Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/56

28 History is said to be constantly repeating itself. This assumption of the Federal government, through all or either of the departments, to decide, ultimately and authoritatively, upon the character and extent of the grants and limitations of the Constitution, upon the powers it possesses, is a claim of absolute sovereignty and is not distinguishable from the unrepublican theory of the Divine Right, as expounded by Filmer and other such writers. Reduced to its real significance, it is practically what was asserted by the &quot;Holy Alliance&quot; of 1815, when certain European sovereigns, under a kind of approved orthodox despotism, assumed the prerogative to perpetuate existing dynasties, to suppress rebellions and revolutions, and to crush out civil and religious liberty. This alliance insisted that governments did not derive their authority or legitimacy from the assent of the people; that all who asserted such political heresies were outlaws and traitors; that constitutions have no legitimate source except absolute power; that governments grant or with hold what they please; that every movement in opposition to the &quot;powers that be&quot; is a monster to be crushed, and that all resistance to oppression is involved in the same anathema, however legitimate or defensible.

There are some who see and concede the unreasonableness of making the discretion of a majority in Congress the measure of the powers granted or withheld in the Constitution, and that this nullifies the limitations and guarantees of the compact, and they recognize the necessity of resistance and interposition where reserved rights have been trampled on. Declining to accept the State rights theory, they have, under the stress of the necessity of not leaving wrongs unrighted and guarantees disregarded, suggested that the true remedy is an appeal to the &quot;sober second thought&quot; of the people, or that failing, to a popular uprising to overthrow the offending government. This is the logical fallacy of begging the question. What people? En masse? No such people po-