who, even under 
 those Articles, considered "the States as Districts of people 
 composing one political society"; 2 or the "American 
 people as forming one nation." 3 Nay, in the great Con 
 vention of 1787, by which the Constitution was formed, it 
 was boldly asserted by a leading member "that we never 
 
 "Rebellion Records," vol. 1, p. 211. 
 
 2 "The Madison Papers," p. 087. 
 
 3 Marshall s "Life of Washington," vol. v, chap. i. 
 
16 THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 were independent States, were not such now, and never 
 could be, even on the principles of the Confederation. 
 The States, and the advocates of them, were intoxicated 
 with the idea of their sovereignty/ 71 Now, if any aberra 
 tion of the mind under the influence of political passions 
 could seem strange to the student of history, it would be 
 truly wonderful that such an assertion could have been put 
 forth under the Articles of Confederation which expressly 
 declared that "each State 7 of the Union formed by them 
 "retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence/ 2 
 The author of that assertion did not interpret, he flatly 
 contradicted, the fundamental law of the government 
 under which he lived and acted. 
 
 The above opinion or view of the old Articles of Con 
 federation passed away with the passions to which it owed 
 its birth. No one, at the present day, supposes that the 
 old Articles moulded the States into "one political society," 
 or "nation/ 7 leaving them merely "districts of people." 
 For since those Articles have passed away, and the struggle 
 for power under them has ceased, all can clearly see what 
 they so plainly announced, that "each State 77 of the con 
 federation established by them retained "its sovereignty, 
 freedom, and independence/ 
 
 But the natures of men were not changed by changing 
 the objects to which their political passions might attach 
 themselves. Hence the same opposite tendencies arose 
 under the new "Articles of Union, 77 as the Constitution of 
 1787 is habitually called by its authors, and produced the 
 same conflicting parties. Each party had, of course, its 
 extreme wing. There were those who, unduly depressing 
 the States, identified their relations to the central power 
 with that of so many counties to a state, or of individuals 
 to an ordinary political community. On the other hand, 
 there were those who, from an extreme jealousy of the 
 central authority, resolved the States into their original 
 independence, or into their condition under the Articles 
 of Confederation. The watchword of one party was the 
 sovereignty of the Federal Union ; and the watchword of 
 the other was the sovereignty of the States. 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers." 
 
THE WAR BETWEEX THE STATES 17 
 
 THE QUESTION OF A COMPACT DEBATED 
 
 It was in the Senate of the United States, in 1833, that 
 these two theories of the Constitution stood face to face in 
 the persons of those two intellectual giants Webster and 
 Calhoun then engaged in the most memorable debate of 
 the New World. It was then predicted, and events have 
 since verified the prediction, that the destinies of America 
 would hinge and turn on the principles of that great 
 debate. The war of words then waged between the giants 
 has since become a war of deeds and blood between the 
 sections which they represented. Xow the question is, on 
 which side was right, truth, justice? 
 
 This is precisely the question which, in 1833, the great 
 combatants submitted to the decision of after-ages. As he 
 drew toward the close of his speech, Mr. Calhoun reminded 
 his great antagonist "that the principles he might advani i- 
 would be subjected to the revision of posterity. 77 "I do not 
 decline its judgment/ 7 said Mr. Webster, in rising to reply, 
 "nor withhold myself from its scrutiny. 77 Mr. Webster s 
 speech on this occasion is pronounced by his learned 
 biographer 1 the greatest intellectual effort of his life, and 
 is represented as having annihilated every position assumed 
 by Mr. Calhoun. But the combatants did not submit the 
 controversy to the judgment of Mr. Everett; they sub 
 mitted it to "the revision of posterity. 77 History is the 
 great tribunal to which they appealed; and history will 
 settle the great issue between them, and between the two 
 sections of the Union. 
 
 It was in 1833, for the first time in the history of the 
 country, that it was solemnly asserted and argued that 
 the Constitution of the United States was not a compact 
 between the States. This new doctrine was simultaneously 
 put forth by Mr. Justice Story in his "Commentaries on 
 the Constitution of the United States, 77 and by Mr. Daniel 
 Webster in "the greatest intellectual effort of his life, 77 
 that is, in his great speech in the Senate of the 16th of 
 February, 1833. In order to show that the Constitution 
 is not a compact between the States, the position is assumed 
 
 1 Edward Everett. 
 
18 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 that it is not a compact at all. If it be a compact, say they, 
 then the States had a right to secede. But it is not a 
 compact, and hence secession is treason and rebellion. The 
 great fundamental questions, then, on which the whole 
 controversy hinges, are, first, Is the Constitution a 
 compact? and, secondly, Is it a compact between the 
 States? These are the questions which shall and ought to 
 be subjected to "the revision of posterity." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 WEBSTER SCOUTS THE IDEA THAT THE STATES "ACCEDED" 
 TO THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 "THE GREAT EXPOUNDER - ( ?) 
 
 MR. WEBSTER was supposed to have studied the Consti 
 tution, and its history, more carefully and more profoundly 
 than any other man. He habitually "spoke, indeed, as if he 
 had every particle of its meaning, and of its history, at 
 his finger s end. Hence he acquired, at least among his 
 political friends, the lofty title of "the great expounder." 
 His utterances were listened to as oracles. If, indeed, his 
 great mind had been guided by a knowledge of facts, or a 
 supreme love of truth, the irresistible force of his logic, 
 and the commanding powers of his eloquence, would have 
 justified those who delighted to call him "the godlike 
 Daniel." But, unfortunately, no part of his godlikeness 
 consisted in a scrupulous regard for truth, or the accuracy 
 of his assertions. He was, however, so great a master of 
 words that he stood in little need of facts in order to pro 
 duce a grand impression by the rolling thunders of his 
 eloquence. I only wonder that he was not also called "the 
 thunderer." N"o one better understood, either in theory 
 or in practice, the wonderful magic of words than Daniel 
 Webster. 
 
 "Was it Mirabeau," says he, "or some other master of 
 the human passions, who has told us that words are things? 
 They are indeed things, and things of mighty influence, not 
 only in addresses to the passions and high-wrought feelings 
 of mankind, but in the discussion of legal and political 
 questions also; because a just conclusion is often avoided, 
 or a false one reached, by the adroit substitution of one 
 phrase, or one word, for another." Xothing can be more 
 just than this general reflection ; and nothing, as we shall 
 presently see, can be more unjust than the application 
 made of it bv Mr. Webster. 
 
20 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 DID THE STATES "ACCEDE" TO THE CONSTITUTION? 
 
 He finds an example of this adroit use of language in the 
 first resolution of Mr. Calhoun. "The first resolution," 
 says he, "declares that the people of the several States 
 acceded to the Constitution." As "the natural converse 
 of accession is secession^ so Mr. Webster supposes that 
 Calhoun has adroitly, and "not without a well-considered 
 purpose," shaped his premises to a foregone conclusion. 
 "When it is stated," says he, "that the people of the States 
 acceded to the Union, it may be more plausibly argued that 
 they may secede from it. If, in adopting the Constitution, 
 nothing was done but acceding to a compact, nothing would 
 seem necessary, in order to break it up, but to secede from 
 the same compact." 
 
 But "this term accede asserts Mr. Webster, "is wholly 
 out of place. . . . There is more importance than 
 may, at first sight, appear in the introduction of this new 
 word by the honorable mover of the resolutions. . 
 The people of the United States," he continues, "used no 
 such form of expression in establishing the present Gov 
 ernment. ... It is "unconstitutional language." 
 Such are a few of the bold, sweeping, and confident asser 
 tions of "the great expounder of the Constitution." But 
 how stands the fact? Is this really "a new word"; or is 
 it as old as the Constitution itself, and rendered almost 
 obsolete at the North by the progress of new ideas and new 
 forms of speech? Was it not, in fact, as familiar to the 
 very fathers and framers of the Constitution of the United 
 States as it afterwards became foreign and strange to the 
 ears of its Northern expounders? This is the question; 
 and, fortunately, the answer is free from all metaphysical 
 refinement, from all logical subtlety, from all curious 
 speculation. For there lies the open record, with this very 
 word accede, and this very application of the word, spread 
 all over its ample pages in the most abundant profusion. 
 Xo mode of expression is, indeed, more common with the 
 fathers and the framers of the Constitution, while speak 
 ing of the act of its adoption, than this very phrase, "the 
 accession of the States." Xo household word ever fell more 
 frequently or more familiarly from their lips. 
 
THE WAU BETWEEN THE STATES 21 
 
 Thus in the Convention of 1787, Mr. James Wilson, to 
 whose great influence the historian of the Constitution 
 ascribes its adoption by the State of Pennsylvania, 1 pre 
 ferred "a partial union 7 of the States, "with a door open 
 for the accession of the rest/ 7 rather than to see their dis 
 position "to confederate anew on better principles 7 
 entirely defeated. 2 "But will the small States/ 7 asks 
 another member of the same Convention, "in that case, 
 accede to it [the Constitution] ? 77 Mr. Gerry, a delegate 
 from Massachusetts, w r as opposed to "a partial confederacy, 
 leaving other States to accede or not to accede, as had been 
 intimated. 773 Even Mr. Madison, "the father of the Con 
 stitution/ 7 as by way of eminence he has long been called, 
 used the expression "to accede " in the Convention of 1787, 
 in order to denote the act of adopting "the new form of 
 government by the States. 7 4 
 
 In like manner Gouverneur Randolph, who was also a 
 member of the Convention of 1787, and who had just 
 reported the form of ratification to be used by the State 
 of Virginia, said, "that the accession of eight States 
 reduced our deliberations to the single question of Union 
 or no Union.* 7 "If it [the Constitution], 77 says Patrick 
 Henry, "be amended, every State will accede to it. 775 
 "Does she [Virginia] gain anything from her central posi 
 tion/ 7 asks Mr. Grayson, "by acceding to that paper? 77 the 
 Constitution. 6 "I came hither/ 7 says Mr. Innes, "under 
 the persuasion that the felicity of our country required 
 that we should accede to this system 777 (the new Constitu 
 tion). "Our new Constitution/ 7 says Franklin, who next 
 to Washington was the most illustrious member of the 
 Convention of 1787, "is now established with eleven 
 States, and the accession of a twelfth is soon expected. 778 
 And, finally, George Washington himself, who, watching 
 the States as one after another adopted the new Constitu 
 tion, says: "If these, with the States eastward and north 
 ward of us, should accede to the Federal Government/ 7 
 
 1 Mr. Curtis, vol. i. p. 465. - "The Madison Papers." p. 797. 
 
 -Ibid., p. 1101. * Una., p. 1103. 
 
 5 "Elliott s Debates." vol. iii, p. 652. 
 
 "The Madison Papers." p. 1099. 
 
 " "Elliott s Debates." Vol. iii. 
 
 8 "Franklin s Works," vol. v, p. 409. 
 
22 THE WAR BETWEEX THE STATES 
 
 etc. 1 Thus, while the transaction was passing before their 
 eyes the fathers of the Constitution of the United States, 
 with the great father of his country at their head, 
 described the act by which the new Union was formed as 
 "the accession of the States"; using the very expression 
 which 7 in the resolution of Mr. Calhoun, is so vehemently 
 condemned as "unconstitutional language," as "a new 
 word/ 7 invented by the advocates of secession for the vile 
 purpose of disunion. 
 
 To these high authorities may be added that of Chief 
 Justice Marshall ; who, in his "Life of Washington," notes 
 the fact that "Xorth Carolina accedes to the Union." 2 
 This was many months after the new Government had 
 gone into operation. Mr. Justice Story is, in spite of his 
 artificial theory of the Constitution, a witness to the same 
 fact. "The Constitution," says he, "has been ratified by all 
 the States; . . . Ehode Island did not accede to it 
 until more than a year after it had been in operation"; 
 just as if he had completely forgotten his own theory of 
 the Constitution. 3 If it were necessary this list of 
 authorities, for the use of the word in question, and for the 
 precise application made of it by Mr. Calhoun, might be 
 greatly extended. 
 
 There is, as Mr. Webster says, more importance to be 
 attached to the word in question than may at first sight 
 appear. For if "the States acceded" to the Constitution, 
 each acting for itself alone, then it was a voluntary asso 
 ciation of States, from which", according to his own admis 
 sion, any member might secede at pleasure. Accordingly 
 this position of the great oracle of the North is echoed and 
 reechoed by all who, since the war began, have written 
 against the right of secession. Thus says one of the most 
 faithful of these echoes, Mr. Motley; "The States never 
 acceded to the Constitution, and have no power to secede 
 from it." It was "ordained and established" over the 
 States by a power superior to the States, by the people of 
 the whole land in their aggregate capacity. 4 
 
 1 "The Writings of Washington." vol. ix. p. L So. 
 
 2 Vol. v, chap. iii. 
 
 3 Book iii, chap, xliii. 
 
 4 "Rebellion Records." vol. 1. p. 211. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 23 
 
 If, with the fathers of the Constitution, in opposition to 
 its modern expounder and perverter, he had seen that the 
 new Union was formed by an accession of the States, then 
 he would have been compelled, on his own principle, to 
 recognize the right of secession. For he has truly said, 
 what no one ever denied, that "the same power which estab 
 lished the Constitution may justly destroy it." 1 Hence, if 
 the Constitution was established by the accession or consent 
 of the States, then may the Union be dissolved by a 
 secession of the States. This conclusion is, as we have seen, 
 expressly admitted by Mr. Webster and Mr. Justice Story. 
 
 When, from his high position in the Senate, Mr. Webster 
 assured the people of the United States that it is "uncon 
 stitutional language" to say "the States acceded to the 
 Constitution," he was no doubt religiously believed by the 
 great majority of his readers and hearers. He was sup 
 posed to know all about the subject; and was, therefore, 
 followed as the great guide of the people. But, as we 
 have seen, he was profoundly ignorant of the facts of the 
 case about which he delivered himself with so much con 
 fidence. The "new word," as he called it, was precisely 
 the word of the fathers of the Constitution. Hence, if this 
 word lays the foundation of secession, as Mr. Webster 
 contended it does, that foundation was laid, not by Cal- 
 houn, but by the fathers of the Constitution itself, with 
 "the father of his country" at their head. 
 
 So much for the first link in "the great expounder s" 
 argument against the right of secession. His principles 
 are right, but his facts are wrong. 
 
 1 "Rebellion Records," vol. 1, p. 214. 
 
C H A P T E R 1 V 
 
 THE FIRST RESOLUTION PASSED BY THE CONVENTION OF 1787 
 
 A "XATIOXAL" GOVERNMENT (?) 
 
 MR. WEBSTER lays great stress on the fact that the first 
 resolution passed by the Convention of 1787 declared, 
 "That a national government ought to be established, con 
 sisting of a supreme legislative., judiciary, and executive." 
 But the fact only shows that the Convention, when it first 
 met, had the desire to establish "a national government," 
 rather than a federal one. This resolution was passed 
 before the Convention was fully assembled, and by the vote 
 of only six States, a minority of the whole number. After 
 the members had arrived, and the Convention was full, the 
 resolution in question was reconsidered and rescinded. 
 The Convention, when filled up, changed the name of their 
 offspring, calling it "the government of the United 
 States." 1 
 
 A fraction of the Convention named it, as Mr. Webster 
 says, but the whole Convention refused to baptize it with 
 that name, and gave it another. Why then resuscitate 
 that discarded name, and place it before the reader, as Mr. 
 Webster does, in capital letters? Is it because "words are 
 things; and things of mighty influence?" or why persist, 
 as Mr. Webster always does, in calling "the government of 
 the United States" a national one? If the Convention had 
 called it a national government, this name would have 
 been so continually rung in our ears that we could neither 
 have listened to the Constitution itself, or to its history, 
 whenever these proclaimed its federal character. Xay, 
 although the Convention positively refused to name it a 
 national government, on the avowed ground that it did 
 not express their views, yet has this name been eternally 
 rung in our ears by the Northern School of politicians 
 and declaimers; just as if it had been adopted, instead of 
 having been repudiated and rejected, as it was, by the 
 authors of the Constitution. 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers." p. 908. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 25 
 
 In like manner Mr. Justice Story, in his "Commentaries 
 on the Constitution, 7 builds an argument on the name 
 given to the new government. 
 
 The Convention, by a vote of six States, decided that "a 
 national government ought to be established." But, when 
 this resolution was reconsidered, Mr. Ellsworth "objected 
 to the term national government" 1 and it was rejected. 
 The record says: "The first resolution that a national 
 government ought to be established/ being taken up, 
 . . . Mr. Ellsworth, seconded by Mr. Gorham, moves 
 to alter it so as to run that the government of the United 
 States ought to consist, etc." This alteration, he said, 
 would drop the word national and retain the proper title, 
 "the United States." 2 This motion was unanimously 
 adopted by the Convention. 3 That is, they unanimously 
 rejected "the term national government," and yet both 
 Story and Webster build an argument on this term just as 
 if it had been retained by them ! 
 
 . "The name United States of America ," says the 
 younger Story, "is an unfortunate one, and has, doubtless, 
 led many minds into error. For it may be said, if the 
 States do not form a confederacy, why are they called 
 " United States ? " 4 This name is, indeed, a most unfor 
 tunate one for the purpose of his argument, and for that 
 of the whole school of politicians to which he belongs. But 
 then, as we learn from the journal of the Convention of 
 1787, it was deliberately chosen by them as the most suit 
 able name for the work of their own hands ; and that too 
 in preference to the very name which the Avhole ^Northern 
 school clings to with such astonishing pertinacity. From 
 the same journal, as well as from the other records of the 
 country, I shall hereafter produce many other things which 
 are equally unfortunate for the grand argument of the 
 Storys,-the Websters, and the Motleys of the Xorth. 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers." - Ibid., p. 90S. :! Ibid., p. 909. 
 
 4 "The American Question," by William IT. Story. 
 
CHAP T E E V 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787 A COMPACT 
 THE QUESTIONS INVOLVED 
 
 WAS the Constitution a compact? Was it a compact 
 between the States, or to which the States were the parties ? 
 Was it a compact from which any State might recede at 
 pleasure? These three questions are perfectly distinct, 
 and all the rules of clear thinking require that they 
 should be so held in our minds, instead of being mixed 
 up and confounded in our discussions. Yet Mr. Justice 
 Story, in his long chapter on the "Nature of the Consti 
 tution," discusses these questions, not separately and 
 distinctly, but all in one confused mass, to the no little 
 perplexity and distraction of his own mind. He carries 
 them all along together, and, in the darkness and confusion 
 occasioned by this mode of proceeding, he is frequently 
 enabled to elude the force of his adversaries logic. 
 
 Thus, for instance, he sets out with the flat denial of the 
 doctrine that the Constitution is a compact ; and yet, when 
 the evidences become too strong for resistance, or a cloud 
 of witnesses rise up to confound him, he turns around, 
 and instead of fairly admitting that the Constitution is a 
 compact, asserts that if it is a compact it is not one between 
 the States. AYhen too hardly pressed on this position, 
 he replies that if it is a compact between the States it is 
 not such a compact that it may be revoked at the pleasure 
 of the parties. Thus, when he is driven from one position, 
 he falls back upon another, and, finally rallies to a second, 
 a third, and a fourth denial of the main proposition that 
 the Constitution is a compact. ISTow, I intend to discus- 
 each one of these questions distinctly and by itself; hold 
 ing Mr. Justice Story to one and the same precise point, 
 until it is either made good or else demolished. I hope, 
 in this way, to dispel the mists and fogs he has thrown 
 around the subject, and to bring out the truth into a clear 
 and unmistakable light. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 27 
 
 WEBSTER S POSITION 
 
 The same confusion of thought, and arising from the 
 same source, pervades Mr. Webster s celebrated speech of 
 February 16, 1833; though, it must be admitted, not to 
 the same extent that it prevails in the "Commentaries" of 
 Mr. Justice Story. Mr. Calhouii very justly complains of 
 this want of clearness and precision in the positions of his 
 great antagonist. "After a careful examination/ says he, 
 "of the notes which I took of what the Senator said, I am 
 now at a loss to know whether, in the opinion of the 
 Senator, our Constitution is a compact or not, though the 
 almost entire argument of the Senator was directed to that 
 point. At one time he would seem to deny directly and 
 positively that it was a compact, while at another he would 
 appear, in language not less strong, to admit that it was." 1 
 
 Mr. Webster emphatically and repeatedly denies both 
 that a Constitution is a compact and also that a compact is 
 a Constitution ; or, in other words, he conceives that the 
 natures of the two things are utterly incompatible with 
 each other. 
 
 He is very bold, and asserts that it is new language to 
 call "the Constitution a compact." 
 
 "This is the reason," says he, "which makes it necessary 
 to abandon the use of Constitutional language for a new 
 vocabulary, and to substitute, in place of plain historical 
 facts, a series of assumptions. This is the reason why it 
 is necessary to give new names to things, to speak of the 
 Constitution, not as a Constitution, but as a compact, and 
 of the ratification of the people not as ratifications, but as 
 acts of accession." 2 Again, he complains of Mr. Calhoun, 
 that "he introduces a new word of his own, viz., compact, 
 as importing the principal idea, and designed to play the 
 principal part, and degrades Constitution into an insignifi 
 cant, idle epithet attached to compact. The whole then 
 stands a Constitutional compact!" 
 
 He is then particularly severe and eloquent upon the 
 supposed outrage perpetrated on "our American political 
 grammar," in thus degrading "CONSTITUTION" (the 
 
 1 "Mr. Calhoun s Speech," Feb. 26, 1833. 
 
 2 "Speech," Feb. 16, 1833. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATI :s 
 
 capitals are his own) from its rightful rank "as a noun 
 substantive." But, after all, the plain, simple fact is that 
 this "new word," as Mr. Webster calls it, was as familiar 
 to the ears of the authors of the Constitution as any other 
 in the vocabulary of the great Convention of 1787. The 
 terms Constitution and compact are, indeed, twin words, 
 and convertible in the language of the fathers. 
 
 Though "the term Constitutional affixes to the word 
 compact no definite idee," says Mr. Webster, and in such 
 connection "is void of all meaning," "yet it is easy, quite 
 easy, to see why the gentleman uses it in these resolutions." 
 Now, what is the reason, the deep design, that induces 
 Mr. Calhoun to use an epithet "so void of all meaning?" 
 "He can not open the book," says Mr. Webster, "and look 
 upon our written frame of government without seeing that 
 it is called a Constitution. This may well be appalling to 
 him." We can not possibly imagine that Mr. Calhoun 
 should, for one moment, have been disturbed or alarmed 
 by such a discovery or revelation. It is certain that he 
 nowhere betrays the least symptom of dismay at " the 
 appalling" consideration that the Constitution is really a 
 Constitution. That "noun substantive" seems to have 
 inspired him with no sort of terror whatever. On the 
 contrary, it appears to sit as easily on his political faith 
 and to flow as familiarly from his lips as any other word in 
 the language. We can imagine, however, why the Northern 
 States should wish to get rid of both the idea of a compact 
 and of the word; why the powerful should wish to ob 
 literate and erase from the tablets of their memory every 
 recollection and vestige of the solemn compact or bargain 
 into which they had entered with the weak, but which 
 they h#d never observed in good faith. 
 
 OPPOSITE OPINIONS AND WEBSTER S OWN CONFLICTING 
 STATEMENTS 
 
 It is perfectly certain that Mr. Webster s horror of the 
 term compact, as applied to the Constitution, is of com 
 paratively recent origin. It was wholly unknown to the 
 fathers of the Constitution themselves. Mr. Gouverneur 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 2i> 
 
 Morris., it is well known, was one of the most celebrated 
 advocates for a strong national government in the Con 
 vention of 1787 ; and yet, in that assembly, he used the 
 words : "He came here to form a compact for the good of 
 America. He was ready to do so with all the States. He 
 hoped and believed that all would enter into such a com 
 pact. If they would not, he would be ready to join with 
 any States that would. But as the compact was to be 
 voluntary, it is in vain for the Eastern States to insist on 
 what the Southern States will never agree to." 1 
 
 Thus, this celebrated representative of the State of 
 Pennsylvania, and staunch advocate of a strong national 
 government, did not hesitate to call the Constitution a 
 compact into which the States were to enter. Indeed, no 
 one, at that early day, either before the Constitution was 
 adopted or afterwards, hesitated to call it a compact. 
 
 Mr. Gerry, the representative of Massachusetts, says: 
 "If nine out of thirteen [States] can dissolve the compact, 
 six out of nine will be just as able to dissolve the new one 
 hereafter." Here again the new Constitution is called a 
 compact. 
 
 "In the case of a union of people under one Constitu 
 tion," says Mr. Madison, while contending for the ratifica 
 tion of the new Constitution by the people, "the nature of 
 the pact has always been understood to exclude such an 
 interpretation." 2 Thus, in the Convention of 1787, Mr. 
 Madison called the Constitution a compact; a word which 
 he continued to apply to it during the whole course of his 
 life. 
 
 In the celebrated resolutions of Virginia, in 1798, Mr. 
 Madison used these words, "That this assembly doth 
 explicitly and peremptorily declare that it views the powers 
 of the Federal Government as resulting from the compact 
 to which the States are parties." Again, in his almost 
 equally celebrated letter to Mr. Everett, in 1830, he calls 
 "the Constitution" "a compact among the States in their 
 highest sovereign capacity." In the same letter Mr. 
 Madison speaks of the States as "the parties to the Con- 
 
 1 "Madison Papers." p. 1081-2. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 1184. 
 
30 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 stitutional compact"; using the very expression which is 
 so offensive to Mr. Webster s new "political grammar." 
 Nay, it was only three years before, in the great debate on 
 Foot s resolutions, that Mr. Webster himself had, like 
 evefy one else, spoken of the Constitution as a compact, as 
 a bargain which was obligatory on the parties to it. "It 
 is the original bargain/ 7 says he, in that debate ; "the com 
 pact let it stand ; let the advantage of it be fully enjoyed. 
 The Union itself is too full of benefits to be hazarded in 
 propositions for changing its original basis. I go for the 
 Constitution as it is, and for the Union as it is." Nor is 
 this all. He there indignantly repels, both for "himself 
 and for the North/ "accusations which impute to us a 
 disposition to evade the Constitutional compact." Yet, in 
 the course of three short years, he discovers that there is 
 no compact to be evaded and no bargain to be violated ! 
 All such trammels are given to the winds, and Behemoth 
 is free! How sudden and how wonderful this revolution 
 in the views and in the vocabulary of the great orator of 
 New England I 1 
 
 This language, in which the Constitution is called a com 
 pact, is not confined to Morris, and Gerry, and Madison, 
 and the Webster of 1830. Mr. Chief Justice Jay, of the 
 Supreme Court of the Union, in the case of Chisholm vs. 
 the State of Georgia, expressly declares that "the Constitu 
 tion of the United States is a compact." 2 "Our Constitu 
 tion of the United States," says John Quincy Adams, the 
 sixth President of the Republic, "and all our State Con- 
 
 1 The great mind of Mr. Webster was in general more like the ocean 
 in repose than in action ; and. as is well known, his habitual indolence 
 often induced him to rely on others for political information. No 
 one who will attentively compare his speech of 1833 with book iii, 
 chap, iii, of Story s "Commentaries on the Constitution," can be at any 
 loss to account for the origin of his "new poltical grammar," his "new 
 rules of syntax," and his "new vocabulary." If he applies these 
 epithets to the doctrines of Morris, and Gerry, and Madison, it is 
 because old things have become new with him, and new things old. 
 The secret of this revolution will be found, as we shall soon prove, in 
 the work of Mr. Justice Story, which work was not written in 1830. 
 Indeed it was not published until 1833: but then the first volume, 
 containing book iii, chap, iii, was prepared, if not printed, before the 
 speech of Mr. Webster, with whom the author was on the most 
 intimate terms. It would have been well for the fame of Webster, in 
 the eve of posterity, if he had more carefully examined such a question 
 for himself. 
 
 2 3 Ball. R., p. 410. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 31 
 
 stitutions, have been voluntary compacts, deriving all their 
 authority from the free consent of the parties to them." 
 
 The Virginia Resolutions of 1798, already referred to as 
 expressing the opinion of Mr. Madison, assert that "Vir 
 ginia views the powers of the Federal Government as 
 resulting from the compact to which the States are parties." 
 Again, in the Virginia Report of 1800, it is said, "The 
 States being parties to the Constitutional compact," etc. 
 Edmund Pendleton, President of the ratifying Convention 
 of Virginia, in 1788, in the course of his argument in favor 
 of the new Constitution, says, "This is the only Govern 
 ment founded in real compact." 1 Judge Tucker, in his 
 commentaries on Blackstone, repeatedly calls the Constitu 
 tion in question "a compact between the States" of the 
 Union. The third President of the United States, as well 
 as the sixth, Thomas Jefferson as well as John Quincy 
 Adams, considered the Constitution "a compact." 
 
 "The States," says Jefferson, "entered into a compact, 
 which is called the Constitution of the United States." 2 
 The Convention of Massachusetts, which was called to 
 ratify the Constitution of the United States, was, if 
 possible, still more emphatic and decided in the expression 
 of the same opinion. "Having impartially discussed, and 
 fully considered," say they, "the Constitution of the United 
 States of America," we acknowledge, "with grateful hearts, 
 the goodness of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe in 
 affording the people of the United States an opportunity, 
 deliberately and peaceably, without fraud and surprise, of 
 entering into an explicit and solemn compact with each 
 other, by assenting to and ratifying a new Constitution," 
 etc. Yet, in the face of all these high authorities, and of 
 a hundred more that might be easily adduced, running 
 from James Madison in the Convention of 1787 to Daniel 
 Webster in the great debate of 1830, and embracing the 
 lights of all sections and of all parties, it is asserted by 
 this celebrated statesman, though certainly not as a states 
 man, that the term compact, as applied to the Constitution, 
 is "a new word," is a part and parcel of "the unconstitu- 
 
 1 "Elliott s Debates." vol. iii, p. 57. 
 - Correspondence." vol. iv. p. 415. 
 
32 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 tional language," of the "new vocabulary, which lias 
 been invented to obscure the fundamental principles of the 
 Government of the United States, and to justify secession ! 
 
 So far, indeed, is this from being a new mode of speech 
 that it is one of the most familiar words known to the 
 fathers of the Constitution itself, or to its more early 
 expounders. Even Tlie Federalist, in submitting the Con 
 stitution to the people, sets it before them as "the com 
 pact." 1 "The man," says Mr. Webster, "is almost untrue 
 to his country who calls the Constitution a compact." It 
 were, indeed, much nearer the truth to say that the man 
 is not only almost but altogether untrue to himself, as well 
 as to the most solemn records of his country, who can 
 assert that the term compact, as applied to the Constitu 
 tion, is "a new word," or the exponent of a new idea. 
 
 The arguments of Mr. Webster to prove that the Con 
 stitution is not a compact, are, if possible, as unfortunate 
 as his assertions. If words be not things in reality, as 
 well as in effect, then it will be found that his arguments 
 possess an exceedingly small value. There are two words, 
 in particular, in the use of which he displays far more of 
 rhetorical legerdemain than of rigid logic. These are the 
 two words, "compact" and "Constitution." 
 
 No one pretends for a moment that every compact is a 
 Constitution. There are compacts about soap and candles, 
 about pepper and calicoes, or some such trifling thing, 
 which no one would call a Constitution. It is only when 
 a compact has for its object the institution or organization 
 of a political society, or a civil government, that it is 
 properly denominated a Constitution. Hence, in the 
 ordinary acceptation of the words, compact falls far below 
 the high-sounding noun substantive Constitution ; a cir 
 cumstance of which any rhetorician may, if he choose, very 
 easily avail himself. Mr. Webster has done so, and that, 
 too, with no little popular effect. "We know no more of a 
 Constitutional compact between sovereign powers," says he, 
 "than we do of a Constitutional indenture of partnership, 
 a Constitutional deed of conveyance, or a Constitutional 
 bill of exchange. But we know what the Constitution is," 
 etc. 
 
 1 No. xxxix. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 33 
 
 Perhaps we do, and perhaps we do not ; that is the very 
 point in dispute. But certain it is that if we do know 
 what the Constitution is we need not seek to illustrate its 
 nature or to exhibit its history by any such deceptive use 
 of words. Akin to this sort of reasoning., or rhetoric., is 
 all that is said by Mr. Webster and Mr. Justice Story 
 about lowering the Constitution by considering it as a 
 "mere compact/ 7 or as "nothing but a compact/ It is, 
 indeed, something more than a compact, something more 
 high, and holy, and honorable. Though in its nature it is 
 a mere compact, yet in its object, which is no less than to 
 institute or organize a political society, it is the most 
 solemn and sacred of all earthly transactions. Such com 
 pacts should not be despised, nor should they be explained 
 away, or trampled under foot by the powerful ; they involve 
 the destiny of millions. 
 
 Mr. Webster admits that the Constitution is "founded 
 on consent or agreement, or on compact"; meaning no 
 more by that word than "voluntary consent or agreement/ 
 But he denies that it is itself a compact. "The Constitu 
 tion is not a contract," says he, "but the result of a con 
 tract ; meaning no more by contract than assent. Founded 
 on consent it is a government proper." Now, Mr. Webster 
 himself being the judge, the Constitution is not a govern 
 ment at all; for a government is, says he, "the political 
 being created by the Constitution or fundamental law." 
 But "founded on consent," not on implied or necessitated, 
 but on "voluntary consent," it is a compact proper. Mr.. 
 Webster is compelled to call the Constitution a govern 
 ment in direct violation of his own definitions and princi 
 ples, in order to keep from calling it a compact. 
 
 In what manner the Constitution is founded on consent, 
 on a deliberate and voluntary consent, Mr. Webster has 
 himself told us only a few pages in advance of the above 
 admission. "It is to be remarked," says he, "that the 
 Constitution began to speak only after its adoption. Until 
 it was ratified by nine States it was but a proposal, the 
 mere draft of an instrument. It was like a deed drawn 
 but not executed." This is most exactly and perfectly true. 
 The Constitution was a dead letter, a powerless and in- 
 
34 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 operative thing, until the ratification or solemn "voluntary 
 assent" of nine States breathed into it the breath of life. 
 It was from this consent, from this compact of nine States, 
 that "the Constitution resulted" as a living or an authori 
 tative document. But when the nine States assented to 
 that "proposal or mere draft of an instrument/ and 
 ratified the same by signing it, then each and every 
 article therein specified and written became an article of 
 agreement between the parties to it. "It was like a deed 
 drawn but not executed." But when executed or ratified 
 it was then like a deed signed by the parties; and all the 
 written articles thereof became articles of agreement 
 between the parties. 
 
 Thus the Constitution not only resulted from the com 
 pact of the nine States, but became itself the compact ; or, 
 in other words, the written expression of the terms, the 
 conditions, and the articles of the compact. This is what 
 we mean by calling the Constitution a compact between the 
 States. And is not this the language of truth ? 
 
 THE NATURE OF A COMPACT 
 
 Now, on what conditions, or in what cases, does such 
 voluntary consent become a compact proper? Each of 
 the nine States, as it assented to and ratified the Constitu 
 tion, agreed to all its terms and articles. It agreed to 
 forego the exercise of various powers, and to assume various 
 important liabilities, in consideration that eight other 
 States would do precisely the same thing. And it also 
 agreed that the powers thus delegated by the nine States, 
 or conferred on the general government to be erected for 
 the common good, should be distributed, exercised, limited, 
 and controlled, according to the terms and articles of the 
 Constitution. Is not this a compact proper ? Have we not 
 here mutual promises, each State parting with what it 
 possessed, and, in consideration thereof, seeking to derive 
 some benefit from the others? If so, then is not this a 
 compact in the proper sense of the word ? 
 
 The same idea is perfectly expressed by Mr. Webster 
 in the speech before us. "On entering into the Union," 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 35 
 
 says he, "the people of each State gave up a part of their 
 own power to make laws for themselves, in consideration 
 that, as to common objects, they should have a part in 
 making laws for other States/ 7 Here is the voluntary 
 relinquishment on the one part, and the valuable consider 
 ation on the other. Is not this a contract proper ? If not, 
 then have Blackstone, and Kent, and Pothier, and Domat, 
 and Story written in vain on the nature and law of con 
 tracts. If not, then indeed may we despair of ever arriving 
 at the meaning of any one word in any one language under 
 the sun. 
 
 It possesses every conceivable attribute of a valid con 
 tract. 1. There were "the parties capable of contract 
 ing" the States. 2 It is admitted to have been "volun 
 tary." 3. There was "the sufficient consideration"--the 
 powers surrendered, and the liabilities incurred. Thus it 
 fully answers to every condition laid down by Judge Story 
 himself, 1 as the tests or criteria of a contract proper. It 
 bears no resemblance to those imaginary transactions which 
 certain European writers have invented to explain the 
 origin of their governments, and to give stability to their 
 political theories by fastening them, as with anchors, to 
 past ages. On the contrary, it is historical and real. The 
 time and the manner, the substance and the form, and 
 all the stipulations, are written down and known. It was 
 deliberately and solemnly entered into yesterday ; and it is 
 as deliberately and solemnly denied to-day. Such is the 
 incurable sophistry of power ! 
 
 The constitution of England is not a compact. There 
 is not, in all the history of England, the least intimation 
 of the people s having assembled, either by themselves or 
 by their representatives, to establish the institution of 
 King, or Lords, or Commons. Yet these three powers 
 constitute the main features in the government of Great 
 Britain. Each power holding the balance between the 
 other two, so as to prevent either from gaining the ascend 
 ancy, is what forms the stable equilibrium of the constitu 
 tion of England. But yet certain parts of the British con 
 stitution are compacts, and are so called by writers who 
 
 1 "Conflict of Laws," p. 307. 
 
36 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 reject the theory of a compact as to the whole. According 
 to De Lolme, and other authors, Great Britain owes her 
 admirable constitution to the Norman Conquest rather than 
 to compact. "It is to the era of the conquest/ says he, 
 "that we are to look for the real foundation of the English 
 constitution." Yet changes and improvements in that 
 constitution which, instead of growing, were made by 
 competent parties, he calls compacts. Thus, says he, in 
 reference to the accession of William III to the throne, 
 "care was taken to repair the breaches which had been 
 made in the constitution, as well as to prevent new ones, 
 and advantage was taken of the rare opportunity of enter 
 ing into an original and express compact between king 
 and people." 1 
 
 Then, after having specified some of the improvements 
 made in the constitution by this compact, he adds, "Lastly, 
 the keystone was put to the arch by the final establishment 
 of the liberty of the press. The Revolution of 1689 is, 
 therefore, the third grand era in the history of the con 
 stitution of England." Again, ^he says, "Without mention 
 ing the compacts which were made with the first Kings of 
 the Norman line, let us only cast our eyes on Magna 
 Charta, which is still the foundation of English liberty, 2 
 being the great compact by which the Kings, the barons, 
 and the people 3 entered into certain mutual stipulations 
 respecting the prerogatives of the Crown and the rights of 
 the subject." 
 
 Thus the English revolution, like our own., was followed 
 by a compact; and the only difference was that the com 
 pact of 1688 was in addition to an old constitution, whereas 
 the compact of 1788 was a constitution in toto ccelo. 
 
 Locke, the great popular champion of the theory of the 
 social compact, was then in the ascendant in the L T nited 
 States, as he was with the Whigs in. England. That 
 theory, though exploded now, was then almost universally 
 received in America. That is to say, exploded by showing 
 that there is no historical evidence of any such compact at 
 
 1 "De Lolme on the Constitution," p. 48. - Ibid., p. 287. 
 
 3 1 say the people, because those who followed the barons at Runny- 
 mede demanded and obtained stipulations in favor of the people as well 
 as in favor of their leaders. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 37 
 
 the origin of the governments of the Old World, and that 
 v the alleged transaction was fictitious. 1 But the fiction, 
 which had been only partially realized at the end of revo 
 lutions, and not at the beginning of societies, became a 
 fact in the hands of American legislators. In the language 
 of Gouverneur Morris, they came to the Convention of 
 1787 "to make a compact/ 7 and they made one. 
 
 But this draft of a compact, we are told, calls itself a 
 Constitution, and not a compact at all. Very well. Sup 
 pose it had called itself a compact, even an "original, 
 explicit, and solemn compact/ 7 would it not have been just 
 as easy for Mr. Justice Story to affirm that this only meant 
 an "implied contract," as it was for him to do the same 
 thing in regard to the Constitution of Massachusetts? 
 But although the Convention of 1787 did not, on the very 
 face of the Constitution, call itself a compact, yet in the 
 letter which, by their "unanimous order/ 7 was dispatched 
 with that instrument to the President of Congress, they 
 use the same language in describing the nature of the 
 transaction that is employed by Sidney, and Locke, and 
 Eousseau to define "the social contract/ 7 as we shall here 
 after see. 
 
 Although Mr. Justice Story endeavors to bring discredit 
 on the "explicit and solemn 77 compacts of the New World, 
 by identifying them with the vague and visionary theories 
 of the Old, yet he is perfectly aware of the difference 
 between the fact in the one case and the hypothesis in the 
 other, whenever it suits his purpose to use such knowledge. 
 Thus, he says, in relation to his own Pilgrim Fathers: 
 "Before their landing they drew up and signed a voluntary 
 compact of government, forming, if not the first, at least 
 
 1 This is the ground taken, and unanswerably maintained by Hume, 
 in his essay on the "Original Contract," "Essays," vol. i. Essay 12. 
 The theory of Rousseau is rejected by M. Comte ("Theorie de Legis 
 lation," liv. i, c. ii) on the same ground. Sir William Temple 
 ("Works," vol. ii, pp. 37, 46) had previously rejected the doctrine of 
 the "Social Contract." Kant, the philosopher of Kb nigsberg, treats it 
 as a frivolous and impractical notion. Heeren ("On Political 
 Theories," p. 239) says that a social contract neither was, nor could 
 have been, actually concluded. Stahl ("Philosophy of Rights," vol. ii, 
 part ii, p. 142) rejects the doctrine as visionary. Godwin, likewise 
 .("Political Justice," book iii, c. ii and iii), rejects it. The doctrine of 
 the social compact is subjected to an exhaustive analysis by Mr. 
 Austin ("Prov. of Jurisprudence," 331-71), and triumphantly refuted. 
 Jeremy Bentham, likewise, rejects the same hypothesis as visionary. 
 
38 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 the best authenticated case of an original social contract 
 for the establishment of a nation which is to be found in 
 the annals of the world. Philosophers and jurists have 
 perpetually resorted to the theory of such a compact by 
 which to measure the rights and duties of governments and 
 subjects; but for the most part it has been treated as an 
 effort of imagination, unsustained by the history or practice 
 of nations, and furnishing little of solid instruction for 
 the actual concerns of life. It was little dreamed of that 
 America should .furnish an example of it in primitive and 
 almost patriarchal simplicity." 1 Thus Massachusetts has 
 taken the lead of all the States in the world in the making 
 of social compacts, and also in the breaking of them. This 
 last point will, hereafter, be most fully illustrated and 
 proved. , 
 
 The original draft of the Constitution of Massachusetts 
 was drawn up by John Adams, the second President of 
 the United States, and he certainly entertained no doubt 
 that he was drawing up an "explicit and solemn compact," 
 or reducing the theory of European writers to practice, 
 "It is," says he, "Locke, Sidney, Rousseau, and DeMably 
 reduced to practice." 2 All these celebrated authors on the 
 "social contract" reduced to practice ! But it is all in vain. 
 For if the fiction is reduced to fact it is only that the fact 
 may be again reduced to fiction. Massachusetts keep her 
 bargains ! Even her most gifted sons, her Story s and her 
 Websters, exert all their genius and exhaust the stores of 
 their erudition to explain away and reduce to a mere 
 nullity her most solemn social compacts, both State and 
 Federal! The theory becomes a fact, and this fact calls 
 itself "an original, explicit, and solemn compact." But 
 then, as interest or power dictates, the fact is explained 
 away, and there ends all the solemn farce. 
 
 "Majorities, in a democracy, do not rely on Constitu 
 tions, do not care for Constitutions. They rely on numbers 
 and the strong arm." They spurn, with more than im 
 perial scorn, the limitations and restraints which written 
 Constitutions or judicial decisions would impose on their 
 
 1 "Story on the Constitution," book i, chap, iii, p. 37. 
 
 2 "John Adams Works," vol. iv, p. 216. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 39 
 
 sovereign will and pleasure. They respect such paper 
 checks, such dictates of reason and justice, just about as 
 much as the raging billows of the ocean respected the line 
 which Canute drew upon its shores. In the strong lan 
 guage of De Tocqueville, nothing can restrain them from 
 crushing whatever lies in their path. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787 A COMPACT BETWEEN THE 
 STATES THE FACTS OF THE CASE 
 
 IN discussing the question of the preceding chapters, 
 whether the Constitution was a compact, I introduced 
 much matter which incidentally showed that it was a 
 compact between the States. In like manner, I shall, in 
 proving that the States are the parties to the Constitution, 
 produce much additional evidence that it is a compact. 
 In order to show that the States are the parties to the 
 Constitutional compact, let us consider : ( 1 ) The facts of 
 the case; (2) The language of the Constitution itself; 
 and (3) The views of Hamilton, Madison, Morris, and 
 other framers of the Constitution; and (4) The absurdities 
 flowing from the doctrine that the Constitution is not ^a 
 compact between the States, but was ordained by the people 
 of America as one nation. 
 
 THE DEFECTS OF THE CONFEDERATION 
 
 "It appears to me," says Mr. Webster, "that the plainest 
 account of the establishment of this government presents 
 the most just and philosophical view of its foundation." 
 True, very true. There is, indeed, no proposition in the 
 celebrated speech of Mr. Webster, nor in any other speech, 
 more true than this; "and, besides, it goes directly to the 
 point. For the great question which Mr. Webster has 
 undertaken to discuss relates not so much to the super 
 structure of the government, as to "its foundation." 
 
 This is the question : How was the Constitution made 
 or ordained, and on what does it rest? Bearing this in 
 mind, let us proceed to consider, first, his plain account of 
 the establishment of the government of the United States, 
 and then the arguments in favor of his position. 
 
 First, let us consider, item by item, his plain account. 
 "The people of the several States," says he, "had their 
 separate governments, and between the States there also 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 41 
 
 existed a Confederation." True. "With this condition 
 of things the people were not satisfied, as the Confederation 
 had been found not to fulfill its intended objects. It was 
 proposed, therefore, to erect a new common government, 
 which should possess certain definite powers, such as 
 regarded the property of the people of all the States, and 
 to be formed upon the general model of American Consti- 
 p tutions." . This is not so plain. It seems partly true and 
 partly false. We are told that the people had discovered 
 the defects of the Confederation, and were consequently 
 not satisfied with it. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, a contemporary witness, tells a 
 very different story. "Men of intelligence," says he, "dis 
 covered the feebleness of the structure" of the Confedera 
 tion ; "but the great body of the people, too much engrossed 
 with their distresses to contemplate any but the immediate 
 causes of them, were ignorant of the defects of their 
 Constitution." 1 It was only "when the dangers of the 
 war were removed," and the "men of intelligence" could 
 be heard, that the people saw "what they had suffered, and 
 what they had yet to suffer from a feeble form of 
 government." 2 
 
 "There was no need of discerning men," as Hamilton 
 truly said, "to convince the people of their unhappy con 
 dition." But they did need to be instructed respecting 
 the causes of their misery. So far was the great body of 
 the people from having discerned for themselves the causes 
 of their troubles that Mr. Madison ascribes his ability to 
 make this discovery to his peculiar situation. "Having 
 served as a member of Congress," says he, "through the 
 period between March, 1780, and the arrival of peace, in 
 1783, I had become intimately acquainted with the public 
 distresses, and the causes of them." Thus enlightened, 
 and, under the dreadful aspect of affairs, "sympathizing 
 in the alarm of the friends of free government at the 
 threatened danger of an abortive result to the great, and 
 perhaps last, experiment in its favor," Mr. Madison could 
 not be "insensible to the obligation to aid as far as he 
 could in averting the calamity." 3 Hence he acceded to 
 
 1 "Works," vol. ii, p. 445. - Ibid. 3 "Madison Papers," p. 693. 
 
42 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 the desire of his fellow-citizens of the country, and became 
 a member of the Legislature of Virginia, "hoping," as he 
 declared, "that he might there best contribute to incul 
 cate the critical posture to which the revolutionary cause 
 was reduced, and the merit of a leading agency of the State 
 in bringing about a rescue of the Union, and the blessings 
 of liberty staked on it, from an impending catastrophe." 
 
 THE NATURE or THE PROPOSED CHANGE 
 
 It thus appears that the first step which, in the end, led 
 to a change of the Federal Government, was not a popular 
 movement ; it did not originate with the people ; it sprang 
 from the brain of James Madison, and manifested itself 
 in the action of the Legislature of Virginia. But what 
 was this action ? Was it to change the form of the Federal 
 Government ? Far from it. The resolution of the Virginia 
 Legislature, drawn up by Mr. Madison, and introduced by 
 Mr. Tyler, 1 merely appoints commissioners to meet such 
 commissioners as may be appointed by the other States, 
 "to take into consideration the trade of the United States," 
 and "to consider how far a uniform system in their com 
 mercial regulations may be necessary to their common 
 interest and permanent harmony." It suggests no change 
 whatever in the Federal Government, except in so far as 
 this may be implied in a uniform system of commercial 
 regulations. 
 
 This resolution, as every one knows, led to the Annapolis 
 Convention, which took the next great step towards the 
 formation of the new Constitution. Nor was this a popular 
 movement. It originated in the brain of Alexander 
 Hamilton. In the address of that Convention, he says, 
 "That the express terms of the power to your commis 
 sioners supposing a deputation from all the States, and 
 having for its object the trade and commerce of the United 
 States, your commissioners did not conceive it advisable to 
 
 1 The resolution was introduced by Mr. Tyler, rather than its 
 author, because, "having never served in Congress," he "had more the 
 ear of the house than those whose services there exposed them to an 
 imputable bias." "Madison Papers," p. 696. So great was the jealousy 
 of the Federal Congress in those days. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 43 
 
 proceed on the business of their mission under the circum 
 stances of so partial and defective a representation." The 
 address then proceeds to recommend "a general meeting of 
 the States in a future Convention/ with powers extending 
 to "other objects than those of commerce." "They are the 
 more naturally led to this conclusion/ says the Convention, 
 "as in their reflections on the subject they have been in 
 duced to think that the power of regulating trade is of 
 such comprehensive extent, and will enter so far into the 
 grand system of the Federal Government., that to give it 
 efficacy, and to obviate questions and doubts concerning its 
 precise nature and limits, may require a correspondent 
 adjustment in other parts of the Federal system." 
 
 "That there are important defects in the system of the 
 Federal Government," continues the address, "is acknowl 
 edged by the acts of those States which have concurred 
 in the present meeting. That the defects, upon a closer 
 examination, may be found greater and more numerous 
 than even these acts imply, is at least so far probable, from 
 the embarrassment which characterizes the present state 
 of our national affairs, foreign and domestic, as may 
 reasonably be supposed to merit a deliberate and candid 
 discussion, in some mode which will unite the sentiments 
 and counsels of all the States." 
 
