Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-08-13
ICommunicated.l
JEREMIAH BLACKS DHrENsE.

sno past year VI so mas peen most remarkable.
he has been especially prevalent in the pages
of the North American Review where his
pleasant sarcasms and hating logic remind
one Of the days of his legal renown, when he
relied more on an apt quotation from Shake
speare than on dry precedents. He has writ
ten of late on a great variety of subjects,
apparently to convince the world that he
bears without mental inconvenience the bur-
den of nearly four.score years. His recent
article in the Philadelphia Press shows that
this profuse outgiying was part of a plan
leading up to an attempt to relieve himself
from the traditional obloquy attached to his
conduct as member of Buchanans admin
istration. He sought to familiarize the pub
lie with the idea OF his being steady press
contributor, and has brought to the task his
undoubted genius for being entertaining.
To have written the Press article as a single
essay would have been bald; but SIS one of
series of expected uttefances it might have
weight
It is net strange that man like Black, of
considerable learning and unusual ability,
who once filed high public stations, from
which he has been excluded for years by pub.
lie distrust, should wish to make peace with
posterity, and obtain from it an indulgence
which contemporaries have denied. Far be
it from the writer to object to any man,
chatting under popular odium because of mis-
used opportunities, rehabilitatiug himself by
honest confession, or even by insisting on ex-
tenuating circumstances. But right and
wrong must not be confused, gold and dross
COMPOUNDED, or the facts of history belied. 1t
is due to the future that distinctions between
Secessionists and Unionists, and between
their impulses, utterances and acts, shall be
insisted upon, even if the former have still
to lie under load of condemnation.
Mr.. Black ostensibly defends Mr. Buch-
anan from the charge Of "timidity brought
by Jefferson Davis, and seeks to show that
that President and his Cabinet, save one,
were for succoring Fort Sumter and forcibly
resisting rebellion. While this is the asserted
object of the article it is mainly directed 10
prove that Mr.. Black was warmly for resist
ing the progress of rebellion by military
power, in which greater progress would have
been made under Mr.. Buchanan had not
General Scott been so warm Secessionist.
l will not step aside to defend General Scott,
but would like to ask if this generation is
wholly at fault in the supposition that Mr..
Black was ardently and openly, during the
trying days that succeeded Mr. Lincoln's
election and preceded his Inauguration,
contemner of the doctrine that force could
legally be used by the General Government
to suppress the rebellion? 1t would be hair
splitting to resolve this query into the mere
question whether Black held that troops
should be put into Sumter. Did he believe
they should be put there as an advantageous
point from which to assail and break down
rebellion? Or did he believe and advise that
the President and Congress itself had no right
to forcibly resist secession?
Unfs rtunately for Mr.. Black he was the
legal adviser of Buchanan, and gave his ad-
vice in writing on these very points. No
vember 20. 1860, he submitted written
opinion upon the subject of the powers of the
General Government to "coerce sovereign
States" After saying that military force can
suppress any such combinations as are found
directly opposing the laws and obstructiug
the execution thereof, and can do no more
than might be done by civil posse, he asks
But what if the feeling in any State against
the United States should become so universal
that the Federal officers themselves (including
judges, District Attorneys and Marshals)
would be reached by the same influences, and
resign their places? We are therefore to con-
slider what can be done in case we have no
Courts to issue judicial process, and no min
isterial officers to execute it. In that event
troops would certainly be out of place, and
their use illegal. Ii they are sent to aid the
Courts and Marshals, then must the Courts
and Marshals be aided. Without the exer-
else of those functions, which belong exclu-
sively to the civil service, the laws cannot be
executed in any event, no matter what may
be the physical strength which the Govern.
ment has at its command. Under such cir
cumstances to send military force into any
State, with orders to act against the people,
would be simply making war upon them"
Again, he said:
If one of the States should declare her
independence, your action cannot depend
upon the rightfulness of the cause upon which
such declaration is based"
Upon this he argues that no power is given
by express words or by implication of the
Constitution I" to make war on one or more
States" The power to declare war, grant
letters of marque and reprisal, and to make
rules concerning captures on land and water"
means nothing more than the power to
commence and carry on hostilities against
the foreign enemies of the nation" In the
same manner he reasons that the Constitution
only gives power to suppress instruction
against, not By, a State. He exclaims:
IS If Congress shall break up the present
Union by unconstitutionally putting strife
and enmity, and armed hostility, between
different sections of the country, will not all
the States be absolved from their obligations
Is any portion of the people bound to con-
tribute their money or their blood to carry
on contest like that ?"
President Buchanan's last message fol-
lowed the reasoning of his Attorney General
as laid down in the state paper from which I
quote. Well might the London Times say
Never for many years can the United
States be to the world what they have been.
MIR. Buchanan's message has been greater
blow to the American people than all the
rants of Southern Governors or the ordi-
nances of the Charleston Convention"
Notwithstanding &c post tacto exhibitions of
his loyalty. MIR. Black cannot satisfy the
minds or consciences of the people unless he
can blot ont solemn state paper that en-
tered into the text of the subsequent message
and paralyZed the arm of the Government of
which its author was an active part. He says,
in regard to letter of General Scott
"What impetus his action and the pub
lished utterances gave to secession, can be
best determined from that document"
What impetus Blacks argument, that the
nation was powerless to put down the rebell-
ion, and which was published broadcast
North and South, gave to the fees of the
Union, cannot be in doubt.
If the republic could have been preserved
without coercing the South if the flag could
have been triumphant without invading the
sacred soil if freedom could have been as
sured without enfranchising slave; if the
treaSufy COuiu udVe Deen Hlleu WltnOup levy
ing tax A; if armies could have been recruit
ed without men, and victories gained without
battle, then, perhaps, would the policy of such
men as Black have made us as great, as free,
as powerful, as victorious as we became
by rejecting their advice. As it is, he and
all such made their record, and from it there
is no escape by post-mortem repentance and
loud-voiced protestations of innocence after
judgment. By the acts and declarations of
these representative men, who now feel the
chill of public contempt and who will have
to endure the contumely of history, they are
identified beyond the possibility of doubt, or
the chance of mistake, or the hope of with
drawal, with the great crime that nearly de-
stroyed this nation.
UNHAPPY SEQUEL TO ROMANCE.
Mention was made few days ago of the
romantic marriage of a young lady of
Richmond, Va, who answered an adver-
tisement of an Ohio widower for govern.
ess to take charge of young child. The
widowers name was Thomas Marvin, and