Showing posts with label John J Allen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John J Allen. Show all posts

Monday, July 10, 2023

Judge John J. Allen

Judge Allen for many years was one of the most distinguished lawyers and jurists of Western Virginia. He was born at Woodstock, Shenandoah County, Virginia, September 25, 1797. His father, Judge James Allen, was also an able lawyer and jurist and was eminent in his day and generation. The subject of this brief sketch was educated at Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, and Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He read law under the guidance of his father and was admitted to the practice in the courts of the Valley of Virginia. In 1819 he located at Clarksburg in the western part of the State and began the practice of his profession in Harrison and adjoining counties. Being thoroughly equipped he was not long in forging to the front and securing employment in important litigations of those early days. Indeed by ability and learning he very soon found employment on one side or the other in most big law suits in the three or four counties in which he practiced. Late in the twenties he formed a partnership with Gideon D. Camden, also a lawyer of prominence at Clarksburg, which continued for eight or ten years, until Mr. Allen in 1836 was appointed a Judge of the Circuit Court of Virginia, when he retired from the firm.

In 1827 Judge Allen was elected to the State Senate, and while a member of that body he introduced a bill, which afterwards became a law, for the settlement of land titles, in trans-Allegheny, Virginia. In 1834 he was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for the counties of Harrison, Lewis and Preston. At the same time he was a member of the 23d Congress, serving from 1833 to 1835. In all of the public positions he held he was faithful, honorable and able. He married in 1824. Although he was extremely reserved while in public life, he was gentle, affectionate and communicative in his social relations with his family and friends, and was firm and sincere in his religious convictions. He was appointed a Circuit Judge in 1836, and removed his residence to Botetourt County, and was promoted to the Supreme Court of Appeals in December, 1840. He died at Fincastle in 1871. He was an ardent secessionist at the beginning of the war, and retired from active life in 1865. He was a member of the Supreme Court for a quarter of a century, and his opinions show him to be a man of vast erudition. He was, beyond question, an able and just Judge, and his private and public life were above reproach.

SOURCE: George Wesley Atkinson, Editor, Bench and Bar of West Virginia, p. 19

Sunday, July 9, 2023

The Botetourt Resolutions, December 10, 1860

Offered in a large mass meeting of the people of Botetourt county, December 10th, 1860, by the Hon. John J. Allen, President of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and adopted with but two dissenting voices.

The people of Botetourt county, in general meeting assembled, believe it to be the duty of all the citizens of the Commonwealth, in the present alarming condition of our country, to give some expression of their opinion upon the threatening aspect of public affairs. They deem it unnecessary and out of place to avow sentiments of loyalty to the constitution and devotion to the union of these States. A brief reference to the part the State has acted in the past will furnish the best evidence of the feelings of her sons in regard to the union of the States and the constitution, which is the sole bond which binds them together.

In the controversies with the mother country, growing out of the efforts of the latter to tax the colonies without their consent, it was Virginia who, by the resolutions against the stamp act, gave the example of the first authoritative resistance by a legislative body to the British Government, and so imparted the first impulse to the Revolution.

Virginia declared her independence before any of the colonies, and gave the first written constitution to mankind.

By her instructions her representatives in the General Congress introduced a resolution to declare the colonies independent States, and the declaration itself was written by one of her sons.

She furnished to the Confederate States the father of his country, under whose guidance independence was achieved, and the rights and liberties of each State, it was hoped, perpetually established.

She stood undismayed through the long night of the Revolution, breasting the storm of war and pouring out the blood of her sons like water on almost every battle-field, from the ramparts of Quebec to the sands of Georgia.

By her own unaided efforts the northwestern territory was conquered, whereby the Mississippi, instead of the Ohio river, was recognized as the boundary of the United States by the treaty of peace.

To secure harmony, and as an evidence of her estimate of the value of the union of the States, she ceded to all for their common benefit this magnificent region—an empire in itself.

When the articles of confederation were shown to be inadequate to secure peace and tranquility at home and respect abroad, Virginia first moved to bring about a more perfect union.

At her instance the first assemblage of commissioners took place at Annapolis, which ultimately led to the meeting of the convention which formed the present constitution.

This instrument itself was in a great measure the production of one of her sons, who has been justly styled the father of the constitution.

