THE
STAT E S 0ERtEIGNIr:ZiE:COiR.:D
M A S AC4 -H U S E TS.
A. SON OF NORFOLK,
-NORPOLK, VA:
4. W.'AX'HERLY, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, 157 MAIN ST.
1872,




PRICITMOND, VA., November 15, 1872.
S. S. Dawes, Esq.,
Norfolk, FV.,
DEAI>  SIR:-You doubtless recollect the conversation I held with
you a short time ago, in which I casually mentioned to you some of the
evidences I had gathered of the diametrically opposite positions which
the State of Massachusetts has held on the subject of State Sovereignty
in two distinct periods of' her history; and that you then suggested to
me the expediency of putting these evidences together in. some durable
form for the infbrmation of the reading public of the South, and peradventure of some of the Northern people.
Reflectiing on what you said, I at last decided to act on your suggestion, and, accordingly in the form of a letter to yourself, have thrown
together, in the following pages, some important and ineffaceable facts
in the political record of Massachusetts, which I have here and there
interspersed with a few comments and reflections of my own naturally
suggested by those facts.
That I should publicly address the following pages to yourself I con -
sider especially appropriate, because it was from your own suggestion
the work has been written, and because of your well known consistent
and unchangeable devotion to the political truths for which our Revolutionary forefathers successfully contended, and who little thought
that those truths and the system of government they adopted, w-ere to
be ruthlessly overthrown and scornfully trampled under foot ere the
lapse of one short century after their vast sacrifices and Herculean
efforts in the cause of free government.
With sentiments of the highest esteem, I am,
Dear Sir, very truly, your friend,
A SON OF NORFOLK.




ddg of furata, Jnni  inits mttl i (usrvhirns,
Page  3, line  2. —Insert "tlhe" before'"freedom."
Page  5, line 35.-Chlange "a" into "e" in the word " independant."
Page  6, line 13. —Change "1775" into "         1793."
Page 10, line  4. —-Insert " t " in the word "Harford."
Page 11, line 31.-I-nsert "as above described" after ihe word "confederacy."
Page 11, line 37.-(TChange the first. "as' into "so."
Page 16, line 23.-Strike out the word "for."
Page 20, line 24. —-Change "McBeth" into " MacBeth."
Page 20, line 31. —Insert "the" before  "above."
Page 23, line  2. —-Iisert'"of other" after the word "record,."
Page 23, line  7. —Transpose the letters "i e" in the word "soveriegnty."
Page 24, line.. —Insert "of 1789" after the word "confederacy."








THE STATE —SOVEREIGNTY
RECORD OF MASSACHUSETTS.
RICHMIOND, VA: —November 13, 1872.
8. S. Dawes, Esq.,
7orfolk, Va.,
DEAR SIR:-I have noticed in a recent number of the Boston Advertiser, (a Republican Journal,) some editorial comments on the results of the late Presidential election; and among those comments I
was particularly struck by this remark of the editor, (as if he were
announcing an event of great public benefit,) viz:
STT STATE SOVEREIGNTY IS DEAD."
What a melancholy, deplorable fact, what a commentary on the
rapid political degeneracy of the American people in the short space
of ninety-six years it is, that, in any quarter of the Union, an exponent of the opinions of the dominating and most numerous party can
now be found exulting in so awful a public misfortune as the destruc.
tion of the means and support of freedom of local government, the
great right for which among others, the fathers successfully fought,
and established with the most jealous care on, as they thought, the
firmest of foundations,
But if State Sovereignty is dead, who killed it?  Surely not the
people of the South; for they, as the whole world knows, fought to
sustain it. If it was one of the most prominent features of the compact between the States, the very corner stone of the Constitution and
Union, then they who overthrew it, if at the time living under it, were
revolutionists, and therefore rebels; and the Advertiser thus, by its own
dictum, convicts the people of the North of being the real rebels in
the late war between the States.
Was it indeed the corner stone of the Constitution, or a myth which
in reality never had any support or basis in the Constitution, as the
despotic party which now rules the country, actually asserts and affects
to believe?  In order that objection, on the score of latitude, may not
be made by our " enemies," (Boutwell meo auctore for this expression,)
if I should introduce Southern testimony for the solution of this ques



4
tion, I will therefore cite Northern witnesses to the stand, and in fact
Massachusetts only, saving one or two brief exceptions.
When the present Federal Constitution was placed, as it originally
came from the hands of its framers, before the people of Massachusetts,
in Convention in 1788, for acceptance or rejection by them in their own
separate behalf, as they in their full, separate, and absolute sovereignty
might see fit to do, they, (disapproving of it as it then stood,) yet accepted and ratified it, with the confident expectation however and a clear
understanding from the friends of the Constitution, that the following
(among others) important explanatory declaration, (then drawn up
and proposed by Massachusetts herself,) should speedily be added to
and become tin Article of the Constitution; viz: (and these are her
own words,)  " That it be explicitly declared that all powers not expressly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution, are reserved to the
several States, to be by them exercised."
Massachusettts saw, when the Constitution was first laid before her in
the condition in which it had come from the hands of its framners, that if
not amended in the mode indicated by her proposed declaratory article,
the artful lovers of power and prerogative might and doubtless Would,
as time wore on, endeavor to establish, from the general tenor of the
Constitution as it had come from  the hands of the framers, that the
people by their ratifications had rmerged their several separate State
Sovereignties into, what has since proved to be that capacious reservoir
of power, the General Government, and had thus voluntarily instituted an(d intended to institute one great perfectly-sovereign political
community called "The People of the United States."  To prevent
any chance of this, Massachusetts provided for the addition to the
Constitution of her " explicit" declaration, (in which she inserted the
word "delegated" to preclude the idea even of alienation,) and, as it
were, stipulated for that addition by formally appending the declaration to her own ratification of the Constitution when she sent the latter
to Congress.  So much opposed was a large portion of her State Convention to ratifying the Constitution before her proposed amendments
should be added to it, that, out of three hundred and fifty five members composing it, only one hundred and eighty seven could be
persuaded to vote for ratification without the addition of the amendments prior to ratification; and the larger portion of those who did
vote for ratification voted thus because of assurances made to them
that the Constitution should be amended without delay.
It is worth while to notice here, that, notwithstanding this. wise precaution of Massachusetts, the great historian Motley has, within a few




5
years past in a grave and important work, unblushingly stated, inl tihe
fakce of Article VII, of the Constitution itself, (which says: "The ratification of tlhe conventions of nine Stcate shall be sufficient  fr the establishment of this Constitution betueeen, the States so ratifyinll the saine,")
a.nd in direct contradiction of the Tenlth Amendment and of the well
known and recorded facts o' the case, that the people of the United
States, as one people, one consolicdated political community, ordained
and established the Constitution, and vested Congress with the sovereign
powers it exercises.
Thousands.of otherwise well informled people at the North who have
read Motley, but who have not studied the Constitution for themselves
nor investigated the facts of its h siory and the concomitant political
history of the several political communi ties concerned in filamiin  it and
putting it in operation, religiously believe his utterly unfounded dictum
on this sulject.
But to go back to Massachusetts' "explicit declaration." In accordance with her desire and with that of some of the other States, this
declaration was, in fulfillment of the assurances that had been made,
proposed by Congress, at its first session under the present Constitution,.
to the several States as an amendment to the Constitution, and, as soon
as the necessary legal forms could be gone through for tlhe purpose....
(to-wit in 1791,) it became a declaratory Article of the Constitutionr
now known as the Tenth Amendment or Article; and thus, as an au —
thoritative commentary on the Constitution itself; it definitively and.
as was then supposed, forever settled the question of State Sovereignty,
and decided that the Government of the ITnited States possessed no
original underived, inherent sovereingty of its own, or represented any
such sovereignty as existing in one consolidated political community, but.
was the mere recipient only of the right to exercise, for the benefit of
the States, a certain few  specified " powers" of sovereignty that were
only " delegated" (,not alienated) to it by the several really sovereign
parties to the compact, viz: the States, who each separately and for itself
looked to no Constitution whatever (State or Federal) and to no earthly
power outside of itself' for the warrant of its own inherent and underived, independant sovereignty.
This was the first step, so- far as the present Constitution of the
United  States is concerned, that Massachusetts took to assert the
existence of and to provide a Constitutional guarantee for the security
of State Sovereignty; and notwithstanding her recreancy  in recent
years and at present from her earlier grand and promineit position
in these matters, she yet will deserve the gratitude of posterity, (should




