of these expounders, he unqualifiedly accepted their treasonable perversions, and they, more than he, are responsible for the bloody consequences. From their premises and arguments, he concluded that coercion of states was constitutional and proper.

It is evident that he was "more sinned against than sinning." He was a person of fair intellect, slight education, limited knowledge, no research, kind heart, jocular disposition, a man, in short, of excellent nature a strange mixture of simplicity and shrewdness - just the man with his inexperience in statesmanship, and his vague and hazy notions of political ethics and constitutional history and law, to be misled by the sophists of his party, and to be the instrument of crafty and unscrupulous politicians. He was not a man to contrive wickedness to wilfully subvert the constitution, and to build his greatness on his country's ruin, but he could be moved, by various plausible and delusive pleas and pretexts, to do what he would have shrunk from with horror, had he understood the designs, or seen the hearts of the movers.

At all events, upon the ground indicated by the above extracts, the Southern states were coerced, vi et armis, for four years; and, at last, brought to writhe under the heel of federal military power!

At first, Lincoln's above-quoted dicta sounded like a huge joke; which was laughed at, till army after army from the "Northern hive" marched down to perpetrate it upon the South; whereat the laugh changed, for the joke was the fiat of an irresistible mob, that had become a great party, and for many years had fanatically surged like the many-voiced sea against the barriers of the constitution.

In glancing at some of this unfortunate man's conclusions from the assertions and arguments of his aforesaid teachers, we shall see that derision would be the fittest notice, but for the abhorrent consequences. Acting upon their doctrines, he made the land dark with death and mourning. But his guilt, to that of his teachers, morally, is as much less, as homicide by misadventure is less than that with malice prepense.

"Suppose," said he, “a

States and Counties politically equal! state" and " a county," are "equal in territory and inhabitants, in what on principle is a state better than a county? Would an exchange of names be an exchange of rights?"

Common sense, if present, would have answered: All the original states declared themselves to be separately "sovereign, free, and independent," at the moment of making, and up to the finishing of, the federal constitution; and it was in this character that they made and finished it. No county ever had such a character. Again, the states were named in the constitution, as the parties and actors of the

system. The counties were not mentioned. Again, each and every state, old and new, has now, as part of her constitution, or rather her declaration of rights, that "all political power is inherent" in her people, or equivalent words, while a county is a mere subdivision of such state, incorporated by her, with mere municipal powers, and repealable at will. The former is the creator, and the latter her creation. And finally, the states ratified and ordained the federal constitution of government. No county ever acted in the premises, or could do so! A state and a county equal, indeed!

No doubt he honestly thought his teachers said so.

Sovereignty, if not asserted, is lost. "Much is said about the 'sovereignty' of the states, but the word even, is not in the national constitution; nor, as is believed, in any of the state constitutions. . . . No one of our states, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty."

This extract amounts to a mere guess, and is untrue and absurd, except as to the trivial fact that the word "sovereignty" is not in the federal instrument.

A little reflection would have shown Mr. Lincoln that the word need not be used, if the thing is in the states; and that this question is one of fact, which was settled by the solemn declaration of all, that "each state retains her sovereignty." This declaration proves that the fact existed.

This sovereign will of each state — thus declared by all — existed and acted, until the "federating anew" was done; that is to say, until "a more perfect union" of the states, than the previous one, was formed; until the functionaries of the new government were elected; until they organized and went to work; and until the people, as persons, yielded consent and habitual obedience to the new system.

That the people, as sovereign commonwealths, began to make and impose upon the people, as persons, a government, no one will deny. How absurd it was to do so, if they had no right to go through, and coerce obedience. It is beyond question that they acted with sovereign will, and "ordained and established;" and we look in vain along the course of time and history, for any change in that sovereign will, and for involuntariness of union; until we come sadly to contemplate Lincoln and war!

Many thoughtless people think that the "powers" of declaring war, making treaties, coining money, levying taxes, etc., are sovereignty; but these are simply "powers" or authorities, delegated by each state, by virtue of its sovereignty, to the united states, and are in no sense sovereignty, this being, as Daniel Webster said, never in the government, but always in the people-these as commonwealths, and without any change whatever, being THE SELF-UNITED STATES.

As I have heretofore shown, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in their constitutions, declare their sovereignty, eo nomine ; and equivalent declarations are made by all the states, including Mr. Lincoln's own state of Illinois, which, with all the other Northwestern ones, were, according to the express stipulation of the treaty of cession by Virginia to the united states, to be admitted into the union, with "the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence with the other states ;" and Illinois has ever since been though Mr. Lincoln was probably not aware of it"a sovereign, free, and independent state," with all political power and rights, not only in her absolute ownership, but excepting such powers as she delegated to the united in her actual possession; and so she substantially declares in her constitution.

states

But Mr. Lincoln was excusable for attaching importance to the nonmention of sovereignty in the federal pact, for Mr. Webster (apparently believing that if a note, bond, or other instrument, did not call itself such, it might be something else) strenuously argued that the constitution was a constitution, because it called itself a constitution. This is another of those numerous subterfuges, or shams of argument, the "school" is remarkable for. Mr. Webster's sounding phrases on this subject, expressed nothing, for states could constitute a constitution of a government, and call it a constitution, just as easily and properly as the people of a state, or of the so-called nation, could.

