be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tunnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.”

This section plainly and positively prohibits the States from doing certain things without the consent of Congress. They can neither contract alliances, collect revenue, coin money, nor engage in war in their capacity of States.

To guard the powers of the general government from encroachment on the part of the States, and to preserve them intact and unimpaired, the President of the United States, as the chief Executive officer of the government, takes this oath:

We have thus far enumerated some of the powers delegated by the Constitution to the federal government in the precise language of that constitution, and have shown that the chief executive of the government is sworn to exercise those powers by enforcing the constitution, and, of course, the laws, &c., which are made under its sanction and by its authority.

This constitution was adopted by a vast majority of the people of every State in the Union—adopted too with the understanding that it was perpetually binding—adopted without any proviso for withdrawal or secession in case of dissatisfaction—adopted when it was known that, even to amend it, either two-thirds of both houses of Congress must “propose amendments, or two-thirds of all the State Legislatures unite in an application to call a convention of States for proposing amendments,” and that, when such amendments were proposed, they must “be ratified” by “the legislatures of three-fourths of all the States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof.” This shows clearly and conclusively that our fathers considered that they were establishing a government indissoluble—a government for all time, incapable of disruption by separate State action or by the violence of local faction.

In the strong light of these facts how are we to regard the present attitude of South Carolina? As treasonable and rebellious to rightful authority, which she herself assisted to establish. She has no right whatever, under the existing compact, to withdraw herself from the Union, or to annul that compact into which she voluntarily entered, when she adopted that constitution. By that adoption she forever signed away such a right—voluntarily she sets her signature to a compact having no such proviso of choice. If she secede then—if she break, or attempt to break, that compact, she engages in a revolution, and revolution is rebellion—revolution is treason. Of that capital crime she, or rather her citizens, are even now guilty. “What constitutes treason? The constitution defines it in Article 3, Section III:

Now has not South Carolina “levied war?” Has she not collected armies to resist the United States? Has she not obstructed the collection of the revenue of the nation? Has she not even taken the fortifications and arsenals and confiscated the property of the United States? All these things has she done, and if this be not “levying war”—if this be not “treason”—rank “treason,” I know not what is. And yet, strange as it may seem, there are men in all the States so wedded to party that they encourage and justify South Carolina in her mad secession schemes, and by so doing give “aid and comfort” to the sworn “enemies” of the United States. Did they ever think that they too are traitors, and that they are as legally deserving of a halter as the madest secession hotspur of South Carolina?

Like the old tories of the revolution, they are, however, but few in the Northern States, and their number, thanks to the intelligence of the people, is rapidly growing less. Soon will there be but one sentiment in all sane minds upon this subject. All will see that this Union must be preserved, unbroken by rebels, and traitors be brought to condign punishment, unless we would insanely jeopardise all for which our fathers fought and bled and died upon the battle fields of the revolution.

To aid in creating a healthy public sentiment upon this important subject, I will now give some of the arguments in favor of the Union and of the present constitution, advanced by some of the early fathers of the republic. To do this, I shall first draw largely from certain political papers, entitled the “Federalist,” written while the adoption of the present constitution was pending, and addressed to the people of the State of New York, to explain the principles of the new constitution, and to enforce the propriety and necessity of its adoption. They were the united productions of John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, three brilliant political lights.

In the first eight numbers of these papers the dangers of foreign force and influence, and of war between the States, and the effects of internal war in producing standing armies unfriendly to liberty, were portrayed in a very masterly manner. Several other papers follow from which I quote largely, as they are just as appropriate now to show the benefits of a stable and consolidated Union, and the evils of disunion, as then: