Squatter sovereignty

“ In the same speech the dogma of squatter sovereignty was properly repudiated and scouted, though condemnation was erroneously derived from a denial, instead of an assertion, of the power of Congress over it. "Of all the positions ever taken on the subject, he declared this of squatter sovereignty to be the most absurd:" and, going on to trace the absurdity to its consequences, he said:
"The first half-dozen of squatters would become the sovereigns, with full dominion and sovereignty over the territories ”

“ The Anti-Restrictionists had the famous doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty, which, claiming for itself absolute orthodoxy, utterly repudiated all quondam legislation not in harmony with it, disdained precedents and overswept every logical barricade. ”

“ Under the Dred Scott decision, "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding; like the mould at the foundry, it served through one blast, and fell back into loose sand,—helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. ”

“ The real sovereignty resides in the squatters, and Squatter Sovereignty is the charm which dispels all difficulties. Alas! it was rather like the ingredients mingled by Macbeth's hags, only "a charm of powerful trouble." Overlooking the fact that the Territories were Territories precisely because they were not States, this absurd theory proposed to confer the highest character of an organized political existence upon a society wholly inchoate. As land, the Territories were the property of the United States, to be disposed of and regulated by the will of Congress ”

“ It presents the clear principle that, at the time the people form their constitution, they shall then decide whether they will have slavery or not. And yet it has been stated over and over again that, in accepting the nomination under that platform, I endorsed the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. ”

“ But that surrender of rights and those grants of power must not transcend the limits set my that general principle. All surrenders of rights and all grants of power beyond those limits are concessions to despotism. — All assumptions of power beyond those limits are usurpation. Hence the true source of sovereignty is not in society, as the aggregate of individuals, but in the individuals who in the aggregate constitute the people. ”

“ If this theory is true, the General Government is supreme, not only in its limits, but out of them; it is sovereign over everything, and the States are sovereign over nothing. For can we conceive of a sovereign power that may be stripped of its sovereignty, without any right of resistance or defense? Such a sovereignty would be a shadow without a substance—a mere name without the thing itself. ”

“ Then, at the worst, the seceding States are guilty of a breach of contract with the remaining States, but not with the General Government, with which they made no contract. They formed a union, it is true. But of what? Of sovereignties. How can those States be sovereignties which admit a power above them, possessing the right of coercion? To admit the right of coercion is to deny the existence of sovereignty. ”

“ The theory is, of course, pure assumption, without any basis in history, and resting on no foundation of fact. It assumes that primitive man was born with enlightened views on civil government, and that for the greater well-being of his tribe or nation he deposited the sovereign authority which belonged to himself, in a prince or king—or in some other form of executive government—retaining the right to withdraw his allegiance from the government if the authority is abused, and the contract which conferred sovereignty violated. ”

“ The able manner in which the importance of such an arrangement is argued, the clear and conclusive reasoning, the contrasts drawn between one great and powerful nation and several petty, jealous, contending little sovereignties, should cast into the shade the weak sophism that is palmed off by the political demagogues of the present day for the purpose of dividing the people, under the disguise of what is called State sovereignty. ”

“ When I speak of the right to create new, and abolish former governments, as the sure index and test of sovereignty, I do not, of course, refer to force. That may be, and more often has been, employed to destroy, than to preserve, rights of all kinds.
What I mean to assert is simply this: wherever a power exists in any Country, which power is admitted by all of that Country to possess the right of creating, amending, or abolishing the government of that country, this power must be superior to the government created by itself, and is the true and only sovereign of that country. ”

“ Accordingly it was agreed in the Cabinet, without a dissenting voice, that the jurisdiction of every independent nation, within the limits of its own territory, being of a nature to exclude the exercise of any authority therein by a foreign power, the proceedings complained of, not being warranted by any treaty, were usurpations of national sovereignty and violations of neutral rights, a repetition of which it was the duty of the government to prevent. ”

“ If all governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and if a people is entitled, at any time that it becomes oppressive, to overthrow it and institute one more nearly conformable to their interests and ideals, the old idea of the sovereignty of the State is destroyed. ”

“ What, for instance, can preserve the rights and duties attached to the presidential agency, against Congress, but the sovereign of both? If the sovereign is unable to protect some agents against the usurpations of others, the powers of all will gradually fall under the regulation of force and corruption, and ambition or casualty will supplant compact. Even mutual corruption might cement legislative and executive power, in a league to destroy the popular sovereignty of our system, if it cannot act constitutionally at all times for its own preservation. ”

“ But the Confederation itself is defective, and requires to be altered. It is neither fit for war nor peace. The idea of an uncontrollable sovereignty, in each State, over its internal police, will defeat the other powers given to Congress, and make our union feeble and precarious. There are instances without number, where Acts, necessary for the general good, and which rise out of the powers given to Congress, must interfere with the internal police of the States ”

“ If sovereignty be surrendered and transferred, in part or entirely, by the several States, it must be transferred to somebody; and the question is, to whom? Not, certainly, to the government — as has been thoughtlessly asserted by some; for that would subvert the fundamental principle of our system — that sovereignty resides in the people. But if not to the government, it must be transferred — if at all — to the people, regarded in the aggregate, as a nation. ”

