I Myself Think That The Southern Or Gulf
States Will Go.
I will not pretend to draw the exact line or to say
how many of them are doomed; but I believe that South Carolina, with
Georgia and perhaps five or six others, will be extruded from the
Union.
But their very extrusion will be a political success, and
will in fact amount to a virtual acknowledgment in the body of the
Union of the truth of that system for which the conservative
Republican party has contended. If the North obtain the power of
settling that question of boundary, the abandonment of those
Southern States will be a success, even though the privilege of
retaining them be the very point for which the North is now in arms.
The first clause of the Constitution declares that all the
legislative powers granted by the Constitution shall be vested in a
Congress, which shall consist of a Senate and of a House of
Representatives. The House of Representatives is to be rechosen
every two years, and shall be elected by the people, such persons in
each State having votes for the national Congress as have votes for
the legislature of their own States. If, therefore, South Carolina
should choose - as she has chosen - to declare that the electors of
her own legislature shall possess a property qualification, the
electors of members of Congress from South Carolina must also have
that qualification. In Massachusetts universal suffrage now
prevails, although it is not long since a low property qualification
prevailed even in Massachusetts.
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