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 THE DANGEROUS 
 
 tie CDnmtf T, 
 
 THE CAUSES 
 
 WHICH HAVE LEAD TO IT, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 DUTY OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
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 BY 'i4^]kARYm.Nr)E:R. 
 
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 EALTIMOKE : • 
 
 THE SUN BOOK AND JOB PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT. 
 1807. 
 


 In the preparation of the annexed pamphlet the writer was 
 governed exclusively by patriotic motives. He believes his 
 country to be in peril, and his object is to exhibit what 
 he thinks are its causes. This he has done with no regard 
 to any mere party success, but to serve the whole country. 
 By awakening the people to the dangers impending over 
 our free institutions, he hopes to satisfy them tliat it is 
 their duty at once to adopt such a course as is necessary 
 to prevent such institutions from being destroyed or impaired. 
 
 Baltimore^ October, 186*7. 
 
The ConditioD of the Country. 
 
 I. — No reflecting citizen can be insensible to the dangerous 
 condition of the country. It afiects injuriously every interest, 
 private and public. It palsies industry in all its branches, and 
 shakes the financial credit of the Government ; and whilst it 
 lessens the means of meeting its demands, it renders more 
 oppressive the burthen of taxation. It paralyzes commerce, 
 ■without whose healthful condition the nation cannot prosper. 
 Our fathers thought, and experience has clearly proved it to be 
 true, that without a real union of all the States, and they and 
 their people possessing equal rights, the nation could not prosper. 
 With that view they adopted the Constitution of the General 
 Government. They clothed it with all the powers necessary to 
 its preservation, and designed it to be perpetual. In the 
 language of its preamble their object was to " secure the 
 blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity." One 
 of the cardinal principles of the Government thus formed is 
 the equality of the States. Its very existence depends upon 
 the continuance of that equality. They are made equal in the 
 Senate as to representation without regard to population, 
 and in the House of Representatives, according to population. 
 They and their people are alike secured in the benefits of the 
 judicial department, and in every State and personal guarantee. 
 To guard against the possibility of any interference with this 
 principle of equality through the assumption of powers not 
 granted, which might be wielded to its modification, or 
 
destruction, they subsequently adopted an amendment of the 
 Constitution, which declares that " the powers not delegated 
 to the United States nor prohibited to the States are reserved 
 to the States respectively, or to the people." That equality 
 is now at an end. Ten of the States and their people are not 
 only not admitted to equal rights with the rest, but, as 
 far as the legislative department is concerned, are denied them, 
 and subjected to mere military rule. The consequence is that 
 the whole potential wealth of those States is, and will be 
 as long as the present state of things continues, lost to the 
 nation. Its great staples of sugar, rice and cotton, which, in 
 the past so materially contributed to the general welfare, are 
 not, and cannot be produced. They nerved the arm of 
 industry in all the other States as much as, if not more than, in 
 the South. They enriched commerce — supplied the needs of 
 the manufacturing industry of the East, furnished the best 
 market for its products, gave employment and remunerative 
 wages to its employees, and increased the revenue of the 
 country by increasing its imports. As long as this political 
 disorganization remains, the more destructive will it be to 
 the interests of all. Wliat has brought the country into this 
 predicament ? The answer is obvious. It is the course which 
 the legislative department has pursued. Without meaning 
 to impute unpatriotic motives to it, or indulging in vituperation, 
 generally unjust and always undignified, but assuming that it 
 has acted from an honest error, it cannot, the author believes, be 
 doubted that that course has been the cause of the present trouble. 
 The war terminated more than two years and a half since, with 
 complete military success. It grew out of the insurrectionary 
 attempts of the people of the South. To suppress such 
 attempts Congress by the Constitution is vested with the power 
 to suppress insurrections by military force. For this purpose 
 they can call out the militia and use the army and navy ; and 
 long before the recent insurrection, laws were passed under this 
 authority. The design of this power was to maintain the 
 integrity of the Union and not under any circumstances to 
 impair it. It was preservation and not destruction which was 
 
aimed at. To construe a power to preserve into a power to 
 destroy is a glaring absurdity. And yet what has been, and 
 is being done by Congress, exhibits this absurdity. They did 
 call out the militia and used the army and navy for the 
 suppression of the insurrection ; that suppression has been 
 attained; no armed or other resistance to the Constitution and 
 laws of the United States exists anywhere ; and yr the Union, 
 which the insurrection for a time suspended, continues sus- 
 pended. Was such a result as this contemplated by the authors 
 of the Constitution ? Was it contemplated in the early days of 
 the insurrection ? That it was not contemplated by the former 
 is clear from what has been already stated ; that it was not 
 contemplated in the latter, is equally clear. For in July, '61, 
 Congress passed, by an almost unanimous vote, a resolution 
 disavowing any purpose of conquest or subjugation, and on the 
 contrary declaring that the sole object was "to defend and 
 maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve 
 the Union with all the dignity, equality and rights of the 
 several States unimpaired." Has the Union been preserved? 
 Have the States which were in insurrection been preserved ? 
 Are they, in the language of that resolution, now in the posses- 
 sion, unimpaired, of their " dignity, equality and rights ? " We 
 know that they are not. If the policy of restoring them to 
 their enjoyment inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln with the almost 
 unanimous approval of his party, and which Mr. Johnson has 
 endeavored to carry out, had not been interfered with by 
 Congress, the States would long since have been in their full 
 enjoyment. This, it is believed, no candid, sensible man will 
 question. 
 
