Resolved, That each and every captain of patrol be furnished with a copy of these resolutions, which they must show to all persons residing in their neighborhood, and request their signatures.

Resolved, That each captain of patrol be required to make a return to the President monthly, and report all persons who refuse to do duty.

Resolved, That we will prohibit all peddlers from

passing through our section of the district, unless

they be legally authorized to do so by law.

Resolved, That any of the above resolutions may be

changed at any regular meeting by a majority of

two-thirds of the votes of the members present. Resolved, That the officers do duty equal to any of

the members.

These Vigilant Associations and Committees were soon at work, and large numbers of Northern men and women-teachers, preachers, travellers, peddlers, &c.—were arraigned by them and compelled to leave the State. In a few cases violence was resorted to, in the way of tar and feathers, where an "abolitionist" was "spotted."

From the planter owning six hundred negroes, down to the "white trash," all seemed to feel the fire of enthusiasm in the cause of disunion-all alike were inspired with hatred of the North and contempt of the Federal compact. So far as we can know, not one solitary voice in South Carolina was raised in behalf of the Union, after the middle of November.

A Queer Case

according to the Constitution of this State, to exercise the office to which I have been appointed, and will, to the best of my abilities, discharge the duties thereof, and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of this State and of the United States."

It was also provided, among other things, by the State Constitution, that the Governor "shall command the military forces of the State, except when they shall be called into

the service of the United States." As it was

impossible to alter that Constitution for the emergency, the entire obligations of the instrument were ignored as part of the scheme of the revolution. The Constitution could

only be altered after the following process:

"No part of the Constitution shall be altered unless a bill to alter the same shall have been read three times in the House of Representatives and three times in the Senate, and agreed to by two-thirds of both branches of the whole representation; nei

ther shall any alteration take place until the bill, as agreed to, be published three months previous to a new election for members to the House of Representatives; and if the alteration proposed by the Legislature shall be agreed to in the first session by twothirds of the whole representation in both branches of the Legislature, after the same shall have been read three times, on three several days, in each House, then, and not otherwise, the same shall become a part of the Constitution."

A strict constructionist may, very properly declare the whole act of secession illegal and [A very remarkable fea- unconstitutional under the laws of South Cature of this "popular up-rolina. As the Wheeling Convention afterrising" is the fact that the wards declared the entire vote of Virginia Legislature and the people in the action taken and the declaration of secession illegal, so any abrogated their own Constitution, and never for citizen or body of men in South Carolina can a moment regarded its provisions. Thus, declare the acts of their Legislature and Conevery officer serving the State was required vention entirely illegal under their State orto subscribe to the following oath:ganic law, and consistently might repudiate the entire proceedings.]

"I do swear (or affirm) that I am duly qualified

CHAPTER VII.

VIEWS OF THE FATHERS OF THE REPUBLIC ON THE
QUESTION OF UNION AND

DISUNION.

indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citi

BEFORE entering upon the narrative of the events which rapidly followed upon the opening of the XXXVI Congress, (2d Session,) which assembled Dec. 3d, we must pause to introduce the opinions of the founders of the Constitution and of its most eminent expound-zens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that ers, on the question of Union. It is only by having their views, of the right of a State to secede, that we can form a just estimate of the position which parties soon assumed on the question of disunion.

Opinions of President
Washington.

Chief of all comes Washington. In his Farewell Address, we have at once his warning and his encouragement. The Union, one and indivisible, is his prayer and his adjuration. Did he sadly foresee, with the prescience of his patriot spirit, the circumstances of 1861, when he wrote that immaculate document? It says:

country has a right to concentrate your affection."

Upon the benignant character of the Constitution, and its provision for all needed amendment, the Address says:

"To the efficacy and permanency of your Union a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances, in all times, have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate Union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and "The unity of government, which constitutes you unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real inde- distribution of its powers uniting security with enpendence; the support of your tranquility at home, ergy, and containing within itself a provision for its your peace abroad; of your safety; of your pros own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence perity; of that very liberty which you so highly and your support. Respect for its authority, comprize. But, as it is easy to foresee that, from differ-pliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, cnt causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken, in your minds, the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insiduously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense "The basis of our political systems is, the right of value of your National Union to your collective and the people to make and to alter their constitutions individual happiness; that you should cherish a cor- of government. But the constitution which at any dial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; ac-time exists, till changed by an explicit and authencustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of tic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; upon all. The very idea of the power and the right watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; of the people to establish government pre-supposes discountenancing whatever may suggest even a susthe duty of every individual to obey the established picion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and government." 7

are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty.

"If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any particular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment, in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation.

Against rebellion to its authority, the Fa- | as a pretext for the introduction of the "highly ther of his Country said :

"All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle [of liberty] and of fatal tendency."

