Chapter 8

'16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, according to the discipline proscribed by Congress.

'18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.'

The first two words in this section--'the Congress'--completely annul the separate integrity of States. The Congress of what, and for what? The Congress of the UNITED STATES, acting for the UNITED States, as a UNIT, a WHOLE, a UNION. The only allusion in this section to any thing like a right existing in any State after the adoption of the Constitution, is the right to officer the militia, and these officers are to 'train' the militia, _under the direction of Congress_, and not under State laws--a clause which of itself strikes a decisive blow at the theory of independent State rights. In no one of these specifications is there a single allusion to any 'State.' Every power enumerated is given to the '_United_ States,' to the 'Union' formed by virtue of the Constitution. Never was there a more perfect absorption of atoms into one mass, than in these specifications; but to make the principle still stronger, and as if to remove any doubt as to 'State rights,' the first clause of the Ninth Section of the same Article expressly prohibits any State from importing certain persons after a given date, which, when it arrived, (in 1808,) Congress passed a national law stopping the slave-trade--a trade that some of the States would have been glad to encourage, or at least, allow, if they had had authority to do so. This right was taken from them by the Constitution, in the year 1808; up to that time they had that right; but after that date the right no longer existed, and Congress passed the law referred to, in accordance with the power given them by this clause of the Constitution.

But this First Article of Section Nine is not all in that section that smothers State rights; for Article Five declares that vessels bound to or from one State need not enter, clear, or pay duties in another. Why this specification, if the States were to be supreme in their own limits? (and this doctrine of State rights is, in its essence, supremacy.) Independent states exact clearances and entrances, and demand duties from foreign vessels, but never from their own. State rights are ignored in this Article. But to prevent any possibility of any State ever exercising the rights of sovereignty now claimed by the advocates of this most pernicious doctrine, from which has grown the present gigantic rebellion, Section Ten, of the same Article, goes on to declare that--

'1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, _ex post facto_ law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility.

'2. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war.'

Language can not be stronger; intentions were never more clearly expressed; thoughts were never more explicitly set forth in words. Nothing is left for doubt; all is concise, positive, and binding. Nothing is left to be guessed at; nothing left that could be construed to mean that States 'may' or 'may not.' 'SHALL' and 'SHALL NOT,' are the words used to define what the States are to do or not to do. The very slight 'right' given to the States to lay duties for executing their inspection laws, carries with it a proviso, or command, that the proceeds of such duties must be paid into the National Treasury, and the very laws that the States might pass for this purpose must be approved by 'THE CONGRESS.' What Congress? The Congress of the UNITED STATES--of the UNION. Every vestige of State sovereignty, of 'State rights,' is utterly annihilated in these clauses.

Independent, sovereign states may and do make treaties, alliances, grant letters of marque, or coin money; in fact, no 'State' or sovereignty can exist without these powers; and the fact that these powers are all taken from and denied to the States of the American Union, is conclusive proof that the framers of the Constitution did not intend to allow the States the sovereignty now claimed for them, and which the rebellious States are endeavoring to maintain. This heresy must be exorcised now and forever.

Is there any thing more in the Constitution (and bear in mind that no right is claimed for any State except in accordance with this instrument, which is still in full force except in those rebellious States where this disorganizing doctrine of 'State rights' has uncontrolled sway) making the Union supreme and the States subordinate? What says the following section?

'Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.'

A State, therefore, _may_ so legislate, that is, it _may_ have acts and records, but each other State SHALL give to the records and proceedings of all the rest 'full faith and credit.' Does not this enactment thoroughly negative all theories of the exclusive supremacy of State rights? Independent sovereign States do not, in the absence of treaties, give any faith or credit to the records or proceedings of other independent states. Our States are not only compelled to do this, by this section, but must do so in accordance with the manner prescribed by 'the Congress' of the UNITED STATES, of the UNION, and of the NATION. No other congress is mentioned.

'SECTION 2.

'The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.'