6
State Sovereignty be ever again recovered,) for her noble and successful
stand in this behalf in the earlier days of the Republic.
Massachusetts again stood forth the vindicator of State Sovereignty,
when by the mouth of Judge Sullivan, her Attorney General, and
afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court and Governor of the State, she
said, (in 1791,) of the present Federal Constitution, that it was "a
compact between the States," being a repitition of her more solemn and
authoritative declaration of 1788, recorded in her act of ratification of
the Constitution, where she terms it "an explicit compact "as if intending to indicate by the use of the word " explicit" that it was expressed
too plainly to be susceptible of more than one interpretation.
A third time did Massachusetts put in an appearance in energetic
and successful defence of State Sovereignty, when in 1775, her Governor, John Hancock, and her Attorney General, James Sullivan, were
summoned by the U.. Marshall to appear in court and, as the representatives of the sovereignty of Massachusetts, to answer to a suit of
a citizen of another State. The Governor refused to obey the summons,
although the Constitution provided for just such cases, and authorized
this citizen to sue Massachusetts. The Governor forthwith summoned
a meeting of the Legislature;' and in his opening speech to them he
said, "I cannot conceive that the people of this Commonwealth, who
by their representatives adopted the Federal compact, expected a State
would be held liable to answer a cumpulsory civil process to an individual of another State or foreign kingdom."  He also said that a
"' consolidation of the States into one government would endanger the
nation as a Republic, and eventually divide the States now united, or
er:adicate the principles for which we have contended," meaning the
principles fought for in the then recent Revolutionary War.  Did he
in prophetic moool then look forward to the present time and predict
the wonders that now are being, and for the last eleven years have been
enacted in this-what shall I call it? certainly not, Republic.
In view of the exigency in which the Legislature of Massachusetts
thus found their State, they passed on the 27th September, 1793, the
following resolution, viz:
"Resolved, That a power claimed of compelling the State to become
a defendant at the suit ot an individual or individuals, is unnecessary
and inexpedient, and in its exercise dangerous to the power, safety,
and independence of the several States and repugnant to the first prinples of a Confederate government."
Accordingly, to prevent the chance of any other attempt at offering
such an indignity to a Sovereign State, Massachusetts again proposed




7
a farther amendmcent to the Federal Constitution as an additional
guard and guarantee of State Sovereignty, and it was adopted and is
now known as the Eleventh Amendment.  John Hancock, James
Sullivan, Samuel Adarns, Doctor Jarvis, Nathan Dane and many other
great and leading men of Massachusetts took a very active and energetic
part in this successful vindication of State Sovereignty.-[Foweler.]
We see here that this Stat6 was then so determined to entrench
State Sovereignty in  an  impregnable  position, that she actually
proposed and procured the atnul'ment of an original provision of the
Constitution, viz: that provision in Section 2d, of Article III, which
empowered a citizen of any State to sue any other State.  And there
to this day does that provision stand in the Constitution, a dead letter,
forever void and of no effect, and utterly killed by the procurement
of Massachusetts alone in her persistent efforts to guard securely and
firmly establish the great controlling feature of the American system
of Federal Government, State Sovereignty.
Again did Massachusetts' stand up stoutly for the firm establishment
of State Sovereignty, (although in this instance, I go backwards in my
chronology of her noble persistence,) when through the voice of the
great Sa.muel Adams, who was afterwards Lieutenant Governor of the
State, she said, (in her ratifying convention of 1788,) of the declaratory amendment before referred to, that it " was consonant with the
Second Article in the present (meaning the then existing first) confederation, viz: that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and izndependence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this
confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress
assembled."  Observe just here particularly, that Samuel Adlams by
claiming the Tenth Amendment of the present Constitution to be the
equivalent of the Second Article of the first Constitution, plainly claims
that the sovereignty itself resides in the States, not the States collectively, but separately in " each " State, and that certain "powers " of
sovereignty, (that is to say, not the sovereignty itself but the right to
exercise certain powers thereof,) are only' delegated," not alienated
to Congress.  This is just what the Tenth  Amendment in the present
Constitution asserts, and was intended, (on the motion of Massachusetts
herself made out of abundant caution,) to declare.
When Samuel Adams was appointed  Lieut. Governor, (John
Hancock being Governor,) he said, referring to his induction into
office, " I shall be called upon to make a declaration, and I shall do it
cheerfully, that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is and of right
ought to be a fiee sovereign and independent State.  I shall be called




upon to make another declaration with the same solemnity, (his oath,)
to support the Constitution of the Unitted States.  I see no ilconsistency
in this."  Nor needed he to have seen it; for, while Massachusetts
should choose to remain in the Confederacy, she herself, and therefore
her State officers, would be in law and in honour bound to observe the
terms of the compact.  But there would have been very great inconsistelcy in his naking these two declarations at the same time, if the
"United States in Congress Assembled" were not the mere governmeltal
agency of a Confederacy, but were the representatives of one consolidated political community hav     oriing riinal, inherent sovereignty of its
sOn,  Thus in these utterances of Samuel Adams, did Massachusetts
for the fifth time declare State Sovereignty to Ibe the corner stone of her
political creed,
For the sixth time did this State declare her belief in State Sovereignty
-on the. occasion of the Embargo, (declared in December 1807,) when
it was well understood that not very  long  after the declaration, she
-intended forcible resiltn:.s atnd sese.io)n if it should not be speedily
repealed.  When the Embargo was laid, it so enraged the people of
Massachu;setts and of other New EnIgland States that a convention of
delegates from those States to meet in New Haven was proposed and
intended.-[Fowcle'r.]  John Quincy Adams writing to Mr. G;les, of Vir-:gilnia, on this subject urged that "at' continuation of the Embargo much
longer would certainly be met by Jorcibble resistance supported by the
Legislature (of Mass.,) and probably by the judiciary of the State,"
And he added to the f;regoinl  thuas  " Tiht the object of the leaders
Jhad been, for several years, the dissolution of the Union,, and the establishment of a separate Co'onfedercttion, I know fronm tunequivocal evidence.'"
[See Niles' Register,Vol. XXXV, p. 138.] Here we have Massachusetts
giving'to South Carolina at an early day emphatic lessons in the art of
threatening, and, under certain  continlgencies, in the purpose of per-,forming not only nullification but secession.
In consequence of this apprehended lforcible resistance and, if not
actual, yet threatened secession of New England, led on by Massachusetts, the Embargo was repealed on 1st March, 1809, just before the
retirement of Mr. Jefierson from the Presidential office.
For the seventh time did Masstachusetts, true to her early Statc-Rights'
record, assert the independent sovereignty of the States and the merely
confederative character of the Union, wheni in 1810, in reply to a cornmunication from the Governor, her Legislature said: " The allegicane
they owe to the Commonwealth as a Sovereign, Inde. epdentet State'"
&c., and in the same reply added, " this Commonwealth forms an im



