Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1861-01-04
gamuillt NtwsAsaltr.
s. HOWARD, JR., EDITOR.
Hyde Park, Friday, January 4, 1861.
What shall be done with South Carolina?

Union, and as far as her separate action
can effect it, has seeded She has taken
a position in direct defiance and hostility
to the United States. Having once ac-
cepted and ratified the Constitution by the
most solemn and deliberate action, sEe
now assumes to withdraw her acceptance
and ratification, and to hold it in allegiance
until the constitution shall be so remodeled
and amended as to meet her present de-
mands and she may choose to accept and
ratify it anew. This right of suspending
her assent and liability to the Federal
Government, she claims whenever she
wishes to gain any new point in her own
private interests.
If this be the principle and basis of our
confederation, we should expect to find in
the constitution clansc somewhat lik,
the following: Whenever any State may
from any motive whatever, or from any
motive which said State shall deem suf-
fcient, wish to have new clause added
to, or inserted in the Federal Constitution,
or to have said clause considered as if al
ready 50 added or inserted by common
consent, and the majority of the people in
Congress assembled may be adverse to
such amendment, then such state shall have
the right to sccedc from the Union pro-
vidcd nevertheless, if the Federal Govern
ment shall thereafterwards enact hel
pleasure in the premises, then, if said Sc
ceding state shall so wish and not other
wise, her act of secession shall be void.
We look in vain through the in
strument which contains the articles o!
our Confederation for anything which can
by any implication be construed to bea,
a meaning so fatal. If this right of SC
cession as claimed by South Caroline
really exists, then we have no nation, nc
elements of strength or perpetuity. Like
Sampson shorn, we are powerless the
sport and the victim of every Philistino
that may come against u.s. Our bond Of
union is a rope of sand, which every state
within, every wave of adverse opinion will
dash upon and annihilatc.
In this question of the right of scces-
sion, is involved the life or death of our
Republican institutions Those institu-
tions, under which mankind in less than
a century has advanced more than in ages
before, are to be preserved, or given up
If we acknowledge this right, either d.
rectly, or by failing promptly to suppress
treason growing out of its assumption, we
give them up; if we resist secession, and
coerce rebellion back into obedience, VIC
preserve them. We have no right to give
them up. We have no right to say that
there is no permanancy in freedom, or free
institutions.
1t is our duty to show to the world,
that we mean something by the term
United States; that the basis on which
our national existence rests has some sta
bi!ity; that we are not thirty-three dis
tinct little principalities merely, but one
great and powerful nation.
The only way in which VIC can clearly
and conclusively demonstrate to the world
that this principle underlies and gives
stability to our system of government, is
to bring South Carolina back to obedience;
not by entreaty, not by persuasion, not by
compromise, but by the stern strong arm
of the Federal authority. This is the only
means that South Carolina has now left
us for indicating the authority and sus-
tanning the dignity of the nation.
A compromise is demanded. But were
it right or expedient to do this, what guar
anty have we, that they would regard it as
sacred that they would not, if a point in
their own interest could be gained thereby,
again repeal it as unconstitutional +? Build
ing political cob houses in times like the
present especially, is neither wise nor
profitable.
The duty of the Federal authority is
plain. South Carolina must be dealt with
by a force sufficient to compel her to ODE
dience; and if the force of law is made
quate, it must be by an appeal to arms.
But what course must the Executive pur-
sue to coercce South Carolina? Evidently,
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