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April J 8
VOL. I.
THE RANDOLPH EPISTLES
ON THE KIGIIT OF SECESSION.
NUMBER I.
T*o the Prcsiilenl — lntroductory—One half of the
Southern Whigs States-rights men—Secession
results from the compact Denied by the Execu
tive— The Constitution bears the faculties of its
mm destruction—Dismemberment cannot be
Treason—Two States can dissolve the Union
under Constitutional authority — Also, one-ffth
of the members if either House —Views of
Messrs. Clay, Cass and Webster—The right
of revolution defined —The Secession of the Col
onies from Great Britain—General Washing
ton's sentiments on Secession, cf-e.
To Ills Excellency, Millard Fillmore,
President of the United States:
Sir: One of those unforeseen casualties
which “flesh is heir to” has made your Ex
cellency the Chief Magistrate of the United
States. For the first time in your life, you
find yourself the representative of a Southern
constituency in E ecutive Administration,
and to a majority of that constituency you
owe your elevation to the Vice Presidency,
and through that, to the still higher position
which you now occupy. There were circum
stances, too, which gave a yet more imposing
weight to the support you obtained in the
Southern States. Os the fifteen free States,
your electoral ticket obtained the victory butin
seven. Os the fifteen slave States, the same tick
et obtained the victory in eight. Os the seven
free States, in which your ticket commanded
pluralities of votes, it commanded popular
majorities in but three. Os the eight slave
States, which cast their electorial votes for
that ticket it commanded popular majorities
in each of them. The aggregate of your
popular majorities in the free States was six
thousand eight hundred and fifty-three. The
aggregate of your popular majorities in the
slave States was forty-two thousand eight
hundred and two. All these would be matters
of but small concern in administering the
affairs of the Government in ordinary times;
but in so grave and alarming a crisis in pub
lic affairs as now disturbs the public tran
quility, I must think that these are considera
tions worth remembering, should sectional
issues at any time, in the opinion of the Presi
dent, call for Executive action.
I take leave, furthermore, to call your Ex
cellency’s attention to some other striking
circumstances, which your party at the North
has too often disregarded, but which, in times
like these, may be worthy of very special
note. One important fact is, that the Whig
party at the North and the Whig party at
the South, though concurring in the main
upon measures of public policy—yet, upon
several essential points, they radically dis
agree. Another fact, or at least, a strong
probability is, that not one of the favorite
measures of the Whigs of the North—a Na
tional Bank—a Bankrupt Law—a Protective
Tariff-—lnternal Improvements, &c., would
be likely to command majorities at the South,
though the Democrats of that section wholly
refrained from the polls; and as to all the
anti-slavery issues upon which the Whigs of
the free States are quite or nearly unanimous,
the Whigs at the South are just as unanimous
on the opposite side. From the close of Mr.
Madison’s Administration in 1817, through
the whole of Mr. Monroe’s, the distinction of
parties was scarcely preserved at the South,
and upon the opening of that of Mr. J. Q.
Adams in 1825, the old Federal party there
rallied upon him, while the State-rights men
in overwhelming majorities rallied upon Gerr.
Jackson. Even as late as 1832, (and before
the Whig party co nomine was known,) in the
Presidential contest between Mr. Clay and
‘General Jackson, the former could only mus
ter Federalists and National Republicans
enough in all the South, to secure him three
States, with popular majorities as follows:
Kentucky with some 7,000, Delaware 16G,
and Maryland with 4! While General Jack
son, supported by the, States-rights party,
carried the balance of the Southern States
with an aggregate of majorities reaching to
one hundred and forty thousand / But the
most important fact of all is, that fully one
half of the Whig party at the South were
original States-rights men, who left the Dem
ocratic party, some of them in opposition to
the latitudinarian doctrines of Gen. Jackson’s
proclamation against South Carolina, (not
withstanding his disavowals in the Globe and
Enquirer,) others on account of bis removal
of the deposites, &c., others of them on ac
count of their preference of Hugh L. White
to Martin Van Buren, others of them through
an ascription of the disastrous financial crisis
of 1837 to the policy and measures of the
latter; but not one of them, that I have heard,
for any dissatisfaction with the doctrines of
States-rights, and a strict construction of the.
Federal Constitution !
