The Federal Constitution, Formerly and Now [pp. 149-159]

THIE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.
would be as ample cause for the destruction of it, and of the
Union founded on it, as a failure of nine States, at least, to ratify the Constitution, as it was proposed by the Federal Convent
tion, would have been to make that instrument a nullity and
prevent the establishment of the Union. We are left to con.
jecture what the details would he of these lawless measures
not called revolutionary, as they should be, but fraudulently
disguised by the name of amendments to the Constitution.
One would, we must presume, declare the offices of all the
federal judges vacant, so that they might be occupied by
members of the higher law party. As there is no power to
amend the Constitution, unless it be exercised in a mode pre.
scribed by that instrument, anything called an amendment
adopted in any other mode, would be as destitute of authority
as if the constitution were unchangeable according to its
terms. The constitution of a State is made by a single community in the exercise of the sovereign power of a majority
of her people. This sovereign power will continue to exist
in whoever may be the members at any time of the comnmunity, and the constitution the majority may establish now,
they may annul or change in future. But the Constitution
of the United States was adopted by each State separately,
the people of each ratifying or rejecting it according to the
will of the people without consultation with the citizens of
any other State, no State being bound by the ratification of
it by any or all the other States. A part of the Constitution,
established by the authority of the people of the several
States, authorizes amendments in the modes expressly specified, and therefore impliedly prohibits any in any other mode.
Great as have been the aggressions heretofore c )mmitted by
some of the people of the free States, upon those of the slaveholding States, they are insignificant when compared with such
as must unavoidably follow the subversion of the Constitution
wich the New York Senator has threatened, and will be accomplished, if he should succeed in the traitorous purpose he
has publicly avowed. For more than a quarter of a century,
the people of the slaveholding States have been almost constantly annoyed and vexed by inflammatory appeals which tend, if
they were not designed, to render their slaves discontented, if
not to excite them to insurrection. Slaves of the aggregate
value of hundreds of thousands of dollars, fly annually from
their owners, from plenty and comfort, to find starvation often,
and want and misery generally, among those who encourage
their flight, and frequently accompany and lead it. Owners
151