/% • ^^•^^ • .^^ O"^ ^l*^''/^?' I* . » * ^". ^o ^^% \^|^/ .^'^''^^^ ">.^^>K/ >^ -^^ O. A*^' o"/.**?*^ 'i*» r\> . r iilirfir 7 •• ^ ^ ^^. x-*-^ '" ^<^ ,/ ■% ■» o U^" ^* ,^^, "0. ^*vra2'^* *os A** ♦^ ^ *«aK5^. ^^ A' *ji / .'^^^I^ U^.4' :^: %„./ .-iisSe^-. V.<.* :-\ co\c;^.*°o /.i^.\ /.c^^^i.^^o ,^ ..0' .0' ^ IMPORTANT COMESPONDENCE. FRIENDLY DISCUSSION OF PARTY POLITICS IN 18601. Letters of Hon. ROSWELL MARSH, of Steubenville, Ohio, and Hon. CHAS. REEMEUN, of Cincinnati. [Prom The Crisis of March 8, 1865.] l^ In pablishing the subjoined letters and some ten or twelve more hereafter, it may be proper to explain how we came by them, and also how the discussion contained therein arose. We heard accidentally of the existence of the correspondence and applied to one of the writers (Mr. Reeme- lin) for it, with a view to publish it. He forwarded it with this explanation : "In 1860 I was one of the Senatorial Electors on the Breckenridge ticket, and as such addressed a meeting of the people of Steubenville. The chief points of my speech were, that there were four legiti- mate questions before the American peo- ple, and one illegitimate; that the first four were aU within the well known pow- ers of the General Government, the other one was not, or at least doubtful. The four I stated as follows : " 1 . Such treaties with Mexico as secured us the transit over the Isthmus of Te- huantepec and preserved that country its republican independence. " 2. The construction of a railroad to the Pacific through the territories, by land grants for an equivalent of stock in the road, the stocks to be sold after construc- tion, the object being to checkmate Eng- land in her policy on the Pacific. " 3. A revision of the tariff, so as to make it as near as possible a free trade measure. " 4. Such laws, in relation to Federal patronage, as should prevent appointments to office to be a bait in our Presidential elections, except to a limited extent^ by di- viding the Federal oflices into classes, so that part should be filled as now at the President's pleasure, but the main body to be filled by regular advances, by fitness at all times, and free from political reasons. " These four questions the people ignored, and were earnestly discussing the other, Slavery., with which they, as Federal con- stituents, had nothing to do. To show this. I argued at length the powers of the Fed- eral Government in the premises, and showed, as I thought, that the first ques- tion to be settled in federal politics was al- ways, ' Where is the plain written author ity in the Constitution V I denied to the Federal Government all authority upon the subject of Slavery, and contended that even the delivery of fugitive slaves was a stipulation between sovereign States, and as such, and such only, obligatory on the States ; that a fugitive slave law was an act of supererogation. I asserted that the slavery question was at that time artificial- ly forced into Federal politics, by three great ambitious men, Douglas, Chase and Seward ; that those standing behind these men and expectiug office by their success, created all the real excitement in the ques- tion, and that Northern politicians were making the rights, inierests and feelings of the people of the South the play ground of Federal politics. I insisted that the question was not -is to who should rule, but how much any body should rule ; that the Federal patronage was too large, and that its reasonabld reduction was the issue, and not slaverv. •' To these views Mr. Marsh excepted by the letter which I enclose, dated November I9th, I860. I replied November 27th, and the correspondence continued until spring. " We shall publish each week a letter from Mr. Marsh and Mr. Reemelin's reply, until closed . Four years have passed since the correspondence— the points discussed are still unsettled. We think the letters will interest our readers, as they come from two gentlemen well known in the State, who represent the two opposite par- ty principles, which have been the point of contest for seventy years. Stecbenville, Nov. 19, 1860. Bear Sir : I listened with much interest to your address in this town on the 1st inst., as I always have done to your well considered arguments on any subject, so different from the mere rhapsody and de- clamation with which most partisan speak- ers on all sides entertain their audiences. Our National affairs surely have enough of sound philosophical principles in their ele- mentary substance to pay a thinking man richly for searching out and developing them for the earnest instruction and en- lightenment of his less favored fellow cit- izens, instead of entangling them in' so- phistries or blinding their judgments and substituting passion by ringing the changes on party names which once had a definite idea attached to them, now long since passed away, \7hilst the names are used by friends and foes as passports for directly antagonistic notions. The philosophical principles of our government found no prototype in the institutions of modern Europe, and consequently not in its recog- nized social philosophy. Milton, and if I do not mistake, one or two German wri- ters of a still earlier age, shadowed forth some germs of the idea. Luther in iact by boldly claiming freedom for the con- science laid the broad foundation on which personal and civil liberty have since been erected. In fact how could tyranny over the persons of men stand and justify itself in the face of a free and enlightened con- science? It has been repeated so often that the early emigiants to this country came here to enjoy liberty of conscience, that it has almost passed into history that they came for that purpose only. Nothing could be more erroneous. They came to enjoy liberty in both respects. They did not confound liberty with anarchy. Their idea was a community-^self- governed under self-imposed restraints, which pro- tected alike the rights of all, whether ma- jorities or minorities, and circumscribed alike the authority of all. I prefer the word authority to power. It importR a lawful origin V Power too often has its ori- gin in the practical application of the ty- rant's maxim that "might makes right." The spirit or rather philosophy of our in- stitutions admits no such principle as the foundation ot any rightful authority. The elementary principle of our institutions is that the source of all rightful authority is in the governed. It results that all indi- vidual restraints are equal upon each, and that the restraints provided in the organic law, the constitution, are safeguards for the individual, no matter who, against the action of the body. Do you not see that before authority emanating from such a source so long as it remains true to its ori- gin there can be no inequality of personal rights or of orders in society. Is it not manifest that so long as public virtue pre- vails over corrupt ambition and base deg- radation, the public good, in other words the humanitarian and the utilitarian, must be the true philosophy of such institutions, for the cogent reason that they are the ob- ject for the advancement of which the insti- tutions were founded? Is it correct in reasoning upon the operation of institu- tions so founded to argue that the minori- ty is oppressed by the majority so long as the authority is exercised within the limits of the organic law, and its enactments op- erate indiscriminately upon all. Would it not be still more incongruous to claim for the minority the authority to control ? In how small a minority should the author- ity be lodged ? The history of the human race proves beyond all peradventure, if it proves nothing else, that power,, not to say authority, is ever passing trom the many to the few ; and further, that just in pro- portion as the members of the minority are diminished the liberties of the majori- ty are abridged until, when all power is concentrated in one hand the residue of the nation, the majority, have no rights the minority is bound to respect. If such has been the denouement of nearly every gov- ernment heretofore organized amongst men, however originally constituted, does it not show some defect in the principles of its philosophy ? or must we come to the melancholy conclusion that no race of man- kind are capable of perpetuating the spirit and substance of free institutions, al- though in a fortunate period of their his- tory men gifted beyond theJot of ordina- ry mortals had formed and illustrated them by practice under them, and com- mitted them to their keeping with the most solemn injunctions to transmit them unimpaired to the remote posterity of the founders ? I for one am not pre- pared to admit anything so sinister to the future enlightened freedom of my country. I do not fear discussion. Confident of the soundness and strength of her institutions I desire, I invite the most earnest discus- sion, the most acute investigation. The only danger I can imagine to onr institu- tions is from the supineness of our free- men. When an election of President takes place in which very few of the freemen participate, there will be danger that tlie people are about to resign the