The government created by it was put into operation with her Washington, the father of his country, at its head; her Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, in his cabinet; her Madison, the great advocate of the constitution, in the legislative hall.

Under the leading of Virginia statesmen the Revolution of 1798 was brought about, Louisana was acquired, and the second war of independence was waged.

Throughout the whole progress of the republic she has never infringed on the rights of any State, or asked or received an exclusive benefit.

On the contrary, she has been the first to vindicate the equality of all the States, the smallest as well as the greatest.

But claiming no exclusive benefit for her efforts and sacrifices in the common cause, she had a right to look for feelings of fraternity and kindness for her citizens from the citizens of other States, and equality of rights for her citizens with all others; that those for whom she had done so much would abstain from actual aggressions upon her soil, or if they could not be prevented, would show themselves ready and prompt in punishing the aggressors; and that the common government, to the promotion of which she contributed so largely for the purpose of "establishing justice and insuring domestic tranquility," would not, whilst the forms of the constitution were observed, be so perverted in spirit as to inflict wrong and injustice and produce universal insecurity.

These reasonable expectations have been grievously disappointed. Owing to a spirit of pharasaical fanaticism prevailing in the North in reference to the institution of slavery, incited by foreign emissaries and fostered by corrupt political demagogues in search of power and place, a feeling has been aroused between the people of the two sections, of what was once a common country, which of itself would almost preclude the administration of a united government in harmony.

For the kindly feelings of a kindred people we find substituted distrust, suspicion and mutual aversion.

For a common pride in the name of American, we find one section even in foreign lands pursuing the other with revilings and reproach. For the religion of a Divine Redeemer of all, we find a religion of hate against a part; and in all the private relations of life, instead of fraternal regard, a "consuming hate," which has but seldom characterized warring nations.

This feeling has prompted a hostile incursion upon our own soil, and an apotheosis of the murderers, who were justly condemned and executed.

It has shown itself in the legislative halls by the passage of laws to obstruct a law of Congress passed in pursuance of a plain provision of the constitution.

It has been manifested by the industrious circulation of incendiary publications, sanctioned by leading men, occupying the highest stations in the gift of the people, to produce discord and division in our midst, and incite to midnight murder and every imaginable atrocity against an unoffending community.

It has displayed itself in a persistent denial of the equal rights of the citizens of each State to settle with their property in the common territory acquired by the blood and treasure of all.

It is shown in their openly avowed determination to circumscribe the institution of slavery within the territory of the States now recognizing it, the inevitable effect of which would be to fill the present slaveholding States with an ever increasing negro population, resulting in the banishment of our own non-slaveholding population in the first instance and the eventual surrender of our country, to a barbarous race, or, what seems to be desired, an amalgamation with the African.

And it has at last culminated in the election, by a sectional majority of the free States alone, to the first office in the republic, of the author of the sentiment that there is an "irrepressible conflict" between free and slave labor, and that there must be universal freedom or universal slavery; a sentiment which inculcates, as a necessity of our situation, warfare between the two sections of our country without cessation or intermission until the weaker is reduced to subjection.

In view of this state of things, we are not inclined to rebuke or censure the people of any of our sister States in the South, suffering from injury, goaded by insults, and threatened with such outrages and wrongs, for their bold determination to relieve themselves from such injustice and oppression, by resorting to their ultimate and sovereign right to dissolve the compact which they had formed and to provide new guards for their future security.

Nor have we any doubt of the right of any State, there being no common umpire between coequal sovereign States, to judge for itself on its own responsibility, as to the mode and measure of redress. The States, each for itself, exercised this sovereign power when they dissolved their connection with the British Empire.

They exercised the same power when nine of the States seceded from the confederation and adopted the present constitution, though two States at first rejected it.

The articles of confederation stipulated that those articles should be inviolably observed by every State, and that the Union should be perpetual, and that no alteration should be made unless agreed to by Congress and confirmed by every State.

Notwithstanding this solemn compact, a portion of the States did, without the consent of the others, form a new compact; and there is nothing to show, or by which it can be shown, that this right has been, or can be, diminished so long as the States continue sovereign.

The confederation was assented to by the Legislature for each State; the constitution by the people of each State of such State alone. One is as binding as the other, and no more so.

