Nor do they inform the reader, that the great leaders of this very party in New England, became in 1815, when in distress, the warmest of all existing advocates for the rights and the sovereignty of individual States. They do not even drop a hint, that those leaders, those staunch advocates of the sovereignty of the Federal Government, were the first to insist on the right of secession; a fact which would have detracted very much from the weight of their authority against the doctrine of "a federative compact among States," even if they had ever rejected that doctrine.

History acquits the old federal party of the monstrous heresy imputed to it. Having been chief agents themselves in framing "the federative compact" for the States; and having anxiously watched the States as, one after another, each acceded to that compact; such a heresy, such a perversion of the facts falling under their own observation, would have been utterly beyond their power. How, then, and why, did the heresy in question raise its head in the Northern States?

This question is easily answered.

1. The doctrine of a compact is attended with one great inconvenience; the inconvenience, namely, that if it be violated by one of the parties, the other parties are absolved from its obligations. This great inconvenience is set forth by Dr. Paley; to whose chapter on the subject, in his Political Philosophy, Mr. Justice Story refers. Now this doctrine makes the stability of the Federal Compact depend on the good faith of all the parties; which seemed quite too frail a foundation for the Union. Hence, the doctrine of a federative compact, which, for forty years had been held by both the great parties of the United States, was explained away, and the will of the strongest substituted in its place. According to his theory, then, the Union rested, not on the justice of the parties, but on the despotic power of the dominant faction. He thus placed

the Union, by his construction, on what he conceived to be a more solid foundation "than a federative compact between the States." But this, as we have seen, was to subvert the foundation laid by the fathers of the Union; and, in order to make good his theory, he had to falsify the whole political history of the United States during the first forty years of the existence of the new Union; especially the views and the authority of its founders.

2. The right of secession had never been seriously considered by any party, so long as the Union was prosperous and happy. But, during the period from 1803 to 1815, the great leaders of New England, regarding their section as grievously oppressed in the Union, revolved the great theme in mind, and, for the first time in the history of parties, deliberately asserted the right of secession. In view of this alarming event, it became still more important, in the opinion of Mr. Justice Story and other constructionists, to deny the doctrine of a federative compact, from which, as he saw and admitted, so frightful a consequence necessarily resulted.

3. This denial became the more indispensable, in Judge Story's opinion; because Mr. William Rawle had, in 1825, asserted the right of secession in his work in the Constitution. Mr. Justice Story alludes to the opinion of Mr. Rawle, and, deploring it, he bent all his energies and erudition to demolish the doctrine of a federative compact, from which that right necessarily, results. Thus, according to his theory, the Union was to be hooped with bands of iron, and not trusted to the mutual sympathy and goodfaith of its members.

4. But, however great and commanding the influence of Story's opinion, or view of the Constitution, it would have been comparatively feeble; if it had not been aided by public events. South Carolina, feeling herself and some of her sister States grievously oppressed in the Union, by the tariffs of 1824 and 1828; planted herself on the great

platform of State-Rights, and nullified the act of Congress. The indignation of the North was aroused. Nullification, it was said, led directly to secession, or a dissolution of the Union. The New England States, which had only fifteen years before advocated the right of secession, now led the fierce crusade against its advocates. John C. Calhoun, the great nullifier, was the mark of their fury. It was in this contest, as every one knows, that the great orator of New England, Mr. Webster, put forth "the greatest intellectual effort of his life," if not of the human mind. The whole North was electrified by his eloquence; and became intoxicated with his fictions.

Much has been said about the Northern and the Southern theories of the Constitution. The true word is, however, the theories of the majority and of the minority. For the Southern theory, as it is called, originated in New England; and, passing from minority to minority, found a permanent resting place in the South. Yet it may, with truth, be called the Southern theory; since the South has always been in the minority in the new Union.

Mr. Webster lived to pronounce a splendid eulogy on the virtues, the patriotism, and the genius of John C. Calhoun; with whom he had so long served in the Senate of the United States. But the successors of Mr. Webster have, for more than eighteen long months, held the bosom friend and the peer of John C. Calhoun in prison at Fortress Monroe, as if he were already a convicted felon and traitor. Yet is it, as we have seen, his only crime, that he sat at the feet of Thomas Jefferson, "the immortal author of the Declaration of Independence;" and there learned the right of secession. Shall the people, then, who sang loud hozannas to the great master, follow the equally great disciple with the cry of crucify him, crucify him? Or shall it be said, that they voted the Presidency for the one, and a prison for the other?

CHAPTER XIX.

The Causes of Secession.

In the preceding chapters, the Constitutional right of secession has, it seems to me, been demonstrated. If so, then in the eye of reason, the Southern States are acquitted of every offence against the Constitution, or the supreme law of the land. But, however clear a legal or constitutional right, it may not be always proper to exercise it. If the Southern States exercised the right of secession merely because they possessed that right, or merely because they were beaten at an election, or for any such "light and transient cause;" then they committed a great wrong. Then, although they violated no law of the land, they committed a great and grievous wrong against the moral law of the world, by a capricious exercise of their sovereign right and power. Hence, the vindication of the Southern States in the forum of conscience, as well as in that of the law, demands an exposition of the causes of secession. It would require a volume to do justice to this subject; and yet, at present, a brief sketch is all that can be attempted.

The Balance of Power.

From the foundation of the American Union to the present day, the provision of its Constitution for the fractional representation of slaves, has been more talked about, and less understood, than any other clause of that "sacred instrument." One would suppose, that if any one really

desired to ascertain the reason or design of this "singular provision," as it is called, he would look into the debates of the Convention by which it was inserted in the Constitution. In these debates, as reported in "The Madison Papers," the reason or design of the fathers in the enactment of that clause is as clear as the noonday sun. Yet, in all that has been written by the North on the subject, there is not even a glimmering of light as to that reason or design. Men make books, says old Burton, as apothecaries make medicines, by pouring them out of one bottle into another. This has most emphatically been the way in which men have made books on "the American Question;" and, in the case before us, the bottles were originally filled, not at the pure fountains of historic truth, but from the turbid streams of ignorance, falsehood, and misrepresentation. Yet, for three quarters of a century, has all this vile stuff been continually poured out of one book into another. Accordingly, we find it in a hundred books on both sides of the Atlantic; uttered with just as much cônfidence as if the authors had some knowledge on the subject.

Thus are we gravely told, and with great confidence, that "the weakest point in the Constitution lies elsewhere. It lies in that truckling to the slave-power which is ob-, vious in it....It lies especially in that singular provision for what is termed 'black' or 'slave' representation, whereby alone, amongst all species of property, that in human flesh is made a source of political power."* Now, if any thing in history is certain, it is that, after a protracted debate, the Convention of 1787 agreed that population, and population alone, should constitute the basis of representation. The slaves were not represented at all as property. This is evident, not only from the debates of the Convention of 1787, but from the very face of the Constitution itself. "Representatives," says that document, * History, by T. M. Ludlow, pp. 44–5.