Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-05-06
The RIsht OF Revolution.

The Right Of Revolution.
IA Subscriber" in another column, pre-.
sents objections to the doctrine laid down in
an article of ours published few days since,
concerning the Right Of Revolution. He is
in doubt whether the right of revolution is
SO absolute in its character that it makes the
party which proposes to exercise it the only
one to decide when it shall be exercised.
Every people will End this doctrine some-
what bard to receive, when it is set up
against what they deem to be their interests,
The ultimate result of the revolution taking
place in the South will, it is thought by
many-ifit is allowed to be consummated-
prove serious check upon Northern pro-
gress and prosperity. If humanity were
gifted with no power Of selfadaptation, and
ifthe good which we enjoyed under the late
system was the only good, or the best good
of which humanity in the North is capable,
this would be true but as humanity is gifted
with powers of selfadaptation, and as there
may be other goods equally desirable with
those which we have enjoyed, the question
of loss by the Southern revolution remains
to be settled only, perhaps, by the facts as
they appear in the result. We do not knoW
whether the North will be better or worse
by the division; and upon that point, it is of
little avail to dogmatize.
They who wrote and signed the Declara-
ton of American Independence did not
doubt that the people who propose to revo-
lutionize are the Judges nf the circumstances
under which it is proper to exercise it. They
publish, it is true, q catalogue of wrongs
which they had been made to suffer; but
they did not await the decision of the rest Of
mankind as to whether those wrongs were
sufficient to justify the revolution into which
they had already entered. The same instru-
ment in which they set forth the merits of
their cause, proclaimed that they had already
determined upon their remedy.
Our correspondent thinks that "There is
an ultimate standard Of right and wrong,
Independent of the mere choice of men,"
There is an ultimate right and wrong un-
doubtedly; but there can be no standard of
right and wrong, until there is a party to
declare it. Until this is the case, right and
wrong is matter of opinion; and the standard
of one man is Of just as much authority as
that of another. In suits at law between
individuals, the Court fixes the standard for
that occasion only in international contro-
Virsies, the soyereigns Of neutral nations are
sometimes chosen umpires and the standard
which they establish is, for the time being,
taken as ultimate but in the dispute pend
ing between the North and South, where is
the party whose decision upon the rights of
of the case is more binding than any other
1t would have been more rational and re-
spectacle, undoubtedly, had the South, before
she commenced her active revolutionary
proceedings, set forth calmly and distinctly
her grounds of complaint, and the means she
had employed to gsin peaceful remedy; but
10 have done this would not have changed
the actualities Of her case particle. If her
grounds were good, they were so without
such declaration; il they were not, no decla-
ration, however well wOrded, would have
made them so.
As to Oaths to support the Constitution,
there is always a practical reservation-if
things do not change so as to render their
observance impossible, unsafe or inadvissble.
The French people swore solemnly to sup.
port some fourteen constitutions in eighteen
years, and failed to support any one of them.
The acceptance of each new contrivance was
treason 10 its predecessors; but were these
people therefore puuured2 That's the high
moral, rigidly. orthodox way of looking at
it, We admit and they were called all sorts
of hard names for what was deemed their
unconscionable carelessness of sacred obnga-
tons. We confess we have learned to think
differently. They were probably right in
the swearing, and right in the retaining to
support. Each new instrument was pre-
sented as panacea for all the evils by
which they were oppressed; and they &C
cepted II as such; a short experience re-
moved the delusion, and they ceased to re-
gard that from which they saw no accruing
benefit. The oath Of no man should bind
him to Government whose influence he be-
litves to be inimical to bis happiness.
How far IL is proper for a Government
|against which q revolution is attempted To
Employ force TO put it down is a point upon
which no definite rule can be fixed. II
would not be easy to describe in exact terms
he difference between rebellion and rev.
blutioni and Governments seem bound, by
be nature Of their Office, to look upon every
ising against their authority as a rebellion,
hieh It Is their duty to use every available
leans TO suppress.
The same liberty belongs to the Govern.
ent to measure the case by its standard ol
eht as belongs to the reyolutionIsts TO
easure IL by theirs; and one has just the
me claim to absoluteness as the other.
o Government of Great Britain looked
on the American Revolution In thelight Of