the States must act for themselves, and that
they are then thrown upon the last resort, that
great inalienable right of the people, revolu-
tion, of which my friend from Somerset (Mr.
Jones) spoke so eloquently.
Mr. MILLER, The gentleman from Balti-
more county, (Mr. Ridgely,) was not present
when nay argument was made.
Mr. RIDGELY. I took it from the reports in
the newspapers.
Mr. MILLER. Those reports do not repre-
sent my position fully. I said that in such a
case they must resort to the precedent estab-
lished by the Constitution, resort to a conven-
tion of States for the establishment of a new
government.
Mr. RIDGELY. Then they must resort to
revolutionary means, either peaceable or for-
cible, for they are necessarily thrown upon
the abstract idea, of the right of revolution.
There can be no constitutional convention
assembled by disaffected States, and no un-
constitutional withdrawal unless revolution-
ary; the terms are correlative. There can be
no constitutional withdrawal; it must be un-
constitutional, and if unconstitutional, be it
forcible or peaceable, it must be an attempt to
overturn the existing form of government, and
therefore revolutionary.
Now, sir, I cannot agree to that doctrine.
I agree, as we have said in our bill of rights,
that, as an abstract political truth, whenever
a people are oppressed they have an inalien-
able right to throw off the yoke of oppres-
sion; nobody disputes that. But we are not
now talking of that kind of right. We are
talking about written rights, comprehended
within the forms of a written Constitution.
fenced in and restrained. And it is impossi-
ble, as Mr. Webster said, in the remarks quo-
ted by the gentleman from Baltimore city,
(Mr. Kennard,) it is impossible to conceive
of the idea of withdrawal or secession except
as inseparable from revolution and rebellion.
Thus the gentleman would land us if we fol-
low him into revolution; and by this sort of
revolution be virtually vindicates secession,
which he assumes to be unconstitutional. I
cannot go with him in his conclusions, al-
though I concede all the theories which he laid
down as to the separate, independent condi-
tion of all these colonies, and their sovereignty
if he prefers that word; because it is only a
sovereignty in a qualified sense, for they could
only claim absolute sovereignty, if at all
up to the time of the articles of Confederation
At that time they delegated—if the gentleman
prefers that phrase also—a portion of their
sovereignty for a temporary purpose to the
Confederation itself. Therefore they necessa
rily could not have retained all these attributes
of sovereignty. I will agree with him that
such a condition of sovereignty existed, and
existed intact up to the time of the formation
of the Articles of Confederation. But I hold
that then, in that embryo state of govern- |
ment, in that first form of government estab-
lished by our forefathers, there was a surren-
der, quoad hoc, of the sovereignty of those
Colonies, so far as it was delegated to that
Confederation.
A great deal has been said about this inhu-
man war, of brother arrayed against brother,
of father against son; and about this usurped
power of coercion. And it has been denied
that there was any authority in favor of what
these gentlemen call coercion. Now this
very same paper from which I have already
read, furnishes us some valuable light upon
that subject. For I take it for granted that
the representations made here by Mr. Everett
are founded upon legitimate authority. I
presume that no man with national reputa-
tion such as be pre-eminently enjoys, would
venture to insert here, with quotation marks,
sentiments ascribed to different individuals
unless they bad been really uttered by them.
What does he say upon this subject of co-
ercion? Hear him:
"This generation has been so deafened by
the iteration of these ' heresies,' as General
C. C. Pinckney called them, of separate and
independent sovereignty, for which the au-
thority of Mr. Jefferson has been boldly claim-
ed, that many well-meaning persons, North
and South, have been led to believe in them.
They will be surprised to bear that in another
letter from Mr. Jefferson, written before even
the present Constitution was framed, (4th
April, 1787,) language like the following is
found; ' It has been so often said as to be
generally believed, that Congress has no
power by the Confederation to enforce any-
thing; for instance, contributions of money.
It was not necessary to give them that power
expressly; they have it by the law of nature.' "
Adopting their own theory that this Con-
stitution is a compact, Mr. Jefferson proceeds :
" When two parties make a compact, there
results to each the power of compelling the
other to execute it. Compulsion was never
so easy as in our case, where a single frigate
would soon levy on the commerce of a single
State the deficiency of its contributions."
I repeat this extraordinary sentiment, ex-
traordinary only as the utterance of Thomas
Jefferson: "Compulsion was never so easy
as in our case, where a single frigate would
soon levy on the commerce of a single State
the deficiency of its contributions," What
could be more clear and conclusive upon this
point? This apostle of democracy, the great
father of all the theory of State rights; this
great champion of the widest and most lati-
tudinarian construction of State rights, has
here boldly asserted that even upon the mat-
ter of enforcing the payment of taxes, the
government hard the right to resort to com-
pulsion and coercion; and to enforce its acts
by sending a frigate into the ports of any of
the States of this Union, and by force of arms
compel and enforce subordination and obedi- |
