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States. The natural converse of accession is secession, and therefore, when it is stated that the people of the States acceded to the Union, it may more plausibly be argued that they may secede from it. If, in adopting the Constitution, nothing was done but acceding to a compact, nothing would seem to be necessary in order to break it up, but to secede from the same compact. But the term is wholly out of place."

The first resolution of Mr. CALHOUN is in the following words: "Resolved, that the people of the several States, composing these United States, are united as parties to a constitutional compact, to which the people of each State acceded as a separate and sovereign community, each binding itself by its own particular ratification; and that the Union, of which the said compact is the bond, is a Union between the States ratifying the same."

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Is Mr. WEBSTER right in this declaration, that this term is wholly out of place? Was Mr. CALHOUN wrong in the use of the term?

FRANKLIN says, vol. x., 351, "An eighth State has since acceded."

"The influence of each accession to the Constitution on the remaining States might be considerable." G. T. CURTIS, His. Con., vol. ii., p. 529.

The Governor of Rhode Island, 1789, says: "Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of Government formed and adopted by our sister States, we doubt not, has given uneasiness to them."

General WASHINGTON, in his letter to BUSHROD WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 1787, says: "Let the opponents of the proposed Constitution in this State (Virginia) be asked, and it is a question they ought certainly to have asked themselves, What line of conduct they would advise it to adopt, if nine other States, of which I think there is no doubt, should accede to the Constitution. Would they recommend that it should stand single? Will they connect it with Rhode Island?"

In a letter to JAMES MADISON, Dec. 7, 1787, he says: "If these, (South Carolina and Georgia,) with the States eastward and northward, should accede to the Federal Government, I think the citizens of this State will have no cause to bless the opposers of it here if they should carry their point."

In a letter to JAMES MADISON, Jan. 10, 1788, he says: "But of all the arguments that may be used at the Convention which is to be held, the most prevailing one will be that nine States, at least, have acceded to it, that is, to the Constitution.

In his letter to Count LUZERNE, Feb. 7, 1780: "It is also said that Georgia has acceded."

Thus the language "accede to the Constitution,” “accede to the Union," was current and correct long ago, as applied to the States. The phrase "members of the Union," as applied to States that had acceded to the Constitution, or ratified the Constitution, was also in use. The States are members of the Union.

Secede, secession, are the opposite of accede, accession. The use of the two latter words, in relation to the Federal Constitution, and their supposed correlation to the two former, have already been noticed.

"The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States, and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so." This opinion DE TOCQUEVILLE expresses in his work entitled "Democracy in America,” p. 419. He was as well qualified as any other foreigner to judge correctly concerning the nature of our institutions.

"Any State may, at any time, constitutionally withdraw from the Union, and thus virtually dissolve it. It was not certainly created with the idea that the States, or several of them, would desire a separation. But whenever they chose to do it, they have no obstacle in the way." THOMAS COLLEY GRATTAN'S Civilized America, vol. i., p. 287. Mr. MACON, and Mr. RAWLE, and GOUVERNEUR MORRIS's opinions have been already quoted as agreeing with that of these distinguished foreigners. See pp. 68, 216, 218.

The Northern members of Congress, on one occasion in the early part of General WASHINGTON's administration, "threatened secession and dissolution." See p. 37. Massachusetts and Connecticut seemed at one time to believe in the right of secession, under certain circumstances. We have the declaration of

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, "that the continuance of the embargo, in 1809, much longer would certainly be met by forcible resistance supported by the Legislature, and probably by the judiciary of the State," (Massachusetts.) "That their object (the leaders of the party) was and had been for several years, a dissolution of the Union," as he knew from "unequivocal evidence," that this design had been formed in the winter of 1803 and 1804, immediately after and as a consequence of the acquisition of Louisiana." See p. 70. Massachusetts interposed her authority, pronounced the embargo unconstitutional. Mr. JEFFERSON wisely yielded, and the embargo was repealed. In thus avoiding a collision with the State of Massachusetts, and showing his respect for State rights, he set an example which General JACKSON intentionally or unintentionally followed, in advising the modification of the tariff laws in 1833, by which he wisely avoided a collision with South Carolina.