 HAMILTON AND MADISON ORIGINATE THE CHANGE IN 
 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 In compliance with this recommendation of "a general 
 meeting of the States in a future Convention," twelve 
 States met at Philadelphia on the 14th of May, 1787, with 
 instructions to join "in devising and discussing all such 
 alterations and further provisions as may be necessary to 
 render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies 
 of the Union." 1 "The recommendation was received by 
 the Legislature of Virginia," says Mr. Madison, "which 
 happened to be the first that acted on it, and the example 
 of her compliance was made as conciliatory and impressive 
 
 1 "Madison Papers," p. 706. These are the words of the resolution 
 of Virginia ; the instructions of the other States were equivalent to 
 these. 
 
44 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 as possible." 1 Thus it was Alexander Hamilton, as the 
 master spirit of the Annapolis Convention., who first con 
 ceived the idea of a general Convention to revise and 
 amend the Federal Government, and it was James Madison, 
 as the great ruling genius of the Legislature of Virginia, 
 who gave the first and most powerful impulse to that 
 conception. The great mass of the people had very little 
 to do with the movement. 
 
 "A resort to a general Convention," says Mr. Madison, 
 "to remodel the Confederacy [i. e., the Confederation. 
 Ed.] was not a new idea." 2 He then mentions five persons 
 by whom this idea had been entertained ; namely, Pelatiah 
 Webster, Colonel Hamilton, E. H. Lee, James Madison, 
 and Noah Webster. None of these, however, go beyond 
 the idea of Hamilton, "to strengthen the Federal Con 
 stitution"; or of Madison, to supply its defects. 3 But if 
 this had been a popular movement, Mr. Madison could 
 easily have found, during the period of three years, more 
 than five candidates for the once hotly-contested honor of 
 having conceived the first idea of a Convention to remodel 
 the Confederation or to amend the Federal Constitution. 
 
 The plain truth is that it was Alexander Hamilton, and 
 not the people, who, grappling with the vast and compli 
 cated idea of a regular commercial system, saw the changes 
 which such a system must introduce into the Federal Gov 
 ernment. Hence it was Alexander Hamilton, and not the 
 people, who became dissatisfied with the Confederation as 
 it was, and sought to have its Constitution remodeled. 
 "He was the first," as the historian of the Constitution 
 has truly said, "to perceive and develop the idea of a real 
 union of the people of the United States." 4 
 
 1 "Madison Papers," p. 70S. - Ibid., p. 706. 
 
 3 The two Websters, 1 elatiah and Noah, do show some originality. 
 The one, in 1781, seeing that Congress had not sufficient authority 
 "for the performance of their duties" (though he does not tell us what 
 duties they had to perform, except to exercise the authority entrusted 
 to them), suggests the plan of a Continental Convention, for the 
 express purpose, "among other things, of enlarging the duties of their 
 Constitution." The other, in 1784, wished for a government "which 
 should act, not on States, but directly on individuals." If this idea 
 really originated with Noah Webster, then there are many who will 
 think that his political pamphlet cancelled the obligations which his 
 spelling book conferred on the country. Mr. Webster was also original 
 in his orthography. 
 
 4 "History of the Constitution of the United States," by Curtis, 
 vol. i, p. 413. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 45 
 
 THE CONFEDERATION A GOVERNMENT 
 
 It was not proposed then, as Mr. Webster alleges, and 
 no one ever proposed, to set aside the Confederation in 
 order to establish a government. The Confederation was 
 itself a government. This contrast between the Confed 
 eration and a government, as things essentially different 
 in kind, which pervades the whole of Mr. Webster s speech, 
 and which is even interwoven with his "plain account of 
 the establishment of the government" of the United States, 
 is purely a hypothesis of his own. 
 
 Hamilton and the Convention of Annapolis repeatedly 
 speak, as we have seen, of "the Federal Constitution" and 
 "the Federal Government." Madison and the Legislature 
 of Virginia use precisely the same language in reference to 
 the same objects. Even Pelatiah Webster, in this respect, 
 far less original than his great namesake, speaks of the 
 "Constitution"^ of the Federal Government. The Con 
 vention of 1787 also call the old Confederation "the 
 Federal Government." 1 
 
 EACH STATE INDEPENDENT IN ADOPTING THE 
 CONSTITUTION 
 
 But we must proceed to the next item of Mr. Webster s 
 plain account. "This proposal," says he, "was assented 
 to", and an instrument was presented to the people of the 
 several States for their consideration. They approved it, 
 and agreed to adopt it, as a Constitution." True, as far as 
 it goes. But when Mr. Webster asks, "Is not this the 
 truth of the whole matter?" we are bound to answer that 
 this is either not the truth of the whole matter, or it is not 
 the whole truth of the matter. On the contrary, it omits 
 precisely those great truths which shed the most light on 
 the foundation of the government of the United States. 
 One might well suppose, from the above statement, that 
 the people of the several States had jointly approved the 
 Constitution, and jointly ordained it as a Constitution. 
 But however essential this view may be to the theory of 
 
 1 "Madison Papers," pp. 730-35, etc. 
 
46 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 Mr. Webster and his theory is as baseless as the fabric of 
 a vision without it it has not the shadow of a foundation 
 in the facts of history. 
 
 The plain and unquestionable fact is that each State 
 adopted or rejected the Constitution for itself, and for itself 
 alone. No twelve States could by their united action lay 
 the bonds of a new Constitution on the thirteenth State. 
 This was universally conceded. The little State of Ehode 
 Island stood aloof ; and though her conduct was reprobated, 
 no one denied her right. Neither all the other States com 
 bined, nor all the people of America, had the shadow of an 
 authority to constrain her action, or to control her own 
 free choice. No power on earth could touch the priceless 
 pearl of her sovereignty in the affair. No one presumed 
 to question her right to decide for herself. This right was 
 then as clear as the sun, and all eyes recognized it. And 
 this was true, not only in relation to Rhode Island, but 
 also to each State in the Confederation. For in the act of 
 reunion each State was perfectly free and independent, 
 uncontrolled and uncontrollable by any power upon earth. 
 
 But this fact, which is far too recent and too well 
 authenticated to be denied by any one, goes to the very 
 foundation of the government of the United States, and 
 shows that its Constitution rested on a federal, and not on 
 a national act. It shows that it was a union of States, 
 effected by the several acts of each State, and not the union 
 of all the individuals in America, acting as one political 
 community. 
 
 EEPLY TO CONTRARY OPINION OF MOTLEY 
 
 Mr. Webster s "plain account" is, in fact, a gross falsi 
 fication of history. If possible, however, it is surpassed 
 by Mr. Motley. This most unscrupulous writer asserts : 
 "The Constitution was not drawn up by the States, it was 
 not promulgated in the name of the States, it was not 
 ratified by the States." 1 Now each and every one of these 
 assertions is diametrically opposed to the truth. Strike 
 out the little syllable "not" from every clause of the above 
 
 1 "Rebellion Records," vol. 1, p. 211. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 47 
 
 sentence, and it will then express the exact truth. For, 
 in the first place, as the record shows, it is a plain and 
 incontrovertible fact that the Constitution was drawn up 
 or framed by the States. 
 
 It was drawn up or framed, as every one knows, by the 
 Convention of 1787; in which the States, and the States 
 alone, were represented. Every iota of the Constitution 
 was decided upon, and found a place in that written instru 
 ment, by a vote of the States ; each State having one vote ; 
 the little State of Delaware, for example, having an equal 
 vote with New York, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. No fact 
 should be more perfectly notorious, or well known, than 
 this ; for it stands out everywhere on the very face of the 
 proceedings of the Convention, which framed the Consti 
 tution. Thus, for example, "On the question for a single 
 Executive; it was agreed to Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
 Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
 Georgia, aye 7 ; New York, Delaware, Maryland, no 3." 1 
 
 In like manner, every other item of the Constitution 
 was decided upon, and the whole instrument formed, by a 
 vote of the States; acting as separate, independent, and 
 equal bodies. How, in the face of such a fact, could Mr. 
 Motley so boldly assert that the Constitution was not 
 drawn up, or framed, by the States? By whom, then, 
 was it framed? Was it framed by "the pe ople of the 
 United States in the aggregate"; acting as one nation? 
 Nothing is farther from the truth. There is not even the 
 shadow of a foundation for any such assertion or insinua 
 tion. Will it be said that the Constitution was drawn up, 
 not by the States, but by those who proposed its various 
 articles? If so, such a subterfuge would be nothing to the 
 purpose, and very far from deserving a moment s notice. 
 
 The second assertion of Mr. Motley, that the Constitu 
 tion "was not promulgated in the name of the States," is 
 equally unfortunate. For, as every one knows, it was 
 promulgated by the Congress of the Confederation in which 
 the States alone were represented, and in which all the 
 States were perfectly equal. The "Articles of Confedera 
 tion" says: "In determining questions in the United 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers," p. 783. 
 
48 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 States, in Congress assembled, each State shall have one 
 vote/ 1 It was thus as equals that the States voted in 
 determining to promulgate the new Constitution ; and it 
 was in consequence of that action of the States that the 
 Constitution was promulgated and laid before the people 
 of the several States for their adoption. 
 
 Here, again, in direct opposition to the unblushing 
 assertion of Mr. Motley, the Constitution was promulgated 
 by the States in Congress assembled. If Mr. Motley had 
 only deigned to glance at the history of the transaction 
 about which he speaks so confidently, he could not have 
 failed to perceive that the Constitution was first submitted, 
 by the Convention of 1787, "to the United States in 
 Congress assembled" ; 2 and that it was afterwards, in con 
 formity with the opinion of the Convention, promulgated 
 by the States "in Congress assembled." But Mr. Motley s 
 theory of the Constitution takes leave of history; and has 
 little to do with facts, except to contradict them. 
 
 "The Constitution was not ratified by the States," says 
 Motley. In the Resolutions just quoted, and which were 
 unanimously adopted by the Convention of 1787, we find 
 this clause: "Resolved, That in the opinion of this Con 
 vention that as soon as the Convention of nine States 
 shall have ratified this Constitution, the United States in 
 Congress as*sembled should fix a day on which electors 
 should be appointed by the States which slia/( hare 
 ratified the same," etc. Not one of the fathers of the 
 Constitution ever imagined that it was not ratified by the 
 States. But in this instance, as well as in many others, 
 their most familiar idea is repudiated, and their most 
 explicit language is contradicted by Mr. Motley. 
 
 In the sentence next to the one above quoted from 
 Motley, he says : "The States never acceded to it \ the 
 Constitution], and possess no power to secede from it." 3 
 This peremptory and flat contradiction of the language of 
 the fathers of the Constitution deserves no further notice, 
 since it has already -been sufficiently exposed. 
 
 1 Art. v. 
 
 2 Resolutions which, "by the unanimous order of the Convention" 
 of 1787, was forwarded with the Constitution to Congress. 
 
 3 Chapter iii. 
 
A. T. BLEDSOE 
 
CHAP TEE VII 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION A COMPACT BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 The Preamble Quoted. "We the people of the United 
 States, in order to form a more perfect union, . . . 
 do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United 
 States of America." The first clause of this preamble to 
 the Constitution, wholly detached from its history and 
 from every other portion of the same instrument, as well 
 as from all the contemporary and subsequent expositions 
 of its authors, is made the very corner-stone of the 
 Northern theory of the general government of the United 
 States. That tremendous theory, or scheme of power, has 
 been erected on this naked, isolated, and, as we expect to 
 show, grossly misinterpreted clause. 
 
 From the bare words of this clause it is concluded, both 
 by Story and Webster, that the Constitution was estab 
 lished or ratified, not by a federal but by a national act; 
 or, in other terms, that it was not ratified by the States, 
 but by a power superior to the States, that is, by the 
 sovereign will of "the whole people of the United States 
 in the aggregate," acting as one nation or political com 
 munity. With Puritanical zeal they stick to "the very 
 words of the Constitution," while the meaning of the 
 words is unheeded by them, either because it is unknown, 
 or because it does not suit their purpose. But words are 
 not the money, they are merely the counters, of wise men. 
 The meaning of thje Constitution is the Constitution. 
 
 In arriving at the meaning of these words, of the very 
 clause in question, I shall not do the least violence to any 
 law of language, or to any rule of interpretation. I shall, 
 on the contrary, show that we are not "obliged to depart 
 from the words of the instrument," 1 as Mr. Justice Story 
 alleges, in order to sustain our interpretation of any por 
 tion of it. I shall show that the Southern interpretation 
 
 1 "Commentaries on the Constitution," book iii, chap. ii. 
 
52 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 of the clause in question is, in reality, the only fair, legiti 
 mate, and reasonable sense of the preamble itself. Xor 
 shall I, for this purpose, repeat the arguments which are 
 usually employed by the friends of the South in this 
 controversy. 
 
 Those arguments are amply sufficient to refute the 
 interpretation of Story and Webster. But they are so 
 well put by others by John Taylor, of Caroline; by 
 Judge Upshur, of A^irginia ; by John C. Calhoun, of South 
 Carolina ; and especially by Mr. Spence, of Liverpool, that 
 I need not repeat them here. Every one may find access 
 to them in the admirable work of Mr. Spence. 1 Hence, 
 passing by those arguments, I shall, by an appeal to the 
 records of the Convention of 1787, make my position good, 
 and annihilate the great corner-stone of the Northern 
 theory of the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 THE PREAMBLE DISCUSSED 
 
 "We, the people of the United States/ The history 
 of these words is curious and instructive. Only a portion 
 of that history has, as yet, been laid before the public of 
 England or of the United States. In the light of that 
 history the great corner-stone in question will be found to 
 crumble into dust and ashes ; and the only wonder will be, 
 that considerations so clear and so conclusive should have 
 been so long locked up, as a profound secret, in the records 
 of the very Convention that formed the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 It is well known that in the original draft of the Con 
 stitution its preamble, instead of saying, "We, the people 
 of the United States, 77 specified each State by name, as 
 the previous Articles of Confederation had done. If it 
 had remained thus, then the States would have appeared, 
 on the very face of the preamble itself, as the parties to 
 the Constitution. But the preamble, as is well known, was 
 afterwards changed by omitting to mention the States by 
 name. There are, however, some most important facts 
 
 1 We have only said admirable : but. all things considered. Mr. 
 Spence s work is truly a wonderful production. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 53 
 
 connected with the change and the origin of the words in 
 question, which seem to be wholly unknown on both sides 
 of the Atlantic. They have, certainly, attracted no notice 
 whatever from any of the writers on the great controversy 
 between the North and the South. 
 
 The first of these facts relates to the person by whom, 
 and the manner in which, the change in question was 
 effected; or, the words, "We, the people of the United 
 States/ were substituted for an enumeration of the States 
 by name. During all the great discussions of the Con 
 vention, the preamble to the Constitution retained its 
 original form; nor was there, from the beginning to the 
 end of their deliberations, a single whisper of dissatis 
 faction with it in that form. Every member of the 
 Convention appeared perfectly satisfied that the States 
 should stand, on the very front of the Constitution, as the 
 parties to the compact into which they were about to enter. 
 It was only after the provisions of the Constitution were 
 agreed upon, and its language was referred to "a committee 
 on style," that the names of the States were silently 
 omitted," and the clause, "We, the people of the United 
 States," substituted in their place. 
 
 N~ow, it will not be denied that if this change had not 
 been made by the "committee on style," then the States 
 would have been the parties to the new Constitution just 
 as they had been to the old Articles of Confederation. 
 Hence, if the interpretation of Story and Webster be the 
 true one, then it must be admitted that the "committee on 
 style," appointed merely to express the views of the Con 
 vention, really transformed the nature of the Constitution 
 of the United States ! Then it must be admitted that the 
 "committee on style," by a single turn of its pen, changed 
 the course of history and the meaning of its facts ; causing 
 the supreme power of the Federal Government to emanate, 
 not from the States, but from the people of America as 
 one political community! Did the "committee on style" 
 do all this? And is it on legislation like this that a 
 sovereign State is to be deemed guilty of treason and 
 rebellion against the sublime authority of the people of 
 America, and visited with the utmost vengeance? The 
 
54 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 sublime authority of the people of America, the one grand 
 nation, erected and established solely by the pen of the 
 "committee on style!" 
 
 This clause, "We, the people of the United States," 
 introduced by the "committee on style," and passed over 
 in perfect silence by the whole Convention, is the great 
 stronghold, if it has one, of the Northern, theory of the 
 Constitution. The argument from these words appears in 
 every speech, book, pamphlet, and discussion by every 
 advocate of the North. It was wielded by Mr. Webster 
 in his great debate with Mr. Calhoun, in 1833, and still 
 more fully in his still more eloquent speech on Foot s 
 resolutions in 1830. "The Constitution itself," says he, 
 "in its very front, declares that it was ordained and estab 
 lished by the people of the United States in the aggregate." 
 The fact is not so. The Constitution neither declares that 
 it was established by the people of the United States in 
 the aggregate, nor by the people of the United States in 
 the segregate. But if we look into the history of the 
 transaction we shall find that it was established by them 
 in the latter character, and not in the former. We shall 
 find that each State acted separately, and for itself alone; 
 and that no one pretended, or imagined, that the whole 
 aggregate vote of any twelve States could bind the thir 
 teenth State, without its own individual consent and rati 
 fication. In order to make out his interpretation, Mr. 
 Webster interpolates the legislation of the "committee on 
 style" with words of his own. 
 
 How THE PREAMBLE WAS CHANGED 
 
 The change in the preamble to the Constitution was 
 effected by the pen of G-ouverneur Morris, one of the most 
 zealous advocates in the Convention of 1787 for a strong 
 national government. He certainly wished all power to 
 emanate from the people of America, and to have them 
 regarded as one great nation. But did he accomplish his 
 wish? In the Convention, says the record, "Gkmverneur 
 Morris moved that the reference of the plan [i. e., of the 
 Convention] be made to one General Convention, chosen 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 55 
 
 and authorized by the people to consider, amend, and 
 establish the same/ 31 This motion,, if adopted, would 
 indeed have caused the Constitution to be ratified by "the 
 people of the United States in the aggregate/ or as one 
 nation. 
 
 This would, in fact, have made it a. government emanat 
 ing from the people of America in one General Convention 
 assembled, and not from the States. But how was this 
 motion received by the Convention ? Was it approved and 
 passed in the affirmative by that body? It did not even 
 find a second in the Convention of 1787. So says the 
 record, 1 and this is a most significant fact. So completely 
 was such a mode of ratification deemed out of the question 
 that it found not the symptom or shadow of support from 
 the authors of the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Now was the very object, which Gouverneur Morris so 
 signally failed to accomplish directly and openly by his 
 motion, indirectly and covertly effected by his style ? And 
 if so, did he design to effect such a change in the funda 
 mental law of the United States of America? It is cer 
 tain that precisely the same effect is given to his words, 
 to his style, as would have resulted from the passage of 
 his motion by the Convention. Did Gouverneur Morris 
 then intend that his words should have such force and 
 effect? In supposing him capable of such a fraud on the 
 Convention of 1787, I certainly do him no injustice, since 
 we have his own confession that he actually perpetrated 
 several such frauds on that assembly of Constitution- 
 makers. "That instrument," says he, in reference to the 
 Constitution, "was written by the fingers which write 
 this letter. Having rejected redundant terms, I believed 
 it to be as clear as language would permit ; excepting, 
 nevertheless, a part of what relates to the judiciary. On 
 that subject conflicting opinions had been maintained with 
 so much professional astuteness that it became necessary 
 to select phrases which, expressing my own notions, would 
 not alarm others, nor shock their self-love; and to the 
 best of my recollection this was the only part which passed 
 without cavil/ 72 How adroitly, then, how cunningly, he 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers." p. 1184. 
 
 2 "Life and Writings of Gouverneur Morris," vol. iii, p. 323. 
 
56 THE WAR BETWEEX THE STATES 
 
 cheats the Convention into the unconscious sanction of his 
 "own notions" ; and this great legislator of the jSTorth 
 even in the purer days of the infant republic, was proud 
 of the fraud ! 
 
 Xor is this the only instance in which, according to his 
 own confession and boast, Grouverneur Morris tricked the 
 Convention into the adoption of his own private views. 
 "I always thought," says he, in another letter, "that when 
 we should acquire Canada and Louisiana, it would be 
 proper to govern them as provinces, and allow them no 
 voice in our councils. In wording the third section of the 
 fourth article I went as far as circumstances would permit 
 to establish the exclusion. Candor obliges me to add my 
 belief that, had it been more pointedly expressed, a strong 
 opposition would have been made." 1 Thus, as the penman 
 of the "committee on style," he abused his high position, 
 not only to mould the judiciary system of the United States 
 to suit his "own notions," but also to determine the fate of 
 two vast empires! Is not such legislation truly won 
 derful? Instead of weighing every word with the utmost 
 care, and then depositing it. in the Constitution as under 
 the solemn sanction of an oath, the Convention trusts the 
 style of the instrument to a fine writer, who cunningly 
 gives expression to his own views in opposition to those of 
 the assembly ! "In a play, or a moral," says Jeremy 
 Bentham, "an improper word is but a word; and the 
 impropriety, whether noted or not, is attended with no 
 consequences. In a body of laws especially of laws given 
 as Constitutional ones an improper word would be a 
 national calamity and civil war may be the consequences 
 of it. Out of one foolish word may start a thousand 
 daggers." How true, and how fearfully has this truth been 
 illustrated by the history of the United States ! 
 
 But although Gouverneur Morris was capable of such a 
 fraud on the Convention, we have no good reason to believe 
 he intended one by the substitution of the words, "We, 
 the people of the United States," for the enumeration of 
 all the States by name. He has nowhere confessed to any 
 such thing; and, besides, he did not understand his own 
 words as they are so confidently understood by Story and 
 
 1 "Life and Writings of Gouverneur Morris." vol. iii. p. 193. 
 
THE AVAR BETWEEN THE STATES 57 
 
 Webster. Every rational inquirer after truth should, it 
 seems to me, be curious to know what sense Gouverneur 
 Morris attached to the words in question, since it was by 
 his pen that they were introduced into the preamble of 
 the Constitution. Xor will such curiosity be diminished, 
 but rather increased, by the fact that he did, in some 
 cases, aim to foist his own private views into the Consti : 
 tution of his country. How, then, did Gouverneur Morris 
 understand the words, "We, the people of the United 
 States?" Did he infer from these words that the Consti 
 tution was not a compact between States, or that it was 
 established by the people of America, and not by the 
 States ? I answer this question in the words of Gouvemeur 
 Morris himself. "The Constitution," says he, "was a 
 compact, not between individuals, but between political 
 societies, the people, not of America, but of the United 
 States, each enjoying sovereign power and of course equal 
 rights." 1 Language could not possibly be more explicit. 
 Xor could it be more evident than it is that Gouverneur 
 Morris, the very author of the words in question, enter 
 tained precisely the same view of their meaning as that 
 maintained by Mr. Calhoun and his school. 
 
 This point was, indeed, made far too clear by the pro 
 ceedings of the Convention of 1787 for any member of 
 that body to entertain the shadow of a doubt in relation 
 to it. Xor can any one read these proceedings, as they 
 deserve to be read, without agreeing with Gouverneur 
 Morris that the authors of the Constitution designed it to 
 be ratified, as in fact it was, by "the people of the United 
 States," not as individuals, but as "political societies, each 
 enjoying sovereign power, and of course equal rights." 
 Or," in other words, without seeing that "the Constitution 
 was a compact," not between individuals, "but between 
 political societies," between sovereign States. This, in the 
 next chapter, I hope and expect to make perfectly clear, 
 by bringing to view the origin of the words, "We, the 
 people," and by showing the sense in which they were 
 universally understood and used by the member of the 
 Convention of 1787 in the very act of framing the Con 
 stitution of the United States. 
 
 1 "Life and Writings," vol. iii, p. 103. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787 A COMPACT BETWEEN THE 
 STATES- THE LANGUAGE OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 (Continued) 
 FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THE CHANGE IN THE PREAMBLE 
 
 THE Convention of 1787 did, as we have seen, refuse to 
 call the government a national one, and gave it the name 
 of "the government of the United States." Did they 
 then make it a national one by enacting that it should be 
 ordained by "the whole people of the United States in 
 the aggregate" as one political society? Again, when it 
 was proposed in the Convention to ordain the Constitution 
 by "the people of the United States in the aggregate," 
 in one General Convention assembled, the motion failed, 
 as we have seen, to secure a second. Did Gouverneur 
 Morris, then, the author of that proposal, achieve by his 
 style what he failed to accomplish by his motion? If 
 so, what should we think of the incompetency of the 
 Convention ? 
 
 Nor was this all. For Madison introduced a motion 
 which required "a concurrence of a majority of both the 
 States and the people" 1 at large to establish the Constitu 
 tion; and this proposition was rejected by the Convention. 
 All these motions, designed to connect the new government 
 with a national origin, were lost, and the decree went 
 forth that the Constitution should be established by the 
 accession of nine States, each acting for itself alone, and 
 to be bound only by its own voluntary act. Now,* the 
 question is, was all this action of the Convention over 
 ruled and defeated by the committee on style, or rather 
 by its penman, Gouverneur Morris? If he formed such 
 design, then it must be admitted that the Northern theory 
 of the Constitution was conceived in fraud and brought 
 forth in iniquity; and every honest man at the North 
 ought to be ashamed both of its origin and its existence. 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers," p. 1470. 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 59 
 
 But, as we have already seen, Gouverneur Morris did not 
 understand his own words, "We, the people/ as they 
 are understood by the more modern expounders of the 
 Constitution at the North. Hence we have no reason to 
 believe that he intended, in this case at least, a fraud on 
 the design and will of the Convention. 
 
 Was the whole thing done then, and the nature of the 
 Constitution transformed, by a slip of the pen, or by 
 accident ? After all their opposition both to the name and 
 to the thing, did the Convention, by sheer oversight, blunder 
 into the construction of a purely national government, by 
 permitting it to be established by the people of America 
 as one grand political community? If Mr. Justice Story s 
 view of the words, "We, the people of the United States/ 
 be correct, how did it happen that the opponents of such 
 a mode of ratification said absolutely nothing ? The whole 
 instrument, as amended by the committee on style, was 
 read in the hearing of the Convention, beginning with the 
 preamble, and yet the words, "We, the people of the 
 United States," now deemed so formidable to the advocates 
 of State sovereignty, did not raise a single whisper of 
 opposition. 
 
 How could this have happened if the words in question 
 were supposed to mean the people of America, or the whole 
 people of the United States as one political society? Were 
 Mason, and Martin, and Paterson, and Ellsworth all too 
 dull to perceive that meaning, which is so perfectly obvious 
 to Mr. Justice Story, and which he imagines that nothing 
 but the most purblind obstinacy can resist? Were all the 
 friends of the States, as independent sovereignties, asleep 
 on their posts while Gouverneur Morris thus transformed 
 the nature of the Constitution, without knowing it himself, 
 by causing it to emanate, not from the States, but from 
 the people of America as one nation? No. Not one of 
 these suppositions is the true one. The whole mystery is 
 explained in the proceedings of the Convention of 1787, 
 as exhibited in "The Madison Papers"; an explanation 
 which, however, has hitherto been most unaccountably 
 overlooked. We may there find the real meaning of the 
 words in question, and see why they gave no alarm to the 
 advocates of State sovereignty. 
 
60 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 THE MODE OF KATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 If we cast our eyes all along the subject of "the mode 
 of ratification/ 7 ranging from page 735 to page 1632 of 
 "The Madison Papers/ we shall perceive that the question, 
 whether the Constitution should be ratified by the people 
 of "the United States in the aggregate," or by the several 
 States, was not considered by the Convention at all. No 
 such question was before the Convention. It was neither 
 mooted nor considered by them. The error of Story and 
 Webster is, that they construe the first clause of the 
 Constitution as if it referred to one question; whereas, 
 in fact, it referred to quite another and a far different 
 question that is, they construed this clause in profound 
 darkness as to the origin of its words, as well as to. their 
 use and application in the Convention of 1787. If they 
 had understood them as actually and uniformly used or 
 applied by the framers of the Constitution, then they 
 could neither have deceived themselves nor the people of 
 the North. 
 
 If, indeed, they had been members of that Convention, 
 or had only examined its proceedings, they would have 
 seen why the staunch advocates of State sovereignty raised 
 not even the slightest whisper of opposition to the words, 
 "We, the people. 7 Or, if Patrick Henry had been a 
 member of that assembly/ then he could not have ex 
 claimed, as he did, "Why say We, the people/ and not 
 We, the States?" an exclamation so often quoted by 
 Story, Webster, and the whole Northern school of poli 
 ticians as a conclusive authority for then he would have 
 seen that "We, the people/ 7 in the language of the framers 
 of the Constitution., meant precisely the same thing as 
 "We, the States/ 7 and neither more nor less. 
 
 The question before the Convention was, whether the 
 Constitution should be ratified by the legislatures or by 
 the sovereign peoples of the several States. No one 
 doubted that it was to be ratified by the States. This, as 
 we shall see, was on all hands regarded as a settled point. 
 The only question was, whether it should be ratified by 
 the States, acting through their legislatures, or through 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 61 
 
 Conventions elected to represent the people for that special 
 purpose. In the discussion of this question, most of -the 
 members insisted that the Constitution should be ratified 
 by the people, by the States in their sovereign capacity, 
 or by their Conventions. These several modes of expression 
 were, in the vocabulary of the Convention, used as 
 convertible terms, as perfectly synonymous with each other. 
 Hence the phrase, "the people of the United States," as 
 used and understood by them, meant the people of the 
 several States as contradistinguished from their legisla 
 tures, and not the people of America as contradistinguished 
 from the distinct and separate sovereign peoples of the 
 different States. This application of the words is the 
 invention of theorists merely. It was unknown to the 
 Convention of 1787, and has had no existence except in 
 the imaginations of those by whom their labors have been 
 systematically misconstrued and perverted from their 
 original design. 
 
 Some few members of the Convention were in favor of 
 leaving "the States to choose their own mode of ratifica 
 tion" ; but the great majority of them insisted that the 
 Constitution should be. referred to the States for ratifi 
 cation, either through their legislatures or through their 
 people in Conventions assembled. It was in regard to these 
 two methods that the Convention was divided. All agreed 
 that it should be done by "the States," and the only ques 
 tion was as to how "the States" should do it. The idea 
 that it was designed to be done, or that it was done, by 
 the people of America as one nation, is the dream of a 
 later day, and, as we shall see, is nothing but a dream. 
 
 Some insisted that it should be ratified by the States in 
 their corporate capacity this is, by their legislatures; 
 and others that it should be ratified by the States in their 
 sovereign political capacity that is, by their Conventions 
 assembled for that express purpose. Or, in other words, 
 some contended that it ought to be ratified by their general 
 agents, the legislatures; and others that it ought to be 
 ratified by their special agents, the Conventions elected 
 and assembled to perform that high acl of sovereign 
 
62 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 power. In both cases, it was to be ratified by the States, 
 but. the opposite parties preferred different modes of 
 ratification by them. 
 
 THE DEBATE ox BATIFICATIOX 
 
 In debating this question, as to the mode of ratification 
 by the States (the only one before the Convention), some 
 of the most inflexible advocates of State sovereignty 
 insisted that it should be ratified by "the people of the 
 United States." But then they understood this language, 
 and every member of the Convention understood it to 
 mean the peoples of the several States, as distinguished 
 from their legislatures. If, for one moment, they had 
 imagined that their language could have been construed 
 to mean a ratification of the Constitution by the collective 
 will of the whole people of America, they would have 
 shrunk from its use with horror ! for they dreaded nothing 
 more than the idea of such an immense consolidated 
 democracy. On the contrary, they clung to the States, 
 and to their rights, as the only sheet-anchor of safety 
 against the overwhelming and all-devouring floods of 
 such a national union of mere numbers or individuals. 
 George Mason, no less than Patrick Henry, would have 
 exclaimed against the words, "We, the people," if, as a 
 member of the Convention of 1787, he had not learned 
 that they only meant "We, the States." 
 
 In discussing the question as to the mode of ratification 
 by "the States," Mr. Mason said "he considered a reference 
 of the plan to the authority of the people as one of the 
 most important and essential of the resolutions. The 
 legislatures have no power to ratify it. ... Another 
 strong reason, said he, was that admitting the legisla 
 tures to have a competent authority it would be wrong to 
 refer the plan to them, because succeeding legislatures, 
 having equal authority, could undo the acts of their prede 
 cessors." 1 This argument was repeatedly urged by other 
 members, and it was insisted that if the Constitution 
 should be ratified by the legislatures of the States, instead 
 
 1 "Madison Papers," p. 1177. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 63 
 
 of by the people of the States, it would rest upon a weak 
 and tottering foundation, since the legislatures which had 
 established might claim the power to repeal. 
 
 In like manner Mr. Madison said, "For these reasons, as 
 well as for others, he thought it indispensable that the 
 new Constitution should be ratified in the unexceptionable 
 form, and by the supreme authority of the people them 
 selves 1 that is, as the context shows, by the supreme 
 authority of the people of the several States in opposition 
 to their "legislative sanction only." Not one word was 
 ever said during the whole of the debate about referring 
 the Constitution to the people of the whole country in the 
 aggregate for ratification. This idea had not then risen 
 above the horizon of the political world, though it after 
 wards became the great political sun of the Northern 
 section of the Union. 
 
 Those who advocated the mode of ratification by the 
 people, or by the Conventions of the States elected for that 
 purpose, prevailed over those who urged the ratification 
 by the legislatures. The majority favored the mode of 
 ratification by the people or the Conventions. Accord 
 ingly, when the committee of detail reported a draft of 
 the Constitution, we find these words : "Article XXI. The 
 ratifications of the Conventions of - - States shall be 
 sufficient for the organization of this Constitution/ 2 Thus 
 it came to be perfectly understood that it should be ratified 
 by the Conventions or the peoples of the several States, 
 and not by their legislatures. 
 
 But here the question arose, if the blank for the number 
 of States should be filled with "seven," "eight," or "nine." 
 The Constitution, as it stood, might, in the opinion of 
 Mr. Madison, be put in force over "the whole body of the 
 people, though less than a majority of them should ratify 
 it." But, in the opinion of Mr. Wilson, "As the Constitu 
 tion stands, the States only which ratify can be bound." 3 
 In order to remove this difficulty, and settle the question, 
 Mr. King moved to add, at the end of Article XXI, the 
 words "between the said States, so as to confine the opera- 
 
 i "Madison Papers," p. 796. 2 Ibid., p. 1241. 3 Ibid., p. 1469. 
 
64 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 tion of the government to the States ratifying the same/ 1 
 Thus it was Rufus King, at first one of the most strenuous 
 advocates in the Convention of 178? for a strong national 
 government, who introduced the words by which the 
 Constitution was made binding "between the States so 
 ratifying the same." These words proved acceptable to 
 Madison and Wilson, though both were among the most 
 zealous advocates of a strong general government in the 
 Convention of 1787, and they became a part of the new 
 Constitution. 
 
 Tims it- was universally understood by the Convention, 
 
 and so expressed, that the new Constitution was to be 
 
 established "by the ratification of the Conventions of 
 
 - States," and to be binding only "between the 
 
 States so ratifying the same." 
 
 During all this time the name of each State still retained 
 its place in the preamble to the Constitution, in which the 
 committee of detail made no change ; and if the party, 
 with Gerry and Hamilton at their head, who wished to fill 
 the blank with the whole thirteen States, had prevailed, we 
 have no reason to believe that any alteration would in this 
 respect have been made in the preamble to the Constitution. 
 But when, after debate, the blank was filled k with "nine," it 
 became impossible to specify the States between whom the 
 new Constitution might be established or the new govern 
 ment organized. Hence it became proper, if not necessary, 
 to drop the specification of the States by name a change 
 which, as we have seen, was first introduced by the 
 committee on style, and read to the Convention without 
 raising the slightest objection or murmur. 
 
 We are now prepared to see, as in the clear light of 
 noonday, why the words, "We, the people of the United 
 States," which have since made so much noise in the 
 political world, did not make any whatever in the Con 
 vention of 1787. Why should George Mason, or any other 
 adherent of State sovereignty, object to the words intro 
 duced by the committee on style? They merely expressed 
 the very thing for which he had contended, and which had 
 been fully expressed in the seventh Article of the new 
 
 1 "Madison Papers." p. 147<>. 
 
THE AVAR BETWEEN THE STATES 65 
 
 Constitution. For when it was determined that the Con 
 stitution should be ratified by "the Conventions of the 
 States," and not by the legislatures, this was exactly 
 equivalent, in the uniform language of the Convention of 
 1787, to saying that it shall be ratified by "the people of 
 the States." Hence, the most ardent friend of State rights, 
 or State sovereignty, saw no reason why he should object 
 to the words, "We, the people of the United States/ 
 because he knew they were only intended to express the 
 mode of ratification by the States for which he had con 
 tended that is, by the States in their sovereign capacity, 
 as so many political societies or peoples, as distinguished 
 from their legislatures. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787 A COMPACT BETWEEN THE 
 
 STATES THE VIEWS OF CERTAIN OF THE FRAMERS 
 
 OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 WEBSTER S STATEMENT 
 
 THIS subject has already been anticipated, but by no 
 means exhausted. Considering the unparalleled boldness 
 of Northern assertion, it is necessary to lay bare a few 
 more of its hidden mysteries. "Indeed/ says Mr. Webster, 
 "if we look into all contemporary history ; to the numbers 
 of The Federalist; to the debates in the Convention; to 
 the publication of friends and foes, they all agree that a 
 change had been made from a confederacy of States to a 
 different system; they all agree that the Convention had 
 formed a Constitution for a national government. With 
 this result some were satisfied, and some were dissatisfied ; 
 but all admitted that the thing had been done. In none 
 of the various productions and publications did any one 
 intimate that the new Constitution was but another 
 compact between States in their sovereign capacity. I do 
 not find such an opinion advanced in a single instance/ 71 
 
 Now this is certainly as bold and sweeping an assertion 
 as could well be made in human language. It is certainly 
 as full, round, and complete an untruth as was ever 
 uttered. It will, upon examination, be found that, to use 
 the mildest possible terms, it is fitly characterized by the 
 two words high-sounding and hollow. It would, perhaps, 
 be difficult for any man, except Mr. Webster and his 
 successor in the Senate of the United States, to produce as 
 bold and sweeping an assertion, which, like the above, is 
 at every point diametrically opposed to the truth. I shall 
 proceed to prove, and to establish beyond the shadow of a 
 doubt, this heavy accusation against "the great expounder," 
 by extracts from the records and publications to which he 
 so solemnly appeals. 
 
 1 Speech in Senate, Feb. 16, 1833. 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 67 
 
 I shall begin with the Convention that formed the Con 
 stitution itself. It will not be necessary to reproduce the 
 language of Gouverneur Morris. 
 
 MADISON S OPINION 
 
 James Madison himself, "the father of the Constitution," 
 and the most laborious member of the Convention of 1787, 
 called it, as we have seen, "a pact" between the States ii 
 that Convention ; and from that day to the end of his life^ 
 Mr. Madison continued to pronounce the new Constitutioi 
 "a compact to which the States are the parties." In 
 Virginia ratifying Convention of 1788, in "the numbei 
 of The Federalist" in the Virginia Eesolutions of 98 am 
 99, in the Virginia Report of 1800, in his celebrated letter 
 to Mr. Everett of 1830 ; in one and all of these well-known 
 public documents, as well as in others from his pen, this 
 illustrious architect of the Constitution most emphatically 
 pronounced it "a compact to which the States are the 
 parties." In the Virginia Resolutions, a political formula 
 which the American people, of all parties and all sections, 
 had sworn by for more than thirty years, Mr. Madison 
 wrote for the legislature of his State: "This Assembly 
 doth explicitly and peremptorily declare that it views the 
 powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the 
 compact, to which the States are parties/ How com 
 pletely, then, was the very existence of Mr. Madison, and 
 of all the great transactions in which he had borne so 
 conspicuous a part, ignored by Mr. Webster in the bold 
 and astounding assertion that neither friend nor foe had 
 ever considered the new Constitution as a . "compact 
 between the States." The venerable old man must, indeed, 
 have felt, as he read the speech of Mr. Webster, that he 
 was fast sinking into oblivion, and that all the great 
 transactions of his life were fast being forgotten amid the 
 blaze of new ideas. 
 
 Accordingly, in a letter to Mr. Webster, called forth by 
 the very speech in question, Mr. Madison once more raised 
 his voice in favor of the one invariable doctrine of his life. 
 
68 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 "It is fortunate," says he in the letter referred to, "when 
 disputed theories can be decided by undisputed facts ; and 
 here the undisputed fact is that the Constitution was made 
 by the people, but as embodied into the several States, 
 who were parties to it." Again, in the same letter, he says: 
 "The Constitution of the United States, being established 
 by a competent authority, by that of the sovereign people 
 of the several States, who were parties to it. " Most 
 fortunate is it, indeed, when disputed theories may be 
 tested by undisputed facts; but how infinitely unfortunate 
 is it, when new and disputed theories begin to pass for 
 everything, and indisputable facts for nothing! 
 
 WILSON S POSITION 
 
 All agree, says Mr. Webster, "The Federalist," "the 
 debates in the Conventions," "the publications of friends 
 and foes" all agree, "that a change had been made from 
 a confederacy of States to a different system." ~Now, there 
 is James Wilson, inferior only to Madison and Hamilton in 
 the influence he exerted in favor of the new Constitution, 
 who declares that the only object aimed at by the Con 
 vention of 1787 was to enable the States "to confederate 
 anew on better principles" ; and, if no more could be 
 effected, he would agree to "a partial union of the States, 
 with a door left open for the accession t>f the rest." 
 Accordingly, it was finally agreed by the Convention that 
 nine States might form the new Union, with a door left 
 open for the accession of the other four. In fact, eleven 
 States confederated on the new principles ; and it was more 
 than a year before the remaining two States acceded to the 
 compact of the Constitution, and became members of the 
 Union. 
 
 HAMILTON S VIEWS 
 
 Even Alexander Hamilton in that great authority, The 
 ^ederalist, to which Mr. Webster so confidently appeals, 
 ift directly and flatly opposed to the bold assertion of "the 
 great expounder." * If the new Constitution should be 
 adopted, says he, the Union would "still be, in fact and in 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 69 
 
 theory, an association of States, or a confederacy. * 1 
 Again, in the eightieth number of the work, Hamilton 
 calls the new Union "the CONFEDERACY"; putting the 
 word in capital letters in order that it may not be over 
 looked by the most superficial reader. If necessary, it 
 might be shown by various other extracts, that Alexander 
 Hamilton, while insisting on the adoption of the new 
 Constitution in The Federalist, speaks ^of the new Union 
 as a confederacy of States. How, then, could Mr. Webster 
 avouch The Federalist to support the assertion that "a 
 change had been made from a confederacy to a different 
 system?" Was this in his character of "the great ex 
 pounder," or of the great deceiver? 
 
 This appeal to The Federalist appears, if possible, still 
 more wonderful, when viewed in connection with other 
 numbers of the same work. Indeed, it was objected to 
 the new Constitution by its enemies, that "it would make 
 a change from a confederacy to a different system" ; and 
 this very objection is met and repelled in the pages of 
 The Federalist. "Will it be said," demands The Federalist, 
 "that the fundamental principles of the confederation were 
 not within the purview of the Convention, and ought not 
 to have been varied? I ask, what are these principles? 
 Do they require that in the establishment of the Constitu 
 tion the States should be regarded as distinct and inde 
 pendent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the Con 
 stitution proposed." 2 
 
 Nor is this all. In the preceding number of The 
 Federalist, it is said : "Each State, in ratifying the Con-\ 
 stitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of 1 V 
 all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act."/ 
 Thus, according to The Federalist, the Constitution was 
 ratified by "each State, as a sovereign body, independent 
 of all others."" No such thing, says Mr. Webster; it was 
 not ratified by the States at all, it was ordained by a power 
 superior to the States, by the sovereign will of the whole 
 people of the United States; and yet he boldly and 
 unblushingly appeals to The Federalist in support of his 
 
 1 The Federalist. No. ix. - No. xl. 
 
70 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 assertion! Why did he not quote Tlie Federalist? Nay, 
 why did he not read Tlie Federalist before he ventured on 
 such a position? 
 
 WEBSTER AND THE FEDERALIST 
 
 Mr. Webster has, indeed, quoted one expression from 
 Tlie Federalist. "The fabric of American empire/ says 
 Hamilton, in the twenty-second number of Tlie Federalist, 
 "ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE 
 PEOPLE." After quoting these words, Mr. Webster adds, 
 with his usual confidence, "Such is the language, sir, 
 addressed to the people while they yet had the Constitution 
 under consideration. The powers conferred on the new 
 government were perfectly well understood to be conferred, 
 not by any State, or the people of any State, but by the 
 people of the United States." 
 
 Eead the context, and this will be perfectly plain. "It 
 has not a little contributed," says the context, "to the 
 infirmities of the existing federal system, that it never 
 had a ratification of the PEOPLE. Resting on no better 
 foundation than the consent of the several Legislatures, 
 it has been exposed to frequent and intricate questions 
 concerning the validity of its powers; and has, in some 
 instances, given rise to the enormous doctrine of legislative 
 repeal." Such is the context of Mr. Webster s very partial 
 and one-sided extract. It shows that Hamilton was 
 arguing the advantage of the new system over the old, 
 just as it had been argued in the Convention of 1787 ; 
 because the old confederation rested on the consent of the 
 Legislatures of the several States, whereas the new con 
 federacy was to rest on the consent of the people of the 
 several States. Hence it would be free from all doubts 
 with respect to the power of "legislative repeal." 
 
 If, instead of perverting the high authority of The 
 Federalist by wresting one particular passage from its 
 context, Mr. Webster had only read a little further, he 
 would have discovered what was then "perfectly well 
 understood" respecting the nature of the Constitution. 
 He would have discovered that it was, according to The 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 71 
 
 Federalist, established, not by "the people of the United 
 States in the aggregate," or as one nation, but by each of 
 the States acting for itself alone. "The Constitution is to 
 be founded," says The Federalist? "on the assent and rati 
 fication of the people of America, given by deputies elected 
 for the special purpose." This, too, is the language 
 "addressed to the people, while they yet had the Consti 
 tution under consideration." 
 
 Why, then, is not this language seized upon, and held 
 up as proof positive that the Constitution rested on the 
 assent, "not of any State, or the people of any State," but 
 on that of "the people of America ?" The reason is plain. 
 Though these words, taken by themselves, would have 
 answered Mr. Webster s purpose better than his extract 
 from The Federalist; yet are they immediately followed, 
 in the same sentence, by an explanation, which shows their 
 meaning when used in The Federalist. "The Constitution 
 is to be founded," says that highest of all authorities, "on 
 the assent and ratification of the people of America, given 
 by deputies elected for the special purpose; but," it is 
 added, "this assent and ratification is to be given by the 
 people, not as individuals comprising one entire nation, 
 but as composing the distinct and independent States to 
 which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and 
 ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme 
 authority in each State the authority of the people them 
 selves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution 
 will not be a national, but a federal act." 2 Not so, says 
 Mr. Webster, the Constitution was established not by a 
 federal, but a national act: not by any State, or the people 
 of any State, but by the whole people* of the United States 
 as one sovereign body; and yet he appeals to The Federalist 
 in support of his doctrine ! 
 
 "That it will be a federal, and not a national act," con 
 tinues The Federalist, "as these terms are understood by 
 objectors, the act of the people, as forming so many inde 
 pendent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is 
 obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result 
 neither from the decision of a majority of the people of 
 
 1 No. xxxix. - Ibid. 
 
72 THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 the Union, nor from that of a majority of the States. It 
 must result from the unanimous assent of the several States 
 that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their 
 ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the 
 legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves. 
 Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming 
 one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people 
 of the United States would bind the minority; in the 
 same manner as the majority in each State must bind the 
 minority; and the will of the majority must be determined 
 either by a comparison of the individual .votes, or by con 
 sidering the will of the majority of the States, as evidences 
 of the will of the majority of the people of the United 
 States. Neither of these had been adopted. Each State, 
 in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign 
 body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by 
 its own voluntary act." Could language be more perfectly 
 explicit? Yet, directly in the face of all this, or else in 
 profound ignorance of all this, Mr. Webster appeals to 
 the authority of The Federalist in favor of the very 
 position which, as we have seen, it so pointedly condemns. 
 ISTay, in spite of the clear, explicit, and unanswerable 
 words of The Federalist, Mr. Webster appeals to that work 
 to show, as a fact then "perfectly well understood," that 
 the powers of the new government were to be conferred, 
 or its Constitution established, not by the States, nor by 
 the people of the States, considered as sovereign bodies, 
 and each acting for itself, but by the whole people of the 
 United States as one sovereign body or nation ! To show, 
 in one word, that the Union was formed, not by an 
 accession of the States, but by the one people of the 
 United States acting as a unit! "The great expounder" 
 does not follow, he flatly contradicts, the very work he 
 appeals to as the highest of authorities; and that, too, in 
 regard to the greatest of all the political questions that 
 have agitated the people of America ! 
 
 OPPOSITION TO RATIFICATION 
 
 There were those, it is true, who regarded the new Con 
 stitution as the fundamental, or organic law, of one great 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 73 
 
 consolidated government. But these were its enemies. 
 They represented it as such because they wished it to be 
 rejected, and because they knew no other objection would 
 render it so obnoxious to the people of the States. It is 
 well known, indeed, that the greatest difficulty in the w^ay 
 of the new Union was the jealousy of the central power, 
 which the several States had long entertained. This 
 jealousy was so great in the States of New York and of 
 Virginia that when their Conventions met to ratify or to 
 reject the Constitution it is well understood, and admitted, 
 that they were both opposed to the new grant of powers. 
 The State-Eights men in both Conventions, who, at first, 
 were in favor of rejecting the Constitution, were in a 
 majority, as is well known and fully conceded. 
 
 It was only by the herculean labors of Alexander 
 Hamilton that the Conventions of New York were, at last, 
 induced to ratify it by a majority of three votes. In like 
 manner, the labors, the management, and the eloquence of 
 Mr. Madison succeeded, finally, after a long and desperate 
 struggle, in carrying it in the Convention of Virginia by 
 the small majority of ten votes. The result was long- 
 doubtful in both Conventions. 
 
