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 V 
 
 SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. D. C. DE JARNETTE, OF VIRGINIA, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 10, 1^61. 
 
 Mr. DE JARNETTE said: 
 Mr. Speaker: On the 20th day of December, 
 1860, the people of South Carolina, by unaninnous 
 consent, passed the following ordinance of seces- 
 sion: 
 
 An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of 
 South Cai-olina and the other States tmited with her, un- 
 der the compact entitled '• The Constitution of the United 
 States of Jlmerica." 
 
 We, the people of South Carolina, in convention as- 
 sembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared 
 and ordained, that the ordinance adopted in convention, on 
 the 23d day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby 
 the Constitution of the United States,of America was rat- 
 ified; and also all acts and parts of acts of the General As- 
 sembly of this State r.-itifyin? the amendments of the said 
 Constitution, are hereby repealed ; and that the Union now 
 subsisting between South Carolina and the other States 
 under the name of The United States of America, is hereby 
 dissolved. 
 
 Several of the other States in which the in.stitu- 
 tion of domestic slavery exists and is recognized 
 by the people, and protected by law, are already 
 taking incipient steps tending inevitably towards 
 the passage of similar ordinances of secession; 
 and a majority, a large majority, of the people of 
 each and all of those States entertain the opinion, 
 with the utmost confidence, that they have the 
 right so to do. It is probable that a majority of 
 the people of the other or non-slaveholding States 
 deny that this right exists. All the States in the 
 southern portion of the Confederacy — fifteen in 
 number — claim the right to secede from the Union 
 whenever, in their judgment, secession is best 
 calculated to remedy any evil under which they 
 may be laboring. AH the northern States, eigh- 
 teen in number, deny the existence of such a 
 right. It is a clear and distinct claim of a right 
 on the one hand, and an equally clear and dis- 
 tinct denial of that right on the other hand. 
 
 It becomes, therefore, a question of immense 
 and immediate importance. Have the States of 
 this Union, for any cause whatever, the right 
 peacefully to secede from the Union? On the so- 
 lution of this question may perhaps depend the 
 future peace and prosperity of the people of this 
 country, or the shedding of fratricidal blood in the 
 fiercestcivilwar that ever cursed our earth. Those 
 who deny the right of secession say that seces- 
 sion is but another name for revolution; and that 
 revolution is treason, depending on its success, or 
 want of success, as.to whether it will be justified 
 or condemned by the civilized world. If such 
 sentiments as these prevail with the people of the 
 
 North, and the party which is about to grasp the 
 reins of government attempts to act upon them,, 
 the practical results will be the same in secession^ 
 as in revolution. No matter how clear the right 
 to secede peaceably may be in itself, if that right 
 is denied by those who control the affairs of the 
 Federal Government, the attempt to secede on the- 
 one hand , however peacefully it may be made, and! 
 the attempt on the other hand by forcible means 
 to prevent the secession, will make war the inevit- 
 able consequence. It is agreed on all hands that 
 the southern States, if their grievances are suffi- 
 ciently great to justify it, have the right, like the 
 fathers of our Republic, to revolution. Revolu- 
 tion does not necessarily imply war; there might 
 be a peaceable revolution. But, if an attempt is 
 made by coercive measures to suppress a revolu- 
 tion, then war ensues. Precisely so, if the right 
 to secede is not conceded by those in authority 
 in the Government, and they attempt forcibly to 
 pi-event a State from seceding, or to coerce back 
 mto the Union a State that has exercised the 
 right peacefully to dissolve her connection there- 
 with. In the one case as in the other, bloody 
 strife will ensue. The right to secede, therefore, 
 to be of practical importance, must be recognized 
 and conceded by those who have control of the 
 Federal Government. This right of secession has 
 long been an acknowledged article in the faith of 
 one of the great political parties into which the 
 people of this country have been divided; and it 
 IS passing strange that any man who ever called 
 himself a Democrat should for a moment question 
 the existence of this right. 
 
 The convention of the Democratic party, which 
 met in 1856 in the city of Cincinnati, and which 
 put in nomination the present Chief Magistrate of 
 our country, adopted the following among its res- 
 olutions: 
 
 " 4. That the Democratic party will faithfully abi(fe by 
 and uphold the principles laid down in the lientueky and 
 Virginia resolutions of 1798, and in the report of Mr. Mad- 
 ison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799 ; that it adopts those 
 principles as constituting one of the main foundations of 
 its political creed, and is resolved to carry them out in their 
 obvious meaning and import." 
 
