YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 07086 2769

Motley, J» L.
Letters of J* L. Uotleyand Joseph Holt*
1861,

t^4

0

"I give theft Boaki
for the. fa-undin^ of il ColUgt os- tMs Colony'

'Y^ILIE«¥]MII¥lEIESflir¥-

WMWWJWMffWWHWWCTB

Bought with the income
ofthe
Clarence Campbell Fund

LETTERS

fl,!l

OF

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY,

ANO

JOSEPH HOLT.

FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION.

The following adiiiiraltle Letters arc published in
this form for gratuitous distribution, with the view
of placingr before the people of Ihe United States a
clear and comprehensive statement of the position
In which their Government stands in relation to the
rebellious States which are endeavoring to destroy
the Union, with the hope of establishing a Southern
Confederacy.

NEW- YORK :
^ HENRY E 'lUD)!! euiNTEK, 44 ANM STREEI'.
dj 1861 $
- IUI. I I _. ) II I I M I I iiiin IIJ. j.i| -,. iMQfJjmi IMli>Ji,JilMl.K ¦-..-- — m 

LETTERS

0 F

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY,

AND

JOSEPH HOLT

FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION.

The following admirable Letters are published in
this form for gratuitous distribution, with the view^
of placing before the people of the United States a
clear and comprehensive statement of the position
in which their Government stands in relation to the
rebellious States which are endeavoring to destroy
the Union, vpith the hope of establishing a Southern
Confederacy.

NEW- YORK :
HENIIY B. TUDOE, PKINTBK, 44 ANN STREET.
1861.

LETTER FEOM
JOHN LOTHEOP MOTLEY
ON THE CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.
To the Editor of the Times :
The d&fado question in America has been referred at last
to the dread arbitrament of civil war. Time and events
must determine whether lhe " Great Republic" is to disap
pear from the "roll of nations, or whether it is destined to
survive the storm which has gathered over its head. There
is, perhaps, a readiness in England to prejudge tho case ; a
disposition not to exult in our downfall, but to accept the
fact ; for nations, as well as individuals, may often be ad
dressed in the pathetic language of the poet —
" Donee eris felix, multos numerabis amicos,
Tempora cum fuerint nubila, nullus erit."
Yet the trial by the ordeal of battle has hardly commenced,
and it would be presumptions to affect to penetrate the veil
of even the immediate future. But the question de. jure is a
different one. The right and the wrong belong to the past,
are hidden by no veil, and may easily be read by all who
are not wilfully blind. Yet it is often asked. Why have the
Americans taken up arms ?' Why has the Uuited States
Government plunged into what is sometimes called "this
wicked war" ? Especially it is thought amazing in England
that the President should have recently called for a great
army of volunteers and reigulars, and that the inhabitants of

the Free States should have sprung forward as one man at
his call, like men suddenly relieved from a spell. It would
have been amazing had the call been longer delayed. The
national flag, insulted and deGed for many months, had at
last been lowered, after the most astonishing kind of siege
recorded in history, to an armed and organized rebellion ;
and a prominent personage in the Government of the South
ern " Confederacy" is reported to have proclaimed amid the
exultations of victory that before the 1st of May the same
cherisiied emblera of our nationality should be struck from
the Capitol at Washington. An advg,nce of the " Confede
rate troops" upon that city ; the flight or captivity of the
President and his Cabinet; the seizure of the national ar
chives, the national title deeds, and the whole national
machinery of foreign intercourse and internal administration
by the Confederates ; and1;he proclamation from the American
palladium itself of the Montgomery Constitution in place of
the one devised by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and
Jay — a Constitution in which slavery should be the universal
law of the land, the corner-stone of the political edifice —
were events which seemed for a few days of intense anxiety
almost probable.

THE UNION SENTIMENT.

Had this really been the result without a blow struck in
defence of the national Government and the old Constitution,
it is certain that the contumely poured forth upon the Free
States by their domestic enemies and by the world at large
would have been as richly deserved as it would have been
amply bestowed. At present such a catastrophe seems to
have been averted. But the levy in mass of such a vast
number of armed men in the FVee States, in swift response
to the call of the President, shows how deep and pervading
is the attachment to th(! Constitution and to the flag of Union
in the hearts of the nineteen millions who inhabit those states.
It is confidently believed, too, that the sentiment is not
wholly extinguished in the nine, million white men who dwell
in the Slave States, and that, on the contrary, there exists a
large party throughout that country who believe that the
Union furnishes a better protection for life, property, law,
civilization and liberty than even the indefinite extension of
African slavery can do.

THE CONSPIRACY.
At any rate, the loyalty of the Free Stales has proved
more intense and passionate than it had ever been supposed
to be before. It is recognized throughout their whole people
that the Constitution of 1181 had made us a nation. The
efforts of a certain class of politicians for a long period had
been to reduce our commonwealth to a confederacy. So long
as their efforts had been confined to argument, it was con
sidered sufficient to answer' the argument; buj; now that
secession, instead of remaining a topic of vehement and sub
tle discussion, has expanded into armed and fierce rebellion
and revolution , civil war is the inevitable result. It is the
result foretold by sagacious statesmen almost a generation
ago, in the days of the tariff " nullification." " To begin with
nullification," said Daniel Webster in 1833, "with the avowed
intention, nevertheless, not to proceed to secession, dismem
berment, and general revolution, is as if one were to take (he
plunge of Niagara, and cry out that he would stop half-way
down." And now the plunge of secession has been taken,
and we are all struggling in the vprtex of general revolution.
THE UNITED STATES A COMMONWEALTH.
The body politic known for seventy years as the United
States of America is not a confederacy, not a compact af sovereign
states, not a copartnership • it is a commonweallh, of which the
Constitution drawn up at Philadelphia by the Convention of
1181, over which Washington presided, is the organic funda
mental law. We had already had enough of a confederacy.
The thirteen rebel provinces, afterwards the thirteen original
independent States . of America, had been united to each
other during the Revolutionary War by articles of con
federacy. " The said slates hereby enter into a firm kague of
friendship with each other. Such was the language of 1181,
and the league or treaty thus drawn up was ratified, not by
the people of the states, but by' the state governments —the
legislative and executive bodies, namely, in their corporate
capacity; The Continental Congress, which was the central adminis
trative board during this epoch, was a diet of envoys from
sovereign states. It had no power to act on individuals. It
could not command the states. It could move only by requi
sitions and recommendations. Its functions were essentially

diplomatic, like those of the State-general of the old Dutch
Republic, like those ofthe modern Germanic Confederation.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE NATION.
We were a league of petty sovereignties. When the war
had ceased, when our independence had been acknowledged
in 1183, we sank rapidly into a condition of utter impotence,
imbecility, anarchy. "VVe had achieved our independence,
but we had_ iiot constructed a nation. We were not a body
politic. No laws could be enforced, ¦no insurrection* sup
pressed, no debts collected. Neither property nor life was
secure. Great Britain had made a treaty of peace with us,
but she scornfully declined a treaty of commerce and amity ;
.not because we had been rebels, but because we were not a
state — because we were a mere dissolving league of jarring
provinces, incapable of guaranteeing the stipulations of
any commercial treaty. We were unable even to fulfil the
condition of the treaty of peace and enforce the stipulated
collection of debts due to British subjects ; and Great Britain
refused in consequence to give up the military posts which
she held witliin our frontiers.
For twelve years after the acknowledgment of our inde-
pe-ndence we were mortified by tho spectacle of foreign soldiers
occupying a long chain of fortresses south of the great lakes
and upon our own soil. We were a confederacy. We were
sovereign states; And these were the fruits of such a con
federacy and of such sovereignty. It was, until the imme
diate present the darkest hoi;r of our liistory. But there
were patriotic and sagacious men in those days, and their
efforts at last rescued ufi from the condition ofa confederacy.
The " Constitution of tiie United States" was an organic
law, enacted by the sovereign people of that whole territory
which is commonly called in geographies and histories the
United States of America.^ It was empowered to act direct
ly, by its own legislative, judicial, and executive machinery,
upon every individual in the country. It could seize his pro-
snerty, it could take his life for causes of which itself was
tfe judge. The states were distinctly prohibited from op-
posing'^ its decrees or from exercising any of the great func
tions of sovereignty. The Union alone was supreme, ''any
thing in'the Constitution and laws of the States to the con
trary notwithstanding." Of what significance, then, was

