Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1860-11-29
Has A state the right te secede:

Has A State the right te secede:
The right Of -eae or more of the States
TO secede from the Union, as claimed by
soma Of The Southern members of the con-
federacy. involves so many difficulties, not
to say absurdities, that it is hard to see
where basis can be found for an argu-
ment in s>favor. The subject has been
discussed from the time of the adoption of
the Constitution, down to the present time,
and the argument has been all on one side.
Some of the inevitable conclusions 10 which
we are driven by admitting the right of
secession, are stated by one of the daily
papers: ,CtFr Fff.r
"Cuba, after we shall have paid $780,
ooO,O for her purchase, as State may
at once secede, and leave the United States
Treasury to place that small item to the
account of "pro6t and loss" Texas, when
she came into the Union after we had
paid many millions to discharge her debts,
aud other millions to 60 into her Golfers,
was and is entirely at liberty to secede
with the booty. Each and all the States
carved out of the Louisiana purchase, for
which we also paid such an immense sum,
may do the like. So, too, States in which
the largest amounts of tie public proper
ty may be situated may atany time secede
with that property. When The, Pacific Rail-
road shall be constructed, at an expense of
countless millions, paid from the common
treasure, the two or three States through
which it will run may decamp with the plum
der and plant custom-house on the site of
our storehouses. Vermont, New Hamp-
shire, Idiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky,
Tennessee, and the other inland States,
which will have contributed to these great
disbursements, and in which States hardly
a dollar of the public treasure is ever ex-
pended, are to look quietly and approving
Iy on the exodus of those which have been
thus purchased and enriched at their ex-
pense, and to recognise the right of each
of them to secede and take the property
with them.
Again, if this be right exists, it exists
at all times, until no two States remain
united. What, then, would become of the
national debt and the national credit?-
To whom would the creditors of the gov
ernment look for payment? Should the
government be, as it may at any time be,
indebted on its stocks hundreds of millions
of dollars, its creditors could look, in case
of secession, only to the States which
should remain united. Those which should
have seeded and established independent
governments could not be reached. The
creditor could claim of them no per centage
of liability. They would plead that they
had never contracted, and that they had
been only stockholders in a corporation in
which there was no individual liability.
"Now this right of secession, if it exist
at all, is an absolute one, and State has
as much right to exercise it one time as at
another. If she may secede at will, she
may do so in anticipation of war. If she
can secede when she chooses, she owes no
allegiance TO the government an hour after
she decides TO secede, but will then be just
as independent of the government as she
Is of any other nation. In the midst of
war, then, it will be the right of any State
not only to desert our own cover ument,
but at the same lime 10 ally herselft to the
enemy.
"The government, under such principle,
could not have twenty four hours of assur-
ed existence. Neither other nations, nor
its own citizens, could have confidence in
its permanence. 1t would lack the vital
principle of existence, because it would
wholly lack credit. Nobody would lend
it dollar, for nobody could be sure that
it would hold together long enough to pay
six months loan, to say nothing of loans
for long terms of years. The public faith,
on which alone all who deal with govern
ments can repose, would be utterly lack
ing. Business could have no security or
stability, for men would not embark either
their industry or their capital, unless under
the shelter of laws and institutions not IL
able 10 change" EE