CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



213 



of the States, while the other fourth refuse to 

 ratify it, do the non-agreeing States go out of 

 the Union or remain in it ? " 



Mr. Pendleton replied: "If the amendment 

 be without the scope of the power granted, 

 legally, they remain in the Union, and the other 

 States go out. 



"Nobody pretends that the States are clothed 

 with the powers of sovereignty by the Federal 

 Constitution. Nor does that instrument neces- 

 sarily strip them of the sovereign rights which 

 they had before the Constitution was made. 

 The States have sovereign powers to-day except 

 so far as that Constitution, by their voluntary 

 act of adoption, has taken those powers from 

 them. They do not derive power from the 

 Federal Government. It inheres in them, and 

 I would like to inquire of my colleague from 

 the Toledo district (Mr. Ashley), if he denies 

 the sovereignty in the States because they have 

 agreed to suspend, or, if you please, to delegate 

 certain powers of sovereignty which would 

 otherwise belong to them, upon what basis can 

 he pretend there is sovereignty in the Federal 

 Government, which has not now and never had 

 any authority except that which is expressly 

 delegated to it by. these States themselves ? 



"But, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio 

 (Mr. Ashley) is led by his anxiety to pass this 

 amendment into the declaration of another doc- 

 trine, which, although not entirely novel, is 

 somewhat new upon this floor. He holds to 

 the doctrine that ordinances of secession destroy 

 State governments, but do not affect the rela- 

 tions of the States, that is, of the territory and 

 the people to the Federal Government. He 

 holds that an act of secession is an abdication 

 by the people of their rights, but not a release 

 from their duties ; that it destroys, not the tie 

 which binds them to the Union, but their form 

 of Government, leaving them subject to the 

 jurisdiction of the Federal Government and its 

 absolute sovereignty with all the rights of local 

 government, and he deduces from this the con- 

 clusion that the seceding States have no voice 

 on this amendment, but are absolutely bound by 

 it. That doctrine was promulgated by a senator 

 from Massachusetts (Mr. Sumner), nearly three 

 years ago, in a series of resolutions presented to 

 th,e Senate, and my colleague will remember 

 that they met with no more indignant response 

 than from the honorable, able, learned, and 

 patriotic gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 

 Thomas), who then had a seat upon the floor of 

 this House." 



Mr. Cox, of Ohio, followed, expressing his 

 belief in the power to adopt the amendment. 

 He said: "While in a state of war, and with 

 nearly half the States in default and absent, I 

 may deny the wisdom of acting either by the 

 one mode or the other, pointed out for the 

 amendment of the Constitution in this particu- 

 lar I will not deny a power so essential to 

 peace, safety, and sovereignty. No ingenious 

 refinement or dazzling eloquence shall lead me 

 to deny a power which may yet prove our sal- 



vation, when wisely used. "Who upon this side 

 asks me to shut the door in the face of such a 

 saving power? Let him remember that while 

 the power may now threaten to destroy, the 

 power to save is forever bound up with it. The 

 power that can create, the same can destroy. 

 Under the ribs of death at the last moment this 

 power may be invoked to create the heart and 

 soul of union, and that, too, by the array of 

 States in their sovereign capacity, as modified 

 by their granted powers. 



"Do you tell me that such sovereignty can 

 only guarantee, but cannot destroy property, 

 either in man or beast, in land or house ? If a 

 convention of States can take jurisdiction to 

 protect property, they can to destroy. It is ad- 

 mitted that the States individually can do this. 

 If by the Constitution they as States, all con- 

 senting to it, have provided a mode of doing it, 

 what matters it whether it is done by them in 

 their individual capacity or in their conven- 

 tional capacity? Whenever two-thirds agree to 

 propose amendments, and three-fourths shall 

 ratify, either by convention or legislature, the 

 proposition is ' a part of this Constitution.' It 

 is the States that do this in the first instance, 

 all according in making the amending clause ; 

 again by their convention in proposing ; and 

 again by ratifying. Therefore I join my col- 

 league in singing hosanna to that principle of 

 our Government just denounced by the gentle- 

 man from Kentucky (Mr. Smith), as so nefarious 

 the sovereignty of the States. I see here not 

 one monster iron crown, like that of Lom- 

 bardy, compelling, as from an omnipotent 

 sceptre, the subject States, but each of the 

 States making for themselves a fundamental 

 law or organic compact. 



" This power of unlimited amendment is an 

 element of democracy. It has been the char- 

 acteristic of our democratic institutions that 

 our ancestry, however prudent and Avise, did 

 not tie the hands of the children nor shackle 

 their liberties by laws so irrevocable that no 

 mode of change was allowed. In our State 

 constitutions this power of amendment has been 

 and is being exercised almost every decade. 

 Why? On the principle of Jeremy Bentham 

 (Benthamiana, page 220), that at each point of 

 tune the sovereign for the time possesses such 

 means as the nature of the case affords for 

 making himself acquainted with the exigencies 

 of his own time. With reference to the future 

 he has no such means. He thus argues against 

 the- transfer of the Government from those 

 who possess the best means to those who 

 possess the least means of information. Shall 

 the past century rule the present? No, not 

 unless they are better informed or feel more in- 

 terest in the future generation than in their 

 own. Why should we of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury tie up the hands of the twentieth ? Why 

 should the dead forever rule the living ? Is a 

 tyranny inexorable because it is established in 

 the past ? Is a law immutable because made by 

 the fathers? If .the law be despotic, who then 



