point a new District Judge, a new | therefore-at least, so far as the Pre Marshal, to replace those who have resigned? If no one of the vicinage will or dare accept these trusts, why not fill them from, loyal States? If these shall be resisted, will it not be at the proper peril of the insurgents? If the Federal Government can be driven out of a State, and compelled to stay out, by the cheap process of bullying two or three Federal officers into resigning, and bullying others out of daring to take their places, is ours a real government at all? The President, proceeding, set forth the main issue as follows: The question, fairly stated, is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coërce into submission a State which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn, from the confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest, upon an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress: and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not necessary and proper for carrying into execution' any one of these powers.' sident was concerned-a simple nullity. He could know South Carolina only as one of the States composing our Union, whose citizens were consequently citizens of the United States, and bound to uphold their Constitution and obey their laws. If any or many of those citizens chose to break and defy those laws, it was his simple and imperative duty to cause them to be faithfully executed, at whatever inconvenience or peril to the law-breakers. No President had ever suggested or imagined that the opposition of any State to the Fugitive Slave law, for example, could absolve him from the duty of enforcing that law. This is the President's duty in the premises, and the whole of it,-to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."" The Constitution and laws being, by express provision, "the supreme law of the land; ** anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding," the real question was not 'Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coërce a State?' but 'Has any State a reserved, inherent power to coërce the Union into acquiescence in the overthrow of the Federal Constitution, the subversion of the laws, and the destruction of our Nationality? The President is bound to know no legitimate power within the Union acting in hostility to the Constitution and laws he has solemnly sworn to uphold and enforce. Whoever and whatever stands in the way of such enforcement, he can regard only as law-breakers, insurgents, and traitors. 4 Ibid. Art. VI., § 2. See also Webster's Reply to Hayne, pages 86-8. J. S. BLACK AGAINST COERCION.' 371 Of course, having decided not to | Buchanan's Attorney-General, susperform his sworn duty, the President taining and elaborating the Presiproceeded to lecture the people whom dent's most fatal errors. After sethe thus betrayed on the duty of ting forth, in a most grudging and buying off the banded traitors by technical fashion, the occasions in new concessions and guarantees; say- which the President is authorized to ing: use force in support of the violated laws of the land, Mr. Black proceeds as follows: "The fact is, that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress possess many means of preserving it by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force." But, if it cannot be 'cemented,' can it be uncemented, dissolved, and destroyed, 'by the blood of its citizens, shed in civil war? If it can, then is it the most stupendous mockery and sham which ever duped and deluded mankind. His panacea for the ills experienced or imminently impending was an "explanatory amendment" of the Constitution, which should operate as a "final settlement" of the true construction of the Federal pact on three special points: “1. An express recognition of the right of property in slaves in the States where it now exists or may hereafter exist. “2. The duty of protecting this right in all the common territories throughout their territorial existence, and until they shall be admitted as States into the Union, with or without Slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe. "3. A like recognition of the right of the master to have his slave, who has escaped from one State to another, restored and 'delivered up' to him, and of the validity of the Fugitive Slave law enacted for this purpose, together with a declaration that all State laws impairing or defeating this right are violations of the Constitution, and are consequently null and void." against the United States should become so "But what if the feeling in any State universal that the Federal officers them selves (including Judges, District Attorneys, and Marshals) would be reached by the same influence, and resign their places? Of course, the first step would be to appoint others in their stead, if others could be got to serve. But, in such event, it is more than probable that great difficulty, would be found in filling the offices. We can easily conceive how it might become altogether impossible. We are, therefore, obliged to consider what can be done in case we have no Courts to issue judicial process, and no ministerial officers to execute it. In that event, troops would certainly be out of place, and their use wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the Courts and Marshals, there must be Courts and Marshals to be aided. Without the exercise of these functions, which belong exclusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command. Under such circumstances, to send a military force into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be simply making war upon them." That is to say: A little rebellion may be legally and constitutionally repressed; but a great one cannot be. 