New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-08-13
STATE SOVEREIGNTY.

The people and the politicians of the North, tnd-
ing the idea of State sovereignty very much In their
way in their attempt to justify their war upon the
South, begin now to deny that there is any such
thing. They go bow-shot beyond the old FEEDER
alists even. They not only reject the assumption
that there is any sovereignty in State, but they
propose to 30 still farther and ohterate State lines
altogether, making their Government consoli-
dated one in form, as it now is in fact.
Thus, the Philadelphia North American, a paper
which makes some pretensions to deeency and
craftsmanship, proclaims that it must not be per-
mitted in future that any State shall declare its
ereignty superior to that Of the United States So,
also, IN Baltimore, the other day, public meeting
assembled to nominate candidates for certain Off
ees, and it was determined that none but uncou-
dihonal Union men' should be chosen-and, on the
question being put as to what was meant by an
unconditional Union man, the answer was given
that it was who ignored all State sovereignty
and fealty, and considered his obligations to the
Constitution of the United States paramount to all
other obligations whatsoever"
1t is not wonderful that people who have such
mistaken idea Of the form and character of the Fed
eral Government should be given up to every I'M
aginable kind of social ism and political heresy
Since when, though, have the Northern people
discovered that the Federal Government is so su-
preme, and the States so Insignificant? Clearly,
| it must have been within a very few years past.
Within the last ten years nearly every State of the
North has passed acts multiplying the Fugitive Slave
Law, and thus denying the sovereignty of the
Federal Legislature. The Constitution said that
fugitive slaves must be delivered up, and Congress
passed law to carry the provision of the Consti-
tuition into effect. But the Northern States refused
to obey it---passed laws to make it nugatory-set
up their own authority over and above the au-
thority Of the central Government, and deted the
Federal authority with high hand. Their State
Judges, as in Wisconsin and elsewhere, gravely
decided the Fugitive Slave Law to be in contra
ventlon OF State laws, and therefore not to be
respected. The sovereignty Of the State was set
up against the sovereignty of the Union, and held
to be superior TO it, It will thus appear that
venience is the measure Of Northern statesman
ship, that prejudice and passion have taken the
place Of cool judgment, that the North blows
either hot or cold as it suits the circumstances of
any particular case and that the virtue of consist
ency is one of those virtues which the virtuous
North has no possible use for.
We shall not dignity, with the respect that an
argument would imply, this assumption that the
States have no powers, and the Federal authority
is supreme. Any man who has read the history of
the Constitution and its adoption by the States
any man who has sense enough to read the Consti-
tuition ITSELF and understand the plain purport of
its language know that the Federal Govern
ment exercises only certain powers delegated by
the States, and these powers are expressly limited
and specific. Alexander Hamilton, himself, and
all the other old Federalists, would have been
startled by these modern ideas of the nature of the
Government. DeTocquevle, without objection
on the part Of the North, published his views of
our form Of Government, and they are precisely
those which the South holds to-day, and has al
ways held, and which the North held until that
whole section went crazy with fanaticsm. If
there were no other reason for separation from
the North, ample justification for it would be found
in this attempt to change and .pervert the Govern
ment, making consolidated despotism out Of
what was once free Republic.