Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1861-12-20

gresss, that If the Northern representa-
tives were to sign and seal bond on a
blank sheet of paper and authorize the
conspirators to fill up the terms and con-
ditions of our surrender that they would
not accept il. They publicly declared
that if the people elected any other man
for President than the one dictated by
themselves, they would secede and break
up the Union, thus refusing longer to
adh ere to the Democratic principle that
the majority shall govern. Ihave shown
you by their own public declarations
that the election of Mr.. Lincoln was not
the cause of this rebellion, but only a
protect for it that for thirty years the
traitors have been fomenting treason
and have only been awaiting favorable
opportunity to inaugurate it. l have
shown that but for the fatal folly and
wicked indifference of the North this
rebellion would never have come upon
us. That we have fed and fostered the
viper which is now at our throats, every
candid, rejecting Northern man must
admit when it was an infant, or even
when it was but halfgrown, the nation
might easily have destroyed it, but now
by our own fault and guilt it has grown
until it has become formidable and ter
rible. For years we nursed it most
tenderly and gave it all the succor and
food it demanded. Now outraged JUS
tice demands either that we shall des-
troy it, or be ourselves destroyed by it..
There is a law of compensations, law
which is above all human enactments,
irrepealable because Divine, which pro-
claims that 'the nation or people Who do
not rule IN righteousness shall perish
from the EARTH" and l believe we are now
passing through the trying ordeal which
will either establish us as freemen, ru.
ling in righteousness, or destroy us.
You have heard a great deal about
estate Sovereignty and the "sacred
soil of Virginia. and other States, and
the ''right Of secession" l will not now
detain you with discussion on the alb
stract right of secession. Last winter |
examined this subject thoroughly in a
speech which l made in the House, and
l have nothing now to add to or take
from what then said. The claim set
up by these conspirators, that State is
Sovereign and owns the soil within
its geographical huits, is an assumption
as arrogant as it is ignorant. No State
of tie american Union is sovereign or
has any ownership of the soil, egcept that
aohich the Constitution and Ldaos of The
United States giUe her. The National
Constitution guarantees to each State q
Republican form of government, with
the right to make their own municipal
laws, subject only to that Constitution
The Constitution of the United States
is the supreme law of the land. Any.
thing in the Laws or Constitutions OF
the States to the contrary, notwithstand-
ing the assumed ''right of secession" is
an absurd and visionary dream of a
monomaniac. As well might a man say
he would release himself from any con-
tract he had made, because he had de-
termined not to pay his honest debts
Such doctrine will do only for pirates.
As well might Lucas County, Ohio, set
up that she was sovereign" county,
aud therefore had the "right" to secede
from both the National and State Gov
ernments, and establish herself as an in.
dependent nation. If this were true,
our National Constitution would not be
worth the paper on which 1t was writ
ten. Absurd, however, as this doctrine
is, it is not half so absurd as the course
pursued by Buchanan, who, while per.
hitting our national Notifications to be
environed by rebel batteries, formally
announced in his last message to Con.
gress that not only was there no "right
of secession under the Constitution, but
that all attempts on the part of the
General Government to restrain or pre-
vent State from seeding aoere also un
constitutional. Had the nation needed
the warning voices of her purest patri
OTIS and statesmen at the time of thu
Missouri controversy, that State woulC
never havelbeen admitted into the Uniol
with slavery, and the so-called Missouri
compromise never have been made
This deadly viper would then have re
ceived its death blow and the natiol
been delivered from the rule of the slav
power. Slavery would not then hav,
been nationalized by Congressional en-
actments protecting it, There woul(
have been no cruel, bloody and cost,
war in Florida for the enslavement o
negroes, halfbreeds and Indians, VIII
were free when we purchased the terri
tory from Spain and whose rights W
guaranteed by the treaty of purchas
and unblemishingly violated by tina
war. There would have been mad
no war upon the weak and distresse
republic of Mexico for the purpose {
wrestling free territory from her o
which to plant human slavery. Their
would have been no ceding of one-ha
of Oregon to Great Britain to proven
the erection of free States out of tha
| Territory. The compromises of 1885,
the Kansas n ebraska acts of 1854, an
the justly infamous Lecompton Const
tuition of 1857 would never have di
graced the records of our country.
short, the crimes and murders in Ka
sas which hare been committed nev,
could have been ommitted-much le
could this wicked rebellion have bee
, born. Our duty as nation, in come
ton with this rebellion, has seemed {
r me from the first so plain that / hay
, been not a little amazed at the appa
r ent hesitancy and want of policy q
: our part. You know / have claime
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