Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/234

 228 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Hoist's language) — " nothing but a dead piece of parchment, not even able to resist the attacks of moth and mice " (see page 295), " whenever it comes in conflict with their ' wills ' or ' convictions. ' "

On page 127 Dr. von Hoist says:

"The facts and the Constitution, which had been framed accord- ing to the facts, were at fault. The founders of the Constitution had been under the necessity of admitting slavery into the Constitution, and the inevitable consequence was that conclusions, which were diametrically opposed to each other, could be logically deduced from it, by starting first from the fact that slavery was an acknowledged and protected institution, which, so far as the States were concerned, was out of the pale of the Federal jurisdiction, and then from the no less incontestable fact, that the determining principle of the Con- stitution was liberty, and that the spirit and whole life of the Ameri- can people fully accorded with the Constitution in this respect.

" The flaw in all the reasoning of Calhoun on the slavery ques- tion was, thi>t he took no account whatever of the latter fact. The logical consequence of this was, that his constitutional theories were of a nature which rendered the acquiescence of the North in them an utter impossibility. * * ^ compromise between antagonistic principles is, ab initio, an impossibility."

Page 344, he says: " For the first time Calhoun directly asserted that if the North would but follow his advice ' discontent would cease, harmony and kind feelings between the sections be restored, and every apprehension of danger to the Union be removed;' and he followed up this assertion by demanding what was, in the strictest sense of the word, impossible. * ^ The North coidd not cease agitating the slavery question, because it could not will it " (tlie italics are von Hoist's)— " that is to say, she could not will to change or annihilate her economical, moral and political convictions relative to slavery. She could not will it, simply because they were convictions "

Here, and all through the book, we have the argument, temper, spirit, and very nearly the exact language of the Worcester Reso- lutions. Where the latter speak of the "Cardinal American Prin- ciple," von Hoist uses the expression, "the determining principle of the Constitution." This is about the sum of the difference be- tween them. In the first extract above quoted, there is an effort to show that the clearly expressed and universally admitted provisions of the Constitution are "nullified" by its "determining prin- ciple." In the second we are boldly told that being opposed to, they should be "nullified" by the sweet "wills" or "con-