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The long answer is yes, with an if, and the short answer is no, with a but.The relevant enabling sections of the Constitution are in:the Tax and Spend Clause, (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1,) which also contains the requirements oforiginating with the House of Representatives,must be spent on paying for either the debts of the Federal government, for the “common defense,” (military that defends all of the individual States collectively,) and “general welfare of the United States,” andmust be uniform throughout the States (so, no taxing California residents higher than Florida residents).The 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913, which permits an income tax. Specifically, it states: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”The Necessary and Proper Clause, (Article I, Section 8, Clause 18), which has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819 as “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.”Additionally, the Constitution puts some limitations on this taxing power:Article I, Section 2 requires direct taxes to be apportioned to the States according to respective numbers; how those numbers are determined was modified by the 14th Amendment, Section 2 to fix the whole “black people are only 60% human” problem.This same concept is reiterated against in Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, which reads: “No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”Article I, Section 9, Clause 5 prohibits the Federal government from taxing “Articles” moving around between the States; essentially, Congress can’t take a cut of interstate commerce. Free trade between the States.I can never stress enough the concept of the nation at the time that the original Constitution was drafted to be a weak federation, essentially slightly more centralized than say, the European Union. The individual States saw themselves as little independent countries unto themselves, not as provinces of a single nation. The “Anti-Federalist” faction was deeply against the proposed Constitution for that very reason — they saw it as a step towards losing their individual national sovereignty towards a centralized government.There is still tension today between the same two factions: one who sees our form of government as barely one step above confederacy, with the individual States basically in a loose coalition with a mutual defense pact, and another that prefers the concept of strong federation, with a more centralized national government and weaker individual sub-unit States.Based on these enabling sections of the Constitution, their limitations, and the document’s history, it would depend on precisely how the Federal government would tax that wealth.If the Federal government is taxing wealth in the form of capital gains, carried income, or the passing of wealth to subsequent generations, the 16th Amendment plainly enables such laws as constitutional, because these are income “from whatever source derived.” They are income because wealth is transferring hands; someone is literally receiving money as income.Indirect taxes are also fine. Indirect taxes are things that depend on some event or transaction taking place. That’s why there can be a national sales tax, such as the gasoline tax. Right now, every time you buy a gallon of gasoline, 18.4 cents goes to the Feds. 24.4 cents if you buy diesel.The Feds can levy tariffs on out-of-country things you want to import, and excise taxes on things you want to ship back out again. If you want your wealth to go anywhere, Uncle Sam can (and will) take a cut.So, if some hypothetical representative or Senator in Congress, let’s call her Lizzie Nerraw for no actual reason whatsoever I swear, were to propose a 14,000% tax on luxury yachts that cost more than $1,000,000 apiece every time one is sold, serviced, refueled, inherited, or imported from Dubai, that would probably be constitutional, and a way of capturing wealth from certain very wealthy individuals.A marginal income tax of 150% on all income carried from interest-bearing accounts that exceeds $1,000,000 per year in income would probably be constitutional, and a way of capturing wealth from certain very wealthy individuals who receive most of their income from carried interest.These might not be good ideas, but they’re arguably not unconstitutional, at least.Direct taxes, on the other hand, are taxes on present wealth that do not depend on some event or transaction from taking place. Taxing someone’s net worth, for example, would be a direct tax. Property taxes are the most common form of direct tax.And direct taxes at the Federal level, as it turns out, are where the excrement impacts the atmospheric mass mover.This is where it’s helpful to go back to the Constitutional Convention and the drafting of these provisions limiting Congress’ power to tax.Understand, one of the primary reasons that the predecessor document to the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, completely failed was that the Continental government had almost zero power to actually raise any revenue. It was flat broke in 1787. It could request money from the States, who were under no obligation to send it. You can guess how many of them voluntarily did.To make this new proposed federalized system work, Congress had to have more power to raise revenues. That’s where the whole Tax and Spend Clause itself came in.Then a bunch of Southern plantation owners just about lost their minds over this, because they had a lot fewer people owning a lot more property individually than their more populous Northern neighbors. A national property tax could mean that Southern land-and-slaveowners might get nailed with a huge individual tax bill; one slaveowning guy in North Carolina might end up paying fifty times as much as some non-slaveowning guy in Massachusetts, because his property would be worth fifty times as much.So, they got Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 put in to make sure that they had to be taxed in direct proportion to their