duty of self- government. Then, not before, they will be ready to resign the reins of govern- ment to a minority. I do not claim per- fection for our ancestors — their counsels were not always wise, nor did their prac- tice in all cases come up to their theory. I wish I could believe that slavery, Afri- can slavery, crept in as the unauthorized acts of individuals ; that legislation came only to modify and control an evil it could not eradicate. Although the acts of the colonial legislatures are not now reprint- ed nor extant, which authorized the intro- duction and sale of African slaves, there is abundant evidence even in the acts re- pealing them that such acts did exist in several States. The King's veto repeated- ly prevented the repeal of such laws in Virginia. As the new slave States were parts of old ones, no such introductory laws will be found in them. The laws of all of them do, however, prescribe who shall be slaves. It is curions that in Vir- ginia, by express statute, any less than one-fourth African blood is a voter, if free, and may be elected Governor or U. S. Senator, but if born of a slave mother is a slave, even if the African blood is bred out to long flaxen locks, blue eyes, the lilly and rose in the complexion giving token of unmixed Saxon pedigree — and such samples are to be seen. A leading Vir- ginia paper, some years since, admitted that African slavery, as such, could not be defended, and boldly defended it irrespec tive of race. That was at least more in accordance with ancient practice. But our complex system has wisely left it to the States, so far as tliey are concerned, the United States Constitution merely restrain- ing the States from enacting laws obstruct- ing the recovery of fugitives, and even in vthat putting such servants on a footing with apprentices. I have extended my letter mucli farther than I intended, and yet have hardly broken the subject. My intention in taking up my pencil was to invite you to a friendly discussion of the subject. The excitement of the election is now over, and even we, may be better pre- pared to give the just weight to the con- siderations to be urged on each side than we were before. There is one other point I will touch : Case, in a speech in the Senate, some years since, ridiculed the idea of the United States being a sovereignty. The denial lies at the base of all the modern depar- tures from early practice as to the territo- ries—without it all is heresy and non- sense. As a sovereignty the United States carve out a portion of the public domain before there is an individual lawfully there, provide as the Congress sees fit an organiza- tion for it and opens it for settlement. Who may settle theref whoever Congress permit. Are they citizens of the United States? They were represented in the Congress. Can they throw off their allegiance by chang- ing their domicil from a State to a territo- ry ? Are foreigners invited in ? May they deny the jurisdiction of the Government on whose invitation they entered? The States, as such, set up a claim to the terri- tories. Why not file a petition for parti- tion ? I can not, nor can you, treat such a claim seriously. It is only as citizens ot the United States that we have any inter- est in the territories. It is claimed that the term territory is equivalent to land. Beware ! Look at co- temporaneous use, not search lexicons which never give half the uses. Virginia ceded by the term territory, and reserved one-fourth the land. Has she the right to govern still f Connecticut ceded the ter- ritory and reserved nine tenths of the land. How did the parties understand it * France ceded the territory (French, terri- toire) of Louisiana by the term territory only. Can it be that France is yet right- fully entitled to the power of government over it ? Look and see how the cotempo- raries understood it on all sides. A claim by, France under this new notion would be a perfect sequitur, but it would wake some people as from a delicious dream. From that new stand-point they would at once deny their own position. Some Southern Senator, I do not remember who, has roundly asserted that without the much misunderstood clause respecting the terri- tory and other property, &c., the United States would not have had authority to sell an old cannon or a lot of old muskets. That was putting want of sovereignty strongly, by an example. But, if so, where will the same school find the authority to purchase? Not in that clause— at least not it we adopt the same rules of construction. By those rules the words " to dispose of" can never import to purchase or to ac- quire. Mr. Jefferson was very much em- barrassed (having adopted the strictest mles of the strict constructionists) how to justify the purchase of Louisiana and talked seriously of a curative amendment of the Constitution. Finding that the old Federal fathers of the Constitution who re- mained in Congress did not oppose it on that ground, nothing more was heard of the amendment, and the precedent has been repeatedly acted upon since, both to acquire and to cede away both land and jurisdiction by the term territory by force of the plenary authority of the nation as a sovereignty throughits constituted organs. You called attention to the phraseology of the ordinance of 1787. Are you aware that all the legislation of those days under the old confederation of independent States (vas requisitory upon them, not mandato- ry upon the citizens ? The sequence was inevitable. Some States complied with the requisitions, others did not ; there was no means of coercion — the confederacy became a rope of sand. The effort now is to construe the present Union into a eon- federacy of independent sovereign States — each State a sovereignty, the Union not a sovereignty ! ! ! Hamilton county has as much authority to secede from Ohio as South Carolina has to secede from the Union. An embassador from each would be equally entitled to represent a sover- eignty in the Court of France. Under our present Constitution the language of the law making power conforms to the gen- eral form of legislative language, manda- tory. Look into the acts authorizing Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wiscon- sin, Minnesota, to form Constitutions. See the Missouri compromise law and acts organizing territories before and since 1820. In fact, outside of the States of the Union the United States is known as a na- tion only, one and indivisible. One at- tempt and one only, I think, was ever made to treat with a State, and that was in Washington's time ; the insolent foreigner had short orders to leave. The limitations and restrictions of the Constitution apply only within the States, without, its action is controlled by the spirit of our institu- tions. In founding new States in our wide domain we should consider what will con- stitute the freest, most prosperous, most virtuous people, and those should be adopted. To sanction any other would be an abuse of power, not an exercise of au- thority. If Brigham Young's system of polygamy best answers the standard, so be it ; if it is a curse and a national wicked- ness the national Government is responsi- ble before the civilized world and before Heaven for every hour it is unprohibited and unpunished. Excuse my want ot coherency in this long letter. It has been written by snatches, sometimes broken in upon by the business in Court. Should you consent to talk over these matters with me by pen and pencil, we may at least benefit ourselves and pos- sibly be useful to others. I shall search for correct principles, for truth, and have fuU confidence that you will do the same. Very respectfully, RoswELL Marsh. Hon. Chas. Eeemelin. Cincinnati, Nov. 27, 1860. Hon. RoswELL Marsh, Steuheinillc, Ohio : Dear Sir : I have received and read with pleasure your esteemed favor of the 19th, though I see very plainly the quiet sar- casm with which you attack some of the main positions of my speech in jour city, and I would have answered before this if a little debate with the Commercial had not kept me from it. I suppose you see this journ&l and you can there see how we meet and parry each other. I agree with you that our General Gov- ernment must not be judged by European political philosophy, and that their reason- ing upon civil Government is seldom ap- plicable to our Federal system, but I am somewhat puzzled to find you placing yourself upon the very ground which the public economists of Europe (I admit them to be some of the best of them,) oc- cupy, to-wit : that humanitarianism and utilitarianism are to be our test of public measures. It is, as I conceive, impossible for you to be right in applying this Ben- thamian, (very good in its plaee) maxim to our Federal Government. Every re- flection I have been able to give to the subject enforces the conviction that an ex- tension of the powers of the General Gov- ernment is the rock upon which our Fed- eral system must, if ever, go to pieces. — " Consolidation,^^ using Chief Justice Mar- shall's words, " and not dissolution, is the point of danger." The only injury that can ever happen to us, as a people, must spring