The Boston Centinel of Nov. 9, 1814, in noticing the appointment of delegates from Connecticut and Rhode Island, to the Hartford Convention, says: "they are the second and third pillars of the new Federal edifice."

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, in his oration delivered in 1839, on the jubilee of the Constitution, seems to countenance the right of secession under certain limitations: "To the people alone is thus reserved, as well the dissolving as the constituent power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience binding them to the retributive justice of heaven. With these qualifications we may admit the same rights vested in the people of every State in the Union with reference to the General Government." The following from his Memoir, by JOSIAH QUINCY, p. 98, has a bearing on the same point: "There is now every appearance that the slave question will be carried by the superior ability of the slavery party. For this much is certain, that if institutions are to be judged by their results, in the composition of the councils of the Union, the slaveholders are much more ably represented than the simple freemen. With the exception of RUFUS KING, there is not one in either House of Congress, a member of the free States, able to cope in powers of the mind with WILLIAM PINKNEY and JAMES BARBOUR. In the House of Representatives they have no one

to contend on equal terms with JOHN RANDOLPH or CLAY. Another misfortune to the free party is, that some of their ablest men are either on this question with their adversaries, or lukewarm in the cause. The slave men have indeed a deeper immediate stake in the issue than the partisans of freedom. Their passions and interests are more profoundly agitated, and they have stronger impulses to active energy than their antagonists, whose only individual interest in the case exists from its bearing on the balance of political power between the North and the South."

"The impression produced on my mind by the progress of this discussion (the Missouri) is, that the bargain between freedom and slavery, contained in the Constitution of the United States, is morally and politically vicious; inconsistent with the principles on which alone our revolution can be justified, cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured and returned to their owners, and persons not be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with many a double share of representation.

"I have favored this Missouri Compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the present Constitution, and from extreme unwillingness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been a wiser and a bolder cause to have persisted in the restriction on Missouri, until it should have terminated in a Convention of the States to revise and amend the Constitution. This would have produced a new Union of thirteen or fourteen States, unpolluted with slavery, with a great and glorious object, that of rallying to their standard the other States, by the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to break."

COERCION.-The founders of the Federal Government did not rely for its preservation, mainly upon physical force, as if it were a military despotism, but upon mutual confidence and "conciliated interests." We have no evidence that it was the

intention of the Convention that formed the Constitution, or of the States that were parties to the compact, to clothe the Government with power to use military coercion against a State that had placed itself on its reserved rights. If there was such an intention, where is it recorded? What they did rely upon was legal coercion, acting through the forms of law upon individuals. Mr. CURTIS, in his excellent history of the Constitution, vol. ii., pp. 62, 63, says: "One of the leading objects in forming the Constitution, was to obtain for the United States the means of coercion, without a resort to force against the people of the States collectively." "The introduction, therefore, of the judicial department into the new plan of Government, of itself evinces an intention to clothe that Government with powers that could be executed peacefully, and without the necessity of putting down the organized opposition of subordinate communities."

WASHINGTON, in a letter addressed to ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Aug. 26, 1792, having spoken of "mutual forbearance and yielding on all sides," adds, " without these, I do not see how the reins of Government are to be managed, or how the Union of the States can much longer be preserved."

With respect to the coercion of a State, I have found no evidence that WASHINGTON differed from MADISON and BuCHANAN, with respect to the constitutional power to coerce a State. In the case of the whiskey insurrection, he acted in harmony with the executive authority of the State then represented by Governor MIFFLIN, and also in harmony with the views of Judge WILLSON, of Pennsylvania, an associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was careful to keep the military in subordination to the civil authority.

In the farewell address of General JACKSON, March 3, 1837, is the following: "But the Constitution cannot be maintained, nor the Union preserved in opposition to public feeling by the mere exertion of coercive powers of the Government. The foundations must be laid in the affections of the people, in the security it gives to life, liberty, and property in every quarter of the country; and in the fraternal attachments which the citizens of the several States bear to one another, as members of one political family, materially contributing to promote the happiness of each other."

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