 Upon a platform of which this was one of the 
 main foundations, James Buchanan was nomin- 
 ated for President; and on that platform he was 
 elected to that high office. In accepting the nom- 
 ination, he emphatically indorsed the platform 
 and thereby pledged hipfiself to carry faithfully 
 into execution its principles, in the event of his 
 
.T13Z 
 
 election. The first n-soknion in the series passed 
 by the Legisltitnre of Kentucky, on the 10th day 
 of November, 1798, so eniphalically adopted by 
 the Cincinnati convention, and so cordially in- 
 dorsed by its candidate, reads as follows: 
 
 " 1. Resolved, That the several Slates coiiiposin;; the 
 United States of America are not united on the principle 
 of unlimited submission to theirGeneral Covernment; but 
 that, by compact inuler the style and title of a Constitution 
 for the United States and amendments thereto, they con- 
 stitute a General Gnvernment for special purposes, dele- 
 gated to the Government certain defined powers, reserving 
 each State to itself the residuary mass of right to their own 
 self-goveniment ; and that whenever the Geueral Govern- 
 ment assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthori- 
 tative, void, and of no efteet; that to this compact each 
 State acceded as a State, and is an integral party ; that this 
 Government created by this compact was not made the 
 exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers dele- 
 ■gated to itself — since that would have made its discretion, 
 •and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers ; but 
 that, as in all other cases of compact between parties hav- 1 j 
 ing no common judge, each party has an equal right to j 1 
 judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode and j 
 manner of redress." |l 
 
 Now, this is the doctrine adopted by the Dem-|l 
 ocratic party in 1856 as constituting one of the j 
 main foundations of its political creed. This is; 
 the doctrine which that party resolved to carry; 
 out in its obvious meaning and import. To carry i 
 out this doctrine, that party nominated and elected 
 James Buchanan; and he ]iledged himself to carry 
 out the doctrine of the party. That tiiis resolu-- 
 tion contains a clear ami distinct enunciation ofi 
 the right of secession scarcely admits of a doubt; 
 for it unequivocally recognizes the principle that 
 the Constitution is a compact between the Stales, !| 
 and that each, as a party to that compact, has an [ 
 equal right with each other State, the same as in 1; 
 any other case of compact between parlies, to : 
 judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the | 
 niode and measure of redress. And it is a well I [ 
 established principle of common law that where 
 one of several parties to a compact infracts or vio- 
 lates the stipulations of that compact, all the other 
 parties are relieved from obligation to it, and may, 
 if they choose, treat it as imll and void. The sev- 
 eral coequal State sovereignties of North America 
 enter into a compact with each other — a compact 
 that is equally binding upon all. In process of 
 time some of the clearly-expressed provisions of 
 that compact are set at naught, disregarded, and 
 trampled under foot by some of the contracting 
 
 f)arties. The States who are injured by this vio- 
 ation of the compact (each for itself) have the 
 right to judge as well of infractions (of the fact 
 that there have been infractions, and of the nature 
 and extent of those infractions) as of the mode 
 and measure of redress. If one State judges that 
 the compact has been materially and grievously 
 infracted, and that her mode and measure of re- 
 dress shall be to treat the whole compact as hav- 
 ing been rendered null and void by such infrac- 
 tion, and thus take herself out of the Union, she 
 has a perfect right to do so; at the same time that 
 another State may, wiih equal right, determine, 
 as her mode of redress, to contend for her rights 
 in the Union. 
 
 This is the leading principle of the Kentucky 
 resolutions of 1798, adopted by the Democratic 
 convention in Cincinnati, in 1856, and to the cor- 
 
 dial support of which the whole party, with James 
 Buchanan at its head, stand pledged before the 
 world. Both of the wings of that party, in the 
 late presidential contest, also stood pledged to this 
 doctrine; not only by the fact that boiii, as one 
 party, supported Mr. Buchanan in 1856 with this 
 platform; hut likewise and especially tor the rea- 
 sons that both conventions — that which put in 
 nomination Judge Douglas, as well as that which 
 supported Major Breckinridge — readopted and 
 reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform . It ought, there- 
 fore, to be a matter of profound astonishment, that 
 any man who calls himself a Democrat, whether 
 occupying a high or low position in the party, 
 should now deny the existence of the right ofStates 
 to secede, whenever, in their opinion, the compact 
 has been violated so as to constitute just cause, 
 and that secession is the proper " mode and meas- 
 ure of redress. " Is the denial of that right car- 
 rying out the Kentucky resolutions " in their ob- 
 vious meaning and import?" But this is a question 
 of too transcendent interest, and involves too much 
 weal or woe to the people of this country, to be 
 decided by any mere party test. Does the right 
 really exist ? May a State, believing that the prin- 
 ciples of the compact have been violated, and her 
 rights invaded, peacefully separate herself from 
 the Federal Union .' If so, any attempt to coerce 
 such a State will be wholly without warrant, and 
 will place those making such an attempt clearly 
 in the wrong. 
 
 In order to a proper solution of this question, 
 the history of the foundation of this Government, 
 as well as the antecedent history of the States, 
 must be carefully studied. A few of the most 
 prominent items of that history will constitute 
 data from which we may at this time derive con- 
 clusions of vast moment. 
 