from an unauthorized exercise of power. I think our General Government too large now, even when confined within strict constitutional limits, but let your axiom " fo do all that may be useful and humanitarian " be the rule, and all our freedom is gone ; then extensions of con- stitutional powers will always be, as in the past, asked under the pretext to do us good, and then if we accede to it in one instance, it is used as a precedent for fur- ther enlargements. There is no necessity for extending the uses of our Federal Government to all that is useful or human- itarian, because we have State and other local Governments through which to ac- complish anything proper that may be de- sired. To be sure, I am, in our local gov- ernment also, for the least possible exer- cise of power ; but between the two I would always rather any given power were entrusted to the States than to the General Government, unless, indeed, it is in its character essentially a proper attrib- ute of Federal authority, such as mints, etc. I never favored the idea that the minor- ity should rule, but I have insisted that the majority should rule only witldn the limits conceded by all, and to prevent an infringement of these limits, I am in favor of checks and balances through which minorities may, for the time being, arrest action but not dictate it. It is, besides, my deliberate judgment, that Govern- ments should not be fastened too tightly upon the people ; on the contrary, they should, like a well-fitting shoe, be easy to put on, hurt nowhere, fit all round, and yet easy to take off. Make our Govern- ment too rigid in its character, and, as I take the character of our people, they will, whenever driven to the wall, upset the Government rather than submit to op- pression, or supposed oppressive laws. — You look to the strength of our Federal Government for its permanence, I to its weakness ; and so true is this tlaat if the fathers had made it a little stronger than it is, it would have snapped before this. The supineness of our people in their primary capacity, the self -organized out- side portion of our governmental system, party tactics and party rule is, you well point out, the source of all mischief that surrounds us, and the reason is that it is the only force of our republican machin- ery which is undefined and unlimited, ex- cept so far as parties check each other. Take that check away and parties always grow meaner. There (in our parties) we have not the republican virtue we boast of, nor that respect for the rights of all, without which all Governments are a mockery. I see no help for this except putting nominations within the control of law. But if you mean to say that our people, whatever portion be in the majority, shall rule by power rather than authority, then I differ from you. Give me firm minori- ties and persuasive majorities. We Ger- mans have a proverb : " Rigid masters never rule long," and I think its truth has become proverbial in America, too. Upon slavery, I stand simply on the ground, 1st, that wo, the people of the Uni- ted States, had no power upon the subject before the Constitution was made ; we could not then free the slaves of the other States ; 2d, that the Constitution does not give us any power ; and, 3d, that we can't get power, either by presumption or by buying territories with the common money or otherwise. We certainly do not get more authority by purchasing more land ; and until the southern people, in due form, agree to give us the right to legislate, de- cide judicially, or to exercise executive power upon their right of property, we have not got it. That matter never was put into the common fundamental law ex- cept to the precise extent named, and we can't get it into the Constitution by our volition. Hence, slaves remain slaves un- til State sovereignty, by constitutional rule, for which the consent of all is pre- sumed to exist, intervenes, and there, and not in our General Government, are the questions you raise to be discussed and set- tled. Nor can I agree with you in your views on " sovereignty." The United States are a sovereignty towards foreign na- tions, so far as they represent in one legal person the sovereignty of all the States, but our Federal Government is not our (the States) sovereign ; we, the States and the people thereof, are its sovereign. It has delegated powers, the States granted them, and it could not, nor does it, have them without the grant, as it cannot frame out to itself authority by its own will. An agent may represent a sover- eign but is not sovereign in his own right. The purchase of territory by Jefferson was as you represent, a transcension of Federal powers, and it is ever to be re- gretted that the then President, Jefferson, did not adhere to his original purpose and have the Constitution amended, be- cause we, the children, have now to (xuar- rel over a point then left open and now rendered complicated by the lapse of time. It shows, however, how, necessary an un- deviating adhesion to States rights strict construction of the Constitution is, and how injurious every transgression of its plain provisions is. I think I have answered every material point of your kind letter. Nothiug would suit me better than a kind discussion with a gentleman of your experience, learning and legal acumen. I feel highly flattered e at receiving such an invitation from you, and if yoa will overlook the positiveness of youth as compared to your age, which I can't shake off entirely, the debate may be agreeable to you and profitable to me. Allow me to thank you kindly for your kind notice of myself and speech, and be- lieve me as ever, with deep respect and regard, Yours, truly, Chas. Reemelin. Steuben viLLE, Dec. 5, 3860. Dear Sir : Your favor of November 27th came duly to hand, and has been read and reread with much gratification on the whole. I could not but regret that you should think any part of my letter had a tincture of sarcasm. I assure you I wrote with no such feeling. Sarcasm forms no part of my character, and between earnest men, seeking for truth, it is, I think, not a legit- imate mode of argument. There is, you are aware, iu geometry a method of de- monstrating the truth by stating a kin- dred proposition not correct, and follow- ing it to its legitimate conclusion in an ab- surdity. This method is, I think, perfect- ly legitimate in investigating the philoso- phy and structure of a government. A proposition as to the authority of a gov- ernment, which, logically followed, ends in an absurdity, must be surrendered as un- sound. The enunciator must, in candor, do this, lanless he can point out some error or sophistry in the chain of argument whereby a false conclusion has been de- duced from sound premises. One of the greatest masters of language of any age has truly said that to detect a sophism and to detect the double or equivocal meaning of a word or phrase, is in nine cases out of ten one and the same thing. So far I think we shall be agreed. I propose to be gov- erned by sound rules, the above amongst others, in our inquiry, and to treat the sub- ject in regular order ab origine. I will, for the sake of simplifying the subject, begin with the condition of man- kind before the origin of human laws by custom, contract, subjection, or by any oth- er mode. Can we doubt that every human being came, and yet comes into the world, endowed by the laws of his Creator, the laws of nature, with equal rights; that the most important of these are inherent and inalienable — as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; that governments (legiti- mate governments, self-imposed restraints, authority, not power which comes from without) are instituted amongst men to se- cure these, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. There lies, in a nut-shell, the philosophy of our institu- tions. I do not here include in any form the subject of slavery. That is a distinct sub- ject, we may or may not investigate ac- cording to circumstances. Sacred writ has announced tha^God made man upright, but he has sought out many inventions. There can be, I think, no doubt that the earliest form of government amongst men was the patriarchal. In its origin it par- took of the absoldte and the reverential. It would be too long to trace its mutations, or in modern language, its progression, as the two elements, iu the expansion of fam- ilies, became antagonistic. Suffice it for the present purpose to say that they cul- minated in Europe at an early day in modern history in (with the exception of a lew spots) the absolute supremacy of the philosophy that all power (the word had a potent meaning) was inherent in the hereditary chief of the tribe or people, no matter by what name or title the one or the other was called, and that whatever was conceded fmm him to those beneath him flowed from his free and unrecompens- ed bounty. Now, let us look at the an- tagonist principle : I do not doubt that it floated as a wait from an early period over the surface of modern Europe ; but its first most imperfect germ unfolded itselt in the Anglo-Saxon Magna Charta in the thir- teenth ceutuiy. It