portant rmember of the National Cornfederacy^Y
In 1812 we find this State for the eighth time standing tp  stoutly
and defiantly towards the General Government in -indication of her
independent sovereignty. On the 18th of June, 1812, war was declared
by the United States against Great Britain almlost solely in  the inter4est of Massachusetts alnd other New  England States.  When, soon..after this declaration, a requisition was made by the General Government, in pursuance ofauthorit y given by the Constitution, on Governor
Strong, of Massachusetts, f for fty-one comlpanies of infantry and ar-.tillery, he, taking the positioil that he was the representative of an Independent Sovereign ty, enduetd with the right of judging of the righfuilness of the requisition, positively rcmfsed to furn-)ish the troops called for.
HIe officially commlunicated thi refusal to the Legislature of his State,
and that body as well as the p3ople of the State approved his course.
M[See Mfss. Reports, Vol. VIII, p. 548.]
In the war of 1812-15, we find this State for the ninth  time standing out iiz the bold assertion of her sovereignty, and doing this too by
an overt act.  During the progress of the war, [ oilej] her Legislature
passed a law directingl the jailers of the State jails "to discharg e at the
end of thirty days all British officers captured in the war, and wxho had
been committed to their custody f)r close confinement," if not reinoved
-before the end of the thirty days.  If the people of M~ assachusetts were
znot a distinct independent sovereignty, holdin   that sovereignty as
older than, and not deriving its existence fit(ro    the Federal Constitution, nor from the fiat of' any sovereig ty or power outside of themselves, but on  the contrary we re only a mern   e firation of o ne grreat political
community  of  ori(,inal and  irheiret sovereointy, viz: the so-called
4"People of the U1nited SStas," ti!en, bond all, plrt dventture, tliis legislative act was, aceoriding  to the position taken in the late war by Massachuselts herself, not the act of any eg islature whatever, bhot the unauthorized
roceetd ings cf a cotombination of i)surrectionary individuals; andt those
persons who pretended to be the State Legislature, and all persons supporting them in this mactter wvere traitors a.nd amenable to all the pains..lnd penalties of treason against the United States for "' adhereing to
their enemies and givini  thenem aid and cormfort."
Il  the  eo ra the  eio t e of the Legislature of Massachusetts to Congress, of 14th June, 1813), this State for the tenth time adhered to her
State Sovereignty doctrine, whenl she says in that remonstrance, "If
any extenlsive Coofider, te Republic is to be maint-ained, and we fervently lpray it mily, it can only be by a free communication of the
grievances felt," &c. andc so on, to the end of the remonstrance.
2




10
"The eleventhL instance of this State's consistent ftiithflilness to the
doctrine of State  Sovereignty occurred in D)ec(nmer, 1814.  In  tl-at
month and year the New England States, with Massachusetts as their
leader, met in Convention in Harford, Connecticut, with what has been
always well known,  the intention of preparing for secession from the.Union undcer certain contingencies. After deliberations running through
the space of three weeks, the Convention made a report, which the
Leg-islature of Massachusetts approved of by a strong vote, and appointed a committee to report on the doings of the Convention.  This
Committee reported as fbllows:  The Comminttee entertain  a high
sense of the wisdom  and ability with which this Convention have discharged their ardluous duty, and while they maintain the principle of
State Sovereignty, and of the duties which citizens owe to their respective State governments," &c.  Il this report they term  the Federal
Constitution a " compact."   The House adopted this report by a vote
of one hundred and fifty-nine ayes to only forty-eight dissentients, thus
shlowing in a most marked manner in what light Massachusct.e s at that
day regarded State Sovereignty.
For the twelfth time we find Massachusetts, in 1827, through the
voice of one of her most distinguished, and, within her borders, most
popular sons, (to-wit, John  Quincy Adams, then at the head of the
General Government,) proclaiming that if a State does imdeed transgress beyond its powers as reserved to it in the Federatl Constitution,
it yet is not thereby divested of its State-hood, but is still a sovereign.
President Adams in his special ime!ssage of February 5th, 1827,
relative to the resistance of Georgia to Federal requisitions said, when
adverting to civil officers of tlhat State,  acting  under the  orders
of their State, as follows    " The surveyors are therefore not to be
viewed in the light of individual and solitary tlransgressors., but as tlhe
agents of a Sovereign State acting in obedience  to authority which
they believed to be binding on them."  If this be so, how then could
the State of Massachusetts and the United States Government with
any  show of justice or the slightest foundation in right, believe or
affect to believe that the citizens of the Confederate States in the late
war were guilty of treason against the United States as a mere co-mbination of insurrectionary  individuals acting without authority from
any sovereign power?
They, Massachusetts and the United States Government, affected to
believe, that, because certain  Sovereign  States did in their acts of
secession do wrong, therefore the wrongful acts of such states were, ab
initio, void, unauthoritative and of no effect, and that the State Sove



reigntics attempting such'acts tlherefore and thereby ceased to  exist; as
if, (God save the mark!) a Sovereign, power, whenever it does wrong,
thereby ceases to be a sovereign and utterly dies!  The dolts! (or
rather the hypocrites, for they k.new better,) did they not know that in
every war, waged wherever and whenever on the fhce of the earth, one
of the parties to it must be, e: nIecessitate rei, always in the wrong?'.
Do they not know that, according to their baseless and shameless assumptions, (the Malssachusetts of the first half of this century herself
being the judge,) if France should next week declare and wage war
against Great Britain, and Great Britain should think France to be in
the wrongl in so doing, then Great Britain, if successful in the war,
would be.justified in punishing every captured French soldier or citizen
taken in the act of aiding his country, as a member of a mere mob of
insurrectionary persons acting only on their own individual responsibility?
Methinks I hear some Massachusetts devotee of usurping and despotic power respond that States united under one General Government
stand in vastly different relations to each other as to war between
themselves, from  the relations, as to this particular, existing between.
Great Britain and France not associated in such a Union. The prompt
and sufficient reply to this response, and one that will utterly pulverize it
and strew its dust upon the winds, lies in the correct answer to the following two questions, viz:
First, are the associated States united in a "Confederacy " by a
mutual " compact" between themselves as equals, and " delegating"
orly, (not alienating) certain, few, specifiedl, limited "powers' to the,
General Government?
And Second, is the separate, distinct sovereignty which each State'
claims for itself a.n original, inherent sovereignty underived from, not
conferred by, and not depending for its existence on tlhe compact?  If
the answer, as applicable to any confederacy anywhere or at any time
on the face of the earth, be in the affirmative, (and  the record of
Massachusetts, as here presented fior sixty years after her accession to
the Union, steadily gives such answer as to the American Union,) then
to the supposed Massachusetts devotee of power and usurpation, common sense and the established maxims of Public Law would say, there
is not and there could not be the slightest difference (as far as the
waging of war is concerned,) in the two cases; for war in every age
has been held by all publicists and all governments to rupture, abrogate
and abolish all compacts between sovereign powers, and to remit the origi



