It may be a _casus omissus_ in the
Constitution; but I should like to know where the power exists in the
Constitution of the United States to authorize the Federal Government
to coerce a sovereign State. It does not exist in terms, at any rate, in
the Constitution. I do not think there is any inconsistency, therefore,
between the two positions of the President in the message upon these
particular points.
The only fault I have to find with the message of the President, is the
inconsistency of another portion. He declares that, as the States have
no power to secede, the Federal Government is in fact a consolidated
government; that it is not a voluntary association of States. I deny it.
It was a voluntary association of States. No State was ever forced to
come into the Federal Union. Every State came voluntarily into it.
It was an association, a voluntary association of States; and the
President's position that it is not a voluntary association is, in my
opinion, altogether wrong.
But whether that be so or not, the President declares and assumes that
this government is a consolidated government to this extent: that all
the laws of the Federal Government are to operate directly upon each
individual of the States, if not upon the States themselves, and must
be enforced; and yet, at the same time, he says that the State which
secedes is not to be coerced.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211