Year: 1861

E least four bandted thousand hsgH AID Eou


hundred millions of dollars. That number {
men IS about one tenth of those of proper age


within the regions where apparently all al
: willing to engage, and the sum is less ihan
tweniE third part Of the money value owne
by the men who seem ready to devote til


whele.


a debt Of six hundred millions of dollar


now is a less sum per head thai was the deb


of oar Revolution when we came out of tha


struggle, and the money value in the countrl


now eeafs even greater proportion to wiIa


it was then than does the population. Surely


each nan has as strong a motive now to pre-


serve oar liberties as each had then to ssta5


lish them:


| A fight result at this time will be worth NOR


10 the world than ten times the men and ter


times The money! The evidence reaching us


from the country, leaves no doubts that the ma.
terial for the work is abundant, atid that il
needs only the hand Of legislation to give it
| legal sanction, and the hand of the Executive
to give it practical shape and efficiency.
One of the greatest preplexities of the Gov
ernment is to avoid receiving troops faster than
provided for; that, in a word, the people will
save their government, if the government itsel
viii do its part only indiferently well. 1t
might seem at first thought to be oflittle differ
ence whether the present movement at the
south be called secession or rebellion. The
movers, however, well understood the differ
ence at the beginning. They knew they could
never raise their treason to any respectable
magnitude BY any name which implies viola
tioh of law.


They knew their people possessed as much
moral sense, as much of devotion to law and
order, and as much pride and reverence for the
history and government of their common coun-
try as any other civilized and patriotic peo-
pie. They knew they could make no advance
ment directly in the teeth of these strong and
noble sentiments. Accordingly they commen-
ced by an insidious debauching of the public
mind.


they inverted an ingenious sophism which,
Il conceded, was followed by perfectly logical
steps, through all the incidents to the complete
destruction of the Union. The sophism itself
is that any State of the Union may consistent
ly with the National Constitution, dnd therefore
lawfully and acefully withdraw from the





any other State.


The frail disguise that the supposed right is
10 be exercised only for just catse, because
they themselves are TO be the sole judges of its
Justice. is too thin to merit any notice. With
rebellion thus sugar coated, they have been
drugging the public mind Of their section for
more than thirty years, until at length they
have brought many good men to willingness
TO take up arms against the government, the
day after some asssmblage ofmen have enacted
the farcial pretence of taking their State out
Of ;he Union, who could have been brought to
no such thing the day before. This sophism
derives uluch, peslzaps The whole Of its currency
from the assumption that there is some Omnipo-
tent and sacred supremacy pertaining to each
State of our Federal Union.


Our States have neither more nor less power
than that reserved to them in the Union ey the
Constitution, no one Of them ever having been
State out Of the Union. The original ones
passed into the Union even elorc they cast off
their British colonial dependence, and the new
ones each came into the Union directly FROM
condition of dependence, except Texas; and
even Texas in its temporary independence, was
never designated State.


The new ones only took the dcsig .Ass:tfcn of
States on coming into the Union, while that
name was first adopted by the old ones in and
by the Colonies Which were declared to be free
and independent States; but even then the OBJ
ject plainly was not to declare their indepen-
dence of one another, or OF the Union, but di-
rectIy the contrary, as their mutual pledge and
their mutual action before, at the time. aud af
forwards, abundantly shows. The express
pighting of faith by each and all of the origi-
nal thirteen in the Articles Of Confederation,
petual, is most conclusive!


Having never been States5 either in sub
stance or in name, outside Of the Union whence
this magical omnipotence of State rights, as
sesting a claim of power to lawfully destroy
the e Union itself? Much is ssrid about the sov-
ereignty of the States, but the word even, is |
not in the National Constitution, nor, as it is |
believed, in any Of the State Constitutions
What is sovereignty in the political sense cf
the term? Would it be far wrong to define i, I
as political community without political |
superior?


Tested by this 60 one of our States, except |
L
gave up the character on coming into the I'm
ion, by which act she acknowledged the Con-
of the United States, and the laws and |
treaties of the United States made in pursu- /
ance of the Constitution, to be for her the su-
preme law Of the land.


The States have their status in the Union
and they have no other legal status. If they /
break from this, they can only do so against the
law by revelation. The Enion3 end not them
selves separated, procured their independence
and their liberty by conquest or purchase. The
Union gave each of them whatever intepen- P
dence and liberty it had


The Union is older than any of the States
and in fact created them as States. Originally
some dependent colonies made the Union, and
in turn the Union threw of their Old depend
ence Gor thenY and made the States, such as
they arc. Not one of them ever had state
Constitution independent of the Union


OF course it is not forgotten that all the new
States framed their Constitutions before they /
entered the Union. Nevertheless dependent
upon, and preparatory to coming into the Un-
ion, unquestionably the States have the powers
and rights reserved to them in and by the Ma.
tional Constitution; but among these sttrely
are not included all conceivable pbwefs. hbw-
ever mischievous OF destructive, Rtsbwn' in the
world at the titheI as governmental powers.


And eertsfniy d power to destroy the Gov
ernment itself had never been known as Gov
Merely administrative power, this
relative matter Of national power and State
rights, as a principle is no other than the prin-
,ipe Of generality and locality. Whatever
The whole sheuld be con6ded to the
whole-to the general Government, while
whatever concerns only the stated should be
left exclusively to the State, that is oil there
is of original principle abhrA it.


Whether tue National Cohsiitutich IL ,leah-
ing boundaries between the two has a5piied-T