Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/240

 234 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Governor Hamilton), determined to have the die cast without delay. ried out, piece by piece, and the justification of the Southern course was based, point by point, upon this argument."
 * * Thirty years later, the programme laid down in it was car-

Now let us see if all of the last sentence, and so much of the first, as imputes to Calhoun a "determination to have the die cast with- out delay," are not misrepresentations, which leave Dr. von Hoist's celebrated compatriot, the Baron von Munchausen, far in the rear as a writer of fiction.

In that letter to Governor Hamilton, Calhoun summed up his programme in the following remarkable words :

" If the views presented be correct, it follows that, on the inter- position of a State in favor of the reserved rights, it would be the duty of the general Government to abandon the contested power, or to apply to the States themselves, the source of all political au- thority, for the power in one of the two modes prescribed by the Constitution. If the case be a simple one, embracing a single power, and that in its nature easily adjusted, the more ready and appropriate mode would be an amendment in the ordinary form, upon the proposition of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, to be ratified by three-fourths of the States ; but, on the contrary, should the derangement of the system be great, embracing many points difficult to adjust, the States ought to be convened in a General Convention, the most august of all assemblies, representing the united sovereignty of the Confederate States, and having power and authority to correct every error, and to repair every dilapida- tion or injury, whether caused by time or accident, or the conflicting movements of the bodies, which compose the system. With insti- tutions every way so fortunate, possessed of means so well calcu- lated to prevent disorders, and so admirable to correct them, when they cannot be prevented, he who would prescribe for our political disease — disunion on the one side, or coercion of a State in the as- sertion of its rights on the other — would deserve, a7id will receive, the execrations of this and all future p^enerationsr

The italics are Calhoun's. Now what pieces, or piece, of this programme was carried out by the South in 1861 ? On what points, or point, of this argument was the justification of secession based in 1861 ? Calhoun said of secession, that he who would propose it "would deserve, and will receive, the execrations of this and all future generations." Could language be clearer, or condemnation of the programme of 1861 more emphatic? Is it not time for the