pact with another State; or engage in war, un- tion? And has not the Nation ordained the less actually invaded, or in such imminent dan- | Constitution, which fixes the status of the Genger as will not admit of delay. In every manner, therefore, the States are stripped of external sovereignty, which is, by the Constitution, vested in the Nation, represented by its National Government. And not only so, but they are, in various respects, in a condition of dependence upon that government; as, for example, for a uniform coinage, for postal facilities, for an army and navy, for security against invasion and domestic violence, for the return of fugitives from service, and even for the guaranty of a republican form of government, if an attempt should be made to deprive them of it. To speak of States as relatively sovereign, when thus situated as to foreign powers and as to each other, is a solecism seldom surpassed. As to internal sovereignty, it is undoubtedly true that the States possess it in all matters of a local and domestic nature, except where prohibited by the Constitution of the United States; but beyond that they have not a single attribute of it. They may not coin money, lay imposts or duties on imports or exports, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, emit bills of credit, declare any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, or pass a bill of attainder, an ex post facto law, or a law impairing the obligation of contracts; all of which are matters of domestic concern and cognizance. Why cannot any State do any of all these enumerated acts of sovereignty, as to other nations, as to other States of the Union, and as to their own people? Simply and only, because the Constitution of the United States, speaking the voice and embodying the power of the Nation-including in the Nation every State-forbids it, and in doing so, declares the supremacy of the Nation over the individual States, even to the extent of controlling their government of their own people. I repeat, therefore, the States are, externally, not sovereign at all, and are so internally, only as that Constitution does not declare otherwise. It matters not that their internal sovereignty is retained to a greater extent than it is surrendered or trammelled; the question is: have they surrendered, or has the Nation taken from them, any part of that sovereignty? If, in forming the Constitution, it took from them or restricted a single attribute of either branch of sovereignty, especially that purely domestic, it is their superior; if they voluntarily surrendered a single such attribute to it, or consented to a single such restriction, they themselves made it their superior. In either case they are not sovereign. State pride rebels at the humiliation of the States, alleged to be involved in this doctrine; but there is no such humiliation in fact; for, have not the people of every State, in entering the Union, assented to this relative position of the States and the Nation? What is a State but a body of people who are a part of the Na eral and State Governments? And have not the people of the States, with every opportunity of self-enlightenment, and without the slightest external pressure, by their most free and voluntary act in entering the Union, acknowledged the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE NATION over every matter which the people, in forming the National Constitution, deemed it necessary, for the good of the whole, to control by the aggregate power of the Nation? Is any other view consistent with the Union of THE PEOPLE, which our fathers consummated, and which has remained unbroken till this time? If we are one people, as I have shown we are, shall not that people ordain in their Constitution, what the whole and what each part shall be and do, and what the whole and each part shall not be and not do? If not, what becomes of the fundamental principle of popular government, that the majority shall govern? The radical and pernicious fallacy of the State Rights doctrine is, in claiming that the people inhabiting a defined portion of the National domain, on emerging from their condition of dependence on the National Government, and entering the Union as a State, instead of remaining, as they were, a part of the Nation, become, through their State organization, segregated from it, and exalted by the act of Congress admitting them as a State, to a position of sovereignty higher than that of the Nation. From this error flows, as a necessary conse quence, the equally pernicious fallacy, that the constitutional supremacy of the National Government is something extraneous and antagonistic, imposed upon the States without their consent; when, in truth, it is the power which the people of the States have themselves created, and is therefore just as much their creature as the governments of their States. They established both, and both, in their respective spheres, are complete and predominant. While they remain in their several positions, there can be no collision between them. The only conflicts that have ever arisen between National and State authority, have resulted from claiming unconstitutional powers and rights for the States, not from aggressions upon the States by the General Government. The claim of State sovereignty has provoked them all, as it is at the bottom of the fearful strife now agitating the country; and permanent peace cannot be expected until that claim, as advanced in the South, is abandoned. But while this claim of State sovereignty must be acknowledged by all candid men to be inconsistent with and subversive of the National Constitution, and at war with the first principles