 1. The thirteen colonies which, after their sep- 
 aration from Great Britain, united together in the 
 formation of this Government, were, previous to 
 'hat separation as colonial dependencies of Great 
 Britain, wholly separate from and independent 
 of each other. Their relationship to a common 
 sovereign head was the only tie which, in any 
 political respect, bound them to each other. As 
 colonies of Great Britain, some had been settled 
 at one time and some at another; some were 
 provinces of another Government, brought under 
 British domination by conquest. Tlie govern- 
 ments in some were provisional, in some proprie- 
 tary, and in some established by charter. They 
 were, therefore, essentially distinct and separate 
 from each other, exhibiting no elements of one- 
 ness. 
 
 2. On the 4th day of July, 1776, these several 
 separate and distinct colonies of Great Britain, in 
 Congress assembled in the city of Philadelphia, 
 united in acommon Declaration of Independence, 
 in which tliey declared, not that the people of 
 those colonies, either in their individual capacity 
 or in the aggregate, were free and independent of 
 Gi'eat Britain, but that these united colonies are, 
 and of right ought to be, free and independent 
 States; not only free from Great Britain, but free 
 from each other; not only independent of Great 
 Britain, but independent of each other. That this 
 is the true intent and meaning of that document 
 
is clearly evident from another clause, in wliich 
 it is said: 
 
 " And as free and independent States, they have full 
 power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, 
 establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things 
 which independent States may of right do." 
 
 Thus eacli State is declared to be free and in- 
 dependent ahke of Great Britain and of all other 
 Powers; and each is entitled to exercise all the 
 powers and prerogatives of sovereignty. It was 
 for the support of this Declaration, that, with a 
 firm reliance on the protection of Divine Provi- 
 dence, our ancestors mutually pledged to each 
 other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
 honor. That this is the true light in which to 
 view the Declaration of Independence, has been 
 judicially decided, in the case of Ware vs. Hyl- 
 ton, 3 Dallas's Reports, page 199. In rendering 
 the opinion of the court, Judge Chase says: 
 
 " I consider the Declaration of Independence as a dec- 
 laration, not that the united colonies jointly, in a collective 
 capacity, were independent States, but that each of tliem 
 was an independent State."' 
 
 That is, that each of them had a right to gov- 
 ern itself by its own authority, and its own laws, 
 without any control from any other power on 
 earth. 
 
 This, then, is the true: character of the Decla- 
 ration of Independence. It asserts the separate 
 and individual independence, freedom, and sover- 
 eignty of each of the thirteen States. It was in 
 support of this Declaration that they fought the 
 fierce battles of the Revolution; and in this con- 
 flict they were successful — gained the very point 
 asserted in the Declaration, to wit: the separate 
 sovereignty of each State; for the treaty of peace 
 between Great Britain and the United States, 
 ratified in the year 1783, distinctly recognized the 
 sovereignty of each of the States by name. 
 
 3. Previous to the ratification of this treaty, 
 however — to wit: on the 9th day of July, in the 
 year 1778, and only two years after the Declara- 
 tion of Independence — the several States, in Con- 
 gress assembled, adopted Articles of Confedera- 
 tion and perpetual Union. The very idea of a 
 confederation implies not only the previous sov- 
 ereignty of the confederate parties, but their con- 
 tinued sovereignty also; for the same sovereign 
 power necessary in the formation of such a com- 
 pact is also essential to its preservation. But we 
 have no need to rely on mere inference; for the 
 first two articles of that document read as follows : 
 
 "Art -1. The style of this Confederacy shall be the Uni- 
 ted States of America. 
 
 " Art. 2. JCach State retains its sovereignty, freedom, 
 and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right 
 which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to 
 the United Stales in Congress assembled." 
 
 There was in these articles no surrender of sov- 
 ereignty, freedom, or independence. The cen- 
 tral Government was merely an agency estab- 
 lished for the purpose of protecting the equal and 
 common rights of the several members of the Con- 
 federacy. Certain definite powers were delegated 
 to it; every other power, jurisdiction, and right, 
 was expressly reserved to the States. The entire 
 language of that instrument, in all its parts, car- 
 ries indubitable evidence of the continued, inde- 
 
 pendent, separate sovereignty of each of the con- 
 federate States. 
 