By this clause a native or naturalized citizen of Maine can conduct business, hold and convey real estate (the highest civil, social, and judicial tests of citizenship) in the State of Georgia. The citizen of Minnesota can do likewise in New-York, and so of each and in all the States. Independent states or supreme sovereignties do not allow these privileges to any but their own citizens. The United States do not, neither do other nations. Citizenship must precede the right to hold and convey real estate. All governments are naturally jealous of the alien. By this clause, no American citizen can be an alien in any State of the American Union. He is a citizen of the nation. No State can pass any law demanding more of a citizen not born, though residing within its limits, than from one born therein, or place him under any restrictions not common to the native or other citizen of such State. Not a vestige of 'State' exclusiveness is there in the clause. Every idea of State supremacy is blotted out by it. A heavier blow is, however, dealt at State rights in the following section:

'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, (when the Legislature can not be convened,) against domestic violence.'

The greatest of all rights that an independent state can or may have, is the right to adopt its own form of government; but this clause completely destroys such right on the part of any State of this Union to frame its own form of government. No State, for example, can have a monarchical government; since the United States are to guarantee a _republican_ form: and no State can adopt an hereditary or theocratic government, because the UNITED STATES are bound to give each State a republican government. In like manner we might run through all the forms of government that have ever blessed or cursed our race, without finding one which can he adopted by any State of this Union, except the single form of 'republican,' named in the Constitution. But can a State bereft of the right to frame its own mode of government be said to be possessed of '_sovereign_' 'State rights,' or could a more effectual provision against their development have been formed than this?

'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby; any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

'The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several STATE LEGISLATURES, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the SEVERAL STATES, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.'

This Constitution, these laws, these treaties, _shall be the supreme law_, no matter what 'State' constitutions and 'State' laws may declare. 'Shall!' is the word, and there can be no doubt as to its meaning. Again, members of the State Legislatures, and all officers of the several States 'shall' be bound to support the 'Constitution.' Where are the 'State rights' in these clauses? Every State and every State official is made subordinate to and an executive of the acts of the 'United States,' and the United States constitutes a '_nation_'. That is the only word which meets our case. WE ARE A NATION, not 'a tenant-at-will sort of confederacy.'

The waters of the Bay of New-York and of the Hudson river flow entirely within the States of New-York and New-Jersey. One of the vested rights of an independent state, is that known as 'eminent domain,' or supreme ownership, implying control. Apply this doctrine of State rights in this case, or rather, allow it to be applied by the States named above, and they could prevent the navigation of these waters by any but their own citizens or those to whom they might grant that privilege. If this doctrine of State rights is sound, these two States would have the right to levy tolls or duties on every vessel that sails those waters, as the State of New-York exacts tolls on her canals. Such power thus exercised, would cripple commerce, inconvenience the public, and utterly destroy all comity between the States. This exacting tolls for navigation of waters is one of the most offensive systems left us by past generations. It is so odious that modern governments decline to submit to it in cases where there is no doubt as to 'State rights,' as in that of the 'Sound Dues' exacted by Denmark. If, however, the State is supreme within its limits, it has a perfect right to exact such tolls. But no State in this nation has any such right under the Constitution. Its existence would destroy the Union by placing each State under the laws and exactions of either one of the others. The troubles growing out of such exactions would beget dispute; these disputes would beget open strife, which would end in open rupture and the downfall of the NATIONAL UNION.

The 'UNITED STATES,' 'the Union,' 'the Nation,' are _supreme_. The States, _as States_, are subordinate; as 'parts,' they are inferior to the 'whole.' The 'State rights' doctrine is wrong, disorganizing, destructive of national life, and must be destroyed.