 II. — The ground upon which Congress claims the power, 
 which it has exerted of holding the Southern States as 
 conquered and subjugated, and legislating in regard to them 
 as such, is that the insurrection before it was suppressed, 
 assumed such proportions as made it a war, and brought it 
 within the war power, vested in that body by the Constitution. 
 That this is an error is obvious. The power to declare war, 
 and the power to provide for the suppression of insurrections, 
 
8 
 
 are, in their very nature, distinct powers. The one looks 
 exclusively to hostilities with foreign nations, the other to 
 disturbances at home, and they are so treated in the Consti- 
 tution. Congress is vested with the authority to declare war 
 "raise and support armies and provide and maintain a navy." 
 If these powers were intended for cases of insurrection, the con- 
 ferring upon Congress any other authority for that end would 
 have been mere surplusage. And yet, in the same section of the 
 Constitution vesting these — the power is expressly given to 
 call out the militia to suppress insurrections. At the beginning 
 of the recent insurrection it was universally conceded that 
 when it should be suppressed the Union would be, as it was 
 before — composed of states of equal dignity and entitled to 
 equal rights. The insurrection, however, became so formidable 
 that upon grounds of humanity, as well as to give to the 
 Government the means to assist in its suppression, belligerent 
 rights were conceded to the insurrectionists. Humanity 
 demanded that this should be done, in order to save the 
 butchering of prisoners. If our Government had executed 
 those captured by its forces, the Confederate authorities would 
 have retaliated. Such a result would have answered no good 
 purpose towards suppressing the rebellion, and would, not 
 only have lacerated the feelings of our own people, but shocked 
 the public sentiment of the world. Congress, therefore, and 
 the President, wisely and with the best motives, recognized 
 belligerent rights in the insurrectionary Government. And 
 such concession at the same time gave to Congress the authority 
 to exclude neutral nations from all intercourse with the South. 
 As far as such nations were concerned Congress properly 
 claimed the rights of war, and upon that claim declared the 
 blockade of the Southern ports, and provided for the capture 
 of vessels and their cargoes attempting to violate it. Such 
 captures were made and adjudged to be lawful by our prize 
 courts. This greatly aided the Government in bringing tlie 
 insurrection to a close. In the first of these, called the prize 
 cases, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, the 
 opinion contains one or two passages which have been relied 
 
upon as justifying Congress in considering the States ia 
 question as conquered provinces. This ground has been 
 maintained with confidence in both Houses. The rest of the 
 opinion, the author thinks, sliews very plainly that the court did 
 not design to announce any such doctrine. No case has since 
 been before that tribunal calling for any correction of the 
 misapprehension. In one, however, before Mr. Justice Nelson, 
 (a member of that Court,) occurring since the termination of 
 the rebellion, involving the personal rights of a citizen of 
 South Carolina, he ruled that " the constitutional laws of the 
 Union were thereby enjoyed and obeyed, and were as autlior- 
 itative and binding over the people of the State as in any other 
 portion of the country." This view is plainly inconsistent 
 with the pretence that the South is now a conquered territory. 
 The Judge places South Carolina upon the same footing, as 
 far as her rights and the rights of her people are concerned, as 
 New York or any other of what were the loyal States. Since 
 that ruling one has been made by Chief Justice Chase, in June, 
 1867, in which that Judge refers to the opinion in the prize 
 cases, and evidently treats the pretence that the Court intended 
 to decide that the Southern States were not now equal States in 
 the Union, to be unwarrantable. The case was this : A citizen 
 of North Carolina was indebted on a promissory note to a citizen 
 of one of the States loyal during the insurrection. Pending the 
 insurrection, by force of a law passed by the Government de facto 
 of North Carolina confiscating such debts, the debtor was com- 
 pelled to pay it to the agent of that State, and lie relied upon 
 that payment as his defense. In his opinion the Chief Justice 
 says, "To maintain these propositions, the counsel for the defen- 
 dant rely upon the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States to the effect that the late rebellion was a civil war, in the 
 prosecution of which belligerent rights were exercised by the 
 National Government and accorded to the armed forces of the 
 Rebel Confederacy, and upon the decision of the State Courts 
 during and after the close of the American war for independence, 
 which affirmed the validity of confiscations, and sequestrations 
 decreed against the property of non-resident British subjects 
 
10 
 
 and the inhabitants of colonies or states hostile to the United 
 Colonies or United States." " But these decisions do not, in 
 our judgment, sustain the propositions in support of wliich they 
 are cited." 
 