12
hal parties thereto to- the originac status acnud relations whiche they held'
towards each other ante fcdus.
Although doubtless the unscrupulous party now  dominating thiscountry would unblushingly reply to the foregoing by saying, (and of
course without the slightest foundation in truth,) tha)   t there was n
compact between the States when the present Union was fbrmied, yet
the political record of the Massachusetts of the first sixty years of that
Union, utterly precludes her from  opening her mouth on the subject,
except to say that there wacs a compact between the States.
A  moiety of the people of Spain, inl her civil troubles commen —
cing about three years ago. intended, (and they came very near to
success,) to establish a system of confederated states composed of the
present provinces of the country and embracing all her territory, each
state to have its own' state government and control of its own localaffiirs.  But in doing this did the people of Spain inteind at the sametime to abolish, to proclaim. as forever dead andl departed, their own
national, original and inherent one supreme sovereignty which has
existed over all Spain, whether held by kings or otherwise, as one, in.divisible thing for many centuries?   Did they intend that at the
momoent the confederacy should be formed, this sovereignty should.
die, and that the one sovereign people of Spain should then as a political comnmunity die also, and that- succeeding to it, by their consent,
should arise over the territory of each, of the several new  states a
separate, perfect, independent and thus original State Sovereignty
acknowledging no other existing sovereignty as the source and measure
of its own power?  By no manner of means.  The Spanish  people
were and are not such simpletons.  They, like all possessors of sovereignty, whether obtained by usurpation, (as is the case now in this
country,) or held as of right from original and immemlorial possession,.
or from  conquest in war waged between acknowledged sovereign parties to the war, intended never to divest themselves of it voluntarily,,.
The Spanish people, acting in their character of one supreme sovereignty and one peopl!e, intended, after defining the boundaries of and
creating the proposed new states, to confer on. them, to " delegate" to
them the right to exercise as many of the "powers" of sovereignty as
would answer the objects and purposes of local government.  Whilethose states would be politically independent of each other in relation
to their own separate local affairs, would they be each an independent
sovereignty of original, inherent and underived powers, looking to nou
source outside of itself for the warrant of those powers?
The statement of the question, after remembering what precedes it,




4's
carries its answer on its face; and that answer is, io, emphatically,.
No!  Their status would be, as to the independent sovereignty question,
precisely the same as was the status of the American Colonies of Great
Britian befoire the breaking' out of the Revolutionary war. The Colonies
were totally independent of each otber, but they were all dependent,.
for the right which they enjoyed of exercising certain powers of sovereignty, on their great common sovereign, the King of Great Britain,
who, in their respective charters, had."delegated" those powers to
them, taking care att the same time to expressly reserve to himself as
their liege sovereign the allegiance of the Colonies to himself the sove-'reign' of the entire kingdom.
Now in this actual caseof the Colonies, and in the supposed case-of
the confederation of the Spanish Provinces, th-e grantor of the right to
exercise sovereign powers was and would be exzcctly the opposite of the
granting parties in the case of the American Union.  In the latter
case the delegation of powers came from  the States as the orig'inal
sovereigns in the case existing prior to the Union, and creating a governmental m.achinery for that Union dependent o.n them for its origin
and existence; whereas in the case of the Colonies, they were created
by Great Britain, who delegated to them  whatever powers they possessed; and in like manner, had the Spanish Confederation taken place,..
the creation of the Spanish States and the conferring of powers on
them  would have proceeded from that one, actually existing and sovereign comunity,    " The People of Spain."  Hence after the formation
of the confederation,   should the people of any one or more of these
States, pleading the orders of their respective States, attempt to carry
out an act of secession  from  the  confederacy, they  would plead
aulhority whlich had never been conferred on those States by their still
existing creator, and therefore, in obeying such unauthoritative orders,
would rightfully become amenable as traitors and rebels to their real,
and only sovereign, " The People of Spain."
Throuogh the voice of John Quincy Adams,. her son and representative in Congress in 1836, TMassachusetts again and for the thirteenth
time proclaimed in that year her fealty to the doctrine of State Sovereignty.  Mr Adams then,.in the debate relative to the admission of
Arkansas into the Union, termed Congress "the representative of that
federation compounded partly of slave-holding and partly of entirely
free States."  The deduction from  this utterance is of course that if
the union of the States is a federation, then the parties to it, viz: the
States, must necessarily be each an independent sovereign; for no political power outside of them claimed allegiance from or control of them.




14
For the fourteenth time, through the voice of this her great aind
gifted son, did Massachusetts, in 1839, repeat her belief il the great
principle which she had for so many years upheld, Mr. Adams, inhis oration delivered in that year on the jubilee of the Constitution,
plainly countenlanced the right of secession if, in the conscience of the
people intending it, they should feel themselves to have grave and just
causes for their action. In this oration lie said, " to the people alone is
thus reserved the dcissolving as well as the constituent power, and that
power can be exercised by them o(rly under the tie of conscience binding them  to the retributive justice of heaven~.   With these qu'alifications we may admidt the same rights vested in the people of every State
in the Union with reference to the General Government."  Here, take
notice, he concedes the right of any State to secede for cause; for lhe
speaks of the Si.tates disjunctivelyo
Did the late Confederate States in their attempt at secession have
justifying cause?  Before answering this question, I must beg you as
a reader of history to remember that well lknown fact, undisputed in any
quarter, that the Union never would have been formed had not the
stipulation for the surrender of fugitive slaves and the farther stipulation that any State might import slaves into her territory from abroad
for twenty years, been inserted in the Constitution.  To name nothing
else, (but much more might be adduced,) let the great grievance, the
deliberate, ctvowed and long continued infraction of the compact about
to be specified, stand forth to the world, as it certainly does and did to
the late Confederate States, as ample and justifying cause for their
course in 1861.  Remember that the abstract question of human freedom either in a state of nature or in organized civil society, the right
or wrong of domestic slavery, could have nothing to do with the matter, as between the parties to the compact, after the colnpact was signed.
The Northern States had signed the compact with their eyes open, and
therefore their mouths, (whatever other and outside nations might
justifiably or otherwise say or think of slavery,) were, by the rigid
reauirements both of good morals and religion, or ought to have
been shut.
If I, as a private individual, voluntarily enter into a compact with
even a notorious thief and utter scoundrel, in the provisions of which
compact are some morally good and legal stipulations, but also others
requiring me to act in collusion with him  in the violation of good
morals and law, all jurists and ethical writers as well as the plain dictates of common sense will tell me that I cannot rightfully hold him
to any of his stipulations if I knowingly and deliberately infract one