 The Constitution under whicli our present Gen- 
 eral Government claims its existence comes next 
 in order; and upon the correct understanding of 
 this instrument, guided by the antecedent light 
 to which reference has been already made, must 
 depend the solution of the grave and momentous 
 question now in discussion before the American 
 people. It is contended on one hand that this 
 Constitution is an organic act, consolidating into 
 one Government all the people of this covmtry; 
 constituting a General Government — over indi^ 
 viduais of limited powers, it is true, yet absolute, 
 supreme, and unending, in relation to all matters 
 conceded to it — and that no State can separate 
 from the Union, except by revolution or rebellion. 
 ItLs contended on the other hand that our present 
 Union, though more perfect than under the Arti- 
 cles of Confederation, is of the same general char- 
 acter — strictly a confederation of coequal sover- 
 eigns and independent States; a Union, it is true, 
 but not a union of individuals. It was, and is, 
 strictly and truly, a union — or confederation — 
 of States. The Constitution is a compact be- 
 tween those States, acceded to by each, and from 
 which any State may secede when the provisions 
 of that compact have been violated by the other 
 States. The former of these opinions was enter- 
 tained and defended by the old consolidationists, 
 who, in the early years of this Republic, by a 
 strange perversion of names, were called Feder- 
 alists; and the other opinion was maintained by 
 the anti-Federalists, or Republicans. John Adams 
 and Alexander Hamilton were among the most 
 prominent of the Federal school; and Thomas 
 Jefferson and James Madison were among the 
 most distinguished representatives of the Repub- 
 lican faith. In more modern times Chief Justice 
 Story and Daniel Webster have been distin- 
 guished advocates of the Federal school; and John 
 C. Calhoun has excelled in the advocacy of Jef- 
 fersonian Republicanism. 
 
 The State-rights, Democratic, or Jeffersoniari 
 Republicans have always contended, 
 
 1. That at the time of the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution, the States were severally free, inde- 
 pendent, and sovereign. 
 
 2. That the present Union is the result of a con- 
 stitutional compact, to which each State, as an 
 independent sovereignty, acceded. 
 
 3. And that, as a consequence legitimately de- 
 ducible from these premises, each Slate may, in 
 the exercise of the same independent sovereignty, 
 secede from the Union. Hence, the convention 
 of South Carolina, in 1852, by a vote of 136 to 
 19, passed the following ortlinance: 
 
 " That South Carolina, in the exrrcise of her sovereign 
 will as an independent State, acceded to the Federal Union 
 known as the United States of America, and that, in the 
 exercise of her sovereign will, it is her right, without let 
 hindrance or molestation from any power whatever, to, 
 secede from the said Federal Union ; and for the sufficiency 
 of the causes whieli may impel her to such separation, she 
 is responsible alone, under God, to the tribunal of public 
 opinion among the nations of the earth." 
 
 Mr. Calhoun holds the following language in 
 relation to this subject: 
 " That a State, as a party to the constitutional compact, 
 
4 
 
 has the right to secede, acting in the same capacity in which 
 she ratifii'd the Constitution as a compact. It' a power 
 should be inserted by the amending power which would 
 radically change the character of the Constitution, or the 
 nature of the system, or if the former should fail to fulfill 
 the ends of which it was established. This results neces- 
 sarily from the nature of a compact, when the parties to it 
 are sovereign, and, of course, have no higher authority to 
 which they may appeal. That the eflect of secession would 
 be to place her in the relation of a foreign State to the 
 others, is equally clear. Nor is it less so that it would 
 make her (not her citizens individually) responsible to them 
 in that character. All this results necessarily from the 
 nature of a compact between the sovereign parties." 
 
 Is not this correct reasoning.' If tlje premises 
 are true, how can the conclusions be avoided.' The 
 Federal party in the United States Senate in 1833, 
 . under the leadership of Daniel Webster, conceded 
 the correctness of tiiis reasoning, and the legiti- 
 macy of these conclusions, and joined issue upon 
 the matters of fact involved. 
 
 Mr Webster says: 
 
 "If, in adopting the Constitution, nothing vv-as done but 
 acceding to a compact, nothing would seem neces.sary in 
 order to break it up but to secede from the same compact." 
 
 The whole subject of the right of secession, 
 therefore, turns upon the questions: Is the Grov- 
 ernment a confederation of coequal, sovereign 
 States.' Is the Constitution a compact to which 
 the several States in their sovereign capacity have 
 acceded.' It is exceedingly difficult to get at the 
 true position of the Federalists on this point. At 
 one time they will admit the independence and 
 sovereignty of the States, and at another time 
 deny the same. At one time they admit the Con- 
 stitution to be a compact; at another time they j 
 deny it. I 
 
 Judge Story, one of the ablest and most dis- 
 tinguished of the Federal writers, in his elaborate- 
 work on the Constitution, though he strives to 
 write with great caution and wariness, is not free 
 from such contradictions and incongruities. In 
 a note to page 362, he quotes some very disin- 
 genuous remarks from tlir opinion of the Supreme 
 Court in the case of McCuUock ijs. Maryland, 
 in relation to the fact that the Constitution was 
 finally ratified by conventions of the several States. 
 He says: 
 
 " They acted upon it in the only manner in which they 
 can act safely, effectively, and wisely on such a subject, 
 by assembling in convention. It is true that they a.ssem- 
 bled in their several States ; and where else should they 
 tiave assembled.' No political dreamer was ever wild 
 ■enough to think of breaking down the lines wliich separate 
 the .States, and of compounding the .'\merican people in one 
 ■common mass." 
 
