184 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



holding States, thereby taking the judges of 

 the Supreme Court, so far as their selection 

 goes, from the respective divisions of the coun- 

 try ; also that either the President or Vice- 

 President at each election shall be from the 

 . slaveholding States. These propositions were 

 brought forward as calculated to obviate the 

 difficulty or complaint manifested in different 

 portions of the country. 



Whilst aiming at the same object as his 

 Southern friends, he hoped to secure it by dif- 

 ferent means. Secession was no remedy for 

 the evils complained of. "I think that this 

 battle ought to be fought not outside but inside 

 of the Union, and upon the battlements of the 

 Constitution itself. So far as I am concerned, 

 and I believe I may speak with some degree of 

 confidence for the people of my State, we in- 

 tend to fight that battle inside and not outside 

 of the Union ; and if anybody must go out of 

 the Union, it must be those who violate it. 

 "We do not intend to go out. It is our Consti- 

 tution ; it is our Uuion, growing out of the 

 Constitution ; and we do not intend to be 

 driven from it or out of the Union." 



He was opposed to seceding or breaking up 

 the Union until all honorable means had been 

 exhausted in trying to obtain from the North- 

 ern States a compliance with the spirit and let- 

 ter of the Constitution and all its guarantees. 

 He denied the right of any State to secede from 

 the Union without the consent of the other 

 States which made the compact. Believing 

 that the opinion that a State had a right to 

 secede, had resulted from the Virginia resolu- 

 tions of 1798 and 1799, he examined the sub- 

 ject and said : " Take the resolutions ; take the 

 report of Mr. Madison upon them ; take Mr. 

 Madison's expositions of them in 1832 and 

 1833 : his letter to Mr. Trist; his letter to Mr. 

 Webster ; his letter to Mr. Rives ; and when 

 all are summed up, this doctrine of a State, 

 either assuming her highest political attitude 

 or otherwise, having the right of her own will 

 to dissolve all connection with this Confed- 

 eracy, is an absurdity, and contrary to the plain 

 intent and meaning of the Constitution of the 

 United States. I hold that the Constitution of 

 the United States makes no provision, as said 

 by the President of the United States, for its 

 own destruction. It makes no provision for 

 breaking up the Government, and no State has 

 the constitutional right to secede and withdraw 

 from the Union. 



" I know that the inquiry may be made, how 

 is a State, then, to have redress ? There is but 

 one way, and that is expressed by the people 

 of Tennessee. You have entered into this 

 compact ; it was mutual ; it was reciprocal ; 

 and you of your o\vn volition have no right to 

 withdraw and break the compact, without the 

 consent of the other parties. What remedy, 

 then, has the State ? It has a remedy that re- 

 mains and abides with every people upon the 

 face of the earth when grievances are without 

 a remedy, or Without redress, when oppression 



becomes intolerable, they have the great inher- 

 ent right of revolution, and that is all there ia 

 of it. 



" Sir, if the doctrine of secession is to be car- 

 ried out upon the mere whim of a State, this 

 Government is at an end. I am as much op- 

 posed to a strong, or what may be called by 

 some a consolidated Government, as it is pos- 

 sible for a man to be ; but while I am greatly 

 opposed to that, I want a Government strong 

 enough to preserve its own existence ; that 

 will not fall to pieces by its own weight, or 

 whenever a little dissatisfaction takes place in 

 one of its members. If the States have the 

 right to secede at will and pleasure, for real or 

 imaginary evils or oppressions, I repeat again, 

 this Government is at an end ; it is not strong- 

 er than a rope of sand ; its own weight will 

 tumble it to pieces, and it cannot exist." 



This position was fortified by reference to 

 the views of Mr. Jefferson, Chief Justice Mar- 

 shall, Mr. Webster, and General Jackson. 



"In travelling through the instrument we 

 find how the Government is created, how it is 

 to be perpetuated, and how it may be enlarged 

 in reference to the number of States constitut- 

 ing the Confederacy ; but do we find any pro- 

 vision for winding it up, except on that great 

 inherent principle that it may be wound up by 

 the States not by a State, but by the States 

 which spoke it into existence and by no other 

 means. That is a means of taking down the 

 Government that the Constitution could not 

 provide for. It is above the Constitution ; it 

 is beyond any provision that can be made by 

 mortal man. 



" The Constitution was intended to be per- 

 petual. In reference to the execution of the 

 laws what do we find ? As early as 1795, Con- 

 gress passed an excise law, taxing distilleries 

 throughout the country, and what were called 

 the whiskey boys of Pennsylvania resisted the 

 law. The Government wanted means. It taxed 

 distilleries. The people of Pennsylvania resist- 

 ed it. What is the difference between a por- 

 tion of the people resisting a constitutional law, 

 and all of the people of a State doing so ? But 

 because you can apply the term coercion in 

 one case to a State, and in the other call it 

 simply the execution of the law against indi- 

 viduals, you say there is a great distinction. 

 We do not assume the power to coerce a State, 

 but we assume that Congress has power to lay 

 and collect taxes, and Congress has the right 

 to enforce that law when obstructions and im- 

 pediments are opposed to its enforcement. 

 Such was the action of Washington, and sim- 

 ilar was the action of Jackson in 1832." 



In considering the circumstances which might 

 arise in consequence of secession, he alluded to 

 the free navigation of the Mississippi, when 

 Mr. Slidell, of Louisiana, took occasion to say 

 that he " did not know of a citizen of any 

 southwestern State bordering on the Missis- 

 sippi who does not acknowledge the propriety 

 and necessity of extending to every citizen of 