15
single stipulation myself-and  that my voluntary agreement to the,whole compact binds nme to perform  every part of it, if I would hold
him to any part; and vice vers,. If, at any time, after having entered
into the bargain, my awakened conscience pricks my peace of mind,
all that I, in the ey~e of good flith and good morals can do, is to retire
from the whole thing, and of course leave himl equal freedom, unless he,
uncoerced and of his own free will, agrees to eliminate frnm the compact the part or parts I object to,
As a reader of history you must also remeember that Massachusetts,
a, well as other Northern States, soon after acceding to the Union of
1789, passed a law to carry out in good faith that stipulation in the
Federal Constitution  which provided  for the rendition of fugitive
slaves.  Fowler says, "The Legislature  of  Massachusetts, in aid of
that provision of the Constitution intended to secure the restoration of
fugitive slaves from their masters, passed a law by which negroes were
prohibited, under the penalty of confinement, hard labour in the house
of correction, and whipping not exceeding ten stripes, from tak2ing Lup
thteir residence in, the State.  Thus Massachusetts asserted her own State
rights, and reegnized the rights of the Slave-holding States"
We now  come to that one justifying cause (out of many) before
alluded to, for the secession of the Confederate States in 1861; and that
is the deliberate, persistent, and avowed nui.llification of the laiws of Con.gress, in rela.tion to the rendition of fugitive slaves, by eleven of the
Northen Stoates after 1850, and thereby the gross violation by these
eleven States of their solemnly pledged faith to fulfill that provision
of the Constitution which stipulates for such rendition.  In despite of
the Constitution and the la ws of Congress, and of the remonstrances of
Virginia and other Southern States, these Northern nullifying States
kept for many years tle objectionable laws upon their statute books
until the secession in 1861 of the Southern States.  The names of the
eleven States referred to are Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvani a,
Wisconsin, Vermont, New York, Michigfan, Connecticutt, New HIa.apshire, New  Jersey, and  Rlhode  Island.   [See Report of the Committee of thle Legislactre of l'irygi'iia inZ 1860.] And in relation to such
action, and more simila r to it, on the part of the Northern  States,
what did another great son of Massachusetts, Daniel Webster, (boasted
of by the entire North as the great, efxpotndcr of the Constitution,) say in
his speech at Capon Springs, in 1851?  Why this, " I do not hesitate
to say and  repeat, that if the Northern  States refuse wilfully and
deliberately to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which
respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, tlhe South would nzo longer be




'16
-bound'to keep  thle cormpactit.  A bargain broken on one side, is brokeni
on1 all sides  " in other words, the Northern States, by their Personal
Liberty bills, ("wilfully and deliberately " persisted in,) had virtually
abrogated and abolished the Constittion! and as their only connection
with the Southernt States existed by and through thl  Constitution, the
compact, hence, when that catastrophe took place, they had no more
claim  for political connection with the slave States tlhan IRussia or
China had; and therefore no cause whatever for war against those
States because the latter proposed and endeavoulred to set up a separate
confederacy for themseles without lifting or threatening to lift a finger
against the Northern  States; which latter act they would have been
fully justified in doing, had they chosen to initiate the war, by that
great feature or rule of the Laws of N ations, the Lex Tcalonis..
To show  the spiteful animus of Massachusetts and her deliberate
determination to execute her nullification law as to the rendition of
fugitive slaves, it is only necessary to cite certain action on her part in
1857.  In that year she ignomniniouily  turnel ou' of the office of
Judge of her own Probate Court, Edward G. Loring, a U. S. Commissioner and a citizen of Massachusetts, because  he refused to obey her
own nullification law.-[,Fowler.]  Now if slhe tid not consider herself
a  complete and independent sovereignty  of of riginal and  inherent
powers alnd a member only of a. mire Confilderaci y of equals havina g no
supreme ruler over them, how could she pretend to justify for her enactment of the law in question and the enforcemnent of one of its provisions
in the case of Judge Loriino?
But we have another and the fifteenth assertion by her of the doctrine of State Sovereignty, whlen, referring in April, 185:6, to the provisions of the Federal Constitution relative to the powersC granted to tlhe
TUnited States respecting the writ of HEab-as Corpus and the great
right of the Trial by Jury, she made the following utterance through
Governor Briogs, then a member of the Housdc!f and Chairmnan of the
Committee renorting to the Legislature.  "It was not that tl e States
rel'inqished these rights to the keeping and protection of the Federal.
Government,    *    *.  It was a   amutuacl agreement among the
States, to  prevent any State so disposed from  abrogating the cardinal
principles of a free government by depriving the citizens of those riights."
And he added, "with his excellency, [Goverinor Gardiner of Maiss.]
we believe that of the State rights retained by eac  sovereign member of
the confederacy, the two cardinal ones are the habeas corpus and the
trial by jury."   And  in the Committee's report he further added as
follows:  "State sovereignty on all subjects and in all things where the




17
exercise of that sovereignty " [mark, lhe does not say the sovereignty
of the one " People of the United States," but of the States,] htas niot
been delegated to the United States, is the langzcage of the Constitutit'ol
and the safety of the States.  This principle has always been regarded
as vital to the existence and perpetuity of the States, a distinct and
independeznt power.  It was so claimed by the fa:tthers and fo'unders (f
our institutiowns."  The Committee was reporting on the propriety or
expediency of repealing Massachusetts' law nullify ing thit provision
of the Constitution and those laws of the United States which requireed
the surrender of fugitive slaves.  Although  the highest judicial authority in the State had declared this nullification law to be'unconstitutional, yet the Committee, solely on the ground of the independent
sovereignity of the Scate, recomnluded the retention of this nullification
law on the statute book.
If the State was a mere political or municipal department of, and
deriving its powers from, that imaginary sovereignty, that myth, " We
the People of the United States," as asserted and contended for by
Motley, then the Committee had not a shred of ground to stand on in
their recomlmendation, but in this recommendation were sim ply traitors
themselves inciting the members of the Legislature to commit treason.
Here we have an important Conmmittee of the Legislature of Massacthusetts preaching the most ultra, Jeffersonian, South Carolina, State
Rights and State Sovereignty dorctrine that it was possible for them to do.
The Commlittee say, and that too in strict accordance with the ewell
known fciets of the case, (relating not only to the writ of Habeas Corpus
and Trial by Jury, butto all the provisions of the Constitution,) that those
two g-reat rights were stipulated for and secured, [Sect. 9, Article 1, and
S.ct. 2d, Article III,] under a "''dutd z. greeeemet,," (thorefore a Treaty,)
beltween   the States," whereby each of the great contracting parties
englaged itself to:all the others and they to each that the two rights referred to sfhould )be secured to all the citizens of the several States.
And why was this dlone?  Why should Massachusetts or Connecticutt
coi(ncern themselves about the riglhts and privileges of citizens of Virgini.t withli, Virginia, and be so very particular in requiring Virginia
to plromise the preservatio(n of the privileges of these two cardinal
rigllts to lher own citizens within her own borders, over whom  neither
MassaIchusetts or Colltecticuttt could have any pretense of jurisdiction
or rights of any kind within Vi'irinia? Most plainly because of that
other provvision of the Federal comipact, (the great Treaty between the
States,) viz: Sect. 2d, Article IV, which says, " The citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in
3




18
the several States;" for otherwise, a citizen of Massachusetts or Connecticutt, if apprehended and indicted il Virginia, for an infraction of
the laws of Virginia, might possibly be tried and condemned to imprisonment or death without having had the benefits of those two great securities of human rights and freedom.
If, as Massachusetts has authoritatively declared, Sec. 9, of Article T,
and Sect. 2d, of Article III were not ordained by any one political community termed "We the People of the United States," then she declares,
ipsissima voce, that not a single one of the provisions of the Federal Constitution was ordained and established by that political myth, " We the
People of the United States;" for, surely it is hardly necessary to enter
here into any argument t    v to   proveto any man of ordinary intelligence that
whatever party or parties ordained any one Section or Article of the
Federal Constitution ordained every word of it.
It may seem  superfluous, after what has been said, to add the two
items bearing on this point which now follow; but as they may be new
and of some interest to some of the readers of this letter I will now do so.
To very few of the printed copies of tlhe Constitution is appended its
concluding declaration, which occurs immediately prior to the signatures of the delegates who framed it.  It is in these words:  "Done
in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the 17th
day of September," &c., &c.  This declaration conclusively shows that
the representatives of no one people framed the Constitution.  The
other item is this:
In January, 1830, in the celebrated debate in Congress on Foote's
resolution, that eminent jurist, legislator and  statesman, Edward
Livingston, (afterward  Secretary of State under President Jackson
and a strong unionist,) said, " I place little reliance on the argument
which has been most depenzded oni to show that this is a popI)ular go)vernment: I mean the preamble which begins with the words " we the
people,"  It proves nothing more than the fact that the people of the
several states" [that is, the highest power known in the state, instead of
the Legislature,] " had been consulted and had given their consent to
the instrument.  To give these words any other construction would be
to make them an assertion directly contrary to thefact. We know, and
it has never been imagined or asserted," [he meant of course by intelligent and honzest men, for he had just before referred to the words as
having been used as an argument "most depended on,"] "that the People
of the United States collectively os a whole people gave their consent,,
or were [even] consulted in that capacity."
Had Mr. Livingston chosen to do so, he could have given from the




