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CONSTITUTION:
THE ONLY
ROAD TO NATIONAL PEACE.
11
NATIONAL  
A
NATIONAL CONSTITUTION:
THE 6NLY
ROAD TO NATIONAL PEACE.  
A
NATIONAL CONSTITUTION:
THE ONLY
ROAD TO NATIONAL PEACE.
A LETTER
TO
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
BY WILLIAM GILES DIX.
BOSTON:
ESTES AND LAURIAT,
I43 WASHINGTON STREET.
I 8 7 5. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875,
BY W. G. DIX,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO.,
CAMBRIDGE. 
7
to national shoulders, it sought and yet seeks to extend and
apply the cloth by a patchwork of amendments; but this
patching, patching, everlasting patching, with amendments
after amendments is not the work required. It is trifling
with great needs, great opportunities, great responsibilities,
and gives no sign or proof of those qualities which the world
generally concedes to America, - energy and directness of
thought and action.
The  President's Message has some most commendable
suggestions; but it is marked by the usual irresolution of
his state papers. It lacks the tone of authority and decision
which people expect and like to see in those whom they
choose for their civil guides. Those rulers have ever been
not only the most efficient, but the most honored, revered,
and beloved, who have dared most plainly to say, and have
most boldly dared to do, what was right, and what they knew
to be right. Within the strict limit of his Constitutional
duty, the President could have said more and done more
.to promote national unity as the only pledge of national
safety and peace.
The President seems to regret the fading away of the
lurid and distracting colors of Federalism, and to look with
all the horror his nature permits upon the genial, growing
light of nationality, which, notwithstanding his horror, will
shine more and more, and brighter and brighter, unto the
perfect day. It seems hopeless to expect him to begin,
as he only can, by urging others to begin the great work of
organic reform. In the faith and fear of God then I lift and
unfurl the standard of a National Constitution, and implore
my countrymen to rally around it, armed only with the wills 
8
and words of patriotic demand; for there will be and can be
no safety for American unity, prosperity, power, and liberty,
and there will be and can be no patriotic devotion, loyal and
harmonious, from the Lakes to the Gulf, and from ocean to
ocean, except under a National Government, ruling by the
forms and sanctions of a National Constitution.
W. G. D.
PEABODY, MASS., December 29, I874' 
NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION.
PEABODY, MASSACHUSETTS, October I, I874.
To U. S. GRANT, President of the United States.
MR. PRESIDENT, - During the gloomy year of I779, George
Washington, in a letter to a friend, wrote these words of wisdom:
"To me it appears no unjust simile, to compare the affairs of this great
continent to the mechanism of a clock, each State representing some one
or other of the smaller parts of it, which they are endeavoring to put in
fine order, without considering how useless and unavailing their labor is,
unless the great wheel or spring, which is to set the whole in motion, is
also well attended to, and kept in good order."
In the same letter he had written as follows: 
"tI have seen without despondency, even for a moment, the hours which
America has styled her gloomy ones; but I have beheld no day since the
commencement of hostilities, when I have thought her liberties in such imminent danger as at present. Friends and foes seem now to combine to
pull down the goodly fabric we have hitherto been raising, at the expense
of so much time, blood, and treasure; and unless the bodies politic will
exert themselves to bring things back to first principles, correct abuses,
and punish our internal foes, inevitable ruin must follow. Indeed, we
seem to be verging so fast to destruction, that I am filled with sensations
to which I have been a stranger until within these three months." *
The evil genius which nearly drove to despair the Father of his
Country, and, more than anything else, hindered his heroic labors
for the good of all, was State jealousy, the main cause of all the -
dangers and anxieties of the Revolution. The earnest appeals of
* Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. IV. pp. 7 - 9.
*......
0 
IO
George Washington could not wholly quell the spirit of State
pride, which has been the curse'of the country from the beginning. Even at that terrible period, when the union of wills, hearts,
and hands was pre-eminently needed, the States, mutually jealous,
were all jealous of the powers watched with suspicion and conferred with reluctance upon the General Congress. In that Congress itself some State often looked larger than all the rest of
the struggling country, and no doubt often caused a narrow,
unwise, and injudicious decision, or prevented one broad, wise,
and beneficent. The bright prize of Independence at times grew
pale before the blazing terrors of Continental unity.