 Patrick Henry, in the ratifying Convention of Virginia, 
 put forth all his powers to cause the new Constitution to 
 be rejected. His appeals to the jealousy of the States with 
 respect to the power of the central government were 
 tremendous. He dwelt, particularly, on the words of the 
 preamble, "We, the people of the United States," to show 
 that his most fatal objection to the new Constitution was 
 well founded ; and he added, "States are the characteristic 
 and soul of a confederacy. If the States be not the agents 
 of this compact, it must be one great consolidated govern 
 ment of the people of the United States/ He insisted 
 that it would be so. But Patrick Henry, it should be 
 remembered, was not a member of the Convention of 1787, 
 and he was an enemy of the new Constitution. His mind 
 was fertile and overflowing with objections. If he had 
 known the history of the words, "We, the people of the 
 United States/ 7 as it appears in the debates of the Con 
 vention, which had not then been published, he would 
 
74 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 have seen that "We, the people, 7 really meant "We, the 
 States; or, We, the Convention/ acting in the name and 
 by the authority of the sovereign people of the several 
 States. 1 Or, if he had compared the words in question 
 with the seventh Article of the Constitution he would 
 have seen that the new Constitution was to be established 
 by the States, and was to be binding only "between the 
 States so ratifying the same." But as the enemy, and not 
 the advocate, of the new Constitution, he labored to enforce 
 his objection to it, rather than to consider and weigh its 
 words, or explain its real meaning to the Convention. 
 
 His objection would, no doubt, have proved fatal to the 
 new Constitution, but for the presence and the power of 
 James Madison, who met the great objection of Patrick 
 Henry, and silenced much of the apprehension which his 
 eloquence had created. He was known to have been the 
 most diligent and active member of the Convention that 
 formed the Constitution; and was supposed, therefore, to 
 understand its real import better than any man in the 
 ratifying Convention of Virginia. His position, and his 
 means of information, certainly gave him a great advan 
 tage over his eloquent rival, Patrick Henry. In his reply 
 to Mr. Henry, he explained the words, "We, the people," 
 precisely as he had before explained them in The Fed 
 eralist. He said : "The parties to it were the people, but 
 not the people as composing one great society, but the 
 people as composing thirteen sovereignties." Again: "If 
 it were a consolidated government," said he, "the assent of 
 a majority of the people would be sufficient to establish 
 it. But it was to be binding on the people of a State only 
 1 1/ their own separate consent/ This argument, founded 
 on a well-known fact, was absolutely unanswerable. 
 
 Yet Mr. Justice Story has, two or three times, quoted 
 the words of Patrick Henry in the Virginia Convention, 
 as if they were a most valuable authority, without a single, 
 solitary word in relation to the unanswerable reply of Mr, 
 Madison ! On this point he is profoundly silent ! That is 
 to say, he construes the Constitution, not as it was under 
 stood by its framers and friends, but as it was misrepre- 
 
 : See chap. viii. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 75 
 
 sented by its enemies, in order to cause its rejection ! 
 He holds up the words of the one as a great authority, 
 and he does not let the reader of his most learned Com 
 mentaries know the language of the other in reply! Was 
 that honest? 
 
 MISINTERPRETATIONS BY STORY AND OTHERS 
 
 I object to the Massachusetts interpretation of the first 
 clause of the preamble to the Constitution. 1. Because 
 it falsifies the facts of history respecting the mode of its 
 ratification, which was by the several States in Convention 
 assembled, each acting for itself alone, "as a sovereign 
 body, independent of all others, and to be bound only by 
 its own voluntary act," and not by the people of America 
 as one nation. 2. Because it makes these words, "We, 
 the people," contradict the seventh Article of the Consti 
 tution; an Article which, historically considered, has pre 
 cisely the same origin and the same sense with those words 
 themselves. 3. Because it attaches to these words a differ 
 ent sense from that attached to them by the Convention 
 of 1787, as seen in the debates which gave rise to them. 
 4. Because it contradicts the sense given to these words by 
 Gouverneur Morris, by James Madison, and by other 
 framers of the Constitution of the United States. 5. Be 
 cause, not satisfied with making this clause contradict 
 everything else, it makes it contradict itself, or at least the 
 very next clause in the same sentence with itself. 
 
 WEBSTER AND THE FEDERALIST AGAIN 
 
 But there is another thing which Mr. Webster could 
 not find in "all contemporary history," nor in "the 
 numbers of The Federalist" nor in "the publications of 
 friends or foes." In none of these various productions 
 or publications, according to Webster, did any one intimate 
 that the new Constitution was but another compact between 
 the States in their sovereign capacity. Yet, with no very 
 great research, I have found, and exhibited in the preceding 
 pages, a multitude of instances in which "such an opinion 
 
76 THE WAR BETWEEN- THE STATES 
 
 is advanced." Nor was it at all necessary to ransack "all 
 contemporary history" for this purpose. The Federalist 
 itself, the great political classic of America, has already 
 furnished several such instances. It teaches us, as we have 
 seen, that "each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is 
 considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others" ;* 
 and also that, in the establishment of the Constitution, the 
 States are "regarded as distinct and independent sover 
 eigns." 2 
 
 But this, it may be said, does not use the term compact. 
 Very well. The same number of The Federalist, which 
 says that the Constitution was to be established by each 
 State, as a sovereign body, independent of all others, calls 
 that Constitution " THE COMPACT." Thus, according to 
 The Federalist, the Constitution, THE COMPACT, was 
 established by "distinct and independent sovereigns/" 
 
 But numbers XXXIX and XL were written by Mr. 
 Madison. Every one knows that he always regarded the 
 Constitution as a compact between "distinct and inde 
 pendent sovereigns." That is, every one at all acquainted 
 with the political history of the United States, except 
 Mr. Justice Story and Mr. Webster, during the great 
 struggle of 1833. It must be conceded, then, in spite of 
 the sweeping assertion of Mr. Webster, that Madison held 
 the Constitution to be "a compact between the States in 
 their sovereign capacity," and that, too, in the pages of 
 The Federalist as well as elsewhere. A rather conspicuous 
 instance to be overlooked by one whose search had been so 
 very careful and so very conscientious ! Xor does this 
 instance stand alone. Alexander Hamilton is the great 
 writer of The Federalist. Out of its existing eighty-five 
 numbers, no less than fifty proceeded from his pen ; five 
 from the pen of Jay, and thirty from that of Madison; 
 and, in the opinion of the Xorth, the numbers of Hamilton 
 surpass those of- Madison far more in quality than in 
 quantity. 
 
 In the estimation of the Xorth, indeed, Hamilton is the 
 one sublime architect of the Constitution to whom it owes 
 "every element of its durability and beauty." What, then, 
 
 1 No. xxxix. - No. xl. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 77 
 
 does Hamilton say about the nature of the Constitution? 
 Does he call it a compact between States, or does he allege 
 that it was ordained by the people of the United States as 
 one sovereign nation ? I do not wish to shock any one. I 
 am aware it will be regarded, by many of the followers 
 of Story, as akin to sacrilege to charge Alexander Hamilton 
 with having entertained the treasonable opinion that the 
 Constitution was a compact between the States. But as 
 we have, at the South, no grand manufactory of opinions 
 to supply "all contemporary history," so we must take 
 the sentiments of Alexander Hamilton just as \ve find 
 them, not in the traditions of the North, but in his own 
 published productions. The simple truth is, then, that he 
 calls the provisions of the Constitution of 1787, "The 
 compacts which are to embrace thirteen distinct States, 
 in a common bond of amity and Union" ; and adds, these 
 compacts must "necessarily be compromises of as many 
 dissimilar interests and inclinations." 1 Thus, according 
 to Hamilton, the "thirteen distinct States" made compro 
 mises with each other, and adopted them as "the compacts" 
 of the new Union ! 
 
 Xor is this all. On the following page, he says: "The 
 moment an alteration is made in the present plan it 
 becomes, to the purpose of adoption, a new one, and must 
 undergo a new decision of each State." 2 Indeed, even 
 Hamilton, the great consolidationist of his day, never 
 dreamed of any other mode of adopting the new Constitu 
 tion than by "a decision of each State." Hence, he con 
 tinues, "To its complete establishment throughout the 
 Union it will, therefore, require the concurrence of thirteen 
 States." Again, he says, "Every Constitution for the 
 United States must inevitably consist of a great variety of 
 particulars, in which thirteen INDEPENDENT STATES are to 
 be accommodated in their interests or opinions of interest. 3 
 Hence the necessity of moulding and arranging 
 all the particulars, which are to compose the whole, in such 
 a manner as to satisfy all the parties to THE COMPACT." 
 That is, in such a manner as to satisfy the thirteen 
 INDEPENDENT STATES, who are "THE PARTIES TO THE 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. Ixxxv. - Ibid. 3 Ibid. 
 
78 THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 COMPACT." 1 The whole Federalist is in perfect harmony 
 with this keynote of the system it recommended to the 
 people. 
 
 I might easily produce a hundred other proofs of the 
 same fact from "The Federalist," from "publications of 
 friends and foes," from the "debates of the Convention," 
 without the aid of "all contemporary history." 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. Ixxxv. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787 A COMPACT BETWEEN THE 
 STATES MR. WEBSTER AGAIN 
 
 THE LETTER OF THE CONVENTION ON THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 THE Convention of 1787, in their letter describing the 
 formation of the new Constitution, use precisely the polit 
 ical formula employed by Sidney, Locke, and other cele 
 brated authors, to define a social compact. Hobbes was 
 the first to reduce this theory to a scientific form ; and it 
 is nowhere more accurately defined than by himself. 
 "Each citizen," says he, "compacting with his fellow, says 
 thus: I convey my right on this party, upon condition 
 that you pass yours to the same; by which means that right, 
 which every man had before to use his faculties to his 
 own advantage, is now wholly translated on some certain 
 man or council for the common benefit." 1 Precisely the 
 same idea is conveyed by the formula of 1787 : "Indi 
 viduals entering into society must give up a share of 
 liberty to preserve the rest; and the great difficulty is, as 
 to what right should be delegated to the governing agents 
 for the common benefit, and what right should be retained 
 by the individual." This is the social compact as defined 
 by Hobbes himself; and, although it was an imaginary 
 transaction in regard to the governments of the Old 
 World, it became a reality in relation to the solemnly 
 enacted Constitutions of America. 
 
 But, in the letter of the Convention of 1787, it comes 
 before us in a new relation. In Hobbes, "each citizen 
 compacts with his fellow," as in the formation of our 
 State Constitutions ; whereas, in the letter before us, each 
 State compacts with her sister States. "It is obviously 
 impracticable," says the Convention, 2 "in the Federal 
 Government of these States to secure all rights of inde 
 pendent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the 
 
 1 "Hobbes Works," vol. ii, p. 91. - See their Letter. 
 
80 THE WAK BETWEKX THE STATES 
 
 honor and safety of all. Individuals entering into society 
 must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. 
 It is at all times difficult to draw with precision 
 the line between those rights which must be surrendered, 
 and those which may be reserved; and on the present 
 occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among 
 the several States [the parties about to enter into a new 
 Union] as to their situation., extent, habits, and particular 
 interests." 
 
 Yet, in the face of all this, the whole school of Massa 
 chusetts politicians, with Story and Webster at their head, 
 assert that the Federal Government is a union, not of 
 States, but only of individual citizens ! Who, before or 
 beside these perverters of the most palpable truth, ever 
 applied the term "Union" to a government of individuals ? 
 Who ever heard of the Union of Massachusetts, or of 
 New York, or of Virginia? The truth is that this word 
 is only applicable to a confederation of States ; and hence, 
 even Alexander Hamilton, after he had failed to establish 
 a consolidated national government, familiarly called the 
 new Union "a CONFEDERACY." 1 It was reserved for a later 
 day, and for a bolder period in the progress of triumphant 
 error, to scout this as an Unconstitutional idea; and to 
 declare, by way of proof, that "there is no language in the 
 Constitution applicable to a confederation of States." 2 Is 
 not the term "Union" applicable to a confederation of 
 States, or is it only applicable to a social combination of 
 individuals? Does not the Constitution speak of "the 
 United States," or the States united? Nay, does it not 
 expressly declare that it shall be binding "between the 
 States so ratifying the same?" Or, if the Constitution 
 itself has been silent, does not the letter of 1787, which 
 was struck in the same mint with that solemn compact, 
 declare that each State, on entering into the new Union, 
 gives up a share of its "rights of independent sovereignty," 
 in order to secure the rest? 
 
 I shall now take leave of the proposition that the Consti 
 tution was a compact between the States of the Union ; a 
 
 1 The FcilrraUKt. No. Ixxx. 
 
 2 "Webster s Works." vol. iii, p. 47<>. Great speech of 1833. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 81 
 
 proposition far too plain for argument, if the clearest facts 
 of history .had only been permitted to speak for them 
 selves. "I remember/ 7 says Mr. Webster, "to have heard 
 Chief Justice Marshall ask counsel, who was insisting 
 upon the authority of an act of legislation, if he thought 
 an act of legislation could create or destroy a fact, or 
 change the truth of history?" "Would it alter the fact," 
 said he, "if a legislature should solemnly enact that Mr. 
 Hume never wrote the History of England?" 1 "A legis 
 lature may alter the law/ continues Mr. Webster, "but no 
 power can reverse a fact." 2 Hence, if the Convention of 
 1787 had expressly declared that the Constitution was 
 ordained by "the people of the United States in the aggre 
 gate," or by the people of America as one nation, this 
 would not have destroyed the fact that it was ratified by 
 each State for itself, and that each State was bound only 
 by "its own voluntary act." If the Convention had been 
 lost to all decency it might indeed have stamped such a 
 falsehood on the face of the Constitution ; but this would 
 not have "changed the truth of history." 
 
 Story and Webster lay great stress, as we have seen,- 
 011 the fact that the first resolution passed by the Con 
 vention of 1787, declared that a National Government 
 ought to be established. But, by a suppressio veri, they 
 conceal the fact that this resolution was afterward taken 
 up, and the term national deliberately dropped by the 
 unanimous decision of the Convention. 
 
 They also conceal the fact that, after the Constitution 
 was actually formed, the Convention called the work of 
 their hands, not "a National Government," but "THE 
 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THESE STATES." This name was 
 given, not before, but after, the Convention was full : not 
 before the first article of the Constitution was adopted, 
 but after the whole instrument had been completely 
 finished; and it was given, too, by "the unanimous order 
 of the Convention. " :! Yet, in contempt of all this, Story 
 and Webster say that the Convention made, not a "Federal 
 Government of States," but a "National Government" for 
 
 1 "Works." vol. ii, p. 334. 
 
 - Chap, iy. 
 
 3 See their Letter to Congress. 
 
82 THE WAR BETWEEX THE STATES 
 
 the one people of America, and they prove this by the 
 exploded resolution passed by them ! That is, they still 
 insist on the name expressly rejected by the Convention, 
 as if it had received the sanction of their high authority; 
 and that., too, in direct opposition to the name actually 
 given by them ! Could any style of reasoning, if reasoning 
 it may be called, be more utterly contemptible ? 
 
 MR. WEBSTER VERSUS MR. WEBSTER 
 
 In the preceding pages Mr. Webster has been con 
 fronted with reason and authority ; showing . that "the 
 greatest intellectual effort of his life" is merely a thing 
 of words. In this, he shall be confronted with himself 
 for, in truth, he is at war with himself, as well as with 
 all the great founders of the Constitution of the United 
 States. He is, in fact, too much for himself; and the 
 great speech which, in 1833, he reared with so much pains 
 and consummate skill as a rhetorician, he has literally torn 
 to tatters. 
 
 "If the States be parties [to the Constitution]," asks 
 Mr. Webster in that speech, with an air of great confi 
 dence, "where are their covenants and stipulations? And 
 where are their rights, covenants, and stipulations ex 
 pressed ? The States engage for nothing., they promise 
 nothing." On reading this passage, one is naturally 
 inclined to ask, did Mr. Webster never hear of "the grand 
 compromises of the Constitution * about which so much 
 has been written? But what is a compromise, if it is not 
 a mutual agreement, founded on the mutual concessions 
 of the parties to some conflict of opinions or interests? 
 Does not the very term compromise mean mutual promises 
 or pledges? Look at the large and small States in the 
 Convention of 1787. We see, in that memorable struggle 
 for power, the large States insisting on a large or pro 
 portionate representation of themselves in both branches 
 of the federal legislature ; and we see the small States, 
 with equal pertinacity, clinging to the idea of an equal 
 representation in both. The struggle is fierce and obsti 
 nate. The Convention is on the point of dissolution, and 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 83 
 
 its hopes are almost extinguished. But a compromise is 
 suggested, considered, argued, and finally adopted ; accord 
 ing to which there is to be a proportionate representation 
 of each State in one branch of the federal legislature, and 
 an equal representation in the other. These are the terms, 
 "the covenants," "the stipulations 77 on which the two classes 
 of States agree to unite; these are their mutual promises. 
 
 The same thing is true in regard to all the other "grand 
 compromises of the Constitution. 7 It seems, indeed, that 
 Mr. Webster could not well speak of these compromises 
 without using some such word as terms, or covenants, or 
 promises, or stipulations. Accordingly, if we turn to the 
 general index to his work, in order to see how he would 
 speak of the compromises of the Constitution, we shall 
 be led to make a very curious discovery, and one which 
 is intimately connected with an interesting passage of his 
 political life. It will conduct us to a scene in which "the 
 beautiful vase," then "well known throughout the country 
 as the WEBSTER VASE," was presented to that celebrated 
 statesman. Several thousand persons "had assembled at 
 the Odeon, in Boston," in order to witness the presentation 
 of that costly memorial, and to hear the reply of the great 
 orator. "The Vase, 77 we are told, " was placed" on a pedestal 
 covered with the American flag, and contained on its side 
 the following inscription : 
 
 "PRESENTED TO 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 The Defender of the Constitution, 
 
 BY THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON. 
 
 October 12, 1835." 
 
 Now this beautiful vase, so rich in its material and so 
 exquisite in its workmanship, was presented to Mr. Webster 
 in honor of his great speech of 1833 ; in which he 
 demonstrated to the entire satisfaction of the New England 
 universe that it is absurd to call the Constitution "a 
 compact," or to speak of its "stipulations. 77 Now I shall 
 produce one extract from this speech at the Odeon. not 
 
84 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 only 011 account of the striking contrast it presents to the 
 doctrine of the speech of 1833, whose glorious thousands 
 were there assembled to celebrate, but also on account of 
 the simple, solid, and important truth it contains. 
 
 "The Constitution," says Mr. Webster, in that speech, 
 "is founded on compromises, and the most perfect and 
 absolute good faith ix REGARD TO EVERY STIPULATION OF 
 
 THIS KIND CONTAINED IN IT IS INDISPENSABLE TO ITS 
 
 PRESERVATION. Every attempt to accomplish even the best 
 purpose, every attempt to grasp that which is regarded as 
 an immediate good, in violation of these STIPULATIONS, is 
 
 FULL OF DANGER TO THE WHOLE CONSTITUTION/ 1 Such 
 
 glaring inconsistencies, and there are many of them in the 
 writings of the great orator, will be flaws and cracks in the 
 vase of his reputation as long as his name is known. 
 
 Xor is this the only instance in which Mr. Webster has 
 spoken of the stipulations of the Constitution. "All the 
 stipulations," says he, "contained in the Constitution in 
 favor of the slave States ought to be fulfilled." 2 Here, 
 then, are stipulations in favor of States, and made by 
 States. "Slavery," says he, "as it exists in the States, is 
 beyond the reach of Congress. It is a concern of the States 
 themselves; they have never submitted it to Congress, and 
 Congress has no rightful power over it" 3 Xor has the 
 Federal Government the rightful power over anything in 
 relation to the States; unless this pow r er was granted by 
 the States, and so became one of tlie stipulations in the 
 new "Articles of Union," as the Constitution is called 
 throughout the debates in the Convention of 1787. 4 
 
 The power of the Federal Government over commerce 
 has been very justly called "the corner-stone of the whole 
 system." The Constitution originated, as we have seen, 
 in the desire to establish a uniform and permanent system 
 of commercial regulations, by which the hostile legislation 
 of Europe might be resisted, and the havoc of the inter 
 national legislation of the States repaired. Whence did 
 this great power, or rather this great system of powers, 
 emanate? "The State*" says Mr. Webster, "delegated Uidr 
 
 1 "Works." vol. 1, D. 381. -"Works," vol. v, p. 847. 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 "Madison Tapers," pp. 782, 784, 761, 861, 1118, 1221. 122."). 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 85 
 
 whole authority over imports to the genera] government" 1 
 In like manner, every other power of the vast super 
 structure reared upon that corner-stone was delegated or 
 conferred on the Federal Government by the States in the 
 "Articles of Union." 
 
 Mr. Webster and Mr. Justice Story say the Constitution 
 speaks the language of authority to the States, saying you 
 shall do this, or you shall not do that, and eschews the 
 verbal forms of a compact. Very great stress is laid on 
 this point. The Constitution, say they, is not "a compact 
 between States," it is "the supreme law," as if the two 
 things were utterly incompatible. But it is a rather un 
 fortunate circumstance for this argument that precisely 
 the same language of authority is used in the old Articles 
 of Confederation, which is universally admitted to have 
 been a compact. "Xo State shall/ is the style of the old 
 "Articles of Union," 2 as well as of the new ; in this respect 
 they are perfectly parallel. 
 
 But here, again, we may appeal from Philip drunk to 
 Philip sober, from Webster intoxicated with the fumes of 
 a false theory of power to Webster under the influence of 
 a simple view of truth. After having read the terms on 
 which Texas was admitted into the Union, Mr. Webster 
 asks, "Xow what is here stipulated, enacted, secured?" thus 
 admitting that the stipulations were enactments, or that 
 the contract was a law. Xor is this all. For, having speci 
 fied the stipulations in this case, he proceeds to say, "I 
 know no form of legislation which can strengthen this. I 
 know no mode of recognition that can add a tittle to the 
 weight of it. I listened respectfully to the resolutions of 
 my friend from Tennessee. He proposed to recognize that 
 stipulation with Texas. But any additional .recognition 
 would weaken the force of it ; because it stands here on the 
 ground of a contract, a tiling clone for a consideration. 
 
 IT IS A LAW FOUNDED OX A CONTRACT WITH TEXAS." There 
 
 is, then, after all, no incompatibility between a contract 
 and a law ! On the contrary, the very highest form of 
 
 1 "Works," vol. ii, p. 318. These words are quoted by Mr. Webster, 
 with his expressed approbation. 
 
 2 See Articles v and vi. 
 
86 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 legislation may be that of a compact between sovereign 
 States. It was thus that Texas came into the Union; 
 and, in consideration of certain things promised to her, 
 agreed to accept the Constitution of the United States as 
 the supreme law of the land. 
 
 It was thus also that the original thirteen States, in view 
 of certain advantages expected by them, and held out to 
 them, conferred various powers on the Federal Govern 
 ment to be exercised for the common good. Each State, 
 as it adopted the Constitution, virtually said to every 
 other, I will abstain from the exercise of certain powers, 
 and grant or delegate certain powers, according to all the 
 stipulations of this instrument, provided you will do the 
 same thing. I will neither coin money, nor emit bills of 
 credit, nor enact laws impairing the obligations of con 
 tracts, nor do any other thing which, in the view of the 
 authors of the Constitution, has proved so injurious to the 
 best interests of the country, provided you will abstain 
 from the exercise of the same powers. And I will, on the 
 other hand, consent that the general government may 
 regulate commerce, levy taxes, borrow money on the 
 common credit, wage war, conclude peace, and do all acts 
 and things as stipulated in the new "Articles of Union," 
 provided you will delegate the same powers. Such was 
 "the contract, the thing done for a consideration." The 
 great stipulation of all was that the Constitution should be 
 the supreme law of the land, for that became the supreme 
 law only by the mutual agreement of the States. But 
 why argue a point so plain? How any man can look the 
 Constitution in the face, or read its history, and then ask, 
 where are its stipulations? is more than I can conceive. 
 It does seem to me that he might almost as well look into 
 the broad blaze of noon, and then ask, If the sun really 
 shines, where are its rays? 
 
 But if the Constitution is not a compact for the North, 
 it is at least held to be binding, as such, on the South. 
 The free States, said Mr. Webster in 1850, "complain 
 that, instead of slavery being regarded as an evil, as it 
 was then, it is now regarded by the South as an insti 
 tution to be cherished, and preserved, and extended." 1 
 
 1 "Works," vol. v. p. 359. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 87 
 
 "The North finds itself," he continues, "in regard to the 
 relative influence of the South and the North, of the 
 free States and the slave States, where it did not expect 
 to find itself when they agreed to the compact of the Con 
 stitution/ 71 THUS, AFTER ALL, THE STATES AGREED TO 
 THE COMPACT OF THE CONSTITUTION, MR. WEBSTER HIM 
 SELF BEING THE JUDGE. 
 
 Again, in 1851, Mr. Webster says: "When the Consti 
 tution was framed, its f ramers, and the people who adopted 
 it, came to a clear, express, unquestionable stipulation and 
 compact." 2 In the same speech, he says: "These States 
 passed acts defeating the law of Congress, as far as it was 
 in their power to defeat it. Those of them to whom I 
 refer, not all, but several, nullified the law of 1793. They 
 said, in effect, we will not execute it. No runaway slave 
 shall be restored. Thus the law became a dead letter. 
 But here was the Constitution and compact still binding ; 
 here was the stipulation, as solemn as words could form 
 it, and which every member of Congress, every officer 
 of the general government, every officer of the State 
 government, from governors down to constables, is sworn 
 "to support." 3 Thus, in 1850 and 1851, it appears that 
 Mr. Webster had as completely forgotten "the greatest 
 intellectual effort of his life," as in 1833 he had forgotten 
 all the great intellectual efforts of Mr. Madison s life. 
 
 The truth is, that Mr. Webster had become alarmed at 
 the condition of the country; because the North, which he 
 had taught to deny that the Constitution is a compact, 
 seemed resolved to reduce his theory to practice and give 
 all its stipulations to the winds, provided they only stood 
 in the way of their passions. Many of his former friends 
 had, indeed, deserted and denounced him, because he 
 would not go all lengths w r ith them in disregarding the 
 most solemn compact of the Constitution, which all had 
 sworn to support. Hence, he wished to retrace his steps ; 
 but he could not lay the mighty spirit of insubordination 
 and rebellion which he had helped to arouse in the North. 
 He could only plead, expostulate, and denounce in return. 
 
 1 "Webster s Works," vol. v, p. 359. 2 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 574. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 575. 
 
"THE WAH BETWEKN THE STATES 
 
 Accordingly, in the speech just quoted, he says: "It 
 has been said in the States of New York, Massachusetts, 
 and Ohio, over and over again, that the law shall not be 
 executed. That was the language of the Conventions in 
 Worcester, Massachusetts; in Syracuse, New York; and 
 elsewhere. And for this they pledged their lives, their 
 fortunes, and their sacred honors. Now, gentlemen, these 
 proceedings, I say it upon my professional reputation, are 
 distinctly treasonable. Resolutions passed in Ohio, certain 
 resolutions in New York, and in Conventions held in 
 Boston are distinctly treasonable. And the act of taking 
 away Shadrick from the public authorities in Boston, and 
 sending him off, was an act of clear treason. 71 
 
 The spirit of the resolutions which are here so emphatic 
 ally denounced by Mr. Webster, afterward seized whole 
 States, and controlled their legislation. In fourteen of 
 the Northern States, indeed, laws were enacted to prevent 
 the execution of the law of Congress. These laws, as 
 Mr. Webster himself, if living, would have said, were 
 "distinctly treasonable." They came directly into conflict 
 with the law of Congress, and nullified the compact of the 
 Constitution relative to fugitive slaves. What shall we 
 say then? Was secession, under such circumstances, 
 treason? Was it rebellion? Mr. Webster has, in one of 
 his speeches, laid down a principle which never has been, 
 and never can be, controverted. 
 
 He says : "I do not hesitate to say and repeat, that if the 
 Northern States refuse wilfully arid deliberately to carry 
 into effect that part of the Constitution which respects th e 
 restoration of fugitive slaves, the South would be no longer 
 bound to keep the compact. A bargain broken on one 
 side is broken on all sides." I have said that this is a 
 principle of truth and justice which never has been, and 
 never can be, denied. It was, indeed, precisely the prin 
 ciple which governed the Convention of 178? in with 
 drawing from the first compact between the States. I do 
 not mean to say, however, that this great principle of 
 truth and justice may not be practically denied. In fact, 
 the Northern power has not only claimed, but exercised, 
 
 1 "Webster s Works." vol. ii. p. 577. 
 
THE WAI? BETWEEN THE STATES 89 
 
 the right to trample the compact of the Constitution 
 under foot; and, at the same time, to visit with fire, 
 sword, desolation, and ruin those who merely wished to 
 withdraw from the broken thing, and let it alone. 
 
 According to the doctrine laid down by Story and 
 Webster, if a compact between States assign no term for its 
 continuance, then the States have a right to secede from 
 if at pleasure. 1 This doctrine is, no doubt, perfectly true. 
 But precisely such was the compact from which the 
 Southern States wished to withdraw ; no period was 
 prescribed for its continuance. Yet the Xorth, who had 
 trampled it under foot, punished the South with the most 
 terrible of all wars, because she was pleased to regard 
 secession as a violation of that "most sacred compact." 
 
 Xo man, as we have seen, could well be more inconsistent 
 on any subject than "the great expounder was in relation 
 to the most important of all questions respecting the 
 Constitution. It was, with him, either a compact between 
 the States, or not a compact between the States, according 
 to the exigencies of the occasion. He could be equally 
 eloquent on both sides of the question. He complained, 
 in 1850, that the South had changed her opinions on the 
 subject of slavery. Might not the South complain that 
 .he had no opinions, or at least no convictions, to change? 
 The man who really seeks the truth, and, when found, 
 clings to it as the choicest treasure of his soul, may well 
 leave his consistency to take care of itself. But the man 
 who seeks place, or power, or popularity more than the 
 truth, should indeed have a good memory. The one may, 
 and indeed will, sometimes change his opinions, but then, 
 in the midst of all his changes, he will be ever true, like 
 the needle, which only turns until it finds the pole. 
 Whereas the other, in his variations, is like the weather 
 cock, which shifts with the breeze of the passing hour, and 
 never finds a point of permanent rest. Even the intellect 
 of a Webster, where the moral man is deficient, can fur 
 nish no exemption from this law of retributive justice. 
 
 Mr. Webster s real opinion, however, seems to have 
 been that the Constitution was a compact between the 
 
 1 See chap. ii. 
 
90 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 States. His great speech of 1833 may have convinced 
 others; it certainly did not convince himself, for, during 
 the remainder of his life, he habitually and constantly 
 spoke of the Constitution as the compact formed by the 
 States. Especially after his race was nearly run, and, 
 instead of the dazzling prize of the Presidency, he saw 
 before him the darkness of the grave, and the still greater 
 darkness that threatened his native land with ruin, he 
 raised the last solemn utterances of his mighty voice in 
 behalf of "the compact of the Constitution" ; declaring 
 that as it had been "deliberately entered into by the 
 States/ 7 so the States should religiously observe "all its 
 stipulations. 77 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ABSURDITIES FLOWING FROM THE DOCTRINE THAT THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION IS NOT A COMPACT BETWEEN THE 
 
 STATES, BUT WAS MADE BY THE PEOPLE 
 
 OF AMERICA AS ONE NATION 
 
 THE "SOVEREIGNTY" OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 WHEN I come to consider "the sovereignty of the 
 people," about which so much has been said, we shall see 
 the fallacy of the position, which is everywhere assumed by 
 Mr. Webster and his school, that "the aggregate com 
 munity, the collected will of the people, is sovereign." 1 
 We shall then see that this doctrine is utterly without 
 foundation in history, and without support from reason. 
 On the contrary, it will then be rendered manifest that the\ 
 people of America have never existed as one nation,! 
 clothed with sovereign authority; an idea which has nqj 
 foundation in fact, and which has grown out of the popular 
 use of language and the passing of politicians. But, at 
 present, I merely wish to point out a few of the absurdities 
 flowing from this doctrine, that the Constitution was 
 ordained by "the aggregate community, the collected will 
 of the people" of America, acting as one sovereign political 
 society. This argument alone, this reductio ad absurdum, 
 is amply sufficient, unless I am greatly mistaken, to shatter 
 that already shattered hypothesis. 
 
 Mr. Justice Story, quoting the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, says: ."It is the right of the people [plainly 
 intending the majority of the people], to alter, or to abolish! 
 it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation* 
 on such principles, and organizing its powers in such forms? 
 as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety andj 
 happiness." 2 Now this is what is meant by the sovereignty 
 of the people of America. But will any one contend that 
 the people of the United States, that is, a majority of 
 
 1 "Works," vol. vi, p. 222. 2 Vol. i, hook iii, chap. iii. 
 
92 THE WAI: BKTWKKN THK STATES 
 
 them, may alter, or amend, the government of the Union? 
 If they are, indeed, one people in the political sense of the 
 word, then are they sovereign ; and if as such they made 
 the Constitution of the United States, then, according to 
 all our American ideas and doctrines, they have the right 
 to alter or amend that Constitution at their pleasure. 
 Xay, more; they have the right to pull down the existing 
 government, and to set up a new one in its place. But who 
 will accept such a consequence ? This right of sovereignty, 
 if it exist, or if the one people exist to whom it naturally 
 belongs, is, according to the universally received doctrine 
 of this continent, inherent and inalienable. Xo laws or 
 Constitutions can take it away, or abridge and limit its 
 exercise. 
 
 Who will say, then, that the people of the United States, 
 "plainly meaning the majority of them," have such a right 
 or authority? Xo one. Plainly and inevitably as this 
 consequence flows from the fundamental position of Story 
 and Webster, that the sovereign people of America or 
 dained the Constitution, it will be avowed by no one, who 
 has any reputation to lose, and who has the least respect 
 for the reputation he possesses. Mr. Lincoln has avowed 
 this consequence. But in this instance, as in many others, 
 his logic has taken advantage of his want of information. 
 
 This consequence flows, so naturally and so necessarily 
 from the premises that Mr. Justice Story has, in one place, 
 inadvertently drawn it, or rather it has incidentally drawn 
 itself. "The people of the United States," says he, "have 
 a right to abolish, or alter, the Constitution of the 
 United States." 1 True, if they made it ; but they did not 
 make it, and therefore they have the right neither to alter 
 nor to abolish it. The power that made is the power to 
 unmake. Mr. Justice Story did not mean, that is, he 
 did not deliberately mean, that the people of the United 
 States, or the majority of them, could alter or abolish the 
 Constitution ; for he was too well informed to be capable 
 of such a blunder. But in this instance, as in many others, 
 his logic, speaking the language of nature and of truth, 
 got the better of his artificial and false hypothesis. 
 
 1 "Works," vol. i. book iii. chap. iii. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES !W 
 
 If the people of the United States are, in reality, one 
 sovereign political community, and, as such, ordained the 
 Constitution, then they have the most absolute control 
 over all the parts: and the States bear the same relation 
 to this one grand and overshadowing sovereignty that 
 counties sustain to a State. They may be divided, or 
 moulded, or abolished, at the pleasure of the whole people. 
 But everybody knows better than this. Mr. Lincoln did, 
 it is true, endorse this conclusion, in the first speech he 
 ever made to the American public. When the long silence 
 was broken, and, as President-elect, he addressed his 
 first word to an anxious country, he likened the relation 
 between the States and the Union to that of counties to a 
 State. Until then, there were many intelligent and well- 
 informed persons who did not believe that there was one 
 individual in the United States capable of taking such a 
 view of the Constitution, except among political preachers 
 or parsons. 1 But however absurd, it is only the necessary 
 consequence of the premises laid down by Mr. Justice 
 Story and Mr. Webster. It will, however, be regarded by 
 every student of the Constitution in the light of a reductio 
 ad absurdum, which, instead of establishing the conclusion 
 to which it leads, only shatters and demolishes the position 
 from which it flows. 
 
 1 Indeed, this doctrine, and the very illustration of it, was borrowed 
 by Mr. Lincoln from the celebrated Preacher of Princeton. N. T. 
 Compare Mr. Lincoln s speech with Dr. Hodge on "The State of the 
 Country." 
 
C H A P T E E XII 
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS THAT THE PEOPLE *OF AMERICA FORM 
 
 ONE NATION 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 WE have seen, in the preceding chapter, some of the 
 absurdities flowing from the assumption that the people 
 of America form one nation, or constitute one political 
 community. But as this is the first and all-comprehending 
 falsehood of the Northern theory of the Constitution, by 
 which its history has been so sadly blurred, if not obliter 
 ated, and by which its most solemn provisions have been 
 repealed, so we shall go beyond the foregoing reductio ad 
 dbsurdum, and show that it has no foundation whatever 
 in the facts of history. I was about to say that it has 
 not the shadow of such a foundation; but, in reality, it 
 has precisely such a shadow in the vague, popular use of 
 language, to which the passions of interested partisans 
 have given the appearance of substance. And it is out of 
 this substance, thus created from a shadow, that have been 
 manufactured those tremendous rights of national power, 
 by which the clearly reserved rights of the States have 
 been crushed, and the most unjust war of the modern world 
 justified. 
 
 I purpose, therefore, to pursue this monstrous abortion 
 of night and darkness into the secret recesses of its history, 
 and leave neither its substance nor its shadow in existence. 
 Fortunately, in the prosecution of this design, it is only 
 necessary to cross-examine those willing witnesses by whom 
 this fiction has been created, and compare their testimony 
 with itself, in order to show that they are utterly unworthy 
 of credit as historians of the American Union. I shall 
 begin with Mr. Justice Story. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 95 
 
 THE ATTEMPT OF MR. JUSTICE STORY TO SHOW THAT THE 
 PEOPLE OF AMERICA FORMED OXE XATIOX OR STATE 
 
 This celebrated commentator strains all the powers of 
 language, and avails himself of every possible appearance, 
 to make the colonies of America "one people," even before 
 they severed their dependence on the British crown. Thus, 
 he says : "The colonies were fellow-subjects, and for many 
 purposes one people. Every colonist had a right to inhabit, 
 if he pleased, in any other colony; and, as a British sub 
 ject, he was capable of inheriting lands by descent in every 
 other colony. The commercial intercourse of the colonies, 
 too, was regulated by the laws of the British empire, and 
 could not be restrained, or obstructed, by colonial legis 
 lation. The remarks of Mr. Chief Justice Jay on this 
 subject are equally just and striking: All the people of 
 this country were then subjects of the king of Great 
 Britain, and owed allegiance to him; and all the civil 
 authority then existing, or exercised here, flowed from the 
 head of the British empire. They were, in a strict sense, 
 /W/ow-subjects, and, in a variety of respects, one people 7 ." 1 
 
 Now all this signifies just exactly nothing as to the 
 purpose which the author has in view. For, no matter in 
 what respects the colonies were "one people," if they 
 were not one in the political sense of the words : or if they 
 had no political power as one people, then the germ of the 
 national oneness did not exist among them. But this is 
 conceded by Mr. Justice Story himself. "The colonies," 
 says he, "were independent of each other in respect to 
 their domestic concerns." 2 Each was independent of the 
 legislation of another, and of all the others combined, if 
 they had pleased to combine. 
 
 In many respects, indeed, the whole human race may be 
 said to be one. They had a common origin, a common 
 psychology, a common physiology, and they are all subjects 
 of the same great Euler of the world. But this does not 
 make all men "one people" in the political sense of the 
 words. In like manner, those things which the colonists 
 had in common, and which are so carefully enumerated 
 
 1 "Story on the Constitution." vol. i. p. 164. - Ibid. 
 
06 THE WAR BETWEEN THE SPATES 
 
 by Mr. Justice Story, do not make them one political 
 community; the only sense in which their oneness could 
 have any logical connection with his design. 
 
 Xay, so palpably is this the case that he fails to make 
 the impression on his own mind which he seems so desirous 
 to make on that of his readers; and the hypothesis that 
 the colonies were "one people," is utterly dispelled by his 
 own explicit admission. For, says he, "Though the 
 colonies had a common origin, and owed a common 
 allegiance, and the inhabitants of each were British sub 
 jects, they had no direct political connexion with each 
 other. Each was independent of all the others; each, in 
 a limited sense, was sovereign within its own territory. 
 There was neither allegiance nor confederacy between 
 them. The Assembly of one province could not make laws 
 for another, nor confer privileges which were to be enjoyed 
 or exercised in another, farther than they could be in any 
 independent foreign state. As colonies, they were also 
 excluded from all connexion with foreign states. They 
 were known only as dependencies, and they followed the 
 fate of the parent country, both in peace and war, without 
 having assigned to them, in the intercourse of diplomacy 
 of nations, any distinct or independent existence. They 
 did not possess the power of forming any league or treaty 
 among themselves, which would acquire an obligatory 
 force, without the assent of the parent State. And though 
 their mutual wants and necessities often induced them to 
 associate for common purposes of defence, these confed 
 eracies were of a casual and temporary nature, and were 
 allowed as an indulgence, rather than as a right. They 
 made several efforts to procure the establishment of some 
 general superintending government over them all; but 
 their own differences of opinion, as well as the jealousy of 
 the crown, made these efforts abortive." 1 
 
 It is impossible for language to be more precise and 
 explicit. Hence, in whatever other respects the colonies 
 may have formed " one people," we are here authorized, 
 by the undisputed and the indisputable facts of history, to 
 
 1 "Story on the Constitution," vol. i, pp. 163-H54. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 97 
 
 consider them as separate and independent of each other, 
 in the political sense of the terms. And this is all our 
 argument needs. 
 
 Mr. Justice Story, not satisfied with the oneness of the 
 people of the colonies before their separation from Great 
 Britain, which he has been at so much pains to establish, 
 next endeavors to show that they were certainly moulded 
 into one nation by the Declaration of Independence. If 
 they were "one people" before, it is difficult to conceive 
 how they were made so by that Declaration. To that act, 
 says he, "union was as vital as freedom or independence." 1 
 But what sort of union? Did the people unite and 
 become one nation, in the sense that it was a sovereign 
 political community, so that the whole could make a Con 
 stitution and laws for the parts ? If not, then the assertion 
 misses the mark aimed at, and must go for nothing. But 
 no one pretends, for a single moment, that they became 
 one people in any such sense of the words. 
 
 Mr. Justice Story himself admits that such union was 
 temporary, and designed to perish with the common danger 
 which had called it into existence. "The union thus 
 formed," says he, "grew out of the exigencies of the times ; 
 and from its nature and objects might be deemed 
 temporary, extending only to the maintenance of the 
 common liberties and independence of the States, and to 
 terminate with the return of peace with Great Britain, 
 and the accomplishment of the ends of the revolutionary 
 contest." 2 Thus it is conceded that they became "one 
 people," not to ordain a Constitution or to enact laws, 
 but only to resist a common enemy, and to continue united 
 only during the presence of the common danger. 
 
 Hence, this union was, according to Judge Story s own 
 admission, more imperfect and fragile than that which, 
 from the operation of a similar cause, had sprung up 
 among the States of Greece, the Swiss Cantons, the United 
 Netherlands, or the members of the German Diet. Yet no 
 one has ever considered any one of these unions as form 
 ing one nation, or people, as contradistinguished from a 
 
 1 Vol. i. book xi, chap. 1, p. 200. Note. 
 - Vol. i, book ii. chap, ii, p. 209. 
 
98 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 federation of sovereign and independent States. Such 
 attempts, indeed, to prove that the colonies, or the States 
 of America, were one nation, or political community, are 
 simply desperate. They are scarcely made before they are 
 overthrown by the hand that reared them. 
 
 But let us admit, for the sake of argument, that the 
 colonies formed one people before their separation from 
 Great Britain, and that they were again made one people 
 by the Declaration of Independence. Then no one colony 
 could lawfully act without the concurrence of the others, 
 as the parts would not be independent of the whole*. Ac 
 cordingly, Mr. Justice Story declares that "the colonies 
 did not severally act for themselves, and proclaim their own 
 independence." 1 But it is well known that Virginia did 
 so. "Virginia," says Judge Story, "on the 29th of June, 
 1776 (five days before the Declaration of Independence), 
 declared the government of the country as formerly exer 
 cised under the crown of Great Britain, totally dissolved, 
 and proceeded to form a new Constitution." 2 Nay, she 
 had already formed a new Constitution, in pursuance of 
 her resolution of the 15th of the preceding month, and she 
 adopted it on the 29th of June, 1776. Yet Virginia has 
 never been regarded as tainted with treason, or rebellion, 
 against the people of America, because she thus proclaimed 
 her own separate independence, and established her own 
 Constitution. On the contrary, she has ever been honored 
 by her sister colonies and States for this bold and inde 
 pendent act. 
 
 This is not the only insuperable difficulty in the way of 
 the hypothesis that the colonies were made one people 
 by the Declaration of Independence. For, if this hypothe 
 sis be adopted, we must believe that this one people 
 were afterwards broken up into separate and independent 
 States by an act of Confederation ! In the case of Gibbons 
 and Ogden, 3 the Supreme Court of the United States, says 
 (and the words are quoted with approbation by Mr. Justice 
 Story), 4 "As preliminary to the very able discussion of 
 the Constitution which we have heard from the bar. and 
 
 1 Vol. i, hook ii, chap, i, p. 197. - Ibid. 
 
 36. Wheaton, p. 187. 4 Vol. i, p. 323. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 99 
 
 as having some influence on its construction, reference 
 has been made to the situation of these States, anterior 
 to its formation. It has been said that they were sovereign, 
 were completely independent, and were connected with 
 each other only by a league. THIS is TRUE." 1 
 
 Now, if this be true, as the Supreme Court of the United 
 States affirms, and as Mr. Justice Story admits, how were 
 this one people broken up into so many separate, 
 "sovereign" and " completely independent" States? This 
 must have been done by the Articles of Confederation, 
 since it is only in the presence of these Articles that this 
 fine theory about the oneness of the American people dis 
 appears, and the States once more shine out as free and 
 independent sovereignties. No other cause can be assigned, 
 for the change. 
 
 It is perfectly certain, indeed, that if the people of 
 America were one nation, or political community, prior to 
 the adoption of those Articles, they then became divided 
 into separate, distinct, and independent States. For, 
 according to those Articles, "Each State retains its sover 
 eignty, freedom, and independence." Each State retains ! 
 This language implies, indeed, that each State was free, 
 sovereign and independent before those Articles were 
 adopted. But then this is only one of the difficulties in 
 the way of the theory of Judge Story. 
 
 If they were not free and sovereign States before ; if, on 
 the contrary, they were one people, or nation, or political 
 community, then it were absurd to speak of their union 
 as an act of confederation. For it would, indeed, have 
 been an act of separation, and not of confederation. It 
 would have been the dividing of one nation into separate 
 and sovereign States, and not the uniting of such States 
 into one Confederacy. This is another of the difficulties 
 which stand in the way of the theory of Judge Story, and 
 of the Northern school of politicians. 
 
 Again, if one people were thus divided into free, sover 
 eign and independent States, by the Articles of Confedera 
 tion; then it is very inaccurate in Judge Story to say, as 
 he always does, that the States granted the powers by 
 
 l Vol. i, book ii, chap, iii, p. 323. 
 
100 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 which the Confederacy was formed. He should, on the 
 contrary, have spoken only of powers resumed by the 
 States, or restored to them by the American people. 
 
 But we may now take leave of his theory and all its 
 insuperable difficulties. It is sufficient for my purpose 
 that, after the Articles of Confederation were agreed upon 
 as the supreme law, the States were then free, sovereign, 
 and independent. It is asserted by the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, as well as by Judge Story himself, that 
 anterior to the adoption of the Constitution the States 
 "were sovereign, were completely independent, and were 
 connected only by a league/ It was in this capacity, it was 
 as free, sovereign, and completely independent States, that 
 they laid aside the old, and entered into the new, "Articles 
 of Union," as the Constitution is everywhere called in 
 the proceedings of the Convention of 1787. This is 
 conceded. Hence, the situation of the colonies before their 
 separation from the mother country, or of the States 
 before the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, has 
 nothing to do with our present inquiry; which relates to 
 the character in which the people, or the peoples of 
 America, ordained the Constitution of the United States. 
 If any one has a mind to amuse himself by binding up or 
 pulling down speculations or hypothesis on this subject 
 he may do so to his heart s content. It is sufficient for 
 every practical purpose that, when they came to adopt 
 the new form of government, each State was a completely 
 free, sovereign, and independent political community, and 
 in that capacity acceded to the compact of the Constitution. 
 
 THE ATTEMPT OF MR. CURTIS TO SHOW THAT THE PEOPLE 
 
 OF AMERICA FORMED ONE NATION, OR POLITICAL 
 
 COMMUNITY 
 
 Mr. Curtis, in his extended and elaborate History of the 
 Constitution of the United States, seems to view with the 
 introductory sketch of Judge Story, in the establishment 
 of the foregone conclusion, that it was created by and 
 rests on "the political union of the people of the United 
 States, as distinguished from the States of which they are 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 101 
 
 the citizens." 1 For this purpose, it is necessary to show, 
 in the first place, that such a political union of the whole 
 people of the country had an existence. Accordingly, the 
 facts of history are recast and moulded in order to suit 
 this hypothesis. If possible, the conflict between fact and 
 theory is, in his work, even more glaring than it is in that 
 of Mr. Justice Story. 
 
 "The people of the different colonies were," says he, 
 "in several important senses, one people" 2 This is true. 
 But it is not even pretended, by Mr. Curtis, that this was 
 a political union; he only says that it enabled them to 
 effect such a union. He admits, on the contrary, in the 
 most explicit terms, "that the colonies had no direct 
 political connexion with each other before the Eevolution 
 commenced, but that each was a distinct community, with 
 its own separate political organization, and without any 
 power of legislation for any but its own inhabitants ; that, 
 as political communities, and upon the principles of their 
 organizations, they possessed no power of forming any 
 union among themselves, for any purposes whatever, with 
 out the sanction of the Crown or Parliament of England." 3 
 
 "It is apparent," says he, "that previous to the Decla 
 ration of Independence the people of the several colonies 
 had established a national government of a revolutionary 
 character, which undertook to act, and did act, in the 
 name and with the general consent of the inhabitants of 
 the country." 4 Thus, even previous to the Declaration of 
 Independence, the people of the colonies formed one 
 nation, and established "a national government." A 
 nation, with a national government, and yet dependent 
 colonies ! 
 
 "This government," says he, "was established by the 
 Union in one body of delegates representing the people of 
 each colony." That is, each colony, acknowledged to be 
 perfectly and wholly independent of every other, sends 
 delegates to one body; and this body, whose duty it is to 
 advise and recommend measures to the several colonies, is 
 "a national government!" Surely, if such an advisory 
 council may be called a government at all, it is anything 
 
 1 Vol. i, p. 122. 2 Vol. i, p. 9. 3 Ibid. * Vol. i, p. 39. 
 
102 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 rather than national in its character. It is, in fact, merely 
 the shadow of a Federal Government. 
 
