and firm, to become more compact and firm the more stones are added to the structure; and yet not by man's device, but by God's ordinance, under the eye of Heaven, and with the devout acknowledgment, “Annuit Cœptis,” — God has built the United States, and will build them more and more perfectly in one. At the very time when the States claimed to be many and not one, they acknowledged the indissoluble unity which Providence had wrought.

And since the adoption of the Constitution, the conforming of the letter to the arrangements of Heaven, — how remarkably has the ordinance of God prevailed, making still the many one, and the one many. The States have not been able to be less or more than self-regulating States, under the protection of a supreme government: The United States have not been able to be less or more than a supreme government amidst self-regulating and sovereign States. Absorption and separation, concentration and nullification, have been alike impossible.

Thus, in every stage of progress, before and since the Convention of 1787, the Constitution of the United States is God's ordinance and not man's device; the wisdom of its framers is manifest, not in compromising with the will of man, but in conformity to the wisdom of heaven; no less in what is withholden than in what is given, in what remains with the States, than in what is yielded to the confederated head. In the words of Washington, applicable equally to a thousand years of the history of our fathers, and to more than two hundred from the settlement of these States: "Every step by which the United States have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of an overruling Providence.” * Especially after the British Constitution was transplanted to these States, distinct and separate, and yet forced to both independent and united action; circumstances, declarations, acknowledgments, customs, precedents, common law, and common understanding, had settled at once State supremacy, and a confederated head, before the Convention of 1787, so that that Convention could not annul either whose work was not compromise, but conformity to the work of Providence, which they could not overrule. Nay, so absolute was that Providence, so controlling were circumstances and events, that the Convention of 1787 could not have

* Inaugural, 1789.

prevented, for substance, the present Constitution. Had they failed to form it, it would have gone on to form itself, developing and fixing the reality in anticipation of the letter. Nay, more; so certain and so determinate is the work of Providence, the ordinance of God, that it cannot now be set aside; not the sovereignty of the States, not the supremacy of the United States. A Convention of 1856 could not annul the great provisions of the Constitution forced upon us three score years ago - could restore neither the separate States nor the United States to the nominal powers and real impotence which followed the peace of 1783- could not make the United States the seat of power and responsibility for the several parts. Impossible attempt! which, adopted in the form of a new and accepted Constitution, would disappear like the baseless visions of the night, leaving the substance which God has ordained -State sovereignties and limited supremacy, as settled principles of the American, as Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, are of both it and the British Constitution; as old and not new the inheritance of the past, and not the gift of the present conformity to Providential arrangement, and not compromise with the will of man. Impossible attempt! to concentrate authority so as to make the United States responsible for what has been the separate work of the States; or so to assume State powers as to set aside the legitimate and prescriptive supremacy of the United States.

And do men dream that they ought to break up what God has thus established without their devices, above their work to dissolve the Union formed by the Providential fittings and cements of many centuries? Do men dream that they can resolve, and speak out of being, what God has spoken into being, above all counter-plans of their enemies and of themselves that they can break up that union by which God has provided for the highest prosperity of each several part, and in that prosperity, for a more powerful and wider unity? What if the provisions which God wrought out in a thousand years of English and Colonial history-the work of Divine Providence above and against man; what if these were set aside, as the mere letter which man's hand had written, the mere device and decree of the Philadelphia Convention would they be set aside? Could they? What if the Union were dissolved by unanimous vote, by peaceable consent, into two Unions, or three, or four, or into thirty sovereign States; would the Union be dissolved?

Could it? Impossible! again and again, impossible! Not thus can man contravene the "powers ordained of God"; not thus destroy in a day, God's work for centuries- not thus break down the pyramid built, and still rising, compact and firm under the eye of the Omnipotent! Dissolve the Union! Why, we should still lie bound together by the same waters, the same oceans, and gulfs, and bays, and rivers, and lakes, which God has given us in common; and by the same canals and railroads which, under his ordinances, our hands have built; binding us into an indissoluble one! - bound together by the same necessities, and facilities of mutual intercourse the same inherited and prescriptive powers of acting separately for separate purposes, and of acting together, for purposes common to all! Dissolve the Union! Why, the Union would return upon us again, as it did when we attempted to dissolve it in 1781when we preferred to be parts, and not a whole would return as it did in 1787 — in the letter of the Constitution.

A Convention of 1856, could it dissolve the Union? The States north of Mason and Dixon's line the States south of that sectional boundary-under whatever scruples or jealousies, can they recede? Could they dissolve the Union? We venture to say that if a dissolution of the Union should take place, with whatever unanimity of decision or permission, that it would not take place; that it would be as nugatory as the (quasi) dissolution of 1781, which produced the letter of the Constitution. King John and King James may think that they can break up the Providential arrangements which are growing into the British Constitution, that they can make a subservient or a despotic monarchy; but they cannot. The Constitution reappears above them and against them, as the growth of the olden time, in a new Magna Charta, and a new Bill of Rights. The northern States may think they can withdraw from the southern, and thus only be innocent of their errors; the southern may think they can withdraw from the northern, and thus only be safe from their interference; but they cannot put asunder what God has joined together. Above and against them, the Constitution will reappear, and the union of State sovereignties be more and more established.

There is but one exception to this assumption. No doubt separation into two hostile parts is possible, at the sword's point, at the cannon's mouth, along the dividing line. At war, there may be a

northern and southern Union; but as with nations naturally and providentially distinct, the exhaustion of war compels to peace; with States naturally and providentially connected, it would end in reunion. On two sides of a boundary of blood, we may be for a season two nations, until, wearied and worn out with violence and rapine, we become prepared, not for peace between nations, but for another cycle of Union, as a great national family, as one great and undivided English people, responsible as a whole for what belongs to the whole, and as parts for what belongs to the parts.

6

CHAPTER X.

THE LAW OF EQUAL FORCES.

BESIDES the fact that State sovereignty with union only in regard to matters in common, is God's ordinance and not man's device, and that the United States have therefore no authority in regard to slavery; there is this further reason against all common legislation in the matter, that the great Overruler has so ordered the balance of sections, that if we had authority, it would be annulled by a necessary impotence.

Owing to relative weight, to equilibrium of forces, the United States would be incapable of action, could never abolish or regulate slavery, even if they had the authority. Providence has so ordered the condition of these United States, that neither the northern nor southern section can make an availing legislation against the will of the other. The North is as impotent as the South, the South as impotent as the North, by the law of equal forces. Sectional equilibrium must prevent any decisive exercise of a central authority, even if that authority existed. Where there is equal weight in both scales, the scales cannot be turned. Equal sections of the same country have only this alternative, ineffectual and injurious contention, or to agree to differ, - submitting to inaction where there is no power to act.

This equilibrium of sections, this impossibility of action, existed at the formation of the Constitution. Besides the inherited and prescriptive right of the States to manage their local affairs, the relative weight of sections forbade sectional action. There was no power in either scale to turn the balance. The States south of Mason and Dixon's line, and the States north of Mason and Dixon's line, were as nearly even poised as possible, (the minute slaveholding of the North notwithstanding,) and from that sectional balance inaction necessarily followed; useless debate giving place to leaving matters as they were. This inaction was inevitable, save only in whatever