Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 11.djvu/822

 778 APPENDIX. PROCLAMATION. N 0. 26. considered as a mere league that may be dissolved at pleasure ? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as synonomous with league, although the true term is not employed, because it would at once show the fallacy of the reasonin. It would act do to say that our Constitution was only a, leawue, but it 1S labored to prove it a compact, (which in one sense 1t_1s,) and {lien to argue that as league is a compact, every compact between nanons must of course be a, league, and that from such an engagement every sovereign power has a. right to recede._ But it has been shown at, in this sense the States are not sovereign, and that even if they were, and the national Constitution had been formed by compact, there would be no right in any one State to exouerate xtself from its obligations. _ _ So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that It is necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and opinions. Can those sacrifices be recalled? Can the States, who magnanimously surrendered their title to the territories of the West, recall the grant? Will the inhabitants of the inland States agree to pay the duties that may be imposed without their assent by those ou the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own benefit ? Shall there be a. free port in one State, and onerous duties in another ? No one believes that any right exists in a. single State to involve all the others in these and countless other evils contraryto en ements solemnly made. Every one must see that the other States, in self-cgzdgnce, must oppose it at all hazards. These are the alternatives that are presented by the Convention; a. repeal of all the acts for raising revenue, leaving the government without the means of support; or an acquiesceuce in the dissolution of our Union by the secession of one of its members. When the first was proposed, it was known that it could not be listened to for a moment. It was known, if force was applied to oppose the execution of the laws, that it must be repelled by force; that Congress could not, without involving itself in disgrace, and the country in ruin, accede to the proposition; and yet if this is not done in a given day, or if any attempt is made to execute the laws, the State is, by the ordinance, declared to be out of the Union. _ The majority of a convention assembled for the purpose, have dictated these terms, or rather this rejection of all terms, in the name of the people of South Carolina. It is true that the governor of the State speaks of the submission of their grievances to a. convention of all the States, which, he says, they “ sincerely and anxiously seek and desire? Yet this obvious and constitutional mode of obtaining the sense of the other States on the construction of the federal compact, and amending it, if necessary, has never been attem ted by those who have urged the State on to this destructive measure. The gtate might have proposed the call for a. eneml convention to the other States; and Congress, if a. sudicient number cfg them concurred, must have called it. But the rstmbrute of South Carolina, when he expres ed a. hope. that “ on a review byagtingress and the functionaries of the general government, of the merits of the controversy," such a convention will be acoorded to them, must have known that neither Congress nor any functionary of the general vernment, has authority to call such a, convention, unless it be demandedgby two thirds of the States. This suggestion, then, is another instance of the reckless inattentiou to the provisions the Constitution with which this crisis has been madly hurried ou; or of the attempt to persuade the people that a constitutional remedy had been sought and refused. If the legislature of South Carolina " anxiously desire ” a general convention to consider their complaints, why have they not made application for it in the way the Constitution points out ‘? The gssertiou that they " earnestly seek it," is completely negatived by the omission. This, then, is the position in which we stand. A small majority of the citizens of one State in the Union have elected del tes tea State convention; that convention has ordained that all the revenue elgvs of the United States must be repealed, or that they are no longer a. member of the Union. The governor of that State has recommended to the legislature the raising of au army to carry the secession into effect, and that he may be empowered to give clearances to vessels in the name of the State. No act of violent opposition to the laws has yet been committed, but such a state of things is hourly apprehended; audit is the intent of this instrument to Proclaim, not only that the duty imposed on me by the Constitution, “t0 take care that the laws be faithfully executed," shall be performed to the extent of the powers already vested in me by law, or of suc others as the wisdom of Congress shall devise and entrust to me for that purpose, but to warn the citizens of South Carolina. who have been deluded into an opposition to the laws, of the danger they will incur by obedience to the