Litchfield enquirer., 1861-07-18
4ftisfella,1p.
!IN1'R ACTS

FROM f!ON. EDWARD EvERETTs ORATlOS. We fondly wish that we could give the whole of the great patriotic oration of the Hon. ED WARD EVERETT, upon The Great Issues new be- fore the Country" delivered in New York City, July 4th. Nothing but its extreme length pre- cludes us from the pleasure of so doing; but we surpos} it will socn be issued in pamphlet form and if so, we would advise all of our read CTS to procure a copy and carefully peruse it.. 1t is pe haps the most able. comprehensive, and exhaustive composition upon the causes and effects of our national troubles, that has yet been given to tl:a American people by a mas ter mind. Mir Everett is undoubtedly among the very first statesmen now living and his long life, inconia,rahle powers, brilliant mind. and exa!!eI wisdom ai,l pa!riotisn render him per haps better competent to the task he has given himself, and so successfully performed. than any man now On the stage of action.
 We give tLc following extracts, which en- brace only two points of tie admirable oraton and commend it to the careful perusal of those sophists who are So pit;fay at Sea with regard to the Virginia Reservation" &c.
 1s SECESSION A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT, OR IS IT
 REVOLUTION?
 Whether the present unnatural civil war is waged by the South. in virtue of supposed constitutional right to leave the Union at pleas ure; or whether it is an exercise of the great and ultimate right of Revolution the existence of which no one denies, seems to be left in un- ra,f,i ,i,ty-G G,,tl tl,,,1 f %h,, Jefferson Davis. the President of the new Con- federacy, in his inaugural speech delivered on the 18th of February, declares that it is .'an abuse of language to cali it "a revolution" Mir. Vice President Stephens. on the contrary
 in a speech at Savannah, on the 2lst of March, pronounces 1t one of the greatest revolutions in the annals of the world" The question is of great magnitude, as one of constitutional and public law !; as one of morality it is of very little consequence whether the country is drenched in blood in the exercise of right claimed under the Constitution, or the right inherent in every community to revolt against all oppressive gov ernment. Unless the oppression is so extreme as to justify revolution, it would not justify the evil of breaking up government. under an ab- stract constitutional right to do so.
 NEITHER A GRANTED NOR A RESERVED RIGHT. This assumed right of Secession rests upon the doctrine that the Union is a compact be- tween Independent States, from which any one may withdraw at pleasure in virtue of ;ts sove- reignty. This imaginary right has been the subject of discussion for more than thirty years having been originally suggested though not at first much dwelt upon, in connection with the 1 kindred claim of a right on the part of an in- dividual State, to '' nulify' an Act of Congress It would of course be impossible, within the l limits of the hour, to review these elaborate discussions will only remark, on this occa- sion, that none of the premises from which this remarkable conclusion is drawn. are recognized in the Constitution. and that the right of seces- sion, though called reserved" right. is not expressly reserved in it. That instrument does net purport 10 be a compact" but Constitu ton of Government It appears in its first sen tence not to have been entered into by the States, but to have been ordained and establish ed by the People of the United States, for " themselves and their posterity." The States are not named in it nearly all the characters tic powers of sovereignty are expressly granted to the general government and expressly pro- hibited to the States, and so far from reserving right of secession to the latter on any ground or under any pretence, it ordains and establish es in terms the Constitution of the United States as the supreme law of the land, any thing l contrary notwithstanding.
 It would seem that this was as clear and pos tive as language car make it. But it is argued that, though the right of secession is not re- served in terms, it must be considered as i'm piled in the general reservation to the States and to the People of all the powers not granted to Congress nor prohibited to the States. This extraordinary assumption, more distinctly stated, is that, in direct defiance to the express grant madet Congress and the express prohibition to the States of nearly all the powers of an iu- dependent government, there is, by implication
 a right reserved to the States to assume and ex- ercise all these powers thus vested in the Un- ion and prohibited to themselves, simply in vir-
 tue of going through the ceremony of passing a
 law called an Ordinance of Secession. A gen
 eral reservation to the States of powers not
 prohibited to them nor granted to Congress, is
 an implied reservation to the States of a right