while it deprives them of their due must needs have many explanations of profits."

interest and passion; but it is certainly sufficiently comprehensive of the main issue. The South, jealous of declining influence, and indisposed from pride or prejudice to look for new elements of strength, which might have been found within the Union, sought power and authority outside of it, in a revolutionary attempt at its destruction.

Even in this the philosophic observer saw nothing so very alarming, provided time were given, and with time, the sense of justice and moderation which comes with reflection, to settle and compose such fears. He perceived, however, an unfavorable influence at work, in that respect, growing out of the very extent and rapidity of the national prosperity. If the development were less rapid there would not, he thought, be so much occasion for alarm. "The progress of society in America is precipitate, and almost revolutionary. The same citizen may have lived to see his State take the lead in the Union, and afterward become powerless in the federal assemblies; and an Anglo-American republic has been known to grow as rapidly as a man, passing from birth and infancy to maturity in the course of thirty years. It must not be imagined, however, that the States which lose their preponderance, also lose their population or their riches; no stop is put to their prosperity, and they even go on to increase more rapidly than any kingdom in Europe. But they believe themselves to be impoverished, because their wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbors; and they think that their power is lost because they suddenly come into collision with a power greater than their own. Thus they are more hurt in their feelings and their passions than in their interests. But this is amply sufficient to endanger the mainten-religion, and above all, of political instiance of the Union."

How wise is all this! What a key does it afford to the present unhappy contest. It may not unlock all the recesses of this intricate question which, assuming the vast form of an attempted revolution,

Mr. John Stuart Mill, the eminent English author of the System of Logic, universally acknowledged one of the most acute writers of the times on matters relating to political and social science, has, in a chapter of his recent work on Representative Government, considered the essential conditions of a successful federation. He finds them to be three-fold a mutual sympathy; an amount of power in none of the states great enough to maintain itself alone against encroachment; an equilibrium of strength, involving mutual dependence of the component parts. Taking the United States separately, and not by large geographical divisions, we may safely apply the two latter tests. None of them is powerful enough to array itself in arms against any serious foreign aggression, and no one is strong or wealthy enough not to feel the need of one or more of the others. As for the first and most important consideration, it is resolved by Mr. Mill, somewhat in the style of thought of De Tocqueville, into the sympathies of race, language,

tutions. To name these conditions is at once to suggest their applicability to the United States. We need not stop to illustrate them. But while we draw from them the most hopeful auguries for the future, we may pause to note the single

PHYSICAL BONDS OF UNION.

tified them. Not so, however, thought subject, have deprecated any division of that watchful guardian of the public liberties, Thomas Jefferson, whose zeal on the occasion was sharpened by the fervor of political animosity. He prepared the draft of a series of resolutions to be presented to the Kentucky Legislature, in which a theory of the government was laid down, and a practice enjoined which would virtually set aside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on questions where power given by the Constitution to the government was supposed to be transcended, and make the individual States sovereign judges over the whole. The Resolutions, as actually presented in a less destructive, modified form, asserted the limited powers of the government under the "compact" of the Constitution, and maintained" 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." This was certainly a broad generalization, but, if we may interpret it by the light of the accompanying resolutions, it was by no means intended to cover the modern doctrine of secession. The object of the Resolutions was to agitate and procure a repeal of the obnoxious acts. The utmost that was said, was "that these and successive Acts of the same character, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these States into," not, be it remarked, peaceable secession, but "revolution and blood." The spirit of the whole was a jealous maintenance of the reserved rights of the States against any usurpation of authority by the general government. That Jefferson himself, their author, would, if he had been required to pronounce a settled opinion on the

the Union on any grounds short of an absolute necessity for revolution, may be judged from the words of a letter which he wrote some months before, to John Taylor of Caroline, when that extreme theorist thought it was time "to estimate the separate map of Virginia and Nort] Carolina with a view to their separate existence." Not so, said Jefferson, in reply, after reviewing the evils which the country was supposed to be suffering from the New England domination :"If, on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no Federal government can ever exist. 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 cut off, will our natures 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, and the public mind will be distracted with the same party spirit. 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 between the representatives of these two States, and they will end by breaking into their simple units. Seeing, therefore, that an association of men who will not quarrel with each other, is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry-seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I had rather keep our New England as

STATE RIGHTS DOCTRINES.

sociates for that purpose than to see our bickering transferred to each other."*

The Virginia resolutions, drawn up by James Madison, and presented in the State Legislature in December, a month after the Kentucky resolutions, may be considered explanatory of the latter. In marked language they expressly assert "that this Assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the Union of the States," and maintain the inviolability of the Constitution for the preservation of that Union. For that end, an alarm of danger was indeed sounded, but with no other sentiment than "the truest anxiety for establishing and perpetuating the union of all." The other States were called upon to join Virginia in pronouncing the acts unconstitutional, and to take the necessary measures to co-operate "in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The resolutions were undoubtedly of a suspicious and dangerous character, but they were far from countenancing any doctrine of secession, still further from putting any such doctrine in practice. Their object was political agitation within the limits of the Constitution, for its preservation.