"What is it?" instead of "What does it call itself?" is the proper question; and the conclusive answer is "The constitution of [not the united people or nation, but] the united states.'

Mr. Lincoln seemed to think that nations or states must, somehow, lose their sovereignty by not mentioning it in their compacts. Possibly he asserted ownership in the powers of attorney he gave; or his jus disponendi, his sound mind, and the name of the document, in each of his grants or conveyances! A Southern supreme court of the same flock, considered defective a certain class of titles, which all courts had for generations recognized, because the subjects of such titles were not mentioned in the federal constitution!

The Union created the States! "The union is older than any of the states, and in fact it created them as states.”

He probably guessed that this was what Story and Webster meant, and he was not far wrong, though they would have blushed to see their views thus paraphrased. "Union of states," and "united states," are both constitutional phrases; and he might as well have said "united is older than any of the states, and in fact it created them as states; being united colonies before they were united states, it follows that united made them states!"

Would even Mr. Lincoln (let alone Story and Webster) have paid the price of pearls for the string on which they were strung? And yet, in the phrase "a string of pearls," "string " bears the same relation to "pearls," that "union" does to "states." The same remark applies to the phrases: "a set of diamonds," "a purse of guineas," "a guild of men,” and a federation or union of republics. The first name in each sentence is merely a descriptive one, while the main significance is in the last. The truth is, the constant use of the word "union," in place of the constitutional phrase "the united states,' and the various phrases expressing "union of states," is a mere subterfuge, for these phrases are fatal to the whole argument of the expounders. They show that all original authority must be in the several states, while all delegated authority must be in “the united states.” The states must have pre-existed to be associated, while the same states must continue to exist, to be the united states.

Let us notice

The States became subject to their own Union! one more gem. The states have "their status in the union, and they have no other legal status. Our states have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the union by the constitution, no one of them ever having been a state out of the union."

Every word is fallacious and untrue, for the states were necessarily pre-existent to the union of them; their wills made the union; their instrument of compact throughout contemplates and treats them as the sole parties to, and actors in, the union; and finally, they call themselves therein a "union of states" and "united states" using these very words. As individual states, they must have possessed all original authority, and, as an association, they could but hold delegated power.

But the climax of Lincoln's absurdity consists in his pointing to the tenth amendment, as the evidence of the states having no other powers than those "reserved to them in the union by the constitution," and thus showing that our foolish fathers left the states, under the original constitution, absolutely without powers; and had to amend, in order to give them a few!

Common sense would have taught Mr. Lincoln that the states of the association "delegated" and "vested" all the "powers in the pact; and "retained" all rights and powers not delegated; i. e. kept them out of the pact, and in themselves; that the powers delegated must be still owned by them, and hence that the states have all powers, including those in "the constitution of [i. e. belonging to] the united states."

Everybody knows, from the case of Texas, North Carolina, and Rhode Island-to say nothing of others that Mr. Lincoln's asser

tion, that no state was ever such out of the union, is entirely unfounded! But if it were true, it would not affect the question of sovereignty, as this is only predicable of will, and as will only resides in the republics or organizations of self-ruling people.

Seeing Things upside down - Would to God these perversions and blunders had been as harmless as they are amusing! They are only equalled by those of the philosophers who contend that the sun diurnally circuits the earth; or that of the boozy wight, standing on the wrong side of the square, awaiting the arrival of his house, so that he can step in; or that of the Irishman digging away a bank "to let the dark out of his cellar!"

These are called "constitutional views!" If "views" at all, they are "views" afar off-through the moral mirage of platforms, partisan speeches, and sectional commentaries, which distort every thing, and turn it upside down. Why if Hamilton, Jay, Washington, Hancock, Franklin, and all those fathers who were so fortunate as to die early, were to revisit their beloved America, such "views" would astonish them as much as it would to see people standing on their heads, houses inverted, ships "walking the waters," with masts for legs; trees rooted in the sky; rivers running to their sources; or babes giving birth to their parents.

They would find their voluntary union of states to have grown involuntary and indissoluble; states degraded to counties, and returned to a worse than British provincialism; and the quondam governmental agency transmuted to a new and monstrous entitya soulless being, with "absolute supremacy," and swaying the sceptre of an empire!

The Worship of the Idol “Union.” · In the very next paragraph to the one just reviewed, Mr. Lincoln uses the word "union," in the absurd sense I have indicated, seven times in nine lines. The priests of union-worship, wishing to avoid the ideas couched in the full phrase, "union of states," or "united states," use the word "union" without its proper adjuncts, and attribute to it corporate personality, and sovereign authority; besides falsely saying it is a union of people, and not a union of states. They cite as their sole proof, the insignificant tag called the preamble, which, though vastly important as a statement of motives, is really no more of the compact or law, than the tail, or the kink of it, is of the pig; and conclude the argument by the untruth, that the states ceded or surrendered (i. e. alienated) to the said "union," a paramount or supreme sovereignty over themselves. Not a line of the constitution or history, hints at any such transfer, while all evidences show that the separate states delegated (but did not alienate) powers to "the united states" (and not