New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-05-22
JACOB THOMPSON.

We print herewith a letter from JACOB
THOMPSON, Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of the
Interior, since an active Confederate and agent
in Canada of Jefferson Davis, in Standardization
from charges Of completely in the GODDARD Bailey
fraud and in President Lincoln's assassination.
In so far as his statements are personal and de-
fenSiye they seem to require no remark. We
think the remarks affecting President johnson
are in very bad taste; but we did not choose to
suppress them; though authorized to do so. We
prefer that Mr. Thompson should be judged by
what he chose to write rather than by what We
might see fit to print.
All this however, is trivial in comparison
with that monstrous doctrine Of State Sover-
eighty" wherein Mr.. Thompson bases and justi-
fies what he terms Secession and We stigmatize
as most unjustifiable Rebellion. 1t is this which
gives to his letter a general and permanent in
terest, and for which We commend it to careful
study and consideration. Let us ponder it,
Whether the famous Kentucky and Virginia
legislative resolves of % and 80 do indeed
Justify State in resisting the laws and legal
authorities of the Union, we need not discuss,
since those resolves are not and never were
accepted as authority by Us. On the contrary,
deeming them unsound in assumption, wrong
in principle and mischieyous in their natural
tendencies, We utterly repudiate them, and OF
course do not care whether they do or DO not
Justify Secession. But when Mr.. Thompson
asserts that three States, in ratifying the Fed
eral Constitution, reserved the right to with
draw from the Union at discretion, he compels
Us to demand his authority for the averment.
We deny it most unqualifiedly. That the
Virginia Convention affirmed the right Of the
People to modify or revise their political institu-
tons, we know; that they claimed this right
for fourth or an eighth of the entire People
of the United States" who were expressly pro-
claimed the authors Of the Constitution in its
preamble, we deny. Such claim would not
be republican or democratic, but anti-popular
and anarchical, and would transmute into q
broad farce the strenuous resistance Of Patrick
Henry, Sam. Adams, &c. to the adoption OF
the instrument. Why should State hesitate
to ratify what she might at any moment there.
after repudate'
Let us take Mr.. Thompson's own case TO il.
lustrate the monstroSty Of his doctrines
Jacob Thompson was first known to the coun.
try as Representatives. Congress. retiring after
eight years service. He was called from private
life to seat in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet of which
he was member till his resignation in De.
cember, 1860. (He will not, we think, deny
that he was an active and jealous promoter of
the conspiracy for disunion before he resigned,
and before Mississippi seeded; but we will not
press this point) And he holds, if we can un.
dersand his letter. that all his repeated oaths Of
fidelity to the Federal Constitution and Gov
eminent were taken subject to the condition
that Mississippi should not see fit TO secede from
the Union--that. if at any time she should sc.
cede, no matter whether with or without reason.