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of the other, therefore the convention of any state can secede from the constitutional government. Mr. Motley further says "The people of the whole land may meet, by delegates, in a great national convention, as they did in 1787, and declare that the constitution no longer answered the purpose for which it was made." We are wholly unable to find that any such convention was held in 1787. Some of the legislatures appointed delegates to a convention of that date, but they were not authorised to frame a constitution. There is no clause in that instrument contemplating its revision by a national convention. It can be amended (Article V.); but there is no provision for its annulment, because it was intended to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

Mr. Motley, very patriotically, thus writes:

"The Union alone is clothed with imperial attributes; the Union alone is known and recognised in the family of nations; the Union alone holds the purse and the sword-regulates foreign intercourse— imposes taxes on foreign commerce—makes war and concludes peace. The armies, the navies, the militia, belong to the Union alone; and the president is commander-in-chief of all. troops or fleets."

No state can keep

The Union holds

In the above there are several errors. a purse and a sword; and so do the states. The Union holds an army and a navy; and so does nearly every state. The constitution of Virginia declares, that its governor

"Shall be commander-in-chief of the land and naval forces of the state; have power to embody the militia to repel invasions, suppress insurrections, and enforce the execution of the laws; conduct, either in person or in such other manner as shall be prescribed by law, all intercourse with other and foreign states."

The constitution of the state of Oregon, recently admitted into the Union, declares, that "the governor shall be com

mander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of this state, and may call out such forces to execute the laws, to suppress insurrection, or to repel invasion."

The constitution of the United States says-

"The president shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States." The second amendment, entire, says "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The quotations from the constitutions prove that Mr. Motley was wrong; that the armies and navies do not belong to the Union alone; that the president is not commander-in-chief of all; and that states can keep troops and fleets. The entire militia of a state can be on a war footing at any time, and at all times, if the people of the state authorise it for its own protection; and the president of the United States has no authority over that militia army, however powerful it may be. Every state in the Union keeps and maintains troops, though they are styled the "Militia.” We have seen a review of 18,000 of the New York militia; and, in appearance and drill, they equalled, at least, the best soldiers of Europe.

The constitution and statute laws of every state contemplate the establishment of a permanent militia army, of which the governor is the commander-in-chief. In tenor, the powers of the executive of all the states are the same; and we need but refer to the constitution of New Hampshire, which we have before quoted from, to

* Vide, p. 142.

relieve Mr. Motley from his Utopian-like visions of the perfection of our government.

Mr. Motley stated, that the constitution "was not a compact. Who ever heard of a compact to which there were no parties? or who ever heard of a compact made by a single party with himself?" President Jackson, in his proclamation on the South Carolina secession, in 1832, thus differs from Mr. Motley. He said—

"Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said the parties to that compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart from it; but it is precisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A compact is an agreement or binding obligation.”

In the article referred to, Mr. Motley argued against secession, because the constitution of the United States

66

was not a compact." President Jackson argued against secession because the constitution "" was a compact." His proclamation contains the following conclusive argument against the right of secession :

:

It

"The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the states, or in any other manner, its character is the same. is a government in which all the people are represented; which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the states— they retained all the power they did not grant. But each state having expressly parted with so many powers, as to constitute, jointly with the other states, a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of the nation; and any injury to that unity is not only a breach, which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole nation. To say that any state may, at pleasure, secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offence. Secession, like any other revolutionary

act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent on failure."

It will be remembered that the noted Hartford convention assembled in 1814, while the United States was at war with Great Britain. Mr. Madison was president at that time. He feared the dissolution of the Union by the threatened secession of the New England states. The want of support from those states seems to have changed his mind with respect to states' rights; and in 1830, he issued the following very able argument on the constitution, against the right of secession:

"It was formed, not by the governments of the component states, as the federal government [of 1781] for which it was substituted was formed. Nor was it formed by a majority of the people of the United States, as a single community, in the manner of a consolidated government. It was formed by the states; that is, by the people in each state, acting in their highest sovereign capacity; and formed, consequently, by the same authority which formed the state constitutions.

"Being thus derived from the same source as the constitutions of the states, it has within each state the same authority as the constitution of the state; and is as much a constitution, in the strict sense of the term, within its prescribed sphere, as the constitutions of the states are, within their respective spheres; but with this obvious and essential difference—that being a compact among the states in their highest sovereign capacity, and constituting the people thereof one people for certain purposes, it cannot be altered or annulled at the will of the states individually, as the constitution of a state may be at its individual will."

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Causes of Secession; the Southern Confederacy.

THE CAUSES THAT PRODUCED SECESSION.

IN this chapter we propose to give a brief account of the secession of eleven of the southern states, and the formation by them of a general government, under the name of the Southern Confederacy.

It is not to be denied but that several of the slaveholding states had for some time desired a termination of the union with many of the northern states, so long as the latter continued to enforce the personal liberty laws already described. For nearly twenty years, some of the northern states have nullified the national compact respecting fugitive slaves; and the only hope that the southern states had for the enforcement of the constitution and laws, depended upon a president being elected who would discharge the functions of his office as a national executive. The electoral votes of the states that had passed laws nullifying the constitution and the fugitive slaves statutes, made Mr. Lincoln president. He had denounced the integrity of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States; and it was quite natural that the south should look upon him as an enemy to its welfare and interest. We do not think secession was justified; but the sin for the disruption of the Union, in our opinion, lay more with Mr. Lincoln than with any other man. He could have

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