nine of the
States only. What right had those nine States to separate from the
other four?

Mr. SEDDON:--The right of secession.

Mr. JOHNSON:--I won't dispute about terms. In all such discussions,
Heaven save me from a Virginia politician!

The opinions of Mr. MADISON upon the Constitution are certainly
entitled to value. He had more to do with making it than any other
statesman of the time. I desire to read an opinion of his, which will
be found in number forty-two of the Federalist:

"Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves
on this occasion:--1. On what principle the Confederation,
which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the
States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of
the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist between
the nine or more States ratifying the Constitution, and the
remaining few who do not become parties to it?

"The first question is answered at once by recurring to the
absolute necessity of the case, to the great principle of
self-preservation, to the transcendent law of nature and of
nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness
of society are the objects at which all political
institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be
sacrificed."

Now, apply these principles to the present condition of the country.
The cases are exactly parallel. Mr. MADISON says in substance, that if
one section of the Union refuses to recognize and protect the rights
of another--in other words, if the free States now refuse to guarantee
the rights of the South, that there is a right of self-preservation, a
law of nature and nature's God, which is above all Constitutions. I am
not here to inquire whether the South has a right to go out if these
guarantees are not given. That is a question which I will not argue.
Some of the States have already gone. I hold that to be a fact
established.

Now, I put it to my friends of the North: Do you want us to go out?
You are a great people, a great country--a powerful people, a rich
country. No threat or intimidation shall ever come from me to such a
people. I ask you in all sadness whether, in the light of all our
glory, of all our happiness and prosperity, whether you will, by
withholding a thing that it will not harm you to grant, suffer us,
compel us to depart? Let me read what was said by the same great man
of Virginia, in anti