 This was an unfair, unjust, and incorrect rep- 
 resentation of the position of his opponents. It 
 is not because the conventions assembled in the 
 several Slates, but because those conventions were 
 'the delegated assemblies of the States, that this 
 fact presents an argument in conflict with the 
 Federal or consolidation theory. But Judge Story 
 says: 
 
 " No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think 
 of breaking down the lines which .separate the Stales, and 
 of compounding the American peopli: into one common 
 imass." 
 
 Yet, on the very next page, he quotes from 
 Mr. Webster's speeches, introducing the quota- 
 tion as follows: 
 
 " The doctrine Uiat the Slates are parties is a gratuitous 
 
 assumption ; in the language of a most distinguished states- 
 man, Mr. Webster, ' The Constitution itself, in its very 
 front, refutes that.' It declares that it is ordained and es- 
 tablished by the people of the United States. So far from 
 saying that it was established by the governments of the 
 several States, it does not even say that it was established 
 by the people of the several States. But it pronounces that 
 it is established by the people of the United States, in the 
 aggregate." 
 
 Now, is not this, so far as every practical pur- 
 pose is involved, literally "compounding the 
 American people into one common mass .'" Does 
 not Judge Story show himself and Mr. Webster 
 to be "political dreamers of the wildest character.'" 
 But, in very truth, are not these distinguished 
 gentleman entirely mistaken .' The Constitution 
 does not say "in its very front," or anywhere 
 else, that it was ordained and established by the 
 people of the United States in the aggregate, any 
 more than it says it was done "by the people of the 
 several Statics acting severally." The Constitu- 
 tion itself, "in its very front," pronounces neither 
 way, but simply that it was "ordained and estab- 
 lished by the people of the United Slates." The 
 truth of history, however, "in its very front," 
 pronounces that it was done by the people of the 
 States severally, and not in the aggregate. The 
 doctrine that the States are parties, is what Judge 
 Story here pronounces to be a gratuitous assump- 
 tion; yet, in page 360, he thus introduces a quo- 
 tation from the Federalist: 
 
 "It was truly remarked by the Federalist, that the Con- 
 stitution was tlie result, neither from a desire of a majority 
 of the people of the United States, nor from that of a ma- 
 jority of the Stales. It resulted from the unanimous assent 
 of the several States that are parties to it." 
 
 If the Slates are " parties "to the Constitution, 
 how can the doctrine that the States are parties 
 be a "gratuitous assumption.'" In the celebrated 
 debate in the United States Senate, in 1833, Mr. 
 Webster, in emphatic and almost indignant terms, 
 repudiates the phrase, " constitutional compact," 
 which Mr. Calhoun had employed in his resolu- 
 tions, declaring that " the word compact was not a 
 constitutional mode of expression." Yet, in his 
 great speech in reply to Hayne, delivered in the 
 United States Senate on the 20th day of June, 
 1830 — less than a year previous to this debate — 
 Mr. Webster, in allusion to the basis of repre- 
 sentation in the slave States, says: 
 
 " Nevertheless, I do not complain, nor would I counte- 
 nance any movement to alter this arrangement of repre- 
 sentation. It is the original bargain to the compact ; let it 
 stand; lettheadvantagesof it be fully enjoyed. The Union 
 itself is too full of binefits to be hazarded in propositions 
 for changing its origiii.il basis. 1 go for the Constitulion as 
 it is ; and for the Union as it is ; but I am resolved not to 
 submit in silence to accusations either against myself in- 
 dividually or against the North — wholly unfounded and un- 
 just ; accusations which impute to us a disposition to evade 
 the constitutional compact, and to extend I he powers of 
 the Government over the internal laws and domestic con- 
 dition of the States." 
 
 It is here apparent that Mr. Webster himself, 
 when not displaying the wariness of the skillful 
 debater, could talk as freely of the " constitutional 
 compact" as any one else. And if Mr. Webster 
 and Judge Story, the two greatest ligiils of the 
 Federal school, are thus incongruous and contra- 
 dictory in their statements and reasonings, what 
 must be thought of the cause which leads them 
 into such confusion.' 
 
