Nullification, Secession, Webster's Argument, and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions / Considered in Reference to the Constitution and Historically

by Caleb William Loring

Second: The members of the convention that made the Constitution intended to make a national government; and that they considered that they had done so is conclusively shown by the contemporary reports of their debates and proceedings. The members of the conventions of the people of the several States that adopted the Constitution without exception also considered and spoke of the government as national.

Third: That the government exercised its supreme national power repeatedly and uniformly over the States and over all the citizens of every State, from the time of its inception to the civil war. Historically we were a nation.

Fourth: That the general belief that the Virginia resolutions questioned this supremacy and nationality is wholly unfounded.

There is no question of the universal opinion after the termination of the war of the Revolution that the provisions under which the States were associated, made on the 15th of November, 1777, had failed essentially in giving to the Confederate Congress government the necessary powers to carry it on.[13] The Confederacy was made by delegates from the Legislatures of the State governments of the different States; the powers of the Confederacy were given to a Congress which consisted of one body or House, and in that Congress each State had one vote, that of Delaware, with a diminutive territory and about one sixteenth of the population, equalling that of Virginia. The Constitution which contains and defines the powers given to the United States Government was made by delegates appointed by the different State Legislatures of the Confederacy, all being represented except Rhode Island. Its members were the most prominent and distinguished men of the country. After the most careful, thorough, and patient examination and discussion, extending through four months, they formed the instrument giving the powers of the new government. They sent it to the existing Congress of the Confederacy, with the request that it might be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its Legislature, for their consideration and assent if approved of.

The Continental Congress unanimously forwarded the proposed Constitution to the Legislatures of the several States, who each submitted it to a convention of the people called for the purpose of deciding whether they would adopt it.

By necessity the submission was to the people of the States separately. The acceptation or rejection rested on them, the people; they appointing delegates to carefully consider the matter and to decide for them. Thus the adoption of the Constitution was not only sanctioned by the Congress of the Confederacy, by the separate State governments, but finally by the people themselves of every State acting by virtue of their fundamental, sovereign power, they appointing the delegates who met in convention, and who in each State decided for the people, whether they would or would not enter into this new form of government. A sanction more binding on every one could not have been made.

Mr. Webster’s argument that our government is that of a nation and not a confederacy, was in a great measure founded on the Constitution itself. There are other declarations and powers in the Constitution, besides those he so forcibly presented, which should not be overlooked. The Constitution is a very brief, and, as time has shown, a very perfect instrument. It gives to a general government it establishes, all the powers necessary for the existence and maintenance of a nation.

Its first declaration is, We, the People of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution. This is in emphatic contrast to the preamble and articles of the Confederacy. The preamble of the Confederacy is, Articles of confederation and perpetual union between the “States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay,” etc. Article I. is, “The style of this Confederacy shall be ‘The United States of America.’” Article III., “The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare.”

Not only did the people actually make this great charter, in which they gave to the government they established over them the powers it has, but they declared in the very beginning that it was “we, the people,” and not their State governments, that made it, and they also declared its perpetuity. It is “We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Here is the express declaration that it is for perpetuity, not for the people making it, but for those succeeding them, for their posterity, for all time.

When, after the civil war, the question of the legality of secession came before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the State of Texas against White,[14] Chief-Justice Chase, apparently overlooking this explicit statement, in delivering the opinion of the court, said: “That by the articles of the Confederacy, the union of the States was solemnly declared to be perpetual, and when these articles were found to be inadequate to the exigency of the country, the Constitution was ordained to form a more perfect union,” and asks, “what can be more indissoluble if a perpetual union made more perfect is not?”