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of safety and interest should prompt her to that resort — or, if not exactly a right, then a heroic remedy for grievous wrongs, which could not be practically resisted.1
The second was urgently advocated by the entire “Democratic” and “Conservative” strength of the Free States, and by nearly all that still openly clung to the Union in the Slave States.
The third was the natural, spontaneous impulse of tie great mass of Republicans, who could not see why their adversaries should not submit unqualifiedly to the result of a fair and honest election, as they had uniformly done, constitutionally resisting any unwarranted act or attempt of the President elect or his supporters, whenever the occasion should arise.
But they found it difficult to realize that those who still retained predominance in both branches of Congress, and in the Supreme Court--who might have had, moreover, a Democratic President, had they chosen to support the candidate of a majority of that party — and who had still the active and earnest sympathy of a large majority of the American People — could cherish any real fears of usurpation and aggression from the numerical minority, or the President they had been permitted to choose.
It was with little patience that the great body of the Republicans heard suggestions from any of their leaders or oracles of overtures looking to “conciliation” and “peace” through new concessions, in the face of the now chronic menace of Disunion.
The asserted right of Secession is one which no government or nation ever did or can concede without signing its own death-warrant.
When the Federal Constitution was before the States for ratification, vehemently and formidably opposed, and its adoption, in several States, for a time successfully resisted, there was manifest danger of its failure in New York, as well as in two other great leading States, Virginia and Massachusetts.
To the New York Convention, sitting at Poughkeepsie, the people had returned a majority of delegates hostile to ratification.
The friends of the Constitution were constrained to resort to delay, to policy, and to propositions of amendment, to overcome or wear out the resistance they had
1 A correspondent of the Boston Courier, of November, 1860, after contending that the South has ample cause for seceding, says:
It is perfectly competent for South Carolina to notify the President officially, that she no longer belongs to the confederacy. This she can do at any moment. The Federal officers, from the district judge, collector, and marshal, to the humblest postmaster, can resign their places. Everybody agrees that this can readily be done at once, and without difficulty or any quarrel. Suppose so much to be done, and that President Buchanan should appoint a new Judge and a new Collector, who should repair to Charleston and demand the payment of duties upon any imported goods. Suppose, upon a refusal to pay the duties exacted, the Collector should do what all the Collectors are bound to do — seize the goods. The owner would have to furnish a bond to the government for their value. The owner would protest against giving one, and only give it, as the lawyers say, when in duress. In any suit upon such a bond, when the question of coercion in making it was tried, who would compose the jury? They must belong to South Carolina. We have made these suggestions simply to satisfy any reader how very easily the mere matter of peaceable secession can be accomplished, and how futile would be all attempts to enforce Federal laws in any State by the aid of officers appointed from abroad. Practically, therefore, a peaceable secession will be very apt to work a final separation of the State which desires it, and, ultimately, a general dissolution of the confederacy.
Hartford. Published by O. D. Chase and Company. 1866.
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