of the Union, it is boldly asserted that, aback of all constitutions, and above all written forms of government, there is a reserved power of State sovereignty, paramount to that of the Nation, in virtue of which any State may at any time cast off its obligations to the Union, the and assume a separate and independent attitude. | either suppressio veri or suggestio falsi, he forNo higher sovereignty than this could be feits the respect of the people to whom he apclaimed; for it asserts the right of a single peals. That such is Mr. Davis' position, seems State, a part of the Nation-whether it be to me beyond dispute. Florida with her 82,000 white inhabitants, or New York with her 3,800,000-to abrogate, as to itself, "the supreme law of the land," ordained by the whole nation. One would think that merely to state such a proposition would be to condemn it utterly and forever; but from just that absurdity springs the gigantic treason of this day. In the face of the fact that this is pre-eminently a country of written constitutions, wherein the people themselves-not some reigning potentate-grant powers of government, and define the boundaries of authority and right; in spite of the acknowledged fact, that this claim is not affirmed by any word in the National Constitution, or in the Constitution of any State; and in disregard of the plainest common sense, teaching us that a government framed with a reserved right in any part of its people to renounce it at pleasure, would merit and receive the contempt of the world for its incongruity and imbecility; this dogma of a reserved State sovereignty superior to that of the Nation, is flaunted abroad with as much assurance as if its apostles really believed it themselves, and as greedily swallowed by their followers as if it were a new gospel of freedom. His message opens with an argument in support of the fundamental heresy, which strips the Constitution of the United States of its character of government, and degrades it into a mere compact between sovereign States, croating an agency to manage certain affairs for them as States, and therefore a mere creature, and they its creators. I will not stop to dwell upon the simple language with which the Constitution, in its first line, refutes this dogma, by declaring itself to have been formed by PEOPLE of the United States;" nor to array before you the repeated judicial decisions, including those of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Court of Appeals of South Carolina, expressly affirming that the United States are organized by their Constitution into a Government, and are, in that respect, greatly in advance of the United States under the Confederation; nor to present the almost infinite testimony of our Revolutionary fathers, who framed both systems, that the Constitution superseded the Confederation, because the latter was, in practical effect, no government, and without an effective government the nation could not be held together; but will direct your minds to the particular point in which Mr. Davis ventures to defend his favorTrue, the State Rights leaders profess to ap-ite theory, at the sacrifice of truth in a matter peal to the Constitution itself in support of their views; but with such a conscious hopelessness of aid from that quarter, that they are driven to actual falsification of its terms, plain as they are, and open as they be to the perusal of every reading man. The latest and most authoritative, and therefore most flagrant, of all the efforts to blind and mislead the people on this subject, is that of Jefferson Davis, in his message of April 29, 1861, to the Congress of the insurgent States; wherein he attempts a vindication of this State Rights doctrine, ostensibly from the words of the Constitution, but, in fact, with a strange and most daring perversion and suppression of them; to which let us briefly direct attention. JEFFERSON DAVIS' MESSAGE. Mr. Davis, referring to the occasion of convening the Congress, characterizes it as "indeed an extraordinary one," and adds-"It justifies me in a brief review of the relations heretofore existing between us and the States which now unite in warfare against us, and in a succinct statement of the events which have resulted in this warfare; to the end that mankind may pass intelligent and impartial judgment on its motives and objects." When the leader of a great rebellion thus appeals to the public opinion of mankind, all men have a right to require that he shall, above all things, exhibit a supreme regard for truth in his statements of facts. His deductions from premises truly stated may be honestly erroneous; but when, in regard to facts, he is guilty of of fact. Alluding to the Confederation, he remarks: "In order to guard against any misconstruction of their compact, the several States made explicit declaration, in a distinct article, that each State retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.'” Proceeding then to refer to the adoption of the Constitution in lieu of the Confederation, and to "the earnest desire evinced to impress on the Constitution its true character-that of a compact between independent States," he presents the following paragraph: "The Constitution of 1787 having, however, omitted the clause already recited from the Articles of Confederation, which provided in explicit terms that each State retained its sovereignty and independence, some alarm was felt in the States when invited to ratify the Constitution, lest this omission should be construed into an abandonment of their cherished principle, and they refused to be satisfied until amendments were added to the Constitution placing beyond any