The southern aegis. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1857-1862, 1861-10-26

Carolina destroyed the Constitution,
our rights under it are not lost if
it is destroyed the Government, its
creature, has ceased to exist.
We have next the much abused
maxim "inter arma silent leges,"
in war the laws are silent, but we
reply the Constitution was made for
peace and for war, and its voice is
too potent to be drowned in the din
of arms.
But "the Government must be
maintained, the Constitution and
the Union must be preserved"
We answer, to violate the Consti-
tuition in order to maintain it, is a
contradiction in. without it
there is neither Union nor Govern
ment, which can exist only with it.
The Presidents oath is to MAIN
tain the Constitution, not to preserve
the Union in some other mode.
We ask you, fellow citizens, have
you ever had, or heard from the ad-
herents of the Notwithstanding
mis-called Union party-any other
justification attempted ? or this eked
out with grandiloquent platitudes
about the "stars and stripes" "our
flag" and " the eagle"
There is one more,- "the SUI
preme law of necessity!" Necessity
for what and whence? If the ne
cessity has been produced by the Adj
ministration, instead of palliation, it
is Int aggravation of its offences.
What then is this necessity? We
are told that the seeding States
have repudiated the Constitution
and deserted the Union; they must
be coerced to return to the one, and
to submit to the other. The Con-
stitution gives no power to coerce a
State, the power is indispensable,
therefore we must usurp it.
In the convention that framed the
Constitution, it was proposed to give
the power "to call forth the force
of the Union against any member
of the Union failing to fulfil its
duty under the articles thereof" -
Mr.. Madison said "the more he re-
fected ON the use of force the more
he doubted the practicability, the
justice and efficacy of it when ap-
piled to people collectively and not
individually. An union of the States
containing such an ingredient
seemed to provide for its own de-
struction. The use of force against
State would look more like a de-
claration of war than an infection of
punishment, and would probably be
considered by the party attacked as
dissolution of all previous compacts
by which it might be bound >
" Any Government for the United
States formed on the supposed prac-
ticability of using force against the
unconstitutional proceedings of the
States would prove as visionary and
fallacious as the Government of
Congress-
Mr.. Hamilton said chow can this
force be exerted against the States
collectively? It is impossible. 1t
amounts to a war between the par
ties. Foreign powers will not be
idle spectators. They will inter
pose the confusion will increase,
and a dissolution of the Union will
ensue." Tile poaOer a0as not gives,
In the war OF 1912, Massachusetts,
refused to furnish her quota of troops
and was not coerced.",
Recently Ohio refused to deliver
up Il fugitive from justice the Fed
eral courts decided that she was
bound to do SO by the Constitution,
but no department of the General
Government had the right to coerce
the State. .........
The necessity, then, does not grow
out of the Constitution, but is some.
thing exterior, and superior to it.
suspending its vitality, annulling
alike its guarantees and its prohibit
tions, and threatening it's annihila.
ton. IN .ias d.. ...
It involves, too, another extra.
Constitutional necessity war
a civil war, the consequences o.
which the Representative of this
Congressional district 30 truthfully