 "There is no douht that the State of North Carolina, by the 
 acts of the Conventiou of May, 1801 , l)y tlie x)revious acts of the 
 Governor of the State, by subsequent acts of all the departments 
 of the State Government, and by the acts of the people at the 
 election held after May, 1861, set aside her State Government and 
 Constitution, and connected under the National Constitution, 
 with the Government of the United States, and established a 
 Constitution and Government, connected with another pre- 
 tended Government set up in hostility to the United States, and 
 entered upon a course of active warfare against the National 
 Government ; nor is there any doubt that, by these acts, the 
 practical relations of North Carolina to the Union were sus- 
 pended, and yery serious liabilities incurred by those who were 
 engaged in thera." 
 
 "But these acts did not effect, even for a moment, the 
 separation of north carolina from the union, any more than 
 
 the ACTS OF AN INDIVIDUAL AVHO COMMITS GRAVE OFFENCES AGAINST 
 
 THE State by resisting its officers and defying its authority, 
 
 CAN separate him FROM THE StATE." 
 
 In referring to the legal effect of conceding belligerent rights 
 during the war to the Confederate Government, and to the 
 decision of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice further said: 
 "In the prize cases the Supreme Court simply asserted the 
 right of the United States to treat the insurgents as belligerents, 
 and to claim from foreign nations the performance of neutral 
 duties under the penalties known to international law. The 
 decision recognized, also, the fact of the exercise and concession 
 of belligerent rights, and affirmed, as a necessary consequence, 
 the proposition that during the war all the inhabitants of the 
 country controlled by the rebellion, and all the inhabitants of 
 the country loyal to tlie Union were enemies reciprocally each 
 of the other. But there is nothing in that opinion which 
 
 GIVES countenance TO THE DOCTRINE WHICH COUNSEL ENDEAVOR TO 
 
11 
 
 DEDUCE FROM IT — THAT THE INSURGENT StATES, BY THE ACT OF THE 
 REBELLION, AND BY LEVYING WAR AGAINST THE NATION, BECAME 
 
 FOREIGN States, and their inhabitants alien enemies." In this 
 view of the opinion of the Supreme Court the Chief Justice no 
 doubt has the concurrence of all his associates on that bench. 
 Since he became its Presiding Judge the subject has been 
 several times discussed by counsel ; and althougli the Court 
 has not deemed it proper to decide it in any subsequent case, 
 the point must necessarily have been considered by them in 
 consultation, and their views in that way have become known 
 to the Chief Justice. Indeed his language in the Carolina case 
 shows that he must speak from positive knowle<lge as to what 
 the Judges really meant. "^ 'There is nothing," he says, ''in 
 that opinion which gives countenance to the doctrine which 
 counsel endeavor to deduce from it — that the insurgent States, 
 by the act of the rebellion, and by levying war against the 
 nation, became foreign States, and their inhabitants alien 
 enemies." Now, if they were States as he holds them to have 
 been during the war, and not foreign States, they must have 
 been States of tlie Union, and as nothing has occurred since the 
 termination of the war to change their character, they must be 
 such States now. The ordinances and other acts of North 
 Carolina, in the words of the Chief Justice, merely "suspended" 
 "the practical relations" of that State to the Union. Those 
 ordinances and acts being now themselves annulled by the 
 result of the war and the acts of her citizens, suspension caused 
 by them necessarily terminates, and the prior relations of the 
 State are restored, and she and her citizens entitled to all the 
 rights, and bound by all the duties, as at first. But the doctrine 
 itself which Congress seems to have adopted toward the South- 
 ern States, that by the result of the war they are not States, but 
 territories subject to the unlimited power of Congress, cannot be 
 supported upon any constitutional or other theory. The idea 
 of conquest, by a government, of its own territory is ridiculous. 
 The idea that any department of the Government of the Union 
 has any other powers than those conferred by the Constitution is 
 equally ridiculous. That Government had no existence before 
 
