The Crisis of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-One in the Government of the United States. / Its Cause, and How It Should Be Met

by Abel D. Streight

“A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised between a confederacy and a consolidation of the States. The essential characteristic of the first, is said to be the restriction of its authority to the members in their collective capacities, without reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. It is contended that the national council ought to have no concern with any object of internal administration. An exact equality of suffrage between the members, has also been insisted upon as a leading feature of a confederate government. These positions are, in the main, arbitrary; they are supported neither by principle nor precedent. It has indeed happened, that governments of this kind have generally operated in the manner which the distinction taken notice of supposes to be inherent in their nature; but there have been in most of them extensive exceptions to the practice, which serve to prove, as far as example will go, that there is no absolute rule on the subject. And it will be clearly shown, in the course of this investigation, that, as far as the principle contended for has prevailed, it has been the cause of incurable disorder and imbecility in the government.

“The definition of a confederate republic seems simply to be ‘an assemblage of societies,’ or an association of two or more States into one State. The extent, modifications, and objects of the federal authority are mere matters of discretion. So long as the separate organization of the members be not abolished, so long as it exists by a constitutional necessity for local purposes, though it should be in perfect subordination to the general authority of the Union, it would still be, in fact and theory, an association of States, or a confederacy The proposed constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State government, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive, and very important, portions of the sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

“In the Lycian confederacy, which consisted of twenty-three CITIES, or republics, the largest were entitled to three votes in the COMMON COUNCIL, those of the middle class to two, and the smallest to one. The COMMON COUNCIL had the appointment of all the judges and magistrates of the respective CITIES. This was certainly the most delicate species of interference in their internal administration; for if there be anything that seems exclusively appropriated to the local jurisdictions, it is the appointment of their own officers. Yet Montesquieu, speaking of this association, says, ‘Were I to give a model of an excellent confederate republic, it would be that of Lycia.’ Thus we perceive that the distinctions insisted upon were not within the contemplation of this enlightened writer, and we shall be led to conclude that they are the novel refinements of an erroneous theory.”

The important paper just quoted from the “Federalist,” is from the gifted pen of James Madison, so long a prominent and leading statesman in the democratic party, and one of the framers of our present government. Had we space we would quote another, equally important, from the same source and upon the same subject.

This paper, its pointed facts and its powerful reasoning in favor of a stable Union, such as was contemplated by the present constitution, and against the defects of the old confederation, we commend to the particular attention of the thinking masses of the present democratic party. Although written before the adoption of the existing constitution, and for the express purpose of inducing the people to ratify that constitution, it contains much that is applicable to the present political juncture, inasmuch as the present secession dogmas of South Carolina and of the Calhoun school of politicians are exactly the loose, inefficient principles of that old confederation, and opposed to those of the present constitution.

We will here make an extract from another paper of the “Federalist,” to show how Jay, Madison and Hamilton regarded the defects of that confederation—to illustrate, with clearness, the absolute necessity of the adoption of our present constitution, considering, as they did, that it would constitute an efficient remedy for those defects:

“CONCERNING THE DEFECTS OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION, IN RELATION TO THE PRINCIPLE OF LEGISLATION FOR THE STATES IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES.

“In the course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my fellow citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the importance of union to your political safety and happiness. I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot, which binds the people of America together, to be severed or dissolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation. In the sequel of the inquiry, through which I propose to accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed.

“In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for the discussion of the subject, the point next in order to be examined is the ‘insufficiency of the present confederation to the preservation of the Union.’

“It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is neither controverted nor doubted; to which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent; and which, in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as by the friends of the new constitution? It must in truth be acknowledged, that however these may differ in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize in the opinion, that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy. The facts that support this opinion are no longer objects of speculation. They have forced themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at length extorted from those whose mistaken policy has had the principal share in precipitating the extremity at which we have arrived, a reluctant confession of the reality of many of those defects in the scheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union.