the title of " sovereign" states, arrogated in latter days by
communities which had voluntary abdicated the most vital
attributes of sovereignty ?
THE GOVERNMENT AN ESTABLISHED AUTHORrTY.
But, indeed, the words " sovereign" and " sovereignty"
are purely inapplicable to the American system. In the
Declaration of Independence the provinces declare them
selves " free and independent states," but tho men of those
days knew that the word " sovereign" was a term of feudal
origin. When their connection with the time-honored feudal
monarchy was abruptly severed, the word "sovereign" had
no meaning for us. A sovereign is one who acknowledges
no superior, who possesses the highest authority without
control, who is supreme in power. . How could any one state
of the United States claim such characteristics at all, least
of all after its inhabitants, in their primary assemblies, had
voted to submit themselves without limitation of time, to a
, constitution which was declared supreme ? The only intel
ligible source of power in a country beginjpng its history
de novo after a revolution, in a land never subjected to
military or feudal conquest, is the will of the people of the
whole land as expressed by a majority. At the present
moment, unless the Southern revolution shall prove success
ful, the United States Government is a fact, an established
authority. In the period between 1183 and 1181 we were
in chaos. In May of 1181 the Convention met in Philadel
phia, and after some months' deliberation, adopted with un
precedented unanimity the project of the great law, which
so soon as it should be accepted by the people, was to be
known as the Constitution of the United States.
THE GOVERNMENT NOT A COMPACT.
It was not a compact. Who ever heard of a compact to which
tliere were no parlies, or who ever hear A of a compact made hy a single
party with himself Z Yet the name of no state is mentioned
in the whole document ; the states themselves are only men
tioned to receive commands or prohibitions, and thii " people
of the United States" is the single party by whom alone the
instruraent is executed.
The Constitution was not drawn up by the states, as it
was not promulgated in the name of the states, it waa not

8
ratified by the states. The states never acceded to it, and
possess no power to secede from it. It " was ordained and
established" over the" states by a power superior to the states
— by the people of the whole land in their aggregate capa
city, acting through conventions of delegates expressly
chosen forthe purpose within each state, independently of
the state governments, after the project had been framed.
THE EARLY STRUGGLES OV PARTIES.
There had always been two parties iu the country during
the brief but pregnant period between the abjuration of
British authority and the adoption of the Constitution of
1181. There was a party advocating state rights and local
self-government in its largest sense, and a party favoring a
more consolidated and national government. The National
or Federal party triumphed in the adoption of the new
government. It was strenuously supported and bitterly
opposed on exactly the same grounds. Its friends and foes
both agreed that it had put an end to the system of confede
racy. Whether it were an advantageous or a noxious ¦
change, all ag^ed that the thing had been done.
"In all our deliberations," says the letter accompanying and recom
mending the Constitution to the people, "we kept steadily in view that
which appeared to ns the greatest interest of every true American, the
comolidaiion of our -CTnio-n, in which is involved our prosperity, safety, .
perhaps our national existence.'' — Journal ofthe Convention, 1, Story, 368.
And an eloquent opponent denounced the project for the
very same reason : —
" That this is a consolidated government," said Henry, " is demon
strably clear. The language is ' we the people' instead of ' we the
states.' Ifc must be one great consolidated national government of tho
people of all the states."
And the Supreme Court of the United States, after the
government had been established, held this language in an
'important case, " Gibbons v. Ogden : —
" It has been aaid that the slft.'tes were sovereigu, were completely in
dependent, and were connected with each other by a league. This is
true. But when these allied sovereignties converted their league into a
government, when they converted thefr Congress of arabassadors into a
legislature, empowered to enact laws, the whole character in which the
states appear underwent a change."
There was never a disposition in any quarter in the early
days of our constitutional history to deny this great funda
mental principle of the Republic.

" In the most elaborate expositions of the Constitution by its friends,"
says Justice Story, " its character as a permanent for-m ofgoveinraent, a.s
a fundamental law, ag a supreme rule, which»no state was at liberty to
disregard, to suspend or to annul, was constantly admitted and insisted
upon."— 1 Story, 325.
The fears of its opponents then, were that the new system
would lead to a strong, to an over-centralized government.
The fears of its friends were that the central power of theory
would prove inefficient to cope with the local, or state forces,
in practice. The experience of the last thirty^ years and the
catastrophe of the present year, have shown which class of
fears were the most reasonatble.
OPINIONS OP THE FATHERS.
Had-the Union thus established in 1181 been a confederacy,
it might have been argued, with more or less plausibility,
that the states which peaceably acceded to it, might at
pleasure peaceably secede from it. It is none the less true
that stich a proceeding would have stamped the members of
the Convention — Washington, Madison, Jay, Hamilton and
their colleagues— with utter incompetence ; for nothing can
be historically more certain than that their object was to
extricate us from the anarchy to which that principle had
brought us.
"- Ilo-wever gross a heresy it may -be," says the Federalist recommending
the new Constitution, " to maintain that a party to a compact has a right
to revoke that compact, the doctrine has had respectable advocates.
The possibility of such a question shows the necessity of laying the foun
datioti of our national government deeper than in the mere sanction of
delegated authority. The fabric of American empire ought to rest on
the solid basis of the consent of the people."
Certainly the most venerated expounders of the Constitu
tion — Jay, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, Story, Webster — were
of opinion that the intention of the Convention to establish
a permanent consolidated government, a single common
wealth, had been completely successful.
" The great and fundamental defect of the confederation of 1781,"
says Chancellor Kent, " which led to its eventual overthrow, was that,
in imitation of all. fornier confederacies, it carried the decrees cf the Fede
ral Council to the states in their sovereign capacity. The great and in
curable defect of all former Federal governments, such as the Amphicty-
onic, Achoean, and Lycian Confederacies, and the Germanic, Helvetic,
Hanseatic and Dutch Republics, is that they were sovereignties over sovei -
ciffnties. The first effort to relieve the people of the country from this
state of national degradation and ruin came from Virginia. 'The general