lived as feeble as a rushlight and threw its beams no farther until Milton lit bis torch at its hallowed fires. His torch re-illumined the dark cave in which the reverence for rightful author- ity had been secluded for ages. By right- ful authority I mean, in this connection, the reverence due to that wisdom and experi- ence which seeks the best good of the body of the tribe, clan or people, as contrasted with the absolute power which seeks only the glory and prosperity of the individual ruler. The breaking down and disappear- ance of patriarchal genealogies left no hope of returning literally to patriarchal forms, but the spirit of patriarchal government consisted in tlie equality of natural rights. For the family or tribe (identical terms) had been substituted the people inhabiting a certain district of country. Now, how stood the territory, portion of country, constituting the thirteen origi- nal States of this Union f The country had been discovered and was claimed for and on behalf, not of the people of Eng- land, but of the Crown or King of Eng- land, in whom not only the right of juris- «l lotion, but of property was and is, by the })hi}osophy of tbo Englislt Constitution (a sample of all European Governments,) lodged, and to whom it returns to be re- granted on certain contingoncies. The King, not Parliament, granted the country in parcels to certain persons for considera- tions, and on conditi(»tis, granting rights of self-government within defined limits, re- serving tlie appointment of executive and judicial magistrates and a veto on all active legislation by the colonial legislatures, to himself. The language of all these grants, as well as the diversities of their extent, prove that they were granted and ac- cepted, not as a restoration to the people of a part of their inherent rights, but as voluntary grants flowing from the bounty of the Crown. Difficulties arose. The people, while acknowledging the authority of the Crown and their allegiance to it, denied utterly the authority of Parliament, and com- plained that under bad advisers the au- thority of the Crown was abused to op- press the Colonists for the benefit of oth- ers. Seethe Madison papers, vol. 1, p. 13, for a succinct statement of the attitude assumed toward the King and Parliament. The Thirteen Colonies, taking the name of States, thus separated from the parent stock, had a tabula rasa on which to found new institutions according to their own views of right. The Declaration of Inde- pendence foreshadowed the spirit, the philosophy, of those institutions ; and in very few and rare instances are our or- ganic or statutory volumes sullied by any sentiment not in accordance with it. Must not organic laws, founded in such a spirit, be intended to promote the prosperity and the happiness of tlie people in strong con- trast to the advancement of the glory and renown of the ruler? You think, my friend, that I adopt the Benthamite phi- losophy. I have read a few exrracts from, and some criticisms on Bentham. His works I never read. If his theory of gov- ernment be what I suppose it is, my an- cestors put it in practical operation before Bentham wrote, if not before he was born. There is more reason to think he imbibed his ideas from their works. I fear from your letter that in one mat- ter I was not sufficiently explicit, though I intended to be carefully so. Our Con- stitutions confer delegated authority on selected agents for the public good. The Constitution limits and defines that au- thority, as I have said, for the protection of the individual against the action of the body. Now you will not go farther than I will in protesting against any department of the Groverument overstepping the lim- its assigned it in the CcusTituiiou, no mat- ter how plausible or even how pressing the exigency. I trust we are agreed on that point. I know no man or party in the free States, except a few insane men who voted for Gerritt Smith, who hold any other doctrine. I know Southern demagogues, for the purpose of stirring up enmity be- tween brethren, seek to confound the Re- publican party with the few Abolitionists, and in the same temper represent Hanni- bal Hamlin as a mulatto. They know the gross falsehood of the one just as well as they do the other. What I, in common with the Republicans universally, contend for, is that our institutions shall be admin- istered in the same spirit in which they were founded ; that is, for the public good, or, as you express it, the legislator, hav- ing the authority, shall determine the man- ner and the measure of its exercise from the humanitarian and the utilitarian stand- point. There can be no fundamental er- ror underlying such a principle, however the legislator may err in his action upon it. I have not condensed as well as I thought I could, but I trust you and I will understand each other, and that no point of disagreement will be found to exist be- tween us so far. I now aj>proach a part of the subject upon which our views may at first be found diverse — I refer to the dis- tribution of authority between the State and the general governments. In the di- versity of views on that subject lies the whole source of our present difficulties, so far as men's minds are divided in good faith between the two. I throw out of view a little knot of men on both sides who are bent on mischief and are astute in seeking pretexts for accomplishing it. Neither you nor I would waste argument or remonstrance on them. I will only say to them — "/Sis sics, sis divuSf sum Caltha et 710 n till spiro." I have extended this letter to an unrea- sonable length, and will conclude with the expression of my sincere respect and es- teem. RoswELL Marsh. Hon. Chas. REEMELm. P. S.— Having these copied detains them a day or two. Cincinnati, December 7, 1860. Hon. RoswHLL Marsh, Steuicnville, Ohio: Dear Sir : — Your kind letter of the 5th is before me and in reply thereto, I would most seriously impress upon you once more, that in discussing questions con- 8 nected with our General Government, we must, if we wish to avoid error, be unusu- ally guarded in applying to it the usual legal argumentation. It is mainly to be judged by international law, for the gources of its authority are not to be sought in deductions from the law of na- ture, or the laws of government generally, or rules of propriety or necessity, but from the fundamental compact, the Con- stitution, its primary and final fountain of power. Strange as it may seem to you, yet it is true, that special pleading is far oftener the correct way of eliciting truth in matters of our General Government, than generalization. For instance, you set forth the general natural rights of man, and you intimate at least, if yoa do not assert it directly, that they are the basis of our Federal system ; now nothing can be farther from the truth, because, rightly viewed, the Constitution of the United States contains, in reference to such miatters, only clauses prohibiting the Gen- eral Government from impairing or inter- fering with these rights as they stand un- der State authority, in any manner. In no wise has that Government authority to determine by its will such matters; the fixing of their status being purposely left to the common or statute law of the local governments. Again: You persist in pressing your idea, that the Federal Government was es- tablished to promote the public good and general welfare. Of course, that is its ob- ject, but only within its limitecl sphere, and only in pursuance of the powers and Government machinery granted to it by the Constitution. All despotisms were sad- dled upon mankind under the plea of the public good, and there is not now, nor has there been, a tyrant who does not barb his usurpations by some such pretence. Give to our General Government unlimited charge over the whole field of our public good and what may it not do ? You dis- claim any wish to see the Federal Govern- ment transcend its powers ; but, my dear friend, do you not see that the issue be- tween us, is whether the United States Government is one of limited authority, having none but granted powers, as I in- sist, or whether it may exercise unlimited authority, the public good being the only limit and fundamental reason of our con- federation, as you contend ; for if your construction of its sphere is right, it can- not transcend its powers, as they are as wide as general governmental authority. I say the public good was to a certain lim- ited, very limited sense, the object of our General Governinent ; and I contend that our fathers (if aGerman may say " our,") were particularly afraid of getting too much public good out of the Federal Gov-' ernment ; they reserved a good deal of the task of creating public good to their own individual production and the care of their State governments. In fact, do you not think that the framers of our system had a shrewd notion that the best public good was that which the people worked out with their own heads and hands ? Did they not fear that they were likely to get a spurious article from their General Government ? In Europe, aud Germany es- pecially, the