It was opposed to the
increasingly national outlook of a large majority of the American
people. They would not submit to a conception of the American political
system, designed exclusively to give legal protection to property in
negroes, and resulting substantially in the nationalization of slavery.
They insisted upon a conception of the Constitution, which made the
national organization the expression of a democratic idea, more
comprehensive and dignified than that of existing legal rights; and in
so doing the Northerners undoubtedly had behind them, not merely the
sound political idea, but also a fair share of the living American
tradition. The Southerners had pushed the traditional worship of
Constitutional rights to a point which subordinated the whole American
legal system to the needs of one peculiar and incongruous institution,
and such an innovation was bound to be revolutionary. But when the North
proposed to put its nationalistic interpretation of the Constitution
into effect, and to prevent the South by force from seceding, the South
could claim for its resistance a larger share of the American tradition
than could the North for its coercion.
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