Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1861-07-12
NUMBER 80.

eoSSN AA.S'A w ~ ViliuSuCbS
to take up arms against the Government,
the day after some assemblages of men
have enacted farcical pretense of taking
their State out of the Union,- who could
have been brought to do no such thing the
day before. This sophism derives much,
perhaps the whole of its currency from
the assumption that there is some omnipo.-
tence and second supremacy pertaining to-
each State of our Federal Union. Our
States have neither more nor less power
than that reserved to them in the Union,
by the Constitution to one of them ever
having been State out of the Union.-
The original ones passed into the Union
before they cast off their British colonial
dependence, and the new ones came into
the Union directly from system of de-
pendence, excepting Texas. And even.
Texas, in its temporary independence, was
never designated State. The new ones
only took the designation of State on COM.
ing into the Union, while that name was
first adopted by the old ones in and by the
Declaration of Independence Therein the
united colonies were declared to lie free
and independent States, but even the OBJ
ject plainly was not to declare their indie
pendence of one another in the Union, but
strictly the contrary, as the mutual pledge
and mutual action before, at the time, and
afterwards abundantly shows. The ex-
press plighting of faiths of the original
thirteen States in the articles of Confed-
Grafton two years later. that the Union
should be perpetual is not conclusive; hav-.
ing never been States, either in substance
or in name outside of the Union, whence
the magical omnipotence of State Rights.
asserting claim of power to lawfully de-
stroy the Union itself ......
Much is said about the sovereignty Of
the States but the word, even, is not in
the national Constitution, nor, as is be-
lieved, in any of the State constitutions.
What is a sovereignty. in the political
sense Of the term ? Would it be far from
wrong to define it political superior p
Tested by this, none of out States, except
Texas, was sovereignty, and even Texas
gave up the character on coming into the.
Union, by which act she acknowledged the
Constitution of the United States, made
in pursuance of States which have their
status in the Union and thus have no 9TH
er legal status, If they break from this
they can only do so against law and by
revolution. The Union and not the States
separately procure their independence and
liberty by conquest or purchase. The.
Union gave each of them whatever indie
pendence and liberty it has. The Union
is oldet than any of the States, and in fact.
has called them as States originally
Some dependent colonies made the Union
threw off their old dependence for them
and made them States such as they are
Not one of them ever had State consti-
tuition Independent of the Union. Of
course it is not forgotten that all the new
4 States formed their constitutions before
they entered the Union, nevertheless de-
pendent upon and preparing to c,me into
the Union. Unquestionably the States
have the powers and rights reserved to
them in and by the National Constitution,
But among these surely are not included
all conceivable powers, however mischiev-
GUS or destructive but at most only such
as were known in the world at the time,
, and certainly power to destroy the Gov
crnment itself had never been known in q
governmental, or as merely administra-
tive power This relative matter of ma
' tional power and State rights as a princi-
pie is no other than the principle Of gem
erality and locality; whatever concerns
the whole should be confined to the whole
Government; while whatever only con-
Germs the State should be left exclusively
to the State. This is all there is of origi-
: nal principle about it. Whether the Ma
' tional Constitution in defining boundaries
|, between the two has applied the principle
with exact accuracy is not to be questioned
E We are all bound by that defining without
, question. What is nyw combattcd is the
position that secession is consistent with
! the Constitution. is lawful and peaceful.