Mr. President, I have quoted the words of George Washington, to point my rebuke of your failure to comprehend the real
needs of the country over which you preside more like anything
else than like an inspiring leader. You have especially failed to
take a single step towards what the past, the present, and the
future unite in demanding, -national consolidation.  You were a
directing general; you have been a drifting President. In your
civil administration you have had the opportunities of a giant, and
you have used them like a dwarf. At the head of our army, you
often triumphantly flanked the enemy. At the head of our nation,
your political foes and your political friends have taken turns in
flanking you. As the commander in the field, you were determined to keep on the same line, if it should take all summer; you
did so, and won for your country victory, and for yourself as a
soldier imperishable fame. As our executive guide, so far from
keeping on the same line, if it should take all summer, you have
crooked and doubled like the Mississippi River, all the year round.
Mr. President, your countrymen have not known where to find
you. You have had no fixed principles of civil rule. Your compass
has been subjected to the influence of so many magnets, that the
people could not tell your course, or whether you were true to it
or not. They may well doubt whether you could tell yourself.
You have, indeed, at times, maintained the national honor with
something like the vigor of your military career; but there has
been a preceding doubt, whether or not you would, so that your
right action has been the source of grateful surprise. There
should have been no occasion for the doubt, none for the surprise,
however grateful.
Congress, at its last session, passed an act, which, dishonorable
in its character, would have been disastrous in its effects. Before
....
..... 
II
deciding on your duty, you kept the country in an agony of suspense. At last you decided right, and your country thanked you
for so doing; but there should have been no agony of suspense.
Your countrymen should have had such thorough faith in your
personal and official manhood, as to know as well what you would
do, as, afterwards, what you had done. The ink was hardly dry
on your Veto Message, when Congress passed another act, containing no recognition of the principle that nothing is money
but money. You doubled on your own record, and approved the
act; and nobody was surprised. You seem to prefer to make your
course by tacking, even when the wind is fair. Nevertheless,
your countrymen are apparently expected not only to show the
utmost forbearance towards your shuffling, seesawing administration, during the rest of your term, but to take a third lease of
your indifference to great and momentous questions, of your peculiar will, yielding and unyielding by fits and starts, and of your
love of ease, which seems to be equal to your love of power, -
power, I mean, for the name of it, not for the work of it. This is
not the entertainment to which your countrymen were invited;
certainly not the one which they accepted.
Mr. President, the indirections and vagaries of your administratior have not proceeded wholly from your own will, but, to a great
degree, from our theory and practice of government. The Republic of the.United States of America tries to conduct a national
business on a federal capital. The endeavor is a great trial in
more than one way, and makes awkward work.  Organized governments call our federation a nation by courtesy, and we are
content with the courtesy, though we have not one national citizen within our borders, except as a citizen of one of the States may
be adopted as a citizen of all the States. American citizenship
goes by a roundabout road. No such being as an American citizen, meaning one of our own people, owing and paying single civil
allegiance, lives in the wide world.
You came into the Presidential office at a time when a commanding statesman was wanted, one having the intuitive and
instructed wisdom, and the invincible energy of thoulght and
action, which make and mark the great statesman in all lands and
in all ages. No such man was to be found. Your countrymen
elected you, in the hope that you would be as straightforward as
a political guide as you had proved as a military chief. Before
the ceremonies of your inauguration were over, you disappointed
*              *. 
*,........ 
12
that reasonable hope. Five minutes after you took the oath of
office, you were understood to renounce the character of a guide
of the people, and to take that of their docile and obedient follower. Yet never was a guide more needed. You were chosen as
a guide; and a guide it was alike your right and your duty to be.
Washington was a guide, a faithful and fearless guide, blending,
as President, the true, though stately courtesy of the Virginia
gentleman with the unbending will, when he knew he was right,
of the American ruler. Jackson was a guide, Lincoln was a guide.
If you did not intend to be a guide, or knew not how to be a
guide, why were you President?
You became President, in consequence of the national victory,
in which you bore a share so honorable and eminent; but, Mr.