The constitution, it is true, established a government, and it operates directly on the individual; the confederation was a league operating primarily on the States. But each was adopted by the State for itself; in the one case by the Legislature acting for the State; in the other "by the people not as individuals composing one nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong."

The foundation, therefore, on which it was established was federal, and the State, in the exercise of the same sovereign authority by which she ratified for herself, may for herself abrogate and annul.

The operation of its powers, whilst the State remains in the Confederacy, is national; and consequently a State remaining in the Confederacy and enjoying its benefits cannot, by any mode of procedure, withdraw its citizens from the obligation to obey the constitution and the laws passed in pursuance thereof.

But when a State does secede, the constitution and laws of the United States cease to operate therein. No power is conferred on Congress to enforce them. Such authority was denied to the Congress in the convention which framed the constitution, because it would be an act of war of nation against nation-not the exercise of the legitimate power of a government to enforce its laws on those subject to its jurisdiction.

The assumption of such a power would be the assertion of a prerogative claimed by the British Government to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatever; it would constitute of itself a dangerous attack on the rights of the States, and should be promptly repelled.

These principles, resulting from the nature of our system of confederate States, cannot admit of question in Virginia.

Our people in convention, by their act of ratification, declared and made known that the powers granted under the constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever they shall be perverted to their injury and oppression.

From what people were these powers derived? Confessedly from the people of each State, acting for themselves. By whom were they to be resumed or taken back? By the people of the State who were then granting them away. Who were to determine whether the powers granted had been perverted to their injury or oppression? Not the whole people of the United States, for there could be no oppression of the whole with their own consent; and it could not have entered into the conception of the convention that the powers granted could not be resumed until the oppressor himself united in such resumption.

They asserted the right to resume in order to guard the people of Virginia, for whom alone the convention could act, against the oppression of an irresponsible and sectional majority, the worst form of oppression with which an angry Providence has ever afflicted humanity.

Whilst, therefore, we regret that any State should, in a matter of common grievance, have determined to act for herself without consulting with her sister States equally aggrieved, we are nevertheless constrained to say that the occasion justifies and loudly calls for action of some kind.

The election of a President, by a sectional majority, as the representative of the principles referred to, clothed with the patronage and power incident to the office, including the authority to appoint all the postmasters and other officers charged with the execution of the laws of the United States, is itself a standing menace to the South—a direct assault upon her institutions—an incentive to robbery and insurrection, requiring from our own immediate local government, in its sovereign character, prompt action to obtain additional guarantees for equality and security in the Union, or to take measures for protection and security without it.

In view, therefore, of the present condition of our country, and the causes of it, we declare almost in the words of our fathers, contained in an address of the freeholders of Botetourt, in February, 1775, to the delegates from Virginia to the Continental Congress, "That we desire no change in our government whilst left to the free enjoyment of our equal privileges secured by the constitution; but that should a wicked and tyrannical sectional majority, under the sanction of the forms of the constitution, persist in acts of injustice and violence towards us, they only must be answerable for the consequences."

"That liberty is so strongly impressed upon our hearts that we cannot think of parting with it but with our lives; that our duty to God, our country, ourselves and our posterity forbid it; we stand, therefore, prepared for every contingency."

Resolved therefore, That in view of the facts set out in the foregoing preamble, it is the opinion of this meeting that a convention of the people should be called forthwith; that the State, in its sovereign character, should consult with the other Southern States, and agree upon such guarantees as in their opinion will secure their equality, tranquility and rights within the Union; and in the event of a failure to obtain such guarantees, to adopt in concert with the other Southern States, or alone, such measures as may seem most expedient to protect the rights and insure the safety of the people of Virginia. And in the event of a change in our relations to the other States being rendered necessary, that the convention so elected should recommend to the people, for their adoption, such alterations in our State constitution as may adapt it to the altered condition of the State and country.

SOURCE: Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume I, No. 1, January 1876, p. 13-9

John Tyler to the Editor of the Richmond Daily Whig, published January 16, 1861

Views of Ex-President Tyler on the National Crisis.