12 
 
 the Constitution was adopted ; it came into being solely under 
 and by virtue of that instrument ; all its powers are granted 
 by it. This being the case, how can it be, that under any 
 circumstances, as long as the Constitution remains unchanged by 
 the authority creating it, the Government can exercise powers 
 not delegated. This can only be done by its making a conquest of 
 the Constitution itself, which, if possible, is more absurd than 
 a con(j[uest of its own territory. If that could be done, it would 
 become but a Government, de facto, without any other restraint 
 than its own will, which would be tyranny, for whether, 
 unlimited power is in many men, or in one man^ is immaterial. 
 Tyranny is unlimited power, and its character is not changed 
 by the number of persons who may exercise it. And yet the 
 claim which Congress makes to legislate for the Southern 
 States is witliout any limitation. They have subjected them 
 to''the military power, which they assume is, for such a purpose, 
 within their unrestricted control. They not only disregard 
 the Constitution as the charter of their powers, but the consti- 
 tutions of the Southern States. They are not only not acting 
 under any authority derived from the people of the United 
 States, but in direct contravention of the known will of the 
 people of the South. It is true that some of the members of 
 the dominant party, in and out of Congress, justify legislation 
 upon constitutional grounds, but Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, 
 who has in the public judgment become the master of his party 
 in the House of Representatives,, is guiltless of such a folly. In a 
 letter of his, recently published, with the frankness and boldness 
 which belong to him, he rejects the absurdity and places the 
 authority of Congress upon some ground outside of the Consti- 
 tution, and admits that it has no warrant whatever, under any 
 of its delegated powers. If he is right, then it follows that 
 as far as regards theSoutli there is no other restriction upon the 
 legislation of Congress]^ than its own discretion. It may 
 consequently treat all the Southern States as having no 
 existence whatever, as States, and govern them, through all 
 time, as territories, or constitute the wliole in one or as many 
 States as they may think proper, and witli sucli powers and 
 
13 
 
 rights as they may choose to confer. They may, of course, if they 
 make States at all of them, deny them equality of representation 
 in the Senate, or any representation there, and deny them also 
 representation in the House of Representatives. They may 
 also deny them the benefit of the judicial department of the 
 Government, and citizens of the other States the right to 
 sue their people in the courts of the United States. They 
 may keep them altogether 'out of the Union formed by the 
 Constitution, and make them a Confederacy of themselves, 
 under such a Constitution (if the term can be so profaned) as 
 Congress may from time to time grant them. They may also 
 refuse their people some or all of the guarantees of personal 
 liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States, may 
 suspend at will the writ of habeas corpus, declare martial law 
 in time of peace, grant titles of nobility, authorize such States 
 to pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts, make any 
 currency a legal tender, regulate commerce without regard to 
 the restraints on that power in the Constitution^ and, in a word, 
 may rule them more absolutely than the Government of Spain 
 was wont to rule her colonies, and infinitely more so than 
 England endeavored to rule this country before "76 — an 
 endeavor which our fathers thought justifiable, and required 
 resistance by force of arms to establish themselves as an 
 independent nation — a course which has long since received 
 the sanction of all other nations, including England herself. 
 
 Consequences, such as these, legitimately following the Con- 
 gressional doctrine, should cause it to be sternly condemned by 
 every lover of constitutional liberty. But, even if the power 
 which it involves was not abnoxious to every idea of sucli 
 liberty, and could be vested anywhere with safety, Congress, 
 particularly the House of Representatives, is not the body to 
 possess it. Its very number diminishes tlie responsibility of 
 individual members, whilst it makes them subject to the 
 influence of popular passions, or the whims and caprices of the 
 hour. The whole current of history proves that such a body 
 is not a safe depository of unlimited power. The authors 
 of the Federalist so thought and maintained the necessity 
 
14 
 
 of giving it only certain prescribed powers and subjecting 
 the exercise of these to the restraints of the judicial and 
 executive departments. In one of the numbers of that work 
 Mr. Madison says, nearly in terms, that the tendency of such a 
 body is at times to become a mere mob, and refers to historical 
 instances to prove it, Its course during the last few years, in 
 the judgment of many considerate citizens, has shewn that 
 in this respect history has repeated itself. 
 
 III. — So far, the authority exercised or claimed by Congress 
 has been considered under the war power, and upon the ground 
 taken by Mr. Stevens that it is outside of the Constitution. 
 Let us now see whether it has any warrant under any other 
 power known to that instrument. In the deliberations of the 
 Convention which framed it^ it was conceded hj every member 
 Avho took part in the debates, that the Government, and 
 especially Congress, was to be one of strictly delegated powers. 
 That this delegation was to be made by an enumeration, and 
 that no power, not enumerated would belong to it, but, on the 
 contrary, was prohibited. This, as a rule of construction, was 
 held to be the true one by every writer, during the interval of 
 the submission of the Constitution to the people of the States for 
 adoption or rejection, and was also so held without dissent in all 
 the conventions in the States by which it was adopted, and has 
 since, in every court. State or federal, been decided, to be the cor- 
 rect one. With this rule for our guidance, under which of the 
 delegated powers does Congress possess the authority which it 
 has exercised or claims ? That of war has already been 
 considered. The only other one is that "the United States 
 shall guarantee to every State a republican form of govern- 
 ment," Under this authority or duty it is said that Congress 
 may, not only in the States which were in insurrection, but in 
 all the other States, regulate the right of suffrage so as 
 to make the government of the State in form republican, 
 according to their views of what that form is. That form they 
 hold cannot exist without universal sulfrage ; and therefore 
 assert the power to legalize such suffrage. Against this pre- 
 tense the fact is conclusive that no such extension of franchise 
 