President, let me entreat you to consider that it was a national,
not a federal victory which you won; and that national victory
signified the defeat of the Federal Constitution. This truth either
you were not keen enough to see, or not bold enough to say. The
surrender of General Lee was by the very act, and at the same instant, the capitulation of the Federal Constitution; yet, from that
day to this, neither the ruling powers of the country, nor the people, have recognized the fact.  While honoring you as heartily, as
ardently, and as gratefully as you ought to be honored for your
wise and noble work in bringing about that surrender, I wonder
why, in your Inaugural Address, or, at least, in your first Message
to Congress, you did not say that, while the Federal Constitution is
binding upon all- not the rulers only, but the people also-while
remaining the Constitution, nevertheless the evils and dangers of
federalism had been demonstrated at a terrible sacrifice of heroic
and loyal lives on one side, and by cruel displays of misguided
bravery on the other; that the great results of the national victory could not be secured and made permanent except by eradicating federalism entirely and forever from all departments of the
government, executive, legislative, and judicial; and that this
should be legally done, according to justice and precedent, as
soon as possible, by the consent of the people. In accepting the
nomination for the Presidency, you said, no doubt, most sincerely
and kindly,  "Let us have  peace";  but Slavery was not a
greater foe to true national unity, than Federalism is to true
national peace.
Mr. President, it was not wise to reconstruct the returning
States on federal principles, though it was imperative to do so, if 
13
the rest of the States were to remain federal. What was needed
then was what is needed now, to reconstruct all the States on
national principles.   The State governments should be content
with the patriotic duty of being the agents and representatives of
the national government, instead of the general government being the agent of the States.  The States, as federal actors, must
soon make their final exit from the American stage. They have
played in comedy and in tragedy. Their comedy attempting to
combine the orderly and graceful movements of nationality with
the ungainly gymnastics of federalism, has been the source of
uncontrollable mirth. Their tragedy has been an astounding success. In its performance, shouts of exultation for the final triumph of the right were blended with agonies that could not be
told; and tears, sighs, and sufferings continued long after the curtain fell. Let the States go, -let them go, with all their bloody
robes around them, and, if they can, hide themselves forever from
the sight of God and man; and, in their place, behold one powerful, pervading, Christian dominion, as broad as the continent, as
bright as the sun, as enduring as time.
Mr. President, "the Rebellion" did not spring out of the theories, as theories, of John C. Calhoun.  "The Rebellion" was a
natural and logical growth firom the Federal Constitution; and the
same soil and the same tree may, in due season, bring forth the
same fruit. Mr. Calhoun's theory, that the Constitution rec9rds
and confirms the compact of a League of States, having a general
agency for named duties, is more literally, logically, and historically correct, than Mr. Webster's theory, that it is the charter of
a national government. The Articles of Confederation and the
Federal Constitution differed in degree only, not in kind, both
being federal, neither national. I know that Daniel Webster is
said to have won, in the great Constitutional debate between federalism and nationality, a peaceful, complete, and enduring victory
for nationality. I deny it. In the glare and roar of a hundred
battles, where the same question was debated with flashing swords
and thundering batteries, I fail to see the completeness, the endurance, or the victory.  Daniel Webster's motive as "the Defender
of the Constitution " was as noble, chivalric, and sublime as his
genius, and his grand nationality of feeling, which beamed with
unfading splendor to his dying hour, is worthy of unbounded and
unending honor and praise, while he sleeps in a patriot's grave,
blest by the brightness of a patriot's fame.   But the gigantic 
14
power of the advocate, though flaming with the ardor of a great
and glorious heart, made clearer the inherent weakness of the
case.
A constitution cannot be called national, in any proper meaning of the word, when its nationality is the subject of inference
and implication. True, avowed nationality is as plain and as
bright as the sun, and needs neither the lamp of genius nor the
microscope of logic to detect it. The nationality of a document
which has been denied by some as persistently as it has been
maintained by others for eighty years, with at least equal authority on the side of those who deny it, cannot be a very clear and
direct nationality. It cannot be a very bright day, when one can
take either side of the question, whether the sun is shining or not.
The patriotism that has to be divided into nearly forty pieces
lacks essential unity.
