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government, under which we live, for which our warmest gratitude is due to the God of nations, and which every good citizen is bound to study and defend. As the Constitution, under which our government is conducted, was unavoidably couched in general terms, and could not descend to the detail of particulars, some diversity has arisen in the construction given to some of its parts, and several different theories have been adopted to support respectively each construction. a) That Constitution has recently been regarded by a few as a contract between separate, independent and sovereign States, for the maintenance of a government which shall have charge of some specified interests, common to them all. This construction would make our happy country not one, but many nations; and by giving to each State the power to nullify and refuse obedience to the laws of the general government, it entirely destroys the efficiency of the national union, and would make it little better than the wretched confederacy of the Germanic empire. Any State, or number of States, might nullify a declaration of war, believed by all the other States to be absolutely necessary in self-defence, and might refuse to take part in it. Civil discord would thus inevitably ensue, our happy country be rent in pieces, and the hands of our citizens be bathed in their brothers' blood. We would suppose the fallacy of this construction placed beyond all doubt, by that single clause of the United States Constitution, by virtue of which the Judges of all the State Courts are required to take and have taken an oath, to support the Constitution of the United States and laws of Congress, “any thing in their State Constitution or laws to the contrary notwithstanding."

b) Others have regarded it as a contract not of the people in their primary capacity, but between all the several States as such, for the purposes above specified; reserving to each State, not the right of nullifying any law of Congress and remaining in the Union, but the right of peacefully seceding from their con

nexion with the union, when they believe themselves oppressed either by the operations of the government in its constitutional structure, of which they have correct views, or by its corrupt administration. The principal error in this view of the subject seems to be, that secession is regarded as a constitutional right, that is, a right guarantied by the Constitution. Thus to withdraw and renounce his allegiance to any government, by which he is wantonly and seriously oppressed, is doubtless the indefeasible right of man; but it is based in the laws of nature, not in the provisions of the Constitution, and ought always to be called by its right name, revolution; in order that the people may not be deceived by false names and plunge into the dangerous whirlpool of revolution, before they maturely survey the rocks and cliffs on which they may be wrecked.

c) It is regarded as a contract between all the people or citizens of the different states, in their elementary or primary capacity, to establish and maintain a government for certain limited and specified purposes of general good; it being agreed that all powers not expressly given to the general government, or actually necessary to the execution of the trusts thus specifically granted, are reserved by the people to be exercised in their State governments that the Constitution of the United States and the laws of Congress, constitutionally enacted, are "the supreme law of the land," that from any supposed unconstitutional law of Congress the recourse of the citizen believing himself aggrieved, is to the Supreme Court of the United States: that there is no right of nullification or of secession in the citizen or States except in such cases as by the unalienable rights of man justify revolution.

That the framers of our national Constitution regarded it as a contract of the people in their primary capacity, and not of the States, is expressly asserted by the first clause of the instru ment itself. "We the people" of these United States, &c. That it is a government of limited and specified powers, is evi

dent because the constitution enumerates those powers, and because it expressly declares, that all the powers not specifically granted to Congress are retained by the States severally. The principle of granting to Congress additional powers by unlimited construction of the Constitution, is therefore obviously inconsistent with the genius of our government; and, if not opposed, would soon entirely change the happy balance of power between the State and general governments established by our fathers, and terminate in consolidation.

This view of our national constitution has been and still is entertained by the great mass of our ablest statesmen. It is entertained by the Supreme Court itself, the highest authority for expounding the constitution and laws of the union, and has recently been set forth in colours that cannot be mistaken, in the able and lucid proclamation of the President of the United States: "The people of the United States formed the Constitution; acting through the State Legislatures in making the compact to meet and to discuss its provisions, and acting in separate Conventions when they ratified those provisions; but the terms used in its construction, show it to be a government, in which the people of all the States collectively are represented.

The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States. But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that time possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation," &c. The different predilection of our citizens, for a free or a rigid construction of

1 See Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in Harrison vs. Hunter's lessee. I Wheaton's Reports 323.

2 See the Proclamation of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, in regard to the convention of South Carolina, December 10, 1832.

the Constitution in reference to the powers of the general government, are the basis (so far as principle is concerned) of the distinction between the two great national parties which have from the beginning existed in our land. Violent party spirit, especially when based on no political principles, but amounting to mere contest for office, is doubtless unchristian and dangerous; but the intelligent and upright intellectual conflict about the principles of our government and the influence of particular laws, that is, genuine, honest party spirit, is the duty of every faithful citizen and friend of his country, and is necessary to the purity of our political institutions. It is for these reasons that we have felt it a duty to expand our remarks on this article of the Confession, farther than we would otherwise have been disposed; especially as principles of the most dangerous nature have been boldly asserted in some sections of our country, and it thus becomes more imperiously the duty of every Christian patriot to study the principles and vindicate the integrity of our happy political institutions.

The establishment of any religion by law, is happily and explicitly forbidden in the Constitution of the Union. Our fathers justly believed, that religion ought now, as was the case in the days of the apostles, be left to take care of itself. Hence they regarded the Federal Government as a compact formed for civil and not religious purposes; and its designs are fully accomplished, its appropriate functions fully discharged, when it has secured and regulated our civil interests. It is inhibited

1 The structure of the several State governments varies much, and is more or less republican according as the right of suffrage and eligibility to office are more or less generally extended, and according to the number of public offices which are filled not by executive appointment, but by popular election.

It is worthy of note, that whilst the patriots of the South have been distinguished for their able opposition to the increase of power in the national government by latitudinarian construction of the Constitution; their State governments are less republican than those of their Northern brethren.

from establishing any religious test, or in any way interfering with the rights of conscience. It is unquestionable, that the prosperity of the Christian religion and the permanence of our fabric of civil government, depend on a firm resistance to the least abandonment of this ground. The writer does not believe any sect in the nation, nor even the leaders of any Protestant church either contemplate or would desire an establishment by law; but if, at any time, symptoms of such a disposition should appear, he would regard it the duty of all true Christians to unite not only with each other, but also with infidels and deists to resist the attempt.

Our government therefore, according to its institutions, can neither persecute nor tolerate persecution. How fully the illustrious reformer Luther coincided with these views, even at a time when some other Reformers observed a different practice, is seen from his own nervous language: "Do you say, the civil government should indeed not force men to believe, but only interfere in order that the people be not led astray by false doctrine? and, how could heretics otherwise be put down? I answer, to counteract heresy is the business of ministers, not of the civil rulers. Here a different course must be pursued, and other weapons than the sword must fight these battles. The word of God must here contend; if this proves unavailing, neither can civil governments remedy the evil, though they should deluge the earth in blood. Heresy is an intellectual thing, that cannot be hewn by the sword, nor burned with fire, nor drowned with water. The word of God alone can subdue it, as Paul says, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 2 Cor. 10: 4. 5.

1 See Luther's works (Walch's edition) Vol. 10. p. 461.

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