Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1861-01-26


dogmatical, and IL is this circumstance that
has produced the existing alienation. A
truce, at least during the debate on the
union, is essential to reconciliation.
The union cannot be saved by proving
that secession is illegal or unconstitutional.
Persons bent on that fearful step will not
stand long enough on forms Of law TO be
dislodged and loyal men do not need such
narrow ground to stand upon.
fear that little more will be gained
from discussing the right Of the federal
government TO coerce seeding states into
obedience. If disunion is to go on, this
question will give place to the more prac-
ticable one, whether any seeding states
have o right to coerce the remaining mem
bers to acquiesce in dissolution
] dread, and in my innermost soul abhor,
civil war. do not know what the Union
would be worth il saved by the use OF the
sword. Yet, for all this, do not agree
with those who, with desire to avert that
great calamity, advise conventional or un-
opposed separation, with view to what
they call reconstruction. It is enough
for me, first, that in this plan, destruction
goes before reconstruction ; and secondly
that the strength of the vase in which the
hopes of the nation are held consists chief
y in its remaining unbrokeu.
Congressional compromises are not like
ly to save the Union / know, indeed,
that tradition favorS this form of remedy.
But 1t is essential to its success, in any case,
that there be preponderating mass Of citi-
zens, so far neulral on the issue which sepa-
rates parties, that they can intervene, strike
down clashing weapons, and compel an ac-
commodation. Moderate concessions are
not customarily asked by force with its
guns in battery /; nor are liberal concessions
apt to he given by an opposing force not
less confident of its own right aud It's own
strength. think, also, that there is a
prevailing conviction that legislative con-
promises which sacrifice honestly cherished
principles, while they anticipate further exi-
gencies, even If they do not assume extra
constitutional powers, are less sure to avert
imminent evils than they are certain to pro
duce ultimately even greater dangers.
Indeed Mr.. President, / think it will be
wise to discard two prevalent ideas or pre-.
judices, namely FIRST, that the Union is to
he saved by somebody in particular and
secondly, that it is to be saved by some
cunning and insincere compact of psci6cs-
ton. If remember rightly, said some.
thing like this here so long ago as 1850, and
afterwards in 1854.
The present danger discloSes itself in this
form. Discontinued citizens have obtained
political power in certain states, and they
are using this authority to overthrow the
federal government. They delude them
selves with belief that the state power
they have acquired enables them to discharge
themselves to allegiance TO the whole Re-
pnblic. The honorable senator from Iii.
nois Mr.. Douglas says we have right
to eeerce state, but we cannot. The pre-
sident says that no state has right to Sc.
cede, but we have no constitutional power
to make war against state. The diIem
ma results from an assumption that those
who in such case, act against the federal
government, act lawfully as state al
though manfestIy they have perverted the
power of tie state to an unconstitutional
purpose. A class of politicians in New
England set up this theory aid attempted
to practice upon it with our war with Great
Britain. Mr.. Jefferson did not hesitate TO
say that states must be kept within their
constitutional sphere by impuIsion,' if they
could not be held there by attraction. Sc
cession was then held to be inadmissble in
The face Of public enemy. But if it is
untenable in one case, it is necessarily so
n all others. fully admit the originality.
the sovereignty, and the independence of
the several states within their sphere. But
| hold tie federal government TO be equal.
Iy original sovereign and independent with
in its sphere. And the government of the
state can no more absolve the people resid-
ing within its limits from allegiance 10 the
can absolve them from allegiance to the
state, The Constitution OF the u. States,
and the laws made in pursuance thereof are
the supreme law of the land, paramount to
all legislation Of the states, whether made
under the Constitution, or by even their or
ganic conventions. The union can be dis
solved, not by secession, with or without
armed force, but only by the voluntary con-
sent of the people of the United States.
COn6Clcu III JhO lnuuHCt ptSoNIlDSu ny tue
Constitution of the United States.
Congress, in the present case, ought not
to be impassive. 1t ought, il it can, to re-
dress any real grievances of the offended
states, and then it ought to supply the
President with all the means necessary to
maintain the union in the full exhibition
aud discreet exercise Of its authority. Be
yond this, with the proper activity on the
part Of the executive, the responsibility of
saving the union belongs to the people, and
they are sbundantly competent to discharge
it.
Ipropose. therefore, with great Difference,
to address myself to the country upon the
momentous subject, asking hearing, not
less from the people within what are called
the seeding, than from those who reside
within the sdhering states.
Union is an old, fixed, settled habit oil
the American people, resulting from con,
yictions of its necessity, and therefore not
likely to be hastily discarded. The early
states, while existing as colonies, were com.
bined, though imper(eetly, through com.
mon allegiance 10 the British Crown. When
that allegiance ceased, no one was SO pre-
sumptuous as to suppose political existence
compatible with disunion and, therefore,
on the same day that they declared them
.oi,o s,,danandanL thaV DFOclaimed them.