Arkansas democratic banner., 1851-11-18


 city, am almost inclined. amid the beauties Of nature which surround me here, Inc high hills, the pare cool aif, the fragrant forests, and the npenng harvests, to postpone until my return 10 the arid streets, and studies, the attention to which your request is entitled. cannot, however feel at rest while imagining that my silence may possi- ply be misinterpreted and therefore hasten to send you inc views. which you are kind enough to wish repeated.
 On the topics of your letter, dated inc lih iast, from Peach Point BrazoFse county, Texas, ]. have long entertained deEnite3 and deeIfed opini0ns.-- As they are scmewthat different from any avowed by public men ia XS quarter. should feel diff dent ia holding coniesSng as2m, were il not that every days progress in our gfS4 federal expen- mcnt confirms to me their soundness, indeed their absolute necessity. caraas work out the safety of the Union in tkoT absence. That Union was designed. and is fitted to be the best and most per manent security for as much of combined freedom and happiness as societies are permitted to enjoy, and it has always seemed to me not merely rash and irrational, but grossI, illogical to disclaim or doubt of its essential springs ofvitality. Union, in its political sense is the opposite of consolidation. u are antagonistic to those of consolidation; and yet cannot help thinking that all the mistakes and mischiefs to which We have been subjected. found sn origin in the habitual tendency of many very able statesmen to import from old consolida- ted empires their products of Legislation and gov eminent, and to fasen them upon the new Amen- can condition of mere federal union. How often do we hear and see the strictly deconstitutlonal- ised term, nation, substituted for that of Union substitution plausible and innocent in the sphere of our foreign relations but full of nsinuating and pernieious encroachment wherever the domestic limits, reservations and guarantees are involved. Il found no place in the structure framed by the convention Qf 17s7. We're l not at this moment away from home. more in search of health than disposed to labor, l should be tempted to note from congressional and executive records some of the errors apparently run iato, both of reasoning and of policy, under the seductive influence of round language. No stronger illustration could be given of Mirabeau's assertion that 'swords are things" (aye, and fatally serious things, too } than the extent to which, with such aies, tho meaning of our Constitution, if not the nature of our gov ernment, has been affected. am not so unjust
 
 deviated they must rather be regarded as misled by sort of ambitious patriotism, so intenty aim ing to augment the greatness, wealth and power Of their country, as unguardedly to overlook tle peculiar complications and nice adjustments of its political system.
 As people we are generally calm and conser yative-perhaps more taTnely so than is congeniaI with inc xniytt and antic;nationS of tha Torstt,, ton. There is one provision of that instrument which, more strongly than any other, marks its practical wisdom, and yetit is curious to see with what almost superStitious dread we shrink from bringing ii into action. l refer to the power and process of amendment Our organic law was put in writing it's delegations and restrictions of jurs dction were given in express and visible certainty, but as all human fabrics confesSedly imperfect and should ever be adaptable to the times, the mode of peaceful change, correction or addi. ton, was prescribed with equal exactness. Why is it that we endure years of dangerous agitation. unSestling our sentiments fellow citizens. and winding gradually up to social convalsion rather than frankly resort to this profered expedient l- Certainly, the Constitution cannot be touched with too much reverence; certainly, what is usually s,igmatized as q tinkerng at it should be resolutely avoided; but when 1t is plalin that the proper occasion has arisen, that nothing less solemn can be efficacious, and that the very uaion which t creates and consersates. IS at risk, why are we to yecoil from ihe provided sanctuary One of the authorized forms of amending is unaccom- panied by hazard of any knd--ihat of congressional recommendation, to be followed by the approval
  just now to be unpTomisins; but 1t may, aiter can did and difIase discussion. turn out otherwise Surely the Union is valued sufficiently to rally for it's risk and renovation twenty four ol the thirty oue States: or ave we slready prepared to admit that the AmoTican people have become incapable Of self governme as-ncapable of approaching the true sources of their wonderful progress, and in capable of diScarding the blind though boisterous gaiJes ready to lead them, through disanioa, into matual and Taneoroas jealousaes, into dependence on foreign guardianship, into civil and scrve wars and into the poor feuds of village trades and tar iTs think i; always mistake to ialtcr in re- lance upon the shtewd and sober judgment of the great body Of our felow-citizeRs. They were wise enough to discern the untried excellence of the Constitution; they were wise enough to amend. from the hands of Washington, Madison. Franklin and Hamilton are they not wise enough then 10 spply. q single and simple cure lor disease which. sl.cr many years of latent torpor. has suddenly aIarD,nsly developed With me there is DO doubt that if my countrymen be given the legitiuia,e op- .portunity, they will expressly and unqnaiiGsdly prohibit sooner or later what l hare heretofore humbly believed they had by The strongest impli- cation already prohibited They will prehl5it from being forced by the sophssries Of zeaio's to enact the part of consolidation; they will place the constitutional canon, too palpabIy for misecB- s,ruction, against the seIf-slaaehter of iEierned- ding with insissutiens and rights exclusively of State creation. State responsibility. and State con troI; they win render it impossible. y Any pro