CONSTITUTIONAL VIEW OF THE WAR

COLLOQUY I.

MR. STEPHENS'S UNION SPEECH OF 1860 THE SUBJECT ON WHICH THE DISCUSSION BEGINS-THE MOST THOROUGH DEVOTION TO THE UNION CONSISTENT WITH THE RECOGNISED SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEVERAL STATES—THE UNION ITSELF IS A UNION OF SOVEREIGN STATES THE WHOLE SUBJECT OF THE WAR, ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND CHARACTER, OPENED UP BY A QUESTION PROPOUNDED, HOW MR. STEPHENS WITH HIS SENSE OF DUTY COULD GO WITH HIS STATE ON SECESSION AGAINST THN UNION ?—BEFORE GOING INTO A FULL ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, TWO PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS MADE, ONE RELATING TO CITIZENSHIP, THE OTHER TO THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND-CITIZENSHIP PERTAINS TO THE STATES-OBEDIENCE IS DUE TO THE SUPREME LAW WHILE IT IS LAW, BUT ALLEGIANCE IS DUE TO THE PARAMOUnt auTHORITY—OBEDIENCE ΤΟ LAW WHILE IT IS LAW, AND ALLEGIANCE WHICH IS DUE TO THE PARAMOUNT AUTHORITY WHICH CAN RIGHTFULLY MAKE AND UNMAKE ALL LAWS, CONSTITUTIONS AS WELL AS OTHERS, ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS-THE QUESTION PROPOUNDED REQUIRES A THOROUGH INQUIRY AS TO WHERE, UNDER OUR SYSTEM, THIS PARAMOUNT AUTHORITY RESIDES.

JUDGE BYNUM. We were all at the North very much surprised as well as disappointed, Mr. Stephens, at your course on Secession.

MR. STEPHENS. Why so?

JUDGE BYNUM. Because we were led to believe, from your speech against that measure on the 14th of November, 1860, before the Legislature of your State in Milledgeville, that you were really and thoroughly for the Union. We regarded your speech on that occa

sion as one of the best Union speeches ever made. There was a tone of earnestness and sincerity in it which created that impression. It was published in all our leading papers, and was almost literally spread broadcast throughout the whole country. From that speech especially, as well as from your course in 185-and indeed from your whole course from the time you entered public life-we thought that, when the crisis came, if it ever should come, you would certainly go for the Union.

Mr. STEPHENS. It is quite as surprising to me that any such conclusion touching my course, in case Secession should be resorted to, should have been drawn from the speech you allude to, or from my course in 1850, or from any act of my life, as you say my actual course was to you when the event occurred. I was indeed thoroughly for the Union. This the speech referred to fully attested, as well as my whole public course. No words were ever uttered with more earnestness or greater sincerity than were the words of that speech. No stronger or more ardent Union man ever lived than I was. Not a man in the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, which sets forth the terms of " the Union," was or could have been more devoted to it than I was. But what Union? or the Union of what? Of course, the Union of the States under the Constitution. That was what I was so ardently devoted to. The Union is a phrase often used, I apprehend, without considering its correct import or meaning. By many it is used to signify the integrity of the country as it is called, or the unity of the whole people of the United States, in a geographical view, as one Nation.

JUDGE BYNUM. Certainly; that is what I mean by it. MR. STEPHENS. Well, allow me then to say that there

never was in this country any such union as you speak. of; there never was any political union between the people of the several States of the United States, except; such as resulted indirectly from the terms of agreement or Compact entered into by separate and distinct political bodies. The first Union so formed, from which the pres ent Union arose, was that of the Colonies in 1774. They were thirteen in number. These were distinct and separate political organizations or bodies. After that the Union of States was formed under the Articles of Confederation, in 1777; and then, the modifications of the terms of this Union by the new Compact of 1787, known as the present Constitution. To this last Union, at first, only eleven of the original thirteen States became parties. Afterwards the other two (North Carolina and Rhode Island) also acceded and became members. The last of these (Rhode Island) rejoined her former associ ates in 1790. Subsequently, twenty new members were admitted into the association, on an equal footing with those first forming it. Whatever intimate relationships, therefore, existed between the citizens of the respective thirty-three States constituting the Union in 1860, they were created by, or sprung from, the terms of the Compact of 1787, by which the original States as States were united. These terms were properly called the Constitution of the United States; not the Constitution of one people as one society or one nation, but the Constitution of a number of separate and distinct peoples, or political bodies, known as States. The absolute Sovereignty of these original States, respectively, was never parted with by them in that or any other Compact of Union ever entered into by them. This at least was my view of the subject. Georgia was one of these States. My allegiance therefore was, as I considered it, not due

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to the United States, or to the people of the United States, but to Georgia in her Sovereign capacity. Georgia had never parted with her right to command the ultimate allegiance of her citizens. In that very speech this doctrine, or these principles, were clearly asserted and distinctly maintained. However strongly opposed I was to the policy of Secession, or whatever views I gave against it as a policy, or wise measure, yet in that very speech, which you considered so strong a Union speech, I declared my convictions to be, that if the people of Georgia, in their majesty, and in the exercise of their resumed full Sovereignty, should, in a regularlyconstituted Convention called for that purpose, withdraw from the Compact of Union, by which she was confederated. or united, with the other States under the Constitution, that it would be my duty to obey her high behest. That speech was made mainly, it is true, against the policy of Secession for then existing grievances complained of, but also against the unconstitutionality of measures proposed to be passed by the State Legislature, with a view of dissolving the Union. The Sovereign power of the people of the State, which alone could regulate its relations with the other States, was not vested in the Legislature. That resided with the people of the State. It had never been delegated either to the State authorities, or the authorities created by the Articles of Union. It could be exercised only by the people of the State in a regularly-constituted Convention, embodying the real Sovereignty of the State-just such Convention as had agreed to and adopted the Constitution of the United States. It required the same power to unmake as it had to make it.* Hence, I said "Let the sove

* “Unum quoque dissolutur eo modo quo colligatur”—“ Every thing is Jissolved by the same means it is constituted."—Noy's Maxims, p. 11

reignty of the people of Georgia be first heard on this question of severing the bonds that united them with the other States ;" and that, whatever decision the State might thus and then make, "my fortunes would be cast with hers and her people."

I indulged a strong hope that when the Sovereignty of the people should be so invoked that it would take the same view I did of the policy of Secession or Disunion. In this hope, however, I was disappointed. The Convention was called; it was regularly and legally assemble; the Sovereign will of the State, when expressed through its properly constituted organ, was for Secession, or a withdrawal of the State from the Union. The Convention passed an Ordinance repealing and rescinding the State Ordinance of the second of January, 1788, by which Georgia became one of the United States under the constitutional Compact of 1787. I was in this Secession Convention, which assembled on the sixteenth day of January, 1861: The rescinding Ordinance passed that body on the nineteenth day of that month; I voted against that OrdiIt was an Ordinance repealing and rescinding the Ordinance of a similar Sovereign Convention of the people of the State, passed the second day of January, 1788, as before stated, and placed Georgia just where she was, or would have been, if her Convention in 1788 had not passed the Ordinance by which she acceded to the Union under the Constitution of 1787. Such were my convictions.

nance.

After the passage of this Ordinance by the State Con

Or, as the Institutes and Broom have it" Nihil tam conveniens est naturali æquetati quam unum quoque dissolvi eo ligamene quo ligatum est"-"Nothing is so consonant to natural equity as that every contract should be dissolved by the same means that rendered it binding."— Broom's Legal Maxims, p. 407; 2 Inst. 360.