 Mr. Curtis himself is evidently not satisfied with the 
 "one nation" in this stage of its development, or purely 
 verbal existence. Hence, he insists, with Mr. Justice 
 Story, that the colonies were really made one nation by 
 the Declaration of Independence. "The body by which 
 this step was taken," says he, "constituted the actual gov 
 ernment of the nation, at the time" , 1 that is, while they 
 were yet dependent colonies! "It severed the political 
 connexion between the people of this country and the 
 people of England, and at once erected the different 
 colonies into free and independent States." 2 Thus, the 
 colonies formed "one nation" before their separation from 
 Great Britain, and afterwards became "free and inde 
 pendent States." Or, in other words, the nation preceded 
 the States; an opinion for which Mr. Lincoln has been 
 most unconsciously laughed at. 
 
 This opinion is still more explicitly advanced by Mr. 
 Curtis in another portion of his history. "The fact," says 
 he, "that these local or State governments were not formed 
 until a Union of the people of the different colonies for 
 national purposes had already taken place, and until the 
 national power had authorized and recommended their 
 establishment, is of great importance in the Constitutional 
 history of our country ; for it shows that no colony, acting 
 separately for itself, dissolved its own allegiance to the 
 British crown, but that this allegiance was dissolved by 
 the supreme authority of the people of all the colonies," 
 etc. 3 This fact, which is deemed of so much importance 
 in the Constitutional history of this country, happens, as 
 we have seen, to be fiction; and a fiction, too, in direct 
 conflict with the well-known fact that Virginia declared 
 her own separate independence. 
 
 But if, by the Declaration of Independence, the colonies 
 became "free and independent States," how could that act 
 have moulded them into one sovereign political community 
 or nation? This is one of the mysteries which I am glad 
 it is not incumbent on me to solve. Was the Declaration 
 
 iVol. i, p. 51.- 2 Ibid. 3 Vol. i, pp. 39, 40. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 103 
 
 of Independence itself necessarily, or ex vi termini,, a decla 
 ration of independence, and, at the same time, one of 
 subjection to a higher authority? If we may adopt 
 Mr. Curtis as a guide, we must answer this question in 
 the affirmative. For, says he, although the colonies were 
 thereby "erected into free and independent States," "the 
 people of the country became henceforth the rightful 
 sovereign of the country ; they became united in a national 
 corporate capacity as one people; they could thereafter 
 enter into treaties and contract alliances with foreign 
 nations; could levy war and conclude peace, and do all 
 other acts pertaining to the exercise of a national sover 
 eignty. "* If so, then, of course, they could ordain Consti 
 tutions and enact laws; they could set up, or pull down, 
 or modify the parts called States, as if they were counties, 
 or mere districts of people. For such is the power of one 
 sovereign State, or nation, over its various members. 
 
 But, unfortunately, for this bold assertion, Mr. Curtis 
 himself tells us, on the very next page of his work, that 
 "on the same day on which the committee for preparing 
 the Declaration of Independence was appointed, another 
 committee, consisting of a member from each colony, was 
 directed to prepare and digest the form of a confederation 
 to be entered into between these colonies," that is, after 
 they should become free and independent States. "This 
 committee," he continues, "reported a draft of Articles of 
 Confederation on the 12th of July, etc." These Articles 
 were discussed, postponed, resumed, amended, and, finally, 
 adopted. 
 
 Now whence resulted the powers conferred by these 
 Articles of Confederation? "Were they not granted by 
 the "free and independent States?" Most assuredly they 
 were ; no one has ever had the hardihood to deny so plain 
 a fact, except by implication. But if all the powers of 
 the new "national government," as it is called by Mr. 
 Curtis, were granted by "free and independent States," 
 each acting for itself, as every one acknowledges it to have 
 done; then for what conceivable purpose has he conjured 
 
 1 Vol. i, p. 52. 
 
104 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 up the phantom of a preexisting national sovereignty of 
 the whole people of the country? 
 
 It is certain that this phantom has been completely 
 laid by Mr. Curtis himself. The whole elaborate illusion, 
 w^hich it has cost him so much pains to get up, is thus 
 dispelled by a plain, simple, and unpremeditated state 
 ment of unquestionable facts by the author himself. "The 
 parties to this instrument," says he, referring to the 
 Articles of Confederation, "were free, sovereign, and inde 
 pendent political communities, each possessing within it 
 self all the powers of legislation and government over its 
 own citizens, which any political society can possess. But, 
 by this instrument, these several States became united for 
 certain purposes." 1 Surely, all this must have been absent 
 from the mind of Mr. Curtis, when he spoke of the 
 people of the several States as having been previously 
 merged into one absolutely sovereign political community. 
 But it seems- to be requiring too much to expect a Massa 
 chusetts politician to remember anything he may have said 
 on any preceding page of his work. 
 
 Nor is this all. For it is also conceded that the States, 
 which were "free, sovereign, and independent political 
 communities" before they adopted the Articles of Confed 
 eration, retained the same prerogatives, or attributes, 
 after that event. "The Article," says he, "declared, as 
 would indeed be implied, in such circumstances, without 
 any express declaration, that each State retained its 
 sovereignty, freedom, and independence." 2 It was, then, 
 in this condition of "free, sovereign, and independent 
 political communities," that the States passed from the 
 old to the new Articles of union, or severally agreed to the 
 compact of the Constitution. Why, then, conjure up 
 shadows and phantoms of a national unity only to dispel 
 them ? The cause of secession only demands the fact that 
 the States, as "free, sovereign, and independent political 
 communities," formed and entered into the new "Articles 
 of Union"; and this fact is conceded both by Story and 
 Curtis. 
 
 1 Vol. i, p. 143. - Ibid. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 105 
 
 THE USE OF THE TERM PEOPLE 
 
 Much of the inconsistency and contradiction in the 
 views above examined is due to the ambiguities of the 
 word people, and the utter confusion of its loose, floating 
 significations,, with its technical or scientific sense. We 
 sometimes pronounce a people one, because they have a 
 common origin, or a common language, or a common 
 religion, or even because they inhabit the same portion 
 of the globe. Thus, we speak of "the people of Europe/ 
 or "the people of America/ without intending to convey 
 the idea that they are a people in the political sense of the 
 term. When we say, however, that "the people are sover 
 eign/ we use the word in a more restricted sense. We then 
 speak of the people in the political or technical sense of 
 the term. This includes only the qualified voters of the 
 community, or those by whom the Constitutions may be 
 ordained and remodeled. For no other persons participate 
 in the exercise of the sovereign power. Women and minors 
 are excluded, as well as some other classes, even in our 
 American States. It is in this limited sense of the word 
 that the people are said to make compacts, or Constitutions 
 and laws, either by themselves or by their agents. 
 
 If Mr. Justice Story had borne this in mind he might 
 have saved himself from all his criticisms on the doctrine 
 of a social contract based on the ground that "infants, 
 minors, married women, persons insane, and many others," 1 
 take no part in the formation of civil societies, or in the 
 creation of constitutions and governments. No one in 
 cludes such persons in the idea of a people, when these 
 are said to be sovereign. Hence, his "limitations and 
 qualifications" of the doctrine in question have exclusively 
 arisen from his own misapprehension. Something more 
 than a mere natural person is necessary to constitute one 
 of "the people," one of the multitudinous sovereignty of 
 an American State. "The idea of a people," says Burke, 
 evidently using the term in its restricted or political sense, 
 "is the idea of a corporation; it is wholly artificial, and 
 made, like all other legal fictions, by common agreement." 2 
 
 1 Vol. i, book iii, chap, iii, p. 296. 
 
 - "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." 
 
106 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 That is, says he, "in a rude state of nature there is no 
 such thing as one people. A number of men in themselves 
 can have no collective capacity." Or, in other words, 
 something more than a number of men is necessary to make 
 a people, or State. It must be agreed and settled as to 
 who shall take part in the exercise of political power, ere 
 Constitutions and laws may be ordained or remodeled by 
 them. 
 
 But in vain did Burke, and Hobbes, and other writers 
 on the philosophy of politics, endeavor to "fix, with some 
 degree of distinctness, an idea of what we mean when we 
 say, the PEOPLE." 1 Their labors seem to have been lost 
 upon the politicians of the Massachusetts school; and, in 
 some instances, at least, they appear to have only cast 
 their pearls before swine. For one of the great lights of 
 that school kindles into a blaze of fiery indignation against 
 Mr. Burke, for simply advancing the incontestable truth 
 that what we call a PEOPLE is, in the political sense of the 
 word, the result of an agreement or mutual understanding 
 of a community of persons. " 0, that mine enemy had 
 said it! the admirers of Mr. Burke may well exclaim," 
 cries this great light of Massachusetts. "0, that some 
 scoffing Voltaire, some impious Eousseau had uttered it ! 
 Had uttered it? Eousseau did utter the same thing, etc." 2 
 This is true. For, widely as Edmund Burke and Eousseau 
 differed on most points, they agreed in this, that it is not 
 nature, but art, which determines the question as to who 
 shall participate in the exercise of political power, or con 
 stitute a PEOPLE, in the political sense of the word. Even 
 "the impious Eousseau" is sometimes right, and nearly, if 
 not quite, always so when he agrees with Edmund Burke. 
 
 In his attempt to show that the Constitution was 
 adopted by the people, and not by the States, Mr. Justice 
 Story deceives himself by means of the ambiguities of the 
 term people, and repeatedly contradicts his own positions. 
 "The States never, in fact," says he, "did, in their political 
 capacity, as contradistinguished from the people thereof, 
 ratify the Constitution." 3 
 
 1 "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." 
 
 2 Everett s "Orations and Speeches," vol. i, p. 122. 
 
 3 Vol. i, p. 330. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 107 
 
 This is very true, if by States in their political capacity 
 he means, as he seems to do, the State governments. But 
 this is not to the purpose. Every one admits that the 
 Constitution was ratified, not by the governments, but by 
 the people of the States. NOT does any one deny that the 
 term State is sometimes used to signify the government of 
 a State. Thus we often say that the States does so and so, 
 when the thing is done by its government. But the ques 
 tion is, may we not say that the Constitution was ratified 
 by the States, as well as by the people of the States? Or, 
 in other words, are not the terms State and People properly 
 used as equivalent expressions? These words were, as we 
 have already most abundantly seen, habitually used as 
 convertible terms by the Convention of 1787. 
 
 We may truly say, indeed, with Judge Story, that the 
 Constitution was not ratified by the States, as contradis 
 tinguished from the people, because it is not very easy to 
 distinguish a thing from itself. In assuming this position, 
 Mr. Justice Story forgets what he had said in the preced 
 ing Book of his Commentaries, namely, "the State and 
 the people of the State are equivalent expressions." 1 
 "Nay, the State," he again says, "by which we mean the- 
 people composing the State, may divide its sovereign 
 powers among various functionaries, etc." 2 Here the term 
 people is clearly used to include only the qualified voters, 
 or those who share the sovereign power; and, in this 
 sense, they are called "the State." It is precisely in this 
 sense that the Constitution was ratified by the people, 
 or the States. We may, and indeed should, distinguish 
 between the meanings of the term State, when it is figura 
 tively used to signify the government of a State, and 
 when it is used to signify the State itself. But we shall 
 never distinguish the people of a State from the State 
 itself, until we can find a State which is not composed of 
 people. 
 
 But the attempt is made to show that, in adopting the 
 Constitution, the States acted as mere districts of people, 
 and not in their sovereign political capacity. 3 But if this 
 
 1 Everett s "Orations and Speeches," vol. i. book ii, p. 198. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 194. 
 
 3 Story s "Commentaries on the Constitution," vol. 1, p. 330. 
 
108 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 were so, then the different districts would have been con 
 sidered together in making up the final result, and the 
 majority of the one grand, national whole would have 
 ordained the Constitution. The fact, however, the un- 
 denied and the undeniable fact, is quite otherwise. Each 
 State, with all its own laws, and institutions, and govern 
 ment, either went in, or remained out, at its own sovereign 
 will and pleasure. In the words of The Federalist, it was 
 "only to be bound by its own voluntary act." No other 
 State, nor all other States combined, nor the whole people 
 of America, had the least authority to control its decision. 
 This was an absolutely free, sovereign, and independent 
 act of each State. 
 
 It may be doubted, indeed, if there was ever a more 
 superficial gloss, or a more pitiful subterfuge, than the 
 assertion of Judge Story, that the States adopted the 
 Constitution, not as States, but only "as districts of 
 people" composing one great State or nation. It is at 
 war with facts ; it is at war with his own repeated admis 
 sions ; and it is at war with the plainest dictates of truth, 
 as well as with the unanswerable arguments of Tlie 
 Federalist. Sad, indeed, must have been the condition to 
 which the great sophist was reduced, when he could stoop 
 to so palpable a gloss on one of the plainest facts in the 
 history of the Constitution ! 
 
 THE USE OF "SHALL" IN COMPACTS 
 
 Mr. Justice Story has, I am aware, as well as Mr. Web 
 ster, laid great stress on the fact that the Constitution ad 
 dresses the language of authority to the States. "The lan 
 guage of a compact is," says he, "I will, or will not do this ; 
 that of a law is, thou shalt, or shalt not do it." 1 This is 
 what the act of entering into a compact signifies, but it 
 is not usually the language of the instrument itself. On 
 the contrary, the Articles of Confederation, which are 
 universally admitted to form a compact, use precisely the 
 same style as the Constitution. Both say what shall, and 
 what shall not, be done by the States. Precisely the same 
 
 1 Story s "Commentaries on the Constitution," vol. i, p. 308. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 109 
 
 style is also employed in the formation of compacts or 
 treaties between wholly separate and independent powers. 
 Nay, in the most ordinary articles of co-partnership, it is 
 usual to say, in the same manner, what shall, and what 
 shall not, be done by the parties thereto. Yet all such 
 instruments rest upon the agreement of the parties, and 
 derive their binding force from their voluntary act. 
 
 There is a very simple law of language, which seems to 
 have escaped the attention of these great expounders of 
 the Constitution. The language of written contracts 
 usually speaks of the parties in the third person, and not 
 for them in the first person. Hence, they necessarily 
 assume the imperative style; laying down w T hat shall, and 
 not saying what will, be done by them. It would have been 
 ridiculous, indeed, if the Constitution had said, No State 
 will emit bills of credit, or coin money, and so forth, 
 instead of saying, as it does, that no State shall do such 
 acts. Like other written contracts, it says shall, of course, 
 because it speaks of the parties in the third person, and 
 lays down the obligations imposed upon them by their 
 own consent. This is a very simple law of language. 
 But that is no reason why it should be overlooked by the 
 great lights of jurisprudence. 
 
 "In compacts," says Judge Story, "we ourselves deter 
 mine and promise, what shall be done, before we are 
 obliged to do it/ 7 No words could more admirably suit 
 our purpose, or the facts of the case. For each State 
 agreed to the compact of the Constitution, which pre 
 scribes "what shall be done," before it was bound by it. 
 That "no State shall emit bills of credit," and so forth, is 
 precisely the style which, according to Judge Story him 
 self, as well as according to all usage, would be employed 
 in articles of agreement between the States ; and, hence, to 
 argue for the use of shall, instead of will, that the Consti 
 tution addresses the language of authority from the people 
 of America to the States, is simply ridiculous. "In com 
 pacts," says Story, "we ourselves determine and promise 
 what shall be done, before we are obliged to do it." And 
 yet, in the face of this obvious fact, he argues from the use 
 of shall in the Constitution, that it is not what the States 
 
110 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 "determined and promised/ but what they were com 
 manded to do! that it is not, and can not be a compact 
 between the States at all ! 
 
 A and B enter into articles of agreement. These articles, 
 according to good usage, say what A shall do, and what B 
 shall do. What shall we say, then, of these articles? 
 Shall we say that they do not form an agreement, or 
 contract at all? Shall we say that A commands B, or 
 "addresses to him the language of authority," as a law 
 giver speaks to a subject? If so, then B also commands A, 
 and each is evidently the master of the other! Precisely 
 such is the profound logic of Mr. Justice Story ! 
 
CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 IN the preceding chapters it has, I think, been clearly 
 demonstrated that the Constitution of the United States 
 was a compact to which the several States were the parties. 
 This, as we have seen, was most explicitly the doctrine 
 maintained by the fathers of the Constitution, and was 
 unequivocally set forth by The Federalist in submitting 
 that instrument to the people, and is confirmed by all the 
 historical records of the country. If any proposition, 
 indeed, respecting the Constitution can be considered as 
 unanswerably established, it is the doctrine of The 
 Federalist that the act by which it was ordained was "not 
 a national, but a federal act," having been ratified "by 
 the people of America, not as individuals composing one 
 nation, but as composing the distinct and independent 
 States to which they belong"; 1 that the Constitution, "the 
 compact," was established by "the States regarded as 
 distinct and independent sovereigns/ 72 It is, then, on this 
 clear, broad, immutable foundation that the argument in 
 favor of secession rests. 
 
 ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF SECESSION FROM THE DOCTRINE 
 OF EESERVED EIGHTS 
 
 It is frequently asked, by the opponents of secession, 
 where is the right of a State to withdraw from the Union 
 set forth or contained in the Constitution? But this 
 question betrays a gross ignorance with respect to the 
 origin of State rights. These rights are not derived from 
 the Constitution at all; on the contrary, all the rights, 
 powers, or authorities of the Constitution are derived 
 from the States. And all the rights not delegated to the 
 Federal Government by the States are reserved to the 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. xxxix. - Ibid., No. xl. 
 
112 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 States themselves, the original fountains of all the powers 
 of "the Constitution of the United States." This is the 
 doctrine set forth by The Federalist in submitting that 
 instrument or Constitution to the people. 
 
 "The principles established in a former paper/ 7 says The 
 Federalist, "teach us that the States will retain all pre 
 existing authorities which may not be exclusively dele 
 gated to the federal head." 1 In the former paper here 
 referred to, it is said: "All authorities, of which the 
 States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union, 
 remain with them in full vigor/ 2 In the ratifying Con 
 vention of Virginia the same doctrine is set forth, as well 
 known to every one at that day, by John Marshall, who 
 was afterwards the illustrious Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 \ Court of the United States. "The State governments/ 
 I says he, "did not derive their powers from the general 
 / government. But each government derived its powers 
 I from the people, and each was to act according to the 
 1 powers given it." Would any gentleman deny this? He 
 demanded if powers not given were retained by implica 
 tion? Could any man say no? Could any man say that 
 this power was not retained by the States, since it was not 
 given away ? "For," says he, "does not a power remain till 
 it is given away?" 3 
 
 Neither Marshall nor Hamilton, the author of the num 
 bers of The Federalist just quoted, was ever suspected of a 
 desire to lessen the authority of the Federal Union, or to 
 magnify that of the States. Yet, as we have seen, both 
 of them assume, as an undeniable principle, that every 
 power which is not delegated by the States to the Federal 
 Union is retained by them in full vigor. This principle 
 results, indeed, from the fact that all the powers of the 
 Federal Government emanate from the people of the sev 
 eral States. The question of Marshall, "Does not a power 
 ; remain till it is given away?" admits of but one answer. 
 For if a principal delegates power to an agent of any 
 kind, or for any purpose, the agent only possesses the 
 > delegated powers, and all others remain with the principal. 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. Ixxxii. - Ibid., No. xxxii. 
 
 3 "Elliott s Debates," vol. iii, p. 389. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 113 
 
 Thus, according to the very nature of things, as well as 
 according to the high authority of Hamilton and Marshall, 
 the States retained all the powers which they had not 
 delegated to the Federal Union. 
 
 But however plain this principle, or however fully ad 
 mitted by the advocates of federal authority, the States 
 still insisted that it should be expressly incorporated in 
 the written language of the Constitution. Hence, Massa 
 chusetts, having ratified the Constitution, used the follow 
 ing language: "As it is the opinion of this Convention 
 that certain amendments and alterations in said Constitu 
 tion would remove the fears and quiet the apprehensions 
 of many of the good people of the commonwealth, and 
 more effectually guard against an undue administration 
 of the Federal Government, the Convention does therefore 
 recommend that the following alterations and provisions 
 be introduced into said Constitution : 
 
 "First, That it be explicitly declared that all powers, 
 not expressly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution, are 
 reserved to the several States, to be by them exercised/ 1 
 
 In like manner, and for a like reason, Virginia recom 
 mended the following "Amendment to the Constitution. 
 1st. That each State in the Union shall, respectively, 
 retain every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not 
 by this Constitution delegated to the Congress of the 
 United States, or to the departments of the Federal Gov 
 ernment." 2 North Carolina urged the same amendment 
 to the Constitution, and in precisely the same words as 
 those employed by Virginia. 3 In the first amendment, 
 proposed by Pennsylvania, we find the following words: 
 "All the rights of sovereignty, which are not by the said 
 Constitution expressly and plainly vested in the Congress, 
 shall be deemed to remain with, and shall be exercised by, 
 the several States in the Union." 4 
 
 These recommendations, and others to the same effect, 
 secured the tenth amendment to the Constitution of the 
 United States, which is in these words : "The powers 
 not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
 
 "Elliott s Debates," vol. ii, p. 180. 2 Ibid., vol. iii, p 594 
 
 3 Ibid., vol. iv, p. 240. * Ibid., vol. ii, p. 503. 
 
114 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, 
 or to the people." If reason, if authority, history, if the 
 words of the Constitution itself can establish anything, 
 then may we regard it as definitely and forever settled 
 that every power, right, or authority, which is not delegated 
 to the Federal Union, is reserved to the States, or to the 
 people of the States. 
 
 I ask, then, where is this great, inherent right of a 
 State to resume the powers it has delegated, surrendered 
 to the Federal Union? Where has this peerless right of 
 sovereignty been ceded, surrendered, or given away? The 
 people may rage, and the politicians imagine a vain thing, 
 but I appeal to the great charter of American rights and 
 liberties. Where, -then, in the Constitution of the United 
 f States, is the sacred and inviolable right of a sovereign 
 j State to resume the powers it has delegated to its agents, 
 l^given away or surrendered? When the States entered 
 into "the compact of the Constitution," they did so, as 
 it is conceded both by Story and Curtis, at the moment 
 they were "free, sovereign, and independent States." 
 * Where, then, in that compact, did they delegate, surrender, 
 or give away the sacred right to resume the powers which 
 they delegated to their agent, the Federal Government; 
 or, in other words, the right to secede from the Union? 
 Let the place in which this right, this greatest of all the 
 rights of sovereignty, has been given away to the Federal 
 Union be pointed out in the Constitution; or it must be 
 conceded that it remained with the States. Let it be shown 
 where "the States are explicitly divested" of this right "in 
 favor of the Union"; or it must be admitted that it 
 "remained with them in full vigor." 1 
 
 Ignorance, or passion, or patriotism may "veil this 
 right" ; but, nevertheless, the question is, where is this 
 right given away in the compact of the Constitution? If 
 it be not given away there, it still exists with the States in 
 all the plenitude of its power. The stars do not cease to 
 shine, or to exist, because they are concealed from view by 
 exhalations from the earth, or by the blaze of noon. 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. xxxii. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 115 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES 
 
 Perhaps no subject has ever been considered with less 
 steadiness of mind, or clearness of analysis, than "the 
 sovereignty of the States," except "the sovereignty of the 
 United States." The powers of the Federal Government 
 are enumerated by one party, in order to show that it is 
 sovereign or supreme; while the opposite party attempts 
 to prove the sovereignty of the States by dwelling on the 
 powers which belong to their governments. But all this 
 is nothing whatever to the purpose. It merely deals with 
 the branches, not with the roots, of the great subject 
 under discussion; and, how long soever these branches 
 may be beaten, it will only make confusion the worse 
 confounded. In the contest about the significance of the 
 particular powers of the Federal and of the State govern 
 ments, the real principle on which the whole controversy 
 hinges is overlooked, and the subject in dispute is darkened 
 by words without knowledge, and buried far under floods 
 of logomachy. 
 
 Mr. Webster, for example, thus demolishes the doctrine 
 of State sovereignty : "However men may think this ought 
 to be, the fact is that the people of the United States 
 have chosen to impose control on State sovereignties. 
 There are those, doubtless, who wish they had been left 
 without restraint, but the Constitution has ordered the 
 matter differently. To make war, for instance, is an 
 exercise of sovereignty, but the Constitution declares that 
 no State shall declare war. To coin money is another act 
 of sovereign power, but no State is at liberty to coin 
 money. 
 
 "Again, the Constitution says that no sovereign State 
 shall be so sovereign as to make a treaty. These pro 
 hibitions, it must be confessed, are a control on the State 
 sovereignty of South Carolina, as well as of the other 
 States, which does not arise "from her feelings of honorable 
 justice/ The opinion referred to, therefore, is in defiance 
 of the plainest provisions of the Constitution/ 71 Why, 
 then, did he not wind up his unanswerable logic with a 
 quod erat demonstrandum? 
 
 1 "Webster s Works," vol. iii, p. 322. 
 
116 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 The truth is that the whole thing, from beginning to 
 end, is a miserable sophism. His premises are false, and 
 his conclusion, therefore, falls to the ground. The fact 
 is that the people of the United States imposed no control 
 whatever on the States, and had no power to do so. On 
 the contrary, each State, for the sake of union, agreed 
 that it would abstain from the exercise of the right to 
 ^ wage war, to coin money, and to make treaties. She dele- 
 t gated these high powers to the government of the Federal 
 Union. She entered into the compact of the Constitution, 
 as we have seen, in her character of "a distinct and 
 independent sovereign," and was, therefore, "bound only 
 by her own voluntary act." 1 All the powers of the Con 
 stitution were delegated, and all its obligations assumed, 
 by the free act of each sovereign State. All the control 
 to which she was liable in the Union was self-imposed; 
 and not one particle of it was laid upon her by any 
 .authority but her own. The act, indeed, by which she 
 entered into the compact of the Constitution, was an 
 exercise, not an abridgment, of her sovereign power. If 
 she could not enter into such a compact, she would be less 
 than sovereign. 
 
 It is supposed by some, certainly by none who have 
 reflected on the subject, that if a State delegates a portion 
 of her powers, or agrees to abstain from the exercise of 
 them, her sovereignty is thereby limited, or abridged. To 
 all such I would commend the words of Vattel : "Several 
 sovereign and independent States," says he, "may unite 
 themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without 
 ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect State. They 
 will together constitute a federal republic: their joint 
 deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each 
 member, though ihey may, in certain respects, put some 
 restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary 
 engagements/ 2 
 
 Every one should be perfectly familiar with this 
 principle of law. It has been clearly recognized and em 
 bodied in the legislation of this country. In the thirteenth 
 Article of the old Confederation, for example, it is ex- 
 
 1 The Federalist. 2 Vattel s "Law of Nations," p. 3. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 117 
 
 pressly declared that "the Union shall be perpetual" ; and 
 yet, in the second Article, it is said that "each State retains 
 its sovereignty, freedom, and independence." Thus, 
 although the States, in and by those Articles, delegated 
 many sovereign powers to the Federal Government; this, 
 in conformity with the principle laid down by Vattel, did 
 "not impair the sovereignty of each member." But since 
 the new Constitution, or Articles of Union, contained no 
 clause declaring it perpetual, or assigning any period for 
 its duration, how much more clearly did each State in the 
 "more perfect Union" retain its sovereignty unimpaired ! 
 For, in such case, it is conceded, as we have repeatedly 
 seen, by the great lights of American jurisprudence, that 
 a State may secede at pleasure, or resume the powers she 
 may have delegated to the Federal Government. 
 
 Indeed, if a State could not thus delegate her sovereign 
 powers, she would cease to be sovereign. She would 
 resemble a minor, who is incapable of entering into con 
 tracts. The State, or the people themselves, can not exer 
 cise sovereign powers in person; and, hence, if she could 
 not delegate them to her agents, representatives, substi 
 tutes, or servants, her sovereignty would be a useless 
 burden to her. Thus the very circumstance which is 
 supposed, by superficial thinkers, to limit and control the 
 sovereignty of a State, is indispensably necessary to the 
 perfection of that sovereignty. The people are not the 
 less sovereign, because they institute governments, and 
 appoint them as agents to transact their business ; although 
 they necessarily delegate a portion of their sovereign 
 powers to these agents, or governments. On the contrary, 
 this is the very highest exercise of sovereignty, and implies 
 the right to alter, amend, or remodel their governments. 
 Xay, it implies the right of a people to set their govern 
 ment entirely aside, and to substitute another in its room. 
 
 What, then, has all this talk about the powers dele 
 gated to the State Governments, or to the Federal Gov 
 ernment, to do with the great question of sovereignty? 
 Those governments are not sovereign. They are subordi 
 nate to the will of the people, by whom they were created ; 
 and a subordinate sovereignty is a contradiction in terms. 
 
118 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 The only real sovereignty is that which makes, and un 
 makes, Constitutions and governments. Or, if any one 
 is pleased to call any government, whether State or 
 Federal, sovereign ; he should not forget that it is merely a 
 delegated sovereignty. It is not original ; it is derived. It 
 is not inherent; it comes from without; and, instead of 
 being supreme, it depends on a power greater than itself. 
 It is divisible, and may be divided among different govern 
 ments, or agents of the supreme power. On the contrary, 
 the sovereign power of a state, or, in other words, the 
 power of the people of a State, is inherent, original, 
 supreme, indivisible, and inalienable. This, at least, is the 
 American doctrine; and it is to be deeply lamented that 
 Americans should, in the ardor and struggle of debate, so 
 frequently forget, or overlook, the very first lessons they 
 have ever learned, and which they certainly do not mean 
 to repudiate or discard. 
 
 I have nothing to say, then, about the delegated powers 
 of this or that government. They have nothing to do 
 with the question. Others may wrangle about those 
 powers, if they please, and .beat their brains over them ; 
 all I want to know is, where resides the one power from 
 which all such delegated powers proceed. The difference 
 between this one power and the powers of the government 
 it creates is the difference between the sun and its rays, 
 or the creator and its manifold creations. Where, then, 
 does this one sovereign power reside? It resides, as we 
 have seen, in each State, and not in the people of the 
 United States. The people of the United States, indeed, 
 were not one people, or nation, in the political sense of the 
 word, and were never clothed with any sovereign power 
 whatever. The late war was, it is true, carried on "to 
 preserve the life of the nation." But there was no such 
 nation. Its substance was a sham, and its life was a lie. 1 
 
 As the one sovereign power, which makes, and therefore 
 unmakes, Constitutions and governments, resides in each 
 State, so each State had the right to secede from the 
 Federal Government, As each State, however, only made 
 or adopted that government for itself, so she could un- 
 
 1 See chap. xii. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 119 
 
 make it as to herself only. That is, she had no power to 
 destroy the Federal Union, but only to withdraw from it, 
 and let it move on in its own sphere. In the exercise of 
 her original, inherent, indivisible, inalienable sovereignty 
 she merely seceded from the Union to which she had 
 acceded, and asked to be let alone. But she could not 
 escape the despotic, all-devouring LIE by which her sover 
 eignty had been denied, and her rights denounced as "a 
 pestilential heresy." Nay, by which she had been stripped 
 of her character as a State, and relegated to the rank of a 
 county. Was that the purpose for which, as a sovereign 
 State, she entered into "the more perfect Union?" 
 
 "No man," says Mr. Webster, "makes a question that 
 the people are the source of all political power. . . . 
 There is no other doctrine of government here." 1 This 
 is conceded. The people make, and the people unmake, 
 Constitutions. This is the universally received doctrine 
 in America. It is asserted by Calhoun as strenuously as 
 by Webster. But the Constitution was made by the people 
 of the several States, each acting for itself, and bound by 
 no action but its own. Hence, as each State acceded to the 
 compact of the Constitution, so each State may, if it 
 chose, secede from that compact. If the premise is true,, 
 the conclusion is conceded; and the premise has been 
 demonstrated. In acceding to the compact of the Consti 
 tution, each State made the Union as to itself; and, in 
 seceding therefrom, it unmakes the Union only as to itself. 
 And it does so by virtue of its own inherent, and inalien 
 able sovereignty. 
 
 If it should be said that the people of the several States 
 made, but can not unmake, the compact of the Constitution, 
 as to themselves, it would follow that the people of 1788 
 alone were sovereign. But the people of this generation 
 are sovereign as well as the people of that generation. The 
 attribute of sovereignty is, according to the American 
 doctrine, inherent, and inalienable. The people of Vir 
 ginia, then, in the year 1788, did not, and could not, absorb 
 and monopolize the sovereignty of all subsequent genera 
 tions, so as to deprive them of its exercise. If this could 
 
 1 "Webster s Works," vol. vi, p. 221. 
 
120 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 be so, then the sovereign people of one age, or generation, 
 might deprive the sovereign people of all ages and genera 
 tions of their power and freedom. But this can not be. 
 The living, as well as the dead, are sovereign. As the 
 people of Virginia in 1788 acceded to the Union, because 
 they believed it would be for their good ; so the people of 
 Virginia in 1861 had a right to secede from the Union, 
 because they believed it had been made to work their in 
 sufferable harm. Deny this, and you assert the sovereignty 
 of the people of Virginia of 1788, at the expense of the 
 sovereignty of the people of Virginia for all future ages. 
 Or, in other words, you take all power and sovereignty, 
 and freedom from all other ages and generations, in order 
 to concentrate and bury them with a part, departed, in 
 experienced, and perhaps fatally deluded generation. The 
 whole American doctrine of the sovereignty of the people 
 is false, or else it must be asserted for the living as well as 
 for the dead ; and, even if it is false, it is nevertheless the 
 doctrine by which the right of secession should be tried. 
 
 At the time the Constitution was adopted, or "the more 
 perfect Union" formed, the people of New England took 
 the lead of all others in their devotion to State sovereignty 
 and State rights. Thus, in her Constitution of 1780, 
 Massachusetts declared : "The people of this common 
 wealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing them 
 selves as a free, sovereign, and independent State ; and do, 
 and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, 
 jurisdiction, and right, which is not, or may not hereafter 
 be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of 
 America, in Congress assembled/ Precisely the same 
 language, word for word, is contained in the Constitution 
 of New Hampshire, which was made twelve years after 
 that of Massachusetts. Thus, after the new Union was 
 formed, New Hampshire, in the words of Massachusetts, 
 declared herself a "free, sovereign, and independent 
 State." "Paris," it has been said, "is France." It is more 
 certain that "Massachusetts is New England." 
 
 How did it happen, then, that Massachusetts, in 1780, 
 and consequently New England, took the lead of all the 
 members of the Union in her devotion to the doctrine 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 121 
 
 of State sovereignty; and yet, in 1861, more fiercely 
 denounced that very doctrine as "a pestilential heresy 5 
 than any other State in existence? The answer is plain. 
 The mystery is easily solved. Or rather, it is no mystery 
 at all to any one acquainted with the character, or the 
 history, of Massachusetts. Never has she been in the 
 ascendancy, as in 1861, or with the majority working the 
 Union for her benefit, that it did not appear to her eyes, 
 like the full moon, a great world of light full of inexpress 
 ible beneficence and beauty. Nor has she ever been in 
 the minority, feeling the pressure of the Union, or its 
 demands upon her purse, that it did not rapidly wane, and 
 appear to her emptied of all its glory. Hence, in 1861, so 
 great was the glory of the Union to her enravished eyes, 
 that it blotted out the States: just as the meridian sun 
 blots out the stars. She forgets her primitive creed; or, 
 if she remembers it at all, it is only to denounce it as the 
 creed of "rebels and traitors." 
 
 On the other hand, when, in 1815, Massachusetts felt 
 the Union in her pockets, all its glory vanished, and the 
 Eights of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States, 
 came out to her keen vision like stars after the setting of 
 the sun. This has been the great misfortune of the South, 
 that the world did not turn around quite as fast at her end 
 of the Union as it did in New England, and that it did 
 not turn exactly in the same direction. The creed of the 
 fathers, the creed of all sections in 1787, the creed of all 
 the States for more than thirty years after the formation 
 of the "more perfect Union," was substantially the creed 
 of the South in 1861. There she stood. But, in the 
 meantime, Massachusetts, and consequently all New 
 England, having made one entire revolution, denounced 
 her primitive creed still the creed of the South, that the 
 States are "free, sovereign, and independent," as the in 
 vention of rebels and traitors, designing to put the glorious 
 Union out of joint. True, the South did dislocate the 
 Union, and breed fiery discord ; but, then, this was simply 
 by standing still, and refusing to follow the rapid revolu 
 tion of New England. 
 
122 THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE SILENCE OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that, in the Constitution of the 
 United States, there is not a word relating to the perpe 
 tuity or continuance of the government established by it. 
 This momentous question is passed over in profound 
 silence. NOT was this omission an act of forge tfulness. 
 It was, on the contrary, the result of deliberate design. 
 The existing Articles of _ Confederation expressly provided 
 that the government established by them should be 
 "perpetual," and should never be changed without the 
 unanimous consent of all the States of the Union. This 
 provision was deliberately struck out, or not permitted to 
 appear in the new Constitution. In the act of receding 
 from the compact of the Union, which had expressly 
 pronounced itself "perpetual," the fathers had not the face 
 to declare that the new compact should last forever. Time 
 had demonstrated the futility of such a provision. The 
 Convention of 1787 had been most sadly hampered by 
 it in their design to erect a new form of government, as 
 appears from the "Madison Papers," and other accounts 
 of its proceedings. Hence they wisely determined to leave 
 no such obstacle in the way of the free action of future 
 generations, in case they should wish to new-model their 
 government, It is certain that no such obstacle is found 
 in the Constitution framed by them. 
 
 Now what is the inference from this fact, from this 
 omission? If the framers of the Constitution designed to 
 make it perpetually binding, why did they not say so? 
 Nay, why did they depart from the plan before them, and 
 refuse to say so? Only one answer can be given to this 
 question. They did not intend to repeat the folly of seek 
 ing to render perpetual, by mere dint of words, those 
 Articles of Union between Sovereign States, whose bind 
 ing force and perpetuity must necessarily depend on the 
 justice with which they should be observed by the parties 
 to them, or on their adaptation to the great ends for which 
 they were enacted. The perpetuity, or continuance, of 
 the new Union was frequently alluded to and considered 
 
THE WAK BETWEEX THE STATES 123 
 
 in the Convention of 1787 ; and yet there is not one syllable 
 on the subject in the Constitution made by them. This 
 speaks volumes. 
 
 It is argued, in The Federalist, 1 that as the old Articles 
 of Confederation had utterly failed in consequence of 
 defects which no one had foreseen; so the real objections 
 to the new Constitution, whatever they might be, would 
 in all probability remain to be disclosed by time and ex 
 perience. Reasoning from the past, it was concluded that 
 no one could foresee what its real defects were, or how 
 great they might prove in practice. Would it not, then, 
 have been infinitely absurd to pronounce it perpetual, or 
 seek to stamp it with the attribute of immortality? 
 
 The truth is that the new Constitution was designed by 
 its authors to last just as long as it should be faithfully 
 observed by the parties to it, or as it should answer the 
 great ends of its creation, and no longer. On the failure 
 of either of these conditions, then, in their view, the 
 power by which it was ordained possessed the inherent and 
 indefeasible right to withdraw from it. Otherwise there 
 would be no remedy, not even in the sovereign power 
 itself, for the greatest of all political evils or abuses. 
 Otherwise we should have to repudiate and reject the great 
 principle of American freedom, which has never been 
 called in question by. any statesman of the New World, or 
 over which the least cloud of suspicion has ever been cast 
 by any American citizen. 
 
 What, then, is the position assumed by those who deny 
 the right of secession? In asserting that a State has no 
 right to withdraw from the Union they declare that the 
 Constitution, or Articles of Union, is perpetually binding. 
 That is to say, by a forced construction, they introduce 
 into the Constitution the very provision which its framers 
 most deliberately refused to insert therein ! They refused 
 to say that the new compact should be perpetual, and yet 
 these interpreters declare that they designed to make it 
 perpetual ! 
 
 1 No. xxxviii. 
 
124 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 KEFERENCE 
 
 Both Story and Webster admit, as we have repeatedly 
 seen, that if sovereign States enter into a compact or Con 
 federation, without expressly prescribing any period for 
 the continuance of the Union; then any State has the 
 right to secede at pleasure. This is the true inference to 
 be drawn from the silence of the Constitution as to the 
 continuance of the Union; an inference too clear and un 
 questionable to be denied by either a Story or a Webster. 
 If they have sought to evade its force, or obscure the 
 right of secession, this is by assuming the ground, so fully 
 exploded in the preceding pages, that the Constitution was 
 not a compact between the States of the Union. 
 
 "It is sometimes asked/ says Mr. Motley, "why the 
 Constitution did not make a special provision against the 
 right of secession. How could it do so?" 1 Why, simply, 
 by transferring the words of the old Constitution to the 
 new, and saying, "the Union shall be perpetual/ There is 
 no impossibility in the case. The thing had been done 
 once, and it might easily have been done again, if the 
 framers of the Constitution had desired to do it. Many 
 words, phrases, and provisions of the old Constitution 
 were transferred by them to the new; and, if they had 
 wished to do so, they might just as easily transferred 
 those words, "the Union shall be perpetual," or last till 
 all the parties consent to a separation. "How could they 
 do so?" asks Mr. Motley; and I reply, how could he ask 
 so silly a question? 
 
 "It would have been puerile," says he, for the Consti 
 tution to say formally to each State, thou shalt not secede." 
 There was no necessity, perhaps, that the Convention 
 should have been very formal in the language it addressed 
 to the States. But would it have been puerile, or ridicu 
 lous, if the Convention had said, "the Union shall be 
 perpetual." Who can doubt that if these words had been 
 inserted in the new Constitution that Mr. Motley would 
 have wielded them as an unanswerable argument against 
 the right of secession? Indeed, these words answer that 
 
 1 "Rebellion Records," vol. i, p. 214. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 125 
 
 purpose so well that Dr. Hodge borrows them from the 
 old Articles of Confederation, and passes them off as "the 
 very words" of the Constitution, in order to demonstrate 
 the palpable absurdity of secession ; in order to show 
 that secession is in direct and open defiance of "the avowed 
 design of the compact" of 1787. These words were, 
 indeed, the very ones he needed to demolish the right of 
 secession ; and his need was so great that he came at them 
 in no very ]egitimate way. Could anything be more feeble, 
 or puerile, than Mr. Motley s attempt to account for the 
 silence of the Convention on the momentous subject of 
 secession? or more clearly illustrate the difficulty of get 
 ting rid of the argument from that silence in favor of 
 secession ? 
 
 The truth is that the Convention, in its desire to secede 
 from the old compact, was so greatly embarrassed by the 
 clause declaring that "the Union shall be perpetual," that 
 it deliberately removed that obstacle from the path of 
 future legislation; and, whether it was intended by the 
 Convention or not, the legal effect of this was to establish 
 the right of secession under the new compact between the 
 same parties. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE 
 
 UNION 
 
 "To render a Federation desirable," says Mr. John 
 Stuart Mill, "several conditions are necessary. The first 
 of these is that there should be a sufficient amount of 
 mutual sympathy among the populations ."* This senti 
 ment recommends itself to the good sense of every man in 
 the world; nay, to every man who is not insane from the 
 influence of passion. Even Mr. Greeley, before the war, 
 could say: "We hope never to live in a Republic whereof 
 one section is pinned to another by bayonets." Such is 
 indeed the desire of every good man, nay, of every rational 
 being ; for, as Mr. Mill says, no union of States is desirable, 
 unless it be held together by the cement of good feeling, 
 as well as of interest. 
 
 1 Representative Government," chap. xvii. 
 
126 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 In like manner, John Quincy Adams says: "The indis 
 soluble link of union between the people of the several 
 States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the 
 right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come (may 
 Heaven avert it!) when the affections of the people of these 
 States shall be alienated from each other; when the 
 fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or 
 collision of interest shall fester into hatred, the bands of 
 political associations will not long hold together parties no 
 longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests 
 and kindly sympathies; AND FAR BETTER WILL IT BE FOR 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF THE DISUNITED STATES TO PART IN FRIEND 
 SHIP FROM EACH OTHER, THAN TO BE HELD TOGETHER BY 
 
 CONSTRAINT. Then will be the time for reverting to the 
 precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption 
 of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect Union, 
 by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave 
 the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political 
 gravitation to the center." 
 
 "Better," says Mr. Adams, "to part in friendship, than 
 to be held together by restraint." History, it is said 
 repeats itself. Some of the Greek States, wishing to part 
 in peace from their confederates, were held together by 
 force of arms. This, says Freeman, in his learned work 
 on Federal Government, ultimately proved injurious to 
 those who drew the sword of coercion. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE EIGHT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 The thirteen Colonies, in the Declaration of Independ 
 ence, justified their separation on the distinct ground that 
 \all "governments" derive "their just powers from the con- 
 isent of the governed." It was in obedience to this great 
 principle that the American Union became a free and 
 voluntary association of States. This, by its very nature, 
 excludes the idea of coercion. For, if States are compelled 
 to remain in the Union against their will, this is sub 
 jugation, and not a copartnership in honor, interest, free 
 dom, and glory. It destroys the autonomy, annihilates the 
 freedom, and extinguishes the glory of the subjugated 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 127 
 
 States. The system is transformed. It is no longer a 
 sisterhood of free States, but the vassalage of some, and the 
 dominion of others. 
 
 This is so obvious that it was declared, at first, even by 
 the most zealous advocates of President Lincoln, that no 
 one .intended to coerce a State. What then ? Did they 
 mean to let it go in peace? No, they neither intended to 
 coerce a seceding State, nor let it depart! But how was 
 such a thing possible? Why, these admirable casuists, by 
 a most refined and subtle distinction, determined that they 
 would not coerce a State, but only the people of whom it is 
 composed! The State secedes. The citizens acknowledge 
 their allegiance to the State, and determine to obey the 
 ordinance of secession. And thereupon the Federal Gov 
 ernment resolves to wage war, not upon the State itself, 
 but only upon the people of the State! Happy State! 
 Miserable people! The one may depart; but the other 
 must come back ! But if the Federal Government had 
 only waged war upon the State, how would it have pro 
 ceeded otherwise than it did? 
 
 The authors of this very nice distinction were evidently 
 driven to assume such a position by the horror which 
 Madison, Ellsworth, Mason, Hamilton, and other fathers 
 of the Constitution, were known to have expressed at the 
 idea of the coercion of a State. No I they would not 
 coerce a State; they would not be guilty of the horrid 
 thing so eloquently denounced by the fathers ; they would 
 only wage war on the men, women, and children of whom 
 the State is composed! How admirable the acuteness! 
 How wonderful the logic ! 
 
 In 1848, Mr. Lincoln had not forgotten his very first, 
 and nearly his very last, lesson in the science of govern 
 ment. He had read it in the Declaration of Independence ; 
 he had heard it recited in school; he had heard it most 
 eloquently spouted every Fourth of July. How, then, 
 could he forget it, without some very powerful motive? 
 No humble rail-splitter, no honest citizen could forget 
 such a lesson. It requires a great politician, or a President, 
 to forget, despise, and trample such things underfoot. 
 Hence, in 1848, the humble citizen, Abraham Lincoln, like 
 
128 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 every other American citizen, publicly declared that "any 
 people whatever have a right to abolish the existing govern- 
 men, and form a new one that suits them better. This is 
 a most valuable, a most sacred right." Yes, any people 
 whatever: the thirteen British Colonies; the Greeks; the 
 States of South America; Poland; Hungary; any and 
 every people under the wide expanse of heaven except the 
 people of the South. But why except the South? The 
 reason is plain. It was, indeed, most perfectly and fully 
 explained by Mr. Lincoln himself. When asked, as Presi 
 dent of the United States, "why not let the South go ?" his 
 simple, direct, and honest answer revealed one secret of the 
 wise policy of the Washington Cabinet. "Let the South 
 go!" said he. "Where, then, shall we get our revenue?" 
 There lies the secret. The Declaration of Independence is 
 great ; the voice of all the fathers is mighty ; but then they 
 yield us no revenue. The right of self-government is "a 
 most valuable, a most sacred right" ; but in this particular 
 case it gives us no revenue. Hence, this "most valuable, 
 this most sacred right," may and should shine upon every 
 other land under heaven ; but here it must "pale its in 
 effectual fires," and sink into utter insignificance and con 
 tempt in the august presence of the "ALMIGHTY DOLLAR." 
 
 As the object of the Eepublican leaders, in wishing to 
 retain the South, was not to lose revenue, so now [i. e., 
 1866] that they have the South the only use they have for 
 her is to lay taxes and other burdens of government upon 
 her. In open and shameless violation of the great principle 
 of 1776, the South is united to the North by the tie of 
 "taxation without representation." Is this "the sacred 
 right" of self-government? The Union waged a seven 
 years war to establish that right, and a four years war to 
 demolish it. 
 
 Every American citizen has taken in the idea of self- 
 government with his mother s milk; has heard it from all 
 his most venerated guides, teachers, and oracles ; has pro 
 claimed it himself, perhaps, all his life as "a most valuable, 
 and a most sacred right." Hence, he should not be re 
 quired, all on a sudden, to proclaim the diametrically 
 opposite doctrine. He should be allowed some little time, 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 129 
 
 at least, to clear his throat for the opposite utterance. Is 
 it not quite natural, then, that his early and lifelong 
 prejudice in favor of the right of self-government should 
 have clung to the editor of the Tribune, the great organ of 
 the Bepublican part} 7 , even while that party was preparing 
 the way for its subversion? True, it was but an organ; 
 yet had it so long, and so earnestly, proclaimed the great 
 right of self-government that some little time, at least, 
 should have been allowed for it to come right around to 
 the diametrically opposite position. Accordingly, on the 
 9th of November, three days after Mr. Lincoln s election, 
 that organ uttered the sentiments: "If the cotton States 
 shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the 
 Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. 
 . . . We must ever resist the right of any State to 
 remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof. 
 
 TO WITHDRAW FROM THE UNION IS QUITE ANOTHER 
 
 MATTER ; and, whenever any considerable section of our 
 Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, WE SHALL RESIST 
 
 ALL COERCIVE MEASURES DESIGNED TO KEEP IT IN. We 
 
 hope never to live in a Eepublic whereof one section is 
 pinned to another by bayonets." 
 
 Again, on the 17th of December, just before the secession 
 of South Carolina, the same organ said : "If it [the Decla 
 ration of Independence] justifies the secession from the 
 British Empire of three millions of colonists in IT 76, WE 
 
 DO NOT SEE WHY IT WOULD NOT JUSTIFY THE SECESSION OF 
 FIVE MILLIONS OF SOUTHERNERS FROM THE FEDERAL 
 
 UNION IN 1861. If we are mistaken on this point, why 
 does not some one show us wherein and why? For our own 
 part, while we deny the right of slaveholders to hold slaves 
 against the iviU of the latter, we can not see hoir tirenty 
 millions of people can hold ten, or even fire, in a detested 
 Union with them by military force. ... If seven or 
 eight contiguous States should present themselves authori 
 tatively at Washington, saying, We hate the Federal 
 Union; we have withdrawn from it; we give you the 
 choice between acquiescing in our secession and arranging 
 amicably all incidental questions on the one hand and 
 attempting to subdue us on the other; WK COULD NOT 
 
130 Tin-: WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 STAND UP FOR COERCION, FOR SUBJUGATION, FOR WE DO NOT 
 THINK IT WOULD BE JUST. WE HOLD THE RIGHT OF SELF- 
 GOVERNMENT EVEN WHEN INVOKED IN BEHALF OF THOSE 
 AVHO DENY IT TO OTHERS. So MUCH FOR THE QUESTION 
 
 OF PRINCIPLE . . . . Any attempt to compel them by 
 force to remain would be contrary to the principles 
 enunciated in the immortal Declaration of Independence, 
 contrary to the fundamental idea on which human liberty 
 is based." 
 