From these premises, I think it may be
safely taken for granted, that fully one-half
of the Whigs of the South, with the Demo
cratic party thither en masse, are emphatical
ly State-rights men, who stand upon the plat
form made by Messrs. Jefferson and Madison
in 1798, as set forth in the Kentucky and
Virginia Resolutions and Report, drafted by !
them for each of these Commonwealths re- ;
spectivelv, and which were based upon the !
broad principle, that this Union results from a
Compact between the Stales, to which they
became parties in their sovereign capacities,
with full powers and rights inherent in each,
(as in all other compacts,) to dissolve or to
secede from such compacts, for breaches of
. any of its fundamental conditions or material
stipulations, and of which each State of itself
and of necessity must be the exclusive judge.
In other words, and as an inevitable corollary
from the premises, the Southern people, in
overwhelming numbers, hold as a principle of
our political institutions the right of secession
in these States. Os course, your Excellency
| is too sagacious and profound a statesman,
and too accurately versed in the past public
questions of the country, to confound, (as
Mr. Clay so recently and so unaccountably
did in the Senate,) the doctrine of secession
with that of nullification. Day and night
are not more deeply and enduringly in con
trast than they. Through secession, an op
pressed and complaining State peacefully re
i tires from the Union; parting alike with its
j benefits and its burthens, until that Union
: shall repair the breaches in its Constitution
and its broken faith towards her, and given
her adequate guarantees against their future
recurrence; while, through nullification, a
State never quits the Union at all, and follv
shares in all its benefits, but renounces what
ever of its burdens it shall adjudge and de
nounce, through its State authorities, to be
nullities and void With all respect for the
£cmtl)cnt Sentinel.
advocates of nullification, (and I do most
truly respect them,) and a full appreciation of
the exasperating oppressions which provoked
it, I could never persuade myself that the
Union could survive a twelve month an un
limited power in each of its members to ab
rogate its laws within its own borders ; while,
on the other hand, should one of the Skates,
or a third of the States, or even one-half of
them secede, that in itself would by no
means preclude the States which remained,
from still abiding in union, independent and
free. Besides, the remedy of nullification
has arisen and been passed upon and denied
by the Executive and Legislative branches of
this Government near twenty years ago,
while that of secession has never been up for
judgment, nor discussed nor decided by any
department of the Government. From all
this it results, that a large majority of South
erners have always been opposed to the doc
trine of nullification, and for the additional
reason, that the ampler, more thorough and
unquestionable remedy of secession, discred
ited its authority in proving it unnecessary ;
and hence, too, the right of secession, so ob
viously resulting as a muniment of a compact
to which the States were parties, and so
effective as a shield against political oppres
sion, has always been cherished and main
tained by the States-rights men of the South,
(inclusive, of course, of the nullificrs,) as the
South’s birth-right and its safeguard. So
thoroughly convinced am I that the right se
cession is a conclusive and inevitable corollary
from the compact which created this Union
of Republics, that I very much doubt, if the
right would ever have been questioned, had it |
not been so amazingly mystified and confound
ed with the points and assumptions peculiar
and pertaining to the remedy of State nulli
fication. Such being the antecedents, the
right of secession, raising questions of the
first, impression, such ns had never been de
cided, never deliberated on, never discussed,
and had never arisen, involving the profound
est principles of public law and the Federal
Constitution ; and consequences, it may be,
of the highest moment to the happiness and
tranquility of our common country; I can
hardly express the surprise and deep concern
it has given us Southerners, to have noticed
in the columns of one of the official organs
of the Administration, (the Republic,) day by
day for many days, flippant homilies against
the right of secession, and significant of in
ferences, that its assertion and exercise by a
sovereign State, would be resisted and put
down by the military power of this govern
ment. But for the commanding position of
this Journal, I should have of course have
treated doctrines and mcmaces so jejune and
premature as these with entire indifference;
but finding them there, and so often repeated,
and satisfied that no organ of the govrenment
would thus have ventured to have given to
the world a clue to its highest and gravest
policy of State, without an express authority;
it is impossible not. to regard them as oracu
lar revealings of the foregone judgments and
purposes of your Excellency's Administra
tion, and as such they become the legitimate
topics of public examination and criticism;
and the menacing intimations in your Excel
lency’s recent message to the two Houses
upon the pending boundary issues between
Texas and New Mexico, amply confirm all
the Delphic disclosures which the Republic
has made.
