Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1860-12-27
Have we a National Government?

After our federal government has been in sue
cesslul operation for more than seventy years,
making the United States the most free and hap,
py, if not the most powerful people upon
which the sun in all his circuit looks down, we
are at last " brought up standing" with a
grave doubt whether IN fact we have any gov
eminent at all-whether the Constitution which
we have hitherto regarded as an agreement
binding upon the people Of the United States,
and creating and limiting the powars to be en-
ployed by them in their associated capacity,
and by their appointed officers, is anything more
than 50 much waste paper, good enough in its
way as curiosity, or as an exercise in Compo-
sition, bat utterly impotent to accomplish the
purposes for which it was designed. This doubt,
if it originated alone with such crazy fana tics as
Garrison, or Lucy Stone, or Barnwell Rhett, or
spread eagle Keitt, or even the old lady once
aiectonately alluded to by the Patriot as
" munchmg sweet flag with toothlcss gums, .
at the White House at Washington, might ex-
able Senators and Representatives in Congress,
and prominent men. hitherto regarded as states.
men, men ski lied in all constitutional lore and
legal learning, with apparent seriousness tell US
that if South Carolina makes up her mind to
60 out of the Union, the Federal Government
has nothing to do but to stand idly by and sing
Old Hundred, or some kindred melody, while
the secession is taking place, We confess that we
ave simply dumo-founded, and begin to doubt
whether we are ourselves or somebody elso,-
whether this is the year Of our Lord 1860, or a
hundred years, or that matter, earlier Or later
in the worlds history, we have gone
back to primitive ages, or chaos has come again.
| One thing is pretty certain: either wO are
standing on our heads, or the Eeccssionists and
their apologists are standing on theirs. Their
arguments and positions are all wrong eul up
and wrong end to to us, however we may APP
pear to them. Their idea Of the Federal Coy
ernmcnt is very much like the Ptolelnaic theory
of the Solar System, which made the Earth the
Centre Of the Universe The state, with these
sMto-righta secasslonists. is the Centre Of the
Government, and the Federal Union rc7olyes
around it. We in Vermont hold that the Fed
orAl Government IS tho real centre of our CON
stitutional Union, around which each State re
between these theories is radical and irreconci,
liable. If they arc right, we are wrong. 1.-Two
are right, they are wrong. There is no half
way ground. 1t ID one thing or the other. Tho
Federal Government has an existence, or it has
not. 1t cannss d To N existence, as Gqvern-
ment, unless it hJ gpogser to make laws other
wise it would be Ii mere machine, power
without will, an 1rgsnization without pur-
pose. If it Gan make laws, but not see them
enforced, it might as well not have the power
to make them. If the arm refuses to obey the
will, of what use is the will? The will of the
paralytio is of but little service in his organza-
ton. And Congress would be of just as little
value to the Federal Union, if our Southern
sisters are right in their theories of government.
laws are good for nothing unless they are
obeyed, and they will not be oboyed unless they
carry with them their own sanction. Moral
suasion may be good thing in temperance and
religion, but it would provo rather an unsafe
reliance in o government and though Buchanan
might mako a moving temperance lecture, or an
affecting cxhortation at Il Southern prayer
meeting, we believe him to be an imbccilo, TEN
PORTING, shutting, trimming, whining, hypo-
critical, canting, lying, traitorous, old granny
of President, doing what he can to weaken
tho dcfencos Of the country, in this its hour of
peril by proclaiming that it has no power to
maintain its already furnished honor, or take
single step to defend its threatened life.
Rufus Choate, at q supper in Boston common.
orativc Of Daniel Webster, cried out, " Oh, for
one hour of Webster now! " We feel to-day
like echoing that prayer, though from motives
quite different from those which actuated Mr..
Choato. With Daniel Webster, as he was in
1882, in the United States Senate, and Abra-
ham Lincoln at the head of the government to.
day, secession, disuniOn, rebellion, treason the
whole, Informal litter of tho Slave Power-would
sneak away yelping their spite, swapping like
ours as they went, to the the dismal swamps of
their plantation homes, there to war upon
each others yitals in their impotent rage.
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