The Albany Evening
Journal courteously controverts our views on the
subject of Secession. Here is the gist of its argument:
"Seven or eight States" have "pretty unanimously
made up their minds" to leave the Union. Mr. Buchanan, in reply, says
that "ours is a Government of popular opinion," and hence, if States
rebel, there is no power residing either with the Executive or in
Congress, to resist or punish. Why, then. is not this the end of the
controversy? Those "seven or eight States" are going out. The
Government remonstrates, but acquiesces. And THE TRIBUNE regards it
"unwise to undertake to resist such Secession by
Federal force."
If an individual, or "a single State," commits Treason, the
same act in two or more individuals, or two or more States, is alike
treasonable. And how is Treason against the Federal Government to be
resisted, except by "Federal force?"
Precisely the same question was involved in the South
Carolina Secession of 1833. But neither President Jackson, nor
Congress, nor the People, took this view of it. The President issued
a Proclamation declaring Secession Treason. Congress passed a Force
Law; and South Carolina, instead of "madly shooting from its sphere,"
returned, if not to her senses, back into line.
-- Does The Journal mean to
say that if all the States and their
People should become tired of the Union, it would be treason on their
part to seek its dissolution?
-- We have repeatedly asked those who dissent from our view
of this matter to tell us frankly whether they do or do not assent to
Mr. Jefferson's statement in the Declaration of Independence that
governments "derive their just
powers from the consent of the
governed; and that, whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of
the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute
a new government," &c., &c. We
do heartily accept this doctrine,
believing it intrinsically sound, beneficent, and one that,
universally accepted, is calculated to prevent the shedding of seas
of human blood. And, if it justified the secession from the British
Empire of Three Millions of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it
would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from
the Federal Union in 1861. If we are mistaken on this point, why does
not some one attempt to show wherein and why? For our own part, while
we deny the right of slaveholders to hold slaves against the will of
the latter, we cannot see how Twenty Millions of people can
rightfully hold Ten or even Five in a detested union with them, by
military force.
Of course, we understand that the principle of Jefferson,
like any other broad generalization, may be pushed to extreme and
baleful consequences. We can see why Governor's Island should not be
at liberty to secede from the State and Nation and allow herself to
be covered with French or British batteries commanding and
threatening our City. There is hardly a great principle which may not
be thus "run into the ground." But if seven or eight contiguous
States shall present themselves authentically at Washington, saying,
"We hate the Federal Union; we have withdrawn from it; we give you
the choice between acquiescing in our secession and arranging
amicably all incidental questions on the one hand, and attempting to
subdue us on the other" -- we could not stand up for coercion, for
subjugation, for we do not think it would be just. We hold the right
of Self-Government sacred, even when invoked in behalf of those who
deny it to others. So much for the question of Principle.
Now as to the matter of Policy:
South Carolina will certainly secede. Several other Cotton
States will probably follow her example. The Border States are
evidently reluctant to do likewise. South Carolina has grossly
insulted them by her dictatorial, reckless course. What she expects
and desires is a clash of arms with the Federal Government, which
will at once commend her to the sympathy and cooperation of every
Slave State, and to the sympathy (at least) of the Pro-Slavery
minority in the Free States. It is not difficult to see that this
would speedily work a political revolution, which would restore to
Slavery all, and more than all, it has lost by the canvass of 1860.
We want to obviate this. We would expose the seceders to odium as
disunionists, not commend them to pity as the gallant though mistaken
upholders of the rights of their section in an unequal military
conflict.
We fully realize that the dilemma of the incoming
Administration will be a critical one. It must endeavor to uphold and
enforce the laws, as well against rebellious slaveholders as fugitive
slaves. The new President must fulfill the obligations assumed in his
inauguration oath, no matter how shamefully his predecessor may have
defied them. We fear that Southern madness may precipitate a bloody
collision that all must deplore. But if ever "seven or eight States"
send agents to Washington to say "We want to get out of the Union,"
we shall feel constrained by our devotion to Human Liberty to say,
Let them go! And we do not see how we could take the other side
without coming in direct conflict with those Rights of Man which we
hold paramount to all political arrangements, however convenient and
advantageous.
