Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by 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. If From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. 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 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. I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases, by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decisions may be erroneous in any given case, still, the evil effect following it being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled, and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably ixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that ex tent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the Court or the Judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse, in both cases, after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. 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. While I make no recommendation of amendment, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor, rather than oppose, a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add, that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especiallychosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution-which amendment, however, I have not seenhas 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 law, I have no objections to its being made express and irrevocable. The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the states. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people. By the frame of the government under which we live, the same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance,, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issues of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. UNION MASS MEETING. DANIEL STEVENS DICKINSON. New York, April 20, 1861. I am invited, Mr. President, and my fellow-citizens, to attend and address this meeting, in the language of its call, "without regard to previous political opinions or associations, to express our sentiments in the present crisis in our national affairs, and our determination to uphold the government of our country, and maintain the authority of the Constitution and laws." I embraced the opportunity with alacrity, and have travelled two hundred miles, and upwards, this morning, that I might do so, for I look with extreme apprehension and alarm upon the danger which threatens us as a whole, recently a united people. I would know no sections in this great material heritage of freedom, which stretches from ocean to ocean, from the far frozen north to where prevail the gentle breezes of the tropics; no divisions or strife among or between children of a common father, and brothers of the same household; but the demon of discord has inaugarated his fearful court in our midst, and the crisis is to be met like every other vicissitude. A somewhat extended service in the national councils, at a period of unusual interest, gave me an opportunity for much and mature reflection, upon the relations between the North and the South; upon the duties each section owed to itself and the other, and to the cause of free government, under a hallowed compact, under the constitutional guarantees secured, and that fraternal regard which, by every consideration that could influence civilized and Christian men, each section and its people should at all times cultivate toward the other. I have looked upon all, as regards the Union, its value and its preservation, as the inheritors of the same catholic faith; and though scattered over an area so vast, divided into sections, subdivided into numerous states, and the two sections committed to different systems of industry, as united in one great interest, as essential to each other to promote the common enjoyment; and as bound together to the same great and immortal destiny. None of these views of what should, and ought to be, and might have been, have been changed; but recent unfortunate events have served to confirm them beyond the shadow of a doubt, and to increase regrets that efforts costing so little, and of such incalculable value, could not have been put forth before it was too late. But now, in common with every lover of his country, I am called to lament that we should be aroused from the dream of a people's security, happiness, and glory, by a conflict of blood. Until recently, I had hoped that time, and a returning sense of patriotism, a recurrence to the scenes and trials of the Revolution, a thought of the great names and greater memories of those who wrought out the liberties we have possessed and should enjoy, and above all a sense of duty we owed to ourselves, to each other, to our country and its Constitution, to our descendants, to the cause of liberty throughout the earth, would bear this great question far above and beyond the field of vitiated and demoralized politics, and save the Union; not in mere form, but the Union of our fathers, in the spirit of the Constitution; the Union purchased by the blood poured out at Lexington, Saratoga, and Yorktown, the Union of the great spirits of '76, the Union of the Stars and Stripes, which, though torn and disfigured, is dearer than ever; the Union over which every patriot in every section can exclaim, in the language of the British poet, "With all thy faults, I love thee still!" the Union which can never be destroyed in the affections of the American people. Yes, "You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But these anticipations have not been and are not to be realized. Six months since, we were enjoying unexampled success; now, ruin runs riot over this fair land, and all for madness. Numerous States have passed ordinances of secession from the Union, and have seized the federal property within their reach; they repudiate and disown its authority, assault its flag, and defy its power; have deliberately, and with an overpowering force, attacked and reduced a partially garrisoned and unoffending fortification, because they seemed to regard the gallant Major Anderson, with his loyal men, who reposed in peace, a kind of minister plenipotentiary of the United States, near, and rather too near the government of South Carolina, and now they threaten, as is asserted upon what seems good authority, to march against the Federal Capital. Troops marching to its defence have been murdered, and war is therefore upon us, with all its terrible realities; a civil, intestine war, against and between brethren! It were profitless to inquire for original or remote causes; it is no time for indecision or inaction; it is no time for crimination or re |