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one common government and nation. The Virginia resolutions were drawn up by Mr. Madison, and the Kentucky resolutions by Mr. Jefferson. The first Kentucky resolution was as follows:

"1st. Resolved, That the several States comprising the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government, but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government, for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; 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; that this 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 discretion and not the Constitution the measure of its powers; but 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."

The most formidable conflict between these two schools of politics took place during the memorable tariff controversy of 1831-22, in which Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the most remarkable antitypes of Northern and Southern statesmanship, joined in debate, explored the entire field of controversy, searched every feature and principle of the government, and left on record a complete and exhausting commentary on the whole political system of America.

Mr. Calhoun was logician enough to see that the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions involved the right of Secession. But he was not disposed to insist upon such a remedy. He lived in a time when, outside of his own State, there was a strong sentimental attachment to the Union; and he would have been a reckless politician, who would then have openly braved popular passion on this subject. Indeed Mr. Calhoun professed, and perhaps not insincerely, an ardent love for the Union. In a speech to his constituents in South Carolina, he declared that he had "never breathed an opposite sentiment," and that he had reason to love the Union, when he reflected that nearly half his life had been passed in its service, and that whatever public reputation he had acquired was indissolubly connected with it.

It was the task of the great South Carolina politician to find some remedy for existing evils short of Disunion. He was unwilling, either to violate his own affections or the popular idolatry for the Union; and at the same time he was deeply sensible of the oppression it devolved upon the South. The question was, what expedient could be found to accommodate the overruling anxiety to perpetuate the Union, and the necessity of checking the steady advance of Northern aggression and sectional

MR. CALHOUN'S PLAN FOR SAVING THE UNION.

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domination in it. Mr. Calhoun did succeed in accommodating these two considerations. He hit upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious theories in American politics to preserve and perfect the Union, and to introduce into it that principle of adaptability to circumstances, which is the first virtue of wise governments. He proposed that in cases of serious dispute between any State and the General Government, the matter should be referred to a convention of all the States for its final and conclusive determination. He thus proposed, instead of destroying the Union, to erect over it an august guardianship, and instead of bringing it to the tribunal of popular passion, to arraign it only before the assembled sovereign States which had created it.

Mr. Calhoun abundantly explained his doctrine. "Should," said he, "the General Government and a State come into conflict, we have a higher remedy the power which called the General Government into existence, which gave it all of its authority, and can enlarge, contract, or abolish its powers at its pleasure, may be invoked. The States themselves may be appealed to, three-fourths of which, in fact, form a power, whose decrees are the Constitution itself, and whose voice can silence all discontent. The utmost extent then of the power is, that a State acting in its sovereign capacity, as one of the parties to the constitutional compact, may compel the government, created by that compact, to submit a question touching its infraction to the parties who created it." He insisted with plain reason that his doctrine, so far from being anarchical or revolutionary, was "the only solid foundation of our system and of the Union itself." His explanation of the true nature of the Union was a model of perspicuity, and an exposition of the profoundest statesmanship. In opposition to a certain vulgar and superficial opinion, that the State institutions of America were schools of provincialism, he held the doctrine that they were in no sense hostile to the Union, or malignant in their character; that they interpreted the true glory of America; and that he was the wisest statesman who would constantly observe "the sacred distribution" of power between the General Government and the States, and bind up the rights of the States with the common welfare.

It is a curious instance of Northern misrepresentation in politics and of their cunning in fastening a false political nomenclature upon the South, that the ingenious doctrine of Mr. Calhoun, which was eminently conservative, and directly addressed to saving the Union, should have been entitled "Nullification," and its author branded as a Disunionist. Unfortunately, the world has got most of its opinions of Southern parties and men from the shallow pages of Northern books; and it will take it long .o learn the lessons that the system of negro servitude in the South was not "Slavery;" that John C. Calhoun was not a "Disunionist; and that the war of 1861, brought on by Northern insurgents against the

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authority of the Constitution, was not a "Southern rebellion." Names are apparently slight things; but they create the first impression; they solicit the sympathies of the vulgar; and they often create a cloud of prejudice which the greatest exertions of intelligence find it impossible wholly to dispel. But it is not the place here to analyze at length the party terms of America; and the proper definition of the words we have referred to as falsely applied to the South will appear, and will be easily apprehended in the general argument and context of our narrative.

CHAPTER 11.

THE FEDERAL PRINCIPLE ULTIMATELY FATAL TO THE UNION.-OTHER CAUSES OF DISUNION.

