The Charlotte Journal

Virginia and Secession.

From the Richmond Times of May the 7.

High as Mr. Madison's authority is in all matters of constitutional interpretation, his correspondence with Hamilton is not chiefly valuable as making known his individual opinions on the question of the right to State withdrawal from the Union. It consists in the historical facts of which it is the unimpeachable record. It testifies in the plainest manner, for all time, that the States entered the Union with an explicit understanding that the act was irrevocable except by the process of revolution. It certifies that in Virginia, particularly, where the opposition to the Constitution was most powerful, the scheme of reserving, as a condition of ratification, that very right, which South Carolina now asserts without reservation, was started and abandoned. On this important fact we had not before been advised: but we were well aware that in the Virginia Convention, the great contest between the friends of the Constitution and its opponents was upon the question of previous or subsequent amendments. Patrick Henry and George Mason, at the head of the opposition, strained all their energies to secure a decision for previous amendments. The whole scope of their argument was to show that the proposed Constitution would erect a great consolidated Government, the acceptance of which Virginia could never recall, and which therefore, she ought only to accept upon condition of obtaining such modifications as they considered indispensable.

Madison, Marshall, Pendleton and Nicholas, on the other hand, contended that the State should ratify unconditionally, and recommend to the first Congress such amendments as she wished, in order that they might be adopted in the manner prescribed by the Constitution. If the opponents of the Constitution had conceived such a theory, as that the State would have the right to secede whenever she might become dissatisfied, it is impossible to suppose that they would have insisted on "previous amendments," or in other words, a conditional ratification. What was the view of its friends is evidenced by Mr. Madison's letter to Hamilton. After the memorable debate which was waged between the opposing parties from the 2d to the 25th of June, the Committee of the Whole, on the latter day, reported to the Convention a preamble and the two following resolutions:

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that the Constitution be ratified.

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that whosoever amendments may be recommended to the Congress which shall first assemble under the said Constitution, to be acted upon according to the mode prescribed in the fifth article thereof.

A motion was made to amend the first resolution by substituting:

"Resolved That, previous to the ratification of the new Constitution of Government, recommended by the late Federal Convention, a declaration of rights, asserting and securing from encroachments the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and the inalienable rights of the people, together with amendments to the most exceptionable parts of the said Constitution of Government, ought to be referred by this Convention to the other States of the American confederacy for their consideration."

The amendment was rejected—ayes 80, noes 88.

The first resolution of the Committee of the Whole was then agreed to—ayes 89, noes 79; and the second resolution was agreed to without a division. The ratification was made to conform to the resolves, and a bill of rights and various amendments of the Constitution were recommended to Congress.

It would be easy to produce from the debates of the Virginia Convention many declarations, by speakers on both sides, which show, beyond any sort of question, that the unconditional ratification finally determined upon, was universally understood to preclude the possibility of the State's receding from the Union. True, the form of ratification affirmed that the "power granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression;" but this was only the assertion of the undoubted right of popular resistance to oppression, and not of the right of a State to withdraw from the Confederacy, without the corresponding right to the remaining States to judge whether she has or has not just cause or dissatisfaction.

Nevertheless, we do not hold with Judge Roane, the great head of Virginia Democracy, that, "secession is treason." We believe that a State may be rightfully coerced by her Confederates, and forced to perform her stipulated obligations; as the members of a mere league may undoubtedly coerce any recusant party to it. But we cannot consider our Union as having so divested the States of the attributes of sovereignty as to be competent to impose the penalties of treason upon one of them which may, in her State capacity, determine to abandon the Federal compact, trusting in God, her own energies, the sympathies of mankind, and the justice of her cause to sustain her. In brief, we eschew the doctrine that the citizens of such a State enlist under her banner "with halters around their necks." But that they must expect to be coerced into submission if they cannot maintain themselves in arms, is, we think, undeniable, according to every just view of our Federal compact. And surely we cannot be charged with a very grievous heresy in this opinion, when it is remembered that Mr. Jefferson spoke of even the Old Confederation in this manner.
It has been so often said as to be generally believed, that Congress has no power by the confederation to enforce anything; for example, contributions of money. It was not necessary to give them that power expressly; they have it by the law of nature. When two parties make compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it. Compulsion was never so easy as in our case, where a single regiment would soon levy on the commerce of any State the deficiency of its contributions; nor more safe than in the hands of Congress, which has always shown that it would wait, as it ought to do, to the last extremities before it would execute any of its powers which are disagreeable." [Letter from Paris to E. Carrington, dated August 17, 1787. Vol. de correspondence, vol. 2, page 203.]

If Mr. Jefferson thought "compulsion so rightful and easy under the Confederation," he necessarily thought it legal under our more perfect Union; and his letters afford abundant evidence that he not only construed the Constitution to give the right of coercion, but particularly liked that feature of it. (See his letter to Mr. Madison of December 20, 1787. His idea of the proper method of collecting the quota of a recusant State, under "the law of nature," might be instinctive to certain of his political followers in the latitude of Charleston.