15 
 
 existed in the States by whose people the present Government 
 was formed. To suppose that this clause of guarantee was 
 designed to give such a power to Congress is to suppose, that 
 the framers of the Constitution, sent to the convention by 
 their several States, intended to admit that their Governments 
 were not republican. And the absurdity of this inference is, 
 if possible, the more manifest, from the fact that, from tlie 
 organization of the Government to the last few years, no such 
 doctrine was broached in or out of Congress. Its author is 
 Mr. Sumner, a Senator from Massachusetts. He has now a bill 
 before the senate to carry it out. It regulates suffrage in all 
 the states, without regard to property, race or color. 
 
 He maintains therefore that even liis own State Government 
 is not republican, for she has never authorized any sucli 
 unlimited right. But we are not left for the refutation of such 
 a doctrine to general reasoning. The meaning of the clause 
 was stated by Mr. Madison in the 44th number of the Federalist; 
 lie says that "it supposes a pre-existing Government of the form 
 which is to be guaranteed." No intimation was given by him 
 or by any one in those days, or since, until the coming of the 
 Sumner era, that the clause was designed to give to Congress 
 the power to interfere with suffrage in the States, or that the 
 States then about to create the Union, had not Governments of 
 Republican form. It was indeed to these very Governments 
 that the clause was to apply. It was to secure to the people of 
 such States a continuing right to their enjoyment. If it had 
 been suggested by any member of the Convention, that the 
 Governments of Massachusetts andVirginia were notRepublican 
 because there was in each but a restricted suffrage, it would 
 have been pronounced a libel by Adams and Madison, and 
 rejected as insulting to the patriots, by whom all the then 
 State Governments had been established. Indeed, at that time 
 the danger to rejiublican liberty was thought to be in an excess 
 of the Democratic principle, andthat this danger would be the 
 more or less imminent as suffrage was the more or less restricted. 
 It is believed that in all the States, besides age, residence and 
 sex, a property qualification was required, and that, in all, a 
 
16 
 
 property qualification, and to a considerable amount, was 
 required of the persons to be elected to their Legislatures 
 and Executives. Certainly, no one then even imagined that 
 this made them anti-republican. The fact is that the repub- 
 lican form mentioned in the clause, was used to distinguish 
 it from the monarchical or aristocratic form. What Congress 
 is to guarantee is not a republican Government, according to 
 its idea as to what such a Government is, but merely tliat the 
 form shall be republican. This language shows that in the 
 judgment of the convention and of the people in '89, the tlieii 
 Governments of the States were Governments of that form. 
 There may be repuhlics more or less democratic. The purpose 
 of the clause was simply to provide that the mode of construct- 
 ing the State Governments should be republican, and not to 
 prescribe the extent to which the democratic principle must be 
 carried. Any other interpretation would empower Congress to 
 constitute Governments for the States without the sanction of 
 their people — a power never before claimed, and totally incon- 
 sistent with every view heretofore entertained of the rights, in 
 this respect, of the people of the States. The doctrine also 
 would be as intolerable in practice as it is unwarranted 
 by the Constitution. That it is so unwarranted is too clear 
 for cavil. The only clause of the Constitution which relates 
 to the subject of suffrage is that, in the choice of representa- 
 tives, the electors shall have ''the qualifications requisite for 
 electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature." 
 It is evident from this that the States were to be left to regulate 
 the franchise for themselves without the interference of Congress. 
 It was a matter in which they were chiefly concerned. Their 
 houses of delegates were to legislate for their peculiar domestic 
 interests, and, upon every principle , the people of the States should 
 have the sole power of prescribing the mode and the parties to 
 select them. Can anybody imagine that the men of '89 would 
 have consented to part with that power ? Certainly no such 
 proposition was made at that period or has been made anywhere 
 until within these latter days. It follows also from this that 
 the republican form of Government, to which the clause in 
 
17 
 
 question relates was not considered as dependent in any degree 
 upon the State regulation of suffrage. What was meant, was 
 that the Government should be of a representative character. 
 That character was irrespective of the extent of the franchise. 
 Whether allowed to all males, without regard to age or other 
 qualifications, or to all females as well as to males, was 
 immaterial. The whole was left by the Constitution to the 
 States, as absolutely as it was before possessed by them. 
 
