PREFACE.

Soon after its establishment, by Mr. Pryor, in Richmond city, I communicated to The South newspaper the theory of an equilibrium in the Federal Constitution, which is the principal subject of this volume. As far as I am informed, the intention on the part of its framers to introduce that principle, had not been suggested by any one since the government went into operation. Subsequent examination confirmed me in the belief of the sectional nature of the compact, and the intention of the Federal Convention to balance power between the North and the South. The means by which that end was to be achieved, together with the means adopted by Congress to prevent it, I thought worthy of a more extended investigation, and therefore have written this book. In the chapter which relates to the ratification of the Constitution by Virginia, several threads of history have been woven in, together with an enquiry into the cause of the decline of that Commonwealth; and in this connection I beg leave to acknowledge the advantage that I have derived from consulting the pages of Mr. Grigsby-I mean with reference to the source from which the bulk of the population of Virginia was derived.

The different parts have been written at different times, as inclination might prompt or business allow, and are now hastily thrown together because of a supposed application of this subject to the present state of public affairs.

I will not apologize for my subject, as though by any comparison it were unimportant; but I will confess a diffidence of the value added by my own handling. In the remarks on our own history, the order of time is neither strictly observed, nor greatly neglected.

"Yet it is designed, slight and imperfect as it is, for the service of Truth, by one who would be glad to attend and grace her triumphs; as her soldier, if he has had the honor to serve successfully under her banner; or as a captive tied to her chariot wheels, if he has, though undesignedly, committed any offence against her."

FEBRUARY 25, 1860.

THE SECTIONAL EQUILIBRIUM.

PART I.

How it was Created.

CHAPTER I.

When a broad table is to be made and the edges of the planks do not fit, the artist takes a little from both and makes a good joint. In like manner, here, both sides must part with some of their demands.-Dr. FRANKLIN.

In the Constitutional Convention of 1829, WATKINS LEIGH said: "The Federal Convention of 1787 had, for the first time, to arrange a representation of the people in Congress. What was the origin of the Federal number I do not certainly know. I have had recourse, in vain, to every source of information accessible to ascertain how that precise proportion of slaves-THREE-FIFTHS-came to be adopted, what mode or principle of estimate led to it. Some reason there must have been."

It is my purpose, in the following pages, to solve this question of constitutional history-to ascertain the reason that operated on the Convention which constructed the government under which we live, to adopt in the popular basis the fractional representation which was awarded to the servile. population of the South. The Report of "The Debates of the Convention of 1787," by Mr. Madison, enables me to do this. It is the only source from which that information can be derived, for the fragment of those proceedings preserved by Judge Yates, affords no clue whatever to the solution of this

interesting problem. "The Debates," in 1829, were not published, but slept in manuscript, at Montpelier, until the death of Mr. Madison broke the seal.

This part of the organic law has excited but little curiosity, and yet it is the ground-work of the political edifice, with reference to which every other part was made. A just understanding of this part of the Constitution will furnish, if I mistake not, an explanation of many of those questions that have convulsed the North and South, and will supply us with the means of ascertaining how far we have departed from the true meaning of that instrument-how far the ship of State has drifted from the intended course.

Mr. Madison was himself a member of the Convention of 1829, and heard the enquiry of Mr. Leigh, but said nothing. Why he stood mute on that occasion, when a true account of the fractional basis would have added strength to the side which he himself advocated, I know not. Let those who reverence the character and eulogize the memory of Madison. divine his motives. His explanation of that fundamental part of the federal charter, might not have accorded well with his declared opinions in federal politics, and it is possible that he shrunk from the keen and searching analysis of the powerful minds that illustrated that assemblage.

The Constitution of the United States is generally understood to be a compact to which the several States are parties; and hence, that all the rights which it provides are State rights, and the remedies for the violation of those rights, State remedies. In consequence of this view of the Constitution, State secession and State interposition have been suggested as the modes of redress in the several cases to which they apply. But I shall attempt to prove, by authentic evidence, that this is not true in the exclusive sense in which it has been stated.

The Constitution is, indeed, a compact between States, but it is also a compact between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding sections; and those sections are susceptible of obligations and injuries. This is not the least interesting light in

which the Constitution presents itself, and thus viewed is a Great Treaty between two nations of opposite civilizations, and, in many respects, opposite interests, making the federal system even more complex than it has been generally supposed to be.

The true character of the Constitution, and the government which has grown out of it, is illustrated by the political parties which have arisen under it. At first, a consolidating tendency threatened to absorb the States. This produced the State Rights party—a school founded by Jefferson and Madison, and afterwards sustained by a succession of great men, of whom Calhoun was the most illustrious. Calhoun devoted the energies of his wonderful intellect to developing this theory of the Constitution. Perceiving that the congressional or departmental checks were of a subordinate character, and did not operate to restrain the ruling power of the Constitution, he attempted to eliminate from the government a veto power in the hands of the States, which he denominated an Equilibrium, but so denominated for no better reason, as I conceive, than that its originator would have employed it as an imperfect substitute for that wise and healing principle.

An Equilibrium, properly so called; enters into the govern-. ment and is its living principle. It is ever present; it assists in the deliberations of the Legislature and partakes of the enactment of laws; it moderates the Judicial power, and in the execution of the laws tempers the Executive. But the States, acting as Tribunes, as they have been called from their fancied resemblance to that Roman officer, are not present in the legislative chambers to arrest the passage of bills, but are to be invoked to unravel that which has been woven, to repeal that which has been enacted, to undo that which has been done, and that only within the narrow limits of a State jurisdiction, and in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of powers, not granted by the Constitution. But the Equilibrium is confined by no bounds to its discretion, nor even to cases where the Constitution is supposed to be infracted,