In the late message of the President of the Uni- 
 ted States, addressed to the two Houses of Con- 
 gress, in speaking of the right of secession, the 
 President says: 
 
 " Sucli a principle is wholly inconsistent with the his- 
 tory as well as the character of the Federal Constitution. 
 After it was framed, with the greatest deliberation and care, 
 it was submitted to conventions of the people of the sev- 
 eral States for ratification. Its provisions were discussed 
 at length in these bodies, composed of the first men of the 
 country. Its opponents contended that it conferred powers 
 upon the Federal Government dangerous to the rights of 
 the States ; while its advocates maintained that under a 
 fair construction (»f the instrument there was no founda- 
 tion for such apprehensions. In that mighty struggle be- 
 tween the first intellects of this or any other country, it 
 never occurred to any individual, either among its oppo- 
 nents or advocates, to assert, or even to intimate, that their 
 efforts were all vain labor, because the moment that any 
 State felt herself aggrieved she might secede from the 
 Union I What a crushing argument would this have proved 
 against those who dreaded that the rights of the States 
 would be endangered by the Constitution ! The truth is, 
 that it was not until many years after the origin of the 
 Federal Government that such a proposition was first 
 advanced." 
 
 This is going back to the proper source of in- 
 formation on the subject. But is the President 
 correct.' Is it true that the States, in establish- 
 ing a General Government, with specific powers 
 accurately defined in the constitutional compact, 
 really understood at the time, that they never 
 could revoke the act by which they ratified the 
 Constitution, nor resume the powers which, by 
 that instrument, they had delegated to the Gen- 
 era! Government, no matter how much those dele- 
 gated powers might be perverted to their injury, 
 nor to what extent some of the members of the 
 Confederacy might violate the clearly expressed 
 provisions of the compact.' If such was the un- 
 derstanding, it can doubtless be determined by 
 reference to the history of the times. The States 
 of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in the 
 acts by which they ratified the Constitution, used 
 the following language: 
 
 " Acknowledging with greatful hearts the goodness of 
 the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, in affording the people 
 of the United States, in the course of providence, an oppor- 
 tunity, deliberately and peacefully, without fraud or sur- 
 prise, of entering into an explicit and solemn compact with 
 each other, by assenting to and ratifying a new Constitu- 
 tion." 
 
 And then proceeds, on behalf of those States, 
 to assent to and ratify the Constitution. 
 
 This clearly establishes the fact, that these two 
 States regarded the Constitution as a compact, 
 acceded to, or assented to, by the States as sov- 
 ereign contracting parties. 
 
 Virginia, in ratifying, said: 
 
 " Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, 
 declare and make known, that the powers granted under 
 the Constitution, being derived from the people of the Uni- 
 ted States, be resumed by them whenever the same shall 
 be perverted to their injury or oppression ; and that every 
 power, not granted thereby, remains with them at their 
 will." 
 
 New York said: 
 
 "That the powers of the General Government maybe 
 assumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary 
 to their happiness ; that every power, jurisdiction, and right 
 which is not, by the said Constitution , clearly delegated to 
 the Congress of the United States, or to the departments of 
 the Government thereof, remain to the people of the sev- 
 eral States, or to their respective State governments, to 
 whom tiiey may have granted the same. " 
 
 Rhode Island also declared: 
 
 "That the powers of the Government may be resumed 
 by the people when necessary to their happiness ; and that 
 all rights not delegated to Congress by this instrument (the 
 ! Constitution of the United States) remain to the people of 
 ' the several States, or their State governments." 
 
 I It must be entirely apparent now that the Pres- 
 ident is laboring under a mistake as to the facts 
 of the case. It is not true that it was many years 
 after the origin of the Federal Government, be- 
 fore such a proposition was advanced as that. 
 The people of the several States who had dele- 
 gated these powers to the General Government 
 might, for good cause, resume them again. Two 
 of the States, in adopting the Constitution, em- 
 ploy language which clearly implies this right; 
 and three other States distinctly aflirm the right. 
 In the convention of New York a proposition 
 was submitted, that they ratify the Constitution 
 for a period often years, at which time they might 
 revoke their ratification of it if they chose. This 
 proposition was voted down, and the one just 
 quoted was adopted, by which that State claimed 
 tihe right to do so " whenever it shall become ne- 
 cessary for their happiness," without any limita- 
 tion of time. Surely these are facts which ought 
 for ever to settle this question. In view of them, 
 who can doubt, at least that those who framed 
 this Government, believed that the people of the 
 several States might resume the powers which 
 they had confided to the Federal Government, 
 whenever it would be to their interest to do so, 
 or, at least, whenever — to use the language of 
 Virginia — those powers " shall be perverted to 
 their injury or oppression." This is all that South 
 Carolina now contends for. It is on this principle 
 she is acting, believing that the powers she has 
 delegated to the Federal Government are being 
 perverted to her injury and oppression, she has 
 revoked the act by which she ratified the Consti- 
 tution, and resumed the delegated powers. Other 
 southern States pursue the same course. Deny 
 their right to do so if you will; but you cannot, 
 must not, deny that precisely this right was 
 claimed, distinctly and definitely, by at least three 
 of the original States at the time of their entering 
 into the compact; nor that they would not have 
 been entered into with other understanding. 
 