In all Christendom there never has been a
form of government which provided, in its
own Constitution, through an express autho
rization, for its own dissolution; nor yet one,
in which the rights to put an end to it did not
reside somewhere. Our own Constitution
furnishes striking instances and illustrations
of each of these postulala, and one of them
was but recently and most imposingly brought
to public attention in the Congress of the
United States. At an early day of the pre
sent session, petitions from certain Quakers
in Pennsylvania, were presented to both
Houses, praying that Congress would provide
for a peaceful dissolution of the Union.
These petitions were unanimously rejected
in both Houses, and the reasons assigned for
doing so were, that the Constitution conferred
no power on Congress to dissolve the Union,
or to take any step in any manner providing
therefor; and it is perfectly clear, that it does
not, It is even clearer, that the Constitution
has conferred no such power upon the Exe
cutive Department ; and a fortiori not upon
the Judicial Department, whose whole func
tions of administration are unchangeably im
passive, and it is absolutely void besides, of
all political authority whatever. Rut I have
said that the rights and power of dissolution
of all governments, being co-existent there
with, must always reside somewhere; and if
they have no place in any of the Departments
of the Federal Government, where do they
reside ? The tenth amendment of the Con
stitution, strikingly and conclusively answers
this question, and clears our way of every 7
difficulty, by providing, that
“ The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it
to the States, are reserved to the States respec
tively, or to the people.”
Noxv what reserved powers are these?
They are not Federal powers manifestly,
existing only in faculty; they are but the
creatures of the organic law, and all that
were created were conferred on and vested j
in this Government by the Constitution, and
took effect pari passue with it, March 4, 1789.
; The reserved powers, then, not being Federal
or United powers, are State powers, (whether
pertaining to the Governments or people of
; the States,) existing butin severally, and to be
| exercised, when exercised at all, by the States,
| each by itself and for itself, and for none
j other, and not otherwise. It results, that as
j the power of dissolving the Union resides in
I the Skates severally and not conjointly, so no
! one of them can dissolve it, beyond the ex-
I tent to which she is interested therein and a
| party thereto ; and, consequently, the only
! mode of affecting that, without destroying
the Union of the others, is by withdrawing
from its jurisdiction and authority, through
the peaceful exercise of the right of seces
sion. All wise and moderate men will readi
ly agree, that such a right ought never to be
exercised, unless the grievances were weighty
and too much to be borne with; nor then,
while a reasonable hope remained of obtain
j ing fit indemnities for past aggressions, and
’ adequate securities against their recurrence;
i still it would be no right at all, were there a right
elsewhere, to prevent or obstruct its assertion ;
! nor unless the party possessing it, was as free
j as the air to determine the occasions which
would be meet for its exercise. The right
COLUMBUS, GEORGIA, THURSDAY MORNING, AUGUST 29, 1850.
must be absolute, exclusive and unquestion
able, or it does not exist.
If the union of these States had been made
immutable by the Constitution, your Excel
lency sees at once, that an act of secession
would be the very greatest of crimes; yet
while the Constitution is sedulous and min
ute iu investing Congress with powers “to
provide for the punishment of counterfeiting
the securities and current coins of the United
States,” “to define and punish piracies and
felonies committed on the high seas, and
offences against the law of nations,” &c.; lo!
the far more heinous crime of secession, is no
where denounced or forbidden, or referred to.
Can any rational or candid mind, draw any
other conclusion from the omission, but that
the sages of the Constitution did not regard
it as any crime at all, but as an inalienable
and invaluable right of sovereignty?
The highest crime known to the Constitu
tion is Treason; but all the juris-consults
agree, that a State its sovereign capacity,
cannot commit treasoa,ahd so says the Con
stitution itself, though the irresistible implica
tion drawn from the provision, that “no at
tainder of treason shall work corruption of
blood or forfeiture, except during the life of
the person attainted.” But what is Treason 1
The Constitution answers, that “treason
against the Constitution of the United States
shall only consist in levying war against them,
or in adhering to their enemies, giving them
aid and comfort.” Well, sir, secession is
nothing like this. It levies war upon nobody ;
it adheres to no one’s enemies, nor gives them
aid and comfort, but takes quiet and peace
ful leave of the Union, without drawing a
trigger or unsheathing a sword. Yet there
are men—who ought to know better—flip
pantly denouncing the mero imagination of
secession as treason, through the levying of
war at the point of a pen, and giving aid and
comfort to the eoeinies when the Union is
without any.
