Richardson's Defense of the South

In these pages it is assumed that all arguments not based on the Constitution are irrelevant.

In discussing questions of right under the Constitution we necessarily deal with facts, authorities, Legislatures, Conventions, and the Constitution itself.

1787.-The Government itself, in its very formation, declared the right of secession, in expressed terms of the Constitution, by granting the right of nine States to secede from the former Union, which was declared to be "perpetual."

1788. The Federalist, in answer to questions, often declared that the proposed Constitution required "the States to be distinct and independent sovereignties."

1790.-Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, under Washington, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "Unless the Bill for the Assumption of the State Debts be passed there will be a separation of the States." He regarded the right of secession as an indisputable fact; and this at the time of the first administration of the Government.

1799. During the next administration the Assembly of Virginia passed a set of resolutions, and sent them to all the States. The following six States replied, endorsing them: New Hampshire (Webster's native State), New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Massachusetts, Webster's adopted State. These resolutions declare, not less than four times, that the Constitution is a Compact between the States. They are in part as follows: "That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare that in view of the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the Compact, to which the States are Parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument, constituting the Compact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that Compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said Compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within

their respective limits the authorities, rights and liberties appertaning to them.

"That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret that a spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the Federal Government to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the Constitutional Charter, which defines them; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound certain phrases (which having been copied from the very limited grant of powers in the former Articles of Confederation were the less liable to be misunderstood), so as to destroy the meaning and effect of the particular enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases, and so as to consolidate the States, by degrees, into one Sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable result of which would be, to transform the present Republican System of the United States into an absolute, or, at least, a mixed Monarchy." (Works of Hamilton, Vol. 6, page 530).

These are the resolutions of seven States at a time when the meaning of the Constitution was not debatable.

1799.-New Hampshire, revising her Constitution, copied from that of Massachusetts these words: "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence."

1803.-Judge Tucker, Professor of Law in the William and Mary University in Virginia, a jurist and publicist of acknowledged ability, a strong Union man and a distinguished patriot, said, in the Appendix to his edition of Blackstone's Commentary: "The Federal Government, then, appears to be the organ through which the United Republics communicate with foreign nations and with each other. Their submission to its operations is voluntary; and its councils, its engagements, its authority, are theirs, modified and united. Its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame in which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they have been swallowed up. Each is still a perfect State, still a Sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent."

1814. It is universally conceded by reputable historians that the New England States would have seceded in 1814 had not

the war with England terminated when it did. (Portland, Oregonian, 1902).

1824.-William Rawle, an eminent jurist of Pennsylvania, U. S. District Attorney under Washington, and, by Washington offered the Attorney Generalship of the United States, wrote "Rawle's View of the Constitution," a celebrated work, adopted as a text-book at West Point. In this work Mr. Rawle says, "The Union is an association of the people of Republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those Republics. The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and the best, is not essential to the being of a Republic: but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved; and, therefore, the guarantee must be so construed. It depends. on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation; because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principles on whch all our political systems are founded: which is that the people have, in all cases, á right to determine how they will be governed; a right ingredient in the original composition of the Government; which though not expressly avowed, was mutually understood.

"As to the remaining States, among themselves, there is no opening for doubt. Secession may reduce them to the smallest integer admitting combination. They would remain united under the same principles, and regulations, among themselves, that now apply to the whole. For a State cannot be compelled to withdraw from the Union, and, therefore, if two or more States determine to remain united, although all the others desert them, nothing can be discovered in the Constitution to prevent it."

1830. In the United States Senate, speaking on the Foote Resolutions, Daniel Webster said: "It (Constitution) is the original bargain-the Compact-let it stand-let the advantage of it be fully enjoyed. The Union is itself too full of benefits to be hazarded in propositions for changing its original basis. I go for the Constitution as it is. But I am resolved not to submit in silence to accusations which impute to us (the North) a disposition to evade the Constitutional Compact." Note the

fact that Webster here calls the Constitution "the Compact" and "the Constitutional Compact."

1833. In the Senate of the United States, speaking on Calhoun's Resolution, Daniel Webster said of the Constitution: "If contract, it rests on plighted faith, and the mode of redress would be to declare the whole void. States may secede, if a League or Compact." It is true, in this speech, he denied that the Constitution is a compact, saying, "The Constitution means a Government, not a Compact, flatly contradicting the Webster of three years ago, contradicting the the ratifying ordinances of his native State and adopted State, contradicting Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson and every other authoritative expounder of the Constitution. But he admits in this speech all that the South demanded in the Sixties, viz: "States may secede, if a League or Compact."

1834. Judge Story issued his celebrated work, "Story on the Constitution," in which he made a great effort to prove that the Government of the Unitd Stats is a "National Government proper, not Federal. In this work he is frank to admit the right of secession, if the Constitution is a Compact between the States, thus fully agreeing with Daniel Webster of 1833. In commenting on Judge Tucker's Commentary on the Constitution, he says: "The obvious deductions, which may be, and indeed have been drawn, from considering the Constitution as a Compact between the States, are that it operates as a mere treaty, or convention between them, and has an obligatory force upon each State no longer than it suits its pleasure, or its consent continues; that each State has a right to judge for itself in relation to the nature, extent and obligations of the instrument, without being at all bound by the interpretation of the Federal Government, or by that of any other State; and that each State retains the power to withdraw from the Confederacy, and to dissolve its connection, when such shall be its choice; and may suspend the operations of the Federal Government, and nullify its acts within its own territorial limits, whenever, in its own opinion, the exergency of the case may require. These conclusions may not always be avowed; but they flow naturally from the doctrines which we have under consideration. They go to the extent of

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