Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1855-08-17

who compose it, II was imposed by no despot.
Il is enforced by no authority paramount to
he sense fjustice and Of common interest that
has made it. 1t is different in England, in
France, or in Russia. There there is physi-
cal power in the Executive to construe the law
and enforce it; by consequence, those govern
ments are indissoluble, so long as their merce-
nary soldiers can enforce their arbitrary taxa
ton.
But that those who virtually encourage the
effort at sectional organization may see the
manner in which dissolution Of this glorious
Union may take place, we will give an exam
pie, which may never, we trust, occur in his
tory. A law is passed, which State Legisla-
ture chooses to say is so oppressive as to neu-
tralze the advantages Of the Federal Compact
Il takes effect upon an individual citizen, as
the ntelligencer properly says all federal laws
must do. The State, like Massachusetts,, in
terpleads on behalf of her citizens, whose rights
stand on the same basis with those Of this in
dividual. She makes the cause of this indi-
yidual' her own. She directs him to be de-
Tended in the courts, as Virginia has done the
rights of Lennon, or as North Carolina may
perhaps do those of Wheeler or the State, in
the case supposed, openly pronounces such
law imperative and void, and renouaces her
constitutional compact with her co-States.
To make the case perfectly impartial, we
will suppose that Rhode Island should do so
with regard to the fugitive-slave law, or that
Texas, her political equivalent in the South,
should refuse to recognise the repeal Of the
Joint resolution Of annexation, which guaran-
tecd the admission of certain slave States to
be erected within her limits, and which, under
the legislation proposed by the Black Repub-
leans, would be excluded forever
In the one case, the individual citizen of
Rhode Island would resist the process of cita-
ton or condemnation, issued by his federal
courts. In the second, the "individual citi-
zen" of Texas having carried what he called
his property into the interdicted territory,
would be deprived Of it by judicial decision.
Does the hteligencsr or Tribune suppose that
in either case these individuals" would be
abandoned by the authorities of the State to
which they respectively belongH Do they think
that the Federal Government could come with
its power and enforce these laws, pronounced
unconstitutional by the State. authorities
without resistance yes, armed resistance !?
The Intelligencer will fall back upon the case
of Carolina, which threatened resistance,
and which lighted the fuse, but yet hesitated
to fire the cannon.
It is well known that this furnishes no ex-
ample, for several reasons. The obnoxious law
was merely case Of pecuniary oppression.
There was uncommon sentiment throughout
the North upon the operation of the law. II
was compromised by an act of Congress.
There would be then, armed resistance to
any effort in the cases stated by us to enforce
Federal legislation upon individual citizens who
represented common right.
We may suppose, that the Irish tide-waiters
and soldiers in Mr. Pierces employ, may in
wade the State Of Vermont, and arrest the in
dividual" citizen; or, that sufficient number
of Aboltionists and Canadians, may with the
same foreign soldiery be marched into Texas.
We ask the Hteliigencer, if the Northern
States would not in the one case rally to pro-
tect the individual citizens" of Vermont who
were not strong enough to resist the standing
army of Irish and Dutch, which does the bidding
Of their commander-in-chief and If the whole
Southern system would not rally to the side of
Texas, to protect those individual citizens
whose rights were identical with their ownS
Again, we ask those who contend that dis
union is impossible, to say whether there
exists in the Union the physical force to com
pei one half of the States to continue in sub
lection to the viii Of the other half? For that
is the proposition involved in the attempt at a
sectional organization, and It is with that OBJ
iect that the monarchical opinion that there is
such power, is promulgated by the agitators
We contend there is no such power. But that
the attempt to enforce a law oppressive in its
nature, as in the opinion Of either system Of
States TO neutralize the advantages ofthe Union
would be attended with immediate and ineyi-
table dissolution unless, perhaps, appealing to
some foreign power for assistance, for which we
have done so much, few thousand armed aliens
might come to aid the preponderant power
and reduce the refractory States, like Ireland
or Poland, to unconditional obedience
We consider these strongly Federal themes
at all times wrong, and at this time so particu-
larly pernicious, that We cannot permit them
to pass without refutation, and without an ex-
preston Of regret that they should emanate
from sources which are merely conservative,
and which no doubt exercise this dangerous
opinion for the purpose Of rendering the Union
perpetual by proving that its dissolution is i'm
possible.
The Union, in our opinion, is government
Of agreement, and il can be best preserved by
fraternal counses and impartial legislation
If 1t shall become popular belief that the
States and people may be- by a superior physi
cal power, compelled to submit to any legisa
ton, the very affirmation Of such principle
will stimulate a spirit Of resistance fatal to the
harmony and 20 the existence Of the common
confederacy