George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, George Read, James
Wilson, Charles Pinckney, Rufus King, and other nationalists of
the Constitutional Convention, who desired a national government more or less strong according to their individual views, but
a national government as distinguished from a federal agency,
were defeated in that Convention. Like good patriots they submitted; and, hiding as well as they could the Moses of Nationality
in the bulrushes of Federalism, they accepted and even advocated a
Federal Union, when they could not get national unity, and
hoped for a brighter day. Time and a bitter war have triumphantly, though terribly, vindicated their patriotic wisdom and
foresight. Let the American people also vindicate the patriotic
wisdom and foresight of those noble but defeated men, in the
enduring form of a National Constitution. This will not be to
undo, but to fulfil, the work of our fathers.
Mr. President, as one of the people, I voted for you twice as a
guide. You have refused to be one. But you said that you
would have no policy to enforce against the will of the people.  I
hold you to your word. I believe that the American people, as
soon as they shall see, and they cannot long help seeing, that the
only bulwark in the power of man to build against another fierce
and fearful war upon the national authority, in the North and in
the South, is a National Constitution, rejecting federalism in all
its disjointed joints and formless forms, and avowing nationality
in all its harmony, beauty, and energy, will so plainly speak their
minds, that you will be justified in urging upon Congress the right 
I 5
and the duty of appointing a time, as soon as may be deemed best,
for delegates, chosen one for and by each Congressional district,
but from any part of the country, to assemble in Philadelphia,which the hopes of our fathers and the memories of their sons,
meeting like the wings of the cherubim over the ancient altar of
God, together consecrate as the Holy City of our history, whose
inspirations light the loyal eye, cheer the loyal heart, and nerve
the loyal arm, -there to consider and form a NATIONAL CONSTITUTION, not for a Federal Union of States, but for one great
State, one only and one forever.
It must be understood-that our National Constitution, when
formed, is to be submitted for approval or rejection, not to the
States, but to the people, as one people, and voting as one.
From the beginning to the end of the work, the States, as States,
must have nothing to do with forming or adopting a National
Constitution. In this great work of a Constitution suited to the
national unity, welfare, and glory, and intended to annihilate
utterly and forever the shape and shadow of the gory demon of
State-Sovereignty, I venture, in the name of my countrymen, to
say to the States: Hands off! you have done mischief enough.
Mr. President, since you will not lead, I challenge you to follow.
If you will not accept the challenge, then, if I shall live, I will do
all that honorably and earnestly I can, to make a National Government and a National Constitution the watchwords of a triumphant National Party at the next Presidential election. But
I hope that you are not willing to have your name handed down
in American history, as that of a man who knew how to lead an
army to victory, but knew not how, and had no desire, to complete
and confirm that victory by leading the American people out of
the Dismal Swamp of Federalism to the firm, wholesome, and
beautiful domain of Nationality. I hope that you will so act
that your Presidential career may honorably end, and that your
successor's may happily begin, under the auspices of a National
Constitution.
Mr. President, I have written with a determination, should
this letter impress you or not, to do all that one man can, by
earnest entreaty, to persuade my countrymen that a Federal Constitution, designed for and suited for a League of States, is not
suited for a national domain, which may yet grow, until its
boundaries and those of North America will be the same, but
which cannot safely grow, or develop its organic life within its 
I6
present limits, unless endowed with the central energy, expansive
power, and glorious liberty of a National Constitution. Against
whatever blame I may have to bear for expressing this opinion, I
hold up as a shield the revered and precious name of George
Washington, whose words quoted at the beginning of this letter
were not more appropriate when written than now.
I quote these words from Washington's Farewell Address:*
"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to
make and to alter their constitutions of government.   But the
constitution which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit
and authentic. act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon
all." Are the theory and practice of our government now harmonious?  If they are, when, how, and where was the federal
theory by due authority renounced; and when, how, and where
did the nationality in practice by due authority begin?  If the
theory and practice are not harmonious, ought they not to be
made so "by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people "?
It is neither wise nor patriotic to hide from ourselves the truth,
and there is no truth plainer in American history than this, that
the Federal Constitution has been "weighed in the balances"
and "found wanting."  The quoted words of Washington's letter
were indeed written while the War of the Revolution was in progress; but the Articles of Confederation had been adopted by
Congress, and, one must believe, had some combining influence
before being in due form adopted by the States. After being so
adopted, they more than kept the promise of their weakness,
though being in advance of the powers first conferred upon the
Continental Congress.   History, if not exactly, is sometimes
nearly repeated. Our country now stands in a somewhat similar
position towards the Federal Constitution to that in which she
stood, before its adoption, towards the Articles of Confederation.