 On the 23d of February, 1861, after the cotton States 
 had formed their confederacy., the Tribune used this 
 language: "We have repeatedly said, and we once more 
 insist,, that the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the 
 Declaration of American Independence, that governments 
 derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, 
 is sound and just; and that if the slave States, the cotton 
 States, or the gulf States only, choose to form an inde 
 pendent nation THEY HAVE A CLEAR MORAL RIGHT TO DO so. 
 Whenever it shall be clear that the great body of Southern 
 people have become conclusively alienated from the Union, 
 and anxious to escape from it, WE WILL DO OUR BEST TO 
 
 FORWARD THEIR VIEWS." 
 
 President Buchanan, from whose interesting book the 
 above extracts have been taken, adds : "In a similar spirit, 
 leading Bepublicans everywhere scornfully exclaimed, Let 
 them go ; We can do better without them ; Let the 
 Union slide, and other language of the same import." 
 
 Before the war, it was indignantly denied that the 
 abolitionists constituted more than a small minority of 
 the Republicans. How is it since the war? Does not 
 almost every man of them now claim that he has always 
 been an abolitionist, and, as such, come in for his share 
 of glory in the formed emancipation of the slaves? It is 
 certain that, of all the men in the Union, the abolitionists 
 of the Republican party were the most active asserters, 
 and the most powerful promoters, of secession and dis 
 union. They everywhere proclaimed, not only the right, 
 but the sacred duty of secession. William Lloyd Garrison 
 led the way. "In the expressive and pertinent language 
 of Scripture," said he, "the Constitution was a covenant 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 131 
 
 with death, and an agreement with hell/ null and void 
 before God from the first moment of its inception the 
 f ramers of which were recreant to duty, and the supporters 
 of. which are equally guilty." 1 Yet, how strange ! the 
 men of this school enlisted in the ranks, and fought under 
 the banner of Mr. Lincoln, w r ho was bound by his oath to 
 support that "covenant with death and agreement with 
 hell!" Did they fight for the Constitution? Did they 
 heartily join in the cry for the Union ? 
 
 Again, he said "the motto inscribed on the banner of 
 Freedom is, no Union with slaveholders.- . . . Our 
 motto is, no Union with slaveholders either religious or 
 political. 3 In withdrawing from the American Union, we 
 have the God of justice with us." 4 Did this man, then, or 
 his followers, fight for the Union? "Circulate," he cried, 
 "a declaration of DISUNION FROM SLAVEHOLDERS THROUGH 
 OUT THE COUNTRY. Hold- mass meetings assemble in 
 Conventions nail your banners to the mast." 5 Did these 
 men, then, take down their banners, trample its motto in 
 the dust, and join the loud war-cry for the Union of the 
 fathers? If so, then it was not because they hated that 
 Union the less, but because they hated Southerners the 
 more. 
 
 Now this man William Lloyd Garrison was an honest 
 fanatic. He just came right down with a direct sledge 
 hammer force on all slaveholders, and on all the poor, 
 pitiful, puling hypocrites, who pretended to desire to pre 
 serve the Constitution and the Union; and who, to that 
 end, labored to explain away the provisions of that "sacred 
 compact," as they delighted to call the Constitution. 
 "Those provisions," said they, "were meant to cover 
 slavery," yet "as they may be fairly interpreted to mean 
 something exactly the reverse, it is allowable to give them 
 such an interpretation, especially as the cause of Freedom 
 will be thereby promoted."* In thus stating this hypo 
 critical position, Mr. Garrison must have had Mr. Sumner 
 in his mind s eye. But with honest scorn and contempt 
 he tears the mean fabric to tatters, and scatters it to the 
 
 1 "Anti-Slavery Examiner," vol. xi. p. 101. - Ibid., p. 101 
 
 :t Ibid., p. 118. 4 Ibid., p. 1 H>. Ibid., p. 11!>. "Ibid., p. 104. 
 
132 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 winds ! "This," says he, "is to advocate fraud and violence 
 to one of the contracting parties, whose cooperation was 
 secured only by an express agreement and undertaking 
 between them both, in regard to the clauses alluded to; 
 and that such a construction, if enforced by laws and 
 penalties, would unquestionably lead to civil war, and the 
 aggrieved party would justly claim to have been betrayed, 
 and robbed of their Constitutional rights." 1 
 
 "Xo honest use can be made of it," says he, "in opposi 
 tion to the plain intention of its framers, except to declare 
 the contract at an end, and to refuse to serve under it."- 
 It is of no use to lie, said he, the Constitution is "a con 
 tract" between the States ; an "express agreement and 
 undertaking" between the North and the South. He will 
 not have this "express agreement" explained away. "Tt 
 is objected," says he, "that slaves are held as property, 
 and, therefore, as the clause refers to persons, it can not 
 mean slaves. Slaves are recognized not merely as property, 
 but also as persons as having a mixed character as 
 combining the human with the brute. This is paradoxical, 
 we admit; but slavery is a paradox the American Con 
 stitution is a paradox the American Union is a paradox 
 the American Government is a paradox and, if any one 
 of these is to be repudiated on that ground, they all are. 
 That it is the duty of the friends of freedom to deny the 
 binding authority of them all, and to secede from all, we 
 distinctly affirm"* 
 
 Such were the sentiments of Mr. Lloyd Garrison, in 
 1844, delivered in their annual address to the Anti-Slavery 
 Society of America, as its president. Precisely the same 
 sentiments were entertained by the two learned secretaries 
 of that society, namely, Wendell Phillips and Maria West on 
 Chapman, as well as by all its leading members. They 
 proclaimed the duty of secession from the Constitution, 
 from the Union, and from the Government of America. 
 They wished to have nothing to do with slaveholders. 
 In the mild and conciliatory language of their president, 
 
 1 "Anti-Slaverv Examiner," vol. xi. p. 104. 
 
 - Ibid. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 114. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 133 
 
 they longed to get away and to live apart from those 
 "incorrigible men-stealers, merciless tyrants, and blood 
 thirsty assassins." 1 
 
 Such was the gentle and persuasive language, and such 
 were the loyal sentiments, of the abolitionists from 1844 
 to 1861. The following resolutions were passed at a meet 
 ing of the American Anti- Slavery Society : 
 
 "Resolved, That secession from the United States Government 
 "is the duty of every Abolitionist, since no one can take office or 
 "deposit his vote under the Constitution without violating his 
 "anti-slavery principles, and rendering himself an abettor to the 
 "slaveholder in his sin." 
 
 "Resolved, That years of warfare against the slave power has 
 "convinced us that every act done in support of the American 
 "Union rivets the chain of the slave that the only exodus of the 
 "slave to freedom, unless it be one of blood, must be over the 
 "remains of the present American Church and the grave of the 
 "present Union." 
 
 "Resolved, That the Abolitionists of this country should make 
 "it one of the primary objects of this agitation to dissolve the 
 "American Union." 
 
 Yet of all the war-spirits in the country, these very 
 men were the loudest and fiercest in their cries for a war 
 of coercion to put down secession, as rebellion and treason. 
 In its burning hate of the Union, the Tribune had become 
 poetical, and addressed THE AMERICAN FLAG as follows : 
 
 Tear down that flaunting lie! 
 
 Half-mast the starry flag! 
 Insult on sunny sky 
 
 With hate s polluted rag! 
 
 But, all on a sudden, that "polluted rag" became the most 
 sacred ensign of freedom that ever floated between heaven 
 and earth! The cry has gone forth: "This Union is a 
 lie! The American Union is an imposition. ... I 
 am for its overthrow. . . . Up with the flag of dis 
 union, that we may have a glorious Eepublic of our own." 
 But anon, and from the same person, the opposite cry is 
 heard : "Down with the flag of disunion, and up with the 
 
 1 "Anti-Slavery Examiner," vol. xi, pp. 111-112. 
 
134 THE WAB BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 flag of the Union, that we may preserve the life of the 
 nation/ the glorious Kepublic of the fathers. Even the 
 despised Constitution, "the antiquated parchment" of 
 Henry Ward Beecher, becomes all at once young, and fresh, 
 and beautiful again ! and that Reverend gentleman stands 
 before the world at Exeter Hall as the grand representative 
 of the "constitutional union" party of this country! 
 
 Is there, in the history of the world, another instance 
 of .a change so sudden, so complete, and so wonderful in 
 the avowed sentiments of any great body of men, as that 
 which took place among the abolitionists of the country 
 in 1861 ? Now whence all this intense love of the Union, 
 where recently there had been such deadly hate ? Whence 
 this newborn desire to be forever associated with "the 
 merciless tyrants, the bloodthirsty assassins" of the South ? 
 The truth is they did not love the Union then, and they 
 do not want the Union now (i. e., 1866). They raised 
 the cry of "the Union"; because, as one of their leaders 
 said, they believed they could "win on the Union. 7 And 
 having ridden into power on "the Union," and consolidated 
 their power in the name of "the Union," they now resist 
 the persistent efforts of President Johnson to restore the 
 Union. 
 
 But Mr. Greeley has, in his "American Conflict," made a 
 most awkward and unsatisfactory attempt to explain the 
 course of the Union-hating and the Union-loving Tribune. 
 It was, perhaps, a little difficult for him to speak out all 
 that was in him on this delicate subject. The truth seems 
 to be: 1. That the word which went forth from President 
 Lincoln, "If we let the South go, where shall we get our 
 revenue?" is one of the causes of the great change in 
 question. Several books had, in 1860, been published to 
 illustrate the subject of "Southern Wealth and Northern 
 Profits," and, upon reflection, the North concluded that, 
 after all, she had some use for the South. She was natu 
 rally indignant at the thought of losing the bird which 
 had so long laid for her the golden egg. 2. Secession 
 offered a splendid opportunity, or occasion, on which to 
 wreak a little wrath on the slaveholders of the South, on 
 those "incorrigible men-stealers, merciless tyrants, and 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 135 
 
 bloodthirsty assassins/ who so richly deserved to die. 
 But it would, of course, be much more respectable to kill 
 them as "rebels and traitors/ than merely as slaveholders. 
 Hence, the very men who had been foremost and fiercest 
 in preaching the duty of secession and disunion, became, 
 all on a sudden, the most clamorous for the blood of 
 secessionists as traitors to "the glorious Union." 
 
 As the cynic, Diogenes, trampled on the robe of Plato s 
 pride with a still greater pride, so the abolitionists panted 
 for the blood of "bloodthirsty assassins" with a still 
 greater thirst. Hence,, more than any other class of men, 
 they insisted that Mr. Lincoln, however reluctant, should 
 "cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." 3. Secession 
 furnished a fine pretext, a glorious occasion, for the forced 
 emancipation of the slaves at the South. Hence, just be 
 fore Mr. Lincoln publicly declared that he had neither the 
 wish, nor the power, to interfere with slavery in the 
 States, the word privately went forth from a member of 
 his Cabinet, that secession should be punished with the 
 emancipation of the blacks, and with the utter devastation 
 of the South by fire and sw^ord. 1 This word was, of course, 
 intended for "the faithful." For if, at that early day, 
 such a design had been publicly avowed, it would have 
 filled the North with amazement, horror, and disgust. 
 But has it not been accomplished to the very letter? 
 
 Such were the causes, especially the last two, by which, 
 it seems to me, so wonderful a revolution was produced in 
 the political view r s and aspirations of the Northern 
 abolitionists. The change appeared like magic. "The 
 antiquated parchment" was renovated ; the "polluted rag" 
 was purified; and the Union became not orrly habitable, 
 but the only fit habitation for free men. But, then, the 
 Union was not to be "the most perfect Union" of the 
 fathers; the Constitution was not to be the compact of 
 1787 ; and "hate s polluted rag" was to be consecrated 
 and glorified by hate. On the contrary, the Union was 
 to be cast into the furnace of war, seven times heated, and 
 to come forth free from the sin of slavery, and cemented, 
 
 1 Perhaps that member of his Cabinet knew the design of Mr. 
 Lincoln s administration better than it was then known to Mr. Lincoln 
 himself. 
 
136 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 not by "the mutual sympathy of its populations," but by 
 their blood. It was to be a new Union; a bright and 
 beautiful emanation ; not from the consent of the governed, 
 but from the sovereign, the supreme, the sublime will of 
 the Northern abolitionists. How lustily soever they joined 
 in the war-cry for the Union, this was in order that they 
 might the more effectually overthrow it, and ordain one 
 of their own in its place. Is not this the true secret of 
 their newborn love for "the glorious Union ?" 
 
 Previous to the war, it was frequently alleged that the 
 abolitionists constituted only a small minority in the 
 Republican party. It is certain that they controlled the 
 policy of Mr. Lincoln s administration. "The higher 
 law,"" "the law written on the hearts and consciences of 
 freemen/ was the rule of their conduct. For the Consti 
 tution, for the compact of 1787, for that "covenant with 
 death and agreement with hell," they cared less than 
 nothing; except when it agreed with their own will, or 
 could be made a pretext for their designs. The fact that 
 there was not the shadow of an authority for coercion in 
 the Constitution had not the least weight with them. 
 Nay, if the power to coerce had been expressly denied to 
 the" Federal Government in the Constitution, this provision 
 would have been easily explained away, or overruled by 
 "the law written on the hearts and consciences of freemen." 
 It would have been but a "straw to the fire i ? the blood." 
 
 President Buchanan could not find the power to coerce 
 a State in the Constitution he had sworn to support. In 
 like manner, Professor Bernard, of Oxford, England, 
 finding no authority for the coercion of a State in the 
 Constitution of 1787, pronounces it wrong. The same 
 ground is taken by Mr. Freeman, of the same university, in 
 his learned work on Federal Government. But if coercion 
 is a wrong under the Constitution, then, surely, secession 
 is a Constitutional right. Every man has the legal right 
 to do anything which is not forbidden by the law of the 
 land. He may not have the moral, but he has the legal, 
 right to do it. A miserly act, for example, especially in 
 a "rich man, is morally and socially wrong. But if there 
 is no law against it, then, however rich the man may be, 
 
THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 137 
 
 he has the legal right to do it. We may despise the act; 
 we may abhor it; and we may denounce it as bitterly as 
 any one ever denounced secession. But still, in the case 
 supposed, the act is done in the exercise of a legal right 
 which every one is bound to recognize and respect. This 
 ambiguity in the term right has, indeed, been the source 
 of no little darkness and confusion in the discussion of 
 moral and political questions. Mr. Buchanan seems to 
 have been confused by this ambiguity, when he denied 
 both the right of coercion and the right of secession. 
 Surely, both positions can not be true, in the legal sense 
 of the term right. For, if we say that coercion is a 
 Constitutional wrong, or usurpation, is not this saying that 
 the Constitution permits secession, or, in other words, that 
 it is a Constitutional right? 
 
 This appears so clear to my mind that when Mr. 
 Buchanan denied the right of secession, I suppose he 
 merely intended to condemn secession as a moral or social 
 wrong. This is the way in which he must be understood, 
 if we would not make him contradict himself. He may 
 have dreaded, he may have abhorred the act of secession: 
 and he may, therefore, have pronounced it wrong in the 
 forum of conscience. But if the Constitution does not 
 authorize coercion, then it permits secession; or, in other 
 words, secession is a Constitutional right, which every 
 power on earth is bound to respect as existing under the 
 supreme law of the land ; a Constitutional right which the 
 Federal Government could deny only by an act of usurpa 
 tion. Coercion is unconstitutional. Coercion is wrong. 
 Coercion strikes down and demolishes the great funda 
 mental principle of the Declaration of Independence 
 the sacred right of self-government itself. Coercion wages 
 war on the autonomy of free States. Secession, on the 
 other hand, asserts the right of self-government for every 
 tree, sovereign, and independent State in existence. 
 
 Virginia did not favor secession. But when the hour 
 of trial came she stood in the imminent, deadly breach 
 between trie secession of South Carolina and the coercion 
 of Massachusetts ; receiving into her own broad bosom the 
 
138 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 fatal shafts of war till she fell crushed, bleeding, and 
 exhausted to the earth. I appeal to the universe, then, if 
 her course was not noble, heroic, sublime. 
 
 Massachusetts has, on the contrary, favored both seces 
 sion and coercion by turns. The pilgrim fathers of Massa 
 chusetts delighted in two things: first, in the freedom 
 from persecution for themselves; and, secondly, in the 
 sweet privilege and power to persecute others. In like 
 manner, their sons have rejoiced in two things: first, in 
 the right of self-government for themselves ; and, secondly, 
 in the denial of that right to others. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE OPINION OF WELL-INFORMED AND 
 INTELLIGENT FOREIGNERS 
 
 The position that secession is a Constitutional right, 
 flowing from the idea that the Constitution is a compact 
 between sovereign States, is adopted by many impartial 
 foreigners, who have been at the pains to examine our 
 institutions for themselves. Thus says M. De Tocqueville, 
 in his celebrated works on "Democracy in America" : 
 "The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the 
 States; and in uniting together they have not forfeited 
 their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condi 
 tion of one and the same people. If one of the States 
 chose to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult 
 to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Govern 
 ment would have no means of maintaining its claims 
 directly either by force or right/ 1 In like manner, Dr. 
 Mackay says : "The Federal Government exists on suffer 
 ance only. Any State may, at any time, Constitutionally 
 withdraw from the Union, and thus virtually dissolve it. 
 It was not certainly created with the idea that the States, 
 or several of them, would desire a separation; but, when 
 ever they choose to do it, they have no obstacle in the 
 Constitution/ Mr. Spence also, to whom we ow T e this 
 extract from Dr. Mackay, comes to the conclusion, in his 
 
 5 Vol. i, chap, xviii, p. 413. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 139 
 
 able work on "The American Union/ 7 that secession is a 
 Constitutional right. Nay, he unanswerably establishes 
 this conclusion by facts which lie on the very surface of 
 American history, and which, however they may be con 
 cealed or obscured by the influence of party passions at 
 home, can not escape the scrutiny of impartial foreigners, 
 who may simply desire to ascertain the truth in regard to 
 such questions. After referring to the opinions of M. De 
 Tocqueville and Dr. Mackay, Mr. Spence very justly re 
 marks : "Here, secession is plainly declared a Constitutional 
 right, not by excited Southerners, but by impartial men of 
 unquestionable ability/ 1 
 
 An intelligent foreigner, as De Lolme, in his admirable 
 treatise on the Constitution of England, observes, possesses 
 some very decided advantages in the study of the funda 
 mental institutions of a country. This is especially true 
 in regard to ail questions which have been drawn into 
 the vortex of party politics, and mixed up with the 
 struggle for power and the emoluments of office. Xever 
 has its justness been more forcibly illustrated than in 
 regard to the conflicting theories of the Constitution of 
 the United States. Though Lord Brougham, to select 
 only one example, most profoundly sympathized with the 
 abolitionists of the North; yet, in spite of all his natural 
 affinities, the simple facts of history constrained him to 
 adopt the Southern view of the Constitution. Hence, in 
 his work on Political Philosophy, he says: "It is plainly 
 impossible to consider the Constitution which professes to 
 govern this whole Union, this Federacy of States, AS ANY 
 THING OTHER THAN A TREATY." 2 Accordingly, he speaks 
 of the American Union of States, as "the Great League." 
 
 It required no great research, or profound logic, to reach 
 this conclusion. On the contrary, it requires, as we have 
 seen, the utmost effort to keep facts in the background, 
 and all the resources of the most perverse ingenuity to 
 come to any other conclusion. It is, indeed, only neces 
 sary to know a few facts, with which every student of our 
 
 1 "The American Union," p. 201. 
 - Vol. iii, chap. xxx. p. 336. 
 
140 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 history is perfectly familiar, and which are well stated by 
 Lord Brougham, in order to recognize the fundamental 
 principle of the "Great League." "The affairs of the 
 colonies," says he, "having during the revolutionary war 
 been conducted by a Congress of delegates for each, on 
 the restoration of peace, and the final establishment of 
 their independence, they formed this Federal Constitution, 
 which was only gradually adopted by the different members 
 of the Great League. Nine States having ratified it, the 
 new form of government went into operation on the 4th of 
 March, 1798. Before the end of 1790 it had received the 
 assent of the remaining States." These facts alone, it is 
 believed, are absolutely decisive in favor of the position 
 that the American Union was a voluntary association of 
 States, or a compact to which the States were the parties. 
 Hence it is that foreigners, whether impartial or prejudiced 
 against the South, adopt the Southern view of the Con 
 stitution, when they examine the subject with the least 
 care. 
 
 It is natural, indeed, that foreigners, before they 
 examine the subject, should look upon the American people 
 as one consolidated nation ; for that is the external 
 appearance which they present to those who view the affairs 
 ol this continent from a distance. But like a multiple 
 star, which in the distance seems to be a single luminary 
 to the naked eye, the American Union is no sooner ap 
 proached, or more closely examined, than it is resolved 
 into a constellation of sister States. Nothing but party 
 passion, it is believed, can resist so plain a conclusion ; 
 just as the clearest revelations of the telescope were 
 vehemently denied by many of the most learned contempo 
 raries of Gallileo. Hence it is that De Tocqueville, and 
 Mackay, and Spence, and Brougham, and Cantu, 1 and 
 Heeren, 2 as well as other philosophers, jurists, and his 
 torians among the most enlightened portions of Europe, 
 so readily adopt the Southern view of the Constitution, and 
 pronounce the American Union a confederation of States. 
 
 1 "Historie Universelle," originally written in Italian, vol. xvii, 
 p. 371. 
 
 - "European States and Colonies," pp. 350-351. 
 
CONFEDERATE CHIEFTAINS 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 143 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE VIRGINIA ORDINANCE OF 
 RATIFICATION 
 
 A great many unfounded objections were urged against 
 the Constitution by its enemies. Mr. Madison lias, in the 
 thirty-eighth number of The Federalist, drawn a powerful 
 picture of "the incoherence of the objections to the plan 
 proposed"; that is, to the Constitution of 1787. Now this 
 chaos of conflicting objections, which were raised by the 
 enemies of the Constitution in order to defeat its adoption, 
 could not truly reflect the nature and design of that plan 
 for the government of the Union. Yet, however strange 
 it may seem, Mr. Justice Story and Mr. Webster have, as 
 we have seen, 1 selected one of these objections to show 
 what the Constitution is; though this very objection had 
 been most triumphantly refuted by Mr. Madison, both in 
 The Federalist and in the ratifying Convention of Virginia. 
 By the same sort of logic, if logic it may be called, they 
 might have fastened almost any other absurd interpreta 
 tion on the Constitution, as well as the construction that 
 it was ordained by the people of America as one nation, 
 and not by the several States. By appealing to the 
 objections of Patrick Henry alone, as an authority, they 
 might have proved that there was "not one federal feature" 
 in the Constitution of 1787, as well as a dozen other glaring 
 absurdities; and that the fathers of the Constitution did 
 not know what they were about when they called the work 
 of their own hands, (< Tl\e Federal Government of these 
 Mates" 
 
 In the ratifying Convention of Virginia, Patrick Henry 
 frequently dwelt, with great earnestness, on the danger of 
 entering into a new and untried Union, from which there 
 might be no escape. Virginia is now free, said he, and the 
 mistress of her ow r n destiny. But once in the new Union, 
 the power of the general government may be wielded for 
 her injury and oppression. This result was, in fact, elo 
 quently predicted by Patrick Henry, George Mason, 
 William Grayson, and other members of the same Con 
 vention. This argument proceeded on the supposition, 
 
 1 Chap, ix, pp. 74-5. 
 
144 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 either that Virginia would not have the right to secede 
 from the Union, or else that this right would be denied by 
 her oppressors. The debates in the Virginia Convention 
 of 1788 are, indeed, replete with passages of burning 
 eloquence, which predict the calamities that would fall on 
 that noble State, as well as on other Southern States, from 
 the oppressions of "the Northern majority." Hence, the 
 people of Virginia, in their ordinance of ratification, took 
 the precaution to guard against this danger by expressly 
 reserving the right to resume the powers delegated to the 
 Federal Government "whensoever the same shall be per- 
 yerted by their injury or oppression." The view which 
 Virginia has taken of her own ordinance is disputed. The 
 words of this ordinance are as follows : "We, the delegates 
 of the people of Virginia, duly elected, etc., . . . do 
 in the name, and in behalf of the people of Virginia, 
 declare and make known, that the powers granted under 
 the Constitution, being derived from the people of the 
 United States, be resumed by them whensoever the same 
 shall be perverted to their injury or oppression/ 
 
 Mr. Webster understood these words, "the people of the 
 United States," precisely as he understood them in the 
 preamble to the Constitution. Hence, he quotes the Vir 
 ginia ordinance of ratification, in order to show that the 
 Constitution was established, not by the States, nor by 
 the people of the States, but by "the people of the United 
 States in the aggregate," or as one nation. But, as we 
 have repeatedly seen, this is a false view of the words in 
 question. They were not so understood by the Virginia 
 Convention of 1788. 
 
 In that Convention, Mr. Madison most clearly and fully 
 explained these words, precisely as he had previously done 
 in The Federalist. The powers of the new government are 
 derived, said he, from the people of the United States, 
 "but not the people as composing one great society, but the 
 people as composing thirteen sovereignties." Such was 
 the meaning of the words in question, as explained by 
 James Madison, to whom the Convention looked for in 
 formation on the subject, and by whom they were led to 
 adopt and ratify the Constitution. Yet these words arc 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN" THE STATES 145 
 
 quoted by Webster, Everett, and other politicians of 
 Massachusetts, in order to show that, in the opinion of 
 the Virginia Convention of 1788, the Constitution of the 
 United States was ordained by the people of America as 
 one nation; and that the people of America as one nation 
 may, therefore, resume the delegated powers "whensoever 
 they shall be perverted to their injury or oppression. 7 To 
 this interpretation and inference there are several insuper 
 able objections. 
 
 In the first place, the Constitution was not to be estab 
 lished by the people of America as one nation, or by "the 
 people of the United States as one great society"; and 
 this fact was perfectly well known to the Virginia Con 
 vention of 1788. It has already been sufficiently demon 
 strated that the Constitution was ordained, not by the 
 people of America as one great society, but by each People 
 acting for itself alone, and to be bound exclusively by 
 its own voluntary act, It would be a gross solecism in 
 language, as well as in logic, to say that the people of the 
 United States as one great society might resume powers 
 which were not delegated by them. The sovereignty which 
 delegates is the sovereignty which resumes, and it is 
 absurd to speak of a resumption of powers by any other 
 authority, whether real or imaginary. 
 
 In the second place, the evil intended to be remedied 
 shows the true meaning of the words in question. The 
 Virginia people did not fear that the people of the United 
 States might pervert the powers of the Federal Govern 
 ment for their own oppression. Their fears were for the 
 weak, not for the strong ; not for the people of the United 
 States in the aggregate, but for the Southern States in 
 the minority; and especially for the State of Virginia. 
 They feared, as the burning eloquence of Henry, and 
 Mason, and Monroe, and Graysori evinced, that the new 
 government would "operate as a faction of seven States 
 to oppress six" ; that the Xorthern majority would, sooner 
 or later, trample on the Southern minority. They feared, 
 in the language of Grayson, that the new Union would 
 be made "to exchange the poverty of the North for the 
 riches of the South." In the words of Henrv, "This 
 
140 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 Government subjects everything to the Northern majority. 
 Is there not, then, a settled purpose to check the 
 Southern interest? We thus put unbounded power over 
 our property in hands not having a common interest with 
 us. How can the Southern members prevent the adoption 
 of the most oppressive mode of taxation in the Southern 
 States, as there is a majority in favor of the Northern 
 States? Sir, this is a picture so horrid, so wretched, so 
 dreadful that I need no longer dwell upon it/ 71 Did the 
 Convention of Virginia, then, seek to quiet these dreadful 
 apprehensions, by declaring that the people of the United 
 States, "as one great society, " might resume the powers 
 of the Federal Government whensoever they should be 
 perverted to their oppression? By declaring that this 
 one great society, or rather the majority of this society, 
 might resume the powers of the Federal Government 
 whensoever they should be pleased to use them for the 
 oppression of the minority? Could any possible interpre 
 tation render any legislation more absolutely ridiculous? 
 It puts the remedy in the hands of those from whom the 
 evil is expected to proceed ! It gives the shield of defence 
 to the very power which holds the terrible sword of 
 
 destruction ! 
 
 The Convention of Virginia spoke "in behalf of the 
 people of Virginia, 77 and not in behalf of the overbearing 
 majority, by whom it was feared these people might be 
 crushed. They sought to protect, not the people of 
 America, who needed no protection, but the people of 
 Virginia. Hence, as the people of Virginia had delegated 
 power to the Federal Government, they reserved "in 
 behalf of the people of Virginia, 1 the right to resume those 
 powers whensoever they should be perverted to their injury 
 or oppression. 
 
 Now this reservation enures to the benefit of all the 
 parties to the Constitutional compact; for as all such com 
 pacts are mutual, so no one party can be under any 
 greater obligation than another. Hence, a condition in 
 favor of one is a condition in favor of all. This well- 
 known principle was asserted by Mr. Calhoun in the great 
 
 1 "Elliott s Debates," vol. iii. p. 312. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 147 
 
 debate of 1833, with the remark that lie presumed it 
 would not be denied by Mr. Webster; and it was not 
 denied by him. Hence any State, as well as Virginia-, had 
 the express right to resume the powers delegated by her 
 to the Federal Government, in case they should be per 
 verted to her injury or oppression. 
 
 But, it may be asked, were the powers of the Federal 
 Government perverted to the injury or oppression of any 
 Southern States? It might be easily shown that they 
 were indeed perverted to the injury and oppression of 
 more States than one; but this is unnecessary, since the 
 parties to the compact, the sovereign States by whom it 
 was ratified, are the judges of this question. 1 
 
 1 See Virginia Resolutions of 98 : Kentucky Resolutions of 98 
 and 99; the Virginia Report of 1800, etc. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE RIGHT OF SECESSION 
 
 HAVING considered the arguments in favor of the right 
 of secession, it is, in the next place, proper to analyze and 
 discuss those which have been most confidently urged 
 against that right. Among these, none have been relied 
 on with greater confidence than those which are supposed 
 to flow from the express language of the Constitution. 
 This class of arguments shall, therefore, occupy the first 
 place in the following examination and discussion. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM "THE VERY WORDS " OF THE 
 CONSTITUTION 
 
 Xow this argument comes directly to the point. Let us 
 see, then, these "very words and avowed design of the 
 compact" 1 of 1787, by which the right of secession is 
 repudiated and rejected. "The contracting parties," we 
 are told, stipulate that "the Union shall be perpetual." 2 
 Again, the same writer says, "these States are pledged to 
 a perpetual Union"; quoting, as he supposes, the very 
 words of the Constitution. But, unfortunately, for his 
 confident argument, these words are not to be found in 
 the Constitution at all. They are evidently taken from 
 the old Articles of Confederation! Would it not be well, 
 if learned doctors of divinity would only condescend to 
 read the Constitution before they undertake to interpret 
 it for the benefit of their confiding flocks? Especially 
 should they not take some little pains to ascertain "the 
 very words" of the compact" of 1787, before they erect on 
 its very words the grave charge of treason against their 
 "Southern brethren ?" 
 
 The Constitution, says an English writer, does "ex 
 pressly .prohibit the States from entering into any treaty, 
 
 1 "The Rev. Dr. Hodge on the State of the Country," p. 24. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 25. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 149 
 
 alliance, or confederation, such as the so-called Southern 
 Confederacy. " 1 This argument is relied on with great 
 confidence. It may be found in all the books, pamphlets, 
 and publications with which the opponents of secession 
 have flooded the English public on the "American Ques 
 tion." Yet, as it appears to me, it clearly admits of two 
 perfectly satisfactory replies. 
 
 In the first place, the Constitution, or the new "Articles 
 of Union,** is obligatory only upon the members of the 
 Union. No one supposes that the States could, while 
 remaining in the Union, form any other "treaty, alliance, 
 on confederation. * But their duty while in the Union is 
 one thing, and their right to withdraw from the Union is 
 quite another. In the articles of any partnership, whether 
 great or small, a clause may be inserted forbidding the 
 parties to enter into any other partnership of the same 
 kind, or for the same purpose. Indeed this is often done. 
 But who. for a moment, ever imagined that such a clause 
 would render the partnership perpetual, or forever prevent 
 any of its members from withdrawing from the firm? 
 
 In the second place, the words in question were trans 
 ferred from the old to the new "Articles of Union. * Thus, 
 says the old Articles : "No two or more States shall enter 
 into any treaty, confederation, or alliance whatever between 
 them." 2 Now this clause was binding as long as the 
 Confederation continued. But did it prohibit "any two or 
 more States " from withdrawing from the Union, in order 
 to establish "a more perfect * one? By no means. It is, 
 on the contrary, perfectly notorious, that some of the 
 States did withdraw from that Union in order to form 
 the Union of 1787. Hence, nothing but the blind force of 
 passion can render this clause more obligatory in the new 
 "Articles of Union" or in the Constitution, than it was in 
 the old one. 
 
 Nay, if words could have made any union of States per 
 petual, the old Articles of Confederation would still form 
 the supreme law of the American Union. For the thir 
 teenth Article expressly declares that "the articles of this 
 
 1 Ludlow s "History of the United States." - Art. vi. 
 
150 THE WAR BETWEEX THE STATES 
 
 confederation shall be observed by every State, and the 
 Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any 
 time hereafter be made in any of them,, unless such altera 
 tions be agreed to by a Congress of the United States. 
 and be afterward confirmed by the Legislatures of every 
 State." Yet, in spite of these words, some of the States 
 did withdraw from that "perpetual Union," and formed a 
 new one. The people of 1787 refused to be bound by the 
 people of 1778. They deemed themselves no less sovereign 
 than their predecessors. Hence, in the words of the 
 English writer above quoted, "the plan of course failed, 
 like all similar attempts to fetter future legislation." 1 
 
 Xo words, and no principle of law or justice, could 
 render such Articles of Union forever binding on free, 
 sovereign, and independent States. Nothing but passion, 
 or brute force, could have compelled the millions of 1865 
 to bend their necks to the legislation of 1787 against their 
 will. The Union of 1787 owed its existence to secession 
 from a voluntary association of States ; and, being itself a 
 voluntary association of States, it could not escape from 
 the law of its creation. The right of secession was, indeed, 
 the law both of its origin and its existence. 
 
 The English writer, who argues so confidently against 
 the right of secession from the words of the Constitution, 
 does not seem to have been at all aware that those words 
 were borrowed from the old Articles of Confederation, or 
 that the Convention of 1787 had understood them very 
 differently from himself. The people of this country were 
 bound by the legislation of 1787, not by Mr. Ludlow s 
 mistakes and blunders respecting that legislation. 
 
 The right of coercion is sometimes deduced from that 
 clause of the Constitution which contains the President s 
 oath of office, and which requires him to "preserve, pro 
 tect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. 
 This is, indeed, the great argument against secession from 
 the words of the Constitution. But it is a gross solecism : 
 a petitio principii as plain as possible. For, if by and 
 under the Constitution, a State has a right to secede from 
 the Union, then the President is sworn to preserve, not 
 
 1 Ludlow s "History of the United States." pp. 143-4. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 151 
 
 to destroy, this Constitutional right. Hence, when it is 
 argued that the President is -bound to coerce in order to 
 preserve, potect, and defend the Constitution, it is assumed 
 that, in view of the Constitution, secession is wrong and 
 coercion is right ; which is very clearly to beg the question. 
 It takes the very point in dispute for granted. Such an 
 argument, such a fallacy may have satisfied those who 
 were passionately bent on coercion; but, in the eye of 
 reason, it is wholly destitute of force. If a State had the 
 Constitutional right to secede, and did secede, then she 
 was out of the Union ; and the President had no more 
 power to execute the laws of the United States within 
 her limits than he had to enforce them in the dominions 
 of Great Britain, or France, or Eussia. The President s 
 oath of office requires him, not to usurp any power, but 
 only to exercise those which are conferred on him by the 
 C Constitution. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE WISDOM OF THE FATHERS 
 
 An argument against the right of secession is deduced 
 from the wisdom of the framers of the Constitution. It 
 is supposed that men, who were so remarkable for their 
 sagacity and wisdom, would not have undertaken to erect 
 a grand Confederacy of States, and yet have been so absurd 
 as to allow a State to secede from it. It is argued that 
 they could not have intended to astonish the world with 
 the "extraordinary spectacle of a nation existing only at 
 the will of each of its constituent parts." 1 
 
 This argument, which is urged by Judge Story, and 
 others, amounts simply to this, that the fathers of the 
 Constitution could not have been such fools as to make a 
 compact between the States. For it is conceded that this 
 extraordinary spectacle, this wonderful exhibition of 
 weakness, results from the doctrine that the Constitution 
 is a compact between the States. The conclusions, says 
 Mr. Justice Story, "which naturally flow from the doctrine 
 that the Constitution is a compact between the States," 
 u go to the extent of reducing the government to a mere 
 
 1 Story s "Commentary on the Constitution," book iii, chap. iii. 
 
152 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 confederacy during pleasure; and of thus presenting the 
 extraordinary spectacle of a nation existing only at the 
 will of each of its constituent parts." Hence, in the 
 opinion of Judge Story, all that is wonderful in this 
 spectacle resolves itself into the most unaccountable fact, 
 that the fathers should have framed "a compact between 
 the States!" A thing which has been frequently done in 
 the history of the world, and which, as we have seen, was 
 actually done by the Convention of 1787. It is impossible, 
 exclaims Judge Story; we simply reply, it is a fact. 
 
 A learned doctor, in one of Moliere s plays, argues that, 
 after taking his remedy, it was impossible that his patient 
 should have died. But the poor servant, who was not 
 blessed with half the doctor s learning or ingenuity, was 
 weak enough to believe that the fact of his death was 
 some little evidence of its possibility. The question is 
 not what the fathers, in the opinion of one of the sons, 
 ought to have done, but what they have actually done. 
 
 The son in question, for example, is shocked and 
 astonished at the "extraordinary spectacle of a nation 
 existing at the will of its constituent parts." If this very 
 learned son had only possessed a little more wisdom he 
 would never have discovered, perhaps, this wonderful 
 spectacle of "a nation" with "its constituent parts," or 
 subordinate fractions. He would, on the contrary, have 
 seen that the sovereign States which he calls "the contituent 
 parts," or the fractions, of his imaginary nation, are really 
 the units of a confederation. I am rather inclined to 
 doubt, therefore, whether such a son is the fittest of all 
 possible tribunals before which to try the wisdom of the 
 fathers. 
 
 After all, perhaps, it was no want of wisdom in the 
 fathers, but only the conceit of wisdom in ourselves, which 
 causes their work to present so "extraordinary a spectacle." 
 Indeed, if we infer the nature of their work, not from an 
 examination of what they have actually done, but from 
 their wisdom, do we not reason from our own notions of 
 wisdom? And are we not in danger of interpolating 
 their conceptions with our own devices? The better 
 method is to listen to the <rreat teacher. Time, which 
 
THE WAB BETWEEN THE STATES 153 
 
 estimates their wisdom from the nature of their work, and 
 not the nature of their work from their wisdom. 
 
 The question is, not what the fathers, as reasonable men, 
 ought to have done, but what they have actually done. 
 Perhaps their wisdom, even if perfect in itself, was some 
 times held in abeyance by the prejudices, the passions, 
 and the interests by which it was surrounded. But, for 
 the sake of argument, let us suppose that the new Con 
 stitution was made perpetually binding on the States, 
 that the right of secession was excluded; and then ask 
 ourselves, what sort of spectacle would such a work present 
 to the minds of reasonable men? Would it not appear 
 far more extraordinary than if the right of secession had 
 been recognized? Let us examine and see. 
 
 The scheme of a perpetual Union, excluding the right 
 of secession, proceeded on the supposition that a perpetual 
 peace, good faith, and good-will would subsist among the 
 States. This was the idea of Madison. The predictions 
 of George Mason and others, in which they foretold the 
 wrongs and aggressions of the Northern States, if armed 
 with the formidable powers of the new government, 1 
 Mr. Madison just set aside as unfounded and uncharitable 
 suspicions. 2 Now, in regard to this point, we need not 
 ask who was the wiser of the two, George Mason or James 
 Madison, nor need we try the question by any imperfect 
 notions of our own ; for Time has pronounced its irre 
 versible verdict in favor of the wisdom of George Mason. 
 
 Again, as each State bound its citizens to render alle 
 giance to the Federal Government by its own voluntary act, 
 namely, the act of accession to the Constitution, so, if by 
 her own sovereign will in the same way expressed, she 
 may absolve them from that allegiance ; we can well under 
 stand the reasonableness of the arrangement. But if she 
 may not secede or withdraw the allegiance of her citizens 
 from the Federal Government, then it would be impossible 
 for them to escape the crime of treason. For, although 
 the State should be driven by oppression to withdraw 
 from the Union, her citizens would, according to such a 
 
 "Elliott s Debates," vol. iii. pp. 30, 146, 149, 156, 161, 164, 173, 
 174. 590. -Ibid., 580-562. 
 
154 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 scheme, be indissolubly bound by a double allegiance. 
 Hence, if they should follow or obey their own State, they 
 might be pursued and hunted down as traitors to the 
 Federal Government. Or, if forsaking the State to which 
 their allegiance was originally and exclusively due, they 
 should adhere to the Federal Government, they would be 
 traitors to their own State, and so regarded. There 
 would be no possible escape for them. Xow, were such a 
 scheme wise, or reasonable, or just? Would it not, on the 
 contrary, present a monstrous spectacle of cruelty and 
 oppression? Can we believe that the fathers, in order to 
 secure the liberty of their descendants, erected such an 
 engine of tyranny? Can we believe that they intended, 
 in any event, to crush and grind their posterity thus 
 between the upper and the nether millstones of the two 
 governments? But whatever they may have intended, or 
 designed, such is the horrible character of the two govern 
 ments in one, as explained by the very learned son in 
 question. If his explanation be true, then it must be 
 admitted that the fathers, with all their wisdom, first 
 constructed one of the most horrible engines of oppression 
 the world has ever seen, and then pronounced it a scheme 
 to "secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their 
 posterity." But I have too much respect for the wisdom of 
 the fathers to construe their work into any such tremen 
 dous and terrific engine of oppression. On the contrary, T 
 believe that as the allegiance of the citizen was originally 
 and exclusively due to his State, and was extended to the 
 Federal Constitution only by a sovereign act of his State, 
 so, by a like sovereign act, the State may reclaim his 
 supreme allegiance. Otherwise the machine invented by 
 the Convention of 178? would divide the citizen from 
 himself, putting the noblest and warmest affections of his 
 heart on the one side, and his highest allegiance on the 
 other ; so that, in case of a conflict between his State and 
 the Federal Union, he must be inevitably lacerated and 
 torn by the frightful collision. 
 
 The fathers always admitted that the noblest and 
 warmest affections of the citizen would cluster around and 
 cling to the State in which he was born, and to which his 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 155 
 
 allegiance was, at first, exclusively due. 1 Did they mean, 
 then, that in case of a conflict between a State and the 
 Union, and the secession of the former, the strongest 
 affections of the citizen should be with the one, and his 
 supreme allegiance with the other. I have too much 
 respect for the wisdom and the goodness of the fathers to 
 impute so horrible an intention to them; or that they 
 designed, in any event, to set the citizen against himself, 
 and rend him asunder by such a conflict between the 
 elements of his nature. 1 believe, on the contrary, that 
 it is the intention of the fundamental law instituted by 
 them that the allegiance of the citizen should go with his 
 affections, and cling to the sovereign will of the State in 
 which he lives, whether that leads him into or out of the 
 Union. 
 
 "It is not easy," said one of the most sagacious of the 
 fathers, "to be wise for the present; much less for the 
 future." How true ! and especially with reference to the 
 institution of a new government ! Perhaps, if the fathers 
 had only had a little more of this wisdom for the future, 
 they would have more profoundly considered the great 
 question of secession, and settled it beyond the possibility 
 of dispute in the Constitution framed by them. If, for 
 instance, in the solemn compact between the States, they 
 had expressly declared that any one of the sovereign parties 
 to it might secede at pleasure, this would, it is believed, 
 have produced the most happy result. The known and 
 established fact, that the Union depended on the will of 
 its members, would certainly tend to beget that mutual 
 forbearance, moderation, good-will, and sympathy, with 
 out which no federation of States is desirable. The wisdom 
 of the fathers might, in such case, have appeared far 
 less conspicuous to some of the sons; and yet it might 
 have saved the sons from the terrible war of words, and 
 deeds, and blood, by which the civilization of the nineteenth 
 century has been so horribly disgraced. It might have 
 appeared a most "extraordinary spectacle" in theory ; and 
 yet, in practice, it might have spared the world the 
 infinitely more extraordinary spectacle of the war of 1861. 
 
 1 See The Federalist. Nos. xvii, xviii. xix, etc. 
 
156 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 I shall conclude my reflections on this argument with 
 the following judicious observations of Mr. Spence : "It 
 would appear," says he, "the true policy of such a confed 
 eration to remove all doubt, and carry out clearly the 
 principles of its origin, by openly declaring the right of 
 secession. Had this been done from the first there would 
 probably have been no secession this day. The surest 
 way to end the desire for any object is to give unlimited 
 command of it. Secession has mainly occurred because it 
 was denied. How beneficial the consequence had it been 
 an admitted right for the last forty years ! In place of 
 the despotic use of political power, in contempt of the 
 feelings or interests of other portions of the country, 
 whether of the slave owners or monopolists, there would 
 have been all along a tempering., moderating influence. 
 Abolitionism, in all its extremes of virulence, has been 
 permitted by the North because the South was considered 
 to be fast. It might writhe under it, but it must abide. 
 But for this unfortunate belief, the intelligence of the 
 North would have said, If to gratify your passionate 
 opinions, you indulge in such language as this, addressed 
 to your fellow-citizens, they will separate from us ; we will 
 not have the Union destroyed at your bidding and pleasure. 
 In like manner, when the manufacturers desired to increase 
 protection to outrageous monopoly, that intelligence of 
 the North would have said to them, Our sister States 
 shall not be driven from the Union in order to increase 
 your profits. The same rule will apply to external affairs. 
 Texas would not have been annexed and beslaved, no 
 Mexican spoliations no war of 1813 no Ostend mani 
 festoes need have defaced the history of the country. 
 Throughout the range of political affairs there would have 
 been present that influence so constantly absent consider 
 ation for others. The sovereignty of the people is a 
 despotism untempered by division or check. The denial 
 of secession has invited it to act despotically to do simply 
 as it listed, regardless of those supposed to have no 
 escape from endurance. The more the subject is examined 
 the more plainly it will appear that, under an admitted 
 right of secession, there would never have grown up to 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 157 
 
 dangerous magnitude those causes which now produce 
 and that in so terrible a form the disruption of the 
 Union. Without those causes, had the feelings and in 
 terests of others been fairly and temperately considered, 
 the Union might have existed as firmly this day as at any 
 former period of its history/ 1 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE OPINION OF MR. MADISOX 
 
 In the Biographical Memoir of Daniel Webster, prefixed 
 to his works, Mr. Everett says : "The opinion entertained 
 of this speech [the speech of 1833], by the individual 
 who, of all the people in America, was the best qualified 
 to estimate its value may be seen from the following letter 
 of Mr. Madison, which has never before been published : 
 
 MONTPELIEB, March 15, 1833. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR: I return my thanks for the copy of your late 
 very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. It 
 crushes nullification, and must hasten an abandonment of 
 secession. 
 
 Xow on what ground Mr. Madison could have based 
 this opnion, at least in so far as it relates to secession, it 
 is difficult to conceive. The fundamental premise of Mr. 
 Webster that "the Constitution is not a compact between 
 sovereign States/ and which is adopted as the title of his 
 speech, was certainly not approved by Mr. Madison ; for 
 this premise, besides being in direct opposition to the 
 doctrine of his whole life, is denied again in the very letter 
 in which the above compliment is found. Mr. Webster 
 has, indeed, very little to say against secession. His argu 
 ment is almost exclusively directed against "nullification," 
 the point then in debate between himself and Mr. Calhoun. 
 But the little he has to say against secession is based on 
 the idea that the Constitution is not a compact between 
 sovereign States. Every argument, and every assertion 
 levelled by him against secession (and they are but few 
 in number) have no other than this false foundation. 
 
 1 "American Union." pp. 245-<>. 
 
158 THE WAB BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 Hence, Mr. Madison could not have approved or applauded 
 the argument of Mr. Webster against secession, because 
 he regarded his premise as sound; for he was most pro 
 foundly convinced that it was false. On what ground, 
 then, could Mr. Madison have admired this argument? 
 
 If the Constitution is a compact between sovereign 
 States, as Mr. Madison always contended it was, then Mr. 
 Webster admits, as we have seen, that the right of secession 
 follows. Thus this right is conceded by Mr. Webster to 
 flow from the premise which Mr. Madison always regarded 
 as perfectly and unquestionably true. How, in the face 
 of such a concession, Mr. Madison could have pronounced 
 the opinion that Mr. Webster s argument "must hasten 
 the abandonment of secession," it is exceedingly difficult 
 to conceive. The acknowledgment that the right of 
 secession flows from a position too plain to be denied 
 would tend, as one would suppose, to hasten its adoption, 
 rather than its abandonment. How then could Mr. 
 Madison have said otherwise? 
 
 The truth seems to be that Mr. Madison was more 
 solicitous to preserve the integrity of the Union than the 
 coherency of his own thoughts. He commends Lycurgus 
 for having sacrified his life to secure the perpetuity of the 
 institution he had taken so much pains to establish. 1 For 
 the same purpose Mr. Madison sacrificed, not his life, but 
 his logic. 
 
 Is it not truly wonderful that Mr. Madison who, on 
 most subjects, sees so clearly and reasons so well, should 
 fall into such inanities about secession ? From his con 
 duct, as well as from his confession in The Federalist, 2 it 
 is evident that he considered it a duty to veil the idea of 
 this right, unless a proper occasion should arise for its 
 assertion. But how imperfectly his arguments and 
 opinions perform this high office of concealment! He 
 would, no doubt, have done better if better arguments 
 against the right of secession could have been found or 
 invented. As it is, the ineffable weakness of his views, in 
 opposition to the right of secession, shows how high and 
 impregnable is the position which that right occupies. 
 