19
record the very interesting history of the preamble, (known now to
but comparatively few people,) showing how the enumeration of the
several states by 7name, (at first placed in it and voted for unanimously,)
had, from a very peculiar and unexpected necessity of the case, arising
in the later days of the Convention, been  compelled to be eliminated
from it in the last week of the four months' session, with the very
clcarest anld most explicit understanding among all the framers that the
original sense or meaning of the preamble. as indicated by the enumeration of the States by their names, was not to be in the slightest
degree altered by this necessary elimination, and adoption of the present phraseology in the beginning of the preamble.  He could have
shown that so long as the enumeration of the States by name stood in
the preamble, (viz: the entire period of the Convention except the last
week,) the terminating words now in it, viz  that the Constitution was
ordained1 " for the United States of Amnerica" were not there; and that
when the enumeration was from necessity left out, then, and not before,
were the words "for the United States" appended; showing plainly
that these words were added as a substitute for an  aan equivalent to the
enumeration, and to indicate that the Constitution was made not for
one people but for the several " States."  I can readily perceive why
Mr. Livingston did not enter into the history referred to.  He knew
that he was addressing educated, intelligent statesmen well acquainted
with the history of the Constitution, and that therefore a statement of
the details of the history to them  would be unnecessary.  He consequently confined himself to giving only, in a few words, the inevitable
deduction from that history.
Omitting here the details of the proceedings of the Legislature of
Massachusetts in May, 1856, when in a joint resolution she does not
ask, but imperiously " demca'tnds " [that is the word she uses,] of Congress in "her character as a Sovereign Stcate" [what more could Great
Britain call herself?] the institution of certain proceedings respecting
the Brooks-Sumner affair; we will now take a hasty glance at some of
her State Sovereignty utterances in 1855,'57 and'58.
In 1855 her Legislature passed the following resolution in relation
to the Kansas troubles:
"This Commonwealth is ready if necessary to aid with her whole
power the Governor of Kansas and the people of that Territory or of
any other territory or state in support of Constitutional rights, by whomsoever infringed;"-the Commonwealth  of  course, from  the very
necessity of the case here presented, to be the judge as to what rights
are constitutional or otherwise.  It was well known at the time that,




20
by the word " whomsoever," she specially referred to the Government
of the United States.  If then Massachusetts, (herself being the judge
of the grievances of Kansas,) could rightfully use her eitire military
force or any portion thereof to right the grievances of that Territory,
(not her own, mark you,) against any power or authority, how, in the
name of consistency and common sense, could she condemn  South
Carolina for taking measures in 1832 to protect herself only (not outsiders,) from  the effects of what that State judged, for herself, to be
certain unconstitutional acts of Congress?  Contrasting Massachusetts
and South  Carolina in this aspect of State action, we may with propriety say that while Massachusetts proposed to conduct the nullification business on a very extended wholesale scale, South Carolina could
be regarded only as aimingr at a mere petty retail operation in that
line.
In connection with this very Kansas business, Mr. Wells, a leading
member of the Legislature of Massachusetts, and acting with a majority
of the House, said, in a speech on the Kansas resolution, " The sovereignty of Massachusetts is older than that of the Union, and was not
conferred by the Union.  [Very  true.]  The Declaration of Independence is an avowal of State Rights.  [True again.]  *  *  * *           *.
The powers of the United States are all granted by the several States."
[True to the letter.]  In all this he was of course perfectly correct, for
there stand the facts on the record, which, (to the Massachusetts of
1861 and of to-day,) like the " damn'd spot" on Lady McBeth's hand,
will not " out " at her bidding.
Mr. Upham, in the Senate of Massachusetts, said in a speech on 7th
May, 1857, " The American Union, as a body politic, consists ex.clusively of States separate and States confederated.  Whate    ver does not
belong to a State, as one of the constituent parts of the system, is not
properly embraced by or in accordance with the true theory of our
Government."  In the first of above sentences he indicates in as few
words as the thing can possibly be expressed or that I ever saw it done,
the fact of the total independence (of the States) of each other as to
their own internal afflirs, and that, as to affairs in conmonl between them
under the compact, their dependence on or connection with each other
is that only of a mere confederation, and therefore that the several
people of the several States do not in any sense compose a political
community of one people.  In the second sentence lie asserts the truth
that nothing can belong to or be of the Union except as through the
relationship to the Union of the State to which that thing belongs; and
thus he explodes the idea that there can be any such political tling as




21
one " People of the United States," outside of and distinct from their
status as the several, separate, pilitical bodies of people divided among
and belonging to the several States. In his first sentence he also scouts
the idea of there being one' People of the United States," in a political sense, by the use of the word  "exclusivevly" in the connection in
which it is found.  Of course under such a Union as Mr. U)hamn
describes, and as Massachusetts in her sovereign character as a State
has often offircially asserted it to be, tlhe General Government can be
nothinog  more than the mere agent of the sovereign parties to the compact; and in accordance with this truth,, Franklin Pierce, (a New
Englanl d Ian,1) wihen President of the Unitedl Stattes, termed the Government in one of his messages the "genveral, agent" of the States.
Rlufus Choate, a Massachusetts statesman of eminent ability, and
often honored in his own State by its electing him to high office, said,
(in his 4th of fJly address, in 18,8.) of the S ta.tes, that while they exist
like'lprimordial particles of nmatter i-ldesiructible and impenetrablcwhose
natural condition is to repel each other, or at best to exist in their own
independent identity, the Union is anl actificial aggregation," [not a,
mc( rer,     f "ocf such particles."   He continued, "have vou ever considered that it was a federative system that we had to adopt?  
^-      i   % *. There the states were when we became a nation. There
they had been for one hundred and fifty years, for one hundred and
seventy year.         *'. In the scheme of every statesman they remained a component part, nIna.nihilated, indestructible. In the theories
of all publicists and all speculators they were retained, and they were
valued for it to hinder and disarm that centrailization which had been
found to be the dang(tler and the weakntess of federal iiberty."
The Supreme Court of the  United  States has declared that the
States sustain towmards etach other " internaltional" relations.o [Fowler.]
If so, the compact called tlie  Constitution  of the United States is a
Treatya, a Governmental Treaty" embracing  treaty stipulations as to
inter-state and Iforoeign c!ommlerce; as to rendition of fuigitive slaves;
as to fugitives fromn justice; as to traitors escaping from  ainy state in
which they had1 co(mmitted treason against such state; treaty stipulations as to  laying  anid  collecting taxes, duties &c., for the common
purposes of the  States confederated; also as to declaring war  and
making  peace in the name of the  States; andc, in short, as to all the
objects and purposes specified in the compact.
-:As, in fact, are the constitutions of all confederacies to which the parties are
sovereign, independent and politically equal States, confederating of their own
free will and choice, and delegating powers to their General Government,