10
convention afterwards met at Philadelphia in May, 1787 . The plan was
Bubmitted to a'convention of delegates chosen by the people at large in
each state for assent and ratification. Such a measure was laying the
foundations of the fabric of our national polity where alone they ought
to be laid— on the broad consent of the people." — 1 Kent, 225.
It is true that the consent of the people was given by the
inhabitants voting in each state ; but in what other con
ceivable way could the poople of the whole country have
voted ? " They assembled in the several states,^' says
Story ; " but where else could they assemble ?"
SECESSION A RETURN TO CHAOS.
Secession is, in brief, the ret-urit to chaos from which we emerged
three quarters of a century since. No logical sequence can be
more perfect. If one state has a right to secede to-day, as
serting what it called it?,,sovereignty, another may, and pro
bably will do the same to morrow, a third on the next day,
and so on, until there are none left to secede from. Grantexl
the premises that each state may peaceably secede from
the Union, it follows that a county may peaceably secede
from a state, and a town from a country, until there is noth
ing left but a horde of iiidividuals all seceding from each
other. The theory that the people of a whole country in
their aggregate capacity are supreme is intelligible ; and it
has been a fact also, in America for seventy years. But it
is impossible to show, if the people of a state be sovereign,
that the people of a county, or of a village, and the indivi
duals ofthe village, are not equally sovereign, and justified
in " resuming tlieir sovereignty" when their interest or
their capr'ce seems to impel them. The process of disinte
gration brings back the community to barbarism, precisely
as its converse has built up commonwealths — whether em
pires, kingdoms, or republics — out of original barbarism.
Established authority, whatever the theory of its origin, is
a fact. It should never be lightly or capriciously overturn
ed. They who venture 'oii the attempt should weigh well
the responsibility that is upon them. Above all they must
expect to be arraigned for their deeds before the tribunal of
the civilized world and of future ages — a oourt of last appeal,
the code of which is based on the Divine principles of right
and reason which are dispassionate and eternal. No man on
either side of the Atlantic, with Anglo-Saxon blood in his
veins, will dispute the right of a people or of any portion of

11
a people to rise against oppression, to demand redress of
grievances, and in case of denial of justice to take up arms
to vindicate the sacred principle of liberty. Few English
men or Americans will deny that the source of government
is the consent of the governed, or that every nation has the
right to govern itself according to its will. When the silent
consent is changed to _/?erce remonstrance the revolution is
impending. REBELLION NOT REVOLUTION.
The right of-:revolution is indisputable. It is written on
the whole record of our race. British and American history
is made up of rebellion and revolution, Mauy of the crowned
kings were rebels or usurpers. Hampden, Pym, and Oliver
Cromwell ; Washington, Adams, aind Jefferson — all were
rebels. It is no word of reproach. But these men all knew
the work they had set themselves to do. They never called
their rebellion " peaceable secession." They were sustained
by the consciousness of right when they overthrew estab
lished autliority, but they meant to overthrow it. They
meant rebellion, civil war, bloodshed, infinite suffering for
themselves and their whole generation, for they accounted
them welcome substitutes for insulted liberty and violated
right. There can be nothing plainer, then, than the Ameri
can right of revolution. But, then, it should be called revo
lution. " Secession, as a revolutionary right," said Daniel
Webster iu the Senate, neatly thirty years ago, in words
that now sound prophetic —
" Is intelligible. As a right to be proclaimed in ihe midst of ci-vil co-in-
motions, and asserted at the head of armies, I can understand it. But as a,
practical right, existing under the Constitution, and in conformity with
its provisions, it seems to be nothing but an absurdity, for it supposes
resistance to government under authority of government itself; it supr
poses dismemberment without violating the principles of Union ; it sup
poses opposition to law without crime ; it supposes the violation of oaths
without responsibility ; it supposes the total overthrow of government
without revolution." THE POUNDERS Or THE COMMONWEALTH.
The men who had conducted the American people through
a long and fearfid revolution were the founders of the new
commonwealth which permanently superseded the subverted
authority of the Crown. They placed the foundations on

12
the unbiassed, untrammelled consent of the people. They
were sick ofleagues, of petty sovereignties, of governments
which could not govern a single individual. The framers of
the Constitution, which has now endured three-quarters of a
century, and under which the nation has made a material
and intellectual progress never surpassed in history, were
not such triflers as to be ignorant of the consequences of
their own acts. The Constitution which they offered, and
which the people adopted as its own, talked not of sovereign
states — spoke not th« word confederacy. In the very pre
amble to the instrument are inserted the vital words which
show its character. " We, the people of the United States, to
ensure a more perfect union, and to secure the blessings ,of
liberty for ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and estallish
this Constitution." Sic volo., sicjubeo. It is the language of a
sovereign solemnly speaking to the world. It is the pro
mulgation of a great law, the norma agendi of a new com
monwealth. It is no compact,
"A compact," says Blackstone, "is a promise proceeding from us.
Law is a command directed to us. The language of a compact is, "We
will or will not do this .: that of a law is, Thou shalt or shalt not do it."
—1 B. 38, iA, 45. ¦
THE LANGUAGE OF THE CONSTITUTION.
And this is, throughout, the language of the Constitution.
Congress shall do this ; the President shall do that ; the
states shall not exercise this or that power. Witness, for
example, the important clauses by which the " sovereign"
states are shorn of all the great attributes of sovereignty —
no state shall coin money, nor emit bills of credit, nor pass
ex post facto laws, nor laws impairing the obligation of con
tracts, nor maintain armies and navies, nor grant letters of
marque, nor make compacts with other states, nor hold in
tercourse with foreign powers, nor grant titles of nobility ;
and that most significant phrase, " this Constitution, and the
laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the
land." Could language be more imperial ? Could the claira to
state " sovereignty" be more completely disposed of at a
word ? How can that be sovereign, acknowledging no
superior, supreme, which has voluntarily accepted a supreme
law from something which it acknowledges as superior ?

13
The Constitution is perpetual, not provisional or tempora
ry. It is made for all time — " for ourselves and our poster
ity." It is absolute within its sphere. " This Constitution
shall be the supreme law of the land, any thing in the con
stitution or laws of a state to the contrary notwithstand
ing." Of what value, then, is a law of a state declaring its
connection with ths Union dissolved ? The Constitution re
mains supreme, and is bound to assert its supremacy till
overpowered by force. The use of force — of armies and
navies of whatever strength — in order to compel obedience
to the civil and constitutional authority, is iiot "wicked war," is
not civil war, is not war at all. So long as it exists the Gov
ernment is obliged to put forth its strength when assailed.
The President, who has taken an oath before God and man
to maintain the Constitution and laws, is perjured if he yields
the Constitution and laws to armed rebellion without a
struggle. He knows nothing of states. Within the sphere
of the United States' Government he deals with individuals
only, citizens of the great Republic, in whatever portion of
it they may happen to live. He has no choice but to enforce
the laws of the Republic wherever they may be resisted.
When he is overpowered the Government ceases to exist.
The Union is gone, and Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Ohio are as much separated from each other as they are
from Georgia or Louisiana. Anarchy has returned upon us.
The dismemberment ofthe commonwealth is complete. We
are again in the chaos of 1185.
WHY THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT PROVIDE FOR SECESSION.
But it is sometimes asked why the Constitution did not
make a special provision against the right of secession.
How could it do so ? The people created a constitution over
the whole land, with certain defined, accurately enumerated
powers, and araong these were all the chief attributes of
sovereignty. It was forbidden to a state to coin money,
to keep armies and navies, to make compacts with other
states, to hold intercourse with foreign nations, to oppose
the authority of the Government. To do any one of these
things is to secede, for it would be physically impossible to
do any one of them without secession. It would have been
puerile for the Constitution to say formally to each state,
" Thou shalt not secede." The Constitution, being the