'If we have no Courts' where they are needed, we should constitute them; and, if we have no ministerial officers,' we should appoint them. The President is expressly clothed with the requisite power, and has no right to refrain from exercising it. If no man now living in South Carolina dare serve as District Judge or Marshal, then one should be sent thither who has no repugnance and Dated November 20, 1860. no fear, and be backed by a competent force. The President could have found a thousand qualified persons to take either position, had he chosen. The fact that the insurgents were locally formidable-even omnipotent -only hightened the imperative necessity of dealing with them promptly and sternly. And, if jurors could not there be found to render verdicts according to law, then the culprits should be removed to some region where treason, at the worst, was not universal. But 'The slothful man says, There is a lion in the way;' and he who has determined not to do his duty, will never lack excuses for repudiating it. them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected. "If this view of the subject be as correct as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another, for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise of its proper constitutional functions." Strange as it must now seem, this assertion of the radical impotence of the Government, this avowal of a fixed purpose to 'let the Union slide,' on the part of the President and his legal adviser, were received in Congress with general and concerted taciturnity on the part of the upholders, and with a bounteous display of indignation on that of the banded as Mr. Black closed his disorganizing sailants, of the National life. Mr. A. opinion as follows: "If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on, by the Central Government against a State, then it seems to follow that an at tempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the Union. Being treated as an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly. And, if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife, and enmity, and armed hostility, between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquillity' which the Constitution was meant to insure, will not all the States be absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?. "The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor, by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers, cannot be denied. But this is a totally differ ent thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of State Governments, or to prevent a threatened violation of the Constitution, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme. supreme. The States are colleagues of one another; and, if some of them should conquer the rest and hold 6 From the Potomac district next above Washington; originally a 'Whig'; then American'; elected to this Congress and supported for 6 R. Boteler, of Virginia, moved a reference of so much of the Message as related to our National perils to a Select Committee of one from each State; which in due time prevailed, and a very fair Committee was appointed-Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, Chairman; with a large preponderance of the more moderate 'Republicans' and pro-Slavery men in its composition. Mr. Speaker Pennington, who framed the Committee, was strongly inclined to 'conciliation,' if that could be effected on terms not disgraceful to the North; and at least six of the sixteen Republicans placed on the Committee desired and hoped that an adjustment might yet be achieved. No member of extreme anti-Slavery views was associated with them. But it was soon evident that no ' concession' or 'conciliation' was desired by a large portion of the pro Speaker as 'Union'; now, zealous for 'concession' and 'peace'; an open traitor from the day of Virginia's secession. 6 CLINGMAN REPELS 'CONCILIATION.' Slavery members. Mr. Clingman of N. C.-who came into Congress as a 'Whig of very moderate views regarding Slavery, but had finally turned Democrat under the impulse of zeal for Southern Rights,' and been thereupon promoted from the House to the Senate, and who had changed from Douglas to Breckinridge toward the end of the Presidential canvass just closed-assailed the Message, so soon as it had been read, and broadly intimated that no concession would satisfy the South. The repeal of all 'Personal Liberty bills,' etc., he observed, "would not be satisfactory to the State from which I come." He protested against "waiting for an overt act" before seceding, and against further parley or negotiation between the Free and the Slave States. Said he: "They want to get up a free debate, as the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward] expressed it, in one of his speeches. But a Senator from Texas told me the other day that a great many of these free debaters were hanging from the trees of that country [Texas]. I have no doubt they would run off a great many slaves from the Border States, so as to make them Free States; and then, Sir, when the overt act was struck, we should have a hard struggle. I say, therefore, that our policy is not to let this thing continue. That, I think, is the opinion of North Carolina. I think the party for immediate secession is gaining ground rapidly. It is idle for men to shut their eyes to consequences like this, if anything can be done to avert the evil, while we have power to do it." Messrs. Albert G. Brown, of Mississippi, Louis T. Wigfall, of Texas, and Alfred Iverson, of Georgia, spoke in a similar strain, but even more plainly. Said Mr. Iverson: "Gentlemen speak of concession-of the repeal of the Personal Liberty bills. Repeal them all to-morrow, and you cannot stop this revolution. It is not the Liberty laws but the mob law which the South fears. 