A step forward was needed then. A step forward is needed now.
Mr. President, you have recently shown a spirit worthy of your
office, and of that persistent will which, in another sphere, worthily
won the applause and the honors of your country. Thankfully
and cordially good citizens have praised you; but the events in
Louisiana illustrate the danger, on one side, of upholding national
authority with nothing but a federal charter to sanction the proceeding, and the danger, on the other, of allowing the national
authority to be defied and resisted because there is nothing but a
* Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. V. p. 694. 
I7
federal charter to support it.  As things now are, the federal
authority cannot be used without a requisition from those who
may be overpowered by the insurgents for the very purpose of
preventing the constitutional requisition, or who may be as bad as
the insurgents, or worse, and by their own disorder may have incited greater disorder. To state the fact is to state the danger.
For nine years these contradictions of reconstruction have continued. They will continue and increase, until the American
people shall see, and shall act according to the sight, that a permanent pledge of peace and unity between the North and the
South, the East and the West, can be found only, as far as depends
upon the will of man, in a National Constitution. When the governors of the States, whether chosen by a popular vote or appointed, can, in either case, show as the sign of their authority,
not the record of the State, but the broad seal of the national
government, behind which is all the power of the nation, requiring no local demand for its use in danger, they will not be likely
to be driven from their posts by local violence; and when elections
in all the States shall be conducted by national rules of suffrage
and registration uniform throughout the land and making bribery
and the manipulation of votes national crimes punished by national laws, there will be less opportunity and less motive for
electoral fraud.
The Nation cannot be sovereign, and the States also sovereign.
One or the otlher must yield. The Nation cannot yield without
giving up her inspiring past and her hopeful future. The States,
by yielding their pretences of sovereignty, will win a grander and
brighter prize than they surrender, in the common power, welfare,
and glory of one great and noble nation. The needed reconstruction must be thorough in character and in extent. It will
not promote peace or patriotism to make half the States national,
and to keep half the States federal. Our country must be one,
literally one.
Mr. President, with this public letter to you begins, but here,
by the aid and blessing of God, will not and shall not end, my work
in behalf of a National Constitution, the harbinger of a thousand
years of benignant power and brightening glory for our country,
through whose darkest days have glanced the smiles of Heaven,
while the batteries of mortal might have attacked in vain her towers
of Almi,ghty defence.
I am a stranger to you personally, yet not a stranger to your 
z8
well-won fame. I have felt just pride, as an American, in what
you did to make our brave national soldiers victorious; but I
have felt humiliation, as an American, that you have not comprehended, or seemed to care to comprehend, the historic meaning
of the war in which you won so bright a name, - that you have not
seen, or even seemed to care to see, the need, the duty, and the
destiny of the country which, as a soldier, you served with such
directness, persistency, and boldness of power, but which, as a
statesman, you have too frequently served like a pendulum, swinging between indecision in great things and firmness of will in
little things. The American people will take good care how they
again make a soldier their President, unless he has been charged
with civil duties, and has shown in them energy, decision, and
unity of purpose. In demanding a National Constitution, I plead
for the whole country, for the protection of the South against internal disorders, and the corruption and tyranny of men unfit to
rule, to whatever party they may belong, as well as for the security
of the North against another federal insurrection.
'Mr. President, because I have rebuked you for your narrow
views of public duty, for your want of inspiring energy in civil
government, and for being content to be a federal follower, when
the very qualities and services which made you President, and
the needed inauguration of a new era of power and glory for
America, required you to be a national guide, I am none the less,
but the more, and for this very reason,
Faithfully yours,
WILLIAM GILES DIX. 
I9
A PETITION FOR A NATIONAL CONSTI                       TUTION.