To the Editor of the Whig:

I have been often urged to give my views to the public on the present great crisis of American affairs. I have abstained from doing so for reasons entirely satisfactory to myself—one of the most controlling of which was, that I could not regard with becoming composure the dissolution of that Confederacy in the service of which so great a portion of my life had been passed, and which I had been accustomed to contemplate in a spirit of the truest devotion. Nor did I believe that any thing that I could say would produce the slightest effect upon the public mind. My public life had long since terminated, and the shadow which, sooner or later, falls on all men, and shuts them out from sight had settled upon me. To the younger Athlete, who were in charge of the public trusts and enjoyed its confidence, I was well inclined to leave the task of adjusting existing difficulties, in the hope and trust that a Union so full of glories and so copious in blessings, would survive the trials which threaten it. In the meantime the high toned and gallant State of South Carolina, one of the Old Thirteen, has seen cause to withdraw from the Union, and it is said that her example is to be followed unless sectional differences are adjusted by the cotton States first, and sooner or later by all the slaveholding States. In view of this state of things, and seeing also that all efforts at adjustment have so far failed, I no longer withhold the expression of my opinions on the leading topics of the day.

The enquiry which presents itself, in advance of all others, is as to the effects which follow upon the withdrawal of so many states from the Union as those constituting an entire section of the country. In what condition does that withdrawal leave the remaining States and even the government itself? This enquiry is of the greatest interest and should therefore be made with all possible deliberation. It can do no less than resolve itself into the question as to the nature and character of the government itself. If it be a consolidated government, and the States merely its provinces, then those provinces or States or by whatever other name thy may be called, can make no resistance to its authority, however despotic, which would not be considered rebellious and treasonable. The States would occupy the same position, and none other, to the government of the United States, that each county or town occupies to the government of a state. The uprising of a county against the State would be unqualified rebellion and all concerned in it would be guilty of high treason. These are the inevitable results which arise out of a consolidated government. No matter what the magnitude of the evil complained of, no redress is left but out and out rebellion, and each and all engaged in such rebellion have entered into it with halters round their necks, to be used, unless the rebellion prove successful, by the consolidated government at its will and pleasure. It is idle, in this view of the question, to attempt to draw a distinction between a State in rebellion and any portion of the people of that State. The reasoning applies quite as forcibly to the whole community as to a part of it. No organized condition of the community can justify or excuse the revolt, and war may be made on all alike. Nor will it do to attempt a distinction between a Government like ours, where powers are granted and powers reserved, and an absolute despotism.—The same supreme domination would exist in the enforcement of the granted powers, as where nothing had been reserved and all given.—Whatever the obstruction interposed the authority would be given to remove it—if by individuals, they might be put to the sword—if by a State, it might be crushed. Is there no softening down the asperity of these conclusions? I am asked. I see no mode of doing so. Again, I may be asked, does not the constitution provide within itself some mode by which grievances, when too heavy to be borne, may be redressed? The Constitution professes to do so; but what chance is there of the remedies being available against an immovable sectional majority? Even now, an appeal to that mode of redress has been made in vain.—Every expedient has been resorted to, to obtain constitutional amendment in redress of grievances, through the action of Congress; but there stands that sectional majority, immovable or fixed, or only moving to make matters worse by suggestion the mere pretence of amendments which pass away in the moment of utterance.