 1 TJu Feilfralitt, No. xxxviii. - No. xliii. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 159 
 
 Mr. Madison greatly feared that Virginia and Xew York 
 would, in their ordinances of ratification, expressly reserve 
 the right to secede from the Union. This apprehension 
 is most vividly set forth in his correspondence with Mr. 
 Hamilton in regard to the proposed conditional ratifica 
 tion of Xew York, from which it has been most confidently 
 inferred that neither Virginia nor Xew York did reserve 
 such right. But what Mr. Madison desired, and what 
 those States did, are two very distinct things. If we 
 really wish to know what those States did we should, it 
 seems to me, look at their recorded acts, rather than at 
 what Mr. Madison desired them to do. The conditional 
 ratification of Virginia was in direct opposition to the 
 wishes of Mr. Madison. His wish, then, however great 
 his influence, could not always control the action of his 
 own State, much less that of Xew York. 
 
 Hamilton and Madison both desired a strong "national 
 government." It was owing to their influence that the 
 first resolution of the Convention of 1787 in favor of such 
 a government was passed. But, as we have seen/ although 
 that resolution w r as afterward set aside by the Convention, 
 Mr. Webster and Judge Story argue from its momentary 
 existence that the Convention of 1787 actually established 
 "a national government." In like manner, it is most 
 confidently inferred from the wish of Mr. Madison, ex 
 pressed in his private correspondence, that neither Vir 
 ginia nor Xew York expressly reserved the right of 
 secession in its ordinance of ratification! Was Mr. Madi 
 son s wish the law of Virginia and of Xew York? And if 
 we want to know what those States actually did, must 
 Mr. Madison s wish pass for everything, and their solemnly 
 recorded acts for nothing? 
 
 Mr. Madison, as his correspondence shows, was extremely 
 anxious to prevent a conditional ratification of the Con 
 stitution in Xew York, as well as in Virginia. He even 
 went so far as to advance the extraordinary proposition 
 that a conditional ratification would be "no ratification at 
 all, and would "not make Xew York a member of the 
 new Union." But after Virginia had ratified the Consti- 
 
 1 Chap. iv. 
 
160 THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 tution on the express condition that its powers should 
 not be perverted to her injury or oppression, and had 
 reserved the right to resume the delegated powers in case 
 that condition should be violated, Mr. Madison retraced 
 his steps, and freely admitted that Virginia was really in 
 the Union ! He writes to Hamilton at once, and to Wash 
 ington, in order to do away with the impression that a con 
 ditional ratification is "no ratification at all," and would 
 not make any State a "member of the new Union." In 
 regard to the conditional ratification of Virginia, he says 
 it contains "some plain and general truth that do not 
 impair the validity of the act." 
 
 Now, from these words of Mr. Madison it has been 
 strenuously argued that Virginia did not reserve the right 
 to resume the powers she had delegated to the Federal 
 Government! It is true, as Mr. Madison said, that the 
 plain truths referred to did not impair the validity of the 
 Virginia act of ratification. No one has ever doubted the 
 validity of that act, or that it made Virginia a member of 
 the new Union. Nor could any one ever dream of doubt 
 ing such a thing, unless he had previously embraced Mr: 
 Madison s most extraordinary proposition that a condi 
 tional ratification is no ratification at all. But, while there 
 is no question whatever as to the validity of the act, it is 
 denied that it was unconditionally and eternally binding 
 on the State of Virginia, or that it could never be repealed 
 by the sovereign power by which it was enacted. Is it not 
 wonderful, then, that Mr. Madison s words merely assert 
 ing the validity of the act in question, which no one has 
 ever denied, should be so confidently quoted to prove that 
 the act must, in any event, stand forever, unrepealed and 
 unrepealable, by the power by which it was ordained? 
 
 Now what is "the plain and general truth" to which 
 Mr. Madison refers as contained in the Virginia ordinance 
 of ratification? It is the truth that the powers delegated 
 to the Federal Government may be resumed in case of 
 their perversion, and that they may be resumed by the 
 authority which delegated them. This was a plain truth 
 then, and this is a plain truth now. It is, indeed, uni 
 versally conceded. Neither Story, nor Webster, nor Everett, 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 161 
 
 nor Motley has one syllable to say against this plain and 
 incontestable truth. Hence, if Virginia delegated powers 
 to the Federal Government, then Virginia, and Virginia 
 alone, had the right to resume those powers. This would 
 have been the case, even if no express reservation of that 
 right had been contained in her ordinance of ratification. 
 But did Mr. Madison deny that the powers in question 
 were delegated by the State of Virginia? If so, then he 
 denied a plain fact, and a fact, too, which he invariably 
 and earnestly proclaimed from the beginning to the end 
 of his career. Even if he denied that fact by implication, 
 this would have proved only his inconsistency, and fur 
 nished another instance of the blinding influence of his 
 extreme desire to veil the right of secession. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE OPINION OF HAMILTON 
 
 "However gross a heresy," says Hamilton, "it may be 
 to maintain that a party to a compact has a right to revoke 
 that compact, the doctrine itself has had respectable advo 
 cates." 1 This, it should be observed, is said in relation to 
 the old Articles of Confederation, which are universally 
 admitted to have formed a compact between sovereign 
 States. It was, then, the opinion of Hamilton that a 
 State had no right to secede from a confederacy of States, 
 or from the compact by which they are united. If he 
 means to assert that it has no natural or moral right to 
 secede at pleasure from a compact, I have at present no 
 controversy with him. But if he means that it has no 
 legal, or Constitutional right to do so, then his own opinion 
 is "a gross heresy," which has but few respectable advocates 
 at the present day. 
 
 For, as we have already seen, both Story and Webster 
 concede that the Constitutional right of secession belongs 
 to States which are united by a compact. Now, after 
 such a concession, is it not too late to quote the opinion of 
 Hamilton to prove that the very inference conceded is "a 
 gross heresy"? Yet this is done by Mr. Justice Story. 
 In one paragraph he admits that if the Constitution is a 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. xxii. 
 
162 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 compact between the States, then each State may secede 
 from that compact at pleasure; and yet, in the very next 
 paragraph, he proves out of The Federalist? that "even 
 under the confederation/ which is admitted to have been 
 founded on a compact between the States, 2 "it was deemed 
 a gross heresy to maintain that a party to a compact has a 
 right to revoke that compact"; 3 or to set it aside at 
 pleasure. Thus the very inference which he admits in one 
 breath he pronounces a gross heresy in the next, and proves 
 it to be such by the authority of Hamilton ! 
 
 The doctrine which both Story and Webster have been 
 constrained to admit is no doubt entitled to more consid 
 eration than the naked and unsupported opinion of Ham 
 ilton. This opinion seems, indeed, to have grown out of 
 his deep and intense desire to consolidate the Union, rather 
 than form his legal studies and knowledge. He was only 
 thirty years of age when The Federalist was written ; and 
 his life, with the exception of four years, had been passed 
 in the active duties of the camp, or in his college studies. 
 Hence, however great his powers, his knowledge of juris 
 prudence, and of the opinions of the learned, must have 
 been exceedingly limited, when compared with those who 
 have devoted their lives to this study. If, then, Story and 
 Webster are constrained to admit the right of a State 
 to secede from a confederacy bound by a mutual compact, 
 this may surely be taken as an indication of the real, 
 teachings of the law on the point in question, and regarded 
 as a higher authority than the bare opinion of Hamilton. 
 This would be so, even if no progress had been made in 
 the science of international law since the time of Hamilton ; 
 but, in fact, there has been great progress in this science 
 during the present century, especially in regard to the 
 doctrine of compacts between States. 
 
 Enlightened by the principles of that doctrine, Mr. 
 Justice Story could not deny the right of one of the parties 
 to secede from such "a compact." Hence, he attempted 
 the more than herculean labor of recasting the whole 
 political history of his country, and moulding it in con 
 formity with his wonderful hypothesis that the Constitu- 
 
 1 Vol. i, p. 288. 2 No. xxii. 3 Vol. i, p. 290. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 163 
 
 tion of the United States is not a compact between States 
 at all. He first asserts truly that a State may secede 
 from such a compact, and then proves out of Hamilton 
 that his own assertion is "a gross heresy I" "That gross 
 heresy/ says Hamilton, "has had respectable advocates." 
 Mr. Justice Story himself is one of these advocates. Nor 
 is this all. The Convention of 1787 advocated the same 
 heresy; and, moreover, embodied it in their legislation. 
 Hamilton insisted in that Convention that the States had 
 no right to revoke the existing compact between them, 
 or to secede from it in order to form another, without 
 the consent of each and every State in the Union. But his 
 opinion was overruled by the Convention; and the States 
 did, in pursuance of the decision of the Convention, 
 withdraw from the existing compact to form a new one. 
 Mr. Hamilton may have been right, and the States may 
 have been wrong ; but, however this may be, their decision 
 established the supreme law of the land. The advocates 
 of the right of some of the parties to a compact between 
 States to revoke that compact, or to withdraw from it, 
 may not have been as respectable as the opponents of this 
 doctrine ; it is certain that they prevailed in the Convention 
 of 1787, and embodies their own views in the legislation 
 of the United States. That legislation should be our 
 guide, not the defeated opinion of Mr. Hamilton. Or, 
 at least if we happen to believe that legislation to have 
 been right, and if, in conformity with the opinion of Mr. 
 Justice Story, we happen also to believe that a State may 
 secede from a compact between States, may we not humbly 
 hope that this will not be deemed so "gross a heresy" as to 
 be treated as treason and rebellion? 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE VERY IDEA OF A 
 
 The "very idea of a nation," it is said, is utterly incon 
 sistent with the right of secession. But what is a nation ? 
 "It is a body politic," we are told, "independent of all 
 others, and indissolubly one. That is, indissoluble at the 
 mere option of its constituent parts/ 1 Thus the whole 
 
 1 "Rev. Dr. Hodge on the State of the Country," p. 24. 
 
164 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 question is begged, and the whole controversy completely 
 settled by the definition of "the very idea of a nation." 
 
 How great the triumphs of such logic, and how wonder 
 ful the displays of such genius ! Setting out from "the 
 very idea of a nation" in the abstract, and, absolutely 
 unembarrassed by any other idea or knowledge in the wide 
 world, this argument just reaches, at one simple bound, 
 the conclusion that "as the Abbeville district can not 
 secede from South Carolina, so South Carolina can not 
 secede from the United States" ; a profound view and 
 striking illustration which the President from Illinois 
 borrowed from the Preacher of Princeton. 1 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA, 
 FLORIDA, ETC. 
 
 It is, we are told, absurd to suppose that the people 
 would have expended so much money for the purchase of 
 Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, if those States could secede 
 from the Union. 2 It is not at all probable that those 
 territories were purchased under the belief that they would 
 desire to secede, whether they possessed the right to do so 
 or not. And besides, it might be easily shown, that long 
 being before those States did secede, the government of 
 
 1 Enlightened by the profound view of his reverend guide, Mr. 
 Lincoln with a naive originality all his own, might well have asked, 
 what is the difference between a county and a State? Is not a county 
 a little State, and a State a big county? One striking difference must 
 have occurred to him in the course of his reading ; the difference, 
 namely, that a State is spelt with a large S, and a county with a 
 small c. He must also have observed that a State is sometimes called 
 "Sovereign." But whether it is called Sovereign because it is spelt 
 with a large S, or spelt with a large S because it is called Sovereign, 
 is one of the nice questions in the science of government which he 
 does not seem to have very fully considered or positively decided. He 
 had evidently discovered, for he tells us so himself, that a State is 
 usually larger than a county in the extent of its territorv ; a discovery 
 which, perhaps, led to the profound and original reflection that the 
 United States have been, and must continue to be, one State or Nation, 
 because their territory is one. It is to be hoped, indeed, that these 
 sovereign States or counties, as the case may be, shall continue to be 
 united, and that order, tranquillity, and happiness shall once more 
 bless their Union. But if so, must not something beside the one 
 territory help to produce the happy result? Have not simple con 
 federations existed on the same territories? Nay, have not some 
 twenty distinct nationalities long existed on the territory of Europe? 
 We may, then, hardly trust the reflection, however profound, that 
 one territory is in itself a sufficiently active and powerful cause to 
 produce one very big State, or county, covering a whole continent. 
 
 2 "Hodge on the State of the Country," p. 28. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 165 
 
 the United States had realized far more from them than 
 she gave for them, which was only a few millions of dollars. 
 Hence, even on the theory and the practice of secession, 
 the purchase was far from being absurd. On the contrary, 
 it was a highly profitable bargain ; and, in order to justify 
 it, or to show that it was reasonable, it is not at all 
 necessary to suppose that the sovereign peoples of those 
 States, with their Constitutional rights and privileges, 
 were also purchased with the pitiful sum paid for their 
 annexation to the United States. They were admitted as 
 sovereign States, with all the rights of the original parties 
 to the compact, and as such were entitled to the full benefit 
 of all its provisions. 
 
 Indeed, this ad captandum argument appears exceed 
 ingly weak, if not absolutely ridiculous. Can any pur 
 chases made by any parties to a compact alter the terms of 
 that compact, or make it more binding than it was before ? 
 If a State retained its sovereignty in the Union, and, conse 
 quently, had a right to resume the powers which it had 
 delegated to the Federal Government, this right was not 
 affected by the purchase of Louisiana, or Florida. To pur 
 chase those territories is one thing, and to sell the sover 
 eignty of each and every State in the original Union is 
 quite another. If any State should withdraw from the 
 original compact, and thereby dissolve the Union as to 
 itself, then the purchase of such territories should be con 
 sidered in the final settlement between the parties. But to 
 argue that they were indissolubly and eternally bound to 
 gether because they made such purchases seems, to say 
 the least, a little ridiculous. 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY 
 
 How wonderful soever it may seem, Mr. Justice Story 
 argues from analogy as follows: As an indivdual has no 
 right to secede from a State government, so a State has no 
 right to secede from the government of the Union. Now 
 this argument proceeds on the supposition that a sovereign 
 State bears the same relation to the Federal Government, 
 which it concurred with other States in creating, that a 
 
166 THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 county,, nay, that an individual, bears to a State. Mr. 
 Justice Story was far too learned to endorse so monstrous 
 a heresy explicitly; but it is, nevertheless, tacitly assumed 
 as the basis of his argument from analogy against the 
 right of secession. His whole theory of the Constitution 
 points, it is true, to the conclusion so openly avowed by 
 the Eev. Dr. Hodge and Mr. Lincoln, which views a State 
 as merely a county of one great consolidated nation; but 
 he never reached this conclusion himself, except surrep 
 titiously, as in the above argument from analogy. 
 
 But even admitting this false conclusion as a postulate, 
 the argument of Judge Story is by no means as conclusive 
 as it appears to his own mind. For the right of an indi 
 vidual to secede from a State government is daily exer 
 cised by some one or other in every part of the world. 
 An individual can not, it is true, remain under the govern 
 ment of a State, continuing to enjoy its protection, and, at 
 the same time, refuse to obey its mandates. But this were 
 nullification., not secession. 
 
 The only way in which an individual can secede from 
 a State is to withdraw from the limits of its dominion, and 
 this right is daily exercised in every part of the civilized 
 world, without being called in question by any one. The 
 Puritans themselves, by whom Massachusetts was originally 
 settled, withdrew from the government of Great Britain, 
 and quietly marched off, undisturbed by his Majesty, first 
 into Holland, and then into the New World. Now sup 
 pose this right had been denied to them? Suppose fire 
 and sword had been used to compel the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 those meek and holy apostles of freedom, to remain under 
 the government they detested, would they not have made 
 the world ring with their outcries at the perpetration 
 of such injustice and tyranny? But they were allowed to 
 withdraw to the New World, and there set up the govern 
 ment of their choice. The colony of Massachusetts Bay, 
 then, owed its existence to the acknowledged right of indi 
 viduals to secede from the government of a State, and 
 enjoy one whose "powers are derived from the consent of 
 the governed." 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 167 
 
 But a State, united in a confederacy with other States, 
 can secede from the government of the Union without the 
 necessity of changing its location. This makes a difference 
 in the exercise of the right, though not in the right 
 itself. It is, indeed, quite impossible for a whole State, or 
 people, to change its location, or abandon their homes. 
 If the Southern States could have done so, the exodus 
 would, no doubt, have been most gratifying to some of the 
 descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England. 
 This is evident from the eloquent address of Mr. Henry 
 Ward Beecher to the excited thousands of Exeter Hall in 
 1863. In reply to the question, "Why not let the South 
 go ?" he exclaimed, "0 that the South would go ! but then 
 they must leave us their lands." If they had only left their 
 lands and homes, and plunged into the Gulf of Mexico, 
 this great enemy of secession would have hailed the event 
 as one most auspicious for the spread, the aggrandizement, 
 and the glory of the race to which he belongs. 
 
 It would have appeared to him, no doubt, like the herd 
 of swine which, being possessed of devils, madly rushed 
 into the sea, and disappeared from the world. But when 
 they seceded, without proposing to leave their lands behind, 
 this made all the difference imaginable; being an out 
 rageous violation of one of the great fundamental articles 
 of the Puritan creed, which, in early times, was expressly 
 set forth by the Colony of Connecticut in solemn conclave 
 assembled. It was then and there decided that "the earth 
 is the inheritance of the saints of the Lord"; the saints 
 having, in their declaration, as is believed, an eye to the 
 beautiful locations and lands of the Indians. It is certain, 
 if we may judge from the speech of Mr. Beecher in Exeter 
 Hall, that some of the most influential of the saints had 
 a longing and passionate eye for the beautiful lands of the 
 sunny South. 
 
 The truth is that every Constitutional compact, whether 
 between the people of a single State, or between sovereign 
 States themselves, forms a voluntary association; the one 
 between individuals, and the other between sovereign 
 States. Hence, if the right of secession be denied in 
 either case, and the denial enforced by the sword of 
 
168 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 coercion, the nature of the polity is changed, and freedom 
 is at an end. It is no longer a government by consent, but 
 a government of force. Conquest is substituted for com 
 pact, and the dream of liberty is over. 
 
 No man has contributed more to this dire result than 
 Mr. Justice Story, who not only exhausted all the stores 
 of his own erudition, and exerted all the powers of his own 
 mind, to prove that the Constitution was not a compact 
 between the States, but also enlisted the great powers and 
 eloquence of Mr. Webster in the advocacy of the same 
 monstrous heresy. This concealed the great fundamental 
 principle of the Constitution, and kept out of view the 
 all-important truth, laid down by Mr. Mill, that the very 
 first condition necessary to a desirable federation of States 
 "is a sufficient amount of sympathy among its popula 
 tions." Nor is this all. His theory of the Constitution 
 fell in with the corrupt and the corrupting tendency of 
 the age; the tendency, namely, to deny the sacred obli 
 gation of "THE COMPACT OF THE CONSTITUTION." For 
 how can any compact be held sacred which is held not to be 
 a compact at all, but only the emanation, or creature, of 
 the sovereign will by which its restraints are abhorred? 
 May not the creator do what he pleases with his own ? May 
 not the one great nation, the one sovereign people of 
 American take some little liberties with the work of its 
 hands, instead of being scrupulously bound by it as a com 
 pact between the States? Fay, may it not take some 
 little liberties with the rights of the States themselves ; 
 since the States, as well as the Constitution, were created 
 by its own sovereign will and pleasure? May it not, in 
 short, treat the States as counties? 
 
 It is possible, indeed, that no learning, or logic, or elo 
 quence could have resisted this terrible tendency, or 
 stemmed the mighty torrent of corruption it continually 
 fed and augmented. But this is no reason why learning, 
 and logic, and eloquence should have favored its progress. 
 That progress was slow, but sure. All power slowly 
 gravitated toward the federal center, and was there con 
 solidated by false theories of the Constitution. In the 
 towering audacity of that central power (assuming to itself 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 169 
 
 all the glories of the one grand nation, it was gradually 
 forgotten that honor, and justice, in the observance of the 
 original compact, no longer regarded as a compact) and 
 mutual sympathy among the peoples it was intended to 
 unite, are the indispensable conditions of a free and happy 
 Federation of States; and for these sacred ties of "the 
 glorious Union" were substituted the sacrilegious bonds 
 of fraud, force, and ferocity. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that secession should, in the end, 
 have been regarded as the greatest of all crimes, since the 
 Union was then held together, not by the mutual sympathy 
 or the conciliated interests of its peoples, but by "the co 
 hesive power of public plunder." Mr. Justice Story, be it 
 said to his eternal shame, took the lead in constructing the 
 theory of that tremendous scheme of despotic power, and 
 the politicians of Massachusetts in reducing it to practice. 
 John C. Calhoun, on the contrary, lived and died in op 
 posing all the powers of his gigantic intellect to its over 
 whelming torrents, both in theory and practice. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 WAS SECESSION TREASON? 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 THE doctrine of secession consists of two propositions: 
 the first asserts that the Constitution was a compact 
 between the States; and the second that a State, or one 
 of the parties, had a right to secede from such a compact. 
 The second proposition is simply an inference from the 
 first. Now, if secession is at all tainted with treason, the 
 crime must lurk in the one or the other of these 
 propositions. 
 
 WITHDRAWAL FROM A COMPACT NOT TREASON 
 
 Is it treasonable, then, to assert that the Constitution 
 was a compact between the States, or the members of the 
 Union? No one, it is presumed, will venture on so bold 
 an assertion; for, as we have seen, this was the doctrine 
 of the fathers of the Constitution themselves. It has been 
 shown, by an articulate reference to their writing, that it 
 was clearly and unequivocally the doctrine of Madison, 
 and Morris, and Hamilton, as well as of other celebrated 
 architects of the Constitution. Who, then, will pronounce 
 it treason, or treasonable? The Federalist, in submitting 
 the Constitution to the people and in pleading the cause 
 of its adoption, did not hesitate to say, as a fact then per 
 fectly well and universally known, that the Constitution 
 was "the compact" 1 to which "the States as distinct and 
 independent sovereigns" 2 were the parties. Did The 
 Federalist espouse treasonable sentiments ? Both Hamilton 
 and Madison, the two great architects of the Constitution., 
 most earnestly and eloquently recommended it to the 
 people in The Federalist and elsewhere as THE COMPACT 
 
 BETWEEN THIRTEEN SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES. 
 1 No. xxix. - No. xl and No. Ixxxv. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 171 
 
 Is that doctrine treason., then? Is there the least sign, or 
 symptom, or shadow of treason connected with that senti 
 ment of the fathers ? Are those "untrue to their country" 
 who say, with all the most illustrious fathers of the Union, 
 that the Constitution was a compact between the States? 
 On the contrary, are not those untrue to themselves, to 
 their country, and to their God, who, in the midst of so 
 many unquestionable proofs on all sides around them, 
 can assert that the Constitution is not a compact? Is it 
 "the dialect of treason" to say that "the States acceded 
 to the Constitution?" In other words, is the language of 
 Wilson, and Morris, and Bandolph, and Franklin, and 
 Jefferson, and Washington to be renounced as "the dialect 
 of treason?" 
 
 Is it treason to understand the Constitution as it was 
 understood by the great patriots and statesmen from whose 
 wisdom it proceeded? Is it treason to adhere to their 
 views, sentiments, and language? Or is it loyalty to 
 depart from their views, sentiments, and language, de 
 nouncing them as the inventions of modern rebels? No 
 one can, or will, venture to answer this question in the 
 affirmative. Ignorance and passion may have done so in 
 times past. But who can read the history of his country, 
 who can behold the great fact that THE CONSTITUTION is 
 
 A COMPACT BETWEEN THE STATES BLAZING ALL OVER ITS 
 
 AMPLE PAGES, nay, written there by the fathers of the 
 Eepublic themselves, and then deliberately pronounce it a 
 treasonable sentiment? Can any man do so? Has any 
 man sufficient strength of continence for such an achieve 
 ment? If so, then indeed .must his front of brass, and 
 his heart of iron, forever remain an incomprehensible 
 mystery to all reasonable men. Nay, if any party or 
 majority, aided by the united strength of all their 
 countenances, should pronounce such a fact treasonable, 
 this would only prove that they must have been ignorant 
 of the history of their country. But, whether f^om 
 ignorance, or from malice, or from both, shall it ever be 
 the lot of American citizens to live in a land in which 
 truth shall be treason, and history rebellion? Shall it 
 ever come to this ye blessed spirits of departed heroes 
 
172 THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 and patriots! shall it ever come to this, that a dungeon 
 and a halter awaits the man who may have the most 
 devoutly cherished thy sentiments, and the most implicitly 
 trod in thy footsteps? 
 
 No ! it will be admitted that the doctrine of the fathers 
 is not treason. Whether that doctrine be true or false, it 
 will be admitted that it is entitled to the respect of all 
 who respect the founders of the Eepublic. Even if the 
 fathers did not understand their own work a thought 
 which is itself almost akin to treason it is certainly not 
 an unpardonable heresy to agree with them, or to adopt 
 their view of the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Will it be said, then, that it is treasonable to assert that 
 a State may secede from a compact between States? If 
 so, then Story and Webster were both traitors; for, as we 
 have over and over again seen, these most admired ex 
 pounders of the Constitution expressly concede that a 
 State may secede at pleasure from such a compact. But, 
 here again, even if Story and Webster were mistaken in 
 this principle of law, it is surely absurd to denounce such 
 an error as treason or rebellion. 
 
 Nor is this all. Precisely the same inference is drawn 
 by another great expounder of the Constitution, namely, 
 by William Eawle, of Philadelphia. The legal opinion of 
 Mr. Eawle is entitled to great respect. Mr. Buchanan, late 
 President of the United States, speaks of him as follows : 
 "The right of secession found advocates afterwards in men 
 of distinguished abilities and unquestioned patriotism. 
 In 1825 it was maintained by Mr. William Eawle, of 
 Philadelphia, an eminent and universally respected lawyer, 
 in the 23d [32d] chapter of his View of the Constitution 
 of the United States. In speaking of him his biographer 
 says that in 1791 he was appointed District Attorney of 
 the United States 7 ; and the situation of Attorney General 
 was more than once tendered to him by Washington, but as 
 often declined/ for domestic reasons." 1 Now, Mr. Eawle 
 wrote his "View/ 7 not as a partisan, but simply as a jurist 
 in the calm and impartial investigation of truth, having 
 no conceivable motive to reject the plain teachings of his- 
 
 1 "Buchanan s Administration," p. 88. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 173 
 
 tory and law. Indeed, as we have seen, he agreed with 
 Story and Webster in regard to the principle of law, and 
 differed from them only in regard to facts. Hence, if they 
 had not denied that the Constitution was made by the 
 States, they would have been compelled, like Mr. Eawle, 
 to admit the right of secession. 
 
 "The Union is an association of republics," says Mr. 
 Kawle. . . . Again, "we have associated as republics. 
 . . . But the mere compact, without the means to 
 enforce it, would be of little value." 1 Having announced 
 the truth, that the Constitution is a compact between 
 republics, he drew the inference from this which is ad 
 mitted to follow by Story and Webster. That is, he in 
 ferred the right of secession; just as if there could be no 
 question on so plain a point of law. "It depends on the 
 State itself," said he, "to retain or abolish the principle 
 of representation, BECAUSE IT DEPENDS ON THE STATE 
 
 ITSELF WHETHER IT CONTINUES A MEMBER OF THE UNION." 
 
 Again, he says, "THE STATES MAY WITHDRAW FROM THE 
 UNION, but, while they continue, they must retain the 
 character of republics," as well as comply with every stipu 
 lation of the Constitutional compact. "... The 
 secession of a State from the Union," he continues, 
 "depends on the will of the people. The Constitution of 
 the United States is to a certain extent incorporated with 
 the Constitutions of the several States by the act of the 
 people. . . . Nothing is more certain than that the 
 act [secession] should be deliberate, clear, and unequivocal. 
 The perspicuity and solemnity of the original obligation 
 require correspondent qualities in its dissolution." 
 
 Now this is the language of a man, of an eminent 
 jurist, who was the contemporary and friend of Wash 
 ington. He lived before the rise of those new ideas, and 
 dazzling images of power, which afterward obscured "the 
 perspicuity and solemnity" of the act by which each State 
 had acceded to the compact of the Constitution. Was not 
 this man of "distinguished abilities and unquestioned 
 patriotism," then, right both in regard to his premise and 
 to his conclusion ? He took, as we have seen, precisely the 
 
 1 "Rawle on the Constitution," chap, xxxii. 
 
174 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES - 
 
 same view of the Constitution as that taken by all his 
 great contemporaries, the fathers of the Constitution 
 themselves; and he only inferred from this view the right 
 of secession, which, according to Story and Webster, is a 
 legitimate inference? But even if he was not right, if 
 Rawle, and Story, and Webster were all in error as to the 
 justness of this inference, still were it not the very height 
 of absurdity to pronounce such an opinion treason? 
 
 If, then, any poor benighted son of the South was really 
 guilty of treason on account of secession, this must have 
 been either because he understood the Constitution no 
 better than those who made it, or because he knew the 
 law of compacts no better than the most celebrated jurists 
 of America? On which horn of this dilemma shall he be 
 hanged? Shall he be tried and found guilty of treason 
 for not understanding the Constitution better than Morris, 
 and Madison, and Hamilton, and Washington; or for not 
 knowing the law of compacts better than Eawle, and 
 Story, and Webster? If found guilty on either ground it 
 is to be hoped that his counsel will move an arrest of judg 
 ment, that such distressing ignorance was his misfortune, 
 not his fault. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS AND THE HARTFORD CONVENTION 
 
 The facts, proofs, and authorities going to establish the 
 right of secession are, indeed, so redundant, so overflow 
 ing, nay, so absolutely overwhelming that many of them 
 have been necessarily omitted in the foregoing argument. 
 One of them is, however, quite too important and striking 
 to be entirely neglected. Hence it shall be introduced in 
 the present place. 
 
 The Virginia Resolutions ,of 7 98 were submitted, as the 
 reader is doubtless aware, to the Legislatures of every 
 State in the Union. These Resolutions contained, as we 
 have repeatedly seen, the very doctrine so eloquently 
 denounced by Mr. Webster in 1833 ; the doctrine, namely, 
 that the Constitution is a compact between the States of 
 the Union. This doctrine was, in fact, made the ground 
 work of that celebrated manifesto. Now it is a remark- 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 175 
 
 able fact that not one of the Legislatures, who replied to 
 the Resolutions of 98, called this great fundamental 
 position in question. No one at that early day, so near the 
 origin of the Constitution, seems to have dreamed that such 
 a doctrine was tainted with heresy, much less with treason. 
 Not a single Legislature seems to have imagined, for one 
 moment, that the United States, or the States United, 
 did not form a Confederacy, or that its Constitution was 
 not a compact. 
 
 In the answer of the Legislature of Massachusetts, 
 Mr. Story s and Mr. Webster s own State, by far the most 
 able and elaborate of all the replies to the Resolutions in 
 question, there is not one syllable or sign of opposition to 
 the doctrine that the States formed a Confederacy, or 
 that their Constitution was a compact between them. On 
 the contrary, Massachusetts, then and there, in her great 
 manifesto in opposition to that of Virginia, expressly 
 recognized the truth of that doctrine. That is, in con 
 formity with the uniform and universal usage of the day, 
 she spoke of the desire of Massachusetts to "COOPERATE 
 WITH ITE CONFEDERATE STATES"; 1 and also of "THAT 
 
 SOLEMN COMPACT WHICH IS DECLARED TO BE THE SUPREME 
 
 LAW OF THE LAND." 2 Massachusetts was not, then, one of 
 that mighty cloud of witnesses, composed alike of "friends 
 and foes," which Mr. Webster, with his great dark eye "in 
 a fine frenzy rolling," fancied that he saw in the air, all 
 uniting in the solemn declaration, as with the voice of 
 doom, that COMPACT is no more, that CONFEDERACY has 
 fallen, and that henceforth THE SOVEREIGN WILL OF THE 
 
 ONE GRAND NATION, THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA, SHALL 
 
 REIGN FOREVER AND EVER ! On the contrary, poor, simple- 
 hearted Massachusetts, of 1799, imagined that a compact, 
 that even a "solemn compact," not only might be, but 
 actually was, "the supreme law of the land," and that it 
 was under or by virtue of that solemn compact that she 
 had, only eleven years before, "confederated" with her 
 sister States ! 
 
 Nor is this all. Massachusetts continued, for some years 
 longer, true to the first great article in the creed of the 
 
 1 "Elliott s Debates," vol. iv, p. 563. 2 Ibid., p. 560. 
 
176 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 fathers. Indeed circumstances greatly favored her fidelity, 
 and deepened the fervor of her faith. The acquisition 
 of Louisiana, which added a vast empire to the Southern 
 end of the Union,, produced a profound dissatisfaction 
 throughout Massachusetts and the other New England 
 States; causing "the glorious Union" to wane, and the 
 sovereignty of the States to wax mightily in their eyes. 
 "At an early period after the formation of the Consti 
 tution," as Mr. Buchanan truly says, "many influential 
 individuals of New England became dissatisfied with the 
 union between the Northern and Southern States, and 
 wished to dissolve it." "This design," according to Mr. 
 John Quincy Adams, "had been formed in the winter of 
 1803-4, immediately after and in consequence of the 
 acquisition of Louisiana." 1 The embargo and non- 
 intercourse laws, which were designed to bring England 
 to terms without the dire necessity of war, augmented the 
 already great dissatisfaction of New England, because they 
 affected her commercial interests, and thereby touched 
 her in by far the most sensitive portion of her frame. She 
 cried aloud for war ! She cried, down with all your 
 embargo and non-intercourse laws, and up with the flag 
 of armed resistance! Impatient at the slow movements 
 of the South, she taunted her with cowardice, and 
 courteously as well as elegantly declared that the South 
 could not be "kicked into a war with England." But she 
 was mistaken; she did not fully comprehend the South; 
 the South is, perhaps, too easily "kicked into a war." 
 
 It is certain that the South in the persons of her two 
 young, ardent, enthusiastic, and chivalrous representatives, 
 Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and John C. Calhoun, of South 
 Carolina, responded to the loud, vehement war-cry of New 
 England. Their eloquence shook the nation. The spirit 
 of armed resistance was roused, and the war with Great 
 Britain proclaimed. But, alas ! this did not help the 
 commerce of New England. The remedy proved worse 
 than the evil. Her ravenous pockets, instead of being 
 filled with gold and satisfied, became still more and more 
 alive to the dreadful state of things, and, thereupon, she 
 
 1 "Buchanan s Administration," p. 86. 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 177 
 
 endeavored to "kick the South" out of the war with Great 
 Britain. In this the dark hour of her agony and distress 
 she suddenly discovered that war is, at best, a most unholy 
 and unchristian thing; not to be entered on lightly, or 
 without counting the cost. She also discovered that, after 
 all, the number of her seamen, impressed by the tyranny of 
 Great Britain, had been greatly exaggerated (by whom?) ; 
 and that consequently the cause of quarrel was far too 
 small to justify so unholy and so unchristian, that is to 
 say, 50 unprofitable a war. 
 
 In the dark hour of her distress the glorious rights of 
 the States came out, and showered down their radiance on 
 all JSTew England, like the stars at night. The sovereignty 
 of her own beloved Massachusetts, indeed, then totally 
 eclipsed the full moon of the once "glorious Union/ just 
 as completely as if Massachusetts had been "the whole 
 earth." I speak from the record; from that secret, silent 
 record of the Hartford Convention, in which all the pro 
 found dissatisfaction of New England with the Union cul 
 minated; and into which her sons, in spite of all their 
 prying curiosity, have no desire whatever to look. Mr. 
 Webster, for example, in his great debate with Mr. Hayne, 
 of South Carolina, in 1830, solemnly declared that he had 
 never read the proceedings of that famous Convention. 
 No wonder ! 
 
 "Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise." 
 
 "Events may prove," says the Journal of the Hartford 
 Convention, January 4, 1815, "that the causes of our 
 calamities are deep and permanent. They may be found 
 to proceed, not merely from blindness of prejudice, pride 
 of opinion, violence of party spirit, or the confusion of the 
 times; but they may be traced to implacable combinations 
 of individuals, OR OF STATES, to monopolize power and 
 office, and to trample without remorse upon the rights and 
 interests of the commercial sections of the Union/ n Now, 
 if we only substitute the term agricultural for commercial 
 in the above passage, how admirably will it express the 
 
 1 Page 5. 
 
178 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 complaint of the South, which, for long years of endurance, 
 was treated with such imperial scorn and implacable 
 contempt by the States of New England ! 
 
 "Whenever it shall appear," continues the Journal, "that 
 these causes are radical and permanent, a separation by 
 equitable arrangement will be preferable to AN ALLIANCE, 
 
 BY CONSTRAINT, AMONG NOMINAL FRIENDS, BUT REAL 
 ENEMIES, INFLAMED BY MUTUAL HATRED AND JEALOUSIES, 
 AND INVITING, BY INTESTINE DIVISIONS, CONTEMPT AND 
 
 AGGRESSIONS FROM ABROAD." 1 Precisely thus, and not 
 otherwise, reasoned the South in 1861; and asked for "a 
 separation by equitable arrangement," instead of "an 
 alliance by contrast" with "nominal friends, but real 
 enemies, inflamed by mutual hatred and jealousies." But 
 the great boon was contemptuously refused, because the 
 sentiments of New England had undergone a radical and 
 total revolution. The reason is that those were the senti 
 ments of New England in the minority, and these the 
 sentiments of New England in the majority. Holy, indeed, 
 was her horror of "an alliance by constraint," when she 
 was the party in danger of being constrained ; but no 
 sooner had she acquired the power to constrain than such 
 an alliance appeared altogether pure and just in her un 
 selfish eyes ! 
 
 The Journal of this Convention has much to say about 
 "the Constitutional compact"; and hence, if it had only 
 been read by Mr. Webster, he must have been familiar 
 with this mode of expression, which so seriously offended 
 him in the resolutions of Mr. Calhoun in 1833, and called 
 forth his fine burst of eloquence in defence of the rights of 
 that "noun substantive," the CONSTITUTION. He must 
 have discovered also that, in the opinion of Massachusetts 
 in 1815, the rights of sovereign States are at least as 
 important as those of any noun substantive in the language. 
 For, in the words of that Convention, the power of con 
 scription is "not delegated to Congress by the Constitution, 
 and the exercise of it would not be less dangerous to their 
 liberties, THAN HOSTILE TO THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE 
 STATES. 2 ... It must be the duty of the State to 
 
 1 Page 5. 2 Page 8. 
 
THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 179 
 
 watch over the rights reserved, as of the United States to 
 exercise the powers which were delegated/ * 
 
 The Hartford Convention, towering in the strength of 
 its State-rights sentiments, continues thus: "That acts 
 of Congress in violation of the Constitution are absolutely 
 void is an undeniable position. It does not, however, 
 consist with the respect from a CONFEDERATE STATE 
 towards the general government to fly to open resistance 
 upon every infraction of the Constitution. The mode and 
 the energy of the opposition should always conform to 
 the nature of the violation, the intention of the authors, 
 the extent of the evil inflicted, the determination mani 
 fested to persist in it, and the danger of delay. But in 
 cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of 
 the Constitution, AFFECTING THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE 
 STATE, and liberties of the people, it is not only the right, 
 but the duty, of such State to interpose its authority for 
 their protection in the manner best calculated to secure 
 that end. When emergencies occur which are either beyond 
 the reach of judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit 
 of delay incident to their forms, STATES, WHICH HAVE 
 
 NO COMMON UMPIRE, MUST BE THEIR OWN JUDGES, AND 
 
 EXECUTE THEIR OWN DECISIONS/ 2 Now, if possible, this 
 comes more directly and plainly to the point than the 
 Resolutions of ; 98. It not only sets forth the great 
 doctrine, it sometimes employs the very language of those 
 Resolutions. 
 
 Having finished its work, and appointed commissioners 
 to lay the complaints of New England before the Govern 
 ment of the United States, the Convention resolved, that 
 "if these should fail/ 7 it would be the duty of the New 
 England States to hold another Convention at Boston, on 
 the 3d Thursday of June, with such powers and instruc 
 tions as so momentous a crisis may require. 3 No such 
 Convention ever assembled at Boston, or elsewhere; for, 
 in the meantime, the great trouble had come to an end. 
 How, or by what means? Mr. Webster, though he con 
 fesses ignorance as to the proceedings of the Hartford 
 Convention, is nevertheless perfectly ready with an answer 
 
 1 Page 7. 2 Pages 10-11. 3 Page 21. 
 
180 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 to this question. In his senatorial debate with Mr. Hayne, 
 in 1830, he tells the world that Massachusetts gave up 
 all opposition as soon as the Supreme Court of the United 
 States decided the laws of which she complained to be 
 Constitutional; thus showing her loyalty under the most 
 severe and trying circumstances ! This was, perhaps, a 
 thrust at South Carolina, who, as Mr. Webster supposed, 
 stood far apart from Massachusetts in the heresy that, 
 in great and trying emergencies, "the States, who have 
 no common umpire, are to be their own judges, and to 
 execute their own decisions." 
 
 How little he knew the history of his own State ! Hence, 
 he could fondly imagine that Massachusetts had always 
 been willing and ready to bow to the Supreme Court as 
 the common umpire between the States, and proudly 
 pointed to her conduct in 1815, bending and groaning 
 under the burden of the laws, and yet loyally submitting 
 to the high tribunal by whom it was fastened upon her 
 shoulders ! The truth is, as we have just seen, that Massa 
 chusetts had resolved to take that very emergency into her 
 own hands; to be her own judge, and to execute her own 
 decision. She cared, indeed, as little for the Supreme 
 Court, in such an emergency, as she did for the other 
 Courts of the Union ; whose decisions had been repeatedly 
 treated with contempt, and resisted with impunity, by her 
 very loyal citizens during the great trouble of the war. 
 
 Why, then, did Massachusetts submit at last? Why 
 did so great a change come over the spirit of her dream? 
 The answer is a very simple one. It is told in the printed 
 proceedings of the Hartford Convention. The story is 
 certainly not so well adapted to the purposes of poetry, or 
 of oratory, as the fine fiction invented by Mr. Webster, 
 but it has, at least, the homely merit of truth. Harrison 
 Gray Otis, T. H. Perkins, and W. Sullivan, the commis 
 sioners appointed by the Convention to lay the grievances 
 of New England before the Government of the United 
 States, reported that they had declined to do so, "because 
 they found, on their arrival at Washington, that peace had 
 been concluded/ * That was the secret of the submission 
 
 1 "Proceedings of Hartford Convention," p. 33. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 181 
 
 of Massachusetts. The war with Great Britain was at an 
 end; the embargo and nonintercourse would, of course, 
 no longer vex her righteous soul; she could unfurl the 
 wings of her commerce to every breeze, and bring in 
 harvests of gold from every quarter of the globe. That 
 was the secret of her great-hearted loyalty and submission. 
 She no longer had anything to submit to ! 
 
 Sidney Smith complains of "exegesis/ that it spoils so 
 many fine sermons; not allowing the preacher to ramble 
 in his rhetoric, or to nourish at random, without regard 
 to the real sense of his text. The same complaint may be 
 urged against the simple truth of history. How many 
 splendid orations, and grand soaring flights of rhetoric, 
 will it not spoil for the people of New England ! How 
 many self -flattering and glorious illusions will it not 
 dispel ! 
 
 "That their object was/ said Mr. John Quincy Adams, 
 "and had been for several years, a dissolution of the 
 Union, and the establishment of a separate Confederation, 
 he knew from unequivocal evidence, although not provable 
 in a court of law ; and that, in case of a civil war, the aid 
 of Great Britain to effect that purpose would be assuredly 
 resorted to, as it would be indispensably necessary to their 
 design/ 1 
 
 This design, says Mr. Adams, he had communicated to 
 Mr. Jefferson, in 1809. Again, while President of the 
 United States, Mr. Adams said: "That project, I repeat, 
 had gone to the length of fixing upon a military leader 
 for its execution; and, although the circumstances of the 
 times never admitted of its execution, nor even of its full 
 development, I had no doubt in 1808 and 1809, and have 
 no doubt at this time that it is the key of all the great 
 movements of the Federal Party in New England [and 
 that party was then in the ascendancy in New England], 
 from that time forward till its final catastrophe in the 
 Hartford Convention." 2 
 
 "It is but fair to observe/ says Mr. Buchanan, "that 
 these statements were denied by the parties implicated, 
 
 1 Letter of Dec. 30, 1828, in reply to Harrison Gray Otis and others. 
 
 2 "Buchanan s Administration," p. 87. 
 
182 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 but were still adhered to and again reaffirmed by Mr. 
 Adams." 1 True, it is but fair that their denial should be 
 known, and estimated at its true value. But who could 
 expect any men to acknowledge their complicity in such 
 a design? If, in the dark hour of their country s trial, 
 engaged in a war with the greatest nation upon earth, 
 they could conceive the idea of deserting her standard, and 
 even of invoking the aid and the arms of her powerful 
 enemy to make their desertion good, is it to be supposed 
 that, after the scheme had failed or blown over, they 
 would have pleaded guilty to such a design? 
 
 Nor is this all. What did they mean by appointing 
 another Convention to be held at Boston ? Did they mean 
 nothing? Or if they had any honorable design any 
 design which need not shrink from the light of day why 
 lias it never been avowed by them? The truth is, if any 
 one shall carefully examine the proceedings of the Hartford 
 Convention, and the previous history of New England 
 which culminated in that Convention, he can hardly fail 
 to perceive that the positive testimony of John Quincy 
 Adams is most powerfully corroborated by circumstances. 
 The conclusion of Mr. Buchanan appears perfectly true ; 
 "that this body [the Hartford Convention] manifested 
 their purpose to dissolve the Union, should Congress refuse 
 to redress the grievances of which they complained." 
 
 Four years before the date of the Hartford Convention, 
 Mr. Josiah Quincy, an influential member of Congress 
 from Massachusetts, publicly declared the right of seces 
 sion. The extract from his speech on the 14th of January, 
 1811, is hackneyed; but it is, nevertheless, significant of 
 what was then passing in the mind of Massachusetts. It 
 is also exceedingly significant, because it was uttered in 
 opposition to the admission of Louisiana into the Union 
 as a State. "If this bill passes/ said he, "it is my delib 
 erate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union ; 
 that it will free the States from their moral obligation, 
 and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of 
 some, definitely to prepare for separation, amicably if they 
 can, violently if they must/ Nay, upon the purchase of 
 
 1 Letter of Dec. 30, 1828, in reply to H. Gray Otis and others. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 183 
 
 Louisiana, in 1803, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed 
 the following resolution: "Resolved, That the annexation 
 of Louisiana to the Union transcends the Constitutional 
 power of the Government of the United States. It formed 
 a new Confederacy to which the States, united by the 
 former compact, are not bound to adhere." 
 
 Thus, as we have seen, Massachusetts from the founda 
 tion of the Federal Government down to 1815, held the 
 Constitution to be a compact between the States, and the 
 Union to be a Confederacy. In her ordinance of ratifi 
 cation in 1788; in her reply to the Eesolutions of ? 98 ; 
 in her own resolution of 1803-4 she most distinctly an 
 nounced this doctrine. Hence, it seems impossible to 
 doubt the statement of John Quincy Adams, 1 that the 
 Hartford Convention deduced the right of secession from 
 the fact that the Constitution was a compact between the 
 States of the Confederacy. This was a clearly legal 
 inference. Kawle, Story, and Webster all admit it to be 
 such. Thus the fathers, one and all, laid down the great 
 premise or postulate of the doctrine of secession at the 
 very foundation of the Union; and the New England 
 States, in 1815, deliberately drew the inference, and 
 asserted the right of secession. Yet these States, in 1861, 
 took the lead of all others in the fierceness and the bitter 
 ness of their denunciation of secession as treason and 
 rebellion ! The first to assert for themselves, and yet the 
 first to persecute in others, this great right ! 
 
 It is thus that Josiah Quincy, the Webster of 1815, as 
 serted the fundamental principle or postulate of secession : 
 "Touching the general nature of that instrument called 
 the Constitution of the United States, there is no ob 
 scurity; it has no fabled descent, like the palladium of 
 ancient Troy, from the heavens. Its origin is not confused 
 by the mists of time, or hidden by the darkness of past, 
 unexplained ages; it is the fabric of our day. Some now 
 living had a share in its construction; all of us stood by, 
 and saw the rising edifice. There can be no doubt about 
 its nature. It is a political compact/ Is this the same 
 Josiah Quincy, or was it his son, who, in 1861, made him- 
 
 1 Letter of Dec. 30, 1828, to H. Gray Otis, etc. 
 
184 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 self so conspicuous by denouncing secession as treason? 
 It is certainly the same Josiah Quincy. who, in 1811, was 
 called to order in Congress for asserting the right of 
 secession, and voted to be in order. How rapidly the 
 New England world turns upon its political axis ! In 1815, 
 as secession was the right of all, so it was the duty of some 
 of the States; and, in 1861, it was treason and rebellion ! 
 
 DID THE SOUTH CONDEMN SECESSION IN 1815? 
 
 The South, it has been repeatedly asserted, condemned 
 the secession of 1815 as treason, and is, therefore, estopped 
 from complaining of the same sentiment in 1861. "This," 
 it is urged, "may be said to be res adjudicate. All parties 
 are committed against the right of secession." 
 
 Now, even if the facts were as alleged, still this would 
 be a one-sided logic. For if the South, in 1815, con 
 demned secession, it was the secession which New England 
 had approved; and if the North, in 1861, denounced 
 secession, it was precisely the right which the South had 
 asserted. Hence, it is just as true that all parties were 
 committed for, as that all parties were committed against, 
 the right of secession. 
 
 If, as is supposed, the minority was, in both instances, 
 in favor of the right of secession, and the majority opposed 
 to it, this would have been nothing very strange or wonder 
 ful. It would only have illustrated the saying of Aristotle, 
 which all history confirms, that "the weak always desire 
 what is equal and just, but the powerful pay no regard 
 to it." 
 
 But the facts have not been accurately stated. It is 
 true that the South, as well as other portions of the 
 Union, vehemently condemned the Hartford Convention. 
 No Convention, or assembly, was ever more odious to the 
 great body of the people of the United States. But its 
 proceedings were secret; and, till the appearance of Mr. 
 Adams letter of December 30, 1828, its precise object or 
 design was not generally known. It may be doubted, 
 indeed, if it was ever condemned by any portion of the 
 South, on the simple ground that it claimed for the New 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 185 
 
 England States merely the right to secede from the Union, 
 and to be let alone. It was, however, known to the South 
 that the New England States had insisted on a war with 
 Great Britain in order to defend and secure the rights of 
 their seamen. It was also known that, while the South 
 was engaged in this war, the New England States not only 
 failed to do their duty, but denounced the war they had 
 instigated, and the government by which it was carried on. 
 It is true that, by these proceedings, the wrath of the 
 South was awakened, and that she denounced them as 
 treason, because they gave "aid and comfort" to the 
 enemy. From all that had preceded, how could the South 
 know, indeed, but that the Hartford Convention had 
 formed the dark design of appealing to arms against the 
 Government of the United States, and of joining Great 
 Britain in the war against the people of this country ? 
 
