The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-28 00:00:00

31R SEWARD ON THE STATE OF THE

UNION.

Mr. Seward said, in the United States' Senate on
the 12th,—Mr. President, Congress adjourned last
summer amid auspices of national abundance, con-
tentment, tranquillity, and happiness. It was re-
assembled this winter in the presence of derange-
ment of business and disturbance of public as well
as private credit, and in the face of seditious com-
binations to overthrow the Union. The alarm is
appalling, for union is not more the body than
liberty is the soul of the nation. The American
citizen has been accustomed to believe the Republic
immortal. He shrinks from the sight of convul-
sions indicative of its sudden death. The report of
our condition has gone over the seas, and we, who
have so long, and with much complacency, studied
the endless agitations of society in the Old World,
believing ourselves exempt from such disturbances,
now, in our turn, seem to be falling into a momen-
tous and disastrous revolution. I know how diffi-
cult it is to decide, amid so many and so various
counsels, what ought to be, and even what can be
done. Certainly, however, it is time for every
senator to declare himself. I think it easy to pro-
nounce what measures or conduct will not save the
Union. The Union cannot be saved by mutual
criminations concerning our respective share of re-
sponsibility for the present evils. He whose con-
science acquits him will naturally be slow to accuse
others whose co-operation he needs. History only
can adjust the great account. A continuance of
the debate on the constitutional power of Congress
over the subject of slavery in the territories will
' not save the Union. The opinions of parties and
sections on that question have become dogma-
tical, and it is this circumstance that has pro-
duced the existing alienation. A truce, at least dur-
ing the debate on the Union, is essential to reconci-
liation. The Union cannot be saved by proving that
secession is illegal or unconstitutional. Persons bent
on that fearful otop will not stand long enough on
forms of law to be dislodged; and loyal men do not
need such narrow ground to stand upon. I fear that
little more will be gained from discussing the right
of the Federal Government to coerce seceding States
into obedience. If disunion is to go on, this question
will give place to the more practical one, whether
many seceding States have a right to coerce the
remaining members to acquiesce in a dissolution. I
dread, as in my innermost soul I abhor, civil war.
I do not know what the Union would be worth if
saved by the use of the sword. Yet, for all this, I
do not agree with those who, with a desire to avert
that great calamity, athise a conventional or un-
oppo3ed gel:le-ration, with a view to what they call
a reconstruction. It is enough for me, first, that in
this plan destruction goes before reconstruction;
end, secondly, that the strength of the vase in which
the hopes of the nation are held consists chiefly in
its remaining unbroken. Congressional compro-
mises are not likely to save the Union. I know,
indeed, that tradition favours this form of remedy.
But it is essential to its success, in any case, that
there be found a preponderating mess of citizens,
so far neutral on the issue which separates parties,
that they can intervene, strike down clashing
weapons, and compel an accommodation. Moderate
concessions are not customarily asked by a force with
its guns in battery ; nor aro liberal concessions apt to
be given by an opposing force not less confident of its
own right and its own strength. I think, also, that
there is a prevailing conviction that legislative com-
promises which sacrifice honestly cherished prin-
ciples, while they anticipate future exigencies, even
if they do not assume extra constitutional powers,
are less sure to avert imminent evils than they aro
certain to produce ultimately even greater dangers.
Indeed, Mr. President, I think it will be wise to
discard two prevalent ideas or prejudices—namely,
first, that the Union is to be saved by somebody in
particular ; and, secondly, that it is to bo saved by
some cunning and insincere compact of pacification.
If I remember rightly, I said something like this
here so long as 1850, and afterwards in 1854. The
present danger discloses itself in this form. Dis-
contented citizens have obtained political power
in certain States, and they are using this authority
to overthrow the Federal Government. They de-
lude themselves with a belief that the State power
they have acquired enables them to discharge them-
selves of allegiance to the whole Republic. The
hon. senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas) says we
have a right to coerce a State; but we cannot. The
President says that no State has a right to secede,
but we have no constitutional power to make war
against a State. The dilemma results from an
assumption that those who, in such a case, act
against the Federal Government, act lawfully as a
State ; although manifestly they have perverted the
power of the State to an unconstitutional purpose.
A class :of politicians in New England set up this
theory and attempted to practice upon it in our
war with Great Britain. Mr. Jefferson did not
hesitate to say that States must be kept within
their constitutional sphere by impulsion if they
could not be held there by attraction. Secession
was then held to be inadmissible in the face of a
public enemy. But if it is untenable in one case,
it is necessarily so in all others. I fully admit the
originality, the sovereignty, and the independence of
the several States within their sphere. But I hold
the Federal Government to be equallyoriginal, sove-
reign, and independent within its sphere. The
Union can be dissolved, not by secession, with or
without armed force, but only by the voluntary
consent of the people of the United States, collected
in the manner prescribed by the constitution of the
United States. Congress, in the present case, ought
not to be impassive. It ought, if it can, to re•
dress any real grievances of the offended States, ,
and then it ought to supply the President with all
the means necessary to maintain the Union in the
full exhibition and discreet exercise of its authority.
Beyond this, with the proper activity on the part
of the Executive, the responsibility of saving the
Union belongs to the people, and they are abun-
dantly competent to discharge it. I propose, there-
fore with great deference to address myself to the
country upon this momentous subject, asking a
hearing, not less from the people within what are
called the seceding, than from those who reside
within the adhering States. Union is an old,
fixed, settled habit of the American people, result-
ing from convictions of its necessity, and therefore
not likely to be hastily discarded. The early
States, while existing as colonies, were combined,
though imperfectly, through a common allegiance
to the British Crown. When that allegiance
ceased, no one was so presumptuous as to suppose
political existence compatible with disunion ; and,
therefore, on the same day that they declared them-
selves independent they proclaimed themselves also
confederated states. The founders of the Consti-
tution, moreover, regarded the Union as no mere
national or American interest. Some form of Go-
vernment is indispensable here as elsewhere. What-
ever form we have every individual citizen and
every State must cede to it some natural rights, to
invest the Government with the requisite power.
The simple question, therefore, for us now to de-
cide, while laying aside all pique, passion, and
prejudices—whether it conduces more to the inte-
rests of the people of this country to remain—for
the general purposes of peace and war, commerce
inland and foreign, postal communications at
home and abroad, the care and disposition of
the public domain, colonisation, the organisation
and admission of new States, and, generally, the
enlargement of empire—one nation under our
present Constitution, than it would be to
divide themselves into separate confederacies or
states. Our country remains now as it was in 1787
—composed not of detached and distant territories,
but of one whole well-connected and fertile region
lying within the temperate zone, with climates and
soils hardly more various than those of France or
of Italy. This slight diversity quickens and am-
plifies manufacture and commerce. Our rivers and
valleys, as improved by art, furnish us a system of
highways unequalled in the world. The different
forms of labour, if slavery were not perverted to
purposes of political ambition, need not constitute
an element of strife in the confederacy. Notwith-
standing recent vehement expressions and manifes-
tations of intolerance in some quarters produced by
intense partisan excitement, we are, in fact, a homo-
geneous people, chiefly of one stock, with accessions
well assimilated. The first object a every human