[Resolutions dictated to Joseph A. Scoville by Mr. Calhoun, a few days before his death.]
Resolved That the States composing the Southern portion of the Union cannot be deprived of their full and equal rights in the territory acquired from Mexico, or any other belonging to the Union without violating the constitution, perpetrating an act of gross injustice, destroying their equality as members of the Union, and by retarding their growth and accelerating that of the States composing the northern portion of the Union, destroying the equilibrium of Government.
Resolved that the assertion that the inhabitants of the territories have [blank] . . . is utterly destitute of foundation, is in derogation of the Sovereignty of the States composing the Union to which the territories are declared by the Constitution to belong and in whom the sovereignty over them resides is revolutionary and anarchical in its character, treasonable in its tendency and wholly unsustained by the practice of the Government.
Resolved that to make a constitution and form a State involves the highest powers of sovereignty and that it cannot of course be rightfully performed by inhabitants residing in the territories without the permission of Congress or the representatives of the United States to whom the territories belong or in whom the sovereignty over them reside.
Resolved that the attempt of the inhabitants of California to make a Constitution and form a State without the permission of Congress is an offence against the joint Sovereignty of the States of the Union and that the instrument purporting to be the Constitution of California is utterly void and of no binding force on the inhabitants thereof, nor on this Government, or the States it represents and the so called State but a name without any reality whatever.
Resolved that all acts on the part of any department of this Government or of the Citizens of the U. S. intended to encourage, or aid the inhabitants of California to make a Constitution and form a State (if without the permission of Congress there have been such acts) are utterly unauthorized by the Constitution and inconsistent with the allegiance due to the joint Sovereignty of the States of the Union.
Resolved that it is not within the Constitutional competency of Congress to give validity to the instrument purporting to be the Constitution of California (or) and to admit the inhabitants of California into the Union as a State under it, because according to the fundamental principles of our system of Govt. Constitutions derive their validity from the people by whom and for whom it was [they were] made, and because it would [be] inconsistent with and subversive of this principle to act on the assumption that Congress could [give] validity to the instrument and make it a Constitution by the act of admitting of its inhabitants into the Union.
Resolved that the States of the Southern portion of the [Union] are not opposed to the proviso, which usually bears the name of its Author, because it bears it but because its aim is to deprive the States (South) of their due Share in the territories of the Union, by a palpable violation of the Constitution by a total disregard of any principle of justice and equality, to be followed if adopted by a subvertion of their equality as members of the Union.
Resolved that any attempt to admit the inhabitants of California with the intention to evade the opposition to the proviso ought to excite a still more stern and indignant opposition because it would accomplish the same thing in a manner more objectionable and involve other constitutional objections peculiar to itself and of a deeper and graver character if possible [than] what have been set forth in the preceding resolutions.
Resolved that they are more objectionable because it would effect indirectly and surreptitiously what the proviso proposes to effect openly and directly because it would exclude the Said States more effectually from said territory by being inserted in the instrument purporting to be a Constitution, and what would be claimed to be a Con[stitutio]n if Congress should endorse [it], than it would be if inserted in the provisions of a territorial Govt., while it would be equally unjust and unfair as if excluded by a constitution of the [illegible] or by act of Congress, in as much as the citizens of said States have been precluded from emigrating to said territory by the action of this Govt. and thereby of having a voice in the formation of said instrument.
Resolved that the time has arrived when the said States owe
it to themselves and the other States comprising the Union to settle fully and
forever all the questions at issue between them.
* This rough draft the editor owes to the kindness of Mr. Edward Spann Hammond, of Blackville, S. C., who writes that Mr. Calhoun dictated it in articulo mortis, expecting to retouch it on rising from his couch, when he invoked—one of his last utterances—“one hour more to speak in the Senate,” when, he declared, “I can do more good than on any past occasion in my life.”
No comments:
Post a Comment