pretence of doubt the reservation by the States of all their sovereign rights and powers not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution." Now, my friends, you can judge to what straits Mr. Davis was driven to sustain himself before the world, when you note the fact that Constitution to the Congress of the Confederation, uses language that is conclusive as to the view then entertained by the Convention of the actual surrender of State sovereignty, involved in the adoption of that instrument. "It is obviously impracticable (says the letter) in the Federal Government of these States, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals, entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest." With the true character and effect of the Constitution thus distinctly announced, the people of every State ratified and established it, and in so doing, proclaimed the will of the Nation, that the States should no longer claim to be sovereign and independent, as they had under the Confederation. though he quoted, in terms, the "distinct arti-ington, before referred to, communicating the cle" of the Confederation to which he referred, he entirely omitted to quote, in terms, the amendment to the Constitution upon which he relied as "placing beyond any pretence of doubt the reservation by the States of all their rights and powers, not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution." When he stood in the world's forum, and appealed to the world as judge, why suppress a material fact in the case? Why hold out to view one clause and hide the other, when he asks mankind to pass an "intelligent and impartial judgment"? Could he not trust them with the whole truth? If not, why keep back any? Such is not the act of a man conscious of rectitude and a righteous cause. No; he knew that the constitutional amendment to which he referred, without quoting it, did not, like the Articles of Confederation, declare "the reservation by the Equally forcible is the omission of the word States of all their sovereign rights and powers, "expressly" from the constitutional amendnot expressly delegated to the United States by ment above cited. Under the Confederation, the Constitution;" and it therefore suited not every power, jurisdiction, and right, not exhis purpose to set it side by side with the "dis-pressly delegated to the United States, was retinct article" of the Confederation which he had recited. It would have been too apparent to all reflecting men that the two clauses were widely different in terms and effect; as we can now see by placing them together. The second Article of the Confederation is in these words: "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." The tenth amendment of the Constitution is in these words: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." tained by the States. Unless it could be found written down in plain terms in the Articles of Confederation, that any given power might be exercised by the Federal Government, it could not be exercised. Hence the Confederation was feeble from its very stringency. The following language addressed to the public in 1786, by one of the leading writers of that day, strikingly exhibits the results of the restricted terms of the Confederation: "By this political compact the United States in Congress have exclusive power for the following purposes, without being able to execute one of them: They may make and conclude treaties; but can only recommend the observance of them. They may appoint ambassadors; but cannot defray even the expenses of their tables. They may borrow money in their own name on the faith of the Union; but cannot pay a dollar. They may coin money; but they cannot purchase an ounce of bullion. They may make war, and determine what number of troops are necessary; but cannot raise a single soldier. In short, they may declare every thing, but do nothing." Now note that while the former declares that each State retains its sovereignty and independence, the latter does not. The omission to preserve so important a feature, when, according to Mr. Davis, the constitutional amendment was adopted under a feeling of "alarm" in the States, "lest this omission should be construed into an abandonment of their cherished principle," is a fact of clear and great force. Why did they not reiterate the former declaration? Manifestly because the idea of State sovereignty and independence, except in a very limited internal sense, had been exploded by the acknowledged failure of the Confederation; and the people, convinced that it was inconsistent with the sovereignty of the Nation, repudiated it in the formation of the Constitution. Well might they ask: Why declare a reserva-powerless league, their Constitution, after enution of the sovereignty and independence of the merating certain defined powers of Congress, States, when the people of those very States added, that that body should have power "to had deliberately disrobed them of almost every make all laws which shall be necessary and badge of sovereignty, and declared their de- proper for carrying into execution the foregopendence, in most essential points, on the Gov-ing powers, and all other powers vested by this ernment of the Nation? The letter of Wash- Constitution in the Government of the United Why was the Confederation so powerless? Mainly because the Congress could do nothing but what was expressly authorized. Legitimate inference of a power not named, from those expressly given, was not allowed. To every attempt to deduce by necessity an inferred power, the answer was-"Is it so nominated in the bond?" Hence, when, with more enlightened views, the people essayed to