, 1872-01-08
Senator Morton as a Resur-
ractionIst,

Boston, on what he terms the National
Idea, though in former times it was
called the doctrine of State Sovereignty.
1t is supposed oy most people that the
experiences of the late war have set that
doctrine at rest, but they are not SO in
terpreted by the learned and honorable
gentleman from the West. He is clearly |
of the opinion that the bullets of our
soldiers failed to explode the heresy, /
and that volley of Senatorial logic |
must be added to the volley of the can
mons, in order to clench the argument.
Unfortunately the logic of the Senator
is not by any means of the most con-
vincing kind if it damages the ancient
theory, it does SO by setting up another
in its place; and when the reader to be
persuaded reaches the end of the rea-
soning he is doubtful whether the sub
stitute be not, ON the whole, more dan
gerous than the tenet it aims to sup
plant. Mr., Morton is a subtle and in
genious politician; he writes with force
and speaks with volubility, if not elo-
quence; but we are not impressed by
his accumen as constitutional lawyer
nor by his powers and grasp as states
man.
State sovereignty, as it was held on
the old plantation theory, is unques-
tionably lost issue; no one urges it
any more. In the chool-houses of New
England it has taken place with Indian
cosmogonies, or the metallic tractors of
Perkins. Even the spared monument
of Bourbonic persistence, Mr.. Alexander
II. Stephens, breaches it tenderly, and
the magniloquent Toombs has become,
in regard to it, as the hymn-books say,
"a doleful sound" In other words, it
is as dead as julius Caesar; and it puz-
zles US to understand why Mr.. Morton
should have gone all the way from the
banks of the Mississippi to the Atlantic
coast to plunge his particular dagger in
the body of the dead monarch, in the
midst of jubillant cackle of rhetoric.
Does he imagine that the venerable
corpse is going to burst its cerements.
and arise with more than its original
vigor?
If that be his impression, let us quiet
his fears by the assurance that not only
is state sovereignty dead, but it is very
dead. The mummies that sleep in the
secretest chambers of the Pyramids are
not further removed from the glimpses
of the sun, than are the theories of our
political structure which once furnished
grounds for the nice metaphysics of
Calhoun, and the blatant treacheries of
jefferson Davis. The notion that the
several States of the United States are
actually " free, sovereign and indie
pendent States" each possessing the
rights and capable Of exercising the
powers of distinct nation; that their
relations to the Union are mere vol
untary compact or league, which they
are at liberty to break whenever they
may deem the conditions infringed
that notification, secession, disruption
are in any sense rightful, not revolu
tionary remedies for abuses; these no
tions, we say, are as utterly perished a:
the institution of slavery, for who's,
behoof and benefit they were principal,
devised. 1t is as much waste of tim
for Senator Morton to rake over the cas-
off and tattered garments of the burie,
victim as it would be for moderl
chemist to revive the old doctrine O
phlogiston, or for a professor of tn
Smithsonian to batter away at the gee
logical hypothesis of Winston.
But the Senator has an object in thu
reviving the slain, and killing him one
again, which is to resuscitate anothe
form of doctrine that in our opinio
ought to be as dead as its fellow. II
dispatches State sovereignty, in orde
to make US believe that the other e1
treme of State subserviency is the onl
alternative. The states" he say!
"hold their rights by the agreement {
consent of the nation;'' not from an
one borrowed and original power whic
they possess as states, but derivativel
from the Constitution of the Unite
States, as it was adopted 1887. The
rights are granted to them by the N
tion, of which they are not the co-ord
nate, but the subordinate parts, al
which rights it is to be presumed IL
nation may modify and recall at al
time that in its supreme pleasure
deems fit. 1t is the old consolidate
doctrine, over again, but over again
its worst form: uttered with latitu
of meaning that would have startl
Nathan Dawes, Fisher Ames or Jud
Story. Gas God is oyer the universe
exclaims Mr.. Morton, in fine burst
rhetoric, SO the nation is over
states," that is to say, the nation is O
nipotent, infallible, beyond question
control, while the states are the pc
dependent and needy creatures of
bounty.
Now. this seems to us quite as bad
any of the vagaries of the old south
scheme of thought. 1t is just as IL
ough a mistake or perversion of
nature of our political CONSTITUTE
The 1,aorla of the IInited Statas