Treason, sir! Is a dismemberment of the
Union, treason to the Constitution? If so,
then is the Constitution itself the hot-bed of
its own treasons, for it bears within its womb
the seeds of its own dismemberment. If
mono} 7 be the sinew of war, it is undoubted
ly, also, the life of Government. Without it,
the wheels of Administration stop ; and, if
for a length of time, the spokes decay, and
they fall to pieces. Our Constitution requires
majorities of the whole numbers elected to
each House of Congress to constitute the
quorums, who can proceed to business. Less
than these in either House brings all Legisla
tion to a pause. Without quorums in both,
not a law can be passed to raise money or to
disburse it—to put money in the Treasury, or
to take it out. Now, it so happens, that the
aggregate numbers of the Representatives of
just seven of the thirty States of the Union
exceeds, by a majority of one, the aggregate
representative numbers of the remaining
twenty-three States. Suppose the seven States
refuse, or fail, Irom any cause, to elect a re
presentative for a term or two. the conse
quence would be the arrest of Legislation—
the stoppage of the supplies—and eventually
an entire dissolution of the Union. And how
effected? Through the recusancy of less
than one-fourth of the States, and in success
ful defiance and resistance of all the remain- j
ing States. There’s the Senate, too. Os;
the thirty States, there are fifteen of them
whose aggregate popular numbers amount to
no more than 3,770,199, while the aggregate
popular numbers of the other fifteen States
amount to 13,273,157; and yet by a refusal :
or failure of the Legislatures of the fifteen
States first referred to, to choose their senators,
the Senate’s quorum is lost, and thus scarcely
more than one-fifth of the popular numbers
control an overwhelming majority, brings the
Government to a stand-still and dissolve the
Union. Similar refusals or failures to ap
point the Presidential electors at any time,
would effect a like result. Now any of these
injurious contingencies are plainly within the
legal capacities of the Constitution; and
should a dissolution of the Union be either
compassed or ensue, who but a madman
would maintain that treason had been com
mitted in the sense of the Constitution?
Would that be “ levying war” against the
Union, or “ adhering to its enemies,” or “giv
ing them aid and comfort?” Who would
have the recklessness to say so, and de
nounce one-half or two-thirds of the people
as traitors to the residue ? And how would
the delinquents be dealt with ? Would you
visit a recusant State with all the scath and
waste of war, for doing an act, which the
Constitution, far from punishing or forbidding,
has provided the means of accomplishing, and
permits ? Well, suppose you invade, suppose
you triumph. What then ? Though you put
down the State authorities, you cannot make
men vote. If you can, and if you do, then
is the State crushed and destroyed under such
an exercise of power, and she can no longer
be brought back into the Union as a sovereign
and co-equal of the other States, and hence
your very highest triumph would bring you
no success.
There is yet another clause of the Consti
tution providing still more palpable and sim
pler means for immediately accomplishing a
dissolution of the Union. I allude to the
clause, empowering one-f fth of the number
present in either House of Congress to have
the yeas and nays recorded “ on any ques
tion” that arises, and vesting in them, there
fore, an unlimited discretion to raise ques
; tions and call the yeas and nays on them,
through an entire Congress and longer,
stopping the supplies, arresting all legislation
! —and which carried out, would eventually
i end in a rupture of the Union. Now, the
| joint representative numbers in the House of
Representatives, of the two populous States
of New York and Pennsylvania amount to
fifty-eight, and the whole number of repre
sentatives, being two hundred and thirty-one,
| of course forty-seven members contains one
fifth of the whole number elected—and con
i sequently these two States, (containing about
■ 5 out of 22,000,000 of popular numbers, and
with eleven representatives to spare,) possess
| the power to arrest the legislative action of
the remaining twenty-eight States even to the
extremity of dissolving the Union. But, it
may be replied, that the majority would not
submit to be thus controlled by a refractory
minority, and would expel them from the
House by strong hand and violence. Very
well, so they might, but only through one of
these flagrant breaches of the Constitution,
which would itself effectually destroy the
Union, and through the very unconstitutional
means resorted to, to preserve it! Once
more and by way of fyjpathescs: Suppose
the white population of Texas, en masse,
under the promptings of some mania for the
gold mines, should remove to California and
become citizens thereof, taking the oath of
allegiance thither, and renouncing thereby
their allegiance to Texas. Suppose, further,
that all of them should retain their lands in
Texas, leaving their slaves to cultivate them,
and to account to them for the crops, &c.
