Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-09-20


of the North, we urged that our State
Convention should, in terms unequivOcal,
disavow the right of secession. We al
luded TO the fact that both of the old
parties had on all appropriate occasions
declared against the right of secession.
We pointed to the fact that Mr.. Nicholson
when the candidate of, and elected by the
Democracy of Tennessee to the United
States Senate in 1867, declared as part
of his platform: ''. 100
81 do not hold to the constitutional
| right of secession, inasmuch as, in my
| opinion, secession is revolutionary rem
| edy, which, however, intolerable oppres-
| sion or aggression upon the rights of any
people or State may justify"
We also pointed to the fact that our
Declaration of Independence and ordi-
nance dissolving the federal relations be-
tween the State of Tennessee and the
United States of America in 1851, says:
eve, the people of the State of Ten
nessee, waving any expression of opin-
| ion as to the abstract doctrine of seces-
sion, but asserting the right as free and
| Independent people to alter, reform OF
abolish our form of government in such
manner as we think proper, do ordain,
etc.
We further alluded to thefact that the
late war, SO far as Tennessee was con-
cerned, was not made upon the fright of
secession" but upon the right of an OPP
pressed people to fight for what they be-
lleved thsir rights, guaranteed by the
| Constitution and refused by the Lincoln
Hsmlin administration.
No party in this State ever avowed the
right to secede as political principle.
That was a South Carolina doctrine which
was bitterly repudiated by old Wings AMI
as bitterly spurned by Jackson Democrats.
Gen. jackson, the founder, father and
idol of Tennessee Democracy, said in his
celebrated proclamation:
Because the Union was formed by
compact it ia said the parties to that COM
pact may, when they feel themselves az
grieved, depart from it, but it is precisely
because it is a compact that they cannot.
A compact is an agreement or binding OBJ
legation 1t may, by its terms, have
sanction or penalty for its breach, or it
may not If it contains no sanction it
NAV be broken with no other consequence
than moIal guilt; if ii have sanction, then
the breach incurs the designated or implied
penalty. A league between independent
nations, generally, has no sanction other
than moral one; or if it should contain
! a penalty, as there is no common supe
rior, it cannot be enforced. A Govern
ment on the contrary always has sane
ton, express or implied; and in our case
it is both necessarily implied and express
| ly given. An attempt by force of arms
to destroy government, Is an
offense by whatever means the con-
stitutional compact may have been
formed; and such government has
the right by the law of self-defense to
pass acts to punish the offender, unless
that right IS modified, restrained or re-
sumed by the constitutional act. The as
sumed right of secession, he repeated,
rests on the alleged undivided sovereignty
of the States, and on their having formed
IN this sovereign capacity a compact
which was called the Constitution, from
which, because they made it, they have
the right to secede. i
This position he deemed erroneous, say
ing ''rhe Statesssseverally have not re
tanned their entire sovereignty. 1t has
been shown that in becoming parts of a
nation, not members of league, they sur
rendered many of their parts of sOver-
eighty. The right to make treaties, de-
clare war, levy taxes, exercise exclusive
| judicial and Legislative powers, were all of
them functions of sovereign power. The
States then, for all these important
powers, were no longer sovereign. The
/ allegiance of their citizens was transferred,
| in the first instance, to the government of
the United States; they became American
citizens and owed allegiance to the Con-
stitutiOn of the United States and to the
laws made in conformity with the powers
it vested in Congress.
We have thus fully alluded to the past,
that no one, even of the rising generation,
should misunderstood the position of par
ties in Tennessee previous to the war, or
be unable to comprehend the present pO-
litical situation. With this full knowl
edge Of the past, with a partial knowledge
of the desires of our Northern friends,
with anxious solicitude as to our cOndi-
ton as State in the estimation of Con-
gress, we insisted as a matter of safety
to ourselves, as matter of ar
gument for the Northern Democracy,
that our State Convention should
unequivocally avow, in accordance
with the time-honored principles of old
Wings and old Democrats in Tennessee
that no State has right to secede. 1t was
a dead issue with us, but RadicaliSm would
not permit it to sleep. Daily, upon the
stump, in the press, everywhere 1t is
dragged forth and descanted upon. For
our own security we desired that the
Democracy of Tennessee should, in con-
vention assembled, disown this the,ry
and thus finally and forever hush the
earnings of Radicalism.
Instead of using the unequivocal Ian
gusge which we should have used, the
Convention treated the issue as
dead. Our fears as to the re-
suit of this course have been partially re-
allied. The Cincinnati Commercial,
perhaps the most moderate of the North
ern Republican Journals, the day after
the reception of the Tennessee platform,