14
supreme law, being perpetual, and having expressly for
bidden to the states those acts without which secession is
an impossibility, would have been wanting in dignity had it used
such superfluous phraseology. This Constitution is svpreme,
whatever la,ws a state may enaet, says the organic .law. Was it
necessary to add, '" and no state shall enact a law of seces
sion V To add to a great statute, in which the sovereign
authority of the land -declares its will, a phrase such-as
" and be it further enacted that the said law shall not be
violated," would scarcely seem to strengthen the statute.
It was accordingly enacted that new states might be ad
mitted ; but no permission was given for a state to secede.
PROVISIONS FOR AMENDMENT.
Provisions were made for the amendment of the Constitu-
iion from time to time, and it was intended that those pro
visions should be stringent. A two-thirds vote in both
Houses of Congress, and a ratification in three-quarters of
the whole number of states, are conditions only to be com
plied with in grave emergencies. But the Constitution
made no provision for its own dissolution, and, if it had done
so, it would have been a proceeding quite without example
in history. A constitution can only be subverted by revolu
tion, or by foreign conquest of the land. The revolution
may be the result of a successful rebellion. A peaceful
revolution is also conceivable in the case of the United
States. The same power which established the Constitution
may justly destroy it. The people of the wheie land may
meet, by delegates, in a great national convention, as they
did in 1181, and declare that the Constitution no longer
answers the purpose for which it was ordained ; that it no
longer can secure the blessings of liberty for the people in
present aiid future generations, and that it is therefore for
ever abolished. When that project has been submitted
again to the people voting in their primary assemblies, not
influenced by fraud or force, the revolution is lawfully ac
complished and the Union is no more.
WHAT IS REBELLION ?
Such a proceeding is conceivable, although attended with
innumerable difficulties and dangers. But these are not so
great as those of the civil war into which the action of the

I. 15
seceding States has plunged the country. The division of
the national domain and other property, the navigation and
police of the great rivers, the arrangement and fortification
of frontiers, the transit of the isthmus, the mouth of the
Mississippi, the control of the Gulf of Mexico, thes* are sig
nificant phrazes which have an appalling sound ; for there is
not one of them thac does not contain thc seeds of war. In
any separation, however accomplished, these difficulties must
be dealt with, but there would seem less hope of arriving at
a peaceful settlement of them now that the action of the se
ceding States has been so precipitate and lawless. For a
single State, one after another, to resume those functions of
sovereignty which it had unconditionally abdicated when its
people ratified the Constitution of 1181, to seize forts, arsen
als, custom-houses, post-offices' mints, and other valuable
property of the Union, paid for by the treasure of the Union,
was not the exercise of a legal function, but it was rebellion,
treason, and plunder.
THE UNION CLOTHED WITH IMPERIAL ATTRIBUTES.
It is strange that Englishmen shou'd fine difficulty in un
derstanding that the United States' Government is a nation
among the nations of the earth ; a constituted authority,
which may be overthrown by violence, as may be th.e fate of
any State, whether kingdom or republic, but which is false
to the people if it does not its best to preserve ihem from
the horrors of anarchy, even at the cost of blood. The
" United States " happens to be a plural title, but the com
monwealth thus designated is a unit, "e pluribus unum." The
Union alone is clothed with imperial at tributes ; the Union alone is
known and recognized in'the family of nations ; the Union alcne holds
the purse and the swvrd, regulates foreign intercourse, imposes
taxes on foreign commeice, makes war, and concludes peace.
The armies, the navies, the militia, belong to the Union alone,
and the President is commander^iil-chief of alh No State
can keep troops or fleets. What man in the civilized world
has not heard of the United States ? What man in England
can tell the names of all the individual States ? And yet,
with hardly a superficial examination of our history and our
Constitution, men talk glibly about a confederacy, a com
pact, a copartnership, and the right of a State to secede at
pleasure, not knowing that by admitting such loose phrase-

16 I
ology and such imaginary rights, we should violate the first
principles of our political organization, should fly in the face
of our history, should trample under foot the teachings of
Jay, Hamilton, VT ashington, Marshall, MadjgonpBaBe, Kent,
Story, and Webster, andaccepting only the dogmas of Mr.
Calhoun as infallible, surrender forever our national laws
and our national existence. A PARALLEL.
Englishmen themselves live ii:i a united empire ; but if the
kingdom of Scotland should secede, should seize' all the na
tional property, forts, arsenals, and public treasure on its
soil, organize an army, send forth foreign ministers to Louis
Napoleon, the Emperor of Austria, and other powers, issue
invitations to all the pirates ©f the world to prey upon Eng
lish commerce, screening their piracy from punishment by
the banner of Scotland, and should announce its intention of
planting that flag upon Buckingham Palace, it is probable
that a blow or two would be struck to defend the national
honor and the national existence, without fear that the civil
war would be denounced as wicked and fratricidal. Yet it
would be difficult to show that the State of Florida, for ex
ample, a Spanish province, purchased for national purposes
some forty years ago by the United States' Government for
several millions, and fortified and furnished with navy-yards
fornational uses at a national expense of many moro millions,
and numbering at this moment a population of only 80,000
white men, should be more entitled to resume its original
sovereignty than the ancient kingdom of William the Lion
and Robert Bruce.
The terms of the treaty between England and Scotland
were perpetual, and so is the Constitution of the United
States. . The United Empire may be destroyed by revolution
and war, and so may the United States ; but a peaceful and
legal dismemberment witJiQut the consent of the majority of
the whole people, is an impossibility.
THE AJIERICAN REVOLUTION.
But it is sometimes said that the American Republic ori
ginated in secession from the mother country, and that it is
unreasonable of the Union to resist the seceding movement
ou the part of the new Confederacy. But it so happens that

11
the one case suggests the other only by the association of
contrast. The thirteen colonies did not intend to secede
from the British empire. They were forced into secession by
a course of policy on the part of the mother country such as
no English administration at the present day can be imagined
capable of adopting. Those Englishmen in America were
loyal to the Crown ; but they exercised the right which cis
atlantic or transatlantic Englishmen have always exercised,
of resistance to arbitrary government. Taxed without be
ing represented, and insulted by measures taken to enforce
the odious but not exorbitant imports, they did not secede,
nor declare their independence. On the contrary, they made
every effort to avert such a conclusion. In the words of the
" forest-born Demosthenes" — as Lord Byron called the great
Virginian, Patrick Henry — the Americans "petitioned, re
monstrated, ca^ themselves at the foot of the throne, aud
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of
the ministers and Parliament. But their petitions were
slighted, their remonstrances procured only additional vio
lence and insult, and they were spurned with contempt from
the foot of the •throne.
The "Boston massacre," the Boston port-bill, the Boston "tea
party," the battle of Lexington, the battle of Bunker's Hill,
were events which long preceded the famous Declaration of
Independence. It was not till the colonists felt that redress
for grievances was impossible that they took the irrevocable
steji, and renounced their allegiance to the Crown. The revolu
tion had come at last, they had been forced into it ; but they
knew that itwas revolution, and that theywere acting at the
peril of their lives. " We must be unanimous in this busi
ness," said Hancock ; "we must all hang together." " Yes,"
"replied Franklin, " or else we shall all hang separately."
The risk incurred by the colonists was enormous, but the
injury to the mother country vyas comparatively slight.
They went out into darkness Etlid danger themselves, but
the British empire was not thrown into anarchy and chaos by
their secession. THE CAUSE OF THE SOUTHERN REBELLION.
Thus their course was the reverse of that adopted by the
South. The prompt secession of seven States because ofthe
constitutional election of a President over the candidates
voted for by their people was the redress in advance of
2