Suppose, further, that the Legislative and
popular electors of Texas, had chosen their
senators and representatives prior to embark
ing upon this wholesale migration. And
suppose lastly, that the United States marshal
for Texas, in making his census returns,
should report all of these facts to Congress,
and that the senators and representatives elect,
were the only resident citizens of the State.
Now, I demand to know, whether, if all these
supposals were brought into realities, there
be any one among them, which would not be
a perfectly lawful act under the Constitution
of the United States? Most undoubtedly
they would be so. Very well. Now would
either House of Congress admit these sena
tors and representatiues to seats, in the face
of their official knowledge that they were
without a constituency ? We know they
would not. Very well again. Could Con
gress apportion and allot represenkatives to a
State under the census, which was destitute
of representative numbers, and whoso former
citizens had already been counted and regis
tered among the representative members of
California ? We know it could not. And
now for the result? Texas would be out of
the Union. She would have accomplished
that result, through her own acts exclusively.
All of these acts would be lawful acts. She
would then have lawfully exercised the right
of secession, and have ceased to be a State
in the Union. Would there bo any treason
in that? Would the migrating citizens be
traitors to the Union ? Would that be levy
ing war or adhering to the Union’s enemies?
What says your Excellency ? Yes or No.
Well, sir, after the striking demonstrations
of the several faculties existing in the Consti
tution itself, adequate to its total overthrow,
without a breach of any of its provisions and
even in the absence of a just cause, can it be
said, with a shadow of decency or truth, that
the Union, which is but an incidence and de
pendency of the Constitution, and must stand
or fall with it, is nevertheless indissoluble and
immortal ? While two of the sovereign States
of the Union are invested with a capacity by
the Constitution to wholly dissolve it without
a just cause, and at their arbitrary will and
pleasure, can it be said, without putting all
analogy and reasoning “ into Coventry,” that
two other sovereign States of the Union may
not, with a just cause, and for flagrant and
repeated breaches of fundamental conditions
of the compact, dismember the Union, by se
ceding from its jurisdiction and authority
and without being branded with treason for
levying a war which would never be waged,
but in defending their houses and firesides
from the hostile invasions of the other
It must he pertectly oovious to your Excel
lency, that if tho rights o f secession exists at
all, it is the most invaluable of all rights to
tho majority on sectional issues, in such a
government as ours. No administration of
the Constitution upon such questions, is likely
to be so impartial and just, nor ensure such
protection to the minority, as when armed
with a right of potential secessionit ean de
clare to the majority : “Do us justice, or we
trill dissolve the partnership.” No one
knows belter than j’our Excellency, that tho
South has always been, and is now, an unfail
ing source of tho North’s thrift and the
North's wealth; and that, could the free
Skates once put their faith in the South’s right
of secession, in virtue of the compact, or be
lieved that the South was ready and resolved
upon its dissolution, if unredressed of her
wrongs, the aggressions complained of would
immediately cease, and all the exasperating
anti-slavery issues now pending before Con
gress would be adjusted in forty-eight hours,
and upon the South’s own terms. There is
not a principle in tho Federal Constitution
so conservative of the rights, equality and
sovereignty of the Skates, and of the peace
and perpetuity of the Union, as would be a
recognized right in each of the States to se
cede from the Union whenever it failed in any
of the great ends for which it was established.
Then, all sections and every State would
realize how deep and vast was the stake
which each one has in its preservation ; how
frail was the mere legal cincture which bound
the comprehensive whole in one; how essen
tial to its duration it was, that each should
refrain from aggressing upon the rights of
another, or from grasping at or appropriating
more than its own ; and that all should unite
in promoting each other’s interest—cultivating
each other’s friendship, and securing each
other’s affections, and binding these States
indissolubly in one harmonious whole. Then
would the voices of this generation mingle
with the voices of the remotest posterity, and
the Union’s value and the Union’s benedic
tions would be pronounced in the esto per
petua of the grateful millions who would
reap its bounties and share its glory, when
this generation shall have passed away.