15

ral compact, or whatever it may be called, at will. When that question came up thirty-four years after, one of the parties, Madison, emphatically the guardian and interpreter of the Constitution, gave no unequivocal opinion upon the subject.*

No action injurious to the government followed these much talked of resolutions. The occasion which called them forth soon passed away; the obnoxious acts ceased from their own limitation. Jefferson came into power, and his party, of course, were satisfied with the ordinary working of the Constitution.

The next demonstration of this nature on the part of the States, arose in New England, and grew out of dissatisfaction with the war of 1812. The embargo destroyed the commerce of that region, and there were local jealousies and other distrusts of the employment of the militia. The eastern States were disposed to claim exclusive control over the latter raised within their borders. They were reluctant to furnish money and men for what they thought an unprofitable warfare. A Convention was called at Hartford to discuss these grievances. It gave birth to a Report which reflected the spirit of the Kentucky and Virginia resThey were often appealed to, in sub- olutions in some of its sentences, but sequent days, as the creed of the State which by no means countenanced rebelRights party, and much that they con- lion. The resolves which were adopted, tain is incontrovertible; they were, were limited to recommendations to the doubtless, mischievous in the tendency legislatures of the States represented, to of certain expressions; they perhaps protect their citizens from the operatrifled with nullification; but we have tion of acts unauthorized by the Constitoo much respect for their authors, Thom- tution, subjecting them to forcible drafts, as Jefferson and James Madison, to sup-conscriptions, or impressinents, and adpose for a moment that they inculcated vice to the States to protect and defend so absurd a political doctrine as the secession of a State from the Union, fede

Hildreth's His, of the United States. 2d series, II. 234.

* Letter to Daniel Webster on his speech in the United States Senate, "The Constitution not a Compact," in reply

to Calhoun. Everett's Memoir of Webster. Webster's Works, I. cvii

themselves. There were also amend- November, 1832, and adopted an ordinments to the Constitution proposed, ap-ance applying the principle. The tariff portioning representation and taxation on acts were declared null and void, and the basis of the white population, limiting any attempt of the United States to enthe powers of Congress with reference to force them, it was resolved should be a einbargoes and the war-making power, signal for the dissolution of the Union, forbidding naturalized citizens to be el- when the State of South Carolina would igible to any civil office under the United forthwith proceed to organize a separate States, and the president to be elected government. This revolutionary declaratwice or for two terms, or to be chosen tion was met the following month by the from the same State twice in succession. most energetic proceeding on the part of The convention which made these sugges- the government, to maintain its military tions met in secret, prepared them with authority at Charleston, and the Prodiffidence, and had but little encourage- clamation of President Jackson, which ment in any quarter. The proceedings with great clearness and an unanswerable came to nothing. It was but a local and line of argument, maintained the power temporary agitation. The war passed assumed by the State to be " incompatiover, and the suggestions and amend- ble with the existence of the Union, conments were not thought of again. The tradicted expressly by the letter of the Hartford Convention, greatly exagger- Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, ated, remained only a name of terror, inconsistent with every principle on occasionally brought forward to discredit which it was founded, and destructive politicians who, rightfully or wrongfully, of the great object for which it was were made to bear the penalty of an un- formed." popular act. The bare suspicion of disloyalty to the government was a fatal brand to a man endeavoring to rise in public life.

The Proclamation, as is well known, was written by Edward Livingston, but its sentiments and ideas were fresh from the heart of Jackson. It was prepared under his supervision, and received its most earnest appeals from his patriotic energy. "Let it," said he, as he wrote at midnight, submitting the conclusion to his friend for his amendment and revision, "let it receive your best flight of eloquence to strike to the heart and speak to the feelings of my deluded countrymen of South Carolina. The Union must be preserved, without blood if this be possible; but it must be preserved at all hazards and at any price.

Nearly twenty years passed away when the voice of disaffection was again heard at the South. This time the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 were the grievances complained of. They were in the interest of the North and a burden to the South, it was alleged, and were pronounced unconstitutional. The South Carolina Legislature, under the inspiration of Calhoun, asserted the State Rights doctrines in their extreme form. The State, it was resolved, should, when it had determined for itself that the Constitution was infringed, repudiate the acts-11 o'clock P. M. This letter was read by Mr. George Ban

of the government. This was Nullification. A Convention of Delegates met in

* Andrew Jackson to Edward Livingston, December 4, 1832

croft at the Cooper Institute at a meeting in November, 1861,

called for the aid of the suffering patriots of North Carolina. The original letter was placed in his hands by the only sur

viving child of Mr. Livingston.