And this reproof was administered to those factionists who arrogated the right of States to supremacy rather than concede to the Federal Government its needed centralization of

power :

dangerous" resolutions, in that, had they
never passed Congress, the resolutions would
have found some other pretext for their viru-
lence, which was aimed at the dominant
party-the Federalists-rather than at par-
ticular measures. He then referred to the
papers
introduced by Colonel Taylor, (in the
Virginia Assembly,) and Mr. George K. Tay-
lor, on Federal relations. Judge Marshall
then says:—

"The debates on these subjects were long and animated. In the course of them sentiments were declared and (in my judgment) views were develop

"And remember especially that, for the efficiented of a very serious and alarming extent. To me it management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.".

seems that there are men who will hold power by any means rather than not hold it, and who would prefer a dissolution of the Union to the continuance of the administration not of their own party. They will risk all the ills which may result from the most dan gerous experiments rather than permit that happiness to be enjoyed which is dispensed by other hands than their own. It is more than ever essential to make great exertions at the next election, and am persuaded that by making them we obtain a Legislature, if not federal, so divided as to be mode.

rate.

"I feel with increased force the obligations of duty to make sacrifices and exertions for the preservation of American union and independence, as I am more convinced of the reality of the danger which threatens them."

Thomas Jefferson, the "Father of Democracy," an implacable adversary of the Federalists, as a partisan leader who considered that any means would justify the ends of their overthrow, penned

and secretly despatched to Opinions of Jefferson.
Kentucky those celebrated
resolutions which make him the Father of
Nullification; yet, as a true patriot, he could
but openly oppose the scheme of a separate
Confederacy proposed by Colonel Taylor, (re-
ferred to in Judge Marshall's letter, quoted
from above,) to be composed of Virginia and
North Carolina. He thus expressed his vn-
qualified dissent to the idea of secer
sion:"-

"In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. Perhaps this party division

1

VIEWS OF STATESMEN ON DISUNION.

51

"Have they said, 'We, the States? Have they made a proposal of a compact between States? If they had, this would be a Confederation; it is, otherwise, most clearly a consolidated Government. The whole question turns, Sir, on that poor, little thing, the expression, We, the People,' instead of the States,' of America."

is necessary to induce each to watch and to report | called to ratify or to reject the organic instruto the people the proceedings of the other. But if, ment: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 alone cut off, will our nature 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 by 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 one another 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 associates for that purpose, than to see our bickerings transferred to others."

Well would it have been for the patriot's reputation for candor and consistency if, after penning such statesman-like views, he had not to father those incendiary resolves which afforded South Carolina a precedent for her conduct in 1832.

Hamilton, in his FederalHamilton's Views. ist, devoted all his intellectual resources to an elimination of the nature and powers of the Constitution. Having then to meet the question of State rights as superior to the rights of the Commonwealth, he said :—

Chancellor Kent's
Views.

Chancellor Kent adverts to the necessities which impelled the adoption of the Constitution as a substitute for the old

Articles

terms:

of the Confederation, in these

"The great and fundamental defect of the Confederation of 1781, which led to its eventual overthrow, was, that, in imitation of all former Confederacies, it carried the decrees of the Federal Council to the States in their sovereign capacity. The great and incurable defect of all former Federal Governments, such as the Amphictyonic, Achæan, and Lycian Confederacies, and the Germanic, Helvetic, Hanseatic and Dutch Republics, is, that they were sovereignties over sovereignties. The first effort to relieve the people of the country from this state of national degradation and ruin came from Virginia. The General Convention afterwards met at Philadelphia in May, 1787. The plan was

submitted to a convention of delegates chosen by the people at large in each State for assent and ratification. Such a measure was laying the foundations of the fabric of our national polity where alone they ought to be laid-on the broad consent of the people." (Commentaries, Vol. I., p. 225.)

Chief-Justice Story's
Views.

Chief Justice Story tells us, in his exposition of the history of the compact between the States and General Government, that, "in the most elaborate expositions of the Constitution by its friends, its character as a permanent form of government, as a fundamental law, as a supreme rule, which no State was at liberty to disregard, to suspend, or to annul, was constantly admitted and in

"However gross a heresy it may be to maintain that a party to a compact has a right to revoke that compact, the doctrine has had respectable advocates. The possibility of such a question shows the necessity of laying the foundation of our national government deeper than in the mere sanction of de-sisted upon." (1 Story, 225.) And he furlegated authority. The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people."

Patrick Henry's
Views.

Patrick Henry opposed the Constitution because it proposed a consolidated and indivisible government. He said, in his speech in the Virginia Convention of 1788,

ther adds: "There was no reservation of any right on the part of any State to dissolve its connection, or to abrogate its dissent, or to suspend the operation of the Constitution as to itself."

"No effort was spared by the leaders of the nullification school to draw from him even a qualified assent to their theories. But in vain. He not only refused to admit their soundness, but he devoted his time and energies for three laborious years to the preparation of essays and letters, of which the object was to demonstrate that his resolutions and report did not, and could not, bear the Carolina interpreta-pect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these tion."