WASHINGTON CITY, _December 3, 1860_.
_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:
Throughout the year since our last meeting the country has been
eminently prosperous in all its material interests. The general health
has been excellent, our harvests have been abundant, and plenty smiles
throughout the land. Our commerce and manufactures have been prosecuted
with energy and industry, and have yielded fair and ample returns. In
short, no nation in the tide of time has ever presented a spectacle of
greater material prosperity than we have done until within a very recent
period.
Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the
Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is
threatened with destruction?
The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people
with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length
produced its natural effects. The different sections of the Union are
now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much
dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hostile geographical parties
have been formed.
I have long foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of the now
impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claim on the
part of Congress or the Territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from
the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the
execution of the fugitive-slave law. All or any of these evils might
have been endured by the South without danger to the Union (as others
have been) in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy.
The immediate peril arises not so much from these causes as from the
fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question
throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length
produced its malign influence on the slaves and inspired them with vague
notions of freedom. Hence a sense of security no longer exists around
the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to
apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a matron throughout the
South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children
before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether
real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade
the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in
the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and no political
union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all other
respects, can long continue if the necessary consequence be to render
the homes and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually
and hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the bonds of such a union must
be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not yet
arrived, and my prayer to God is that He would preserve the Constitution
and the Union throughout all generations.
But let us take warning in time and remove the cause of danger. It can
not be denied that for five and twenty years the agitation at the North
against slavery has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial handbills and
inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South of
a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language
of General Jackson, "to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all
the horrors of a servile war." This agitation has ever since been
continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county
conventions and by abolition sermons and lectures. The time of Congress
has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject, and
appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names,
have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over
the Union.
How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery
question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted
country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to
accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever
contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic
institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they
alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing
among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible
and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in
Russia or in Brazil.
Upon their good sense and patriotic forbearance I confess I still
greatly rely. Without their aid it is beyond the power of any President,
no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace
and harmony among the States. Wisely limited and restrained as is his
power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but
little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.
And this brings me to observe that the election of any one of our
fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford
just cause for dissolving the Union. This is more especially true if
his election has been effected by a mere plurality, and not a majority
of the people, and has resulted from transient and temporary causes,
which may probably never again occur. In order to justify a resort to
revolutionary resistance, the Federal Government must be guilty of "a
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise" of powers not granted by
the Constitution. The late Presidential election, however, has been held
in strict conformity with its express provisions. How, then, can the
result justify a revolution to destroy this very Constitution? Reason,
justice, a regard for the Constitution, all require that we shall wait
for some overt and dangerous act on the part of the President elect
before resorting to such a remedy. It is said, however, that the
antecedents of the President elect have been sufficient to justify the
fears of the South that he will attempt to invade their constitutional
rights. But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in the future
sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of the noblest system of
government ever devised by mortals? From the very nature of his office
and its high responsibilities he must necessarily be conservative. The
stern duty of administering the vast and complicated concerns of this
Government affords in itself a guaranty that he will not attempt any
violation of a clear constitutional right.
After all, he is no more than the chief executive officer of the
Government. His province is not to make but to execute the laws.
And it is a remarkable fact in our history that, notwithstanding
the repeated efforts of the antislavery party, no single act has ever
passed Congress, unless we may possibly except the Missouri compromise,
impairing in the slightest degree the rights of the South to their
property in slaves; and it may also be observed, judging from present
indications, that no probability exists of the passage of such an act by
a majority of both Houses, either in the present or the next Congress.
Surely under these circumstances we ought to be restrained from present
action by the precept of Him who spake as man never spoke, that
"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," The day of evil may never
come unless we shall rashly bring it upon ourselves.
It is alleged as one cause for immediate secession that the Southern
States are denied equal rights with the other States in the common
Territories. But by what authority are these denied? Not by Congress,
which has never passed, and I believe never will pass, any act to
exclude slavery from these Territories; and certainly not by the Supreme
Court, which has solemnly decided that slaves are property, and, like
all other property, their owners have a right to take them into the
common Territories and hold them there under the protection of the
Constitution.
So far then, as Congress is concerned, the objection is not to anything
they have already done, but to what they may do hereafter. It will
surely be admitted that this apprehension of future danger is no good
reason for an immediate dissolution of the Union. It is true that the
Territorial legislature of Kansas, on the 23d February, 1860, passed in
great haste an act over the veto of the governor declaring that slavery
"is and shall be forever prohibited in this Territory." Such an act,
however, plainly violating the rights of property secured by the
Constitution, will surely be declared void by the judiciary whenever
it shall be presented in a legal form.
Only three days after my inauguration the Supreme Court of the United
States solemnly adjudged that this power did not exist in a Territorial
legislature. Yet such has been the factious temper of the times that the
correctness of this decision has been extensively impugned before the
people, and the question has given rise to angry political conflicts
throughout the country. Those who have appealed from this judgment of
our highest constitutional tribunal to popular assemblies would, if they
could, invest a Territorial legislature with power to annul the sacred
rights of property. This power Congress is expressly forbidden by the
Federal Constitution to exercise. Every State legislature in the Union
is forbidden by its own constitution to exercise it. It can not be
exercised in any State except by the people in their highest sovereign
capacity, when framing or amending their State constitution. In like
manner it can only be exercised by the people of a Territory represented
in a convention of delegates for the purpose of framing a constitution
preparatory to admission as a State into the Union. Then, and not until
then, are they invested with power to decide the question whether
slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. This is an act of
sovereign authority, and not of subordinate Territorial legislation.
Were it otherwise, then indeed would the equality of the States in the
Territories be destroyed, and the rights of property in slaves would
depend not upon the guaranties of the Constitution, but upon the
shifting majorities of an irresponsible Territorial legislature. Such
a doctrine, from its intrinsic unsoundness, can not long influence any
considerable portion of our people, much less can it afford a good
reason for a dissolution of the Union.
The most palpable violations of constitutional duty which have yet been
committed consist in the acts of different State legislatures to defeat
the execution of the fugitive-slave law. It ought to be remembered,
however, that for these acts neither Congress nor any President can
justly be held responsible. Having been passed in violation of the
Federal Constitution, they are therefore null and void. All the courts,
both State and national, before whom the question has arisen have from
the beginning declared the fugitive-slave law to be constitutional. The
single exception is that of a State court in Wisconsin, and this has not
only been reversed by the proper appellate tribunal, but has met with
such universal reprobation that there can be no danger from it as a
precedent. The validity of this law has been established over and over
again by the Supreme Court of the United States with perfect unanimity.
It is founded upon an express provision of the Constitution, requiring
that fugitive slaves who escape from service in one State to another
shall be "delivered up" to their masters. Without this provision it is a
well-known historical fact that the Constitution itself could never have
been adopted by the Convention. In one form or other, under the acts of
1793 and 1850, both being substantially the same, the fugitive-slave
law has been the law of the land from the days of Washington until the
present moment. Here, then, a clear case is presented in which it will
be the duty of the next President, as it has been my own, to act with
vigor in executing this supreme law against the conflicting enactments
of State legislatures. Should he fail in the performance of this high
duty, he will then have manifested a disregard of the Constitution and
laws, to the great injury of the people of nearly one-half of the States
of the Union. But are we to presume in advance that he will thus violate
his duty? This would be at war with every principle of justice and of
Christian charity. Let us wait for the overt act. The fugitive-slave
law has been carried into execution in every contested case since the
commencement of the present Administration, though often, it is to
be regretted, with great loss and inconvenience to the master and
with considerable expense to the Government. Let us trust that the
State legislatures will repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious
enactments. Unless this shall be done without unnecessary delay, it
is impossible for any human power to save the Union.
The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have a
right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should
it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are
parties, will have been willfully violated by one portion of them in
a provision essential to the domestic security and happiness of the
remainder. In that event the injured States, after having first used all
peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified
in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union.