Three of the most eminent living men of
the country are Messrs. Clav, Cass and Web
ster. Could they have been satisfied as so
many of the fathers of the Constitution, and
of the great men who preceded them, and
the illustrious Washington, Jefferson and
I Madison among them were, that the right of
secession was an inherent and essential ele
ment of a compact, to which the States were
parties in their sovereign capacities ; and had
they seen fit to make known such opinions
to their countrymen in ail sections—who can
doubt, but that their great weight of charac
ter and influence, and admirable powers of
debate, would have wrought their own con
victions every where upon the public mind ?
And had they done so, who can doubt, but
that the free States, after balancing the
South’s products, and the South’s freights,
i the South’s purchasers, the South’s exchanges,
and the South’s supplies to the Treasury—
against their pretensions to appropriate to
themselves exclusively the entirety of the
Federal territory, to decoy away and emanci
pate the South’s slaves, &e., in breach of the
Constitution, with the certainty of an im
mediate disruption of the Union —would
promptly have chosen to have stood by their
interests, abandoned their pretensions, yielded
the South her equality, shared with her the
territory, surrendered up her slaves, and, in
fine, have adjusted the whole controversy on
| the very moderate basis of the South’s ulli
’ matter*. Had this been done, th* whole land
would bare resounded with rejoicings, and
beeu wreathed with chaplets of conciliation
and peace from ooean to ocean, and from the
lakes to the sea. But, most unhappily for
the country, these distinguished men did not
see fit to take this soothing and tranquilizing
course, bnt took the opposite one; and, in
my humble judgment, have wrought thereby
incalculable, and it may be, incurable mis
chiefs upon the country. I do not mean to
say that either of these gentlemen asserted,
in so many words, that the right of secession
did not exist; but that they so ingeniously
and oracularly argued against its exercise,
and made civil war its imminent and insepar
able sequence, as to have wrought that im
pression thoroughly upon the public mind at
the North, and to have wrought the impres
sion every where, that such were their
opinions.
It has never been my good or ill fortune,
to encounter any well-informed person, any
where, North or South, who, however he
might deny the right of secession in u-ords,
did not, in sentiment, if urged to particulars,
betray bis belief in it, in some form or other;
though apt enough to retreat from his posi
tion, and mask his confession under cover of
the phrase of a right of revolution. This
proneness of statesmen to conceal their re
treat xinder a battery of words, and in mat
ters of state to regard as the safest use of
language, the concealment of one’s thoughts,
was most strikingly exemplified at the close
of Mr. V\ ebster’s great speech on the slavery
question in March last Avery eminent per
son, of spotless purity of character, frank
of thought and bold of counsel, unrivalled
among men for his deep sagacity and pro
found and comprehensive statesmanship, hap
pened to be present on that occasion:—lt
was South Carolina’s illustrious statesman,
the lamented Calhoun! In the course of
Mr. Webster’s fervent deplorings of the ef
fects of secession, Mr. Calhoun understood
him to deny (as did most of his audience) the
right of secession, and for any cause. True
to his instincts, and as rapid as thought, Mr.
Calhoun saw all the portentous bearings of
this skilful piece of oratory, and, though
then in a deep decline, and but a span from
the grave, he faultered not a momont in as
saulting Mr. Webster’s position, and putting
him upon his defence; and the following col
loquy ensued:
Mr. Calhoun. “I cannot agree with the
senator from Massachusetts—that this Union
cannot be dissolved. Am I to understand
him, that no degree of oppression; no out
rage; no broken faith, can produce the de
struction of this Union? Why, sir, if that
becomes a fixed fact, it will itself become the
great instrument of producing oppression,
outrage and broken faith. No, sir, the Union
can lie broken. Great moral causes will
break it if they go on, and it can only be -pre
served by justice, good faith, and a rigid ad
herence to the Constitution
Mr. Webster. “The senator from South
,n—. —:/• i wia .u* W,L; n „ llr ,
of the Union by any such thing as the volun
tary secession of States as an impossibility ?
I know, sir, this Union can be broken up.
Every government can be: and I admit that j
there may be such a degree of oppression as
will warrant resistance and a forcible sever- j
anec. That is revolution ! Os that ultimate !
right of revolution, I have not been speaking.
I know that that law of necessity does exist.”