Again, one grand evidence of a nation's or a people's civilization, is found in the correspondence, written and printed, conducted by the citizens. Barbarians have and need no correspondence. Civilization needs it, and can not exist without it. A migratory people like ours have more correspondence than older and less migratory nations. A citizen emigrating from Vermont to Illinois must correspond with the friends of his old home. The old friend in Vermont must know how the absent one 'gets along in the world.' To conduct this correspondence, the postal or mail service was devised. Before its existence the communication between separated friends and business people was uncertain, irregular, and mere matter of chance, to be conveyed by stray travelers, or not interchanged at all. The _necessities_ of civilization brought the postal or mail service into action. To conduct this service over a nation, requires the right of passage through the entire limits of the nation. This right, to be available, must have power to enforce its own requirements. It must be _central_, CONTROLLING, SUPREME. Without these, there would be no safety, no system, no uniformity, no regularity. To insure these to all the people of the States, the Constitution has wisely placed these powers in 'THE CONGRESS' of the Union, of the 'NATION.' In accordance with the powers thus vested in Congress, our present postal or mail service has been created. No State has a right to set up its own mail or postal system. No State has a right to interfere with the transportation of the national mails. 'The UNITED STATES MAIL,' is the term used. If any State had a right to establish a mail within its own limits, it would also have the right to prohibit or curtail the transportation of other States' mails through its limits. This right would destroy the entire system, and break up the interchange of correspondence so essential to our civilization. If the States had any such right, they could affix discriminating tariffs on the correspondence of other States passing through them. The State of New-York could, if this right existed, make the letters sent over its roads by the people of Massachusetts to the people of Ohio, pay just such tariffs for the 'right of passage' as it might choose. The absurdity and utter unreasonableness of this claimed right is so apparent as to need no argument against it.

The exercise of this pretended right by the Southern States has caused the present rebellion. But for this doctrine we should not be expending a million a day in supporting six hundred thousand men in camp, who ought to be producers for the support of life instead of missionaries of death. This war is the legitimate result of this heresy of 'State rights.' If this doctrine had never been put in practice, we should not now have slavery to curse us with its degrading, inhumanizing influences. Slavery exists in _violation_ of the Constitution. Slavery was never established by that document. The States violated it in their attempts at legalizing it. All their laws declaring that the _status_ of the child must be that of the mother, are but so many 'BILLS OF ATTAINDER,' working 'CORRUPTION OF BLOOD;' and every State, as well as Congress itself, was and is positively prohibited by the Constitution from passing any such bill or law; and should we ever succeed in having any but a pro-slavery, slave-catching Supreme Court, all these laws will be annulled by their own most positive unconstitutionally. True, there were slaves at the time the Constitution was adopted, but all then living are now dead; and but for this doctrine of 'State rights,' there never would have been any State law making the child of a slave mother also a slave; but for this doctrine no such bill of attainder would have been passed, or if passed, it never could have been enforced; and we should not to-day be listening to the cries of four millions of slaves, nor have the homes of thousands of honest citizens made desolate by the absence of loved ones. But for this terrible doctrine, 'the click of hammers closing rivets up,' would not now be giving 'dreadful note of preparation.' But for this heresy, subversive of all law, of all order, of all nationality, we should not to-day be at war for our existence. But for this doctrine, and the right claimed by some of the States to extend their 'bills of attainder,' working corruption of blood over the entire Union, we should not have our homes filled with grief and our streets covered with the funeral pageants of brave men killed in defense of the Union. We want no more evidence of the accursed nature of the doctrine of 'State rights.' We are a UNION--a NATION. We must have NATIONAL LAWS, NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, NATIONAL FREEDOM. We have had too much of State law, too much of State rights, too much of State slavery. The NATION MUST BE SUPREME. The States must be subordinate. As we uphold and perpetuate the National authority, so will be our existence as a people. As we detract from this, so will be our weakness and downfall.

GOD PRESERVE THE NATION!

* * * * *

ROANOKE ISLAND.

THE SITE OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY IN AMERICA.

'I know that historians do borrow of poets, not only much of their ornament but somewhat of their substance.'--_Raleigh's History of the World._

The name of Roanoke Island awakens in the mind of every lover of American history, sentiments of veneration and respect. It carries us back to the days of England's great Queen, to ruffs and rapiers, and calls up the memories of the gallant but unfortunate Raleigh, and of the brave knights, Grenville, Lane, and White, men who made their mark in history even in that golden era of chivalry and enterprise.

