Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter

“ When the vast territory obtained from Mexico at the close of the war was organized, the Missouri compromise line was set aside, and the non-intervention principle was adopted, by which it became between the sections a mere question of the ability to colonize—a question in regard to which there could scarcely be a doubt, with the superior resources in wealth and population of the free States. It had become manifest that the South had no protection for its rights but the constitution, nor could it hope to avail itself of that protection without an increase of power in the government. ”

“ Indeed, one of its resolutions was amended so as to declare: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the cause which impelled them to the separation." ”

“ To the wise men who were entrusted with the formation of that union and common government, it was obvious enough that each separate society should be entrusted with the management of its own peculiar interests, and that the united government should take charge only of those interests which were common and general. ”

“ We have repeatedly said, and we once more insist, that the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, 'that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,' is sound and just, and that if the slave States, the cotton States, or the gulf States only, choose to form an independent nation, they have a moral right to do so. ”

“ When this Union was originally formed, the United States embraced too many degrees of latitude and longitude, and too many varieties of climate and production, to make it practicable to establish and administer justly one common government which should take charge of all the interests of society. ”

“ The party of power showed a constant tendency to draw all important subjects of jurisdiction within the vortex of Federal control, and an equally persevering effort on the other to limit that control to the strict necessities of a common government. A great leader, who came into the contest and figured in it until it was well nigh ended, used to say that in all good governments there existed a tax-consuming and tax-paying party, between whom a constant conflict existed, and in the history of that conflict the history of party strife would be found to consist ”

“ To enforce this necessary distinction, it was provided that all powers, not specially granted, should be reserved to the people and the States, and a list of the granted powers was carefully and specifically made. But two parties soon arose in regard to these limitations. Those who wielded the powers thus granted became interested to remove these limitations as far as possible, whilst the minority, who belonged to the governed rather than the governing party, early learned to regard these limitations as the best and surest defences against the abuses and oppressions of a despotic majority. ”

“ The late civil war which raged in the United States has been very generally attributed to the abolition of slavery as its cause. When we consider how deeply the institutions of southern society and the operations of southern industry were founded in slavery, we must admit that this was cause enough to have produced such a result. ”

“ Nothing could be more clearly established than the right on one side to reclaim fugitive slaves, and the obligation on the other to return them—an obligation which surely ought to have rested lightly enough on those who brought them here and sold them. ”

“ The Abolition party, which denounced the constitution as a "league with death and a covenant with hell," was fast growing in power and influence in the free States, and threatened to become the most powerful political organization within their borders. Massachusetts had adopted resolutions by her legislature, with the assent of her governor—if his message represented his opinions—resolutions which were denounced at the time as being of a disunion character. ”

“ Probably few men foresaw the extent or the bitterness of the war. Surely it was a mighty contest to have been waged by two parties of such unequal strength in numbers and resources, with such a promise of success to the weaker, for nearly four years, and doubtless there were periods during that time when those who provoked that trial by battle regretted that they had done so. The South at last fell from physical exhaustion-the want of food, clothes and the munitions of war ”

“ So bitter and fierce was this contest, that its agitations shook the very foundations of American society. It was settled for a time by a compromise excluding slavery from the United States Territories north of a line 36° 30' north latitude, and admitting it south of that line. Even this line left the South in a condition of hopeless inferiority, which was but little helped by the acquisition of a portion of Texas as a slave State. ”

“ But great and wide as was that cause in its far-reaching effects, a close study of the history of the times will bring us to the conclusion that it was the fear of a mischief far more extensive and deeper even than this which drove cool and reflecting minds in the South to believe that it was better to make the death struggle at once than submit tamely to what was inevitable, unless its coming could be averted by force. ”

“ It is in the history of this contest we must look for the true causes of the war, and the use made of the victory by the winning party will show the object and nature of that contest. When it became obvious that the only protection of the rights of the minority against the encroachments of the majority was to be found in the limitations upon the power of the governing party, a death struggle arose between the two parties over the constitutional restraints upon this power. The struggle between the two parties commenced at the beginning of the government. ”

“ To have anticipated such an attack upon their property and peace, would have been to suppose that they had been made the easy victims of a perfidy, which, under all the circumstances, under all the traditions of common sufferings and exertions, was characterized by a wealth of deception that would have excited the envy even of a Carthagenian. ”

“ Crittenden's resolutions, it was said by Mr. Douglass, would have saved every Southern State except South Carolina. Undoubtedly such would have been the effect of a general agreement upon these resolutions between the two sections. But did the Republicans desire it? It would seem not from the postscript to Mr. Chandler's letter to Governor Blair: "Some of the manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful. Without a little blood-letting, this Union will not, in my opinion, be worth a curse." ”

“ Physically, she was unable to stand up under such a weight of human beings, gathered from wherever they could be called by appeals to their passions or bought by a promise to supply their necessities. ”

“ A tendency soon became manifest in the non-slaveholding portion of the union to constitute themselves into that governing party. Endowed with the greater share of power in the commencement, that preponderance was increased by the course of events. ”