It is thus seen that Mr. Webster plainly
evades the question he repeats to be answer
ed, touching the right of “voluntary seces
sion,” and contents himself with admitting,
under the contingency he names, the right
of a “forcible severance,” (about which no
question had been put to him,) and this he de
fines to mean, “the right of revolution.” And
pray what is a right of revolution, but a right
to change or abolish systems or forms of
government, with or without force? Can
Mr. Webster have attempted to impose upon
his countrymen, as a sentiment of his own,
that which he cannot believe, to wit: that a
revolution cannot be effected but by the spill
ing of blood. andfCivil war ? If so distin
guished a person would risk his high fame
upon so paltry a quibble as this, then the
world might be curious to know how much
blood must ho spilled, and how long the war
must last, to make it a legitimate revolution?
The throne of Louis Philippe in a single day
sunk, crushed under the weight of popular
opinion, and the affrighted monarch, with
scarcely the exchange of a shot, precipitately
fled the kingdom, and lo ! France was revolu
tionized and free! That’s history. Was
there blood enough spilt to make it a revolu
tion ? Shortly thereafter, the Provisional
Government of France was overthrown, and
a Constitutional Government was substituted
in its stead, without drawing a sabre or firing
a gun! That’s history. Was it not a revo
| luiion ? In 1840, Gen. Paredes, without the
j click of a musket, displaced General Herrera,
j and overturned the Mexican Government;
j and, crossing the Rio Grande, brought on
the American war! That's history. Was it
not a revolution 1
Revolutions may be brought about by ci
vil war undoubtedly, and mostfrequently are ;
but it falsifies all experience, and is absurd to
maintain ex vi terminorum, that they impart
j governmental changes wrought by civil war
i and none other. The terms revolution and
| change, applied descriptively to substitutions
| of one form of government for another, are
| dealt with as synonimes, by those publicists
lof Europe in the highest repute. Should the
I people of these thirty States ever become
i madmen enough to abolish this Republic by
common consent, establish a monarchy in its
stead and choose a King, it would astound
the world!—and if that would not be a revo
lution in the universal sense of mankind, and
the most memorable which Christendom has
witnessed, I challenge all history for the re
gistry of one which would rival it in wonder,
in interest and in importance ; and yet not a
blood stain would attest the patriot strivings
of an heroic resistance! Why, sir, when
your predecessor was chosen and inaugura
ted as President of the United States, what
less or other did the change from a Demo
cratic to a Whig Government import or at
test, than a thorough revolution of national
policy and parties ? And when, upon Gen
eral Taylor’s demise, you acceeded to his func
tions, and substituted anew Cabinet for the
old one, what less or other, did it import or
attest, than a revolution in the administration
of the Government? The otie was a revolu
tion of the Government, and the other of the
Administration ; ctsisic omnes, dec* Hence
secession, come when it may, and bo it in
peace er in strife, and end as it will, mhst es
| feet a revolution of the Government, and a
! dismemberment of the Union. That’s the re
i suit, and that’s all. Nothing more, notbiqg
1 less, nothing else.
The right of secession, then, is one of tho
rights of revolution; and when I speak of it
as a right, I mean what all the world means,
in speaking of a right, an authority ia a
State to do something, which no other Gov
ernment, nor another State, nor many States,
nor the United States, can have a counter
right to prevent or obstruct, or oppose by
force, or through any constraint or interfer
ence whatever. I repeat what I have said be
fore, that the right is absolute, exclusive, and
unquestionable, or it does not exist. Should
the other States, through their folly or wick
edness, make war upon them for exercising
rights guaranteed to them as muniments of
sovereignty, resulting from the nature of the
compact which made them parties to the Un
ion.—so be it 1 They will be blameless and
irresponsible, happen what may. And should
the Union be shattered into fragments amid
the shock and crash of arms, those who may
have fomented the contest and achieved the
catastrophe, will wish they had never been
born, or being born that they were cast with
millstones around their necks into the utter
most depths of the sea! The controversy
which severed the Colonies of the Kingdom
in the days of ’7O, resulting as it did from in
tolerable wrongs and oppressions too griev
ious to be borne with, would have been effect
ed (had justice and the right held sway,)
through peaceful secession and nothing be
sides. The men of the revolution, in their
memorable Declaration of Independence, re
cited their grievance and announced their
separation; but they proclaimed no war and
they made nono. It was Great Britian who
made the war, and converted their attempt at
a peaceful revolution into a bloody one, by in
vading their borders, laying waste theirtowna
and villages, killing their people, desolating
their country, and driving them to arms!—-
Now, I demand to be shown, in all the broad
laud, a single American , who stands ready to
deny that British oppressions vested a right
of secession even in the colonies, and with it
a right to judge for themselves of the occa
sion meet for its exercise. If there be such
a person, I want to see that man! But them
is no such man! All men, in this country at
least, admit that the colonies possessed the
right of peaceful secession, and all who do,
necessarily deny to Great Britain the conflict
ting right to resist its accomplishment by
force or at all, or to have waged the cruel and
bloody war of the Revolution ngainst them.