373 They do not dread these overt acts; for, without the power of the Federal Government, by force, under Republican rule, their institution would not last ten years; and Union, and he believed this. Before the 4th they know it. They intend to go out of this of March, five States will have declared their independence, and he was satisfied that three action of their people can be had. Arkansas will call her Convention, and Louisiana will follow. And, though there is a clog in the way in the 'lone star' of Texas, in the person of her Governor, who will not consent to call the Legislature, yet the public sentiment is so strong that even her Governor may be overridden; and, if he will not yield to that public sentiment, some Texan Brutus may arise to rid his country of this old, hoary-headed traitor. [Great sensation.] There has been a good deal of vaporing and threatening; but they came from the last Men talk about their eighteen millions; but men who would carry out their threats. other States would follow as soon as the we hear a few days afterward of these same tremble like a sheep-stealing dog. There men being switched in the face, and they will be no war. The North, governed by such far-seeing statesmen as the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], will see the futility of this. In less than twelve months, a Southern Confederacy will be formed; and it will be the most successful Government on earth. The Southern States, thus banded together, will be able to resist any force in the world. We do not expect war; but we will be prepared for it; and we are not a feeble race of Mexicans either." Messrs. Crittenden, of Kentucky, and Saulsbury, of Delaware, both spoke pleadingly for 'conciliation' and the Union, but to deaf ears. A caucus of Southern members was held on Saturday evening, December 8th; but it only served to develop more clearly the broad line of demarkation between the Unionists and the Disunionists. Messrs. Albert G. Brown, of Mississippi, and John Slidell, of Louisiana, were among the most fierce for Secession. Messrs. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and James M. Mason, of Virginia, favored further efforts, or, at least, further waiting, for conciliation. Messrs. Crittenden, Bayard, and several other Border-State' Senators, more earnestly urged this course. Monday, December 9th, being 'resolution day' in the House, was signalized by the broaching of several new devices for saving the Union. Mr. John Sherman, of Ohio, suggested a faithful observance, on all hands, of the requirements and compromises of the Constitution, with an immediate division of the territories into embryo States, with a view to their prompt admission into the Union. Mr. John Cochrane, of New York, revived the old scheme of dividing the territories between Free and Slave Labor on the line of 36° 30'. Mr. English, of Indiana, proposed substantially the same thing. Mr. Noell, of Missouri, proposed an abolition of the office of President of the United States, and a division of the Union into three districts, each to elect one member of an Executive Council,' to which the functions of President should be intrusted. He suggested, moreover, a 'restoration of the equilibrium between the Free and Slave States,' by a division of several of the latter into two or more States each. Mr. Thomas C. Hindman," of Arkansas, proposed to so amend the Constitution as to protect slave property in the territories, etc., etc., and that any State which should pass an act impairing or defeating the operation of the Fugitive Slave law should thereupon be deprived of her right of representation in Congress. Mr. Charles H. Larrabee, of Wisconsin, proposed a Convention of the States. All these projects were referred to the Grand Select Committee aforesaid. 7 Since, a Rebel Brigadier. That Committee, December 13th, after four days' earnest deliberation, united in a resolve, moved by Mr. Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont, as a substitute for one moved by Mr. William McKee Dunn, of Indiana, affirming the necessity of proffering to the Slave States "additional and more special guarantees of their peculiar rights and interests." Mr. Morrill's affirmation was as follows: "Resolved, That, in the opinion of the Committee, the existing discontents among the Southern people, and the growing hostility among them to the Federal Government, are greatly to be regretted; and that any reasonable, proper, and constitutional remedies, necessary to preserve the peace of the country and the perpetuation of the Union, should be promptly and cheerfully granted." Twenty-two votes were cast for this proposition, including those of all the members from Slave States who voted. Two (Messrs. Boyce, of South Carolina, and Hawkins, of Mr. Reuben Florida) were absent. Davis was present, but did not vote. The Nays (eight) were all Republicans. On motion of Mr. Garnett B. Adrain (Douglas Democrat) of New Jersey, the House," by 151 Yeas to 14 Nays: "Resolved, That we deprecate the spirit of disobedience to the Constitution, wherever manifested; and that we earnestly recommend the repeal of all statutes by the State Legislatures in conflict with, and in violation of, that sacred instrument, and the laws of Congress passed in pursuance thereof." Mr. Owen Lovejoy (Republican) of Illinois, hereupon proposed this counterpart to the foregoing: Whereas, The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land, and ready and faithful obedience to it a duty of all good and law-abiding citizens: There fore, |