18
grievances which they may, reasonably or unreasonably, have
expected, but which had not yet occurred. There is the'high
authority of the Vice-President ofthe Southern "Confede
racy," who declared a week after the election of Mr. Lincoln,
that the election was not a cause for secession, and that
there was no certainty that he would have either the power
or the inclination to invade the constitutional rights of the
South. In the Free States it was held that the resolutions of
the convention by which Mr. Lincoln was nominated were scru
pulously and conscientiously framed to protect all those con
stitutional rights. The question of slavery in the territories.
of the future extension of slavery, was one which had always
been an open question, and on which issue was now joined .
But it was no question at all that slavery within a state
was sacred from all interference by the general Government,
or by the Free States, or by individuals in those States ; and
the Chicago Convention strenuously asserted that doctrine.
THE QUESTION OF FREE TRADE.
The question of free trade, which is thrust before the
English public by many journals, had no immediate connec
tion with the secession, although doubtless the desire of di
rect trade with Europe has long been a promiuent motive at
the South. The Gulf States seceded under the modern tariff
of 1851, for which South Carolina voted side by side with
Massachusetts. The latter State, although for political, not
economical, reasons, it thought itself obliged since the seces
sion to sustain the Pennsylvania interest by voting for the
absurd Morrill bill, is not in favor of protection. On the
contrary, the great manufactories on the Merrimac River
have long been independent of protection, and export many
million dollars' worth of cotton and other fabrics to foreign
countries, underselling or competing with all the world in'
open market. It would be impossible for any European na
tion to drive the American manufacturers from the markets
of the American continent- in the principal articles of cheap
dothingfor the. masses, tariff or no tariff. This is a statistical
fact which cannot be impugned.
The secession ofthe colonies, after years of oppression^and
grievances for which redress had been sought in vain, left
the British empire, three thousand miles off, in security, with
Constitution and laws unimpaired, even if its colonial' terri
tory were seriously diminished. The secession of the South-

19
ern States, in contempt of any other remedy for expected
. grievances, is followed by the destruction ofthe whole body
politic of which they were vital parts.
PERILS OF THE REIUBLIC. *
Not only is the united Republic destroyed if the revolu
tion prove successful, but, even if the people of the Free
States have the enthusiasm and sagacity to reconstruct their
Union, and by a new national convention, to re-ordain and
re-establish the time-honored Constitution, still an iramense.
territory is lost. But the extent of that territory is not the
principal element in the disaster. The world is wide enough
for all. It is the loss of the Southern marine frontier which
is fatal to the Republic. Florida and the vast Lousiana ter
ritory purchased by the Union from foreign countries and
garnished with fortresses at the expense of the Union, are
fallen with all these improvements into the hands of a foreign
and unfriendly power. Should the dire misfortune of a war
with a great maratime nation, with England or France, for
example, befall the Union, its territory, hitherto almost im
pregnable, might now be open to fleets and armies acting in
alliance with a hostile " Confederacy," which has become
possessed of an importa-^t part of the Union's maratime line
of defence. Moreover the Union has twelve thousand ships,
numbering more than five million tons, the far greater part
of which belongs to the Free States, and the vast commerce
of-the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico requires and must
receive protection at every hazard.
Is it strange that the Union should make a vigorous, just
and lawful effort to save itself from the chaos from which
the Constitution of 1181 rescued thecountry? Who that
has read and pondered the history of that dark period does
not shudder at the prospect of its return ?
A COMPARISON.
But yesterday we were a state — the great Republic —
prosperous and powerful, with a flag known and honored
all over the world. Seventy years ago we were a helpless
league of bankrupt and lawless petty sovereignties. We
had a currency so degraded that a leg of mutton was cheap
at one thousand dollars The national debt, incurred in the
war of independence, had hardly a nominal value, and was
considered worthless. The absence of law, order, and securi
ty for life and property was as absolute as could be well

20
conceived in a civilized land. Debts could not be collected,
courts could enforce no decrees, insurrections could not be
suppressed^ The army of the Confederacy numbered eighty
men. From this condition the Constitntion rescued us.
That great law, reported by the General Convention of
1181, was ratified by the people of all the land voting in
each state for a ratifying convention chosen expressly for
that purpose. It was promulgated in the name of the people :
" We, the people of the United States, in order to form a
more perfect Union, and to secure the blessings of liberty
. for ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution." It was ratified by the people — not by the statu
acting through their governments, legislative and executive,
but by the people -electing especial delegates within
each state ; and it is important to remember that in none of
these ratifying conventions was any reserve made of a
state's right to repeal the Union or to secede.
Many criticisms were offered in thc various ratifying ordi
nances, many amendments suggested, but the acceptance of
the Conrstitution, the submission to the perpetual law, was
in all cases absolute. The languge ofVirginia was most ex
plicit on this point. " The powers granted under the Con-
stittition, bdng derived from thepeople of the United States, may
be resumed by them whenever the aame shall be perverted to
their injury or oppression." That the people of the United
States, expressing their will solemnly in national conven
tion, are competent to undo the work of their ancestors, and
are fully justified in so doing when the Constitution shall be
perverted to their injury and oppression, there is no man in
the land that doubts. This course has been already indicated
as the only peaceful revolution possible ; but such a proceed
ing is very different from the secession ordinance of a. single
state resuming its sovereignty of its own free will, and without
consultation with the rest of the inhabitants of the country.
There was no reservation," says Justice Story, " of any
right on the part of any state to dissolve its connection, or
to abrogate its dissent, or to suspend the operation of the
Constitution as to itself." OEdfeR OUT OF CHAOS.
And thus, when the ratifications had been made, a new
commonwealth took its place among the nations of the
earth. The effects of the new Constitution were almost

21
magical. Order sprang out of chaos. Law resuraed its
reign ; debts were collected ; life and property became se
cure ; the national debt was funded and ultimately paid,
principaland interest, to the uttermost farthing ; the articles
of the treaty of peace in 1183 were fulfilled, and Great Britain,
having an organized and united siate to deal with, entered
into a treaty of commerce and amity with us, the first and
the best ever negotiated between the two nations. Not the
least noble of its articles (the 21st) provided that the ac
ceptance by- the citizens or subjects of either country, of
foreign letters of marque should be treated and punished as
piracy. Unfortunately, that article and several others were
limited to twelve years, and were not subsequently renewed.
The debts due to British subjects were collected, and the
British Government at last surrendered the forts on our soil.
THE STATE OF THE NATION.
At last we were a nation, with a flag respected abroaci, and
almost idolized at home, as the symbol of union and coming
greatness, and we entered upon a career of prosperity and
progress never surpassed in history. The autonomy of each
state, according to which its domestic and interior affairs are
subject to the domestic Legislature and executive, was se
cured by the reservation to each state of powers not express
ly granted to the Union by the Constitution. Supreme within
its own orbit, which is traced from the same centre of popular
power whence the wider circumference of the general Gov
ernment is described, the individual state is surrounded on
all sides by that all embracing circle. The reserved and un
named powers are many and important, but the state is
closely circumscribed. Thus, a state is forbidden to alter its
form of Government. " Thou shalt forever remain a Repub
lic," says the United Slates' Constitution to each individual
state. A state is forbidden, above all, to pass any law con
flicting with the United States' ponstitution or laws. More
over, every member of Congress, every member of a state
Legislature, every executive or judicial officer in the service
of the Union or of a separate state, is bound by solemn oath
to maintain the United States' Constitution. This alone
would seem to settle the question or secession ordinances.
So long as the Constitution endures, such an ordinance is
merely the act pf conspiring and combining individuals, with
whom the general Government may deal. When it falls m

22
the struggle, and becomes powerless to cope with them, the
Constitution has been destroyed by violence. Peaceful acquies
cence in such combinations is perjury and treason on the part of the
chief magistrate of the country, for which he may be impeached and
executed. Ij^ men speak of Mr. Lincoln as having plunged inio
wicked war. They censure him for not negotiating with en
voys who came, not to settle grievances, but to demand re
cognition of the dismemberment of the Republic which he
had just sworn to maintain.
RELATIVE POWERS OP THE STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS.
It is true that the ordinary daily and petty affairs of men
come more immediately than larger matters under the cogni
zance of the state ' governnlents tending thus to foster local
patriotism and local allegiance. At the same time, as all
controversies between citizens of different states come within
the sphere of the Federal courts, and as the manifold and
conflicting currents of so rapid a national life as the Ameri
can can rarely be confined within narrow geographical boun
daries, it follows that the Federal courts, even for domestic
purposes as well as foreign, are parts of the daily visible
functions of the body politic. The Union is omnipresent.
The custom-house, the court-house, the arsenal, the village
post-office, the muskets of the militia, raake the authority of
the general Government a constant fact. Moreover, the
restless, migratory character of the population, which rarely
permits all the members of one family to remain denizens of
any one state, has interlaced the states with each other, and
all with the Union to such an extent that a painless excision
of a portipn of the whole nation is an impossibility. To cut
away the pound of flesh and draw no drop of blood surpasses
buman ingenuity. THE DOCTRINE OF SECESSION A NEW ONE.
Neither the opponents nor friends of the new Government
in the first generation after its establishment held the doctrine
of secession. The states' right party and the Federal party
disliked or cherished the Government because of the general
conviction that it was a Constitution and centralized auihority,
permanent and indivisible, like that of any other organized
nation. Each party continued to favor or to oppose a strict
construction of the instrument ; but the doctrine of nullifica
tion and secession wau a plant of later growth. It was an
accepted fact that the United States was not a confederacy.