22
Did it ever specially strike you that in the enacting clause of all the
laws of the United States not one word in it says that the laws are enacted in the name of, or by the representatives of the'Peopleof the
United States," but by the Senate and Representatives of the "States "?
Yet in many of the States you will find that the enacting clause of
their State laws says the laws are enacted in the name of, or by the representatives of, " The People" of the State.  And why so? Because
the people in each State are a political entity and are indeed the supreme
sovereign power over the State, the fountain and origin of all the acts
of the State.  Their enacting clauses do not say "Be it enacted by the
Counties of Massachusetts," &c., or "by the representatives of the
Counties of Massachusetts;'" for Massachusetts was not brought into
existence  by the fiat of her Counties. It was because of her first being
Massachusetts, that they came into existence, and had their metes and
bounds and powers set and defined by her fiat.
In her own State Constitution of 1820, which is I think her present
Constitution, Massachusetts proclaims to the world her ancient political
creed, that there is politically no such thing as " The People of the
United States," and that she herself is a sovereign and independent
State. Here is the passage:
"The people of this Commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right
of governing themselves as a free, sovereign and independent State;
and do and forever hereafter shall exercise and enjoy every power,
jurisdiction and right which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them
delegated to the United States of America in Congress assembled."
Observe particularly that in this last clause nothing is said about one
people being assembled (by their representatives) in Congress, but
"States assembled in Congress " and that nothing is by her surrendered up and forever alienated to that supposed one people, but that
whatever is granted by her is only " delegated" to the "States" when
assembled in Congress.
I have in these pages given only a portion of the record of Massachusetts on State Sovereignty; but this portion is enough and more
than enongh to sustain me in saying that if she was right in the position
taken according to that record and held by her for so long a period of
time as it shows, then when in 1861 and subsequently she voted men
and money to oppress, slaughter and subjugate the people of her sister
states at the South, she thus voted and acted (on the testimony of her
own record,) simply to perpetrate murder, arson and rapine on an
innocent people who had given her, (by her own prior admissions,)
even as a member of the Union, no provocation or pretext whatever




23
for those horrible crimes against right, justice and humanity.
I could produce a similar record of her Northern sisters in iniquity,
but as the maxim, "e. unlo omnes disce," applies to those other States
on the very best of foundations, viz: fcts, it thus will render the
labour unnecessary.
Before closing I will cite another Norther  witness to the truth of
the independent soveriegnty of the States.  William Rawle, a Northern man, one of the most eminent jurists and publicists of his day, a
high-toned Federalist, selected and appointed by Washington to be
U. S. Attorney throughltut his entire administration of eight years,
and continued in the same office throughout the administration of John
Adams, published in 1826, an elementary work on the Constitution.
It has been generally regarded as the most accurate and able exposition of the Constitution.  Emianating fromn  a Federalist of the old
Haniltoilian school, it was not to be thought possible that any treason
could lurk in it.  On account of its high reputation and intrinsic
merit, it was adopted as the text-book at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.  There Lee, Davis, Johnston, Magruder, I-uger,
Pendleton, Beaureguard, Jackson and others of the Confederate Captains were taught, under the sanction and authority of the U. S.
Government, the true principles of the Constitution.  The principles
thus and there instilled into their minds were couched in the fellowing words of Rawile:
At page 302 Mr. Rawle says, "The secession of a State from the
Union depends entirely on the will of the people of such State.        *
i. In any manner by which a secession may take place, nothing is more
certalin than that the act should be deliberate, clear and unequivocal."
At page 287 Mr. Rawle says, " The States may wholly withdraw
from the Union, but while they continue they must retain the character of representative republics."
In chapter 32, page 297, Mr. Rawle says, "If a faction should attempt
to subvert the government of a State for the purpose of destroying its
republican form, the paternal power of the Union could be called forth
to subdue it.  Yet it is not to be understood that its interposition
would be justifiable if the people of a State should determine to retire
from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same
form of government."  These were the doctrines taught by the U. S. Governmenet to Lee, Davis, Beaureguard and others after them at West
Point up to 1861.
And yet, when those Southern heroes, in strict accordance with the
doctrines which, under the sanctioln of the General Governm'ent, had




24
been instilled into their minds, retired fromn the service of the confederacy
and (obeying each the call of his own sole sovereign, the State to which
he belonged,) rallied to her d(efense in the armies of the new confederacy of her choice, tley were, forsooth, traitors!
Traitors to whazt or to whom?
How came any of them  to owe obedience, (not alle-iance) to the laws
of the confederacy knownl as the United States?  Manifestly because
of the fiat of his sovereign, his own. State, directing him to pay such obedience when she acceded to the comipact..  Her  act of accession  was
an order to him to obey the laws of the confederacy; her act of secession
a release from  such injunction.  In  one contingency only could he
comm-it treason against a cionfederacy of which his own sovereign  was
a member, viz: when without the orders or sanction of that sovereign,
he should rise up against the authority  and oppose the laws of the
Confedleracy; and even in that case his acts would be treason:able only
for the reason that in opposing those laws and resisting that authority,
he would be opposing his own Sovereign,, in her character as one of the
mlakers of those laws, and as a constituent membler of the partnership
from which that authority emanated, and on which. it was based.
As a well known axiom of political ethics, Independent, Sovereign
States, whether members of a confederacy or not, can not by any )(ossible act commit treason  agai nst an  authority whatever.  Hence it
is that the treason clause in the Federal Constitution is applicable
only and was intended to apply only to individuals.  And hence it
was that Seward and his unscrupulous confreres, (I say "Seward,"
for Lincoln was only a mere nose of wa\x in the hands of those usurpers,) knowing that Sovereign States, whlether in or out of a Confederacy, are still existent States, whaitever thav may do, (short of voluntary merger of tleir own nationality into that of some otlher nation,)
affected to believe tlhat tlle seceding States had conmmitted nolitical
suicide by their a(t;ts of secession, (an utter impo3sibility, and Seward
well knew it,) and so converted their citizens into a nmob of insurrectionary indivilduals acting without any public authority and on tleir
own sepalrate, individual responsibility only.
Seward knew  that the sta.tes adhering to the Union had the riglht
ulder public  law, (international law, or custolm,) but not (.as the
United States of the Constitutioi,, to declare war against the Conifederate States as Independent, Sovereign States for any cause that in their
own opinion might seeml just; and if they should choose to do so. to
make the acts of secession this cause on the assigned ground  (if they
chose) of certain injury done to them the adhering states by such acts,




