American Eloquence, Volume IV | Page 7

ills you
fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly
to are greater than all the real ones you fly from,--will you risk the
omission of so fearful a mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can be
maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the
Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is
so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this.
Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written
provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere
force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly
written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify
revolution--certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is
not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so
plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and
prohibitions in the Constitution, that controversies never arise
concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a
provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in
practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document
of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible
questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by National or
State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May
Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not
expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The
Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies,
and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority
will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease.

There is no other alternative; for continuing the government is
acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will
secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will
divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them
whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For
instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two
hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present
Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion
sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a
new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed
secession?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A
majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and
always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and
sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects
it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is
impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is
wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy
or despotism, in some form, is all that is left. * * *
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of
our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. It
is impossible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or
more satisfactory after separation than before. Can aliens make treaties
easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully
enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go
to war, you cannot fight always, and when after much loss on both
sides and no gain on either you cease fighting, the identical old
questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can
exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary
right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that

many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National
Constitution amended. * * * I understand a proposed amendment to the
Constitution--which amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed
Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never
interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of
persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I
depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far
as to say that, holding such a provision now to be implied constitutional