Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1862-03-13
The Amos Kendall Letters.
LETTER II

CRtteu otuteS'
RESPECTED SIR: In my first letter /
endeavored to show that the only legiti-
mate object of the pending war is the
integrity Of the nation as constituted by
the Constitution Of the United States
l shall now attempt to point out some
of the consequences to be apprehcnded
from making it war on the fundamental
principles of the Constitution.
Let it never be forgotten that we are
one people and one nation only so far as
the Cons ttution makes as one. Outside of
that bond we are thirty four people and
thirty-four nations, none of which have
any more right to interfere with the local
law and institutions of the rest than with
the laws and institutions of China and
Brazil. The people of the States have
right, under the Constitution, to de-
fend their local laws and institutions by
arms, if necessary, and it is the duty of
the United States to uphold and aid them
in the attempt. A war confined to such
an object would not be rebellion, even
though the United States were the aggres-
sor. just SO far, therefore, as the pending
war may be waged against Southern in
stitutions, the Southerners in arms will
cease to be rebels, and the NorthernerS in
arms will become in truth what they are
now falsely charged with being-the wan
ton assailants of Southern rights. Let
me not be misunderstood. Thus far the
war has been confined to an enforcement
of the Constitution and laws of the
United States, and in their armed resist
ance the Southerners are unqualified and
unmitigated rebels. But let the United
States abandon this firm and safe plat
form; let them announce that the war is
hereafter to be waged against the consti-
tutional laws and institutions of the
Southern States, and they will measur-
ably relieve the traitors from the odium
of causeless rebellion, will give to their
cause color of right, and will nerve their
arms for more desperate resistance
Then, indeed, would the war become one
of subjugation-prosecuted, not for the
purpose of maintaining the Constitution,
but in subvertion of its fundamental
principles.
Such position would be attended with
mischievous, if not fatal consequences,
both at home and abroad. 1t would par
alyze many a Northern patriot, who
would give his life for the Union, not
because he loves Southern institutions,
but because he holds sacred the pl inciples
of the Constitution, and deems their
preservation essential to the maintenance
of order and law, rs well in the North
as the South.
All intelligent men knew that Re-
public as extensive as the United States,
embracing such variety Of climates,
productions, institutions, opinions, and
interests, cannot exist under one consoli-
dated Government and at the same time
allow the highest practicable degree of
liberties to all its parts. Hence it is that
every true friend of liberty revolts from
the idea of an attack on the fundamental
principles of the Constitution which
leaves every Stat, free to govern itself in
all things which pertain to its local al
fairs. In the subversion of that he sees
nothing in prospect but cluster of hos
tile republics, like those of Greece, vast
ing each other in continual wars; or a
great Empire. like that of Rome, in
which liberty shall be crushed under the
iron rule of an aristocratic Senate or an
usurping Cezar With such a prospect
before him, how can any true friend of
liberty sustain, with confident hope and
unhagging enthusiasm, the prosecution
of this war?
But the paralysis which an abandon
ment of the Constitution would produce
in many Northern arm would not be its
only effect. 1t twould, in an equal degree,
nerve many Southern arm and array in
active hostiities many Southern friend
of the Union. 1t would enable the rebels
to say that the North is attempting to
subvert the constitutional rights which
the South is fighting to maintain. l.
would, in the eye of the world, mitigate
the crime of rebellion by enabling the
rebels to assert, with some plausibility,
that there was a conspiracy in the North
against their constitutional rights. 1t
would enable them to say to Great Bit
ain and France that the North as well as
the South had abandoned the Constitution
which made them one people, and become
equally revolutionary-that the one was
as much entitled to be considered and
acknowledged separated and independ-
ent people as the other.
But it is said that slavery is the cause
of the rebellion. and, therefore, it should
be exterminated. The assertion is but
remotely and partially true. and, as far
as it is true, by no means iustifes the
conclusion. If the mere existence OF
slavery were sufficient to produce rebel
lion, the Constitution would never have