people feel what kind of pub- lic good people get through Governments, and it has become an acknowledged polit- ical axiom, that the only real progress made in political reform there and here, lies in withdrawing from governments some of the former cares for the public good. Take public charities as an in- stance : the public officer placed over them eats in his salary the bread of twen- ty paupers. It illustrates the point I am suggesting. I admit we must have some public charities, but insist that they should be so instituted as not to encourage their spread, as private charity is cheapest and best. The foregoing remarks apply, also, to your proposed line of argument, to-wit : to run a thing into absurd conclusions, and thence demonstrate it untenable. — Many a policy may be absurd when car- ried to extremes, which moderately enter- tained and discriminatingly acted upon, is logically sound. We may carry our jeal- ousy of government too far, and we may make its scope too indefinite, and the exact truth as to our Federal sys- tem, doubtless, is that the public wel- fare demanded the establishment of a General Government, but it demanded, too, that the compact should be made with a special care not to grant this Govern- ment too many powers, nor any without limit. I often think that its provisions should have been even more guarded than they are. Do not its few errors lie in occasional granting authority too vaguely ? Would it not be a better Constitution if it had in its language been more circum- spect still ? Does a rigid and strict con- struction not make it safer to the States and the people ? Have we ever had any difficulty where its language is beyond cavil ? And have not and do not all our troubles come from sailing by slovenly reckonings ? Hence I said in my speech in your city, that the first step in all argu- 9 ment on Federal affiiirs shonld be to ask : " where is the power /" (I should have used the word autliority as corrected by you.) Now I understand you to argue, that we shonld first determine whether the proposed action is for the public good. There we differ ; the difi'erence is radical. I fear we shall never agree. I must also interpose a few remarks upon your triumphant ejaculation, after quoting a portion of the Declaration of Independence, " there lies, in a nut- shell, the philosophy of our institu- tions." I do not gainsay it, but would be pleased to have you point out to which of our institutions do you refer — the State or the Federal ? Is the vindica- tion of the inalienable rights of persons entrusted to the General Government 1 They are in a most limited sense, but in their full vigor to the State governments. The fugitive slave and other clauses in our United States Constitution i>rove that the rights of person were not within the law- making authority of our Federal Govern- ment, and only in a few points within its judicial powers, and then only where con- flicts might arise between persons subject to diflerent State jurisdictions, and that then they should be adjudicated according to State law. You see " the philosophy of our institutions " was not all put into the Federal Constitution, nor is all the public good to be ground out by the Fed- eral hopper. In most of your historic statements, up- on the nature of government, we coincide ; but you are certainly in error in attribu- ting to Magna Charta the unfolding of the Anglo-Saxon idea of freedom and of re- versing the previous rule of power. In the first place it applied only to persons then free. It says : " nulliis liber homo est," (no free man); and as to trials SLud peers, it especially requires equals in these words, "nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem teru^e," (the law of the land), which in our case would mean State law. Magna Charta is, however, but one of many incidents in which mankind, from necessity were compelled to recur to first principles, and ifc only proves that at that time such recurrence was necessary in the Kingdom of England. The German States and their people, including the Scandina- vian, never gave up as much authority to their sovereigns as the English had done, and they had no need to reclaim it. The only people never consolidated into one strong central government were my native countrymen and the Scandinavians, and while they may have suffered some for want of national strength, they have es- caped many aggressions on their liberties, I agree to your proposition tliar. the thir- teen colonies had, after the revolution, or even after the Declaration of Independ- ence, a ''tabula rasa," on which they might have written new institutions aceoiding to their own soveieign pleasure ; but I agree to it only as to the federal institutions. In the States (the successors of the colonies) rights of property existed presenting any- thing but a tabula rasa. Whence do our Eastern fellow-citizens get their land titlest I surmise that the royal prerogative, against which you aim so many arrows, has to stand as the strong, broad and main foun- dation for them ! Besides, were there not personal relations then existing, and in no wise erased, which had a black coat over them, and which made them anything but a carte blanche ! Those property rights stood then and stand now in the way of that ''normal condition" of which the Chicago Platform speaks, being a fact. The truth is, the fathers let all things, most sensibly, alone, for which they found no tabula rasa, and they wrote no "normal condition" into the only tabula rasa they had — the Federal Constitution ; a most wise policy, as under it alone the Constitution was a possibility. They strove for the at- tainable, and it they secured; had they at- tempted more they would have lost all; and as long as North America exists their course will remain the true one. Hence those only are wise patriots who watch and work, that the boundaries fixed by the fathers for the respective spheres of our States and our Federal Government be preserved, and who accordingly deny to the latter autliority over rights of person and property, save their protection, when under its limited jurisdiction. Bentham is a close reasoner, but an Eng- lishman and full of Anglicisms, and hence apt to lead ms astray whenever he argues from the stand-point of a Government en- dowed with legislative omnipotence. Hi« essays I like to read, because he occasion- ally breaks through accepted notions, which I esteem of value to such readers as can form opinions of their own. I do not charge upon the Republican party abolitionism, though I am aware that the latter is all the temper it has got. I charge upon it a desire to overslaugh the Constitution under a humanitarian ideal with which that instrument has nothing whatever to do. Nor do I participate in any slanders upon Senator Hamlin. I must however insist that the Republican party, and he with it, labors under a fundamental 10 error when it adopts, as a federal rale of action, axioms merely from utilitarian ar- gameuts, for to my mind nothing ean, hav- ing reference to the General Government, be useful and humanitarian enough to au- thorize an iufriugement of the Constitu- tion. I regret as much as you do the irascible temper of our Southern statesmen and fel- low-citizens, but remember their all is at stake : with us only an idea and a false one at that— anti-slavery ; false I mean in bringing it into federal politics. That there should be men South who, provoked by our meddling with their institutions, should write equally false, or rather let me say, totally false ideas, is but an echo of our own wrong. Let us quit dragging into the federal political arena views about things which concern us not, and the South will cease regaling us with such stuff as you speak of. I did not see the article you allude to in the National InteUigeneer, and would doubtless, like you, have turned it over as sophistry.* You are severe upon those of our fel- low-citizens who are engaged in saving the Union, and you wish them in the hands of a South Carolina vigilance committee, a wish which shows how hard you can be. I have no wish in tlie premises, having no power to act. Neither the outgoing nor the incoming administration suit me^ I fear the milk of the Union is badly spilled, for I see but little milk of human kindness left between the respective portions of the Union. As I never looked to force to keep it together, and as I perceive all hope of fraternal harmony dwindling more and more, I apprehend that de facto though not de jttre, I am a citizen of only half a country, and as my allegiance to the whole still lives in spite of all efforts to sileace it, I must even sing : " Life is but a moment, Life ia but a dream- Men are the passengers, They paddle down the stream." Truly yours, Charles Reemelin. P. S.