23
That word was never used in the Constitution except once by
way of prohibition. We were a nation, not a copartnership,
except indeed in the larger sense in which every nation may
be considered a copartnership — a copartnership of the pres
ent with the past and with the ftjjture. To borrow the lofty
language of Burke : —
•' A state ought not to be conaidered as nothing better thau a partner
ship agreement iu a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some
other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and
to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked upon with
other reverence, because it is uot a partnership in things subservient only
to gross-animal existence, of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a
partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every
virtue and in .all perfection, a partnership not duly between those who are
living, but betvveen those who are dead, and those who are to be born."
And the simple phrase of the preamble to our Constitution
is almost as pregnant, " To secure the blessings of liberty to
us and our posterity." HOW THE REBELLION GREW.
But as the innumerable woes of disunion out of which we
had been rescued by the Constitution began to fade into the
past, the allegiance to the Union, in certain regions of the
country, seemed rapidly to diminish. It was reserved to the sub
tle genius of Mr. Calhoun, one of the most logical, brilliant,
and persuasive orators that ever lived, to embody once more
in a set of sounding sophisms, the main arguments which
had been unsuccessfully used in a former generation to pre-
vent'the adoption of the Constitution, and to exhibit them
now as legitimate deductions from tbe Constitution The
memorable tariff controversy was the occasion in which the
argument of state sovereignty was put forth in all its
strength. In regard to the dispute itself there can be no
doubt that the South was in the right and the North in the
wrong. The production by an exaggerated tariff of a revenue
so much over and above the wants of Government, that it
was at last divided among the Separate states, and foolishly
squandered, was the most triumphant reductio ad absurdum
that the South could have desired. But it is none the less
true that the nullification by a state Legislature of a Federal
law was a greater. injury to the whole nation than a foolish
tariff, long since repealed, had inflicted. It wag a stab to
the Union in its vital part. The blow was partially parried,
but it raay be doubted whether the wound has ever healed.

24
, WHAT SUCOESSrUL SliCESSION WOULD ACCOMPLISH.
Tariffs, the protective system, free trade, although the
merits of these questions must be considered as settled by
sound thinkers in all civilized lands, must, nevertheless, still
remain in some countries the subjects of honest argument-^
and legitimate controversy. When all parts of a country
are represented — and especially in the case of the United
States, where the Southern portion has three-fifths of a certain
kind of " property" represented, while the North has no
property represented — reason should contend with error for
victory, trusting to its innate strength. And until after the
secession of the Gulf States the moderate tariff of 1851 was
in operation, with no probability of its repeal. Moreover,
the advocates of the enlightened system of free trade should
reflect that should the fourteen Slave States become perma
nently united in a separate confederacy, the state of their in
ternal affairs will soon show a remarkable revolution. Thz
absence of the Fugitive Law will necessarily drive all the slaves
from what are called the Border States ; and he must be a shal
low politician who dreams here in England that free trade
with all the world, and direct taxation for revenue, will be
the policy of the new and expensive military empire which
will arise. Manufactures of cotton and woollen will spring up
onevery river .and mountain stream in the Northern Slave States,
the vast mineral wealth of their territories will require de
velopment, and Ihe cry for protection to native indiistry in
one quarter will be as surely heeded as will be that other cry
from the Gulf of Mexico, now partially suppressed for ob
vious reasons, for the African slave trade. To establish a
great Gulf empire, including Mexico, Central America, Cuba,
and other islands with unlimited cotton-fields and unlimited
negroes, this is the golden vision in pursuit of which the
great Republic has been sacrificed, the beneficent Constitut
tion subverted. And already the vision has fled, but the work
of destruction remains. THE TARIFF QUESTION.
The mischief caused by a tariff, however selfish or how
ever absurd, may be temporary. In the last nineteen years
there have been four separate tariffs passed by the American
Congress, and nothing ismore probable than thatthe suicidal
Morrill tariff will receive essential modifications even in the
special session in July ; but the woes caused by secession

25
and civil war are infinite ; and whatever be the result of this
contest, this generation is not likely to forget the injuries al
ready inflicted. A GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SITUATIONS.
The great secession therefore, of 1800-1 is a rebellion — like
any other insurrection against established authoritj'^, and has
been followed by civil war, as its immediate and inevitable
consequence. If successful it is revolution, and whether
successful or not, it will be judged before the tribunal of
mankind andposterity, according to the eternal laws of reason.
and justice.
Time and history will decide whether it was a good and
sagacious deed to destroy a fabric of so long duration, be
cause of the election of Mr. Lincoln ; wliether it were wise andnoble
to substitute over a large portion of the American soil a- confederacy
of which slavery, in the words of its^-'Vice President, is tlie corner
stone for the old Republic, of which Washington, with his own hand,
laid the corner-stone.
It is conceded by the North that it has received from the
Union innumerable blessings. But it would seem that the
Union had also conferred benefits on the South. ' It has car
ried its mails at a large expense. It has recaptured its fu
gitive slaves. It has purchased vast tracts of foreign terri
tory, out of which a whole tier of Slave States has been
constructed. It has annexed Texas. It has made war with
Mexico. It has made an offer — not likely to be repeated,
however — to purchase Cuba, with its multitude of slaves , at
a price, according to report, as large as the sum paid by
England for the emancipation of her slaves. Individuals in
the free states have expressed themselves freely on slavery,
as upon every topic of human thought, and this must ever be
the case where there is freedom of the press and of speech.
The number of professed abolitionists has hitherto_been very
sraall, while the great body of the two principal political
parties in the Free States have been strongly opposed to
them. The Republican party was determined to set bounds
to the extension of slavery, while the Democratic party fa
vored that system, but neither had designs secret or avowed
against slavery within the states.' They knew that the ques
tion could only be legally, and rationally dealt with by the
states themselves. But both the parties,, as present events
are so signally demonstrating, were imbued with a passion.

