Slavery and States' Rights - in Which Wheeler Argues That Secession Is A Right

In Which Wheeler Argues That Secession Is A Right

Wheeler argued that the right of the South to secede from the Union was clearly a historically proven right.

Wheeler quotes Horace Greeley, "If the Declaration of Independence justifies the secession from the British Empire of three million colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of southerns from the Federal Union in 1861."

He also mentions the Shay Rebellion in Massachusetts, the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania, the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island, and the Hartford Convention in Connecticut.

Wheeler adds, "For more than half a century the South had been taught by their northern brethren that when the people of a State found that it was not to their advantage to remain in the Union it was not only their privilege but their duty to peacefully withdraw from it."

Wheeler then quoted from John Quincy Adams, "If the day should ever come when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other...far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship from each other than to be held together by constraint."

Wheeler notes, "Mr. Adams and the people of New England generally regarded these views as the correct interpretation of the original compact which bound the people together."

Wheeler adds (reading from the Congressional Globe, volume XI, page 977), "Three years later, on January 24, 1842, Mr. Adams presented the petition of sundry citizens of Haverhill, in the State of Massachusetts, praying that Congress will immediately adopt measures favorably to dissolve the union of these States."

Wheeler continues, "On page 980, Adams spoke, 'I hold that it is no perjury, that it is no high-treason, but the exercise of a sacred right to offer such a petition.'"

Wheeler goes on, "Mr. Gilmer, page 983, introduced the following resolution: Resolved, That in presenting to the consideration of this House a petition for the dissolution of the Union, the member from Massachusetts (Mr. Adams) has justly incurred the censure of this House."

Wheeler went on to argue that the failure of the House to pass Gilmer's resolution was a clear demonstration that the house agreed with Adams's statements.

Wheeler also read from the Acts and resolutions passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts in the year 1844", page 319, "2. Resolved, That the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the threshold, may drive these States into a dissolution of the Union."