The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-08-21

the system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the states. and from Whlch each and every state had the right peaceaoly 10 withdraw a right which was very likely to L- exercised
 upon the consideration of the bill for the admission of Louisiana in 1S11 Josiah Quincy, a member of congress of high standing from Massachusetts declared that IT the bill passes II is my deliberate opinion that 1t Is virtually a dissolution of the union that 1t will free the states from moral obligation. and It will be the right of all and the duty of some, to pre- pare for that separation' And 1t must be noted that this objection and threat did not come because of any violation of any article of the constitution. but because the admission of Louisiana would give the South greater influence in the con gress than MT. Quincy thought the fram- CTS of the constitution contemplated.
 Tt is also well known that regular dele gates chosen by the legislatures of Rhode Island and Connecticut. and representa- tives of New Hampshire and Vermont. sat at Hartford in 1874 to consider whether the New England states should withdraw from the Union and declared 1t then 1n- expedient, but published the conditions which would make 1t expedient
 Dissolution of Union.
 Surely the makers of the instrument must have best understood it. No law human or divine, compels a man to wait until his adversary shall bind him hand and foot before asserting his rights and defending his life, liberty or property.
 Tt was manifest that If one or more states of the Union could, with impunity, disregard and defy and render imperative and void, one clause of the contract, that no clause was safe from assault and de- struction.
 MT Lincoln had said that no country could exist half slave ana half free and 1t was surely more self-evident that no union could exist where one half the states could deny the other half the rights under the terms of .-aat union.
 50 in 1861 the southern states finding their rights under the constitution denied them and dehed. and being unable to com prehend how any instrument could bind them and leave the other partners free, and believing that other and more inn portant rights would in time be denied them, decided 10 secede.
 Wanted to Secure Rights.
 "They did not attempt to overthrow the constitution but to secure to themselves the very rights guaranteed by that in- strument they felt that It was a partner ship of equal and sovereign states, and that when the very foundations of the partnership had been destroyed they had the right to retire and set up business on their own account.
 Even the Declaration of Independence had asserted the right of any people to alter abolish or change their form of gov ernment whenever they desired, even if this right was not specifically guaranteed in the constitution. So we decided to ex- ercise that right.
 We did not even ask for a division of the assets: we did not proclaim war. but did everything that honorable men could to avert it.
 'We sent commissioners to Washington and endeavorec to secure the surrender of the forts within our territory and to have a friendly settlement of every ques- tion that might arise. Forsyth, of Ala bama, Crawford, of Georgia, and Govern or Roman, of Louisiana. We exercised the very right that the New England states had threatened to exercise during the war of 1872, and that Massachusetts had threatened to exercise if Texas was admitted Into the Union.
 But the politicians and fanatics of the North loved us so wei that they deter- mined they could not exist without our society and association.
 Having sold the negroes to the South, with the purchase money in their pockets they decided that slavery was great crime They did not offer to restore the money.
 "So they declared war upon us, and in-