CHAPTER II

SECESSION

To relate in a general way the story of the secession of the eleven slave States which brought on the Civil War would be to give the reader facts too familiar to be interesting, while a detailed account of the same would be too unimportant to be instructive. Let us therefore devote the larger part of this chapter to a brief account of the history of the secession idea, the spirit of disunion, from the beginning of the Federal Government down to its culmination in the sixties.

When men enter into any great or unusual political movement they must have a pretext, a ground on which to base their action, if they would command the respect of any considerable portion of their fellow-men. And the South based its right to secede from the Union, not simply on the right of revolution, which for adequate cause is inherent in all peoples, but on

the ground of State Sovereignty, usually misnamed States' Rights.

State Sovereignty in Theory

The doctrine of State Sovereignty is older than the Constitution of the United States, and it was held by a large portion of the people for nearly a century—until the question was settled negatively by the Civil War. It is simply the theory that the colonies, on gaining their independence from England, became independent and sovereign States; that in ratifying the Constitution they voluntarily joined the Union for mutual benefit, and that each retained to itself all the essence of sovereignty. This, of course, includes the right of secession. There is much documentary support to this theory in our early records. The States again and again declared themselves sovereign. The State constitutions formed during the Revolutionary period generally avowed this theory. In that of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780, we find this, "The people of this commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent

State." Similar statements are found in the early constitutions of New York, South Carolina, and of other States.

The articles of Confederation declare that "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence." The treaty of peace of 1783 with England recognized, not the nation as a whole, but the several states as "free, sovereign and independent," giving the name of each.

All our early political writings, including the Federal Constitution, speak of the United States in the plural and seldom or never as a unit, a nation.

Hundreds of citations similar to the above might be adduced to show that the creed of State Sovereignty was widely accepted. After the organization of the Federal Government these expressions became less common, but by no means did they die out. Nor were they confined to the South. As late as 1859 the legislature of Wisconsin, nettled at a Supreme Court decision against the personal liberty law of that State, gave vent to its feeling in the following words, "The several States which

formed that instrument (the Constitution) being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infractions." Throughout the long struggle between the National idea and State Sovereignty, covering the period between 1789 and the Civil War, there was scarcely a State in the Union that did not, at some time, declare its own sovereignty. This claim grew less serious in the North, during this period, while the South seized upon it as the most available weapon in battling for the rights of slavery.

On the other hand, the expressions against State Sovereignty are equally positive and almost as numerous as those in favor of it. Let us cite a few from the earlier period.

The Declaration of Independence is an expression of the whole people through their representatives, and no notice is taken of the separate States. This was obviously the voice of a united people, a nation. Charles C. Pinckney, a signer and one of the foremost men of the time, said that, "The separate independence and sovereignty of the several States was never thought of by the patriots who framed the Dec

laration of Independence; the States are not even mentioned by name in any part of it." The Constitution begins, not with "We the States," nor with "We the people of the States," but with "We the people of the United States." This form of words embodies the National idea, and its adoption was strongly opposed by the States' Rights party in the convention. Many other examples might be given to show that the idea of nationality, of "the Union, one and inseparable," was not new in 1830 when Web. ster made his great speech in the Senate.

State Sovereignty in Practice

Again and again, during the first half-century of our national history, the States declared themselves sovereign. It was heard from the public platform, from State legislatures, and voiced in the State constitutions. If declarations and resolutions alone were sufficient to establish the sovereignty of the States, their separate independence from the first could not be denied; but mere resolutions are of little weight when it comes to dealing with actual facts. As Alexander Johnson says, it is like