Before the war, Davis contrasted the two philosphies of government in the following way:
If a federalist, if believing this to be a Government of force, if believing it to be a consolidated mass and not a confederation of States, he [Buchanan] should have said: no state has a right to secede; every State is subordinate to the Federal Government, and the Federal Government must empower me with physical means to reduce to subjugation the State asserting such a right.If not, if a State-rights man and a Democrat – as for many years it has been my pride to acknowledge our venerable Chief Magistrate to be – then another line of policy should have been taken. The Constitution gave no power to the Federal Government to coerce a State; the Constitution gave an army for the purpose of common defense, and to preserve the domestic tranquility; but the Constitution never contemplated using that army against a State. A State exercising the sovereign function of secession is beyond the reach of the Federal Government, unless we woo her back with the voice of fraternity, and bring her back with enticements of affection.
If the Federalist view was right, why wasn't there a clear statement in the Constitution that thou shalt not secede? Why wasn't it made clear that the states were subservient to the central government? Why didn't the Constitution give the central government the right to coerce dissenting states?
Davis certainly invoked Constitutional arguments, such as the 10th Amendment, on the floor of the Senate in supporting the right to secede. Davis' argument is virtually identical to that of Chief Justice Marshall himself talking about powers that remained with states. From the 1787 ratification debates, here is a summation of a Marshall argument:
The state governments did not derive their powers from the general government; but each government derived its powers from the people, and each was to act according to the powers given it. Would any gentleman deny this? He demanded if powers not given were retained by implication. Could any man say so? Could any man say that this power was not retained by the states, as they had not given it away? For, says he, does not a power remain till it is given away? The state legislatures had power to command and govern their militia before, and have it still, undeniably, unless there be something in this Constitution that takes it away.
There is no power in the laws or Constitution to coerce a state. However, the Militia Act of 1792 gives the president the power to put down insurrection. The Supreme Court ruled in 1862 that he was properly applying this power and this opinion is present in both the majority and dissenting opinions in The Prize Cases.
Walt
If a federalist, if believing this to be a Government of force, if believing it to be a consolidated mass and not a confederation of States, he [Buchanan] should have said: no state has a right to secede; every State is subordinate to the Federal Government, and the Federal Government must empower me with physical means to reduce to subjugation the State asserting such a right.
Buchanan said there was no right to secede unilaterally.
"In his final message to Congress, on December 3, 1860, James Buchanan surprised some of his southern allies with a firm denial of the right of secession. The Union was not "a mere voluntary association of states, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties," said Buchanan. "We the People" had adopted the Constitution to form "a more perfect Union" than the one existing under the Articles of Confederation, which had stated that "the Union shall be perpetual." The framers of the National Government "never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, nor were they guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution." State Sovereignty was NOT superior to national sovereignty, Buchanan insisted. The Constitution bestowed the highest attributes of sovereignty exclusively on the federal government: national defense; foreign policy; regulation of foreign and interstate commerece; coinage of money. "This Constitution," stated the document, and the laws of the United States...shall be the supreme law of the land...anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." (McPherson, p. 246)
Walt