I have purposely confined my remarks to revolutionary resistance,
because it has been claimed within the last few years that any State,
whenever this shall be its sovereign will and pleasure, may secede from
the Union in accordance with the Constitution and without any violation
of the constitutional rights of the other members of the Confederacy;
that as each became parties to the Union by the vote of its own people
assembled in convention, so any one of them may retire from the Union
in a similar manner by the vote of such a convention.
In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must
be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary
association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the
contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand,
to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public
opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States
may, resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile
republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility
whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course.
By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in
a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation,
and blood to establish.
Such a principle is wholly inconsistent with the history as well as the
character of the Federal Constitution. After it was framed with the
greatest deliberation and care it was submitted to conventions of the
people of the several States for ratification. Its provisions were
discussed at length in these bodies, composed of the first men of the
country. Its opponents contended that it conferred powers upon the
Federal Government dangerous to the rights of the States, whilst its
advocates maintained that under a fair construction of the instrument
there was no foundation for such apprehensions. In that mighty struggle
between the first intellects of this or any other country it never
occurred to any individual, either among its opponents or advocates,
to assert or even to intimate that their efforts were all vain labor,
because the moment that any State felt herself aggrieved she might
secede from the Union. What a crushing argument would this have proved
against those who dreaded that the rights of the States would be
endangered by the Constitution! The truth is that it was not until many
years after the origin of the Federal Government that such a proposition
was first advanced. It was then met and refuted by the conclusive
arguments of General Jackson, who in his message of the 16th of January,
1833, transmitting the nullifying ordinance of South Carolina to
Congress, employs the following language:
The right of the people of a single State to absolve themselves at will
and without the consent of the other States from their most solemn
obligations, and hazard the liberties and happiness of the millions
composing this Union, can not be acknowledged. Such authority is
believed to be utterly repugnant both to the principles upon which
the General Government is constituted and to the objects which it is
expressly formed to attain.
It is not pretended that any clause in the Constitution gives
countenance to such a theory. It is altogether founded upon inference;
not from any language contained in the instrument itself, but from the
sovereign character of the several States by which it was ratified.
But is it beyond the power of a State, like an individual, to yield a
portion of its sovereign rights to secure the remainder? In the language
of Mr. Madison, who has been called the father of the Constitution--
It was formed by the States; that is, by the people in each of
the States acting in their highest sovereign capacity, and formed,
consequently, by the same authority which formed the State
constitutions. ... Nor is the Government of the United States,
created by the Constitution, less a government, in the strict sense
of the term, within the sphere of its powers than the governments
created by the constitutions of the States are within their several
spheres. It is, like them, organized into legislative, executive,
and judiciary departments. It operates, like them, directly on
persons and things, and, like them, it has at command a physical
force for executing the powers committed to it.
It was intended to be perpetual, and not to be annulled at the pleasure
of any one of the contracting parties. The old Articles of Confederation
were entitled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the
States," and by the thirteenth article it is expressly declared that
"the articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by
every State, and the Union shall be perpetual." The preamble to the
Constitution of the United States, having express reference to the
Articles of Confederation, recites that it was established "in order
to form a more perfect union." And yet it is contended that this "more
perfect union" does not include the essential attribute of perpetuity.
But that the Union was designed to be perpetual appears conclusively
from the nature and extent of the powers conferred by the Constitution
on the Federal Government. These powers embrace the very highest
attributes of national sovereignty. They place both the sword and the
purse under its control. Congress has power to make war and to make
peace, to raise and support armies and navies, and to conclude treaties
with foreign governments. It is invested with the power to coin money
and to regulate the value thereof, and to regulate commerce with foreign
nations and among the several States. It is not necessary to enumerate
the other high powers which have been conferred upon the Federal
Government. In order to carry the enumerated powers into effect,
Congress possesses the exclusive right to lay and collect duties on
imports, and, in common with the States, to lay and collect all other
taxes.
But the Constitution has not only conferred these high powers upon
Congress, but it has adopted effectual means to restrain the States
from interfering with their exercise. For that purpose it has in
strong prohibitory language expressly declared that--
No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation;
grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of
credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment
of debts; pass any bill of attainder, _ex post facto_ law, or law
impairing the obligation of contracts.