Let us go back through the vista of nearly three centuries, and trace the history of this spot where our language was first spoken and written on this continent. When we recall the first occupation of this island by the English, and picture to ourselves the Indians in their normal state, with their dress, habitations, and implements, so picturesque and unique, as well as the gallant gentlemen in the costume of that picturesque age, it seems almost to border on romance. But there is a dark side to the picture. The sombre veil of uncertainty hangs over the fate of two entire colonies, which, if lifted, would consecrate this spot to the extremes of suffering and bloodshed. It was, no doubt, better to have these scenes buried in oblivion, and for each succeeding historian to fill up this chapter with his own fancies, than to be able to give the minute details of long days and months of probable famine, pestilence, war, captivity, and torture, which have occurred here or in the immediate vicinity. The certain knowledge of them would have awakened in their countrymen sentiments of retaliation and vengeance, and a fearful retribution would have been meted but to the natives, and have fallen upon the innocent as well as the guilty.

It was not until about the commencement of the sixteenth century that England could be considered one of the great maritime powers in Europe. Although Henry the Seventh had authorized Cabot to prosecute a voyage of discovery as early as 1497, in which he discovered the continent, thus actually anticipating Columbus, who did not discover it till the succeeding year, no real attempts at colonization took place until a century afterward. In 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth to colonize such parts of North-America as were not then occupied by any of her allies. Soon after, he, assisted and accompanied by his step-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, fitted out an expedition and sailed for America; but they were intercepted by a Spanish fleet, and returned unsuccessful.

In 1583, they equipped a new squadron, in which Raleigh did not embark. This enterprise failed, and Sir Humphrey perished at sea. Still Raleigh was not disheartened. He had been a soldier in the religious war then raging in France, and associated with the Protestant admiral, Coligny, and many of his officers, whose ill-fated colony met so bloody a fate near the river St. John. Doubtless, during his intercourse with these men, their experience in Florida often became the theme of discourse, and it may be that from it he imbibed that passion for discovery and colonization in America, which ended only with his life. He doubtless learned of the voyage of Verranzo, who, in the employ of France, had, in 1524, coasted from Cape Fear to Rhode Island; but still our shores were hardly more than a myth, and the country north of the peninsula of Florida a _terra incognita_. Early in 1584, Raleigh, then a gallant courtier, received a grant from Elizabeth to 'discover and find out such remote and heathen lands, not actually possessed or inhabited by any Christian King, or his subjects, and there to have, hold, fortify, and possess, in fee-simple to him and his associates and their heirs forever, with privileges of allegiance to the crown of all that might there reside; they and their descendants.'

This grant would apply to any portion of the globe not claimed or inhabited by the subjects of a Christian prince. The grant bears date March 25th, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1584. Raleigh anticipated its passing the great seal, and probably had for some months been making preparations for a voyage of discovery under this patent. So energetic was he, that two barks were prepared and dispatched from the west of England on the 27th of April. They were under the commands of Captains Amidas and Barlow, with Simeon Fernando as pilot, who, it may be presumed from the name, was a Spaniard, and no doubt had been on this coast before. They took the route by way of the Canaries and West-India Islands, and by the tenth of May had reached the former, and by the tenth of June the latter, where they staid twelve days.

Continuing their voyage, on the second of July they found shoal water, where they say[K]: 'We smelled so sweet and strange a smell, as if we had been in the midst of a delicate garden, abounding with all kinds of odoriferous herbs and flowers, so we were assured that the land could not be far distant; and keeping good watch, and bearing but slack sail, the fourth of the same month we arrived upon the coast, which we supposed to be a continent, and firm land; and we sailed along the same a hundred and twenty miles, before we could find any entrance or river issuing into the sea.'

They entered the first inlet which appeared, 'but not without difficulty, and anchored on the left-hand side.' Subsequent historians have written much to settle the long-disputed question, by what channel or inlet the earliest English navigators entered. After a careful examination of the early and of later authorities, and with some practical acquaintance with the localities, I am of the opinion that they must have entered by what is now known as Hatteras Inlet. 'The island twenty miles long and not over six miles broad,' was that part of the banks or shore between this inlet and that now known as Ocracoke.