Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/154

 146 Southern Historical Society Papers.

from old Williamsburg ; so Francis Rawle, Ihe eminent lawyer whom Washington had asked to be Attorney- General, writing on the Con- stitution, in Philadelphia ; and so DeTocqueville, the most acute and profound foreign writer on American institutions.

NO ARBITER TO DECIDE THE QUESTION OF SECESSION.

Where could an arbiter be found ? There was no method of in- voking the Supreme Court ; it had no jurisdiction to coerce a State or summon it to its bar. Nor could its decree be final. For it is a maxim of our jurisprudence uttered by Jefferson, and reiterated by Lincoln in his first inaugural address, that its decisions may be re- considered and reversed and bind only the clients.

SECESSION PREACHED AND THREATENED IN ALL SECTIONS — THE NORTHERN RECORD FOR IT AND AGAINST EXTENSION OF THE UNION.

Recall the history of the doctrine ; forget not that the first mut- terings of secession had come from the North as early as 1793, ^^ opposition to the threatened war with England, when the sentiments uttered by Theodore D wight in his letter to Wolcott were wide- spread. " Sooner would ninety-nine out of a hundred of our inhabi- tants separate from the Union than plunge themselves into an abyss of misery."

Nullification broke out in the South in 1798, led by Jefferson, and again in 1830, led by Calhoun ; but in turn secession or nullification was preached in and out of Congress, in State Legislatures, in mass- meetings and conventions in 1803, 1812 and in 1844 to 1850, and in each case in opposition made by the North to wars or measures con- ducted to win the empire and solidify the structure of the Union.

While Jefferson was annexing Louisiana, Massachusetts legislators were declaring against it as ** forming a new confederacy, to which the States united by the former compact were not bound to adhere."

While new States were being admitted into the Union out of its territory, and the war of 181 2 was being conducted, Josiah Quincy was maintaining the right of secession in Congress ; the Eastern States were threatening to exercise that right, and the Hartford Con- vention was promulgating the doctrine.

When Texas was annexed, and Jefferson Davis was in Congress advocating it, Massachusetts was declaring it unconstitutional, and