 Even if the South had known that New England merely 
 designed, in 1815, to secede from the Union, still her 
 indignation would not have been without just cause. For, 
 having got the South into a war with Great Britain, was 
 that the time for her to desert the standard of her country, 
 and leave the other States exposed to the full brunt of its 
 fury? The clearest right may, indeed, be exercised in 
 such a manner, and under such circumstances, as to 
 render it odious. The right of secession has, no doubt, 
 been made to appear treasonable by its association with 
 the Hartford Convention of 1815. 
 
 Far otherwise was the conduct of the South. She held 
 no secret Conventions. All her proceedings were as open 
 as the day. The United States were at peace with all the 
 world. It was under these circumstances that the States 
 of the South, each in its own Convention assembled, with 
 drew from the Union, and asked to be let alone. But the 
 South was not permitted to enjoy the government of her 
 choice. On the contrary, she was subjugated, impover 
 ished, and ruined with the avowed design to bring her 
 back into the Union ; and, now that she is knocking at the 
 door of the Union, she is not allowed to enter. What, 
 then, is left to her sons and daughters but to weep over 
 the inconsistency and wickedness of mankind; and, if 
 possible, to pray for their enemies? 
 
186 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON ON THE EIGHT OF SECESSION 
 
 Though Mr. Jefferson was not one of the architects of 
 the Constitution; yet has more stress been laid on his 
 supposed opposition to the right of secession than upon 
 that of any other statesman of America, especially by 
 foreign writers. We are gravely told, with the usual 
 information of such writers, that "Mr. Jefferson was, in 
 after-life, the foremost champion of States rights." 1 We 
 are also informed that "he would certainly have turned 
 away with abhorrence from the consequences to which 
 these [rights] have since been driven." 2 This last senti 
 ment is, perhaps, conformed to the general opinion at the 
 North on the same subject. But is it true ? 
 
 It is certain, in the first place, that Mr. Jefferson him 
 self deduced the right of nullification from the doctrine of 
 States rights; not "in after-life," but in 1799, before he 
 was President of the United States. Mr. Everett, I am 
 aware, insinuates that Mr. Jefferson never favored the 
 doctrine of nullification. "Such, in brief," says he, "was 
 the main purport of the Virginia and Kentucky resolu 
 tions." The sort of interposition, indeed, was left in 
 studied obscurity. Not a word was dropped of secession 
 from the Union. Mr. Nicholas 7 resolution in 1709 hinted 
 at "nullification" as the appropriate remedy for an un- 
 constituional law, but what was meant by the ill-sounding 
 word was not explained. 3 Now this statement is of a 
 piece with the main substance of that grand, swelling 
 oration of the great Massachusetts declaimer. It is utterly 
 devoid of truth. 
 
 In the first place, Mr. Jefferson himself, in his corre 
 spondence, replied to the inquiry of the son of Mr. 
 Nicholas, that his father was not the author of the reso 
 lutions in question. Mr. Jefferson says : "I drew and 
 delivered them to him." 4 Nor is this all. "Two copies 
 of these resolutions," says the editor of Mr. Jefferson s 
 works, "are preserved among the manuscripts of the author, 
 
 1 "History of the United States," by J. M. Ludlow. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 * "Rebellion Records," vol. 1, p. 20. 
 4 "Jefferson s Works," vol. vii, p. 229. 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 187 
 
 both in his own handwriting. One is a rough draft, and 
 the other very neatly and carefully prepared. The 
 probability is that they are the original of the Kentucky 
 Kesolutions on the same subject." 1 Let us see, then, the 
 very language of these Eesolutions, and the manner in 
 which they "hinted at nullification." 
 
 The first resolution is in these words: "Resolved, That 
 the several States composing the United States of America 
 are not united on the principle of unlimited submission 
 of their general government, but that, by a compact under 
 the style and title of the Constitution of the United States, 
 and of amendments thereto, they constitute a general gov 
 ernment for special purposes; and that whensoever the 
 general government assumes undelegated powers its acts 
 are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this 
 compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral 
 party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party; 
 that the government created by this compact was not made 
 the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers 
 delegated to itself, since that would have made its dis 
 cretion, not the Constitution, the measure of its poiuers; 
 
 BUT THAT, AS IN ALL CASES OF COMPACT AMONG POWEES 
 HAVING NO COMMON JUDGE, EACH PARTY HAS AN EQUAL 
 RIGHT TO JUDGE FOR ITSELF, AS WELL OF INFRACTIONS AS 
 OF THE MODE AND MEASURE OF REDRESS." 2 So much for 
 
 the postulate. 
 
 The conclusion is in these words : "Resolved, That 
 . . . where powers are assumed which have not been 
 delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy; 
 that every State has a natural right, in cases not within the 
 compact \_casus non fcederis], to nullify of their own 
 authority all assumptions of power by others within their 
 limits; that, without this right, they would be under the 
 dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might 
 exercise this right of judgment for them; that neverthe 
 less, this commonwealth, from motives of regard and 
 respect for its co-States, has wished to communicate with 
 them on the subject; that with them alone it is proper to 
 communicate, they alone being the parties to judge in the 
 
 1 "Jefferson s Works," vol. ix, p. 464. 2 Ibid., vol. ix, p. 464-5. 
 
188 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 last resort of the powers exercised under it, CONGRESS 
 
 BEING NOT A PARTY, BUT MERELY THE CREATURE OF THE 
 COMPACT, AND SUBJECT AS TO ITS ASSUMPTIONS OF POWER 
 TO THE FINAL JUDGMENT OF THOSE BY WHOM, AND FOR 
 WHOSE USE ITSELF AND ITS POWERS WERE ALL CREATED AND 
 
 MODIFIED/ etc. Such is the language of Thomas Jeffer 
 son ! Is it merely a modest "hint at nullification" ? 
 
 Some alterations were made in the Eesolutions, as penned 
 by Mr. Jefferson, before they were passed by the Legisla 
 ture of Kentucky. But the first resolution above given 
 was not altered at all; it was passed precisely as it came 
 from the pen of Mr. Jefferson, with only one dissentient 
 vote! In the Eesolutions as passed by the State of Ken 
 tucky, we find these words : "That the principle and con 
 struction contended for by sundry of the State Legislatures, 
 that the general government is the exclusive judge of the 
 extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of 
 despotism since the discretion of those who administer 
 the government, and not the Constitution, would be the 
 measure of their powers: That the several States who 
 formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, 
 have the unquestionable right to judge of the infraction; 
 
 and, THAT A NULLIFICATION BY THOSE SOVEREIGNTIES, OF 
 ALL UNAUTHORIZED ACTS DONE UNDER COLOR OF THAT IN 
 STRUMENT, IS THE RIGHTFUL REMEDY/ 71 Such is the 
 
 language which Mr. Everett so very modestly calls a "hint 
 at nullification" ! 
 
 He must be a dull logician, indeed, or a partial one, who 
 does not see that both nullification and secession flow 
 from the great fundamental doctrine of the Virginia and 
 the Kentucky Eesolutions. If, according to that doctrine, 
 stated in the very words of Massachusetts, "the States, 
 who have no common, umpire, are to be their own judges, 
 and to execute their own decisions," then most assuredly 
 they may pronounce in favor of either nullification or 
 secession. Any State may, it is true, bring reproach on 
 this right of sovereignty by the manner in which it is 
 exercised. I have, indeed, always doubted whether nulli 
 fication was a wise, or judicious, exercise of the right of 
 
 1 "Elliott s Debates," vol. iv, p. 571. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 189 
 
 State sovereignty. It is certain that Mr. Webster, as well 
 as many others, has pointed out so many inconveniences, 
 not to say absurdities, connected with the act of nullifi 
 cation, that the right has usually been rejected with 
 contempt. But the exercise of a right is one thing; and 
 the existence of that right is another. A man may, in 
 his own affairs, judge unwisely; but does that prove that 
 he had no right to judge for himself? In like manner, 
 it does not follow that a sovereign State has no right to 
 be her own judge, because she may judge unwisely. It is, 
 then, false reasoning to conclude that a State has no right 
 to nullify, because the act of nullification is full of in 
 conveniences, or even absurdities. Yet this kind of 
 sophistry is precisely the amount of all the logic which 
 has been urged against nullification. 
 
 If a man, who has the right to judge for himself in his 
 own business, makes an unwise decision, shall the right, 
 therefore, be taken from him, and given to another ? Shall 
 his decision be declared null and void, and the decision of 
 some other person substituted in its place ? Nothing could 
 be more unjust and despotic. Nor will any sovereign State 
 submit to be treated in a similar manner by any un 
 authorized power on earth. The act of nullification has, 
 no doubt, brought reproach on the doctrine of State rights, 
 and especially on the right of secession; but, then, this 
 has been just because men have failed to think accurately 
 and profoundly on the subject. They have confounded the 
 propriety or judiciousness of an act with the right of the 
 party to do the act, than which a worse solecism could 
 hardly be perpetrated. 
 
 Nullification is, however, but indirectly connected with 
 secession. This right flows, as we have seen, directly 
 from the doctrine of Mr. Jefferson, "that as in all other 
 cases of compact, among parties having no common judge, 
 each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well 
 of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress." 
 To say that a State has the right to judge of infractions 
 of the compact of the Constitution by the Federal Gov 
 ernment, and also of the mode and measure of redress, 
 and, at the same time, that it has no right to decide upon 
 
190 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 secession as the proper remedy, is, it seems to me, simply 
 a contradiction in terms. Now the question is, was Mr. 
 Jefferson guilty of this act of glaring inconsistency, or 
 self-contradiction ? 
 
 He "would have turned away with abhorrence," it is 
 said, "from the consequences" which have been deduced 
 from the doctrine of State rights. In this bold assertion, 
 the writer had special reference to the right of secession, 
 which his history of the United States, as it is called, was 
 written to demolish. Hundreds have, indeed, attempted 
 to throw the great weight of Mr. Jefferson s authority in 
 the scale against the right of secession, by means of the 
 following extract from his works: "If to rid ourselves of 
 the present rule of Massachusetts and Connecticut we 
 break the Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the 
 New England States alone cut off, will our nature be 
 changed? Are we not men still to the South of that, and 
 with all the passions of men ! Immediately we shall see 
 a Pennsylvania and a Virginia party arise in the residuary 
 confederacy. What a game too will the one party have 
 in their hands, by eternally threatening the other that 
 unless they do so and so they will join their Northern 
 neighbors ! If we reduce our Union to Virginia and North 
 Carolina, immediately the conflict will be established be 
 tween the representatives of these two States, and they 
 will end by breaking into their separate units." 
 
 Now this partial extract, which has gone the rounds of 
 the civilized world, gives an utterly false view of Mr. 
 .Jefferson s opinion. The context to the above passage, 
 which is sometimes permitted to accompany it, shows 
 that Mr. Jefferson really believed in the right of secession, 
 and only argued against the intemperate and too hasty 
 exercise of that right. "If," says he, in the sentence im 
 mediately preceding the above extract, "on the temporary 
 superiority of one party, the other is to resort to a scission 
 of the Union, no federal government can exist." 
 
 How perfectly true! If, for so trifling a cause, any 
 union of States should be dissolved, it would soon be re 
 solved into its original units. The union would not long 
 exist, and it would not deserve to exist if its members 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 191 
 
 were such fools as to resort to the right of secession "on 
 the temporary success" of every party therein. But to 
 argue, as Mr. Jefferson does, against the too hasty and 
 intemperate exercise of the right is to acknowledge the 
 existence of the right itself. 
 
 In the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Jefferson said 
 "that long-established governments should not be changed 
 for light and transient causes/ Nor, however clear the 
 Constitutional right, would he have dissolved the Union 
 for such causes. But does he say that he would not advo 
 cate a scission of the Union for any cause whatever? 
 That in no event whatever he would resort to the right of 
 secession? There is no such doctrine in his writings; no 
 such glaring self-contradiction in any portion of his works. 
 
 On the contrary, in consultation as to what the Ken 
 tucky Eesolutions of 98 and 99 should contain, he wished 
 the following sentiments to be incorporated therein : "Ex 
 pressing in affectionate and conciliatory language our warm 
 attachment to the union with our sister States, and to 
 the instrument and principles by which we are united; 
 
 THAT WE ARE WILLING TO SACRIFICE TO THIS EVERYTHING 
 BUT THE RIGHTS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THOSE IMPOR 
 TANT POINTS WHICH WE HAVE NEVER YIELDED, AND IN 
 WHICH ALONE WE SEE LIBERTY, SAFETY, AND HAPPINESS." 1 
 
 Is it not perfectly obvious, from this passage, that Mr. 
 Jefferson had not been so dazzled by the glories of the 
 new Union as to forget the immortal principles of the 
 Declaration of Independence? 
 
 Devoted to the Union, but still adhering to the great 
 principles of 1776, he immediately adds that we are "not 
 at all disposed to make every measure of error, or of 
 wrong, a cause of scission." Could language more clearly, 
 or more necessarily, imply that there are measures of 
 error, or of wrong, which he would make a ground of 
 scission, or secession from the Union? Or could any 
 doctrine be more clearly asserted, than is the opinion of 
 Mr. Jefferson, that the States, and the States alone, are to 
 be the judges whether the measure of error, or of wrong, 
 which justifies her secession, has been filled or otherwise? 
 
 1 "Jefferson s Works," vol. iv, p. 305-6. 
 
192 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 THE POLITICAL CREED OF THE STATE-EIGHTS PARTY 
 
 The Virginia Eesolutions of 98 and the Kentucky Eeso 
 lutions of 98 and 99, the former from the pen of "the 
 father of the Constitution/ and the latter from the pen 
 of the author of the Declaration of Independence, consti 
 tuted, for at least forty years, the political creed of the 
 great State-Eights party. They were, as every one knows, 
 the manifestoes on which Thomas Jefferson went before 
 the people, in 1800, as candidate for the Presidency of the 
 United States. They were also inscribed on the banners 
 of the party by which Madison, and Monroe, and Jackson, 
 and other candidates, were supported for the same high 
 office. Were they, then, at that time, deemed treasonable 
 by the people, or by their leaders? Let us glance at the 
 record and see. 
 
 In 1800, Mr. Jefferson beat his opponent, John Adams, 
 then President of the United States, by a majority of 
 eight votes in the electoral college, or by a vote of 73 to 65. 
 
 In 1804, Mr. Jefferson, the champion of State Eights, 
 beat his opponent by the overwhelming majority of 162 
 votes to 14. In the Northern States alone, Mr. Jefferson 
 received 85 votes, and his opponent only 9. 
 
 In 1808, Mr. Madison beat his opponent by a vote of 
 122 to 47 ; and, in spite of the dissatisfaction of the New 
 England States, he received from the whole North a 
 majority of 50 to 39 votes. 
 
 In 1812, he defeated DeWitt Clinton, a distinguished 
 citizen, and formerly Governor of New York, by a major 
 ity of 128 to 89 ; receiving in the Northern States only 
 40 votes to his rival s 80. 
 
 In 1816, James Monroe, of Virginia, received 183 votes, 
 and his opponent only 34 ; and more than one-half of 
 these 183 votes were given by Northern States. 
 
 In 1820, Mr. Monroe was elected over John Quincy 
 Adams, of Massachusetts, by the majority of 231 votes to 
 13. Two other candidates were in the field at the same 
 time, Crawford and Jackson, both of whom together re 
 ceived only 11 votes. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 195 
 
 This vote, however, can hardly be regarded as a test of 
 the popularity of the doctrine of State Eights, since this 
 was, in 1820, professed by all the candidates for the Presi 
 dency. Yet this fact shows that the opposite party had 
 been so often and so completely defeated that it refused 
 to nominate a candidate. But James Monroe, the suc 
 cessor of Jefferson and Madison, and well known as an 
 ardent advocate of the doctrine of State sovereignty, swept 
 the whole country, and carried everything before him like 
 a tornado. Henceforth all aspirants for the Presidency 
 bowed down to that great symbol of political truth and 
 power, the Virginia Resolutions of 98. Even Mr. Webster 
 approached them with evident signs of awe, and never 
 ventured to speak of them otherwise than in terms of 
 marked respect, if not of veneration. No living soul dared 
 breathe the suspicion that any one of their doctrines was 
 treasonable. 
 
 How, then, did it happen that those doctrines were 
 afterward arraigned by Story and Webster as at war with 
 the Constitution of the United States? How did it happen 
 that, without the most distant allusion to the Virginia 
 Resolutions, under which so many battles had been fought 
 and so many victories won, the great orator of New 
 England had the audacity to declare that all the fathers 
 of the Constitution, that all the publications of friends 
 and foes, denied the Constitution to be a compact between 
 sovereign States? The foregoing brief sketch of the 
 progress of opinion in regard to the nature of the Con 
 stitution would be incomplete without an answer to this 
 question ; without some notice of the causes by which so 
 marvelous a revolution was produced. 
 
 THE DECLINE or THE DOCTRINE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF 
 THE STATES AND ITS CAUSES 
 
 Mr. Dane says: "For forty years one great party has 
 received the Constitution, as a federative compact among 
 the States, and the other party, not as such a com 
 pact, but in the main national and popular." 1 Now, as 
 
 1 Quoted in Story s Commentaries, vol. 1, p. 288, note. 
 
196 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 we have seen in this chapter, the above statement is not 
 true. The Federal party itself, with Hamilton at its head, 
 admitted the Constitution to be a compact between the 
 States. The State of Massachusetts, the great leading 
 State of that party, always held the Constitution to be such 
 a compact previous to the year 1830. She held this 
 doctrine, as we have just seen, in 1788, in 1799, in 1803 ; 
 and she continued to hold it until, in 1815, it culminated 
 in the avowed right of secession. There is, then, no truth 
 in the statement that for forty years one great party denied 
 the Constitution to be a federative compact among the 
 States. One great party, it is true, showed a strong dis 
 position to deny the sovereignty of the States in the Union, 
 and to assert the sovereignty of the Federal Government. 
 But the doctrine imputed to it was not one of its heresies. 
 
 Neither Mr. Dane, nor Judge Story, who quotes his 
 words, is pleased to inform the reader that "the great 
 party," which is asserted to have sanctioned their own 
 heresy, was swept from existence by the other great party. 
 It sank so low, in fact, after the war of 1812, and became 
 so odious, that none was so humble as to do it reverence. 
 
 Nor did they inform the reader that the great leaders 
 of this very party in Xew England became, in 1815, when 
 in distress, the warmest of all existing advocates for the 
 rights and the .sovereignty of individual States. They do 
 not even drop a hint that those leaders, those staunch 
 advocates of the sovereignty of the Federal Government, 
 were the first to insist on the right of secession; a fact 
 which would have detracted very much from the weight 
 of their authority against the doctrine of "a federative 
 compact among States/ 7 even if they had ever rejected 
 that doctrine. 
 
 History acquits the old Federal party of the monstrous 
 heresy imputed to it. Having been chief agents them 
 selves in framing "the federative compact" for the States, 
 and having anxiously watched the States as, one after 
 another, each acceded to that compact, such a heresy, such 
 a perversion of the facts falling under their own observa 
 tion, would have been utterly beyond their power. How, 
 then, and why, did the heresy in question raise its head in 
 the Northern States? 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 197 
 
 This question is easily answered. 
 
 1. The doctrine of a compact is attended with one 
 great inconvenience; the inconvenience, namely, that if it 
 be violated by one of the parties, the other parties are 
 absolved from its obligations. This great inconvenience is 
 set forth by Dr. Paley ; to whose chapter on the subject, in 
 his "Political Philosophy," Mr. Justice Story refers. Now 
 this doctrine makes the stability of the Federal Compact 
 depend on the good faith of all the parties, which seemed 
 quite too frail a foundation for the Union. Hence, the 
 doctrine of a federative compact, which, for forty years 
 had been held by both the great parties of the United 
 States, was explained away, and the will of the strongest 
 substituted in its place. According to his theory, then, the 
 Union rested, not on the justice of the parties, but on the 
 despotic power of the dominant faction. He thus placed 
 the Union, by his construction, on what he conceived to 
 be a more solid foundation "than a federative compact 
 between the States." But this, as we have seen, was to 
 subvert the foundation laid by the fathers of the Union; 
 and, in order to make good his theory, he had to falsify 
 the whole political history of the United States during the 
 first forty years of the existence of the new Union; espe 
 cially the views and the authority of its founders. 
 
 2. The right of secession had never been seriously con 
 sidered by any party, so long as the Union was prosperous 
 and happy. But, during the period from 1803 to 1815, the 
 great leaders of New England, regarding their section as 
 grievously oppressed in the Union, revolved the great 
 theme in mind, and, for the first time in the history of 
 parties, deliberately asserted the right of secession. In 
 view of this alarming event, it became still more important, 
 in the opinion of Mr. Justice Story and other con- 
 structionists, to deny the doctrine of a federative compact, 
 from which, as he saw and admitted, so frightful a con 
 sequence necessarily resulted. 
 
 3. This denial became the more indispensable, in Judge 
 Story s opinion, because Mr. William Eawle had, in 1825, 
 asserted the right of secession in his work on the Consti- 
 
198 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 tution. Mr. Justice Story alludes to the opinion of Mr. 
 Rawle, and, deploring it, he bent all his energies and 
 erudition to demolish the doctrine of a federative compact, 
 from which that right necessarily results. Thus, accord 
 ing to his theory, the Union was to be hooped with bands 
 of iron, and not trusted to the mutual sympathy and good 
 faith of its members. 
 
 4. But, however great and commanding the influence 
 of Story s opinion, or view of the Constitution, it would 
 have been comparatively feeble if it had not been aided 
 by public events. South Carolina, feeling herself and some 
 of her sister States grievously oppressed in the Union, by 
 the tariffs of 1824 and 1828, planted herself on the great 
 platform of State Rights, and nullified the act of Congress. 
 The indignation of the North was aroused. Nullification, 
 it was said, led directly to secession, or a dissolution of the 
 Union. The New England States, which had only fifteen 
 years before advocated the right of secession, now led the 
 tierce crusade against its advocates. John C. Calhoun, 
 the great nullifier, was the mark of their fury. It was in 
 this contest, as every one knows, that the great orator oi 
 New England, Mr. Webster, put forth "the greatest intel 
 lectual effort of his life," if not of the human mind. The 
 whole North was electrified by his eloquence, and became 
 intoxicated with his fictions. 
 
 Much has been said about the Northern and the South 
 ern theories of the Constitution. The true word is, how 
 ever, the theories of the majority and of the minority. 
 For the Southern theory, as it is called, originated in New 
 England ; and, passing from minority to minority, found 
 a permanent resting place in the South. Yet it may, with 
 truth, be called the Southern theory, since the South has 
 always been in the minority in the new Union. 
 
 Mr. Webster lived to pronounce a splendid eulogy on 
 the virtues, the patriotism, and the genius of John C. 
 Calhoun, with whom he had long served in the Senate of 
 the United States. But the successors of Mr. Webster 
 have, for more than eighteen long months, held the bosom 
 friend and the peer of John C. Calhoun in prison at 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 199 
 
 Fortress Monroe, as if he were already a convicted felon 
 and traitor. Yet is it, as we have seen, his only crime, that 
 he sat at the feet of Thomas Jefferson, "the immortal 
 author of the Declaration of Independence," and there 
 learned the right of secession ? Shall the people, then, who 
 sang loud hozannas to the great master, follow the equally 
 great disciple with the cry of crucify him, crucify him.? 
 Or shall it be said that they voted the Presidency for the 
 one, and a prison for the other ? 
 
CHAPTEE XVI 
 
 THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 IN the preceding chapters the Constitutional right of 
 secession has, it seems to me, been demonstrated. If so, 
 then, in the eye of reason, the Southern States are ac 
 quitted of every offence against the Constitution, or the 
 supreme law of the land. But, however clear a legal or 
 Constitutional right, it may not be always proper to exer 
 cise it. If the Southern States exercised the right of 
 secession merely because they possessed that right, or 
 merely because they were beaten at an election, or for any 
 such "light and transient cause," then they committed a 
 great wrong. Then, although they violated no law of the 
 land, they committed a great and grievous wrong against 
 the moral law of the world, by a capricious exercise of 
 their sovereign right and power. Hence, the vindication 
 of the Southern States in the forum of conscience, as well 
 as in that of the law, demands an exposition of the causes 
 of secession. It would require a volume to do justice to 
 this subject; and yet, at present, a brief sketch is all that 
 can be attempted. 
 
 THE BALANCE OF POWER 
 
 From the foundation of the American Union to the 
 present day the provision of its Constitution for the frac 
 tional representation of slaves has been more talked about, 
 and less understood, than any other clause of that "sacred 
 instrument." One would suppose that if any one really 
 desired to ascertain the reason or design of this "singular 
 provision," as it is called, he would look into the debates 
 of the Convention by which it was inserted in the Consti 
 tution. 
 
 In these debates, as reported in "The Madison Papers," 
 the reason or design of the fathers in the enactment of 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 201 
 
 that clause is as clear as the noonday sun. Yet, in all that 
 has been written by the North on the subject, there is not 
 even a glimmering of light as to that reason or design. 
 "Men make books," says old Burton, "as apothecaries make 
 medicines, by pouring them out of one bottle into another." 
 This has most emphatically been the way in which men 
 have made books on "the American Question"; and, in 
 the case before us, the bottles were originally filled, not 
 at the pure fountains of historic truth, but from the turbid 
 streams of ignorance, falsehood, and misrepresentation. 
 Yet, for three-quarters of a century, has all this stuff 
 been continually poured out of one book into another! 
 Accordingly, we find it in a hundred books on both sides 
 of the Atlantic, uttered with just as much confidence as 
 if the authors had some knowledge on the subject. 
 
 Thus are we gravely told, and with great confidence, 
 that "the weakest point in the Constitution lies elsewhere. 
 It lies in that truckling to the slave-power which is obvious 
 in it. It lies especially in that singular provision for what 
 is termed black or slave 7 representation, whereby alone, 
 amongst all species of property, that in human flesh is 
 made a source of political power." 1 Xow, if anything 
 in history is certain it is that, after a protracted debate! > 
 the Convention of 1787 agreed that population^and popuj 
 lation alone, should constitute Jhe basis_of representation^. 
 V The slaves were not represented at all as property^ This is 
 evident, not only from the debates of the Convention of 
 1787, but from the very face of the Constitution itself. 
 "Representatives," says that document, "shall be appor 
 tioned among the several States which may be included 
 within this Union, according to their respective numbers 
 ffjnot one word is said about property], which shall be 
 determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, 
 including those bound to service for a term of years, and 
 excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other 
 persons/ Thus, in this very clause, the slaves are called 
 "persons," and are to be represented as such, not as 
 property. Hence, when Mr. G-reeley, in his "American 
 Conflict," wishes to prove that the Constitution regards 
 
 1 "History," by T. M. Ludlow, pp. 44-5. 
 
202 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 slaves as "persons/ 3 he quotes the clause in question. Nay, 
 Mr. Ludlow himself, when it suits his purpose, can recog- 
 t nize the truth that the Constitution "never speaks of the 
 [, slaves as a property, but as a person/ 1 If, indeed, slaves 
 I had not been regarded as persons, they would not have 
 been admitted into the basis of representation at all. 
 
 Now, did the North truckle to the South, in conceding 
 that slaves are "persons"? Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey, 
 and some other Northern members, endeavored to ex 
 clude slaves from the basis of representation on the ground 
 that they were "property" ; but Mr. Butler and Mr. C. C. 
 Pinckney, both of South Carolina, insisted that they were 
 "persons," that they were a portion of the laboring and 
 productive "population" of the South; and, as such, 
 should be included in the basis of representation on a 
 footing of equality with other "inhabitants." The Con 
 vention decided that they were "persons." Was this 
 decision correct? Or was it, on the contrary, a mean 
 "truckling to the slave power"? 
 
 In the declamations on this subject it is usually taken 
 for granted by Northern writers, as well as by Mr. Lud 
 low, that free citizens or voters alone are included in the 
 basis of representation for the North, while three-fifths 
 of the slaves are embraced in it for the South. Hence, 
 this is vehemently denounced as a "singular provision," 
 as a "strange anomaly," as a most undue advantage to 
 the South. But the fact is not so. The assumption is 
 utterly false. By the decision of the Convention, and by 
 the very terms of the Constitution, "the whole number of 
 free persons," whether men, women, children, or paupers, 
 are included in the bases of representation. All "persons," 
 of every age, color, and sex are included in that basis. 
 Hence Mr. Ludlow is mistaken in calling the clause in 
 question "the provision" for "black" representation. The 
 blacks, as such, were included in the general provision, 
 and ranked as equal to the whites. In like manner, 
 Professor Cairnes errs in saying the clause under consider 
 ation "is known as the three-fifths vote." 2 No such thing 
 as a "three-fifths vote" is known to the Constitution of the 
 
 1 Page 51. - "The Slave Power," chap. vi. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 208 
 
 United States, and the name is the coinage of ignorance. 
 The three-fifths clause has nothing to do with votes or 
 voting. No slave could cast the three-fifths, or any 
 fraction, of a vote. The free blacks were, in most cases, 
 denied the exercise of the elective franchise. It was in 
 counting the number, not of those who should vote, but 
 only of those who should make up the basis of representa 
 tion that five slaves were to be reckoned equal to three 
 white persons, or three free negroes. 
 
 Now, why was this? Had the Convention any rule of 
 vulgar fractions by which a slave was shown to be only 
 the three-fifths of a person ? And if they had, did not the 
 clause in question result from a mathematical calculation, 
 rather than from a "truckling to the slave power"? or, if 
 that was treated as a question of vulgar fractions, why 
 did the Convention stop there? Why not raise other 
 questions of the same kind? Why not consider the 
 problem, if a full-grown slave is only the three-fifths of a 
 person, what fraction of a person is the infant of a day 
 old, before the power of thought, or of local motion, has 
 even begun to infold itself in him or her? The truth is 
 that the Convention of 1787 indulged in no such trifling 
 with the great, practical questions demanding a solution. 
 
 The States were exceedingly jealous of "the sovereignty, 
 freedom, and independence/ 7 which they had expressly 
 retained under the Articles of Confederation. The Federal 
 Government claimed, on the other hand, an augmentation 
 of its powers; a claim eloquently urged by the tongues 
 and pens of many of the ablest men in America. Hence 
 arose the great conflict between the States and the central 
 Power; which, from that day to this, has agitated the 
 minds of the Anglo-Americans. In approaching this 
 conflict, the Convention first determined, in outline, the 
 form of the General Government. It was readily agreed 
 that it should be a Eepublic, with a Legislature consisting 
 of two branches, a Senate and House of Eepresentatives, 
 a Judiciary, and an Executive. The next question was, 
 what powers shall the States delegate to this General 
 Government, this grand Bepublic? After debating this 
 question for some time, the Convention discovered that it 
 
204 THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 had begun at the wrong end. None of the parties were 
 willing to say with what powers the new Government 
 should be invested, until it was ascertained what share 
 they were to have in the exercise of those powers. Hence 
 the Convention found it necessary to retrace its steps, 
 and begin with the question of the distribution of power 
 among the various members of the Union. In this contest 
 for power each and every party, of course, claimed "the 
 lion s share. " But each and every party could not have 
 "the lion s share." Hence the two memorable quarrels or 
 controversies of the Convention of 1787 ; the one between 
 "the large and the small States," and the other between 
 "the North and the South." Much is known about the 
 first of these quarrels, but the history of the last yet 
 remains to be written. Its very first chapter is still 
 enveloped in the most profound obscurity. I speak 
 advisedly, and with the proofs on all sides around me, 
 when I say that the Americans themselves have not studied 
 this first chapter in the history of the great quarrel between 
 "the North and the South." Let us look into it, then, and 
 see what it teaches. 
 
 In order to adjust and settle the two quarrels above 
 mentioned, Mr. Madison laid down the general principle 
 that "wherever there is danger of attack there should be 
 a Constitutional power of defence." No principle could 
 have* been more reasonable or just; since the object of all 
 government is to protect the weak, or those most exposed 
 to danger, against the aggressions of the powerful. The 
 Convention, without difficulty, agreed to the above prin 
 ciple when only stated in general terms; but, as usual in 
 such cases, a great difference of opinion arose in regard to 
 the application of the principle. 
 
 The small States, for example, fearing lest the large 
 States should "annex" them, or swallow them up in some 
 other way, refused to increase their power in the Union. 
 They insisted that each State, whether small or great, 
 should have precisely the same power in both branches of 
 Congress. This would have placed all the powers of the 
 Federal Legislature in the hands of the small States. They 
 were willing, nay, they were eager, to possess them all; 
 
THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 205 
 
 just as if they had not the least fear that they could ever 
 be tempted to do the least injury to the large States. 
 But the large States, not having this perfect confidence in 
 the justice of their little neighbors, refused to entrust them 
 with the supreme control and destiny of the Union. Hence 
 they refused "the lion s share" to the small States. They 
 contended, however, for this share for themselves. They 
 contended that each State should, in each branch of the 
 Federal Legislature, have a power exactly proportioned to 
 its size or population; an arrangement which would have 
 given the absolute control of the whole government of 
 the thirteen States to three States alone. Yet those three 
 States (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia), 
 with a perfect unanimity and a burning zeal, contended 
 for this supreme dominion in the new Union. The small 
 States, till then equal in Constitutional power with the 
 large ones, resented this as a design to degrade and enslave 
 them. This contest was the most obstinate and violent one 
 of the Convention of 1787. "The truth is," said Alexander 
 Hamilton, in regard to this very quarrel, "it is a contest 
 for power, not for liberty." Each party, in its eagerness 
 to grasp the supreme power, neglected the rights and 
 interests of the other. 
 
 This violent contest, which threatened to break up the 
 Convention and blast all hope of a "more perfect Union," 
 was finally settled by one of "the compromises of the Con 
 stitution." It was agreed that the States should retain 
 their equality in the Senate, each having two representa 
 tives in that body, and that they should be represented in 
 the other branch of Congress in proportion to their popu 
 lations. Thus the small States controlled the Senate, and 
 the large ones the House of Eepresentatives. Hence 
 neither party could oppress the other. As no law could 
 be passed without the concurrence of both Houses of Con 
 gress, so it must obtain the consent of the small States in 
 the one, and of the large States in the other. Each class 
 of States had a check upon the power of the other. Thus, 
 where "there was a danger of attack," there was, on both 
 sides, given "Constitutional power of defence." This was, 
 in deed as well as in word, to "establish and ordain 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 liberty." Hence the most violent contest of the Convention 
 of 1787 ceased to agitate the bosom of the new Union. 
 This admirable arrangement was proposed by Oliver Ells 
 worth,, of Connecticut, and recommended on the ground 
 that, in a Kepublie, it is always necessary to protect the 
 minority against the tyranny of the majority. 
 
 The same principles and policy governed the Conven 
 tion in its attempt to adjust and settle the great antago 
 nism between the North and South. Mr. Madison was 
 so deeply impressed with the importance of arming each 
 of these sections with a defensive power against the other, 
 that he proposed "the numbers of free white inhabitants 7 
 as the basis of representation in one House of Congress, 
 and the whole population, including blacks as well as 
 whites, as the basis of representation in the other. This 
 distribution of power would have given the North a 
 majority in one branch of the Legislature, and the South 
 a majority in the other. But the proposition failed. Mr. 
 Madison did not urge it, indeed, because, as he said, it 
 presented a cause of quarrel which was but too apt to arise 
 of itself. 
 
 After the States were made equal in the Senate, each 
 having two representatives in that body, the North had 
 the entire control of it. As there were eight Northern 
 States (Delaware was then considered a Northern State), 
 and only five Southern States, so the North had a majority 
 in the Senate of 16 to 10. Hence, if the South was to 
 have any defensive power at all it should have had a 
 majority of representatives in the other branch of Congress. 
 Accordingly, Southern members insisted on the full repre 
 sentation of the whole population of the South, as well as 
 of the North, in order that their section might have a 
 majority in one branch of the common Legislature. The 
 North, on the contrary, insisted that the slaves should be 
 entirely excluded from the basis of representation ; which 
 would have given that section a decided majority in both 
 branches of Congress. Thus, while the South contended 
 for a power of self-defence or protection, the North aimed 
 at no less than absolute control and dominion. The South 
 would not submit. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATKS 207 
 
 The North and the South were then,, as they afterward 
 appeared to De Tocqueville, "more like hostile nations, 
 than rival parties, under one government." The fierce con 
 test for power between them resulted in the compromise 
 of the three-fifths clause of the Constitution. In proposing 
 this clause, Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, said it could not 
 be justified on principle, whether property or population 
 were regarded as the basis of representation, but that it 
 was deemed "necessary as a compromise between the North 
 and the South." As such it was seconded by Mr. C. C. 
 Pinckney, of South Carolina, and as such it was adopted 
 by the Convention. This clause was, then, a compromise, 
 not between abstract metaphysical principles of govern 
 ment, but between the opposite and conflicting claims of 
 the two rival sections. Did the North, then, "truckle to 
 the slave power"? It is certain that she grasped at and 
 gained a majority in both branches of the common Legis 
 lature. For, in spite of the clause in question, the North 
 had a majority of 36 to 29 in the House of Eepresentatives, 
 as well as of 16 to 10 in the Senate ; a share which cer 
 tainly ought to have satisfied any ordinary lion. 
 
 But it is the fate of a democracy to be governed more by 
 words than by ideas, more by "telling cries" than by 
 truth. The cry has always been that the slaves, who had 
 no wills of their own, were represented in Congress; and 
 that this "singular provision," this "strange anomaly," 
 had resulted from a base "truckling to the slave power." 
 But for this provision, says Professor Cairnes, 1 there 
 seemed to be nothing in the Constitution "which was not 
 calculated to give to numbers, wealth, and intelligence 
 their due share in the government of the country." Did 
 the general clause, then, which places idiots, paupers, free 
 negroes, and infants of all ages, in the basis of representa 
 tion, provide for nothing but a representation of "the 
 intelligence and wealth of the country"? The truth is 
 that none of these clauses were represented in Congress; 
 they were merely considered in the difficult question of 
 the distribution of power among the States and the 
 sections. The only persons really represented were the 
 
 1 "The Slave Power," p. 164. 
 
208 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 voters, who had the legal right to choose their own repre 
 sentatives. It was in this way, and in this way alone, 
 that the Convention sought to secure a representation of 
 the "wealth and intelligence" of the country. But who 
 cared for the truth? The telling cry, that slaves were 
 represented in Congress, inflamed the passions of the 
 North, and served the purpose of demagogues infinitely 
 better than a thousand truths. Hence the world has been 
 filled with clamors about "the slave representation of the 
 South." 
 
 The deceivers are, however, careful to conceal the fact 
 that all classes of "persons," except the slaves, are reckoned 
 at their full value in constituting the basis of representa 
 tion. The women and children of the North alone, many 
 of whom were born in foreign countries and had never 
 been naturalized in America, have been the source of far 
 greater political power than that which has resulted from 
 the whole population of the South. Is it not much nearer 
 to the truth, then, to say that the South has been governed 
 by the women and children of the North,, than that "the 
 North has been governed by the slaves of the South" ? 
 
 Immense, indeed, has been the advantage of the clause 
 in question to the South ! Only let Mr. Ludlow, or one 
 of his school, estimate this advantage, and it is sufficient 
 to astonish the world ! Is gives to "every poor white" 
 at the South, "however ignorant and miserable," "ten 
 times the political power of the Northerner, be he never so 
 steady, never so wealthy, never so able." 1 How wonderful 
 the disparity ! And, considering that "all men are created 
 equal," how infinitely more wonderful that the wealthy and 
 the able Northerner should have so long and so patiently 
 submitted to such an amazing inequality ! What ! The 
 rich Northerner, the merchant prince, or the great lord 
 of the loom, only the one-tenth part of the political power 
 of the "poor white" at the South ! Is it possible ? Mr. 
 Ludlow proves the whole thing by figures ; and "figures," 
 it is said, "can not lie." Let us see, then, this wonderful 
 proof of the wonderful fact. "Suppose," says Mr. Ludlow, 
 "300,000 be the figures of population required to return a 
 
 1 "History," P- 49. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 209 
 
 representative, then, whilst 300,000 freemen of the North 
 are required for the purpose, 30,000 Southerners, owning 
 collectively 450,000 slaves, or 15 on an average (many 
 plantations employing hundreds) are their equals politic 
 ally, and every poor white/ however ignorant and miser 
 able, has his vanity gratified by standing at the ballot-box 
 the equal of his richest slaveholding neighbor, whilst each 
 of them is equally invested with ten times the political 
 power of the Northerner, be he never so steady, never so 
 wealthy, and never so able." But he must, indeed, have 
 been a most "ignorant and miserable" white, if he could 
 have had his vanity gratified, or his judgment swayed, by 
 any such logical process or conclusion. This specimen of 
 logic, or rather of legerdemain, only assumes that none but 
 "the 30,000 Southerners," with their "450,000 slaves, or 
 fifteen on an average," are included in the basis of repre 
 sentation. But since, in fact, all persons are included in 
 that basis, Mr. Ludlow should have taken some little pains 
 to explain to his poor ignorant readers how it is possible 
 for eight millions of whites to own only four millions of 
 blacks, and yet for each white to own, "on an average/ as 
 many as "fifteen slaves." 
 
 It would seem, without much calculation, that, in such 
 a case, there could be only one slave to every two whites. 
 If so, then, if the slaves had been regarded as whole 
 "persons," the Southerner would have had only one and 
 a half times the power of the Northerner. But as, in fact, 
 the slave was counted as little more than the half of a 
 person, so the Southerner possessed only a little more 
 than one and a quarter times as much political power as 
 his Northern neighbor. There was, then, no reason why 
 the vanity of the poor, ignorant white of the South should 
 have been so highly gratified, nor why the pride of the rich 
 nabob of the North should have been so deeply wounded. 
 
 But this whole way of viewing the subject is, in reality, 
 perfectly puerile. What has the political power of the indi 
 vidual to do with such a question? There is the broad 
 fact, acknowledged by all the parties and all sections, that, 
 at the time the Constitution was formed, the South was 
 superior to the North both in wealth and population. 
 
210 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 Hence, if either wealth or population had heen made the 
 basis of representation, and fairly carried out in practice, 
 the South would have had the majority in one branch of 
 Congress. As it was, however, the North resolutely fought 
 for and secured the majority in both branches thereof. 
 Was not this, then, sufficient to gratify the pride of the 
 North, as well to humble that of the South ? 
 
 Suppose that in a society of ten millions of people, eight 
 millions are united by one interest, and the remaining two 
 millions by another interest. Suppose, again, that in order 
 to get the two millions to enter into such a society, each 
 individual of them had been allowed two votes, or twice as 
 much power as an individual of the eight millions. Would 
 this render the two millions secure? Would this give the 
 minority a "defensive power" against the majority? 
 "Ignorant and miserable," indeed, must be the individual 
 in such a minority, if his vanity could be gratified by the 
 possession of twice as much power as an individual of the 
 majority, while that majority had the power to rob him 
 of both his purse and his good name: 
 
 The only strange thing in the transaction is, why the 
 South should have consented to enter into so unequal a 
 union with the North ; why she should have entrusted her 
 rights, her interests, her honor, her glory, and her whole 
 destiny to the care and keeping of a foreign and hostile 
 majority. This seems the more wonderful, because, at 
 that time, every statesman in America regarded nothing 
 as more certain than the tyranny of the majority. "Com 
 plaints are everywhere heard/ said Mr. Madison, in The 
 Federalist., "from our most considerate and virtuous citi 
 zens . . . that measures are too often decided, not 
 according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the 
 minor party, but by the superior force of an interested 
 and overbearing majority." 1 
 
 It was the grand object of the Convention of 178? to 
 correct this tendency, this radical vice, if not this in 
 curable evil of all democratic republics. The evils under 
 which the country labors, it was said in that Convention, 
 are, on all hands, "traced to the turbulence and violence of 
 
 1 No. x. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 211 
 
 democracy/ to the injustice and tyranny of the majority. 
 "To secure the public good, and private rights," said The 
 Federalist., "against the danger of such a faction [i. e., of 
 such "an interested and overbearing majority"], and at the 
 same time to preserve the spirit and the form of a popular 
 government, is then the great object to which our inquiries 
 are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum, 
 by which alone this form of government can be rescued 
 from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, 
 and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of 
 mankind." 1 
 
 Did the South, then, with her eyes open, willingly put 
 her neck in the yoke of such a majority? If, as every 
 Southern statesman knew perfectly well, "it is of great 
 importance in a republic to guard one part of society 
 against the injustice of another part," 2 did the South 
 really fail to demand such a safeguard? Did she place 
 herself under the rule of the North, without taking any 
 security for her protection, without claiming any "Con 
 stitutional power of defence" ? Nothing was further from 
 her thoughts. If she had been seduced into the Union by 
 the idea, by the immense advantage, that each of her 
 citizens would have a little more power in one branch of 
 Congress than those of the Xorth, she would have been 
 the weakest and most contemptible of creatures. 
 
 The citizen of a small State, such as Delaware or Rhode 
 Island, might have had ten, or twenty, or thirty times 
 the power in the other House of Congress, which a citizen 
 of Pennsylvania or Virginia possessed ; and yet this would 
 not have satisfied him unless the small States could have 
 controlled that branch of the Legislature. This control of 
 the Senate was demanded for the small States, as one of 
 the indispensable conditions of Union, and this demand 
 was conceded to them ; in order that the minority might, 
 in this instance, enjoy that freedom, and independence, 
 which it had resolutely refused to hold at the mercy of the 
 majority. 
 
 By all the principles, then, of the Convention of 1787, 
 by the great object for which that Convention assembled, 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. x. - Ibid. 
 
212 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 by the very nature and design of all Constitutional 
 republics, they were bound to protect the minority against 
 the majority. They were, especially, bound to protect the 
 South against the North; the weaker and the richer sec 
 tions against the stronger and the more rapacious. Ac 
 cordingly, this was the grand object of the Convention. 
 The design was good, but the execution was bad. The 
 South insisted on the three-fifths clause, and some North 
 ern members resisted its enactment; because it was be 
 lieved, on both sides, that this would ultimately give the 
 South a majority in the House of Representatives. It 
 would, as every one knew, give the North the majority 
 at the outset; but population was, before the adoption of 
 the new Union, so much more rapidly increasing at the 
 South than at the North, that the Convention believed 
 that the South would soon gain the ascendancy in the 
 lower House of Congress. The debates of the Conven 
 tion bear ample and overwhelming testimony to the 
 prevalence of this belief. The speeches of Madison, Mason, 
 Pinckney, Butler, and others from the South, as well as 
 of Morris, King, Wilson, and other from the North, con 
 clusively show that the Convention intended to allow the 
 South the prospect of a majority in one branch of Con 
 gress. Such was the object and design of the three-fifths 
 clause. Such was the reason of the Convention for ad 
 mitting a fraction of the slave population into the basis 
 of representation. From this point of view, that provision 
 appears as reasonable and just to every thinking man, as 
 from any other it seems strange, singular, anomalous. It 
 was, as Rufus King, of Massachusetts, declared in the 
 Convention, due to the South, as a Constitutional power 
 of defence, or protection, in the new Union. 
 
 This "singular provision/ 7 then, about which so much 
 has been said and so little known, did, according to the 
 design of its authors, lie at the very foundation of the 
 Constitution of the United States. Neither the large 
 States nor the small States, neither the North nor the 
 South, would agree to enlarge the powers of the common 
 government, until they could first see how those powers 
 were to be distributed among themselves as the principal 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 213 
 
 parties to "the compact of the Constitution." Neither the 
 North nor the South would, for one moment, have dreamed 
 of entering into the new Union, if it had believed that the 
 other would continue to have a majority in both branches 
 of the Federal Legislature. Neither would have consented 
 thus to hold its rights and interests at the mercy of the 
 other. Each was, as the debates show, perfectly willing to 
 hold the reins of empire and dominion over the other. But 
 while each was thus perfectly willing to rule, it had some 
 little objection against being ruled. It could easily trust 
 itself, but not its rival, with the control of the supreme 
 power, and it was, no doubt, amply prepared to bear with 
 becoming fortitude any hardship or danger which might 
 result to its ally from such an arrangement in its own 
 favor. Hence the absolute necessity of the compromise in 
 question. On no other terms, or conditions, could the new 
 Union, with its vastly augmented powers, have arisen 
 between the two great sections, which were so violently 
 agitated and repelled by similar electricities. That "com 
 promise," then, that "singular provision," that partial 
 admission of slaves in the basis of representation was 
 introduced and enacted to adjust the balance of power 
 between the North and the South. It was one of the 
 fundamental principles of the Constitution, without which 
 "the more perfect Union" could not have been formed 
 between the sections. 
 
 The three-fifths clause or compromise, then, intended to 
 give the one section, as well as the other, a defensive power 
 in the new Union, was absolutely indispensable to the 
 formation of that Union. Such a defensive power was, 
 indeed, deemed by a majority of the fathers of the Con 
 stitution, absolutely indispensable to the safety, freedom, 
 and independence of each of the sections in the Union. 
 Yet, however strange it may seem, no public man in 
 America has, from that day to this, taken the pains to 
 make himself acquainted with the reason and design of 
 that fundamental provision of the Constitution of the 
 United States! 
 
 The author of the "American Conflict" regards slaves 
 as "human beings"; and quotes the clause in question, 
 
214 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 "three-fifths of all other persons," to prove that the Con 
 stitution regards them in the same light. Why, then, says 
 he, were they not represented "like other human beings, 
 like women and children, and other persons, ignorant and 
 humble, and powerless, like themselves?" The answer is 
 very easy. Although the Convention did, as their pro 
 ceedings show, adopt population as the basis of repre 
 sentation ; yet was the majority more bent on the possession 
 of power, than on the preservation of their logical con 
 sistency. If, instead of compromising the difficulty, the 
 South had persisted in pushing the principle adopted by 
 the Convention to its logical conclusion, then would the 
 great design of that body of legislators have been spoiled, 
 and all prospects of the "more perfect Union" blown 
 into thin air. So much for one horn of his formidable 
 dilemma. "If, on the other hand," says he, "you con 
 sider them property mere chattels personal why should 
 they be represented any more than ships, or houses, or 
 cattle? Here is a nabob, who values his favorite high 
 bred horse at five thousand dollars, and five of his able- 
 bodied negroes at the same amount. Why should his 
 five negroes count as three men in apportioning the 
 representatives in Congress among the several States, while 
 the blooded horse counts for just nothing at all?" Here, 
 again, the answer is perfectly easy. The slaves were not 
 counted as property at all : and, consequently, there was 
 no inconsistency in excluding horses, or other quadrupeds, 
 from the basis of representation. Thus, neither horn of 
 the dilemma is quite as unanswerable as the author 
 imagines it to be, and utterly fails to show the absurdity 
 of the clause in question as one of the "unsightly and 
 anomalous" excrescences of the slave power. 
 