25
and  by assigning also  in  their list of grievances, (of course  without
any truth,) that such acts had no provocation whatever from  the adhering states.
But Seward dared not take this position however nuch he nma  have
vwished to do so; for had hc   done   so, he would have thcrel)y recogajized
the nattonclity of the seceding States andt their acts of secession as nationally authoritative acts, and  he well knew the consequences of such a
proceeding; viz   that the powers of Europe would hlave at once recog:iized  the Seced:lio States and  would thereby have given no ca.u:e
of complaint to the adhlering Status; and that, from  such  recognition
by the powers of Europe, certain other consequences would have inevli
tably  followed, whlich  would  have  rendered  the  subjutgation  of the
seceding States aln utter impossibility. Hence his affectation of believing
the secelding States h ad committed that impossible thing, political suicide by their acts of secession.
Had Seward made war on the seceding States as still existent and
recognized States, and, had  admitted  that they were actually out of
the Unionl, anld  lhad he after this sullbjugated  them, then there would
have stood in his way no constitutional barriers, (the breaking through
of which  is yet to  bring  dire woe* to the Northern States,) against
what, on Seward's theory, has been and is the utterly unjustifiable and
unlaulthorized course which the General Government has taken (during
a.nd since   e t   war,) towards the seceding States.
It is well known that Northern orators (in Congress and elsewhere,)
and Northern newspapers of ability have often boasted of the unheard of'magnanimity exhibited bv the General Government in refraining, after:Thle great historian, Froude, in a lecture recently delivered in New  York,
said.
"In mv reading of historv one tremendous phli1eno7en01on forever forces itself on rmy
observation, viz: that every plolitic.l crime is a debt ireisteErcd in HcIavrn: and
the pa ym -elt to the very la.st fi'rthin.,?'ith inteorest and compoutd ilnterest is dcmanded
of those who, when the bill" Lcompuctt "] is signed, repr.esented the person of the
cri m i nal."
Mfrssact hu.set.s at least, cannot ch'arge that the Southern States incurred any debt
of the above nature when tlhev seceded in 1861, nor aver ti that  ey paiid for it by
their sfiifering'  and losses (durimn  and( since the late war.  Time will vet reveal
who "represented the person of the ciiminal whIen thle bill, [thle compact] was
sign ed."
In the same parairalphl and in continuance of the same subject Frolide says,
"It wa s not tlho'e, [viz: lhe indentical individuals., who committed the crime, who
generally suffired for it " as observed bv him in the teachings of history, but those
Uwho came after them;  and. as to this ftact lie adds, " this has been, from  the beginning of time. one of tie mysteries of the providential government of the world."
Ift then political crime was committed by  one or the othler of the parties to the
late war, the punishment is yet to come, according to the general operation of the
phenomenon as observed by Froude.
4




26
the war ended, from bringing to trial, convicting and executing a single
traitor (so-called) engaged in the late war. That men of general intelligence and erudition in public or illternational law, and well grounded in
the history and provisions of the Constitution of 1789, should have the
doubly brazen etfrontery to talk about magnanimity to traitors, wh(n
speaking in referenec  to citizeIls of the late Confederate States, wontld
surpass belief, were it not for the well known fact, (charged on them
by people of their own section,) that such men, leaders. in tlhe party now
ruling the country, do not recognize the binding character of moral
or religious restraint on their political actions or words.  Do not these
revolutionists know that among all.English-speaking people, inheritors
of the great rights of Magn'a Charta, no man can be held to be guilty
of crime until he shall first have been, under tlhe rules of law, convicted of the crime, and judicially pronounced to be guilty?
To lay a foundation for their boast, to vindicate their claim to the
virtue of magnanimity, this horde of revolutionists owed it to themselves, to'their cause, and to the world, to bring to trial and to convict
of treason, (if they could,) some great leader of the people of the
Confederate States. Had they, after a fair trial under the law, convicted such an one of treason and condemned him to the legal penalty of
the crime; but, refraining from the infliction of the penalty, had thereupon pardoned and discharged him, then and not until then, could
they, with any decency or propriety, have boasted of their magnanimity to the people of the South.
Magnanimity indeeed!  Was it magnanimous to torture, in the
barbarous spirit of the me(di val ages, for many long, weary months
in the stone case-mates of Fortress Monroe, a physically feeble old
man, whom, (fearing to bring to trial,) they at last discharged, virtually sine die, untried and unconvicted?  The great mass of their party do not know it, but nevertheless there can be no doubt of the fact
that such leading, influential and thoughtful men among them, possessing brains, as were deeply versed in the lore of the law  and the
truths of the Constitution, ( men like their Chases, their Speeds, their
Reverdy Johnsons and numerous others of similar calibre,) knew that
to bring Jefferson Davis or any other aider and abettor of the Confederate States to trial for treason alleged to have been committed against
the United States in the late war, was to obtain a judicial acquittal of
the person charged with the crime; (or rather act, for no crime was
commit.ted;) and hence the advice which they doubtless fgave and
urged, (for Andrew  Johnson hadn't the brains to comprehend  the
situation,) that Mr. Davis should be discharged from prison under bail




27
for his appearance in court whenever called upon to appear.
They neeer vmean to call him; they dare not (d  so; for they know
in advance what the verdict, (if ever rendered,) must be, and that
consequently it would be a condemnation in. their otwnr cou'ts of the
entire proceedings of the Federal Government with reference to the
war, and to their course towards the Southern States from March,.
1861, to the present day.
Witlh this verdict before the country and t!he world, and to go down
forever on the pages of history, ( backed up by the utterly overwhelming arguments and  luminous exposition of the Constitution  which
would have been put forth by that giant in the law. Clharles O'Con1or,)
where then would be their claim  of being in the right in the late
war? where would be their ground ( transparent pretext as it is, even
now without the verdict,) for calling any citizen of the late Conifederate States a rebel-?  Where would be their justification, (shallow as
that is, even now,) for the seas of blood of their own people which
they caused to be shed, and for the expenditure of the billions of that
people's money which they poured out like water in their unholy
efforts to subjugate, oppress, and humiliate an unoffending people?
Until they  shall have, by due  process  of law, convicted  of
treason some prominent and leading aider and abettor of the late
Confederate States, common decency ought to close their mouths when
they feel inclined to boast of' their magnanimity to the people of the
South, and to use the terms "rebels and traitors "as applicable to the
citizens of those States engaged in any mode in aiding those States to
sever their connection, under the Constitution, with  the  Northern
States.
Thus without going farther than so much of the record of Massachusetts as I have here presented, (for, if I were to go beyond it in
an elaborate essay on the subject, I could so pile a dozen Pelions on
Massachusett's Ossa, as to bring out tlhe riglt of secession as clear as
the noon-day sun in an unclouded sky,) I think that you or any unprejudiced reader of these pages, of whatever political opinions he
may be, must admit that this record conclusively proves, (or at least
ought so to prove to every citizen of Massachusetts,) that the right of
secession did exist, and that it was no infraction of the Constitution,
but a right independent of and outside of the Constitution, and inhering necessarily in every member of a political Confederacy constituted not by the fiat of any one sovereign, political community, but
brought into existence only by the " mutual agreement " of indepen



28
dent, Sovereign States, already existing as such before the compact of
union was entered into.
I remain, dear sir, with much respect,
Yours very truly,
A SoN OF NoRFoLK.
Since the foregoing was written, and now (December,) while passing
through the press, the following extract from a late number of the N.
0. Picayune may be very appropriately appended as germain to the
subject discussed in the preceding p)ages.
IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DEAD?
(From, the New Orlecans Picayzne.)
tNow, by the light of the experience in which we exist, all men can
see the inevitable fate of every fiee Governnlent abandoning the principles of the Democratic party.  Men may change in upholding them.
Men may abandon them and draw the sword to extinguish tlhem; but
they live in the breasts of the people as the true and only principles
of liberty.  Despotism  and tyranny only concentrate a purer vitalily.  The fiercer the despotism-the stronger the money oligarchy which holds them  down-the ligher in all probability will
be the spirit which worships them.n   And it is for such reasons as
these that THE WORLD can rightly affirm that the Demrocratic party
is not dead.  Its principles are undying-its adherents are millionsand whether the party which shall bring these principles again undefiled into the politics of the United States shall call itself Democratic
or any other name, it must rise up to the restora tion of the Government
of the United States to a free Government, or revolutionary darlceness,
the sure sequence of central despotism, must spread over the land.