THE undersigned, a citizen of Massachusetts, believing that
the time has come, in the providence of God, when the people
of the United States ought, once for all, to decide whether or
not-they desire and mean to be one sovereign nation', claiming
the direct allegiance of all, and directly guarding the rights of all,
makes his respectftul petition, that the Senate of the United
States, in concurrence with the House of Representatives, will
appoint a time, as early in the coming year as may be deemed
best, for delegates chosen one for and by each Congressional
district, but from any part of the country, to meet in the city
of Philadelphia, to consider and form a National Constitution,
which, if approved by the people, voting as one people, without
the intervention of the States, shall be declared by the executive
authority to be, from a time named, the organic national law,
superseding the Federal Constitution of the United States, as
that Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation.
WILLIAM GILES DIX.
PEABODY, MASS., December I, I874.
PEABODY, MASSACHUSETTS, December 25, I874
To THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE ON THE REVISION OF THE LAWS.
GENTLEMEN,- The motive for my petition for a National Constitution, recently referred to you by the Senate, is, first of all,
through all, and last of all, the desire of peace, enduring peace,
of that peace which comes from unity of government, accepted
by a loyal and united people.   I mean no vindictive threat, no
wayward display of national power.
The double civil allegiance, not only permitted, but required
by the Constitution, has been the unfailing spring of political
irritation and conflict to this hour. The makers of the Constitution, in trying to avoid the danger of unity, incurred the greater 
20
danger of the ruin of all their hopes and labors for union. They
are not to be blamed for doing as they did. But few members
of that Convention desired a thorough national government,
and, though in the history of recent years the patriotic wisdom
of those few shines brightly through their defeat, yet, had they
prevailed in the Convention, their work, however inspired by
genius and foresight, would have been rejected by all the States.
Nationality was then an object of almost universal terror. The
members of the Convention, representing independent States,
were obliged to follow Solon's rule, and make such an organic
law as the people could bear. In judging how far to go, and
where to stop, they showed consummate and patriotic skill.
I cannot agree with those who regard the Constitution as a
Charter of Nationality. In my belief it is a Federal Charter. It
is an advance beyond the Articles of Confederation, but an advance on the same federal line. A national feature here and
there may modify, but cannot entirely change, the general character of the Constitution, as the Charter of a Federal Union, not
of National unity.
We cannot at all times, if we would, avoid acting as a nation;
for behind all possible organizations stand the principles intended to be organized, and behind these are primal principles,
which cannot be organized by the power of man; and all the
objects to which those principles may be applied cannot be defined beforehand. No mortal form can be a perfectly faithful
mirror of an immortal idea; and such is government; and even
a federal agency is government, and, being government, as well
as a government, must have some rights derived from a source
above and before itself, independent of itself, and unchanging in
its essential nature through all the changes of time.
I greatly doubt whether it is within the province of a Constitution to define in detail the special objects of a government,
excluding all others.   At any rate, I deny that a government
the objects of which are so defined and restricted is a national
government. The objects of a government seem to be entirely
within the province of laws. A constitution of government may
properly declare principles, prerogatives, immunities, and rights,
and how they are to be applied and maintained, without making
an exact inventory of the objects which, and which alone, they
concern.
But, since the Federal Constitution attempts, and by so at 
21
tempting is deprived of the claim to found a national government, to define and enumerate the special objects, and those only,
which the government it forms can touch, it would be impossible
in theory, and it has proved impossible in practice, always so
clearly to draw and interpret the line of authority as to avoid
censure and hostility for objects right in themselves, and admitted
by their adversaries to be right, but which may not clearly lie
within the limits of the granted powers. Sometimes strict construction, sometimes liberal construction, prevails. Many a wise
law has been wrecked on a rocky comma in the Constitution,
while many a foolish one has safely run the gantlet of all its
pelting periods.. 
The greater the need of action, the more urgent the occasion,
the greater the danger of overstepping the Federal boundary,
the greater the danger that the discordant claims will culminate in
unconstitutional resistance on one side, or in unconstitutional
power on the other, or in both. I propose, then, a National Constitution, that this cause of never-ending irritation may be removed; that the theory and practice of our government may correspond, and that both may be national.   I believe that many
acts of the government, wise and just, are resisted upon the
point of honor, because they are deemed, in the spirit if not in the
letter, usurpations in a federal government, which would receive
hearty and ready acquiescence, were the government avowedly,
and by the consent of the people, national.         a
The same irritating conflicts - none the less irritating, and none
the less conflicts, whether their causes were just or unjust, arising
from real or presumed needs of national action - which brought
on the civil war are now at work. The wisest statesmanship,
the purest patriotism, cannot prevent the conflicts of divided
authority - authority divided not by caprice or custom, but by
organic law - which must inevitably come, not only from the
endeavor to administer a federal government on national principles, but even from the most sincere endeavor to administer it on
federal principles.   Some  "strict constructionists" have been
Presidents, and have seen and owned the intense embarrassment
of their position. Is it wise, is it straightforward, is it American,
to go on, for all time, trying to give a National meaning to a Federal Constitution? I cannot think it to be so; and that is why I
propose a National Constitution.