 The President thinks the Legislatures of those 
 States which have passed personal liberty bills in 
 direct contravention of the Constitution and laws 
 of Congress, ought immediately to repeal those 
 offensive bills, and says: 
 
 " The southern States, standing on the basis of the Con- 
 stitution, have a right to demand this act of justice from 
 the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the 
 Constitution, to which all the States are ])arties, will have 
 been willfully violated by one portion of them in a provis- 
 ion essential to the domestic security and happiness of the 
 remainder. In that event, the injured States, after having 
 first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain 
 redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to 
 the Government of the Union." 
 
 Now, with all due deference to the President, I 
 submit that this is bad logic; that the conclusion 
 is not as broad as the premises demand. This 
 language seems to concede that the Constitution 
 is a compact to which the several States are par- 
 ties. If one portion of the parties to that compact 
 " willfully violate one of its essential provisions" 
 
6 
 
 is there no redress but " revolutionary resistance ? " 
 Since all the powers possessed by the General 
 Government have been delegated to it by the peo- 
 ple of the respective States, when those powers 
 are perverted to the injury and oppression of those 
 people, or some of the parties to the compact by 
 which those powers are delegated, are " willfully 
 violated in some of its most essential provisions," 
 and such violation persisted in, why may not the 
 injured parties ])eacefu!ly recall the powers which 
 they have so delegated, and separate themselves 
 from that General Government? Is it true that 
 we have no peaceful remedy; that forcible " rev- 
 olutionary resistance" is the only alternative left? 
 
 There is one more paragraph in this remark- 
 able document demanding a moment's attention 
 at this point. It is this: 
 
 " In order to justify secession .is a constitutional remedy, 
 it must be on liie principle that tlie Federal Government is 
 a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at 
 pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be 
 so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and 
 dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any 
 of the Stales. In this manner our thirty-three States may 
 resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostil% 
 republics, each one retiring from the Union, without re- 
 sponsibility, whenever any sudden excitement might impel 
 them to such a course. By this process, a Union might be 
 entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks, which cost 
 our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to 
 establish." 
 
 There is a transjiarent sophism in this very 
 phrase, "secession as a constitutional remedy; ' 
 and in secession, as a constitutional right. No 
 one pretends that the Constitution itself provides 
 such a remedy, or gives origin to such a right. 
 The right is one of the prerogatives of sovereignty . 
 The same sovereign power by which the Slates 
 severally acceded to the compact will enable them 
 to secede from it. This right is an original ele- 
 ment of State sovereignty, a power which was not 
 delegated to the General Government; and could 
 not be surrendered by the States, without an ab- 
 rogation of the States themselves. But " if it be 
 so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand." Truly 
 the framers of this Government never intended it 
 to be held together by force; nor can it, so far as it 
 is a confederation between States, be preserved by 
 force. 
 
 Self-interest, and the existence of equal common 
 rights, impelled the States to form this Union, 
 intending that the general interest of all, and an 
 organized system of mutual good offices, recipro- 
 cal affection and regard, would impel each party 
 to the compact to a faithful observance of its slip- ! 
 ulations. If self-interest, kindly feeling, a noble 
 sense of justice, reciprocally felt and manifested, 
 do not constitute a ligament strong enough to hold 
 the States together, they will inevitably separate. 
 The noble men who formed this Government had 
 felt the galling yoke of British power too keenly 
 to forge with their own hands chains of tyranny 
 still more oppressive. Those who had just freed 
 themselves by " revolutionary resistance, " and at 
 the cost of great labor and sacrifice of hurnan life, 
 from the heavy hand of sovereign tyranny, were 
 not the men to surrender their own State sover- 
 eignty into the hands of a central Power, armed 
 with the right, by force, to hold the confederated 
 members in their places, no matter how oppres- 
 
 sive that Power might be to the States, leaving no 
 redress to the oppressed and injured States but 
 to wade through another scene of revolutionary 
 strife. 
 