“ The assumption of that sovereignty by the President of his own motion and the order to the Army to enforce it constituted therefore one of the clearest, most barefaced usurpations of power that can be imagined—a usurpation of power striking so flagrantly at the very foundation of Constitutional Government that, if it passes into a ruling precedent, we may well tremble for the safety of our free institutions. ”

“ In our system, although the right is modified in the case of Treason, yet authority is expressly given, to pass all laws necessary to carry the powers of government into effect.—Hence, no State of this Union may secede, because such secession would destroy the Unity of the Nation, any attempt to do which act, would be an offence against the sovereignty of the government, and might be properly punished at its own discretion. ”

“ Has Congress the power, under our Constitution, to hold in subjection unwilling vassal States? "The question of international law is: Can any nation rightfully convey to another sovereignty over an unwilling people who have thrown off its dominion, asserted their independence, established a government of their own, over whom it has at the time no practical control, from whose territory it has been disseized, and which it is beyond its power to deliver? ”

“ To adopt a different principle, would be to deny the ordinary rights of sovereignty, not merely to the general government, but even to the state governments within the proper sphere of their own powers, unless brought into operation by express legislation. ”

“ Of what purpose is it, then, to refer to the exercise of the power by the absolute or the limited governments of Europe, or by the states previous to our constitution? Congress can exercise no power by virtue of any supposed inherent sovereignty in the general government. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the power can be correctly said to appertain to sovereignty in any proper sense, as an attribute of an independent political community. ”

“ Such a mode of reasoning, would only be a repetition of the idea of cutting off a king's head, by virtue of his authority; and if a stagnation of free discussion will as effectually kill the moral being, national sovereignty, as a stagnation of blood would the physical being called a king, then sedition laws are as favourable to national sovereignty, as the decapitation of kings to monarchy. The circulation of rational ideas by free discussion, is as much a vital principle of the one, as the circulation of the blood of kings is of the other. ”

“ This was the plausible and attractive sentiment of State pride, concealing in itself the idea of perfect sovereignty, with the right of nullification and secession. With consummate ability, with untiring industry and perseverance, and without a moment's cessation for more than a quarter of a century, this fruitful but pernicious seed of disorganization was sown broadcast among the Southern people. ”

“ If the several States in the Union are to become one entire Nation, under one Legislature, the Powers of which shall extend to every Subject of Legislation, and its Laws be supreme & controul the whole, the Idea of Sovereignty in these States must be lost. Indeed I think, upon such a Supposition, those Sovereignties ought to be eradicated from the Mind; for they would be Imperia in Imperio justly deemd a Solecism in Politicks, & they would be highly dangerous, and destructive of the Peace Union and Safety of the Nation. ”

“ The political and commercial combinations against the north are gaining in strength and confidence every day. Political, sectional, and local questions, that I had hoped were buried with the dead of the past four years, are revived. Independent sovereignty, State rights, and nullification, where the power to nullify is revoked, are openly discussed. ”

“ When the possession is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that concession supposes to be merely hypothetical, is referred to the Greek calends for a future disquisition? Were the Switzers less free, or less secure, because, after their defection from the house of Austria, they had never been declared independent before the treaty of Westphalia? Is the king of France less a sovereign, because the king of England partakes his title?
If sovereignty implies undisputed right, scarce any prince is a sovereign through his whole dominions ”

“ If, therefore, the people have lost this inherent sovereignty, it is evident that the State governments have failed to afford that protection for which they were instituted. If they have thus failed, it has been in consequence of their subversion and loss of power to fulfill the object for which they were established. ”

“ Even if there were no law in the case, we suppose the sovereignty of a nation, in other words, of the majority of the people, in a government constituted like ours, is competent to interpose their authority to prevent the damage of the Republic in an unforeseen exigency. ”

“ If the national government shows itself so regardless of the honor and interests of a State as has been evinced by the cold indifference with which negotiations for the last fifty years have been carried on, it becomes the solemn duty of the sovereignty thus trampled upon to rise and maintain its own rights. ”

“ There is centralized authority in full play. There a function of government claiming to be supreme, removed from the original source of sovereignty to an unmeasurable distance, entrenched in irresponsibility, endeavoring gradually to absorb all the organized powers around it. Sir, it requires but little sagacity to discern the danger and to foresee the consequences. ”

“ Usurpation, perpetrated or designed, invariably resorts to sedition laws, because by suppressing discussion, it defends itself against suppression. What! Are these laws also defenders of national sovereignty or self government? Will they, like Swiss soldiers, fight equally well for spurious or for legitimate sovereignty? Will a suppression of discussion, be equally serviceable to a sovereignty which lives upon free discussion, and to one which cannot live, until free discussion is dead? Can an usurper and a nation secure sovereignty by the same code? ”

“ It is one of the essential attributes of sovereignty which belongs to every independent nation, to determine for itself, how it will deal with rebels and insurgents against its authority and government. ”

“ In a humble recognizance of all which rights, we own and avouch, that he hath that incommunicable prerogative of sole sovereignty over his visible kingdom, as well as invisible, without a co-partner or competitor, either co-ordinate or subordinate; in prescribing laws, by no human authority to be reversed; in appointing ordinances immutable, without addition or diminution, for matter or manner; instituting a government, which no man or angel can, without blasphemy, arrogate a power either to invert or evert, change or overturn ”