I do not believe that nullification and secession are justified by
. 
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the Constitution; but I plainly believe and plainly say, that so
far as the Constitution alone is the basis of our political power,
the theories of nullification and secession are not a greater strain,
on one side of the Constitution, beyond the limit of allowed resistance, than the theory of a single, thorough, organic nationality
is, on the other side, beyond the limit of allowed authority.
I know that many pure patriots have affirmed, and now affirm,
the nationality of the Constitution; but many pure patriots have
also denied it, and now deny it.  Our nationality, so far as it
depends upon the Constitution, is at least doubtful; and no
vehemence of affirmation can make it logically or historically
otherwise. Can a great nation, destined to be, if true to herself,
to her trials, her opportunities, and her gifts of God, a controlling
power in the world, be founded on a doubt as a corner-stone?
Can we be truly a nation, in our own view or in that of others,
when our nationality is not universally admitted by ourselves,
but is by some doubted, by others denied, and by others denied
and defied?
Gentlemen, behold for yourselves the dangers which will endure,
and cannot help enduring, as long as the Federal Constitution
shall be our organic law. We are bound by it while it shall remain; but does not every day bring warning that we must go
forward and occupy national ground, if we would fulfil the work
of our fathers, if we would vindicate the past, improve the present,
and be just tothe future?  Can we be a harmonious people, when
out of the very Constitution under which we live spring discords
fierce and frequent?
I see the black cloud arising in the sky, like that which before
burst upon the land; and, as it grows larger and blacker, and its
shadow deeper and wider, I would connect the key of safety which
shall draw powerless to the earth the fiery bolt, turn aside the lurid
flame, so that its bright arrows of wrath may not again kindle
civil strife on ripening harvest-fields, and so that the loud thunder,
not again sounding the knell of death to many a manly heart and
the knell of desolation to many a loving home, may bellow harmless to the vacant air. That key of safety is a National Constitution.
I see my country going on the same road which led to the
terrible war. One after another appears each familiar milestone
of danger. I venture, impelled by the sorrows of the past, and
beckoned by the glories of the future, to stand in the way, and,
I
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in the name of God, of justice, and of right, to point out the sure
high-road of a National Constitution, and to urge my country, letting go her heavy weight of conflicting authorities and discordant
prerogatives, to advance on that firm, straight, and sunny road,
like Pilgrim when he had lost his load of sin, in joy and liberty
and peace.
Gentlemen of the Committee, I assure you, and reassure you,
on this day, hallowed by the coming of the Prince of Peace, that
my plea for a National Constitution springs from my ardent desire for peace, for national peace, for Christian peace, for peace as
broad as our land and as bright as its hopes, for peace that shall
cheer every American heart, bless every American home, defend
every American's liberty and life, deck with unfading flowers every
American patriot's grave, and make our American government,
in all that concerns political right and loyal duty, the light of the
world.
Can we doubt that our fathers, with our trials of Federal
dangers added to theirs, would have made, with eager alacrity, a
National Constitution? Can we doubt that it would have been
adopted with eager acclamation by a united people? The way to
follow our fathers and to honor their memory is to be as true to
our day and our duty, with the light we have, as they were true
to their day and their duty, with the light they had.
Gentlemen, however widely you may differ one from another, or
from me, I believe that we shall all agree in hoping that our
country may be, for benignant ages, one happy, free, and powerful
dominion, the home of the brightest hopes and of the best endeavors, and a sanctuary alike of the unalienable rights of man
and of the unalienable rights of God.
In this hope and belief, I am, Gentlemen, with great respect,
Very truly yours,
WILLIAM GILES DIX. 
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