Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1861-05-22
The rrue nncfrine.

The argument of JEFFERsON DAVIS to his Con-
federate Congress, in favor of the right of seces
sion by a State, was answered and demolished by
DANIEL WEBSTER thirty-one years ago. In his
famous reply to HArNE, in January, 1850, Mr..
WEBSTER said
When the gentleman says the Constitution is
a compact between the States, he uses language
exactly applicable to the old Confederation. He
speaks as if he were in Congress before l1e9. He
describes fully that old state of things existing
The Confederation was, in stTictneSS, compact;
the States as States were parties To it. We had
no other general government. But that was
found insufficient and inadequate to the public
exigencies The people were not satisfied with
it, and undertook to establish better. They un-
dertook to form a general government, which
should stand on a new basis-not COniedeTacy,
not a league, not a compact between States, buta
constitution, a popular government founded IN
popular election, directly responsible to the peo-
pie themselves and divided into branches, with
prescribed limits of power and prescribed duties.
They ordained such government; they gave IT
the name of a constitution, and therein they es-
tabIished a distribution of powers between this,
their General Government, and their several
State governments When they shall become
dissatisfied with this distribution, they can alter
it. Their own power over their own instrument
remains. But, until they shall alter it, it must
stand as their will, and is equally binding on the
General Government and on the States.
This doctrine, so forcibly stated by Mr.. WEB
srER, was that upon which Gen. Jackson acted in
putting down South Carolina notification. Gen
JACKSON held not only that State could not Sc
cede, but that power to prevent secession resided
in the Federal Government-in other words the
FOL hal 70 sell
Mr. CALHOUN, toward the close of his life, ex-
pressed sentiments similar to those of Mr. WEB
sTER. While he had justified notification he
did not acknowledge in fact he opposed the doc
trne of the right of secession by a State. In a
letter to his political friends and supporters,
dated in February, 1874, refusing to permit his
name to be used in the approaching Democratic
national convention for the nomination of a
candidate for President, he said: THAT each
State has the right to act as it pleIses in what
ever relates to itself exclusively. no one will
deny; but it is perfectly novel doctrine that
any State has such a right when she comes to
act in concert with others, in reference to what
concerns the whole. In such cases tits the plain
est dictate of common sense that whatever affects
the whole should be regulated by the mutual con-
sent of all and not by the discretion Of each" A
year earlier, in another letter. dated on the 4th of
July, lS43, he invites his countrymen to under
stand Gin all its great and beautiful proportions
the noble political structure reared by the wisdom
and patriotism of ancestors, and to have the
virtue and the sense to serve and protect it" and
declared IL to he the duty of the Federal Gov
ernment under the guarantees of the Constitu-
ten, promptly to suppress physical force as an
element of change, and to keep wide open the
door for the free and full action of all the moral
elements in its power" Whateve-, therefore,
NAV have been Mr. CALHoUN's heres:es at one
time, concerning notification. his later utterances
| give no aid and comfort to secession.