1861, in which Mr. Seward professes to speak
the sentiments of the President, and I have
no doubt, he did, and I trust the President
maintains them yet; and therefore they ought
to be agreeable to the majority of the Con-
vention, for their party have nominated him
for re-election, and I hold that they are com-
mitted to sustain the President and the Sec-
retary of State and the views they here enter-
tain. Here is the remedy that was contem-
plated by the President in April 10, 1861 :
"The so-called Confederate States, there-
fore, in the opinion of the President, are
attempting what. will prove a physical im-
possibility. Necessarily they build the struc-
ture of their new government upon the same
principle by which they seek to destroy the
Union, namely, the right of each individual
member of the Confederacy to withdraw from
it at pleasure and in peace. A government
thus constituted, could neither attain the
consolidation necessary for stability, nor
guaranty any engagements it might make
with creditors or other nations. The move-
ment, therefore, in the opinion of the Presi-
dent, tends directly to anarchy in the seceded
States, as similar movements in similar cir-
cumstances have already resulted in Spanish
America, and especially in Mexico. He
believes, nevertheless, that the citizens of those
States as well as the citizens of the other States,
are too intelligent, considerate and wise to fol-
low the leaders to that disastrous end. For
these reasons he would not be disposed to reject
a cardinal dogma of theirs, namely, that the
Federal Government could not reduce the seced-
ing States to obedience by conquest, even although
he were disposed to quest ion that proposition.
But, in fact, the President willingly accepts it
as true. Only an imperial or despotic govern-
ment could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and
insurrectionary members of the State. This
federal republican system of ours is of all forms
of government the very one which is most un-
fitted for such a labor. Happily, however,
this is only an imaginary defect. The sys-
tem has within itself adequate, peaceful, con-
servative and recuperative forces. Firmness
on the part of the government in maintaining
and preserving the public institutions and
property, and in executing the laws where
authority can be exercised without waging
war, combined with such measures of justice.
moderation and forbearance as will disarm
reasoning opposition, will besufficient to se-
cure the public safety until returning reflec-
tion; concurring with the fearful experience
of social evils, the inevitable fruits of faction,
shall bring the recusant members cheerfully
back into the family, which, after all, must
prove their best and happiest, as it undeniably
is their most natural home. The Constitu-
tion of the United States provides for that
return by authorizing Congress on applica-
tion to be made by a certain majority of the
States, to assemble a National Convention, in |
which the organic law can, if it be needful,
be revised, so as to remove all real obstacles to
a reunion so suitable to the habits of the peo-
ple and so eminently conducive to the com-
mon safety and welfare."
That was the position taken by the Admin-
istration, April 10, 1861 . I believe there has
been no additional power conferred upon the
Federal Government since that time; either
by a convention of the States, or by amend-
ments submitted to the States or ratified by
three-fourths of them through their State leg-
islatures. I might quote the authority of the
same despatch, as the gentleman from Anne
Arundle (Mr. Miller) did yesterday, to show
that Mr. Seward spoke of allegiance due to
the State and Federal Government, but
claimed no paramount allegiance to the Fed-
eral Government.
If any gentleman desires to see the distinct
and separate character of the colonies dis-
tinctly set forth, I will refer him to Rawle on
the Constitution, page 18, and to Story on
the Constitution, page 163.
"Though the colonies bad a common ori-
gin and owed a common allegiance, and the
inhabitants of each were British subjects, they
had no direct political connexion with each
other. Each was independent of all the others ;
each in alimited sense, was sovereign within
its own territory. There was neither alliance
nor confederacy between them. The assem-
bly of one province could not make laws for
another; nor confer privileges which were to
be enjoyed or exercised in another, further
than they could be in any independent for-
eign State "
I will not delay the Convention by any
further remarks upon the separate character
of the colonies. But I will state the fact that
the history of these colonies will show that
like their forefathers, they had a tenacity for
their local customs and habits, and privileges
and rights. This marked the very first con-
test in Maryland in which they were engaged
after they settled in this country, when there
were but ft handful of them, and each man
represented himself in the first General Assem-
bly held at St. Mary's. The colonists at St.
Mary's paused laws which the lord proprie-
tary refused to sanction, claiming that they
ought to have originated with him, and the
colonists rejected the laws sent over to them,
maintaining that they had the right of origi-
nating them; and it was a year or two before
that matter was settled finally; and finally
the lord proprietary had to yield precisely as
George III subsequently had to yield upon a
similar point. They insisted upon the right
to self-government. And from that time,
1632, down to the present time, there has
been nothing to strip the colonists of the right
that they then asserted. It was not attempted
after that controversy with Lord Baltimore.
He conceded to them the power of making
their own laws, and they were not interfered |