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-THE SECTIONAL ANIMOSITY."—THE GEOGRAPHICAL LINE IN THE UNION.-HOW THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH PRODUCED TWO DISTINCT COMMUNITIES INSTEAD OF RIVAL PARTIES WITHIN ONE BODY POLITIC.-THE THEORY OF A POLITICAL NORTH AND A POLITICAL SOUTH.-ITS EARLY RECOGNITION IN THE CONVENTION OF 1787. -DECLARATION OF MADISON.-MR. PINCKNEY'S REMARK.-HOW THE SAME THEORY WAS INVOLVED IN THE CONSTITUTION.-THE TREATY-CLAUSE BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH. THE UNION NOT THE BOND OF DIVERSE STATES, BUT THE ROUGH COMPANIONSHIP OF TWO PEOPLES. GEN. SULLIVAN'S COMPLAINT ΤΟ WASHINGTON.-THE SLAVERY QUESTION, AN INCIDENT OF THE SECTIONAL ANIMOSITY.-NOT AN INDEPENDENT CONTROVERSY, OR A MORAL DISPUTE.-POLITICAL HISTORY OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH.-HOW IT BECAME THE SUBJECT OF DISPUTE.-THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. THE MISSOURI LINE, THE PRELIMINARY TRACE OF DISUNION.-DECLARATION OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.-WHY THE NORTH DEFAMED THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION OF THE SOUTH.-GREAT BENEFITS OF THIS INSTITUTION AND ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WORLD.- SLAVERY" NOT THE PROPER TERM FOR THE INSTITUTION OF LABOUR IN THE SOUTH.-THE SLAVERY QUESTION SIGNIFICANT ONLY OF A CONTEST FOR POLITICAL POWER. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN POPULATIONS.-THE ANTE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.-TRACES OF THE MODERN "YANKEE."-HOW SLAVERY ESTABLISHED A PECULIAR CIVILIZATION IN THE SOUTH.-ITS BAD AND GOOD EFFECTS SUMMED UP.-COARSENESS OF NORTHERN CIVILIZATION.—NO LANDED GENTRY IN THE NORTH.-SCANTY APPEARANCE OF THE SOUTHERN COUNTRY.-THE SENTIMENTS AND MANNERS OF ITS PEOPLE.-" AMERICAN EXAGGERATION " A PECULIARITY OF THE NORTHERN MIND.-SOBRIETY OF THE SOUTH.-HOW THESE QUALITIES WERE DISPLAYED IN THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN ESTIMATIONS OF THE UNION.-"STATE RIGHTS THE FOUNDATION OF THE MORAL DIGNITY OF THE UNION.--CALHOUN'S PICTURE OF THE UNION.-A NOBLE VISION NEVER REALIZED.

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ALTHOUGH the American Union, as involving the Federal principle, contained in itself an element ultimately fatal to its form of government, it is not to be denied that by careful and attentive statesmanship a rupture might have been long postponed. We have already briefly seer. that, at a most remarkable period in American history, it was proposed by the great political scholar of his times-John C. Calhoun-to modify the Federal principle of the Union and to introduce an ingenious check

upon its tendencies to controversy-a measure that night long have extended the term of the Union, and certainly would have realized a very beautiful idea of political association.

But we must notice here another cause of disunion that supervened upon that of Federal incoherence, and rapidly divided the country. It was that Sectional Animosity, far more imposing than any mere discord of States, inasmuch as it put in opposition, as it were, two distinct nations on a geographical line, that by a single stroke divided the country, and thus summarily effected what smaller differences would have taken long to accomplish.

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We have elsewhere briefly referred to the divisions of population between the Northern and Southern States, marked as they were by strong contrasts between the characters of the people of each. Had these divisions existed only in a contracted space of country, they might have resulted in nothing more than the production of parties or the formation of classes. But extending as they did over the space of a continent, these divisions ceased to be political parties or classes of one community, and really existed in the condition of distinct communities or nations. recent English writer has properly and acutely observed: "In order to master the difficulties of American politics, it will be very important to realize the fact that we have to consider, not the action of rival parties or opposing interests within the limits of one body politic, but practically that of two distinct communities or peoples, speaking indeed a common language, and united by a federal bond, but opposed in principles and interests, alienated in feeling, and jealous rivals in the pursuit of political power."

No one can read aright the history of America, unless in the light of a North and a South: two political aliens existing in a Union imperfectly defined as a confederation of States. If insensible or forgetful of this theory, he is at once involved in an otherwise inexplicable mass of facts, and will in vain attempt an analysis of controversies, apparently the most various and confused.

The Sectional Animosity, which forms the most striking and persistent feature in the history of the American States, may be dated certainly as far back as 1787. In the Convention which formed the Constitution, Mr. Madison discovered beneath the controversy between the large and small States another clashing of interests. He declared that the States were divided into different interests by other circumstances as well as by their difference of size; the most material of which resulted partly from climate, but principally from the effects of their having or not having slaves. "These two causes," he said, "concurred in forming the great division of interests in the United States;" and "if any defensive power were necessary it ought to be mutually given to these two sections." In

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