Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/376

360 : 'Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present happy state it is requisite not only that you speedily discountenance irregular opposition to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of invasion upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the constitution, alterations which impair the energy of the system, and thus undermine what can not be directly overthrown.' The spirit of invasion upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States, of which we have been forewarned, has already been abroad, and it has adopted the very method of assault specifically pointed out. It has struck at the vital forces of our system and sought to implant therein the essential elements of tyranny. It has attacked the principle of local self-government in the states, which is the chief corner stone of our whole political fabric. While discountenancing irregular opposition to even assumed authority on the part of the general government in this respect, I shall not forbear placing on record my settled conviction that the two propositions last promulgated as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, effecting, as they do, such violence to the inherent and reserved rights of the several states, have never been legally sanctioned; and while we yield to superior force, exercised in the forms of law, let our constitution stand, sustained by the will of her people as a living monument of the former dignity of the states of the Union and as a landmark of American liberty. In order to cure the numerous complications and inconsistencies into which the late distracted condition of the country has thrown our fundamental laws, both state and national, at the proper time I would recommend that Oregon join with her sister states in proposing a call for a convention of all the states to frame amend-