The Constitutionality of secession.
--The London Standard, of the 2d of October, has a ‘"leader"’ in reply to an essay in McMillan's Magazine, on the American question and the right of secession. We quote the following extract:‘ A State withdrawing from an alliance of a permanent nature may, according both to principle and precedent, be justly compelled to return by war, if other means fail.
If half a Confederacy secede, however, both policy and justice would be better satisfied by a peaceable separation; and the case of the Federal (American) Government, in the present war is as doubtful as any case ever was. It rests its defence on the unconstitutionality of secession, and every act of coercion it has yet attempted is, at least, equally unconstitutional.* * * * * * * *
The fact that the South cannot be attacked without breaking the very compact by which the attack is justified is surely a strong reason for letting it alone.
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