 This Union has now been in existence for almost 
 a century; our people have been accustomed to 
 this peculiar form of Government, and, were all 
 the States faithful to its provisions, none Would 
 desire to leave it. " All experience has shown," 
 so says the Declaration of Independence, "that 
 mankmd are more disposed to suffer, while evils 
 are sufferable, than to right themselves by abol- 
 ishing the forms to which they are accustomed." 
 This inherent conservatism of man, added to the 
 community of right and interest of all the Stales, 
 which it was the purpose of this Government to 
 preserve and protect, ought to make it perpetual. 
 The belief on the part of the northern people 
 that the southern States will not, and have not 
 the right and power to secede under any circum- 
 stances of oppression and injury, is doubtless one 
 prominent cause of their continued aggressions 
 upon the constitutional rights of the South. Had 
 they believed that the southern Slates could and 
 would secede if those aggressions were not dis- 
 continued, they would have ceased long ago. The 
 recognition of that right on the part of the 
 northern people would, in all probability, have 
 prevented the necessity of its exercise. But 
 reckless fanaticism — led on and blinded by the 
 conviction that the South had no way of escape 
 or effective redress except by revolutionary re- 
 sistance — has brought the country to its present 
 perilous position. The advantages and blessings 
 of this Government have been manifold and great. 
 It is the most perfect system that the wisdom of 
 man has ever devised. Under its blessings and 
 benign influence our country has enlarged her 
 borders, strengthened her stakes, and made rapid 
 strides in all that gives domestic peace and pros- 
 perity at home, and insures for us respect and 
 power abroad. And the South has shown her 
 appreciation of all this, by enduring, from year 
 to year, ills and evils to which she would not 
 have submitted for a day, under other circum- 
 stances. She has borne and forborne, until for- 
 bearance has ceased to be a virtue; and now, 
 when the long-continued aggressions upon her 
 sacred rights have culminated in surrendering the 
 reinsof Government into the hands of one pledged 
 to exert his entire official influence to place their 
 cherished domijstic institutions in the course of 
 ultimate extinction, who can blame those States 
 for resuming the powers they have heretofore 
 delegated to the General Government? 
 
 The Union is already dissolved. "One of its 
 brightest stars has disappeared from that re- 
 splendent galaxy which has so long lighted up 
 the western heavens, and to which the oppressed 
 of all nations looked with hope of deliverance." 
 Others will inevitably follow, one by one, but in 
 rapid succession; and the luster of those that re- 
 main will be paled and dimmed, if, indeed, the 
 " blackness of darkness" does not spread itself 
 I over the entire scene. Where and how stands 
 Virginia? I answer, with the South. Interest, 
 honor, and inclination, unite her fate with that of 
 i South Carolina and her sister southern States. 
 
Immediate secession is the duty and interest of 
 Virgrinia. She can do nothing towards saving 
 the present Confederacy; its fate is sealed. The 
 sooner the people of Virginia know and recognize 
 this fact the better. In the wreck of the present 
 ship of State, all is not lost; tlie brolcen frag- 
 ments, or some of them, at least, maybe reunited 
 in the formation of a new Confederacy, modeled 
 after the fashion of the old one. Time is precious. 
 Every southern State should promptly take up 
 her line of march, and, with equal promptness, 
 look out for a new alliance. Prompt and decisive 
 action on the part of all the southern States is the 
 only step that promises to avert the shedding of 
 rivers of blood in civil strife. Nothing short of 
 an absolute dismemberment of this Union will 
 bring to their senses the dominant, fanatical party 
 at the North; and the sooner the fact is under- 
 stood, admitted, and acted upon, the better for all 
 parties. 
 
 Virginia fully ajipreciatcs the present struggle. 
 She will, now that the liberties, rights, and honor 
 of her people are assailed, assert her sovereignty 
 by defending them. Let each southern State im- 
 mediately secede, and take steps with Virginia 
 towards the formation of a new Confederacy on 
 the same model as the old one. Stand shoulder 
 to shoulder, in an unbroken column; and they 
 may call it revolution, if tliey please; biU if any- 
 thing will avert war, such a movement, conducted 
 with calmness, moderation, and decisive firmness, 
 will have that effect. By the love of peace; by 
 
 the dread of war; by the impulses of honor and 
 duty; by the instincts of self-preservation; and 
 by considerations which must affect, for weal or 
 woe, the people of Virginia, let her strike for 
 freedom and independence, and strike now. 
 
 There was a time in her history, when Virginia, 
 like the mother of the Gracchi, wJien asked for her 
 jewels, could point to her sons. There they stood, 
 Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Monroe, and the im- 
 mortal Washington. Those sons of hers, when 
 they had spent their lives in achieving, and then 
 defending, her liberties, asked no higher honor 
 than that she would give them a tomb. She, too, 
 in this age, has been proud of another son, whom 
 she gave to the nation as the commander-in-chief 
 of its armies. That son I, together with her rep- 
 resentatives in the Legislature, in her namefhave 
 honored with a sword for his brilliant achieve- 
 ments in arms. Little did I think, little did Vir- 
 ginia think, that that sword was so soon to be 
 drawn again.st her who gave him birth. Here, 
 sir, in sight of her own blue hills, in sight of 
 the tomb of Washington, is this ungrateful son 
 plaiming his campaign, and planting his batteries 
 for her subjugation. And though she must weep 
 over the ingratitude of her parricidal son, the 
 more because of her pride in the glory of his past 
 renown, yet, emulating the firmness of the old 
 Roman fathers, she will discard him forever from 
 her bosom, and vindicate in his sacrifice the maj- 
 esty of her supreme law — the law of State sov- 
 ereignty and State allegiance. 
 
 Printed at the ofiice of the Congressional Globe. 
 
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