14 Southern Historical Society Papers.
could not lawfully use force against any of its members. As the Federalist, the organ of the Consolidation party, expressed it, " the States were still to be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns."
It should be noted that the existence and legality of slavery is recognized in three places in the Constitution, and that a disregard of these provisions, or the obligations arising therefrom, is in itself cause sufficient to justify a disruption of the Union, as a " contract violated on one side is abrogated on all sides."
It is further noticeable that the eleven States which first adopted the Constitution were seceders from the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and from the two States which remained loyal to the Federation, and that the States thus adopting the Constitu- tion were in a position exactly analogous to that of the Confederate States in 1861.
Finally, in 1790, the last of the original thirteen States acceded to the new Constitution (some of them with great reluctance, New York and Rhode Island expressly reserving the right to secede), and the United States of America was launched upon its career.
It is worthy of thoughtful consideration that "the Northern States declared in convention, that they had but one motive for forming a Constitution, and that was commerce."
The causes which led to the rupture between the Northern and Southern States began to make themselves felt within a very few years after the adoption of the Constitution. Probably the seeds of inevitable controversy were sown by the attempt to found the Federal fabric upon an agreement in writing, which must, on ac- count of the limitations of language, be subject to varied construc- tions.
A POLITICAL BARGAIN.
The adoption of the Constitution was effected by a political bar- gain, whereby to the South was secured the peaceable possession of its slaves, and to the North the benefits of Navigation Acts and protection. Thus with their own mouths and by their own acts the Northern States proclaimed the worship of Mammon, to which they have ever been faithful. Having gained by the political bargain every advantage they desired in the Navigation Acts and protec- tion, and thinking that they had squeezed out of the institution of slavery every possible financial profit that could accrue to them- selves, their conscience smote them that they should have endorsed