create a real and efficient government instead of a rickety and States, or in any department or officer there- What, then, becomes of Mr. Davis' statement, that the States "refused to be satisfied until amendments were added to the Constitution, placing beyond any pretence of doubt the reservation by the States of all their sovereign rights and powers, not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution?" It takes its place in the long catalogue of falsifications and frauds by which he and his coadju- | tors have excited, and expect to keep alive, the rebellion they are leading. The people whom he thus deceives and betrays may never see the falsehood; but the cause which rests upon such a foundation carries its own death within it, and will bring its supporters to sorrow, dismay, and ruin. on the 5th of September, 1774, the Colonies were mere dependencies of the British crown, and therefore were not sovereign. 2. That Congress was, de jure and de facto, a government over all the Colonies, from the date of its assembling until the Colonies, on the 4th of July, 1776, assumed the attitude of States, and thenceforward it was a government over the States, and Colonies and States were alike subject to its authority, and therefore not sovereign. This continued until the 1st of March, 1781, when the Articles of Confederation were finally ratified by all the States. 3. From the 1st of March, 1781, to the 4th of March, 1789, when the first Congress under the Constitution assembled, the States were subject to the Government of the Confederation, so far as its weak capacities justified the name of a government. At any rate the Confederate Congress exercised all the powers of general sovereignty which were exercised at all, and the States, as such, were merged, as to all the rest of the world, in the United States. The Confederation, too, as afterwards the Constitution, explicitly restricted the domestic sovereignty of the States. The sovereignty which the States declared in the Articles of Confederation that they retained, was, therefore, at most, only a limited one over their internal affairs, and did not affect their relations to the Union or to the world. has been in existence; under which I have shown that the States have only such powers of sovereignty as, in the words of the Constitution, are not "prohibited by it to the States.” But had the second Article of the Confederation been incorporated in terms into the Constitution, would it support the right claimed by the South to secede from the Union at pleasure? Can it be for a moment supposed possible, that the people, in forming a government, reserved to each of the States a right to throw off that government at its will? When the people of the United States declared in the 5. From the 4th of March, 1789, to the presConstitution, that it was ordained and estab-ent day, the Government under the Constitution lished "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our POSTERITY," did they mean that a part of the people should have a constitutional right, the next year, or in ten, twenty, fifty. or any number of years thereafter, to scatter those blessings to the winds, by overthrowing the Constitution which secured them, and destroying the Union which the Constitution was designed to perpetuate? Were our fathers fools, that they engaged in such child's play as that? No: when they strove with as elevated a magnanimity as history exhibits to secure those blessings to their posterity, they believed that an endless succession of generations would gather the precious fruits of their patriotic labors, and hoped that the sun of the Constitution would set, only when that of the firmament should be extinguished in the gloom of an endless night. NO STATE EXCEPT TEXAS EVER WAS SOVEREIGN. But if the States are sovereign, in the sense claimed in the insurgent States, when did they become so? Recurring to the principle previously enunciated, that no State is sovereign that has superiors, I affirm it to be historically true that no State in this country, except Texas, ever has been sovereign, save in a limited sense, over its domestic affairs; and to this point I will direct your minds in a series of brief propositions, which are conclusive: 1. When the people of the Colonies appointed the delegates who assembled as a Congress VOL. II.-Doc. 16 Here, then, from the 5th of September, 1774, to the present hour, has been a clear and steady assertion of the sovereign power of the NATION, paramount to the powers of Colonies and States. During all that period of time, Colonies and States have all acknowledged the highest and most important attributes of sovereignty to reside in the Government established by the Nation, and therefore yielded to the Nation superiority over the individual States. The only apparent exception to this, among the original thirteen States, is in the case of North Carolina, by which the Constitution was not adopted until more than eight months after the government under the Constitution went into operation; and of Rhode Island, by which its adoption was postponed more than fourteen months after that event. Still, those States during the time they deliberated as to their consent to the new form of government, remained essentially a part of the Nation, performing no sovereign function, except over their internal affairs, and, by the act of deliberation, expressing their continued adhesion to the Union. They, therefore, constitute no real exception. The proposition that no State, except Texas, ever was sovereign, is most emphatically true of twenty out of the twenty-one new States, | Government they had renounced; nor had the which have