 In reply to the two questions of his own dilemma the 
 author says : " We can only answer that Slavery and 
 Reason travel different roads, and that he strives in vain 
 who labors to make these roads even seem parallel." Such 
 is his profound commentary on one of the most important 
 clauses, one of the most indispensable provisions, of the 
 Constitution of his country. He is, in the same spirit, 
 pleased to speak of this provision of the Constitution, as 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 215 
 
 if it had been hastily adopted by the Convention, "with 
 out much debate or demur 7 ; T and that, too, just after he 
 had quoted the undeniable words of one of the most cele 
 brated members of the Convention, which show that it had 
 "been settled 77 only "after much difficulty and delib- 
 ration." 2 Roger Sherman was right; and Horace Greeley 
 was wrong. The Convention had something more to do 
 than merely to "split the difference 77 between two hairs, 
 or abstractions; they had to adjust the balance of power 
 between the two great rival sections of the United States ; 
 a problem which lay at the very foundation of the new 
 Union, and upon the satisfactory solution of which the 
 whole superstructure was destined to depend. It is absurd, 
 as well as untrue, to say that such a question was settled 
 without much difficulty. It exercised, to the utmost, all 
 the sagacity and wisdom of the Convention of 1787. That 
 wisdom is, no doubt, utter foolishness to the radical re 
 formers, who never fail to condemn Constitutions and laws 
 without even knowing, or caring to know, the reasons on 
 which they are founded. 
 
 "Slavery and Reason" have, it is true, often traveled 
 "different roads. 77 But, in the case before us, the South 
 would have been glad to travel the same road with Reason, 
 and follow the principle of the Convention to its logical 
 conclusion. But the sturdy North would not listen to 
 that conclusion. Hence if the South departed from the 
 road of Reason at all, it was in order to meet the hard 
 demands of the North, and join in the Union, which has 
 proved her ruin. Jt proved her ruin; just because the 
 balance of power, which the fathers intended to establish 
 between the two sections, was overthrown and destroyed. 
 That equilibrium, or balance of power, was, in the opinion 
 of the fathers, indispensable to the safety, freedom, and 
 independence of each section in the Union; and its 
 destruction has illustrated and confirmed the wisdom of 
 their decision. 
 
 On this subject a distinguished Northern writer, in 
 1860, used the following language: 
 
 "At the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution 
 the condition of slaves was very different at the South 
 
 1 "The American Conflict," p. 46. -Ibid., p. 43. 
 
216 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 from what it has since become. At that time there was, 
 as we have shown in a previous chapter, no large branch 
 of industry to engage the blacks, and their future fate 
 was matter of anxiety. The progress of the cotton cul 
 ture has changed that, and the interests of millions of 
 whites now depend upon the blacks. The opinions of 
 statesmen of that day were formed upon existing facts; 
 could they have seen fifty years into the future their views 
 upon black employment would have undergone an entire 
 change. The blacks were then prospectively a burden ; 
 they are now an absolute necessity. They then threatened 
 American civilization; they are now its support. With 
 multiplying numbers they have added to the national 
 wealth. They have become the instruments of political 
 agitation, while they have conferred wealth upon the 
 masses. 
 
 "From the moment of the formation of the Federal 
 Union there commenced a struggle for political power 
 which has not ceased to be directed against the Slave 
 States. The instrument of union, while it provided for 
 the extinction of the slave-trade, which then formed so 
 large a portion of Northern traffic, contained also a pro 
 vision for black representation in the Southern States, 
 stipulating that that representation should not be changed 
 until 1808, and thereafter only by a vote of three-fourths 
 of all the States. That provision has been the ground-work 
 of that constant Northern aggression upon Southern inter 
 ests which has so successfully gained on the Federal power 
 until now it imagines the desired three-fourths is within 
 its reach, ivlien the South, with its interests, will be at the 
 feet of the abolitionists. The South has stood steadily on 
 its defence, but while the circle has narrowed in upon it, 
 the North has not ceased to clamor against Southern ag 
 gression ! Like Jemmy Twitcher, in the farce, who, having 
 robbed a passenger, loses the plunder, and exclaims, 
 "there must be some dishonest person in the neighbor 
 hood! . . . 
 
 The original thirteen States that adopted this Consti 
 tution were all Slave States with the exception of Massa 
 chusetts, which, although it then held no slaves, had an 
 
THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 217 
 
 interest in continuing the slave-trade, in opposition to the 
 wishes of the Slave States. The struggle in the Convention 
 in relation to the discontinuance of the slave-trade was 
 between the New England States, that desired the traffic, 
 and Virginia and Delaware that wished no more slaves, 
 while those Southern States that had but a few blacks 
 desired to import them without tax. On the vote New 
 Hampshire and Massachusetts voted to continue the trade 
 until 1808, and Virginia and Delaware voted "nay," or 
 for its immediate discontinuance. 
 
 No sooner had. the Constitution been adopted, however, 
 than the annexation of Louisiana became a necessity, in 
 order to give an outlet to the sea for the produce of the 
 West, but, notwithstanding the great advantage which the 
 annexation was to confer upon Massachusetts, she opposed 
 it to the point of threatening to dissolve the Union if it 
 was carried out. That, after the great rebellion of Shay 
 within her border, was the first disunion threat, and the 
 motive was fear of the political increase of Southern 
 strength. Those fears were like all party pretences, short 
 sighted, since that territory has given more Free than 
 Slave States to the Union. This threat of disunion was 
 made while yet Massachusetts was engaged in the slave- 
 trade, that the State had voted to prolong to 1808. The 
 same cry was renewed in respect to Florida, and again, 
 with greater violence, in the case of Missouri ; to be again 
 revived in respect to Texas; and once more, with circum 
 stances of greater atrocity, in the case of Kansas. It is 
 remarkable that while Free States come in without any 
 great struggle on the part of the South, the safety of 
 which is threatened by each accession, the admission of 
 Slave States is the signal of so much strife, and this 
 resistance to a manifest right of the South is denounced 
 as "Southern aggression." 
 
 The gradual abolition of slavery in the old Northern 
 States, and the rapidity with which Eastern capital, fol 
 lowing migration, has settled the Western States, has 
 given a large preponderance to the free interest in the 
 national councils. Of the 26 senators that sat in the first 
 Congress, all represented a slave interest, more or less; 
 
218 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 with the States and territories now knocking for admis 
 sion there are 72 senators, of whom 32 only represent the 
 slave interest. That interest, from being "a unit" in the 
 Senate, has sunk to a minority of four, and yet the 
 majority do not cease to complain of Southern "aggres 
 sion." With this rapid decline in the Southern vote in 
 the great "conservative body" of the Senate, the repre 
 sentation in the lower House^has fallen to one-third. How 
 long will it be before the desired three-fourths vote, for 
 which a large party pant, will have been obtained, and, 
 when obtained, what will have become of those Southern 
 rights which are even now denied by party leaders to be 
 any rights at all? In the last 30 years 11 Free States 
 have been prepared for the Union; a similar progress in 
 the next 30 years, and the South will have fallen into that 
 Constitutional minority which may deprive it of all re 
 served rights. This circle is closing rapidly in upon it, 
 amid a continually rising cry of abolition, pointed by 
 bloody inroads of armed men*. This is called Southern 
 "aggression." 1 
 
 The balance of power was overthrown. The South 
 lost, more and more, her original equality in the Union; 
 and the just design of the fathers was despised and 
 trampled underfoot by the Northern Demos. Every cen 
 sus showed that her power had diminished, as her dangers 
 had increased; and she no longer found herself in the 
 original Union of equal sections. On the contrary, she 
 found herself in a minority, which the Southern men of 
 1787 would have shunned as the plague, and threatened by 
 a vast majority as cruel as death, and as inexorable as the 
 grave. This was not the Union of the fathers, but the 
 warped and perverted Union of unjust rule and domina 
 tion. The States of New England never failed to threaten 
 a dissolution of the Union whenever, in their jealous 
 imaginations, there seemed even a prospect that the balance 
 of power might turn in favor of the South in only one 
 branch of Congress. Yet the more this balance was 
 actually turned in their favor, and the South, contrary to 
 the design of the fathers, reduced to a hopeless minority, 
 
 1 "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits." p. 130-4(1. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 319 
 
 the more imperiously they demanded her implicit sub 
 mission to Northern rule, and the more fiercely was de 
 nounced here every struggle to maintain her original 
 equality and independence as "Southern aggression." 
 
 From a table in the work above quoted it appears that, 
 at each succeeding census, the relative increase of the two 
 sections in the House of Representatives was as follows: 
 
 Before Census 1700 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 
 
 North, 35 57 77 104 133 141 135 144 
 
 South, 30 53 65 79 90 100 88 90 
 
 Majority, 5 4 12 25 43 41 47 54 
 
 Thus, in one branch of the Legislature, the Northern 
 majority, counting Delaware as a Southern State, had 
 increased from a majority of five to a majority of fifty-four 
 representatives. The South, as every reader of American 
 history must know, never would have entered into so un 
 equal a Union with the North; and the North would not 
 have continued in the Union, if she had not always retained 
 the balance of power in her own hands, and in both 
 branches of Congress. 
 
 As the North had so great a majority in the House, it 
 was the more important that the South should, at least, 
 retain her original share of power in the Senate. But 
 even this she was not allowed to do. In order to gain 
 the complete and uncontrolled ascendancy in the Seriate, 
 as she had done in the House, the North began to exclude 
 all slaveholding States from the Union. This she at 
 tempted in regard to Missouri, and persisted in her un 
 constitutional attitude until she was defeated by the votes 
 of a few Northern democrats, who sacrificed themselves to 
 save the Union and their own party. 
 
 After the restoration of the Democratic party, and dur 
 ing its reign, the rights of the States were so clearly vindi 
 cated, and so firmly established, that few ventured to claim 
 for Congress the power to exclude a State from the Union, 
 because she held slaves. Hence the Republican party 
 changed its tactics, and endeavored to effect the same un 
 constitutional design in another way. Not daring to say, 
 as their predecessor had done, that Congress could exclude 
 
220 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 a slaveholding State from the Union, they determined that 
 no more such States should be formed. For this purpose, 
 they resolved to exclude the South from all the territories 
 of the Union; so that no addition should ever be made 
 to her power, while that of the North was allowed to 
 increase with still greater rapidity. The North resolved, 
 in fact, that every new State formed, and admitted into 
 the Union, should be an accession to her own overgrown 
 power. The South might object and complain; but what 
 could she do ? Was she not already in a helpless minority ? 
 
 If we count Delaware as a Southern State, then the 
 North, instead of a majority of one State in the Senate, 
 had a majority of three States, or of six votes, before the 
 first Southern State seceded from the Union. There were 
 eighteen Northern, and only fifteen Southern States repre 
 sented in that branch of Congress; which was designed 
 to act as a check on the majority in the House of 
 Eepresentatives. Nor was this all. For there were, at 
 that time, nearly ready to come into the Union Kansas, 
 Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Utah, and New 
 Mexico, which would have made the Northern majority as 
 overwhelming in that body as it was in the other branch 
 of the Federal Legislature. If the tables had been turned, 
 if the picture had been reversed, the North would have 
 laughed such a Union to scorn. She could not even tol 
 erate, indeed, the bare thought, or imagination, that the 
 South might gain the ascendancy in the Senate in only 
 one branch of the Federal Legislature. 
 
 Thus, while the greedy North continued to grow in 
 power, and in a determination to crush the South beneath 
 her feet, she filled the earth with her clamors about "the 
 aggressions of the slave power" ; appealing to the preju 
 dices and passions of mankind in her crusade against an 
 unknown and despised people. The South simply stood 
 on the defensive. The one struggled for empire, for 
 dominion ; the other for independence, for existence. The 
 one struggled to preserve her original equality in the 
 Union; the other to destroy that equality. The one 
 directed all its efforts to uphold the balance of power 
 established by the authors of the Constitution, and deemed 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 221 
 
 by them the only safeguard of freedom in the Union ; the 
 other bent all its energies to break that balance, and grind 
 its fragments to powder. 
 
 Hence the South became extremely sensible of the 
 dangers of her position in the Union. All hope of a 
 "Constitutional power of defence 7 therein had been wrested 
 from her grasp. That safeguard of her freedom and inde 
 pendence, which the founders of the Eepublic deemed so 
 essential to both ends of the Union, no longer existed for 
 the South; and she held her rights and interests at the 
 mercy of the North, as it was never intended she should 
 hold them. She could see, therefore, as clearly as Pro 
 fessor Cairnes, that the extinction of her freedom and 
 independence was, sooner or later, her inevitable destiny in 
 the Union. That dark destiny, however, she beheld with 
 far other eyes than those with which it was contemplated 
 by the Professor of Jurisprudence. Beholding, with 
 delight, the ultimate ruin of the South in the Union, he 
 denounced secession as treason and rebellion; but it is to 
 be hoped that, in the estimation of mankind, it will not be 
 deemed an unpardonable offence, if she was not entirely 
 devoid of the natural instinct of self-preservation. 
 
 Jefferson Davis, in the name of the South, gave utter 
 ance to this natural instinct in the Senate of the United 
 States in 1850. "The danger," said he, "is one of our own 
 times, and it is that sectional division of the people which 
 has created the necessity of looking to the question of the 
 balance of power, and which carries with it, when dis 
 turbed, the danger of disunion." Such was the treason of 
 Jefferson Davis in 1850 ! But far bolder language had 
 been used by Northern statesmen, and by Northern 
 Legislatures, in behalf of the North ; not because the 
 North was in a present or real, but only because she was 
 in a future and purely imaginary, minority. The treason 
 of the weak is the patriotism of the strong. 
 
 THE BELATIVE DECLINE OF THE SOUTH IN THE 
 NEW UNION 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that from the first settlement of 
 the country the South continued to increase in population 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 and wealth more rapidly than the North, till the new 
 Union was established. In the Convention of 1787 it was, 
 on all sides, conceded that the South surpassed the North 
 both in population and in wealth. But from that event, 
 from the inauguration of the "more perfect Union," her 
 relative decline began. This fact has always been ascribed, 
 by the enemies of the South, to the malign influence of the 
 institution of slavery. But slavery existed before the new 
 Union without producing any such effect. Hence, how 
 ever great the evil influence of slavery may have been, it 
 was not sufficient to counteract the great natural advan 
 tages of the South, until the new Union came to its aid. 
 The action of the Federal Government was, in the opinion 
 of many impartial judges, the great cause of this relative 
 decline of the South, in spite of the resources which nature, 
 with a large and liberal hand, had lavished on her teeming 
 soil and beneficent climate. 
 
 The influence of this cause is well explained by a devoted 
 friend to the Union. Eice and indigo were, says he, the 
 great staples which, under the protection of the British 
 Crown, had been the sources of the superior wealth of the 
 South before the Eevolution. But under the protection, 
 or rather under the neglect, of the Federal Government, 
 these great interests languished, and these great staples 
 were finally crushed out of the markets of the world by 
 the hostile legislation of foreign powers. The decline of 
 the South would have been as hopeless as it was rapid, if 
 the cultivation of cotton, in consequence of several well- 
 known improvements and inventions, had not become 
 sufficiently remunerative to stand alone without the aid 
 or support of the Federal Government. This great staple 
 and source of wealth caused the South to revive. It not 
 only arrested the sort of "galloping consumption" under 
 which she was fast sinking into comparative insignificance, 
 but it also restored her to something of the fulness and the 
 glow of her former prosperity. But the North fixed her 
 eagle eye on the rising prosperity of the South, and soon 
 planted the talons of her tariffs deep in its very vitals. 
 
 "The tariff question," says Mr. Ludlow, "may be easily 
 disposed of." 1 He certainly disposes of it with very great 
 
 1 "Histoi-y," p. 305. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEX THE STATES 223 
 
 ease. A few prudently selected, and carefully trimmed, 
 extracts from Mr. Benton are among the facile means he 
 employs for the purpose. Let us, then, hear Mr. Benton 
 himself, not in garbled extracts merely, but in the full, 
 round utterance of great historic truths. Mr. Benton was 
 no friend to the institution of slavery, or to its extension. 
 In regard to this last most exciting question, he was 
 decidedly with the North. But yet, unlike Mr. Ludlow and 
 his school, Mr. Benton could both see and feel that some 
 thing else beside slavery exerted an evil influence in the 
 United States of America. Accordingly, in 1828, he 
 uttered the following words in the Senate : "I feel for the 
 sad changes which have taken place in the South during 
 the last fifty years. Before the Eevolution it was the seat 
 of wealth as well as of hospitality. Money and all it 
 commanded abounded there. But how now? all this is 
 reversed. Wealth has fled from the South and settled in 
 the regions Xorth of the Potomac ; and this in the face of 
 the fact that the South in four staples alone has exported 
 produce since the Eevolution to the value of eight hundred 
 millions of dollars; and the Xorth has exported com 
 paratively nothing. Such an export Avould indicate un 
 paralleled wealth, but what is the fact? In the place of 
 wealth a universal pressure for money was felt not 
 enough for current expenses the price of all property 
 down the country drooping and languishing towns and 
 cities decaying and the frugal habits of the people pushed 
 to the verge of universal self-denial for the preservation 
 of their family estates. Such a result is a strange and 
 wonderful phenomenon. It calls upon statesmen to en 
 quire into the cause." 
 
 How did slavery produce this wonderful transformation ? 
 How did slavery work all this ruin? Slavery, it is well 
 known, existed before the Eevolution, as well as afterward ; 
 and accompanied the South in the palmiest days of her 
 prosperity, as well as in the darkest and most dismal hour 
 of her adversity. Hence it was not, and could not have 
 been, the one cause of so great and so sudden a change. 
 And besides, instead of having ceased to produce, the fair 
 and faithful South continued to pour forth, in greater 
 
224= THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 abundance than ever, the broad streams of national pros 
 perity and wealth. Hence she was impoverished, not 
 because the fountains of her former supply had been dried 
 up, or even diminished in volume, but because the great 
 streams flowing from them did not return into her own 
 bosom. Into what region of the earth, then, did these 
 streams empty themselves? 
 
 Mr. Ben ton answers this question! and though his 
 answer is diametrically opposed to the views of the Bright 
 and Cobden school, he is the great authority whom Mr. 
 Ludlow himself had brought upon the stand. Under 
 "Federal legislation," says Mr. Benton, "the exports of 
 the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue. 
 . . . Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia may be 
 said to defray three- fourths of the annual expense of 
 supporting the Federal Government; and, of this great 
 sum annually furnished by them, nothing or next to 
 nothing is returned to them in the shape of Government 
 expenditures. That expenditure flows in an opposite 
 direction it flows northwardly in one uniform, unin 
 terrupted, and perennial stream. This is the reason why 
 wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the 
 North. Federal legislation does all this. It does it by the 
 simple process of eternally taking from the South and 
 returning nothing to it. If it returned to the South the 
 whole or even a good part of what it exacted, the four 
 States south of the Potomac might stand the action of the 
 system, but the South must be exhausted of its money and 
 property by a course of legislation which is forever taking 
 away and never returning anything. Every new tariff 
 increases the force of this action. No tariff has ever yet 
 included Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, except 
 to increase the burdens imposed upon them.* 
 
 Nor was Mr. Benton alone in this opinion. The politi 
 cal economists of the North, such as Carey, Elliott, 
 Kettell, and others, who had studied the sources of national 
 wealth in America, gave precisely the same explanation of 
 the sudden and wonderful disappearance of wealth from 
 the South. The North might easily satisfy its own con 
 science, by making slavery the scapegoat for its sins; but 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 225 
 
 thinking men, even at the North, were not so readily 
 deceived. Hence, in an able work, entitled "Southern 
 Wealth and Northern Profits/ the author does not hesi 
 tate to tell the people of his own section that it was gross 
 injustice, if not hypocrisy, to be always growing rich on 
 the profits of slave-labor; and, at the same time, to be 
 eternally taunting and insulting the South on account of 
 slavery. Though it was bitterly denounced as "the sum 
 of all villainies," it was, nevertheless, the principal factor 
 in Northern wealth. 
 
 In like manner, Professor Elliott, though a Northern 
 man, and an enemy to slavery, yet, as a political econo 
 mist, and teacher of the science in a Northern college, he 
 denied that it had impoverished the South. On the con 
 trary, he has, in a work styled "Cotton is King," shown 
 that slave-labor has been one of the great sources of 
 Northern wealth. Is it any wonder, then, that the think 
 ing men of the South should have entertained the same 
 opinion? Is it any wonder that they should have agreed 
 with Benton, and Kettell, and Elliott, and other Northern 
 writers that it was legislation, and not slavery, which had 
 impoverished the South? It is certain that such was the 
 conclusion of the thinking men of the South, in view of 
 her sad and frightfully altered condition. 
 
 "Such a result," says Mr. Benton, "is a strange and 
 wonderful phenomenon. It calls upon statesmen to enquire 
 into the cause ; and if they enquire upon the theater of this 
 strange metamorphosis they will receive one universal 
 answer from all ranks and ages, that it is Federal legis 
 lation which has worked this ruin." If, under such cir 
 cumstances or belief, the South has been satisfied with the 
 action of the Federal Government, her people must have 
 been the greatest of all simpletons, or the most patient of 
 all saints. They were neither; they were merely human 
 beings, who had some little regard for their own interests, 
 as well as for those of their neighbors. Hence, the tariffs 
 of the United States, by which one portion of the people 
 was impoverished for the benefit of another portion of the 
 people, left in the minds of the most influential men of the 
 South a deep and abiding sense of the injustice of 
 Northern legislation. 
 
226 THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 What less could have been anticipated? All majorities 
 are, in fact, unjust, despotic, and oppressive. Hence, in 
 the opinion of the Convention of 1787, if either section 
 should have the majority in both branches of Congress, it 
 would oppress the other. As this opinion was founded on 
 the experience of the past, so it was afterward confirmed 
 by the history of the future. Indeed, if the North, with 
 a majority in both branches of Congress, had not op 
 pressed the South, it would have been unlike every other 
 unchecked power in the history of the world. 
 
 There have been, no doubt, lets, hindrances, and pauses 
 in this onward march of the triumphant power of the 
 North. But it has always had its eye fixed on one object 
 of supreme desire, namely, on absolute dominion and 
 control. It had already become absolutely overwhelming 
 in one branch of Congress, with the certainty of soon be 
 coming equally overwhelming in the other. There was 
 not a member of the Convention of 1787, who, if his own 
 section had been in the minority, would not have shrunk 
 from such a Union with horror. He must, indeed, have 
 been profoundly ignorant of the sentiments of the fathers, 
 as well as of the character of all interested majorities, who, 
 could have supposed, for a moment, that the South might 
 have been free, or safe, or happy in such a Union. What ! 
 is that freedom which is held at the mercy of another? 
 Is that safety which depends on the will of an interested 
 majority ? 
 
 What was to have been expected from such a majority 
 is well described in the speeches of John C. Calhoun; in 
 the "Essay on Liberty," by John Stuart Mill; and in the 
 celebrated work of De Tocqueville on "Democracy in 
 America." Both De Tocqueville and Mill are advocates 
 of democracy; and yet, if possible, they draw more fright 
 ful pictures of the tyranny of an unchecked majority than 
 has John C. Calhoun himself. "The majority in that 
 country [the United States]," says M. De Tocqueville, 
 "exercise a prodigious, actual authority, and a moral 
 influence which is scarcely less preponderant; no obstacles 
 exist which can impede, or so much as retard its progress, 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 227 
 
 or which can induce it to heed the complaints of those 
 whom it crushes upon its path." 1 
 
 But if such was the unprejudiced conclusion of a great 
 philosophic observer, in 1833, what was to have been ex 
 pected from a sectional majority, growing continually in 
 greatness, in power, and in hatred of the sectional 
 minority? Had the South no reason for her fears? If 
 not, then De Tocqueville, and Mill, and Calhoun were the 
 veriest simpletons that ever lived. If not, then the 
 founders of the Republic had all read the history of their 
 own times wrong, and wrote libels on the character of 
 unshackled majorities ? 
 
 M. De Tocqueville has told the exact truth. "This 
 state of things," said he, in 1833, "is fatal in itself, and 
 dangerous for the future. ... If the free institutions 
 of America are ever destroyed that event may be attributed 
 to the unlimited authority of the majority. 
 Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been 
 brought about by despotism." 2 
 
 THE FORMATION OF A FACTION 
 
 There is a vast difference between a political party and 
 a faction. The one is legitimate, healthful, and conserva 
 tive; the other is the fatal disease of which nearly all 
 republics have perished. The one is united by principles, 
 or designs, which persons in any part of the Republic may 
 freely adopt and cherish; the other is animated by a 
 "common interest, or passion," which is hostile to other 
 interests of the same community. Now, the great object 
 of the legislation of 1787 was to provide a remedy for the 
 fatal effects of faction. 
 
 "Among the numerous advantages," says The Federalist, 
 "promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to 
 be more accurately developed than its tendency to break 
 and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular 
 governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their 
 character and fate, as when he contemplates their pro 
 pensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, 
 
 1 "Democracy in America," vol. i, p. 301. 2 Ibid., p. 317. 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 to set a due value on any plan which,, without violating the 
 principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure 
 for it." 1 
 
 Mr. Madison, the author of the above words, used still 
 more impressive language on the same subject, in the 
 Virginia Convention of 1788. "On a candid examination 
 of history," he there said, "we shall find that turbulence, 
 violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling 
 on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and 
 commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently 
 than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over 
 the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall 
 find their destruction to have generally resulted from those 
 causes. IF WE CONSIDER THE PECULIAR SITUATION OF THE 
 UNITED STATES, AND WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF THAT 
 DIVERSITY OF SENTIMENT WHICH PERVADES ITS INHABIT 
 ANTS, WE SHALL FIND GREATER DANGER TO FEAR THAT THE 
 
 SAME CAUSES MAY TERMINATE HERE, IN THE SAME FATAL 
 EFFECTS, WHICH THEY PRODUCED IN THOSE REPUBLICS." 2 
 
 Here, then, was the rock on which the new Republic was 
 in the greatest danger of being dashed to pieces. Hence, 
 Mr. Madison well adds: "This danger ought to be wisely 
 guarded against." Otherwise the great republic must in 
 evitably split on the rock of faction, and go to the bottom 
 with the republics of the past. 
 
 It was, therefore, the great object of the legislation of 
 1787 to guard the new Republic against the rise, or for 
 mation, of a faction. This, as we have already seen, is well 
 stated in The Federalist, as follows : "When a majority is 
 included in a faction, the form of popular government en 
 ables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion, or interest, both 
 the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure 
 the public good, and private rights, against the danger of 
 such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit 
 and the form of a popular government, is the great object 
 to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it 
 is the great desideratum by which alone this form of gov 
 ernment can be rescued from the opprobrium under which 
 it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem, 
 and adoption of mankind." 3 
 
 1 No. x. - "Elliott s Debates," vol. iii, p. 109. No. x. 
 
THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 229 
 
 By what means, then, did the .legislators, of 1787 hope 
 to remedy the evils of factions ; to subdue, if not to eradi 
 cate, that fatal disease of republics ? Mr. Madison replies : 
 "Perhaps, in the progress of this discussion, it will appear 
 that the only possible remedy for those evils and means of 
 protecting the principles of Eepublicanism, will be found 
 in that very system which is now exclaimed against as the 
 parent of despotism." 1 That is, in the new Union of 1787. 
 Now where, and how, did the new Union provide "the 
 only possible remedy" against the evils of faction? Ac 
 cording to the view of Mr. Madison, and of the majority 
 of the Convention of 1787, neither the North nor the 
 South would be able to form itself into a dangerous 
 faction; because, as they said, each section will have a 
 majority in one branch of Congress, and thereby hold a 
 Constitutional check on the power of the other. But this 
 remedy, as every one knows, proved a total failure. 
 
 The other great remedy against the evils of faction, 
 which, as the legislators of 1787 supposed, existed in the 
 new system, would be found in the great extent of the 
 Union, in the great number and diversity of its interests, 
 which would prevent "any one party being able to out 
 number and oppress the rest." 2 This remedy against fac 
 tion is repeatedly urged by Mr. Madison. Thus, he speaks 
 of the new Union "as the proper antidote for the diseases 
 of faction, which have proved fatal to other popular gov 
 ernments, and of which alarming symptoms have been 
 betrayed by our own"; 3 because "the influence of factious 
 leaders," who "may kindle a flame within their particular 
 States," . . . "will be unable to spread a great con 
 flagration through the other States." 4 Now this great 
 remedy also proved a failure. Factious leaders did kindle 
 a conflagration through all the Northern States; and the 
 great North, animated by one "passion, or interest," did 
 form itself into the most terrible faction the world has 
 ever seen, and point all the lightnings of its wrath at the 
 devoted South. 
 
 1 "Elliott s Debates," vol. iii, p. 109. 
 
 2 The Federalist, No. xiv. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Ibid., No. x. 
 
230 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 The fact is not denied by many of the great champions 
 of the Northern power. On the contrary, it was made a 
 ground of exultation and boasting by some of her most 
 eloquent orators. Thus, it was said "no man has a right 
 to be surprised at this state of things. It is just what we 
 have attempted to bring about. It is the first sectional 
 party ever organized in this country. It does not know its 
 own face, and calls itself national; but it is not national 
 it is sectional. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is A PARTY OF 
 THE NORTH PLEDGED AGAINST THE SOUTH/ JI Nothing 
 could have been more true. Thus, under and in spite of 
 the Constitution designed for the protection of all sections 
 and of all interests alike, the North did form itself into a 
 faction, and seize all the powers of the Federal Govern 
 ment. This may have been rare sport to the leaders of the 
 faction; it was the death-knell of the Republic. It was 
 the founders of the Union themselves being the judges 
 the fall of the Republic, and the rise of a despotism. 
 
 This faction, it is said, did "not know its own face." 
 Perhaps it was a little ashamed of its own face. It is 
 certain that it was very loud in its professions that all its 
 designs were national and Constitutional; even while it 
 avowed the purpose to "use all Constitutional means to 
 put an end to the institution of slavery." But no such 
 means were known to the Constitution, which, as the 
 leaders of that faction perfectly well knew, was estab 
 lished and ordained to protect all the institutions of the 
 South, as well as of the North. Use all Constitutional 
 means indeed ! Why, the very existence of such a faction 
 was an outrageous violation of the whole spirit and design 
 of the Constitution of 1787. It was, in one word, the last 
 throe of the mighty Republic, as it succumbed to the fatal 
 disease of which so many republics had previously per 
 ished. Conceived in profound contempt of the wisdom of 
 Washington, who, in his "Farewell Address," had so 
 solemnly warned his countrymen against the dangers of a 
 sectional party, or faction, it just marched right onward 
 in the light of its own eyes over broken Constitutions, and 
 laws, and oaths; trampling on all alike with imperial scorn 
 and proud disdain. 
 
 1 Wendell Phillips. 
 
THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 231 
 
 The South was advised to "wait for some overt act." 
 But if one finds himself in company with a strong man 
 armed, who is both able and willing to crush him, is it 
 wise to "wait for the overt act," or to withdraw from his 
 society as soon as possible? If the strong man armed 
 should make his withdrawal the occasion of his ruin, that 
 would only prove that the companionship was neither safe, 
 nor desirable. 
 
 The South, it is true, did not better her condition by 
 her withdrawal from the North. But is not all history 
 replete with similar instances of failure in the grand 
 struggle for freedom, safety, and independence? In the 
 golden words of The Federalist: "Justice is the end of 
 government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has 
 been, and it ever will be, pursued until it be obtained, or 
 until liberty be lost in the pursuit." 1 It was thus, in 
 the pursuit of justice, that the South lost her liberty. If 
 she had not engaged in the pursuit she would have 
 deserved to lose her liberty. 
 
 The South, it was said, had nearly always been in the 
 possession of the Government; and it was right, there 
 fore, that the North should take possession of it in her 
 turn. But this is one of the fictions of the North. The 
 South never had possession of the Government at all. 
 All the great powers of the Government are, for the most 
 part, lodged in the Congress of the United States, in 
 neither branch of which did the South ever have a major 
 ity. She was, indeed, when she entered into the new 
 Union, promised a majority in one branch of Congress; 
 but that promise, like an apple of Sodom, soon turned to 
 dust and ashes in her hands. 
 
 Nor had the South, as such, ever had a President of the 
 United States. The great Democratic party generally 
 selected its President from the South, but this did not 
 make them sectional Presidents. Neither Washington, nor 
 Jefferson, nor Madison, nor Monroe, nor Jackson, nor 
 Polk was a sectional President. On the contrary, so little 
 was there of a sectional nature in their characters, or 
 designs, that each and every one of them was elected to 
 
 1 NO. n. 
 
232 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 the Presidency of the United States by a large majority 
 of the Northern votes. Mr. Lincoln, on the other hand, 
 who was a sectional candidate, and put forth on purely 
 sectional grounds, did not receive a single Southern vote. 
 He was, then, the candidate not of a legitimate party, but 
 of the great unconstitutional and anti-republican faction 
 of 1861 ; that is, the candidate of "the party of the North 
 pledged against the South." 
 
 The North, with a majority in both houses of Congress, 
 was perfectly protected against every possible danger of 
 oppression. If, then, a statesman from the South had 
 always filled the office of President, still her situation 
 would have been far more precarious and unprotected 
 than that of the North. The President could introduce 
 no bill into Congress; he could only veto those which he 
 might deem unjust and oppressive. Surely, a most feeble 
 and uncertain protection to the South; since no man 
 stood the least chance for the Presidency, who was not 
 known to favor the wishes and the interests of the mighty 
 North. 
 
 The North, then, in possession of both branches of 
 Congress, and the dazzling prize of the Presidency to 
 influence the leading politicians of the South, was suffi 
 ciently secure in the Union ; even if all the Presidents had 
 come from the South. But all this did not satisfy the 
 North. On the false plea that the South had nearly 
 always been in possession of the Government, she deter 
 mined to take possession of all its departments, the supreme 
 Executive, as well as both branches of the Federal Legis 
 lature. Nor is this all. She determined to take and to 
 keep possession of them all in the name of the North, 
 alleging that the South had enjoyed them all long enough ; 
 and to wield them all by the terrible faction of "the North 
 pledged against the South." Nor was this all. The great 
 leader, or the great tool, of this faction declared that he 
 was not bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States ; that he would enforce the Constitution 
 as he understood it, and not as it was understood by that 
 high judicial tribunal. Indeed, this mighty faction was 
 got up and organized in direct opposition to, and in open 
 
THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 233 
 
 contempt of, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the 
 United -States; both in the Dred Scott case, and in the 
 case of Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Its 
 own will was its only law. 
 
 The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Prigg, 
 which authorizes the master to seize his fugitive slave 
 without process in any State of the Union, was the first 
 object of attack by the great leaders of this faction. The 
 Court was denounced as having been corrupted by pro- 
 slavery sentiments ; though this very opinion was delivered 
 by a Northern abolitionist, by Mr. Justice Story himself. 
 Mr. Justice Story could, as we have seen, go great lengths 
 in his advocacy of the Northern cause ; but yet, as a Judge 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States, he could not 
 decide in direct and open violation of his oath of office. 
 
 This instance of his integrity, in which other Northern 
 Judges concurred, brought down the indignation and 
 contempt of the great leaders of the Republican party upon 
 the Court, whose opinion he had delivered. It was then 
 threatened by those factious leaders that the Supreme 
 Court of the United States should be reorganized, and 
 made to conform to the wishes and sentiments of the 
 North; a purpose which was sure of its fulfilment after 
 the election of Mr. Lincoln, and which would have capped 
 the climax of the lawless designs of the Northern faction 
 "pledged against the South." 
 
 Mr. Madison, "the father of the Constitution," believed 
 that such a faction would never arise in the new Union. 
 But he never doubted, for a moment, that if it should arise 
 therein, this would prove that the Federal Government 
 had failed to answer the great end of his creation. For, 
 as we have seen, it was, in his own words, the great object 
 of that Government, "to secure the public good, and private 
 rights against the danger of such a faction," by providing 
 against the possibility of its appearance in the bosom of 
 the Republic. This is the great desideratum, which, ac 
 cording to the legislators of 1787, is necessary to remove 
 "the opprobrium under which that form of Government 
 has so long labored," and "to recommend it to the esteem 
 and adoption of mankind" ; and which they supposed had 
 
234 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 been supplied by their legislation. But their remedies 
 were too weak. Their practice was not sufficiently heroic. 
 Hence the fatal disease of republics, the rise of faction, 
 was not only engendered, but developed to a degree which 
 is without a parallel in the history of the world. The 
 design was good, but the execution defective. The fathers, 
 in one word, did not begin to foresee the weakness, the 
 folly, the madness of their descendants. Hence, their 
 sublime attempt to "establish justice, ensure domestic 
 tranquillity, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
 blessings of liberty to their posterity" proved an awful 
 failure. Indeed, if they could only have witnessed the 
 gigantic and terrific faction of 1861, they would have 
 pronounced their own "grand experiment" a disastrous 
 failure. It was so regarded by the South; and, for that 
 reason, the South wished to make an experiment for her 
 self. But, unfortunately, she was already in the clutches 
 of a relentless and a remorseless faction. 
 
 Factions have no heart, no conscience, no reason, no 
 consistency, no shame. Would you reason with such a 
 remorseless monster ? You might just as well read the riot 
 act to a thunderstorm. Would you appease its wrath? 
 Would you soothe its rampant and raging ferocity? 
 Would you appeal to all the tender mercies of our holy 
 religion? You might just as well sing a lullaby to the 
 everlasting roarings of the Pit. The South did not enter 
 into the "new Union" to be governed by any such faction. 
 She entered into the new Union, on the contrary, in order 
 to secure her freedom, her independence, her happiness, 
 her glory ; and she lost them all except her glory. 
 
 Even Mr. Madison, with all his devotion to the great 
 work of his own hands, never became so blind an idolater 
 as to resemble that epitome of meanness and climax of 
 servility "an unconditional Union-man." On the con 
 trary, still breathing the spirit of a freeman, he said : 
 "Were the plan of the Convention adverse to the public 
 happiness, my voice would be, Reject the plan. Were the 
 Union itself inconsistent with the public happiness, it 
 would be, ABOLISH THE UNION. ?n Even as late as 1830, 
 
 1 The Federalist, No. xlv. 
 
THE WAE BETWEEN THE STATES 235 
 
 he declared that "it still remains to be seen whether the 
 Union will answer the ends of its existence or otherwise." 
 If he had lived till 1861 he would have seen that the 
 Union, having failed to prevent the rise and reign of fac 
 tion, had not answered "the great object" of its creation; 
 and, consequently, no longer deserved to exist. Hence, 
 in 1861, he would either have unveiled the right of seces 
 sion, or else he would have belied all the great principles, 
 and sentiments, and designs of his life. 
 
 OTHEE CAUSES OF SECESSION 
 
 The foregoing grounds or causes of secession are, it 
 seems to me, amply sufficient to justify the South in the 
 exercise of a Constitutional right; for which she was 
 amenable to no tribunal on earth, except to the moral 
 sentiments of mankind. But there are still other and 
 powerful causes of secession, which it is unnecessary to 
 discuss in the present work. All the grounds of secession, 
 including those above considered, may be stated as follows : 
 
 the destruction of the balance of power, which 
 was originally established between the North and the 
 South; and which was deemed by the authors of the Con 
 stitution to be essential to the freedom, safety, and happi 
 ness of those sections of the Union. 
 
 Secondly, the sectional legislation, by which the original 
 poverty of the North was exchanged for the wealth of the 
 South; contrary to the great design of the Constitution, 
 which was to establish the welfare of all sections alike, 
 and not the welfare of one section at the expense of 
 another. 
 
 Thirty, the formation of a faction, or "the party of the 
 North pledged against the South," in direct and open 
 violation of the whole spirit and design of the new Union ; 
 involving a failure of the great ends for which the 
 Eepublic was ordained. 
 
 Poiirthly^ the utter subversion and contemptuous dis 
 regard of all the checks of the Constitution, instituted and 
 
236 THE WAK BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 designed by its authors for the protection of the minority 
 against the majority; and the lawless reign of the 
 Northern Demos. 
 
 ^HW^fj the unjust treatment of the slavery question, 
 by which the compacts of the Constitution made by the 
 North in favor of the South were grossly violated by her; 
 while., at the same time, she insisted on the observance of 
 all the compacts made by the South in her own favor. 
 
 Sixthly, the sophistry of the North, by which she 
 attempted to justify her injustice and oppression of the 
 South. 
 
 Seventhly, the abuse and slander heaped on the South 
 by the writers of the North. 
 
 Eighthly, the denial of the right of secession; the false 
 statements, and the false logic by which that right was 
 concealed from the people of the North; and the threats 
 of extermination in case the South should dare to exercise 
 that right. 
 
 These, it is believed, are the principal causes by which 
 the last hope of freedom for the South in the Union was 
 extinguished ; and, consequently, she determined to with 
 draw from the Union. Bravely and boldly did she strike 
 for Liberty ; and, if she fell, it was because, as the London 
 Times said, "she had to fight the world." 
 
CHAPTEE XVII 
 
 THE LEGISLATOES OF 1787 AS POLITICAL PROPHETS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 "EVERY particular interest," said Mr. Madison, in the 
 Convention of 1787, "whether in any class of citizens, or 
 any description of States, ought to be secured as far as 
 possible. Wherever there is danger of attack there ought 
 to be given a Constitutional power of defence." But he 
 contended that the States were divided into different 
 interests, not by their difference of size, but from other 
 circumstances; the most material of which resulted partly 
 from climate, but principally from the effects of their hav 
 ing or not having slaves. These two causes concurred in 
 forming the great division of interests in the United 
 States. It did not lie between the large and small States. 
 It lay between the Northern and Southern; AND, IF ANY 
 
 DEFENSIVE POWER WERE NECESSARY, IT OUGHT TO BE 
 MUTUALLY GIVEN TO THESE TWO INTERESTS. 1 In this 
 
 opinion of the leading member from Virginia, the leading 
 member from Massachusetts fully concurred. For Mr. 
 King "was fully convinced that the question concerning a 
 difference of interest did not lie where it had been hitherto 
 discussed, between the great and the small States, but 
 between the Southern and the Eastern. For this reason he 
 had been willing to yield something in the proportion of 
 representation for the security of the Southern/ 72 That 
 is, for the protection of the Southern interest, he had, as 
 we have seen., been willing to vote for the fractional repre 
 sentation of slaves. Such was, indeed, the opinion of the 
 Convention. 
 
 But while the legislators of 1787 agreed in this opinion, 
 they looked into the future with very different eyes. 
 Considered as political prophets they may, in fact, be 
 divided into three classes. 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers," D. 1006. 2 Ibid., p. 1057. 
 
238 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 JAMES MADISON 
 
 At the head of the first class there stands James Madi 
 son, "the father of the Constitution." Seeing, as he did, 
 that the great difficulty before the Convention was to ad 
 just the antagonism between the Forth and the South, 
 he must have known that the perpetuity of the new Union 
 would depend on the manner in which this difficulty should 
 be settled by their labors. Just before the meeting of the 
 Convention, indeed, this great antagonism had given birth 
 to a tremendous conflict between the North and South, 
 by which the Union was shaken to its foundations. Hence, 
 Mr. Madison had good reason to fear the violence of this 
 antagonism for the future: and he did fear it. For he 
 tells us that there ought to be given a Constitutional power 
 of defence to each of these sections, so that neither could 
 take advantage of the other. 
 
 He hoped, he fancied, he predicted that this had been 
 done. The South, he said, would soon have a majority in 
 the House of Bepresentatives, in consequence of the rapid 
 increase in her population, by which she would hold a 
 check on the power of the North. But this adjustment of 
 the great difficulty in question rested on the unstable and 
 fluctuating basis of population. It soon proved to be a 
 foundation of sand. The hope and the prediction of Mr. 
 Madison soon appeared to have been a delusion and a 
 dream. He staked the freedom, the safety, and the happi 
 ness of the South on the happening of a future event, 
 which never came to pass. 
 
 Indeed, he did not urge his plan for the adjustment of 
 the formidable antagonism in question, because, as he 
 said, it suggested a difficulty which was too apt to arise 
 of itself. It was, therefore, never adjusted at all, on any 
 solid foundation, or secure principle; and, consequently, 
 it did continue to arise of itself, and disturb the new Union 
 with convulsions from the beginning of its career to the 
 grand explosion of 1861. 
 
 Mr. Madison always feared the effects of this great and 
 imperfectly adjusted antagonism between the North and 
 the South. It seems, indeed, as if he wished to hide it from 
 
THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 239 
 
 his own eyes, as well as from those of the people. It is a 
 very remarkable fact that although, in the secret Conven 
 tion of 1787, he pronounced the antagonism between the 
 Northern and the Southern States the greatest of all the 
 difficulties they had to deal with; yet, when, in The 
 Federalist, he enumerated the difficulties the Convention 
 had to encounter, no allusion whatever is made to this 
 stupendous one. He seems to have imagined that, since it 
 is so apt to arise of itself, the less that is said about it the 
 better. This would, no doubt, have been very wise and 
 prudent, if a great danger might be remedied by simply 
 closing one s eyes upon its existence. 
 
 Nothing more easily disturbed his patience than any 
 allusion to the great danger created by the fearful antago 
 nism in question. In The Federalist how unlike his 
 usual style ! he pours forth the following strain of lachry 
 mose philanthropy or patriotism : "Hearken not to the 
 unnatural voice, which tells you that the people of 
 America, knit together as they are by so many cords of 
 affection, can no longer live together as members of the 
 same family; can no longer continue mutual guardians of 
 their mutual happiness. . . . No, my countrymen, 
 shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut 
 your hearts against the poison which it conveys. The 
 kindred blood which flows in the veins of American 
 citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in the 
 defence of their sacred rights, consecrates their union, and 
 excites horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, 
 enemies." 1 
 
 Yet, in spite of all this, Mr. Madison himself must have 
 had serious misgivings with respect to his beautiful dream 
 of a perpetual peace. For he knew, as we have seen, that 
 there was a danger of a collision between the North and 
 the South. It is certain that the voice which he pro 
 nounced unnatural was the voice of truth. For American 
 citizens did become aliens, rivals, enemies; and mingled 
 their blood far more freely and fearfully than they ever 
 had done in the defence of their common rights. But 
 Mr. Madison knew that, in order to secure the adoption 
 
 1 No. xiv. 
 
240 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 of the new Union, it would be necessary to persuade the 
 people that the very first condition of such a Union would 
 always obtain; namely, "a sufficient amount of sympathy 
 among its populations." Hence, perhaps, his dream of 
 peace was not all a dream, but partly rhetoric. 
 
 OTHER PROPHETIC VIEWS 
 
 The second class of prophets seems to have been with 
 out a head. Indeed it may, perhaps, be doubted whether 
 they spoke as prophets, or as diplomatists. It is certain 
 that they encouraged the notion of Mr. Madison and other 
 Southern legislators that the South would certainly have 
 a majority in the House of Eepresentatives. Several of 
 the most influential of the Northern legislators seemed 
 quite confident that such would be the good fortune of the 
 South; and none more so than Mr. Gouverneur Morris. 
 But were they always sincere in their belief ? Or did they 
 sometimes flatter the false hopes of the South in order to 
 be able to drive a better bargain with her? No finite 
 mind can, perhaps, answer these questions ; or tell whether 
 the legislators in question always spoke as prophets, or 
 sometimes as diplomatists. It is certain that the expecta 
 tion held out to the South, that she would be able to 
 control one branch of Congress, was the promise, the 
 prospect, the bait by which she was entrapped into the 
 new Union; into that tremendous dead-fall, by which, in 
 1861, she was crushed to the earth. Patrick Henry stood 
 at the head of the third and last class of prophets. 
 
 No man ever more clearly foresaw, or more confidently 
 predicted, the future than did Patrick Henry the calami 
 ties which have fallen on his beloved Virginia. With some 
 of the passages from this class of prophets, I shall con 
 clude this little book. 
 
 General Pinckney, of South Carolina, declared, that "if 
 they [the Southern States] are to form so considerable a 
 minority, and the regulation of trade is to be given to the 
 General Government, they will be nothing more than over 
 seers for the Northern States/ 1 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers," p. 1058. 
 
THE WAB BETWEEN THE STATES 241 
 
 In like manner,, Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, 
 said: "The Southern interest must be extremely endan 
 gered by the present arrangement. The Northern States 
 are to have a majority in the first instance, with the means 
 of perpetuating it." 1 
 
 George Mason said : "He went on a principle often ad 
 vanced, and in which he concurred, that a majority, when 
 interested, would oppress the minority. This maxim 
 [than which none is more just] had been verified in the 
 Legislature of Virginia. If we compare the States in this 
 point of view, the eight Northern States have an interest 
 different from the five Southern States; and have, in one 
 branch of the Legislature, thirty-six votes against twenty- 
 nine, and in the other in the proportion of eight to three. 
 The Southern States had, therefore, grounds for their 
 suspicions." 2 
 
 Mr. Henry said : "But I am sure that the dangers of 
 this system are real, when those who have no similar inter 
 ests with the people of this country [i. e., Virginia and the 
 South] are to legislate for us when our dearest interests 
 are to be left in the hands of those whose advantage it 
 will be to infringe them." 3 
 
 In the same Convention, Mr. Grayson, after declaring 
 that it was a struggle between the North and the South 
 for empire, proceeded to say : "Are not all defects and 
 corruptions founded on an inequality of representation and 
 want of responsibility? My greatest objection is that it 
 will, in its operation, be found unequal, grievous and op 
 pressive. If it have any efficacy at all, it must be by a 
 faction of one part of the Union against another. If it be 
 called into action by a faction of seven States, it will be 
 terrible indeed. We must be at no loss how this combina 
 tion will be formed. There is a great difference of cir 
 cumstances between the States. The interests of the 
 carrying States are strikingly different from those of the 
 productive States. I mean not to give offence to any part 
 of America, but mankind are governed by interest. The 
 carrying States will assuredly unite and our situations will 
 
 1 "The Madison Papers." p. 1058. - Ibid., p. 1387. 
 
 "Elliott s Debates." vol. iii. p. 2X0. 
 
242 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 
 
 then be wretched indeed. We ought to be wise enough to 
 guard against the abuse of such a government. Kepublics, 
 in fact, oppress more than monarchies/ 
 
 "The voice of tradition," said Henry, "1 trust will in 
 form posterity of our struggles for freedom. If our de 
 scendants be worthy .of the name of Americans, they will 
 preserve and hand down to the latest posterity the trans 
 actions of the present times, and, though I confess my ex 
 planations are not worth the hearing, they will see I 
 have done my utmost to preserve their liberty ." Tyler 
 responded, "I also wish to hand down to posterity my 
 opposition to that system. British tyranny would have 
 more tolerable." 
 
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