— On re-reading the foregoing I see that I have used sarcasm, to which you have a right to object. I have not time to re-write the letter, please overlook them, and rest assured that nothing wrong is meant by them. Steubenville, Dec. 19, 1860. Dear Sir : Yours of the 7th inst. is re- ceived. I begin to fear that instead of progressing orderly in our investigations, finding wherein we are agreed and then calmly examining the matters whereupon we dissent, we shall be wasting our time and labor in misunderstanding each other. Now, my dear sir, in my last letter I said not one word on the General Goveiji- meut, except that I was now ready, in the close, to appioach that subject. You re- ply as if I had treated that only. I stated the equality of the natural rights of men, because without it, when men come to- gether to form the social compact, the community, when each must vest in the community by an organic law a jiartof his personal rights to form a new artificial per- son, strong enough to protect each in the enjoyment of the remainder, either he who possesses greater rights than another must give up more or they would not af^ , terwards stand equal in the eye of the law. ' I am not speaking of communities form- ed by force, by conquest, but by voluntary association, as all our original colonies formed theirs. I used the phrase tabula rasa, in its connection with strict propriety, because their legislative deijartment and its works was all their own and founded upon the principle of seeking their own happiness and prosperity. The executive and judicial departments were contam- inated by the European system of govern- ment for the benefit of the ruler. The two were incongruous and the revolution Steubenville, Decembers, 1860. *Deak Sir: — I have been reading a series of letters in tlie National Intelligencer puiporting to be address- ed by a if ew England man, who has emigrated South, to a brother who remains in New England. The Edi- tors vouch for him aa a clergyman. The form, I pre- sume, is hist^te as a mode of getting before the i)ub- lie. To that I take no exceptions. 1 have naught to do but with his sentiments and his course of argu- ment. Through a long, tortuous, wiredrawn chain of sophisms, he comes to the idea that all laen are not born with equal rights, bscause he, in South Carolina, sees them in possession of very diflerent amounts of rights, and he reminds his broth(^r that even in New England one man will not associate with another on terms of equality. Is he a fool, or does he think you and I such fools that by his columns of sophistry he can bewilder us untU we cannot discriminate between the laws of nature (Gods law) and the artificial rules of society ? I would reply to him and try for once to be sarcastic, but if the National Intelligencer should publish it, the paper would be burned in South Carolina by the hands of the cemmon hangman. There iscertaiuly noequal- ity in such a state of things. We read and consider what they say, but when we attempt to answer them, however candidly, our arguments are dencunced as incendiary. An" esjjionage which would disgrace the Austrian police prevents any man South, however in- telligent, from reading the corrections of the mon- strovis fables they propagate against us. I hear that certain men are humbly inquiring of them how much of our rights we must give up to pacify them this time, and in response I see a Soirth Carolina paper exultant- ly exclaims : " They waver— hit them again and they will yield" May any Republican memberof Congress who falters fall into the hands of a South Carolina vieilance committee. Yours, Pv. MAKSH. Hon. C. Reemelin. 11 If. tf\n ,>Riivf "tff'i swept the foreign elements from the scene. They then had tabula rasa to found their institutions, their organic hiws, upon uni- form and consistent principles. I can imagine but two objects in consti- tuting a state, a government. One is the benetit of the people constituting it, the other is the benetit of the ruler. The first must in charity be presumed to be the object, when it is the work of the people themselves. The conqueror who imposes his laws upon a conquered people, or the tyrant who has trampled the free constitution of his country under the hoofs of his horses, must be credulous indeed if he expects to be believed, however strong or frecpient his professions may be. True it is the world has seen that a people may fail for want of skill to found a free government, or have failed for want of patriotism and vir- tue to perpetuate it. So under despotic forms a few rulers have had the wisdom to discover that their own and the people's interest was the same, and the virtue to pursue it. These rare anomalies drew from the poet the craven sentiment : " For forma of government let foola contest, That wbich is be.-le of all the Stares of this Union, and I abide in good faith by all the legitimate consequences, flowing from the fact that I am a citizen of a Union, part slave and part free, and I now say to you that your " normal condi- tion " dsvindles before the fact here point- ed out. Slave States were, and are in the Union, and you must seek for your nor- mality another country, here it is aji un- truth and a fallacy. Believing as I do, that our United States Contitution does, as it is, full justice to all the States, if we will but view it with- out prejudice, I wish for no atnendnieut. What needs amending is public opinion, it puts its passions into our politics, and there lies the mischief. The slave States ask, of me and you only, that we abstain from settling local matters through feder- al politics. I cheerfully accord it, and would be still more glad if, by common con- sent, all and every entanglement with the domestic institutions of States and their people were forever avoided, for that is exactly what I want. I am for no policy which increases the connection of our Central Government with local aflfdirs, and especially with slavery. Hence, I stand by the Constitution made as it was by States Rights men and interpreted as it has been by States Rights Democrats- I remain, truly yours, Cn.\s. Rkemelin. 6 Mahch 15. 1861. Since writing the forgoing, I have re- read your last lorter7 and I find that 1 overlooked some parrs of it, ;tnd failed to reply fully to others, heru-e, ^ou mutjt al- low me a few more words. I do not see the cogency of the deduc- tions you draw about rhe regaining or fee- doni by criminals, nor their applicaiion to daves, especially not the l)e.ariiig this has on the qnesrion how far the Uni'ed States Government may interfere with slavery. A criminal looses his freedom by judgment of vouvi for a defiu He period, and ot course becomes free agaiu «)U the espiration of that peiiod. The slaves whose legal status we are discussing, ntv- er were free in the e;\eof the General G-)V- erument, but property, which like all other property, it protects when within its jur- isdiction, not because it made them, or would make them property, but because they were, and are such by Stafelaw, where alone is the authority to dereimiae such maters. The United iSraJ-es Government finds them slaves, and there leaves them, having no power nor lespousibility in making them such. They' are not sen- tenced like criminals for a term of months or years, but are slaves for lite, as rheir parents were befue them, and as their children will be after rhem unless f(ie\ are emancipated. The issue ever is where is the authoiity to abrogate this relation of theirs to their masters ? You argue in favor of that which ;^ou desire, I by what is the actuality. We both wirsh the same, but you permit your idea of what should be, to override your judgment as to the actual facts! You are ouc hunting machinery with which to remove an evD, and finding the United Stales Govern- men handy, press it into your service. I demur, and contend that jielding to that Government power for such a purpose, is .\ielding it for all purposes, it becomes un- limited and then of course all liberty de- parts. The Federal Government r'lever loost s b) not getting undue jjowers; oil the coutrary it gains by not having them, as the less it meddles with domestic affairs, the stronger it is Let us be thankful, therefore, that it has no law in such mat- tors, that it takes ic as it finds it, and is without authority to charge it, or supply its abaceace. In short, let it ever be un- der8t«>od, that the State Governments, and not the General Government fixed the le- gal relations of our black race. The normal condition of all mankind has unr.hing to do with the qnesrion. 