The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-10-14

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Texas unless arrested on the Threshold
may tend to drive these States ne"
England) into a dissolution of the Union
Daniel Webster tthe great "expounder
of the Constitution, as he is called1.
notwithstanding his famous reply TO MI.
Hayne delivered in 1890. in which he SO
ingeniously denied the right of State TO
determine for itself when its conStitu-
tional powers were infriHged and also mat
the Constitution was a compact between
sovereign States. and commended that the
power to determine the constitutionallty
of the laws Of Congress, was lodged only
in the Federal Governmental speech
delivered at Capon Springs, Virginia, in
1851, used this language:
IF THE South We're to violate any part
of the Constitution Intentionally and sys-
tematically. and persist in so DONG from
YEAR to wear and no remedy could De had,
would the North be any longer bound by
the rest of it: ana if the North were de-
IiDerately. habitually and of fixed purpose
TO disregard on. part of 1t, would the
South be bound any longer to observe us
other obligations? How absurd
is it to suppose that when different parties
enter into a compact for certain purposes,
either can disregard any one provision ana
expect nevertheless the other to observe
tn. rest! a bargain cannot be
Broken on one side and still bind the
other
He said in a speech delivered at Buffalo.
N Y. during the same year:
The question. feilow-citizen Cand l put
It to YOU as the real questionl-the CUES
ton is, whether you and the rest of the
people Of the great State Of New York and
of ali the States will so adhere 10 the
Union-wil so enact and maintain laws
to preserve that instrument-that you Will
not only remain in the Union yourself,
but permit your Southern brethren to re-
main in it and help to perpetuate It,
How different is the language above
uuoted from Mr.. Webster in MS Capon
Springs speech from the proposition as
stated by Mr. Lincoln IN MS first inaugural,
When he says:
"One party to a contract may violate 1t
break IL so 10 speak-but does It not re-
ouire all to lawfully rescind it?
But what more could be expected OF Mr.
Lincoln. when il is we'll known that ne
held that the relation of the States TO the
Union was the same as that which the
counties bear 10 the States of which they
respectively form a part?
THOSE WHO DENY IT
Those who deny the right OF secession
are fond Of quoting as their authority
extracts from Mr.. Webster's reply TO Mr.
Hayne. made in 1890. 1t is worthy OF note
that the Capon Springs and Buffalo
speeches were made in 1851; and these last
are the product of his ripper thinkins-his
pl ofounder reflections. He had evidently
learned much about the Constitution in the
twenty-one Years that had interviewed,
and in his maturer years was, indeed,
speaking as a statesman. and not only as
an advocate. as he did in 1870
But il is all-important TO remember that
Mr.. Webster nowhere in this whole speech
refers to the right of secession. His whole
argument in this connection is against the
right of nullifcation. another and very
different thing; but one which, as we viii
presently show, was actually being eNer-
cfsed by fourteen out of the sixteen free
States in 1851.
In 1855 Senator Benjamin T. Wade. of
Ohio afterwards, as we know, one of the
most notorious South-haters), said in q
speech delivered in the United States
Senate:
'.Vho is the judge in the last resort Of
the violation of the Constitution of the
United States by the enactment OF a law?
Who is the final arbiter. the General Gov
eminent or the States III their sovereignty?
Why. sir. to yield that point is to yield
up all the rights of the States to protect
their own citizens. and to consolidate this
Government into q miserable despotiSm.
And he further said, on the 18th of De-
cen2ber, 1850:
ST do not SO much blame the people Of
the South, because 1 think they have been
led to believe that we to-day, the doni-
nant party. who are about TO take the reins
of government. are their mortal foes, and
stand ready TO trarple their institutions
under foot
AN ARDENT SUPPORTER.
And notwithstanding the expression Of
these sentiments. we know, as we say,
that this man became one Of the most
ardent supporters Of the miserable despot-
ism established by Abraham Lincoln. ana
became the second officer in that "despot-
ISM on the assassination of Mr.. Lincoln.
On the 9th Of November. 1860 Mr.. Horace
Greeley, the great apostle of the Republic
can marty. and who was often referred TO
during Mr. Lincolns administration as
the .apower behind the throne-greater
than the throne itself" sad in his paper
the New York Tribune:
IF the Cotton States consider the Nai!e
of the Union debatable, we maintain their
nerfect tight to discuss it: nay, we hold
win Jefferson. to the alienabie right OF
communities to altar or abolish forms OF
government that have become oppressive or
INJURIOUS: and if the Cotton states decide
that they can do better out OF the Union
than in it. we insist on letting them go IN
neace. The right to secede may be revo-
lutionary one but it exists nevertheless;
aud we do not see how one party can have
a. right to do what another party has
right 10 prevent.
On the l7tt-of December, 1860, Just before
the secession of South Carolina. he again
said in the Tribune:
..If it (tfe Declaration of independence
justified the secession from the British
Empire of three millions of coionlsts IN
l776 we do not see why it would not Justl-
fy the secession of five millions OF south
rons from the Federal Union III 1861. II
we are mistaken on this point, why does
not some one attempt to show wherein and
why?''
Again. on February the sd, 1851. five days
after the Inauguration OF President Davis
at Montgomery. he said:
1--WE have repeatedly said, and we once
more insist. that the great principle en-
bodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of
American Independence-that governments
derive their just powers from the consent
of the goyerned-is sound and just and
that if the slave States. the Cotton States.
or the Gulf States only, choose to form an
independent nation. they have a clear
moral right to do So