The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-07-06
Instice 10 Mr.. Ench anAn.

To The EDITOR OF The SUN-Sr. In
a letter addressed to The Sun of the 18th
inst, by Joseph L. Topham, ESQ., find the
following statement
Mr.. Buchanan took ground that the States
had no right to secede from the Union, and
also the counter ground that the Federal
Government had no constitutional power to
coerce them to remain in the Union.
Failing to make further explanation of
Mr.. Buchanan's views, which was necessary
in order to do the deceased statesman full
justice Mr.. Topham leaves the inference to
be drawn that Mr.. Buchanan believed that
there was no way by which the Union could
be preserved in the event of an attempted
secession by the people of State but that
it must be destroyed, for want of constitu
tional power to preserve it.
For nearly twenty years it has been charg-
ed upon Mr.. Buchanan, by his political ene-
mics, that if an attempt were made by the
people of State to leave the Union, there
was no constitutional power to coerce them
to remain in the Union and therefore he
would not permit the Union to be dissolve
without an effort 70 prevent it.
1t is quite true that this calumny upon
Mr.. Buchanan was repelled, and justice
done to his memory. Mr.. Buchanan never
held to the doctrine that, if the people of a
State should attempt to withdraw from the
Union, there was no constitutional pow
er to compel them TO remain in the
Union. He held Just the reverse. He held
that State, as a political organization, could
not secede from the Union, but always re-
mained in it, whatever its people might do
that the Union is perpetual and supreme in
the sphere of the powers delegated to it by
the Constitution that it had nothing to do
with the political organizations called the
States, but it had power over the people of
the States, and could compel them to obedi-
ence to the laws of the Union, by force if
necessary.
This doctrine would retain the States per-
petually in the Union, and if their people
should rebel, or resist the laws of the Union
it could conquer them and reduce them to
obedience. And when that was done, it re-
| suited, as matter of course, that their poll
| tical relations to the Union would be at once
restored, the States to which they belonged
never having been out of the Union.
This was Mr.. Buchanan's doctrine. 1t is
the sound and true, and, will add, the wise
and patriotic doctrine. If it had been re-
cognized as tue, the fallacious and mis-
chievous doctrine of State suicide and re-
constructions and all the cost and trouble to
the Federal Government, and suffering to
the people of the South it has occasioned
would have been avoided.
A doctrine which holds that the Union by
the constitutional compact is perpetual, is
forever intact, and cannot be dissolved and
that the people of the States in rebellion,
| insurrection, or resistance to the laws of the
Union, may be conquered and coerced by
force into obedience to the Union and that
| the moment they cease their resistance to
| the Union and become obedient ard peace
| able citizens, their political relations to the
Unisn are precisely the same as before their
resistance to its supremacy, cannot be re-
garded as an unconstitutional, nor an unsafe
| doctrine.
| Mr.. Buchanan was not alone in the open
! promulgation of this doctrine 1t was also
held and advocated in the United States
Senate by ex-President johnson.
The facts above stated can be unequivocally
established if disputed.
1t will be seen that the real doctrines of
| Mr.. Buchanan would forever preserve the
Union as it was made by the fathers, and as
it is. And they can be objected to only by
those who would attempt to prevent the
| Union, or revolutionze it in its essential
character and power by the unconstitutional
and dangerous doctrine of State suicide and
reconstruction. EDMUND BURKE,
NEWPORT, N. H., June IS, 1877.