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

Now has not South Carolina “levied war?” Has she not collected armies to resist the United States? Has she not obstructed the collection of the revenue of the nation? Has she not even taken the fortifications and arsenals and confiscated the property of the United States? All these things has she done, and if this be not “levying war”—if this be not “treason”—rank “treason,” I know not what is. And yet, strange as it may seem, there are men in all the States so wedded to party that they encourage and justify South Carolina in her mad secession schemes, and by so doing give “aid and comfort” to the sworn “enemies” of the United States. Did they ever think that they too are traitors, and that they are as legally deserving of a halter as the madest secession hotspur of South Carolina?

Like the old tories of the revolution, they are, however, but few in the Northern States, and their number, thanks to the intelligence of the people, is rapidly growing less. Soon will there be but one sentiment in all sane minds upon this subject. All will see that this Union must be preserved, unbroken by rebels, and traitors be brought to condign punishment, unless we would insanely jeopardise all for which our fathers fought and bled and died upon the battle fields of the revolution.

To aid in creating a healthy public sentiment upon this important subject, I will now give some of the arguments in favor of the Union and of the present constitution, advanced by some of the early fathers of the republic. To do this, I shall first draw largely from certain political papers, entitled the “Federalist,” written while the adoption of the present constitution was pending, and addressed to the people of the State of New York, to explain the principles of the new constitution, and to enforce the propriety and necessity of its adoption. They were the united productions of John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, three brilliant political lights.

In the first eight numbers of these papers the dangers of foreign force and influence, and of war between the States, and the effects of internal war in producing standing armies unfriendly to liberty, were portrayed in a very masterly manner. Several other papers follow from which I quote largely, as they are just as appropriate now to show the benefits of a stable and consolidated Union, and the evils of disunion, as then:

“THE UTILITY OF THE UNION AS A SAFEGUARD AGAINST DOMESTIC FACTION AND INSURRECTIONS.

“A firm union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection.

“It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy, without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions, by which they were kept perpetually vibrating between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrasts to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open themselves to view, we behold them with a mixture of regret arising from the reflection, that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction and tarnish the luster of those bright talents and exalted endowments, for which the favored soils that produced them have been so justly celebrated.

“From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics, the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against the forms of republican government but against the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free government as inconsistent with the order of society, and have indulged themselves in malicious exultation over its friends and partizans. Happily for mankind, stupendous fabrics reared on the basis of liberty, which have flourished for ages, have, in a few glorious instances, refuted their gloomy sophisms. And, I trust, America will be the broad and solid foundation of other edifices not less magnificent, which will be equally permanent monuments of their error.

“But it is not to be denied, that the portraits they have sketched of republican government, were too just copies of the originals from which they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends of liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of government as indefensible. The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges, holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature, by deputies of their own election; these are either wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained, and its imperfections lessoned or avoided. To this catalogue of circumstances, that tend to the amelioration of popular systems of civil government, I shall venture, however novel it may appear to some, to add one more, on a principle which has been made the foundation of an objection to the new constitution; I mean the ENLARGEMENT of the ORBIT within which such systems are to revolve, either in respect to the dimensions of a single State, or to the consolidation of several smaller States into one great confederacy. The latter is that which immediately concerns the object under consideration. It will, however, be of use to examine the principle in its application to a single State, which shall be attended to in another place.

“The utility of a confederacy, as well to suppress faction, and to guard the internal tranquility of States, as to increase their external force and security, is in reality not a new idea. It has been practiced upon in different countries and ages, and has received the sanction of the most approved writers on the subject of politics. The opponents of the PLAN proposed have with great assiduity cited and circulated the observations of Montesquieu on the necessity of a contracted territory for a republican government. But they seem not to have been apprized of the sentiments of that great man expressed in another part of his work, nor to have adverted to the consequences of the principle to which they subscribe with such ready acquiescence.