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associates, without previous authority, is so pregnant with obvious dangers and evils!
It is to be remembered that these men—Cabot,
Pickering,
Quincy, and others—whose opinions and expressions have been cited, were not Democrats, misled by extreme theories of state rights, but leaders and expositors of the highest type of “Federalism, and of a strong central Government.”
This fact gives their support of the right of secession the greater significance.
The celebrated Hartford convention assembled in December, 1814.
It consisted of delegates chosen by the legislatures of
Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and
Connecticut, with an irregular or imperfect representation from the other two
New England states,
New Hampshire and
Vermont,
1 convened for the purpose of considering the grievances complained of by those states in connection with the war with
Great Britain.
They sat with closed doors, and the character of their deliberations and discussions has not been authentically disclosed.
It was generally understood, however, that the chief subject of their considerations was the question of the withdrawal of the states they represented from the
Union.
The decision, as announced in their published report, was adverse to the expediency of such a measure at that time, and under the then existing conditions; they proceeded, however, to indicate the circumstances in which a dissolution of the
Union might become expedient, and the mode in which it should be effected; and their theoretical plan of separation corresponds very nearly with that actually adopted by the
Southern states nearly fifty years afterward.
They say:
If the Union be destined to dissolution by reason of the multiplied abuse of bad administration, it should, if possible, be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent.
Some new form of confederacy should be substituted among those States which shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other.
Events may prove that the causes of our calamities are deep and permanent.
They may be found to proceed, not merely from the blindness of prejudice, pride of opinion, violence of party spirit, or the confusion of the times; but they may be traced to implacable combinations of individuals or of States to monopolize power and office, and to trample without remorse upon the rights and interests of commercial sections of the Union.
Whenever it shall appear that the causes are radical and permanent, a separation by equitable arrangement will be preferable to an alliance by constraint among nominal friends, but real enemies.
The omission of the single word “commercial,” which does not affect the principle involved, is the only modification necessary to adapt this extract exactly to the condition of the
Southern states in 1860-‘61.