No, if the Government be consolidated to the extent of the powers, it is supreme, and resistance to its mandates is treason. But, it is asked, cannot the Supreme Court, the sworn interpreter of the Constitution, give redress for violated rights? That august tribunal should ever be entitled to all respect; but in a sectional conflict, such as that which exists, its decisions, however solemnly delivered, carry no force along with them. Who, of the Northern sectional party, acknowledges the binding force of its decision recently pronounced in the Dred Scott case?—The venerable men who compose that Court, are of advanced age—as they drop off the state of actions. Mr. Lincoln will take care to supply their place, with men who would stand ready to reverse their decisions, and mock at them as of no binding authority. No, if the Government be a consolidated one, if its edicts, uttered by a sectional majority, are to be regarded as supreme, then those edicts are the decrees of fate, and submission of States and people is all that is left. From being considered the proudest and noblest structure of human liberty, it degenerates into the vilest instrument of tyranny and oppression. As indispensably necessary to arrive at the above conclusions as to the nature of the government, its advocates contend that it arose out of the popular will, and not from separate State action. It is only necessary to say that that position was entirely over-ruled, as long ago as 1800, by the decided voice of the American people, and only momentarily revived by Gen. Jackson’s proclamation, (a paper which contradicted all the expressed opinions of his previous and subsequent life,) avowedly written by one who still lingered among the ruins and fragments of antiquated ideas. It is contradicted by the name given the Government in baptism. The Federal Government it was called then, and as the Federal Government it is known to the world; and any dictionary will tell us that the name pertains only to a league—to a compact or political partnership among States. The Federal Legislature is known as a Congress, a term only used to indicate an assemblage of sovereigns; and that Federal Legislature is composed, especially in the Senate, of the representatives of the States equal in rights, and equal in power. There, the smallest State has a voice as potential as the largest. When the articles of confederation ceased to exist, they were succeeded by the present confederation—an improvement, as it was thought, upon the old one. But I abstain from going any further into this subject. I find the whole argument already perfected in the preamble to the resolutions recently adopted by thepeople of Botetourt, drawn by as clear a judicial intellect as is to be found either in the State of Virginia or out of it. In that preamble Judge Allen presents a synopsis of the history of the origin of our institutions, so briefly, yet so lucidly, as to have concluded the argument. It challenges an answer from any quarter. I wish it could be printed, and circulated until it was to be found in the hands of every man in the country.

The facts of history cannot be overcome, and those facts all bespeak the Confederative Republic, founded in a compact to which States were parties. No State thought, that in adopting it, it was imposing fetters upon its limbs, which, however galling, could never be broken. Some States, Virginia one of them, more cautions than the rest, accompanied their ratification with a declaration of the right to resume the powers granted for the peace of all and happiness of all, upon their being abused; and the pregnant fact that General Washington, the President of the General Convention, in his valedictory to the people, admonished them to avoid sectional divisions as the bane of the Union, bespeaks on his part a serious apprehension that the Union would fall asunder, not by any treasonable conduct on the part of his contrymen, surely, but the withdrawal of the States, legitimately and properly. Nor is there sufficient force to countervail the inductions drawn by Judge Allen in the Botetourt preamble, from the too great facility which would exist in overthrowing the Government. The right to secede should rather be regarded as a means of giving it perpetuity; as the acknowledged existence of such right would operate to restrain the conduct of majorities and officials. Secession would never be resorted to for the slight and insufficient causes, nor until after a long course of forbearance. Nothing is more difficult that to bring about a revolution or change of government. Take, in illustration, the calamity which is now impending over us. For thirty years some of the evils complained of by the South, have been existing, and have been increasing in magnitude, until they have culminated from abuse of the most rancorous kind, in Congress and out of Congress, in the pulpit and out of the pulpit, in short, everywhere, and in every conceivable shape, into a systematic sectional form and overruling organization. In the meantime, the Southern people have reasoned, expostulated and protested. So did they in the days preceding the revolution, but their expostulations had quite as well not have been uttered. So, in these latter days. In 1836, I remember to have received, through the Governor of the States of Virginia, a series of resolutions, which had been adopted by the Legislature, addressed to the Northern States, complaining of wrongs perpetrated towards her and her sisters of the South, by people of those States. I presented them, in due time, to the Senate; but, although those resolutions emanated from a State that had never inflicted intentional wrong on any co State, and which had laid down an empire as a rich offering on the alter of Union, they were wholly disregarded. So far from arresting the evils complained of, those evils have been continually increasing, until she and her sister States of the South are not only denounced in the most opprobrious terms, but participation in the benefits of the common territories are denied her and them, and the now-to-be-regarded as authoritative declarations is thundered in their ears, that an “irrepressible conflict” exists between the free and the slave States, which can only be quieted by “making all free, or all slave.” Can the bonds of that Union be so easily broken which have stood such assaults for so many years? Oh! no, there is no danger that any State will too promptly assert its rights and liberties, and privileges. The danger is the other way—the failure promptly to vindicate them may lead to their loss forever. In short, which is most to be desired, a government liable to no peaceful change, under the control of an arbitrary and despotic sectional majority, which proposes to accomplish, by an act of Congress, what others accomplish by sword, or one held in check by an efficient popular veto? The lover of justice and liberty can have no difficulty in deciding. Nor is there the least force in the arguments drawn from the case of the secession of a State recently acquired, either by purchase of conquest. If Texas, for example, seeks admission into the union, she does so to enjoy the blessings of its liberty in security, upon an equal footing with the original States. A few years only elapse, and, instead of equality, she finds herself, by a sectional majority, trampled upon, and in place of enjoying the equal privileges which lead her to desire annexation, she is put under ban along with the entire section to which she belongs. If she seceded singly, the Government might possible insist upon an enumeration for outlays and expenditures; but in justice, that would be all that should be done. Let the Southern States be treated as they were for the first half century of the existence of the Union, and, my life upon it, there would be no secession or talk of secession; nay, let the majority section furnish now sufficient guarantees—guarantees rendered more urgently necessary by reason of the out-spoken words of the leaders, and the danger which threatens our institutions will pass away, and a brighter and more propitious sun than we have yet seen will shine above the horizon. To deny such guarantees may serve very well to advance the wickedly ambitions purposes of political libertines, but augur to all others of us naught by the deepest woe. What then are the consequences resulting from the act of secession—first, to the seceding States—secondly, to the remaining States and Government?

