The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-18 00:00:00

THE UNITED STATES.

ARRIVAL OF THE AMERICA.
QUEENSTOWN, SUNDAY MORNING.
The royal mail steamer America arrived here at
midnight. She left Boston on the 6th March, and
Halifax on the Bth.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL
SPEECH..

NEW YORK, March 5.
President Lincoln delivered his inaugural speech
at Wahington yesterday. After a few prelimi-
nary remarks, Mr. Lincoln said :
FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES—
In compliance with a custom as old as the Go-
vernment itself, I appear before you to address you
briefly, and to take in your presence the oath pre-
scribed by the constitution of the United States to
be taken by the President before he enters on the
execution of his office.
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to
discuss those matters of administration about which
there is no special anxiety or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of
the-Southern States that, by the accession of a re-
publican administration; their property and their
peace and personal security are to be endangered.
There has never been any reasonable cause for such
apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to
the contrary has all the while existed and been
open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all
the published speeches of him who now addresses
you. Ido but qnote from one of those speeches
when I declare that " I have no purpose directly or
indirectly to interfere with the institution of
slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclina-
tion to do so." Those who nominated and elected
me did so with a full knowledge that I had made
this and many similar declarations, and had never
recanted them. And more than this, they placed in
the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to
themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic reso-
lution which I now read :
" Resolved—That the maintenance inviolate of
the rights of the States, and especially the right of
each State to order and control its own domestic
institutions according to its own judgment exclu-
sively is essential to that balance of power on
which the perfection and endurance of our political
fabric depend, and we denounce lawless invasion by
armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no
matter under what pretext, as the gravest of
crimes,"

I now reiterate those sentiments, and in doing
so I only press upon the public attention the most
conclusive evidence of which the case is suscep-
tible, that the property, peace, and security of no
section are to be in anywise endangered by the
now incoming administration. I add, too, that
all the protection which, consistently with the con-
stitution and the laws, can be given, will be
cheerfully given to all the States, when lawfully
demanded, for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one
section as to another.
There is much controversy about the delivering
up of fugitives from service or labour. The clause
I now read is as plainly written in the constitu-
tion as any other of its provisions.
No person held to service or labour in one State,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall,
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be
discharged from such service or labour, but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labour may be due.
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was
intended by those who made it for the reclaiming
of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention
of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Con-
gress swear their support to the whole constitution,
to this provision as much as any other. To the
proposition, then, that slaves, whose cases come
within the terms of this clause, "shall be delivered
up," their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they
would make the effort in good temper, could they
not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a
law by means of which to keep good that unanimous
oath. There is some difference of opinion whether
this clause should be enforced by national or by
State authority ; but surely that difference is not
a very material one. If the slave is not to be sur-
rendered it can be of little consequence to him or to
others by which authority it is done. And should
any one, in any case, be content that this oath shall
go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy
as to how it shall be kept ? Again, in any law
upon this subject, ought not all the safe•
guards of liberty known in civilized and
humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that
a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a
slave ? And might it not be well at the same time
to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause
in the constitution which guarantees that " the
citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States." I take the official oath to-day with no
mental reservations, and with no purpose to con-
strue the constitution or laws by any hypercritical
rules ; and while I do not choose now to specify
particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced,
I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both
in official and private stations, to conform and abide
by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to
violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in
having them held to be unconstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inaugura-
tion of a President under our national constitution.
During that period fifteen different and greatly
distinguished citizens have in succession adminis-
tered the executive branch of the Government.
They have conducted it through many perils, and
generally with great success. Yet, with all this
scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same
task, for the brief constitutional term of four years,
under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption
of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is
now formidably attempted. I hold that, in con-
templation of universal law and of the constitution,
the union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity
is implied if not expressed in the fundamental law
of all national governments. It is safe to assert
that government proper never had a provision in
its organic law for its own termination. Continue
to execute all the express provisions of our national
constitution, and the Union will endure for ever, it
being imposssible to destroy it except by some
action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again, if the United states be not a government
proper, but an association of States in the nature
of a enntraot merely, can it as a contract be peace-
ably unmade by less than all the parties who made
it ? One party to a contract may violate it—break
it, so to speak—but does it not require all to law.
fully rescind it ?
Descending from these general principles, we
find the proposition that, in legal contemplation,
the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of
the Union itself.
The Union is much older than the constitution.
It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association
in 1774. It was matured and continued in the
Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was fur-
ther matured, and the faith of all the then 13 States
expressly plighted and engaged that it should be
perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778 ;
and finally in 1787, one of the declared objects for
ordaining and establishing the constitution was
to form a more perfect Union. But if the destruc-
tion of the Union by one or by a part only of the
States be lawfully possible, the Union is less than
before, the constitution having lost the vital ele-
ment of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State, upon
its own mere notion, can lawfully get out of the
Union ; that resolves and ordinances to that effect
are legally void, and that act of violence within
any State or States, against the authority of the
United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary,
according to circumstances. I therefore consider
that, in view of the constitution and the laws, the
Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability
I shall take care, as the constitution itself expressly
enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be
faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I
deem to be only a simple duty on my part. I shall
perfectly perform it, so far as is practicable, unless
my rightful masters, the American people, shall
withhold the requisition, or in some authoritative
manner direct ;the contrary. I trust this will not
be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared