should, if possible, be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent. . . . Events may prove that the causes of our calamities are deep and permanent. . . . Whenever it shall appear that the causes are radical and permanent, a separation by equitable ar rangement will be preferable to an alliance among nominal friends, but real enemies." The legislature of Massachusetts in 184445, remonstrating against the annexation of Texas, resolved " That the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, faithful to the compact be tween the people of the United States, accord ing to the plain meaning and intent in which it was understood by them, is sincerely anxious for its preservation; but that it is determined, as it doubts not other States are, to submit to undclcgated powers in no body of men on earth "; and that " The project for the annexa tion of Texas, unless arrested, may tend to drive these States into a dissolution of the Union." Further proof that the abstract right of a State to secede was recognized by northern as well as southern States is hardly needed. Acting upon this right, for causes deemed sufficient, South Carolina left the Union, other States soon following. The procedure was orderly and deliberate. The withdrawal of these States from the Union was in the same manner and by the same authority as that by which they had entered it, to wit : — by authority of the people, through ordin ances enacted by their delegates in State con ventions assembled. They later united under the Southern Confederacy. There was no rebellion in this procedure. The right to withdraw being admitted, there was no authority in the general government to prevent it. It is a self-evident proposi tion, that there is no authority to prevent an act which the party enacting of right may perform. The Constitution will be searched in vain to find in it, expressed or implied, the right to coerce a seceded State. The proclamation of President Lincoln, of April 15, 186 1, calling out seventy-five thou sand militia to coerce the seceded States, was
an unauthorized, extra-constitutional act of the Executive. It is true Mr. Lincoln in voked the Constitution, but he could not and did not recite the article of that instru ment containing his authority, nor specify the breaches of it on the part of the seceded States. That there was not in Mr. Lincoln's mind, from his peculiar standpoint and view of the confronting circumstances, justifying cause for his action, the writer is not prepared to deny. That Mr. Lincoln was a patriot even those who once held him an enemy must ad mit. He was elected President of the United States, and coming into office found the Union crumbling to pieces under his feet. There was no time, in his opinion, for con stitutional niceties. He felt what Andrew Jackson had once uttered, " The Union must and shall be preserved." He would save the physical structure and the Constitution would have to take care of itself. If the Constitu tion did not contain sufficient authority to preserve the Union, it ought to contain it, and he would assume it did. His authority for coercion was not in the Constitution. Believing the life of the Union at stake, he deemed his authority sufficient in that para mount law — the law of self-preservation. The same law of self-preservation had im pelled the southern States to exercise the extremestof their reserved and sovereign rights and withdraw from the Union. Secession and coercion were both extreme and extra-con stitutional measures. Upon the call for seventy-five thousand troops to march against the seceded States. the remaining slave States, which had hesi tated with the hope to intervene for peace, quickly seceded and cast in their lot with the southern Confederacy, The citizen of the Southern States did not hesitate a moment as to where his allegiance belonged. He did not consult Vattel, Burlamaqui, DeTocqueville, nor any authority upon political science. The in stincts of nature in such an emergency were a sufficient guide. His allegiance to his
