The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-23 00:00:00

feudal monarchy was abruptly severed the word
"sovereign" had no meaning for us. A Sovereign is
one who acknowledges no superior, who possesses
the highest authority without control, who is
supreme in power. How could any one State
of the United States claim such characteristics
at all, least of all after its inhabitants, in their
primary assemblies, had voted to submit them-
selves, without limitation of time, to a constitu-
tion which was declared supreme ? The only In-
telligible source of power in a country beginning its
history de novo after a revolution, in a land never
subjected to military or feudal conquest, is the will
of the people of the whole land as expressed by a
majority. At the present moment, unless the
Southern revolution shall prove successful, the
United States Government is a fact, an established
authority. In the period between 1783 and 1787
we were in chaos. In May of 1787 the Convention
met in Philadelphia, and, after some months' deli-
beration, adopted with unprecedented unanimity
the project of the great law, which, so soon as it
should be accepted by the people, was to be known
as the Constitution of the United States.
It was not a compact. Who ever heard of a
compact to which there were no parties, or who
ever heard of a compact made by a single party
with himself ? Yet the name of no State is men-
tioned in the whole document ; the States them-
selves are only mentioned to receive commands or
prohibitions, and the "people of the United States"
is the single party by whom alone the instrument
is executed.
The Constitution was not drawn up by the States,
it was not promulgated in the name of the States,
it was not ratified by the States. The States never
acceded to it, and possess no power to secede from
it. It " was ordained and established" over the
States by a power superior to the States—by the
people of the whole land in their aggregate capacity,
acting through conventions of delegates expressly
chosen for the purpose within each State, inde-
pendently of the State Governments, after the pro-
ject had been framed.
There had always been two parties in the country
during the brief but pregnant period between the
abjuration of British authority and the adoption of
the Constitution of 1787. There was a party advo-
cating State rights and local self-government in its
largest sense, and a party favouring a more consoli-
dated and national government. The National or
Federal party triumphed in the adoption of the
new government. It was strenuously supported and
bitterly opposed on exactly the same grounds. Its
friends and foes both agreed that it had put an end
to the system of confederacy. Whether it were an
advantageous or a noxious change, all agreed that
the thing had been done.
" In all our deliberations (says the letter accompanying
and recommending the constitution to the people) we kept
steadily in view that which appeared to us the greatest in-
terest of every true American, the consolidation of our
Union, in which is involved our prosperity, safety, perhaps
our national existence."—Journal of the Convention, 1 Story,
368.

And an eloquent opponent denounced the projec
for this very same reason,—
" That this is a consolidated Government (said Henry)
is demonstrably clear. The language is 'we the people,' in
stead of ' we the States.' It must be one great, consolidated
national Government of the people of all the States."
And the Supreme Court of the United States,
after the Government had been established, held
this language in an important case, " Gibbons v.
Ogden :"
" It has been said that the States were sovereign, were
completely independent, and were connected with each
other by a league. This is true. But when these allied
sovereignties converted their league into a Government,
when they converted their Congress of Ambassadors into a
Legislature, empowered to enact laws, the whole character
in which the States appear underwent a change."
There was never a disposition in any quarter in
the early days of our constitutional history to deny
this great fundamental principle of the Republic.
"In the most elaborate expositions of the constitution by
its friends (says Justice Story), its character as a permanent
form of government, as a fundamental law, as a supreme
rule, which no State was at liberty to disregard, to suspend,
or to annul, was constantly admitted and insisted upon."-
1 Story, 325.
The fears of its opponents, then, were that the
new system would lead to a too strong, to an over-
centralised Government. The fears of its friends
were that the central power of theory would prove
inefficient to cope with the local, or State forces, in
practice. The experience of the last 30 years, and
the catastrophe of the present year, have shown
which class of fears were the more reasonable.
Had the Union thus established in 1787 been a
confederacy, it might have been argued, with more
or less plausibility, that the States which peaceably
acceded to it might at pleasure peaceably secede
from it. It is none the less true that such a proceed-
ing would have stamped the members of the con-
vention—Washington, Madison, Jay, Hamilton, and
their colleagues with utter incompetence; for
nothing can be historically wore certain than that
their object was to extricate us from the anarchy to
which that principle had brought us.
"However gross a heresy it may be (says the Federalist,
recommending the new constitution) to maintain that a
party to a compact has a. right to revoke that compact, the
doctrine has had respectable advocates. The possibility of
such a question shows the necessity of laying the foundation
of our national government deeper than in the mere sanc-
tion of delegated authority. The fabric of American empire
ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people."
Certainly the most venerated expounders of the
constitution Jay, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent,
Story, Webster—were of opinion that the intention
of the convention to establish a permanent, conso-
lidated Government, a single commonwealth, had
been completely successful.
" The great and fundamental defect of the Confederation
of 1781 (says Chancellor Kent), which led to its eventual
overthrow, was that in imitation of all former confederacies,
it carried the decrees of the Federal Council to the States
in their sovereign capacity. The great and incurable defect
of all former Federal Governments, such as the Amphic-
tyonic, Achman, and Lycian Confederacies, and the Ger-
manic, Helvetic, Hanseatic, and Dutch Republics, is that
they were sovereignties over sovereignties. The first effort to
relieve the people of the country from this state of national
degradation and ruin came from Virginia. The general con-
vention afterwards met at Philadelphia in May, 1787. The
plan was submitted to a convent ion of delegates chosen by
the people at large in each State for assent and ratification.
Such a measure was laying the foundations of the fabric of
our national polity where alone they ought to be laid,—on
the broad consent of the people."-1 Kent, 225.
It is true that the consent of the people was given
by the inhabitants voting in each State ; but in
what other conceivable way could the people of the
whole country have voted ? " They assembled in
the several States," says Story ; "but where else
could they assemble ?"
Secession is, in brief, the return to chaos from
which we emerged three quarters of a century since.
No logical sequence can be more perfect. If one
State has a right to secede to-day, asserting what it
calls its sovereignty, another may, and probably
will, do the same to-morrow, a third on the next
day, and so on until there are none left to secede
from. Granted the premises that each State
may peaceably secede from the Union, it follows
that a county may peaceably secede from a
State, and a town from a county, until there is
nothing left but a horde of individuals all seceding
from each other. The theory that the people of a
whole country in their aggregate capacity are su-
preme is intelligible ; and it has been a fact, also, in
America for 70 years. But it is impossible to show,
if the people of a State be sovereign, that the peo-
ple of a county, or of a village, and the individuals
of the village, are not equally sovereign, and justi-
fied in "resuming their sovereignty" when their
interest or their caprice seems to impel them. The
process of disintegration brings back the community
to barbarism, precisely as its converse has built up
commonwealths—whether empires, kingdoms, or
republics—out of original barbarism. Established
authority, whatever the theory of its origin, is a
fact. It should never be lightly or capriciously
overturned. They who venture on the attempt
should weigh well the responsibility that is upon
them. Above all, they must expect to be arraigned
for their deeds before the tribunal of the civilised
world and of future ages—a court of last appeal, the
code of which is based on the Divine principles of
right and reason, which are dispassionate and eter-
nal. .No man, on either side of the Atlantic, with
Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins, will dispute the
right of a people or of any portion of a people to
rise against oppression, to demand redress of griev-
ances, and in case of denial of justice to take up
army 0 Tiudivote the 'mold prizoivie of liberty.