 But, would it not also be intolerable in practice ? From the 
 beginning of the Groverment to the present day, each State has 
 exercised the power for itself, and each has prospered. In that 
 prosperity all have participated. Each has shown itself com- 
 petent to use it so as to promote its own interest. How would 
 it be if they should be deprived of it, and the power exercised by 
 Congress ? How can the people of such States as California, 
 Oregon, Nevada, Nebraska, possibly know in what manner 
 suffrage should be regulated in New York, Pennsylvania, 
 Ohio or Illinois, to say nothing of the Southern States. And 
 yet, if the doctrine prevails, the voice of their Representatives in 
 the Senate, will be as potential as that of their Senators. If 
 this shall be held to be the meaning of the Constitution it will 
 require no argument to prove that the general Government is 
 not republican. The domestic concerns of each State will then 
 be managed by Representatives chosen by persons selected by 
 Congress. For, whether they are elected directly by the latter or 
 by voters authorized to act by that body, the result is the same. 
 The direction of their own internal business, aright which is ex- 
 pressly reserved to the States by the Constitution, will be prac- 
 tically with Congress. Again, the Sumner meaning of the clause 
 would require of Congress to interfere with the Governments of 
 the States upon any grounds upon which it might believe that 
 their Constitutions were not republican. For example, if they 
 fail to provide for a general system of education, the support 
 of the indigent and deserving, the maintenance of religion, 
 the restraint of intemperance, or, if they grant charters of 
 incorporations to enure specially to the benefit of the cor- 
 porators, it would be under this theory_, the duty of Congress 
 
18 
 
 to interfere, if in its judgment, these acts or omissions were 
 inconsistent with republican Government. It has indeed, 
 already, been stated in the Senate by a member of ability, 
 that Congress has a right to provide for a system of educa- 
 tion under the clause in question, because, in his view, a 
 republican Government cannot exist where the people are uned- 
 ucated. With the same force, if not greater, it may be main- 
 tained that it cannot exist where the people are not virtuous, and 
 upon that ground Congress will be bound to take care that the 
 States shall Legislate so as to render their people virtuous. They 
 must therefore provide for the support of religion, the inculcation 
 of morality, and the prohibition of all business, which they may 
 think tends to destroy or weaken the virtue of the people. They 
 may therefore prohibit or insist that the States shall prohibit the 
 manufacture or sale of intoxicating drinks. They may decide 
 that monopolies are also hostile to freedom and inconsistent 
 with republican Government. Upon this pretence they may insist 
 upon the repeal of all State Charters of every description, and say 
 to the States that they must of themselves, (because— in that, all 
 theirpeoplewillequallyparticipate in the profit,) become insurers, 
 bankers, railroad and canal proprietors, and engage directly 
 in every business enterprise now entrusted to chartered companies. 
 Can any mind, however unhinged by fanaticism or humanitarian- 
 ism, believe that such a power as this was contemplated by our 
 fathers? And yet, logically considered, if Congress has the power 
 under the guarantee clause to regulate suffrage in the States, in 
 order to make their Goverments republican, it has the right to 
 legislate to the extent stated. Indeed, if the power as to suffrage 
 isin Congress, it is difficult to place any limit upon their authority. 
 They are to judge what State Government is in form republican. 
 It is contended that the Constitution does not define the terms 
 and consequently that Congress has a right to decide for itself 
 what that form is, and if any one of such Governments varies from 
 it they must interfere. No reasoning will more effectually lead 
 to a consolidation of all the powers in Congress, which, heretofore, 
 by the framers of the Constitution and their descendants without 
 a dissenting voice, have been conceded to be in the States 
 exclusively. So far were the authors of the Constitution, from 
 
19 
 
 favoring such a consolidation, that they thought it would be 
 fatal to freedom. To guard against this danger they expressly re- 
 served to the States and to their people, by the 10th amendment, 
 every power not delegated to the general Government. If such 
 consolidation was then hazardous, because leading to despotism, 
 over a country and population as limited as these were in 1789,' 
 how much more hazardous is it now, when our limits extend 
 from ocean to ocean and the number of States has more than 
 doubled, and our population instead of being three millions is 
 nearly if not quite forty, and before the end of the century 
 will propably be from eighty to one hundred millions. To rule 
 a territory so vast and a people so numerous, by a single free 
 Government, however constituted, is wholly impracticable. 
 Nothing but gross folly can believe otherwise. Such an attempt 
 must fail, anarchy be the first consequence, and to avoid that 
 worst of all conditions, refuge would be sought in military 
 power, which would be pure despotism. 
 
 In one particular some of the great men of 89 are no w proved to 
 have been in error. Their fears expressed in the national and 
 State conventions were that the danger of usurpation of powers 
 not delegated, involving the rights of the people, and the au- 
 thority of the other departments, was in the Executive. They 
 entertained no such apprehension in regard to Congress. Our 
 history shews that such fears were unfounded. The Executive 
 in no instance has attempted to wield any power delegated to 
 Congress, or to exert any not included in the grant to itself — that 
 is to say — no power not expressly conferred upon the Executive 
 or which was not in its nature executive. But there were fears 
 entertained by some that such usurpations would be attempted 
 by the legislative department. This it was supposed was 
 incidental to the very nature of its organization — in its 
 number — and its more popular character in one branch. 
 The experience of the last few years has served greatly 
 to confirm these apprehensions. Congress, and especially 
 the House, has exercised or claimed almost every executive 
 power, and attempted to deprive the Executive of nearly 
 
20 
 
 every one vested in him. They have undertaken to 
 govern, without regard to him, the army and navy ; 
 to deny him the right to remove officers — a right exercised 
 by every President, from the beginning of the Government, 
 including Mr. Lincoln, and one without which the Pres- 
 ident cannot perform the duty expressly commanded of 
 him, to take " care that the laws be faithfully executed," 
 or fulfil the obligation of his official oath, to '' preserve^ pro- 
 tect and defend the Constitution of the United States." They 
 have also established, by their own will and against his pro- 
 test, absolute military despotism in ten of the States of the 
 Union — destructive alike of every authority reserved to the 
 States by the Constitution, as well as every individual right of 
 life, liberty and property, reserved in the same way to their 
 people. If these usurpations receive, for any length of time, 
 the approval of the people, the Constitution will be at an end, 
 and individual freedom a mere idea of the past — the hopes of 
 our fathers blasted — the struggle and blood of the revolution 
 fruitless — the American people slaves, and the cause of consti- 
 tutional liberty postponed for ages, if not forever lost. 
 
 IV. — There are other powers claimed by Congress, also 
 full of hazard, which have heretofore been universally held to 
 belong to the States. Under the powers to regulate com- 
 merce among the States, and to establish Post Offices and 
 Post Roads, some of the leaders of the dominant party 
 assert the right of Congress not only to construct Canals and 
 Roads in the States without their consent, but to modify any 
 State charter under which such improvements have been or 
 may be constructed, and to discharge the companies, so chartered, 
 from any restrictions in their charters which Congress may 
 think interferes with the proper regulation of such commerce. 
 That such a power, if it exist, is in its very nature fatal to the 
 authority of the States in these matters is obvious. From the 
 beginning of the Government until now such a power as this 
 in the United States was never pretended. At one time, it 
 was held by a political party of the day, that the general 
 Government with the consent of the States, through which the 
 
21 
 
 roads or canals were to pass, might provide for their construc- 
 tion. But no political dreamer ever thought that they could 
 interfere with the rights of the States to charter companies for 
 the purpose, or to repeal or modify such charters. If such a 
 power he now recognized, the internal improvements of every 
 State, upon which hundreds of millions of dollars have been 
 expended, and which are now contributing greatly to their 
 internal commerce, their reveuues and individual wealth, will 
 be at the mercy of the general Government. Under the 
 commercial power they may deem it necessary to interfere by 
 legislation with the regulations under which such improve- 
 ments are managed, may diminish or increase the tolls the 
 States authorize, and thus in some instances destroy their rev- 
 enues andtheinterest of the individual stockholders. They may 
 indeed take away the right to exact tolls, and declare the use 
 of such improvements free to all. Will New York, 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, for a moment tolerate such a 
 doctrine as this? If they do, they will give a blow which will 
 be, if not fatal, of almost, ruinous consequences to themselves 
 and their people. 
 
 Under these assumptions of power the country has been 
 brought to its present condition. The debt contracted during 
 the war is enormous. The payment of the last dollar of it is 
 demanded by the justice and honor of the nation. Every 
 measure adopted or contemplated by Congress which injuriously 
 affects its ability to do this, can not be too strenuously depre- 
 cated. What can more seriously have this effect than a 
 continuance of our present disorganized condition ? Whilst 
 these Congressional claims weaken confidence in the per- 
 petuity of our Union they greatly increase our expenses — 
 diminish our means of paying the debt, and render necessary 
 much heavier taxation upon the people than would otherwise be 
 required. Besides these results there is another, and even 
 more mischievous one. They keep alive a spirit of hostility and 
 bad feeling between the people of the South and of the North, 
 which must act detrimentally to the good of all. To that good, 
 fraternal affection is absolutely necessary. Without it we will 
 
