The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1863-09-02

Journment, a vote shall be had by sections,
and a majority of the Senators from each sec,
ton voting, shall be necessary to the passage
of such bill, order, or resolution, and to the
validity of every such vote.
ESQ. 3. Two of the electors for President
and Vice President shall be appointed by each
State in such manner as the Legislature there
of may direct, for the State at large. The
other electors to which each State may be en-
titled, shall be chosen in the respective Con-
gressional District into which tho State may,
at the regular decennial period, have been 1i-
vided, by the electors of each district having
the qualifications requisite for electors of the
most numerous branch of the State Lcgisla-
ture. A majority of all the electors in each
of the four sections in this article. established,
shall be necessary to the choice of President
and Vice President and the concurrence of
a majoPity of the States of each section shall
be necessary to the choice of President by
TIE House of Representatives, and of the
Senators from each section for the choice of
Vice President by the Senate, whenever the
right of choice shall devolve upon them re-
spectively."H : CyFe FEA %.
The section relating to Secession is as fol.
lows rf5 vHTFGu
"ARTICLE XIV.
! mo State shall secede withot the consent
of the Legislatures of the States of the Sec
tion to which the State proposing to secede
belongs. The President shall have power to
adjust with seeding States all questions arr
sing by reason of their secession ;a1but the
terms of adjustment shall be submitted to the
Congress for their approval before the same
shall be valid" ss1te5fsa ~
And this is the paragraph of the speech sx-
planning it: : 81 j.. 1ass5 -5sa
"Having thus, sir, guarded diligently the
rights of the several States and sections, and
given to each section also the power. to protect
itself inside of the Union from aggression, L
propose next to limit and to regulate the al
legged right of secession, since this, from a
dormant abstraction, has now become a practi
cal question of tremendous import. As long,
sir, as secession remained an untried and only
menaced experim emit, that confidence, without
which no Government can be stable or efficient,
was not shaken, because it was believed that
actual secession would never be tried, or if
tried, that it must speedily and ingloriously
fail. The popular, faith, cherished for years,
has been that the Union could not be dis
solved. To that faith the Republican party
was indebted for its success in the late cleo
ton and we who predicted its dissolution
were smittcn upon the cheek and condemned
tofeed upon bread of affection and water of
affection, like the prophet whom Ahab hated.
Dub paEIlal uiSSOluGlOn mas aItedUy OcCuFIeu-
Secession has been tried and proved a speedy
and terrible success. The practicability of
doing it and the way to do it, have both been
established. Sir, the experiment may readily
be repeated. 1t will be repeated And is it
not madness and folly, then, to call back, by
adjustment; the States which have seeded,
or to hold back the States which are threaten
ing to secede, aoithout providing some safe
guard against the reneoat Of this most simple
and disastrous experiment? Can foreign ma
tons have any confidence hereafter in the sta
bility of a Government which may so readily,
speedily, and quietly be dissolved? Can we
have any confidence among ourselves Pr
/ add now an extract from the same speech
{of February TO- 1861, explaining the gen
eral object of the proposed amendments :q
"Born, sir, upon the soil of the United
States, attached to my country from earliest
boyhood loving and rcvering her, with SOM
part at least, with the spirit of Greek and
Roman patriotism; between these two alter
natives, with all my mind, with all my heart,
with all my strength of body and of soul, lily
ing or dying, at home or in exile, l am for the
Union which made it what it is and there
fore 1 am also for such terms of peace and
adjustment as will maintain that Union now
and forever. This, then, is the question which
to-day / pr pose to discu-s
"How shall the Union of these States be
restored and preserved?
"Devoted as I I'M to the Union, I have yet
no eulogies to pronounce upon it to day. 1t
needs none. Its highest eulogy is the history
of this country for the last seventy years.
The triumphs of war and the arts of peace,
science, civilization, wealth, population, com
merce trade, manufactures, literature, educa-
ton, justice, tranquility, security to. life, to
person, to property, material happiness, com
mon defense. national renown-ail that is i'm
plied-in the blessings of liberty-these, and
more ; have been its fruits from the beginning
to this hour. These have enshrined it5in the
hearts of the peoplezand, before God. 1 be-
lieye they will restore and preserve it. And
to-day they demand of us their ambassadors
and representatives, to tell them how this
great work IS to be accomplished"
And yet further, in a card to the Enquirer,
dated February IA, 1861, I said:
"My proposition looked. solely to the reg
%toration and maintenance of the Union forev-
er by suggesting a mode of voting in the Uni
ted States Senate and the Electoral Colle ges,
by which the causes which have led to our
present troubles, may in the future be guarded
against without Secession and disunion and
also the agitation of the slavery question as
an element in our National politics, be forever
hereafter arrested. My object-tbe sole mo-
tive by which l have been guided from the
beginning of this most fatal revolution-i5 to
maintain the Union and not destroy it,
Such was the proposition xhich I submitted
just previous to the Inauguration of this most
u%natural and ruinous civil war, and at a time
when every patriot in the land was seeking
diligently and sorrowfully for some means or
other by which to avert that most terrible
scourge of nations. Misreported by telegraph
at first, it has been the subject of most per
sistent and malicious misrepresentation ever
since. am not vain enoug', to expect to ST.
lence interested falsehood now ; no, not even
to make it ashamed ; but I do desire that they
who would desire to know the truth, may
read and judge for themselves. 80 : .zr
s G. L. VALLANDIGHAM.