26
ate attachment to the Constitution — to the established au
thority of government, by which alone our laws and our
liberty are secured. All parties in the Free States are now
united as one man, inspired by a noble and generous emotion
to vindicate the sullied honor of their flag, and to save their
cpuntry from the' abyss of perdition into which it seemed de
scending. Of the ultimate result we have no intention of speaking.
Only the presumptuous will venture to lift the veil and affect
to read with accuracy coming events, the most momentous
perhaps of our times. One result is, however, secured. The
Montgomery Constitution, with slavery for its corner-stone,
is not likely to be accepted, as but lately seemed possible,
not only by all the Slave States, but even by the Border
Free States ; nor to be proclaimed from Washington as the
new national law in the name of the United States . Com
promise will no longer be offered by peace conventions in which slavery
is to be made national, negroes declared property over all the
land, and slavery extended over all territories now possessed
or hereafter to be acquired. Nor is the United States' go
vernment yet driven from. Washington.
Events are rapidly unrolling themselves, and it will be
proved, in course of time, whether the North will remain
united in its inflexible purpose, whether the South is as firm
ly united, or whether a counter revolution will be effected in
either section, which must necessarily give the victory to
its opponents. We know nothing of the schemes or plans of
either Government.
The original design of the Republican party was to put an
end to the perpetual policy of slavery extension, and acqui
sition of foreign territory for that purpose, and at the same
time to maintain the Constitution and the integrity of the Re
public. This at the Soutiiseemed an outrage which justified
civil war; for events have amply proved what sagacious
statesmen prophesied thir-ty "years ago — that secession is
civil war.
If all is to end. in negotiation'and separation, notwithstand
ing the almost interminable disputes concerning frontiers,
the strongholds in the Gulf and the unshackled navigation
of the gieat rivers througliout their whole length, which, it
is probable, will never be abandoned by the north, except as
the result of total defeat in the field, it is at any rate cer-

21
tain that both parties wiU negotiate more equitably with arms m
their hands than if the unarmed of either section were to deal
with the armed. If it comes to permanent separation, too,
it is certain that in the coraraonwealth which will still glory
in the name of the United States, and whose people will,
doubtless, re-establish the old Constitution with some impor
tant ainendments, the word secession will be a sownd ofiooe not to be
lightly uttered. It will have been proved to designate, not a
peaceful and natural function of political life, but to be
only another expression for revolution, bloodshed and all the
horrors of civil war.
It is probable that a long course of years will be run, and
many inconveniencies and grievances endured, before any
one of the Free States secedes from the reconstructed UnioA.
J. L. M.

HOK JOSEPH HOLT
ON THE REBELLION.

KENTUCKY MUST NOT REMAIN NEUTRAL— THE RE
BELS MUST BE PUT DOWN.

Hon. Joseph Holt, late Postmaster General, has written
an exceedingly able and patriotic letter to the Louisville
Journal, tbe chief points of which we give below :
Washington, May 31.
J. F. Speed, Esq. : My Dear Sir : The recent overwhelm
ing vote in favor of the Union in Kentucky has afforded un
speakable gratlficaition to all true men throughout the
country. That vote indicates tbat the people of that gallant
state have been neither seducedtiy the arts nor terrified by
the menaces of the revolutionists in their midst, and that it
is their fixed purpose to remain faithful to a government
which, for nearly seventy years, has remained faithful to
them. Still it cannot be denied that there is in the bosom
of that state a band of agitators, who, though few in number,
are yet powerful from the public confidence they have enjoy
ed, and who have been, and doubtless will continue to be,

28
unceasing in their endeavors to force Kentucky to unite her
fortunes with those of the rebel confederacy of the South.
The Legislature, it seems, has determined by resoluton that
the state, pending the present unhappy war, shall occupy
neutral ground. I must say, in all frankness and without
desiring to reflect upon the course or sentiments of any, that,
in this struggle for the existence of our government, I can
neither practice, nor profess, nor feel nputrality. I would as
soon think of being neutral in a contest between an officer of
justice and an incendiary arrested in the attempt to fire the
dwelling over my head. Her executive, ignoring, as I am
happy to believe, alike the popular and legislative sentiment
of the state, has, by proclamation, forbid the government ot
the United States from marching troops across her territory.
This is, in no sense, a neutral step, but one of aggressive
hostility. The troops of the federal government have as
clear a constitutional right to pass over the soil of Kentucky
as they have to march along the streets of Washington, and
could this prohibition be effective, it would not only be a
violation of the fundamental law, but would, in all its ten
dencies, be directly in advancement of the revolution, and
might, in an emergency easily imagined, compromise the
highest national interests. ******
For raore than a month afterthe inauguration of President
Lincoln the manifestations seemed unequivocal that his ad
ministration would seek a peaceful solution of our unhappy
political troubles. So marked was the effect of these mani
festations in tranquilizing the border states and in reassuring
their loyalty, that the conspirators who had set this revolu
tion on foot took the alarm. Hence it was resolved to pre
cipitate a collision of arms with the federal authorities, in
the hope that, under the panic and exasperation incident to
the commencement of a civil war, the border states, follow
ing the natural bent of their sympathies, would array them
selves against the governriifent.
In the midst of the most active and extended warlike pre
parations in the South the announcement was made by the
secretary of war of the seceded states, and echoed with taunts
.and insolent bravadoes by the southern press, that Washing
ton city was to be invaded and captured, and that the flag
of the Confederate States would soon float over the dome of
its capitol. Soon thereafter there followed an invitation to

29
all the world — embracing necessarily the outcasts and des
peradoes of every sea — to accept letters of marque and re
prisal, to pray upon the rich and unprotected commerce ofthe
United States.
In view of these events and threatenings, what was the
duty of the chief magistrate of the republic ? With a heroic
fidelity to his constitutional obligations, feeling justly that
these obligations charged him with the protection of the re
public and its capitol against the assaults alike of foreign
and domestic enemies, he threw himself on the loyalty of the
country for support in the struggle in which he was about to
enter, and nobly has that appeal been responded to. States
containing an aggregate population of nineteen millions have
answered to the appeal as with the voice of one man, offering
soldiers without number, and treasure without limitation, for
the service of the government. In. those states, fifteen hund
red thousand freemen cast their votes in favor of candidates
supporting the rights of the South at the last presidential
election, and yet.every where alike, in popular assemblies and
upon the tented field, this million anda half of voters are
found yielding to none in the zeal with which they rally to
their country's flag. They are not less the friends of the
South than before ; but they realize that the question now
presented is not one of administrative polic.y, or ofthe claims
of the North, the South, the East, or the West ; but is, sim
ply, whether nineteen millions of people shall tamely and ig
nobly permit five or six millions to overthrow and destroy
institutions which are the common property, and have been
the common blessings and glory of all.
If they go to the South, it will be as friends and protectors,
to relieve the Union sentiment of the seceded states from
the cruel domination by which it is oppressed and silenced,
to unfurl the stars and stripes in the midst of those who long
to look upon them, and to restore the flag that bears them
to the forts and arsenals from which disloyal hands have torn
it. Their mission will be one of peace, unless wicked and
blood-thirsty men shall unsheath the sword across their
pathway. It is in vain for the revolutionists to exclaim that this is
"subjugation." It is so, precisely in the sense in which
you and I and all law-abiding citizens are subjugated. The
people of the South are our brethren, and while we obey the

30
laws enacted by our joint authority, and keep a compact to
which we are all parties, we only, ask that they shall be re
quired to do the same. We believe that their safety demands
this ; we know that ours does.
Equally vain is it for them to declare that they only wish
" to be let alone," and that in establishing the independeiwie
of the seceded states, they do those which remain in the olti-
confederacy no harm. Should a ruffian meet me in the streets,
and seek with his axe to hew an arm and a leg from my
body, I would not the less resist him because as a dishonored
and helpless trunk, I might perchance survive the mutilation.
There are now thirty-four states in the confeder.acy, three-
fourths of which' being twenty-six, must concur in the adop
tion of any amendment before it can become a part of the
Constitution i but the scession of eleven states leaves but
twenty-three whose vote can possibly be secured, which is
less than the constitutional number.
Thus we have the extraordinary and discreditable specta
cle of a revolution made by certain states, professedly on the
ground that guarantees for the safety of their institutions
are denied them, and at the same time, instead of co.opera-
ting with their sister states in obtaining these guara ntees,
they designly assurae a hostile attitude, and thereby render
it constitutionally impossible to secure them. This profound
dissimulation shows that it was not the safety of the South,
but its , severence from the confederacy which was sought
from the beginning. The war begun is being prosecuted by
the Confederate States in a temper as fierce and unsparing
as that which characterises conflicts between the most hostile
nations. Letters of marque and reprisal are being granted
to all who seek them, so that our coasts will soon swarm
with these piratical cruisers, as the President has properly
denounced them. Every buccaneer who desires to rob
American commerce upon the ocean, can for the asking, obtain
a warrant to do so, in tbe name of the new republic. To
crown all, large bodies of Indians have been mustered into
the services of the revolutionary states, and are now conspi
cuous in the ranks of the southern army. A leading North
Oarolina journal, noting their stalwart frames and unerring
markmanship, observes with an exultation positively fiendish,
that they are armed, not only with the rifle, but also with
the scalping knife and tomahawk. *****

