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With regard to the right of secession, it is perhaps proper that I should
say something here also as to my understanding of it. When the original
thirteen States which had participated in the war for independence had
been evacuated by the British, they continued a sort of Congress for the
government of the whole which met at Philadelphia until 1787. The union
of the States then was in the nature of a confederacy, where every State was
quasi independent or sovereign, the Congress not having the power to enforce
any of its laws in any of the States by officers of its own. The result being that
many of the States were in arrears in the payment of their allotted dues
for the maintenance of the government of Congress, and otherwise acted ac-
cording to their own free will in the furnishing of such supplies as they
were responsible for. Certain States too were enacting laws of their own for
the benefit of their commerce, which were in conflict with those passed by
Congress, and altogether, with general consent, it was the opinion that
a general government of that kind, having so little power over the units
composing it would in a very few years fall to pieces from the absence of any
principle of cohesion.

The subject was a serious one and fraught with danger. If such a form
of government continued, there was a liklihood that in a short time
would be lost the fruit of the long years
of war during which so many sacrifices had been made for independence.
Congress then, after careful consideration, decided to call a convention
of delegates from all the States, in numbers according to the population
of each, which would frame a form of government having in reality
distinct powers of its own, and which would be more binding on each
State. In 1787 this Convention met in Philadelphia and adopted a consti-
tution which in course of time was ratified by all the States, the adhe-
sion of all the units being called a Union. Under this "new Constitution,"
as it was called for many years afterwards, the government was
organised in April 1789 at New York with Washington as Presi-
dent and the Senate and House of Representatives as coordinate branches.

Notwithstanding however the vast improvement over
the preceding Confederacy, which had approached so near to a collapse,
the new government of the Union was a weak one also. Certain of the States,
although they had given their adhesion to it were still jealous of their
sovereignty, and before long it became easily apparent that as soon as the
general government should begin to assume and exercise its powers, as
it gradually began to feel stronger, there would be efforts made to
counteract it in certain of the States.

Everything went on smoothly during Washinton's eight years of presi-
dency, but the Federal party which was still in power during the four
years of John Adams, and which was in favor of main=
taining a stong and centralised government, evinced this tendency
in the passage of the alien and sedition laws. These need not be ex-
plained here, but the consequence of their adoption was the Kentuchy
and Virginia resolutions which were the first distinct assertions
of the sovereignty of each state, and of the right of such state to nulli-
fy or declare inoperate any law of Congress which militated against
its interests.

During Mr Jefferson's two terms the party which is now known as the Demo-
cratic, but which at first was called the Republican party, went to an ex-
treme the reverse of the Federal. Everything connected with the presidency was
of the simplest kind, and the disposition towards an official dress for the
President and some kind of ceremony at the levees or receptions gave way
to the plainest of dressing and the most republican simplicity in the
intercourse between the President and those whom he had occasion to see.