42 the international aud not the civil law tarnishes the rule of constraction and as- certainment in this matter, and the inquiry must first of all be made and settled where the jurisdiction lies. I again aver not in the United States Government ! You speak of the inherent right of every human being to his freedom, even to shed blood in its vindication, and I have never quescioned it, and yet, in case of au insurrec- tion of slaves, would :aot the General Gov- ernment, on call from a Sfcate,have to repress it? And why? Because the Constitution says so ! But could it or would it without the application of the respective State Legislature or Governor do so ? Certainly not ! Here is your inherent right again in conflict with the Constitution and the rights of a State ! Which determines the action of the General Government ? You see there is the freedom of persons and the freedom from domestic violence by a State; so is there a State liberty and a personal liberty, and each is entrusted to different public organizations. You would tree a negro by the General Government, I would keep ray State free as against the same Government. In my mind the Federal Government is dangerous to liberty the moment it is boundless in power ; in yours it is the liberator of slaves. The future, when jou and I may bo gone, will tell whose ideas were right. I deny the right of France to liberate the slaves in her colonies against the con- sent ot the owners, as our ancestors did tliat of the British Parliament in the North American Colonies. History has acted in this matter and pronounces the wholesale emancipation of the Republicans of revolu- tionary France to be an act of folly and in- justice. Moreover, that act of France — gone )jia response a judge in such a territory mnst i make to a return to a habeas corpus, that he had the person in court and claimed the right to detain him because he was his slave ? I care not how the return is va- ; ried nor how he derives title whether from rho King of Dahomey or from a statute or custom of South Carolinia or of Virginia. All would be equally patent and equally impatent in the lociis of that court's juris- I diction. A law enacted by a lawgiver having jurisdiction over the locim in quo sanctioning the status must be produced. I The principle of the local restriction of , laws of domestic relations goes much farther, for if an apprentice be bound to a mechanic in Ohio to be taught the trade. i and the master remove with him to Indi- I ana or Kentucky, the indentures are for- feited. It is singular that no case is re- I ported of an attempt by a master to hold , a slave in a tenitory, at least 1 can find I none. Cases have' arisen in the free States, and with a uniform result. You : say no prohibitory statue can exist by ' United States law, in another place you say you smile at my idea that I adhere to tue doctrines of the fathers of the Con- stitution, leaving to those who impugn them the laboring oar. Now it so hap- I pens that within forty years after the adop- [ tion of the Constitution, Congress did pas? some fifteen statutes, prohibiting the car- rying of slaves from slave States into ter- i ritories, by land and by water, and in some I of the cases they were slave territories. I A diligent search does not show an in- stance in that time in which the Constitu- tional authority was disputed and I think the yeas and nays were never called on ' the passage of such a statute. They were approved and signed by Washington, Jef- 1 ferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, allslave- ! holders, and as likely to know the rights I and authority of all parties as any body i now. ! You ask if I really mean to contend that the United States has the same right of property and jurisdiction in a territory as in a national ship. In answer at once I do assert it as undoubtedly true that they have. Why not? Both are purchased and paid for out of the same national fund. Both are objects of purchase, bar-; ter and sale. The United States has more than onou conveyed away as well as acquired terri- 44 toiy for au equivalent. It was the plain natural idea of our good fathers that hav- ing acquired, they and they only had the right to govern and lay the foundations of the future comirmnity theie, that induced tbf>m to mould them as they did. Tiieir legislation over them was not con- spring ftom the people, the source of all authority. The State organization being a delegated authority was admitted, ap- parently on all hands^ to be inadequate to divest itself of a part of its constitutional authority and transfer it to a third party. The most of the little tha>*". passed on the iined to slavery. The laws of desct-nt, of j subject in the convention will be found in dower, wills, transfer ol title inter alia j the Madison papers, vol. 3, page 1468 to wtre presc-ibed. I tell you my friend, the ! 1470, Luther Martin, of Mviryland, on idea that the Stare laws are entitled to af \ that point, being decided against his re- fect the control of the United "States over j sistance, left the convention in discontent the territories, is a modern heresy finding because the State authorities wer© passed no warrant in any Constitution State or over, and published an intemperate pam- National, nor in any legislation under phlet against the convention and its la- them. Itcanonlj be established by de- bors. It fell still-born at the time, but nouncing all the legislation respecting the many of his ideas are now resuscitated by territories, down to 1854, as uuconscitu- men who have no idea of their origin, aL'd tional and void. You refer me to the i who. in their zeal to place the States para« principle that no man shall be deprived of! mount to the United States, read the Con- his property escept by due process of law j stitntion of the United States with the as contravening my doctrine. I admit the I sixth article left out. piiuciple and will defend it in a proper! You have not yet answered my special case as firmly as any one, but I insist that | plea, in a former letter, of a Connecticut when a slaveholder brings his slave into | man indicted for treason against the Ohio, or cairies hiiu to a territory where ! United States, that the State of Connect!- there is no statute sanctioning slavery, he j cut had not the constitutional authority does lose him bj due process of law, and j to transfer his allegiance to the United has the reflection that his loss is the result j States Senator. Mason, on that principle, of his own injprudent act. You admit | declared that he owed no allegiance to the that the rule of rhe United States is free- j United States, but that all his allegiance dom as to all slaves brought from abroad , was due to Virginia. On your doctrine The diHtinciion is that all slaves brought he was right, and Senator WigfalPwas al- inio the United States, since 1808, arefieo, i so right in the further sequence from the all hough broughi into a slave State. [same premises, that the withdrawal of I rejoice ihut what you feel compelled '■ one State dissolved the partnership as to to advocate is repugnant to the impulses j all, requiring a new partnership contract ot your nature. 1 did not doubt it, nor i between those who desire to continue the need that test to prove your sincerity in I Union. This is so familiar a feature of the doctrines \ou advocate. I said within [ the law of partnership that Senator Wig- the exclusive jurisdiction of the United I fall, or even you or I, humble County Slates. The distinction is the very hinge Court lawyers can claim credit for no re- of the argument. Tliis and the other markable sagacity for the discovery. The heresy that the States, and not the people, error of Mason, 'Wigfall and my friend formed the Ci>LS!irutiun of the United ; Reemelin (pardon the association) is in Sutes, are the sources of all our present' the premises. The deductions are perfect- troubles, and couid not be reasonably ex | ly legitimate and are not half exhausted yet- pustiru- 1 constitutional doctrines I have advanced, tiou we should have been as much torn ' I am not aware of any. Nor do I look and distsac ed by civil war forty years i with any puzzled countenance at the Con- siuce, as Mexico or any South American ; stitution. All its provisions, the legisla- Stale has bet n. The question was made, ; rive, executive and judicial transactions dr-haied and settled in the convension in | under it, and a vast mass of political and 1787, huw the Consritution should be rat ; partisan controversies over it, have long^ ilied and adopted, whether by the State j been as familiar to my mind as household organizations or b\ conventions of the | words. people. Conventions were adopted lor • It is by no means singular that the great vaiiiiUH reasons in fotm, all, however, con- j resistance to the adoption of the Conetitu- ceniiaiing in the piinciple that aConstitu j tion in the conventions, and in some ot tioD being an organic law could only them it was long and very bitter, was be- 45 cause it was uot wliat it is uow claimed } by the Democrats and Southern men that \ it is. The opponents of the Constitution | were then known as States rights men. — ! Gerry, of Massachusetts, who beome Vice President, and Mason and Randolph, of Virginia, wlio became leading States rights Democrats, refused to sign it as members of the Convention, strenuously opposed its adoption in their States, and ; George Clinton, of New York, who also ; became Vice President, resorted to every means to prevent its adoption. ; That the States have very important ' constitutional authority left witb them, and that it regulates and eontroles nine- tei ths of all the ordinary concerns of life ivithin each State, that we perceive its ac- tion in theavocationsoflifeten times where wedothat of the United States once, is true, and I have never intimated the contrary ; but where does it transcend the boundaiies of the State in any instance or in respect to any species of property f T say nowhere in no conceivable ease. A Kentuckian cannot recover his fugitive slave in Ohio by ■ Kentucky law, but must re.sort to United Slates law for the purpose. The Consti- \ tution gives Congress -power to regu- ; late commerce between the States, and , the commerce in slaves is included in j that clause as well as the one respecting ' foreign commerce. This authority has ' been exercised. The Srh, 9th and 10th ' sections of the act of March 2, 1807, put ' the coastwise commerce in slaves under \ very severe restrictions, interdicting it ab- .