1. Most assuredly it would be better that the full adjustment of the responsibilities to which each member of the political partnership is liable, as well as all the rights and interests of each resulting therefrom,  should be adjusted, prior to the act of separation. No State can justly avoid the assumption of its portion of the public debt, or of its fair share of all the responsibilities which have been contracted by the Government during its continuance in the Union; while, on the other hand, its title to its fair share in the public property, in whatever it may consist, would be equally clear. But as this cannot be done in the present state of Public opinion, the State can do no more that express its readiness fairly and honestly to act upon all its obligations. The act of withdrawal re-invests it with all the powers which it conferred on the agent. Government restores to it all the grants of land made by itself for public purposes; in a word, clothes it with all the powers and attributes and rights of sovereignty which can attach to a sovereign and independent power. Its trade and commerce are under its exclusive control, and revenues collected in its ports are subject to its own orders.

How would the remaining members and the Government itself be affected? If the union of States under a political compact may be likened to that of a mercantile partnership, the question would readily enough be answered. The withdrawal of a single member would break up the concern, and call for a settlement of all its affairs. If the remaining members chose to continue the business, it would be as a new firm, although they might still preserve the original name. The dissolution of the old firm would be quite as complete, although its re-establishment would not be so difficult, by the withdrawal of one member, as if dissolved by united consent. If it undertook to contract in the name of the old partnership, its efforts would be of no avail; if it drew a check on any bank, the check would not be honored. In a word, the functions of the association would have entirely—except so far as would be necessary to wind up the concern—ceased to exist. By a parity of reasoning, similar results would transpire in regard to the compact of Union. Sound policy would dictate to the remaining States an immediate re-construction of the Government. This might be done by tacit consent, or by more formal action, and only a moment of time might elapse between the dissolution of the old, and the re-establishment of the new, advancing from the secession of one member to that of all members of an entire section and still advancing to the secession or withdrawal of an additional number, until only one or two remained attached to the old order of things in a legal point of view. The case finds its illustration, not inaptly, in the establishment of the Constitution under which, thus far, we of the States that have not yet seceded, by tacit consent, since the withdrawal of South Carolina agree still to live. In that case this Constitution was adopted by eleven States, while North Carolina and Rhode Island rejected it, and clung to the old articles of confederation which has been declared perpetual, in plain and unmistakable characters upon its face.

