cisions of the Supreme Court, recognized by
acts of Congress and the fugitive slave law on
your statute book. It is admitted, even by the
President, that there is no power to interfere
with it in the States, except under the war
power. The doctrine is recognized that only
by constitutional amendment can you do
away with it legally. Can the General Gov-
ernment now, after having taken the ground
that it will wipe out slavery as it goes along,
unconstitutionally, with no right so to do,
ask these States with any force to come back,
while it denies to them their constitutional
rights? I put it as a plain, practical ques-
tion. So long as this Government, in the
prosecution of the war denies to those States
their constitutional rights, can she ask an ac-
ceptance upon their part of the protection of
the Constitution, while she expressly denies
to them their right to constitutional provi-
sions made for their special benefit. Were we
to announce boldly and manfully, as the Crit-
tenden resolutions do, that the war is not
prosecuted for the purpose of subjugation,
nor for the purpose of overthrowing the in-
terests of a State, or say to these States, we
will protect your rights and your institutions.
there would besome show of reason in making
the demand upon them to come back. The
demand has never been put before them in
that form or shape since this war began.
Never, never has it been done. And now it
has gone on so long and so much blood has
been shed, that I am not able to say if it
was made, what would be the result. There
have been so much bitterness and so much bad
feeling created in different ways, that, were it
possible to collect all the slaves on one vast
plain, and the earth should open and swallow
up every negro in the land, as the followers
of Korah, Dathan and Abiram were engulfed
I do not know, even with slavery thus
destroyed, that the white men of the South
would return to the Union. They seem to
have put the contest now upon a principle
higher than slavery, the right to maintain
their independence,
In the case supposed, Mr. President, a revo-
lution produced by the act of the States, on
account of a denial of their representation
in the Senate, the revolution would he
justified. And this leads me to distinguish-
ing between the different causes which may
bring about revolution. It may be that the
State acts because a clear constitutional right
has been denied. It may he that the right is
denied upon asubject-matter of doubtful con-
stitutional power, in which the State firmly
maintains one position and the General Gov-
ernment another. It may be that the State
claims or exercises a power plainly prohibited
by the Constitution, and the exercise of which
being denied, she leaves the Union, I hold
in either case the act of withdrawing without
assembling a Convention of the States, which
Convention assents thereto, is an act of revo- |
lution. In one case the revolution would be
clearly justifiable. In the other doubtful,
and accordingly the intelligent opinion of the
world will be divided. In the third case, the
revolution will be certainly wrong and un-justifiable.
Who is to decide? I admit there
is no arbiter. (Vattel: book 3d, chapter 18,
page 424.) The question between the State
and the United States becomes a question like
that between any two States growing out of
infractions of treaty stipulations or compacts.
It may be the subject of compromise and con-
ciliation. It may be object of negotiation or
arbitration. It may be a casus belli. It is a
prerogative of the United States Government
as a nation, with "special sovereignty, "to de-
cide whether they will treat secession as a mere
insurrection, to be suppressed under the pow-
ers contained in the 15th clause of article 1,
section 8, or by article 11, section 3d, or arti-
cle 4, section 4, the reading of which I will
omit from the pressure of time.
I further admit that the doctrine of the
Federalist is sound, that there are certain
cases where the government may use force.
The government employed force in the rebel-
lion in Pennsylvania, and against the Mor-
mons when a military force was sent under
the command of General Johnston.
I refer, to sustain the position, to the Fede-
ralist, No. 23, p. 124, where Hamilton says :
"That there may happen oases in which
the National Government may be under the
necessity of resorting to force cannot be
denied. ....... Should such emergen-
cies at any time happen under the National
Government, there could be no remedy but
force. The means to be employed must be
proportioned to the extent of the mischief."
And as a check to any use of this power to
endanger public, liberty, the States, he further
says, will afford complete security. "Pos-
sessing all the organs of civil power and the
confidence of the people, they can at once
adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which
they can combine all the resources of the
community." Fed. No. 27, p. 127.
And Mr. Madison, No. 53, p. 201, of the
Federalist, in discussing the clause guaranty-
ing to every State in the Union a republican
form of government, protection from inva-
sion, and on the application of the Legisla-
ture or of the Executive, (when the Legislature
cannot be convened), protection against
domestic violence, expressly admits the power
of the Government too intervene as a super-
intending power, and repress the violence.
Or the Government may, in case the insurrec-
tion pervades many States, regard it as form-
ing a casus belli, in which the States must be
treated as belligerents—the individuals engaged
in it to be dealt with not as rebels or
traitors, to be bung after trial and conviction,
but to be exchanged as prisoners of war—as
men acting under the authority of a de facto
Government, and subject to the code which |