-joliitely in vessels under forty tons bur- then. That act is still in force. It has been proposed to strike out that clause of the Constitution lately. I do not' think the amendment could be effected, i The change would be much greater than ■ (irst impressions would indicate. The Constitution of the United States i.s, to an immense estent, guarantor of personal and property rights. Every clause of sec. 10, art 1, restrains the States fi-om acts by which the rights of persons and property might be infringed, and such ^ acts have, m a multitude of cases, been an- ! nulled by the Supreme Court of the j United States. The ratification was to be ' by the conventions of nine States. \ Nothing more surprises me than your ' idea that " if we strike down the people (Query. Citizens ?) of a State we have no | people" (Query. Citizens?) of the United States. Was you naturalized a citizen of ^ Ohio or a citizen of the United States ? ■ Is your citizenship a thing different from | mine, I being native-born ? According ' to your doctrine we have no man eligible for President as he mnst be a natural- Dom citizen of the United States, not of any State. I do uot see that there being or not be- ing slave States in the Union can effect the normal condition ot territories where the laws of no State, slave or free, have any potency. Their normal condition must be slave or free, it cannot be both in the absence of human law, and to deter- mine wliich we must appeal to the law of nature. That polygamy is inconsistent with the peace of families, with good mor- als, with public prosperity, I do not doubt, and 1 think you and I would agree in predicating the same things of slavery. Both are twin relics of barbarism. But how the one, my position, is any more in- consistent than the other with a republi- can form of government, I am unable to see. Can you enlighten rao on that mat- ter / I assure you I do not repine at be- ing unable to enjoy either, but most think both equally require a positive law to tol- erate them. I answer your last query by denying that the United States Govern- ment has any analogy to a partnership. It is a government in which the decision of the majority, expressed in the prescribed mode, binds the rights of all. My active season is commencing, and 1 may be compelled to close our interesting correspondence. Indeed I do not see that anything new can be elicited on either side, unless lawyer-like wo array our an- thorlties in martial ranks on either side. Truly yours, * " R. Marsh. flON. C. RUKMEiaN. - CiNCiNXATi, March 29, 186J. llox. lloswELL Marsh, Steubenville. Dear Sir : Yours of the 26th opens with a question, which again and again exposes the radical difference there is between oiu' views upon the United States Constitution. You ask, where I find that the United States Government has agreed to have no normal condition of its own, but to "follow that recognized as de facto and de jure by State sovereignty ?" ' I answer, it did so when the clause was inserted into the Con- stitution that " the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to tho States, are re- served respectively to the States or to the people." This is the tinal agreement be- tween the States and the United States Government; it means that that Govern- ment shall never attempt to get powers by a priori reasoning, by appeals to nfttnral ^6 law, or by analogy to civil governments. It means, further, that in all c^ses where the Constitntion itself is silent, the law and authority in any case shall not be sought by overleaping the States and their people and by roaming in the wide fields of law generally, but by an immediate reference to the States and their jjeople and their laws. Neither the laws of nature nor the civil law, nor any other law, can be law for the United States Government, ex- cept that willed for it by the States and the people thereof in the Constitution; and furthermore, outside of that instrument there is no law anywhere or for any per- son or any thing, except State law. Two sources, then, and no more have we in our several governments; first, the Constitu- tion as the law of our interaational Union, and second, the State laws for all the com- mon affairs of Ufe. Hence, I say, the United States Government has agreed, in all cases where no power is delegated to it, (and it has none as to rights of person, to which I applied my argument) to have no normal condition of its own, but to follow that recognized as de facto and de jure by State sovereignty. Such is, as far as I know and can find out on inquiry, the rale in our United States Courts, and they, in comity to the States, have even adopted in each of their district courts, as their mode of procedure, that in force in the State whtre they sit. This brings, as I have already duid, to the surface the very lino which separates us. You search out the law for and in our territories outside of the Constitution and the State laws by going to the law of na- ture and to (I priori reasoning. That nat- ural law of freedom of person has, how- ever, as much and as little force in the States as in the territories, it exists for all as a sort of fundamental theory ; but, let me ask, why is it not enforced for all? Simply because other law has taken effect, and upon whomsoever that other lav,-, pre- scribed by supreme power, attaches with- in the same political unity, he cannot get clear of it, except by the act of another supreme power removing it. Now, then, let us see who is the supremo State or States remains until abrogated by a law enacted by sovereign power. 4. A universal law or usage in all the States in the Union alone justifies the General Government to so proclaim it, for instance, the marriage of one man to one woman is such a law and usage. 5. A right of property, lawful in any State in this Union, remains such in the- territories, and nothing short of sovereign State authority can abrogate it. (5. The United States Government has no powers whatever to establish or to abol- ish slavery. 7. All personal relations, slavery includ- ed, are sectional under our federal system, and they have a right to be so. They do not require the recognition of the Federal Government to make them lawful. The right to determine upon them existed be- before the Constitution and outlives it ; it belongs to the States and the people thereof. 8. A strong federal government towards foreign nations, and a weak one towards the people and the States, are the best con- ditions of the welfare and perpetuity of the Union. The British Government is the best in Europe, because it has both these attributes better than any other. Sir Robert Peel saved the English people from a revolution by >neldinf» at the right 51 time ; Louis Philippe lost liis throne by re- sisting until it was *' too late." 9. The United States Government havS no powers, except those clearly granted in the Constitution. 10. " The people of the several States " are the grantors of the powers of our fed- eral system, without them there is no peo- ple of the united States. 11. When the present United States (!on- stitution was inade there was no tahula ■rasa, rights of property existed in lands Hud goods and in slaves, which remained as unaffected by the United States Con.^ti- tution as they did by the Declaration of Independence. Ixi. That joint purchasers and owners of land cannot object to the settlement there- on of a CO -purchaser and owner with his family or property for causes known when the .joint purchase was made, and not then explicity stated in the purchase contract. And now, having closed our discussion. what do you say to publishing our letters t I do neither desire it nor would I object to it, and if you are willing I am, but wish to revise my letters so far as inaccuracies of language have crept in. I wrote most of them amidst interruptions of business, and they are the result of deep convictions rather then of studied efibrt. The copies I took of my letters are imperfect, so in case their publication is determined upon, I would have to ask you to return me the letters themselves for the above pur- pose. I leave the determination to yon, and presenting my most respectful compli- ments to you and also to your estimable lady, whose time has been so much em- ployed in this matter, I remain, in spite of political differences, yours, with the high- est esteem and regard, ClIAS. TIE£MET>IN. 54 " iV <>. ^ ,..'•4 -^O -Js!^ -^ilf*,^^ \^ ., -^ •" > -•'"' ^V^ /%. '•^^'- ^'^^ •.^- /\ °-.^^-- **'\ -.1 o_ *'" ■.tii;^t.V ..o*..i^.*°o /.'j-j^t-v .p^.c^'^^^o r ... .0^ ^2> V^\!Jel '^O^ ^V *Oo 8,^' ^^> b5°.<» 1^ iP-^K ./x A WtRT BOOKBINDING '>o^ s*^, */^^