South Carolina
Took Upon Herself To Act As She Might Have Acted Had That
Confederation Remained In Force; But That Confederation Was An
Acknowledged Failure.
National greatness could not be achieved
under it, and individual enterprise could not succeed under it.
Then in lieu of that, by the united consent of the thirteen States,
the present Constitution was drawn up and sanctioned, and to that
every State bound itself in allegiance.
In that Constitution no
power of secession is either named or presumed to exist. The
individual sovereignty of the States had, in the first instance,
been thought desirable. The young republicans hankered after the
separate power and separate name which each might then have
achieved; but that dream had been found vain - and therefore the
States, at the cost of some fond wishes, agreed to seek together for
national power rather than run the risks entailed upon separate
existence. Those of my readers who may be desirous of examining
this matter for themselves, are referred to the Articles of
Confederation and the Constitution of the United States. The latter
alone is clear enough on the subject, but is strengthened by the
former in proving that under the latter no State could possess the
legal power of seceding.
But they who created the Constitution, who framed the clauses, and
gave to this terribly important work what wisdom they possessed, did
not presume to think that it could be final. The mode of altering
the Constitution is arranged in the Constitution. Such alterations
must be proposed either by two-thirds of both the houses of the
general Congress, or by the legislatures of two-thirds of the
States; and must, when so proposed, be ratified by the legislatures
of three-fourths of the States, (Article V.) There can, I think, be
no doubt that any alteration so carried would be valid - even though
that alteration should go to the extent of excluding one or any
number of States from the Union. Any division so made would be made
in accordance with the Constitution.
South Carolina and the Southern States no doubt felt that they would
not succeed in obtaining secession in this way, and therefore they
sought to obtain the separation which they wanted by revolution - by
revolution and rebellion, as Naples has lately succeeded in her
attempt to change her political status; as Hungary is looking to do;
as Poland has been seeking to do any time since her subjection; as
the revolted colonies of Great Britain succeeded in doing in 1776,
whereby they created this great nation which is now undergoing all
the sorrows of a civil war. The name of secession claimed by the
South for this movement is a misnomer. If any part of a nationality
or empire ever rebelled against the government established on behalf
of the whole, South Carolina so rebelled when, on the 20th of
November, 1860, she put forth her ordinance of so-called secession;
and the other Southern States joined in that rebellion when they
followed her lead. As to that fact, there cannot, I think, much
longer be any doubt in any mind. I insist on this especially,
repeating perhaps unnecessarily opinions expressed in my first
volume, because I still see it stated by English writers that the
secession ordinance of South Carolina should have been accepted as a
political act by the Government of the United States. It seems to
me that no government can in this way accept an act of rebellion
without declaring its own functions to be beyond its own power.
But what if such rebellion be justifiable, or even reasonable? what
if the rebels have cause for their rebellion? For no one will now
deny that rebellion may be both reasonable and justifiable; or that
every subject in the land may be bound in duty to rebel. In such
case the government will be held to have brought about its own
punishment by its own fault. But as government is a wide affair,
spreading itself gradually, and growing in virtue or in vice from
small beginnings - from seeds slow to produce their fruits - it is
much easier to discern the incidence of the punishment than the
perpetration of the fault. Government goes astray by degrees, or
sins by the absence of that wisdom which should teach rulers how to
make progress as progress is made by those whom they rule. The
fault may be absolutely negative and have spread itself over
centuries; may be, and generally has been, attributable to dull,
good men; but not the less does the punishment come at a blow. The
rebellion exists and cannot be put down - will put down all that
opposes it; but the government is not the less bound to make its
fight. That is the punishment that comes on governing men or on
governing a people that govern not well or not wisely.
As Mr. Motley says in the paper to which I have alluded, "No man, on
either side of the Atlantic, with Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins,
will dispute the right of a people, or of any portion of a people,
to rise against oppression, to demand redress of grievances, and in
case of denial of justice to take up arms to vindicate the sacred
principle of liberty. Few Englishmen or Americans will deny that
the source of government is the consent of the governed, or that
every nation has the right to govern itself according to its will.
When the silent consent is changed to fierce remonstrance,
revolution is impending. The right of revolution is indisputable.
It is written on the whole record of our race, British and American
history is made up of rebellion and revolution. Hampden, Pym, and
Oliver Cromwell; Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, all were rebels."
Then comes the question whether South Carolina and the Gulf States
had so suffered as to make rebellion on their behalf justifiable or
reasonable; or if not, what cause had been strong enough to produce
in them so strong a desire for secession, a desire which has existed
for fully half the term through which the United States has existed
as a nation, and so firm a resolve to rush into rebellion with the
object of accomplishing that which they deemed not to be
accomplished on other terms?
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