been added to the original thirteen. Government occasion, for the act of secession, Every one of them was composed of people to attack them. Why, then, did they wage previously subject to the National Government; the war? Without the least doubt, because people who were unable to take position as they knew that their claim of a reserved right States without the consent of that Govern-in a State to dissolve its connection with the ment; who were admitted into the Union only in virtue of an act of Congress, and who, when admitted as States, voluntarily took the subordinate position assigned them by the National Constitution, and which the original States had previously, of their own volition, taken. THE SOUTII ITSELF DOES NOT BELIEVE IN A RE- Union at its will, was a flimsy and false pretence, which they themselves had not the slightest faith in; and because, veil it however they might from their people, under the guise of State sovereignty, the leaders knew that secession was REBELLION, and that, sooner or later, rebellion must be met by force. In their own consciousness, therefore, as exhibited in their acts, the pretext of a constitutional right of secession is a fallacy and a falsehood. As such the on-looking world regards it, and the intelligence of mankind scouts and condemns it. NATIONAL AND STATE ALLEGIANCE. Having shown that the Nation, as the aggregate of the united people-not the States as corporate bodies leagued together—is the source of National sovereignty, and that the organ of that sovereignty is the government established by the Nation, through a Constitution which declares itself, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, to be the supreme law of the land; it is proper that we should devote a portion of our time to the consideration of that great, but almost forgotten principle, which pervades all the relations between government and citizen, and is condensed in the single but most comprehensive word-ALLEGIANCE. But so far as this doctrine of State Sovereignty is used to sustain the right of secession, it is to my mind apparent that its supporters in the South do not themselves believe in it. If there is a reserved right of secession, paramount to the Constitution, it must have existed when the Union was formed; for it has not been acquired or granted since. If it did exist then, the Union was entered into with a tacit understanding that there was such a right. If entered into with such an understanding, then a. State seceding would be guilty of no legal wrong towards the other States; it would do only what it had a right to do. So doing, it would have no reason to regard itself as an enemy to the remaining States, or the National Government as an enemy to it; and would have just cause of complaint against either, for taking a hostile attitude to it for seceding. But what do we find in the seceded States? Instantly upon passing their ordinances of seces- Every individual of every nation, barbarian sion, and in some instances in advance of it, or civilized, is bound by allegiance to the suthey, by their acts, proclaim themselves the preme authority which presides over that enemies of the United States, in every way nation, whether it be King, Emperor, Grand which could signalize them as such. They pro- Duke, Sultan, Tycoon, Chief, or Constitutional ceed to organize a Confederate Government, Republican Government. Society without alleto raise armies, to provide for their support, to giance is anarchy; government without allecreate a navy, and to seize the armories, forts,giance is a mockery; people without allegiance navy-yards, docks, custom-houses, mints, money, and all other property of the United States within their reach; they overpower and capture the United States troops, wherever they find them in detached bodies too small for re-allegiance of its subjects, or of a people acknowl sistance, and hold them as prisoners of war; they fire upon a vessel under the National flag, and in the Government service; they beleaguer, and finally bombard, and reduce a National fort, held by a brave half-starved garrison, one-hundredth part as strong as the assailing host; and all for what reason? They were not assailed by the Government on account of their secession. No troops were marched against them, no navy closed their ports, no mails were stopped within their borders; they were, for months after their secession, as they asked to be, "let alone;"-let alone to commit every form of aggression upon the Nation, without retaliation or resistance: why did they take the attitude of enemies? If, in seceding, they exercised only a reserved right, they did a lawful act, and had no occasion to wage war upon the are a mob. It is the principle which gives all force to law, for it is the principle of obedience to law. It is impossible to conceive of a supreme government which does not claim the edging a supreme government to which they do not yield allegiance. It is not obedience only, but something above and beyond that; and has been rightly defined to be the tic, or ligamen, which binds the citizen to his government. The breach of this tie is TREASON-the highest crime known to the laws of man, and which falls under the special condemnation of the Word of God, but which, in this day, Americans, and, I grieve to say, those who claim to be Christians, rush into, as if it were a merit and a glory to destroy the best government that ever wielded the destinies of a people. The events of this year of wrath have disclosed astounding facts in regard to the alle giance of the American people to their National Government. Over an entire section of the Union they seem, almost in a mass, to have |