Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1856-10-25
Ne RIGHT OF SECESSION.

We hear a good deal, from certain South
ern politicians, about what they call the right
of secession. We say certain Southern
politicians, because we are satisfied that the
great body of the Southern people do not
think of secession, and will never have any
part in dissolution of the Union, until they
are driven to it by the persistent and tyran-
nical denial OF their constitutional rights by
the North, a contingency not likely to occur
while free speech and free press survive. 1t
ia, therefore, not to the South, as a whole,
that We refer, but to that noisy, violent and
extreme faction at the South, which calls
itself the secession party.
What does this secession party assert
They assert, that in case q State, or States
think the constitution violated that State, or
those States have constitutional right to
secede. Daniel Webster. in his famous reply
to Hayne, exposed the fallacy of this idea so
efiectuslly, however, that no candid consti,u-
tional expounder since has dared to repeat
the notion. Even Calhoun, the real author
of the secession doctrine, and who had to sit
silent in the Vice Presidents chair, while
Webster ground poor 1layne between the
upper and neither millstoncs of his ponderous
logic, subsequently had to shift his ground,
and contend for the right of secession, less as
one emanating from the constitution, than as
arising in the nature Of things, that is from
the impossibility Of State submitting to let
a court, or even Congress decide for it, in
the last resort, in constitutional matters.
But even here Calhoun, usually so logical,
fell into fallacy. For if it is Impossible for
one State to submit to such decision, and if
this iustifies resistance, much tho more i'm
possible is it that thirty States shall yield 10
one, and much the more are they justified in
I'M cphn N n pf
the right of secession, as existing under, or
flowing from the constitution, is absurd. AS
Webster says, no organism, political or
physical, can provide for its own suicide.
1t is true, however, that, under certain cir
cumstances. it may be said, as an abstract
proposition, that State, or States, would be
jjustifable in withdrawing from the Union.
No statesman, or ethical writer either, denies
the right of revolution. But the difficulty is
in practically applying this abstract PROPOSE
ton. For the horrors Of revolution are
always so enormous, the risk Of failure, and
therefore of greater suffering, is so great,
and human judgment is so apt to over-esti-
mate its own rights while undertaking the
rights Of others, that it is only in the en-
tremest cases of oppression-only when every
other method has been tried and failed-only
when the righteousness of revolution is in
contestible. that resort to this last neces-
sity" is even excusable. Inpoint Of fact, it is
not probable that majority of the people Ct
these States will ever adopt, as fixed policy,
any course of conduct towards the minority
which would warrant revolution. Where
there is free discussion and general enlight-
enment, 1.-The sober second thought" brings
things right, even if, at first, there has been
injustice.
We have lest patience, therefore, with this
talk of secession. 1t either means nothing,
or it means revolution in the one case it is
nonsense, in the other treason and in either,
consequently, it is unfit for Americans to
utter or Americans TO listen to. Not in
such spirit was this Union formed. Seces-
sion was a word our forelathers banshed from
their vocabulary. Let us not revive it,
Public Ledger.