“ [141] contemplated by it originally, were the thirteen confederated States. ”And again: “As between the original States, the representation rests on compact and plighted faith; and your memorialists have no wish that that compact should be disturbed, or that plighted faith in the slightest degree violated.”
It is satisfactory to know that in the closing year of his life, when looking retrospectively, with judgment undisturbed by any extraneous influence, he uttered views of the government which must stand the test of severest scrutiny and defy the storms of agitation, for they are founded on the rock of truth. In letters written and addresses delivered during the administration of Fillmore, he repeatedly applies to the Constitution the term “compact,” which, in 1833, he had so vehemently repudiated. In his speech at Capon Springs, Virginia, in 1851, he says:
If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound by the rest of it? And if the North were, deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purpose, to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations? . . .How absurd it is to suppose that, when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard any one provision, and expect, nevertheless, the other to observe the rest! . . .
I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that, if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain can not be broken on one side, and still bind the other side.1
The principles which have been set forth in the foregoing chapters, although they had come to be considered as peculiarly Southern, were not sectional in their origin. In the beginning and earlier years of our history they were cherished as faithfully and guarded as jealously in Massachusetts and New Hampshire as in Virginia or South Carolina. It was in these principles that I was nurtured. I have frankly proclaimed them during my whole life, always contending in the Senate of the United States against what I believed to be the mistaken construction of the Constitution taught by Webster and his adherents. While I honored the genius of that great man, and held friendly personal relations with him, I considered his doctrines on these points—or rather the doctrines advocated by him during the most conspicuous and influential portions of his public career—to be mischievous, and the more dangerous to the welfare of the country and the liberties of mankind on account of the signal ability and magnificent eloquence with which they were argued.
