File:The war between the states; or, Was secession a constitutional right previous to the war of 1861-65? - (1915) (14756061656).jpg

Identifier: warbetweenstates5833bled (find matches)
Title: The war between the states; or, Was secession a constitutional right previous to the war of 1861-65? :
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Bledsoe, Albert Taylor, 1809-1877
Subjects: Secession
Publisher: Lynchburg, VA : J.P. Bell Co., Inc.
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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is clause: Resolved, That in the opinion of this Con-vention that as soon as the Convention of nine Statesshall have ratified this Constitution, the United States inCongress assembled should fix a day on which electorsshould be appointed by the States which shall haveratified the same, etc. Not one of the fathers of theConstitution ever imagined that it was not ratified by theStates. But in this instance, as well as in many others,their most familiar idea is repudiated, and their mostexplicit language is contradicted by Mr. Motley. In the sentence next to the one above quoted fromMotley, he says: The States never acceded to it (theConstitution), and possess no power to secede from it.^This peremptory and flat contradiction of the language ofthe fathers of the .Constitution deserves no further notice,since it has already been sufficiently exposed. Art. V. - Resolutions which, by the unanimous order of the Conventionof 1787, was forwarded with the Constitution to Congress.^ Chapter iii.
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A. T. Bledsoe CHAPTEE VII THE CONSTITUTION A COMPACT BETWEEN THE STATES THE LANGUAGE OF THE CONSTITUTION The Preamble Quoted. We the people of the UnitedStates, in order to form a more perfect union, . . .do ordain and establish this Constitution for the UnitedStates of America. The first clause of this preamble tothe Constitution, wholly detached from its history andfrom every other portion of the same instrument, as wellas from all the contemporary and subsequent expositionsof its authors, is made the very corner-stone of theNorthern theory of the general government of the UnitedStates. That tremendous theory, or scheme of power, hasbeen erected on this naked, isolated, and, as we expect toshow, grossly misinterpreted clause. From the bare words of this clause it is concluded, bothby Story and Webster, that the Constitution was estab-lished or ratified, not by a federal but by a national act;or, in other terms, that it was not ratified by the States,but by a power superior to the St

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