April 2026 – Circa1865

In his 1881 “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government”, Jefferson Davis revisits the words of New England orator and statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852) regarding the sovereignty of the American States.

Daniel Webster’s View of the Constitution

“Mr. Webster held the views which were presented in a memorial to Congress of citizens of Boston, December 15, 1819, relative to the admission of Missouri as a State, drawn up and signed by a committee of which he was chairman, and which also included among its members Mr. Josiah Quincy.

Mr. Webster speaks of the States as enjoying “the exclusive possession of sovereignty” over their own territory, calls the United States “the American Confederacy” refers to them “the only parties to the Constitution, contemplated by it originally, [and who] were the “thirteen confederated States.”

In letters written and addresses delivered during the Administration of Mr. [Millard] Fillmore, he repeatedly applies to the Constitution the term “compact” which, in 1833, he had so vehemently repudiated. In his speech at Capon Springs, Virginia, in 1851, he says:

“If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in doing year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound to the rest of it? And if the North were, deliberately habitually, and of fixed purpose, to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?

How absurd it is to suppose that, when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard any one provision and expect, nevertheless, the other to observe the rest!”

“I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat that, if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which its respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I. Jefferson Davis. D. Appleton & Co., 1881, pp. 166-167)

Jefferson Davis mused in his magisterial Rise and Fall: “As time rolled on, the General Government gathering with both hands a mass of undelegated powers, reached that position which Mr. Jefferson had pointed out as an intolerable evil – the claim of a right to judge the extent of its own authority.”

A Common Agent Rather Than a King

“In July 1776, the Congress of the thirteen united colonies declared that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” [England’s] denial of this asserted right and the attempted coercion made it manifest that a bond of union was necessary, for the common defense.

In November of the following year, 1777, the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union were entered into by the thirteen States under the style of “The United States of America.” Under the Articles, no amendment to them could be made except by unanimous consent, which hampered the efficient discharge of the functions entrusted to the Congress.

What is the Constitution of the United States?

The whole body of the instrument, the history of its formation and adoption, as well as the Tenth Amendment, added in an abundance of caution, clearly show it to be an instrument enumerating the powers delegated by the States to the Federal Government, their common agent. It is specifically declared that all which was not so delegated was reserved.

On this mass of reserved powers, those which the States declined to grant, the Federal Government was expressly forbidden to intrude. Of what value would this prohibition have been, if three-fourths of the States could, without the assent of a particular State, invade the domain which that State had reserved for its own exclusive use and control?

It [is, I hope], been satisfactorily demonstrated that the States were sovereigns before the formed the Union, and that they have never surrendered their sovereignty, but have only entrusted to their common agent certain functions of sovereignty to be used for their common welfare.”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I. Jefferson Davis. D. Appleton & Co., 1881, pp. 192; 195-196)