No one doubts but that North Carolina and Rhode Island might have continued the perpetual Union established, or more properly proclaimed, by that first compact; and that they had just cause to complain of the co States for having dissolved it without their consent. But we are enquiring into legal rights and responsibilities of seceding and non seceding members. What if North Carolina and Rhode Island had set up a claim to the Government and all its appendages? What if they had gone on with Congress, established the Treasury board, called upon the eleven seceding States to pay up their installments as required under the perpetual articles of Confederation, which were not to be altered but by unanimous consent; and if disobeyed, had issued their orders to the army, and navy to seize upon the forts and attack those towns and cities of the rebellious seceders—what would the anti-secessionists of this day have said of it?—Would the soldiers have manned the forts?—Would the officers of the navy have laid in ashes the cities? If the non secession of two States could not preserve the Government of the first Constitution, what number is necessary to preserve that Constitution which was engrafted on it? Will a majority do so?—and why? Less than a majority would scarcely attempt it; and why not as well as a majority, in point of right? The secession of one State paralyses the finances—what will that of eight do? What of fifteen, with the sure prospect of other changes threatened and in embryo?—What capitalists will make venture of the earnings of a life-time in so rickety a concern? A re-constructed Confederation, based on ample guarantees, would, on the contrary, command public confidence after being one in motion.—The best way is for these who have the power to act like rational men, and to resolve that the Constitution shall be carried out in good faith; that the emissaries from Exeter Hall, and their confreres in the United States shall be silenced and justice be done to all, and equality be measured out to all. No American citizen but should feel indignant at this insolent interference of Englishmen in our affairs.—If the scheme of Southern emancipation is to be concocted, if a new constitution is to be formed for the South it must be drawn upon foreign soil. If a raid takes place in Virginia, under a lunatic leader, an Englishman, in some way or other must have his hand in it. I submit to the people of the North, whether they have so far parted with all their Americanism, as to tolerate such interference with their unoffending brethren? But I return to the train of my reflections.

It is to be regretted that there should exist so great an instability of public opinion, in regard to the origin and character of the government. If, for example, Massachusetts as in the time of non-intercourse and embargo, or at a still later period, when Texas annexation was the leading topic of the day—take umbrage at the proceeding—no state evinces more fiery zeal in favor of the idea of a Federal league.—She hesitates not to take the strongest position in regard to her own sovereignty. In the case of Texas she set the example of action secession—not by proclamation, it is true, issued by a convention of her people; but by legislative resolution, which announced, as a fact accomplished, her withdrawal from the Union. In the event of the consummation of that measure. Now she is so full of indignation at the withdrawal of South Carolina, if the newspapers speak truly, that she is overflowing with passion, and promises to contribute from 7,000 to 100,000 men to punish South Carolina, for having follower her own example. It is high time that Judge Allen’s preamble should be in the hands of the people. Today it is your bull that gores my ox—to-morrow the thing is reversed. Conquer the south! Suppose such as thing accomplished, and the Northern States invested with supreme rule. What great good will they have achieved for themselves? Instead of looking with delight on fields under industrious culture—on a country teaming with abundance—on ships freighted with the rich productions which regulated the exchanges of the world, and pour into the Northern lap almost fabulous wealth—they would gaze only on burning embers and smoking columns—and the wreaths which would encircle their brows would not be the evergreens that patriot heroes wear, but parched and withered leaves which would burn into their brains. All this, too, would have had its origin in a busy-bodiness—an interference with those people’s affairs which, in private or public life, never fails to produce disturbance and ill-will. If Virginia undertook to control and regulate the domestic affairs of Massachusetts, a day would not pass before the thunders, as in the days of yore, would begin to roll and the lightnings to flash from Faneuil Hall. Can Massachusetts expect anything less from Virginia? Let the states adopt the truly wise rule of attending to their own business and letting their neighbors alone—of fulfilling all their political obligations, and of doing equal justice to all their compeers—and future generations will rise up and call them blessed. Did it ever enter into the head of any man who voted for the adoption of the Constitution that one section of the country would assume the task of supervisors over the laws and morals of another? and, its domestic institutions being precisely the same as when the compact of Union was entered into, that a later day the dominant section would make them the pretext for excluding the minority of section from an equal participation in the Territories which might at any time be acquired? Pretty business, truly, that the men of this day shall esteem themselves more moral than their father; that Seward should be set up as a purer and better man than George Washington, and that Mr. Lincoln would be regarded as the only truly immaculate President of the U. States.