22 
 
 continue to be, as during the war, enemies, instead of being, as we 
 should be now that the war is ended, friends. The only way of 
 correcting this sad state of things is for the people to dismiss from 
 power at the earliest moment, the servants who maintain the 
 constitutional doctrines herein contested, and to select others who 
 will administer the Government in the spirit, and under the con- 
 stitutional restraints which guided our ftithers. It must gladden 
 the hearts of all considerate patriotic citizens, that the recent 
 elections demonstrate that this is about to be done. In the 
 Pacific, East, West and Middle States, this has been manifested. 
 The people of all sections are evidently determined on having 
 this result. Impelled during the war by a noble resolution to 
 maintain at all hazards our national unity, and impressed with 
 a conviction that the Republican party could alone be relied 
 upon for that end, they gave to that party their support. The 
 motives which governed them were so vitally connected with our 
 very existence and so engrossed them that they failed to see, 
 during the continuance of the conflict, how dangerous to State 
 authority and individual liberty were some of the doctrines and 
 measures of that party. But now, when the clamor of war is 
 no longer heard, when it has ceased to resound throughout the 
 land and perfect peace has been restored, they are indignant that 
 the fruits of the war, for which they so anxiously looked, are 
 not enjoyed. They witness a still distracted and disunited 
 country; in the South, their brethren are in a condition as 
 calamitous as that of the people of Poland ever was; they see them 
 still treated by Congress as enemies ; subjected to the harshest 
 legislation— tbeir recent slaves, in a condition for the most part 
 of total ignorance, practically made their masters — vested almost 
 exclusively with all State authority by being given the elective 
 franchise, and they denied it. They see them without 
 representation in Congress, their industry at a total stand, 
 their fields uncultivated, and the promise held out to them in 
 the beginning of the insurrection, that on its termination they 
 would be received as citizens and allowed the same political 
 and social rights which they possessed before, grossly violated; 
 theexpensesol thegovernmentin consequence greatly enhanced, 
 
23 
 
 and no prospect of the restoration of those States to the Union, 
 except as Africanized with Senators arid Representatives in Con- 
 gress of that race, and a claim made to place the negro in every 
 State upon an equal footing with the white man, by giving to him 
 the elective franchise and the right to hold office, not only in 
 all federal, but in all State elections ; and, finally, continuing 
 and persevering efforts to deprive the President of every power 
 conferred by the Constitution upon that department, for the 
 double purpose of checking the unconstitutional legislation of 
 Congress, and enabling him to enforce a faithful execution of 
 the laws — and threats made by some of its leaders, under the 
 power of impeachment, not only to impeach him upon charges 
 of which the people know nothing, but to suspend him from office 
 during the trial, and appoint another in his stead — a measure 
 which nothing but his patriotic forbearance can prevent from 
 terminating in another civil war. Is it to be wondered at, that, 
 under all these circumstances, the people are at last aroused, 
 and resolved on ceasing to confide longer in so dangerous a 
 party. Let it not, however, be believed that this indicates the 
 mere triumph of another political party. In the words of 
 a popular journalist, it is '' nothing but the march of the 
 intelligence of the land to our political rescue." That march is 
 evidently onward, not to be checked or arrested until such rescue 
 is achieved. The moral taught by the recent elections is, that 
 the reasons which caused the people to resort to arms to preserve 
 the Union from the attempt to destroy it by force, have impelled 
 them to resort to the ballot-box to preserve from destruction the 
 Constitution which created it, and under which alone it can 
 permanently endure. 
 
 When this shall be done, kindness and forbearance towards 
 our brethren of the South will at once be exhibited ; instead of 
 thwarting the humane policy of the President, he will be en- 
 couraged to pursue it even more generously, and then will be 
 seen the never failing results of such a policy, at the termina- 
 tion of civil war, as illustrated by all history. When such a 
 war is ended the successful government, in the language of the 
 Chief Justice in the North Carolina case, " addresses itself 
 
24 
 
 013 787 017 4 ^ 
 
 mainly to the wort of coaciUatioa and res oration and exerts 
 Te prerogative of mercy rather than that of justioe. In such 
 a ea e it may truly be said that the duty of forgiveness is writ- 
 ten by h" hand o'f God upon the human heart. Man was not 
 born to hate his fellow-man. Such a feeling would make peace- 
 ful society impossible. It could not for a moment exist 
 And if there he in any individual such a feehng, he 
 "who is cursed with it "lives without joy, and dies with- 
 out hope," Let the people then see to it that the Southern 
 States be restored to all their rights at the earliest moment. 
 Let them rebuke the men who would prevent it, and condemn 
 the radicalism of the day. 
 
 Radicalism lias never any settled, wholesome or generous 
 policy As described by the American essayist, Emmerson, 
 •' the spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and a.m- 
 less-it is not loving-it has no ultimate ends-hut is destruc- 
 tive only out of hatred and selfishness." It may, and doubtless 
 is true that many of those who advocate the radical measures 
 of the day are governed by a conviction of duty ; hut it is never- 
 theless true that the spirit which guides them -thout their 
 heinc- aware of it, is that stated by Emmerson- hatred towards the 
 South-selfishness in themselves. That a party so animated 
 is unfit to govern the country must he clear to every reflecting 
 and honest man, who, discarding prejudice and party lufluen e, 
 shall decide as his judgment and love of country may dictate. 
 
 A MARYLANDER. 
 
013 787 017 4 # 
 
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