And who and what were these colonies?—
Distant dependencies of the British Crown:
Scattered political units, and meagre atomies
in the grand sum total of the population of
that world-wide empire. Not a vestige of
sovereignty had ever rested in these colonies
nor had any ever abided thither, but such em
anations of it as had been disputed by Ma
jesty to make subjects of their people, monop
olize their commerce, appropriate their reve
nues, and rule over and govern them. What
then! are there Americans among us who will
deny to sovereign States plenary of all tho
powers of self-government, a right of seces
sion which they will concede to the colonies
and while they were enthralled in subjection
to the British Crown? Far bolder and juster
sentiments than these inspired the men of the
Revolution, when taking their high resolves,
to peril all that men have or value in defence
of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,”
when they wisely and firmly resolved:
A jtWBW which
governments are formed, “it is the right of
the people to alter or abolish it, and to insti
tute anew government, laying its own founda
tion on such principles, and organizing its
powers in such form, as lo them shall seem
most likely to effect their safely and happi
ness.” * * * “ When a long train of a
buses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same object, evince a design to reduce
them under absolute despotism, it is their right,
it is their duty to throw of such government ,
and to provide new guards for their future se
curity”
In these noble passages is found the great
right of secession, the right of any oppressed
people under the sun, “to throw of ” any gov
ernment and “ to provide new guards for their
future security.” These are the doctrines of
the men of the Revolution, the doctrines of
the Congress of ’76, the doctrines traced by
the pencil of Jefferson in lines of living light,
the doctrines maintained by the sword of
Washington, until it had cleaved the colonies
and kingdoms asunder. Thinks your Excel
lency, that the great and good man, who
drew his sword in defence of the right of se
cession, and in behalf of the enthralled and
despised colonies, would have sheathed it in
the vitals of a sovereign State, for asserting
the very right whicli gives to the revolution
its highest legal sanctions?
Verily, sir, the precious morccaux whictl
history brings down to us, when rightly un
derstood, will clear away every doubt as to
the sentiment of this illustrious man, upon
this, the most momentous of all the issue*
which the Federal compact can raise or solve.
He was the presiding officer of this Conven
tion, when James Madison declared with
such imposing solemnity, that,
“A breach of the fundamental principles
of the. compact by a part of the society, would
certainly absolve the other parts from their
allegiance to it,” and brought down the assent
and applause of the whole Convention upon
so wise and just a sentiment. He had calmly
noted the deep forecaste displayed by the Con*
vention of Virginia when ratifying the Con
stitution, June 26, ‘BB, in her sovereign reser
vation of the right of secession, through its
memorable declaration, that the powers grant
ed under the Constitution by the people “ may
be resumed by them, whenever the same may
be perverted to their injury or oppression .
He had equally noted, that the Convention of
the great State of New York, had taken
counsel of the wise precaution of Virginia,
in specially reserving, also, the sovereign right
of secession, when ratifying that instrument
| just one month thereafter, (July 26, ’88,) and
; the reservation was made, in the explicit
i declaration, that,
j “All power was derived from the people,
j and could be resumed by the people, whenever
\ it becomes necessary for their happiness;**
and none knew better than he, that the reser*
rations of these States, in an union of equals,
necessarily inured to all the States, and vest
ed in each a right of secession ; which, how
| ever, without any reservations at all, would
have clearly resulted from the nature of a
compact to which all were parties as Slates.
He was President of the United States in
1795, when the Kentucky Legislature, exas
i perated to the last letter of endurance, at tho
• procrastination submitted to in securing the
! free navigation of the Mississippi, drafted its
| famous memorial, announcing her purpose
| “ lo secede from the Union,” unless that navi
gation was speedily secured to hen “ This
strong declaration,” (says one of Kentucky’s
i most eminent citizens,) “ was made in a lan
! gunge not to be misunderstood. The ground.
: i cats taken after mature consideration, and
NO. 35.