Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1861-01-10

is equally supreme in the maintenance Of
rights placed under its protection, wheth.
er they are contravcned by the constitu.
tion and laws of States or Territories, the
Drcd Scott decision AZ Interpreted by the
South, opens the whole country to the cx-
pansion Of slavery.
1t is not the election Of President
under the requirements of the Constitu
tion which has given rise to the move.
ment in the South. 1t is not his opinion
about the extension of slavery, for that is
the same as was held by the trainers of
the Constitution. Nor is it about the
! Fugitive Slave Law, the judicial decision
in the Dred Scott case, or other political
issues. Nor is it personal rcpugnancc.
All parties agree that he is honest, capa-
bic and faithful; and so clear is his repu-
tation that the virnlcnce of party spirit,
exerted in struggle for the highest place
AMI the greatest patronage, could not be
tempted to assail it.. The outbreak which
has followed is not the effect of an elect
ion on disappointed parties. The result
was anticipated by all, an the occasion is
only seized upon as signal for the explo-
sion of plot, long maturing in secret
counsels, to accomplish Mr.. Calhoun's
new scheme OF government for the slave
States-the establishment of Southern
Confedcracy, which, in the language re-
Gently pronounced by distinguished
Southern statesman, "Will expand as'our
growth and civilization may demand;
over Mexico over isles of the sea, over
the far off southern trapics, until we shall
establish great confedertion ofrcpublics,
the greatest, freest, and most useful the
world has seem"
On the occasion Of my Inauguration,
felt it to be my duty to warn my coun-
trymen of these hostile designs against
the federal Union. But they were in
speculation only. Now they are in act.
Shall they be consumate? Shall the ma
tional government be degraded into a
mere league between independent States,
existing only by their suflerance surbord-
mate to them and subject to be destroy
ed at the pleasure of any State in the
confederacy? Or shall it continue to be
maintained, as it always has been
maintained, as government proper
sovereign within its prescribed sphere
as the States are sovereign within
their prescribed sphcres-iounded on the
adoption of the people as were the States,
and creating direct relations between itself
and the individual citizen, which no state
authority has power to impair or disturb,
and which nothing can dissolve but rev.
olntion.
Nearly twenty-eight years ago, the
people of Ohio, speaking through the
General Assembly, declared what in their
Judgment are the constitutional relations
between the Federal andState governments
quote but one of series of resolve up
on this subject.
THAT the Federal Union exists in a
solemn compact entered into by the vol
untary consent of the people OF the United
States, and each and every Stste, and
therefore, no State can claim the right to
,ecede from, or violate that compact, and
however grievous may be the supposed or
real burthens of the State, the only lie.
climate remedy is in the wise and faithful
tANlClNC vi tllC tICCllNc IIdHCuloC anu
solemn responsibility of the public
agents"
This is the judgement of Ohio to-day.
There never was people so thorough
| ly bound together as a nation as the peo-
| pie of the United States. The founders
of the government took possession of the
country under the authority Of the par
ent State, acknowledging its sovereignty
as binding all the colonies together as a
portion of the same realm. When they
resolved upon separation, against the
consent of the supreme power, they en-
tered upon way to establish republic.
an government, embracing the conleder-
ated colonies , to take "their places among
the nations of the earth" as one and an
Independent people, constituting another
nation, of which the Articles of Confed
Grafton, establishing it on the basis of
perpetual union" was the evidence to
the world, and the covenant among them
selves. The Constitution Of the United
States was the repetition of this grand
national act, and being more emphatic
ally the act of the whole people, they de-
clared in the preamble eve, the peo-
pie, ordain," &C., (giving the scope Of
the nations functions,) proclaiming one
of the main objects to be to make "more
perfect" the union already established as
perpetual" What nation ever pre-
sented so perfect record of its existence
as national government, and of the in
diSsolablc union, cemented among the
municipal commonwcalths in charge of
the local, internal affairs of a people, as
the Constitution of the United States!--
Every new State is brought into the
Union by an act of the national govern
ment, and no man of foreign birth can
become citizen without swearing alle-
glance to it. II acquires territory, pro-
vidcs it with population, nurtures them
in infancy, and introduces them as States
at maturity. 1t has authority to annul
such constitutions and laws of any of the
States as contravene the provisions of
the Federal Constitution. All State
Executives, Legislatures and judicial tri-
bunals have accepted it from the day it
was proclaimed as the supreme law OF
the land The Constitution gives the
right of eminent dopain even over the
the soil of the States, the sea-coastS har-
bors, for national and constitutional pur
poses, through which to establish post
offices and routes, custom houses, forts,
navy-yards arsenals, armories, everything