It would, indeed, be a retrograde movement if any State should be constrained by force to remain in a Union which it abhorred. In this matter, one might take a lesson from what is passing in the world. Italy, after the enthrallment of ages, is admitted to the ballot box, and her States claim and exercise the privilege of selecting the condition of their own future. And, while this is passing and that, too, with the approbation of all Europe, we are to take a step backward into the dark ages, and carry into practice the exploded doctrine of absolutism in Government. If we cannot live together, let us part in peace. By doing so we shall at least save something of the old feeling. It is true, the South will be under the necessity of adopting a rigid system of passports and police, which may prevent the perfect freedom of intercourse which, except in notorious cases now exists. But that is no more than other countries have to do, and is entirely protective in its character without being hostile. If necessary, a treaty, offensive and defensive, may be received, and much that now exists may be preserved. Pursue a different course, and all may be lost. Strange, indeed that odious discriminations should be drawn between equals in a common concern. Such was my opinion in 1820, in the discussion on the Missouri question, and such will it ever remain. The talented editors of the “National Intelligencer,” gave me an enviable position in certain able articles, written by them in the Summer of Fall of 1859. They speak of me as being the only member of Congress, at that day, who in debate, denied to Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the Territories. I stood there then, and I stand there now, not as in my early life alone in debate—but now in my age, sustained as I believe, by the concurrent opinions of a majority of the people of the United States, and leaning on the decision of the Supreme Court as on a staff which no rage of faction can weaken, no convulsion, however serious, can break. Could the able editors have deciphered the thoughts of my inmost heart, they would have found me opposed to congressional interference in this behalf with the Territories, for other reasons. Even passing over the impolicy of such interference, it was in its best view useless, God’s own law of climate had regulated the matter; and let the children of earthly wisdom act as they may. It will still continue to do it. The man who would talk of cultivating the rice and cotton fields, and sugar plantations of the South with free labor, denies to himself the light of observation and experience. Look to the West India Islands—no part of the Globe makes a louder outcry for labor, or offers higher wages than they do, and yet the tide of immigration from Europe sweeps by them in a vast current, which is arrested in its course only by a more Northern and healthy clime. Asia and Africa have to be resorted to for laborers, while the Caucasian of Europe flees as from a pestilence, the rays of a burning sun, and becomes the cultivator of the cereals, or turns to herdsman amid the snows of the North. There is but one element that can change, and that but to a limited degree, this law of climate, and that is the price of labor. I need not, therefore draw the picture of what would be the condition of the slave States, looking to the regular increase of the black population in forty years, under the edict formally announced by the leaders of the Northern dominant party of “no more slave States!” It cannot be contemplated by any Southern man with absolute composure.

I will not despair of the good sense of my countrymen. The hope will linger with me to the last that there is enough wisdom and patriotism among us to adjust these difficulties, although I frankly confess my doubts and fears. The minority States can do but little more than suggest—the majority States hold in their hands the fate of the Union. I would by no means, have Virginia to linger by the wayside. On the Contrary, I would have her prompt and decisive in her action—she cannot be too prompt or decisive. Before her Convention can meet full developments of one sort or the other will have been made. She should place herself in position—her destiny, for good or for ill, is with the South. She was the flagship of the Revolution; and borrowing an expression from a recent production of one of her most gifted sons, she should have “Springs upon her cables and her broad-side to.”

If I may be permitted to make a suggestion, it would be, that the Legislature, without delay, and without the interference with its call of convention, might inaugurate a meeting of the border States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, slave states; and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, free States, through two Commissioners from each, to arrange, if possible, a programme of adjustment, to be submitted to the other States as conclusive of the whole matter.

Should they agree, I think their recommendation would be followed by the other States, and incorporated into the Constitution and placed on the footing of an unalterable compact. Surely no States can be more deeply interested in the work of restoring the country to quiet and harmony. If they cannot agree, then it may safely be concluded that the restoration of peace and concord has become impossible. I would have an early day appointed for the meeting of the commissioners; so that Virginia, when she holds her convention, may be in full possession of the result.

Even if a failure to agree should occur, I would still have the Southern States, as a dernier resort, upon assembling in Convention, and after having incorporated in the present Constitution, guarantees going not one iota beyond that strict justice and the security of the South requires, adopt the Constitution of the United States as it now is, and give a broad invitation to the other States to enter our Union with the old flag flying over one and all. When this is done, I would say, in conclusion, to all my countrymen, rally back to the Constitution, thus invigorated and strengthened; and let there, for all time to come, be written on every heart, as a motto—that under all circumstances, and every condition of things, there is but one post of safety, and that is to stand by the Constitution.

JOHN TYLER.

SOURCES: “Views of Ex-President Tyler on the National Crisis,” Richmond Daily Whig, Richmond,  Virginia, Wednesday Morning, January 16, 1861, p. 1. This letter was also published under the title “Letter From Ex-President Tyler,” Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, Friday, January 18, 1861, p. 1