31
In giving her great material and moral resources to the
support of the southern confederacy, Kentucky might prolong
the desolating struggle that rebellious states are making to
overthrow a government which they have only known in its
blessings ; but the triumph of the government would never
theless be certain in the end. She would abandon a
government strong and able to protect her, for one that is
weak, and that contains in the very elements of its life, the
seeds of distraction and early dissolution. She would adopt,
as the law of her existence, the right of secession — a right
which has no foundation in jurisprudence or logic, or in our
political history ; which Madison the father of the Federal
Constitution, denounced ; which has been denounced by most
of the states and prominent statesmen now insisting upon its
exercise ; which, in introducing a principle of indefinite disin
tegration, cuts up all confederate^governments by the roots,
and gives them over a prey to the caprices and passions, and
transient interests of their members, as autumnal leaves are
given to the winds which blow upon them.
Kentucky, occupying a central position in the Union, is
now protected from the scourge of foreign war, however
much its ravages may waste the towns and cities upon our
coasts or the commerce upon our seas ; but as a member of
the Southern confederacy, she would be a frontier state, and
¦necessarily the victim of those border feuds and conflicts
which have become proverbial in history, alike for their fierce
ness and frequency. The people of the South now sleep
quietly in their beds, while there is not a home in infatuated
and misguided Virginia that is not filled with the alarms,
and oppressed by the terrors of war. In the fate of this
ancient commonwealth dragged to the altar of sacrifice by
those who should have stood between her bosom and every
foe, Kentucky may read her own. No wonder, therflbre,
that she had been so coaxingly besought to unite her fortunes
with those of the South, and tollay down the bodies of her
chivalric sons as a breastwork, behind which the Southern
people' may be sheltered. Even as attached to the Southern
Confederacy she would be weak for all the purposes of self-
protection as compared with her present position.^ But
amid the mutations incident to such a helpless and disinte
grating league, Kentucky would probably soon find herself
adhering to a mere fragment of the confederacy, or it may

32
be standing entirely alone, in the presence of tiers of free
states with populations exceeding by many millions her own.
Feeble states thus separated from powerful and warlike
neighbors by ideal boundaries, or by rivers as easily traver
sed as rivulets, are as insects that feed upon the lion's lip —
liable at* every moment to be crushed. The recorded doom
of multitudes of such has left us a warning too solemn and
impressive to be disregarded.
Kentucky now scarcely feels the contribution she makes to
support the government of the United States, but as a mem
ber of the Southern Confederacy, of whose policy free trade .
will be a cardinal principle, she willbe burthened with direct
taxation to the amount of double, or, it may be, triple or
quadruple that which she now pays into her own treasury.
Superadded to this will lie required from her her share of
those vast outlays' necesssary for the creation of a navy, the
erection of forts and custom-houses along a frontier of sever
al thousand miles; and for the maintainance of that large
standing army which will be indispensable at once for her
safety and for imparting to the new government that strong-
military character which it has been openly avowed, the
peculiar institutions ofthe South will inexorably demand.
Kentucky now enjoys for her peculiar institution the pro
tection of the fugitive slave law, loyally enforced by the
government, and it is this law, effective in its power of re
capture, but infinitely more potent in its moral agency in pre
venting the escape of slaves, that alone saves the institution
in the border states from utter extinction. She cannot carry
this law with her into the new confederacy. , She will virtual
ly have Canada brought to her doors in the form of free
states, whose population, relieved of all moral and con
stitutional obligations to deliver up fugitive slaves, will
stand with open arms inviting and welcoming them, and
defending them, if need be, at the poiut of the bayonet. Un
der such influences, slavery will perish rapidly away in Ken
tucky, as a ball of snow would melt in a summer's sun.
Kentucky, in her soul abhors the African slave trade, and
turns away with unspeakable horror and loathing from the
•red altars of King Dahomey, But although this traffic has
been temporarily interdicted by the seceded states, it is well
understood that this step has been taken ,as a mere measure
of policy for the purpose of impressing the Border States, and

33
of conciliating the European powers. The ultimate legaliza
tion of this trade by a republic professing to be based upon
African servitude, must follow as certainly as does the con
clusion from the premises of a mathematical proposition. Is
Kentucky prepared to see the hand upou the dial-plate of her
civilization rudely thrust back a century, and to stand be
fore the world the confessed champion of the African slave
hunter ? Is she with her unsullied fame, ready to become a
pander to the rapacity of the African slave trader, who bur
dens the very winds of the sea with the moans of the wretch
ed captives whose limbs he haS loaded with chains, and whose
hearts he has broken ? I do not, I cannot believe it. * * *
The clamor that arises iu insisting upon the South obeying
the laws, the great principle thatall popular governments rest
upon the consent of the governed, is violated, should not re
ceive a moment's consideration. Popular government does,
indeed, rest upon the consent of the governed, but it is upon
the consent, not of all, but of a majority of the governed.
Criminals are every day punished and made to obey the laws,
certainly against their will ; and no man supposes that the
principle reierred to is thereby invaded. A bill passed by a
Legislature, by the majority of a single vote only, though the
constituents of all who voted against it should be in fact, as
they are held to be in theory, opposed to its provisions, still
is not the less operative as a law, and no right of self-govern
ment is thereby trampled upon. The clamor alluded to as
sumes that the states are separate and independent govern
ments, and that laws enacted under the authority of all may be
resisted and repealed at the pleasure of each, The people of the
Uiiited States, so far as the powers of the general government
are concerned, are a unit, and laws passed by a majority of all
are binding upon all. The laws and Constitution, however,
which the South now resists, have been adopted b,y her sanc
tion, and the right she now claims is that of a feeble minori
ty to repeal what a majority has adopted. Nothing could bo
more fallacious.
Could my voice reach every dwelling in Kentucky, I would
implore its inmates — if they would not have the rivers of
their prosperity shrink away, as do unfed streams beneath
the summer heats — to rouse themselves from their lethargy,
and fly to the rescue of their country before it is everlasting
ly too late. Man should appeal to man, and neighborhood to

34
neighborhood, until the electric fires of patriotism shall flash
from heart to heart in one unbroken current throughout the
land. It is a time in which the work-shop, the office, the
counting-house, and the field, may well be abandoned ior
the solemn duty that is upon us, lor all these toils wiU but
bring treasure not for ourselves, but ibr the spoiler, if this re
volution is not arrested. We are ail, witn our every earthly
interest, embarked in mid-ocean on the same common deck.
The howl of the storm is in our ears, aud " ttie lightning's red
glare is painting hell 011 the sky," and while ttie noble ship
pitches and rolls uuder the lastiiugsoi' the waves, the cry is
heard that she has sprung a leak at many points, and that the
rushing waters are iiiouutiug repidly lu the hold. The
man who in such au hour, will uot work at the pumps, is either
a maniac or a monster. Sincerely yours,
J. Holt.