population. Plus, they got that whole 3/5ths “Compromise” thrown in for good measure. All the power of having tons of population with only a handful of people actually owning things! Once this clause got put in, some of these guys were really sold that this would be great for the South and totally worth the other downfalls of ratifying the Constitution.Take this piece of a letter recommending the new Constitution to the governor of North Carolina from three of the representatives to the Convention:We had many things to hope from a National Government and the chief thing we had to fear from such a Government was the Risque of unequal or heavy Taxation, but we hope you will believe as we do that the Southern States in general and North Carolina in particular are well secured on that head by the proposed system. It is provided in the 9th Section of Article the first that no Capitation or other direct Tax shall be laid except in proportion to the number of Inhabitants, in which number five blacks are only Counted as three. If a land tax is laid we are to pay the same rate, for Example: fifty Citizens of North Carolina can be taxed no more for all their Lands than fifty Citizens in one of the Eastern States. This must be greatly in our favour for as most of their Farms are small & many of them live in Towns we certainly have, one with another, land of twice the value that they Possess. When it is also considered that five Negroes are only to be charged the Same Poll Tax as three whites the advantage must be considerably increased under the proposed Form of Government.(Side note, we really tend to leave off just how much really shitty racism was incorporated into the Constitution by design and the reasons for a rather significant part of its provisions. Constitutional originalism conveniently forgets all about this when taking a textual interpretation approach. But I digress.)So, anyways, the only way the Feds can levy a direct tax on wealth is if it is directly levied proportional to each State based on population. That is, 50 people in New York can’t pay any more for all their wealth than 50 people in Mississippi. This will heavily favor states where there are reasonably high populations, but where only a handful control the bulk of the wealth.This has never been really litigated and is pretty poorly legally understood as a result. There is very little case law on the subject. Only two stand out as meaningful that I’m aware of.The first is Hyalton v. United States, 3 U.S. 191 (1796). That first number means it’s only in the third volume of the cases reported by the Supreme Court Reporter; in other words, it’s one of the very first cases ever decided by SCOTUS. Hyalton ruled that a tax on carriages was not a direct tax, but speculated that a tax on land would be.The second is Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895), which held that taxes on income were direct taxes. This case caused an uproar in the legal field, who widely detested it and felt it was entirely wrongly decided. The case was overruled by the adoption of the 16th Amendment for that very reason.While the Congressional Research Service states that Pollock overruled Hyalton, Chief Justice John Roberts relied on Hyalton in 2012 in upholding the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act as a tax, so… there you have that.Extrapolating from Hyalton and assuming it’s still good law, as best I can figure, a tax on real property (typically how wealthy people hold their wealth,) or other asset-type propery is probably a direct tax that would only be constitutional if it were directly proportional to the States according to the most recent census.Parsing out what the hell that would mean in terms of who would get taxed and for how much would probably make Andrew Weill a very rich man.Thanks for the A2A, Habib Fanny.

Because there was - is - actual evidence of election fraud in North Carolina, but in other places the evidence of voter fraud is of only trivial amounts.In North Carolina, the evidence of election fraud came from at least one participant in the fraud. One of the people who collected absentee ballots from voters testified that she did so, and that she filled out ballots to show votes for Republican candidates, and that she signed absentee ballots saying that she had seen the voter Mark the ballot, and then delivered the ballots for mailing to her employer or mailed them herself.And there was testimony that the Republican candidate, on whose behalf the election fraud was performed, was warned against employing the fraudster. The Republican candidate was warned by his own son, a federal prosecutor; and the witness to this warning being given was the Republican candidate's own son.Elsewhere, the story is very different. There has been a trial in federal court, in Kansas City, I think, where the question was the existence of voter fraud. The party who had the burden of proof to show voter fraud was Kris Kodachrome, the Kansas official who had agitated about wide-spread voter fraud and for requiring photo-identification as a requirement for voting - and who Trump had named as the head of a federal commission on voter fraud.And what happened at that trial ? Kobach was unable to present any - repeat, any - actual evidence of any voter fraud. None, not a bit. Even the expert witnesses presented, the same people whose research Kobach had trumpeted and relied on in his agitation, back-tracked from their writings and their reasearch and admitted they had no actual evidence of voter fraud.So elsewhere, other than North Carolina, when the Republicans who have argued so hard and so loudly about voter fraud, when placed on the spot to put up or shut up, those same Republicans tried and utterly failed to put up.As you may have noticed, I have used different phrases to write about fraudulent voting in this answer: election fraud and voter fraud. Do I mean these are different ? How are these different ?By election fraud, I mean acts by persons other than the voter to falsify a voters actual votes. These acts include: marking the voter's ballot to show votes for persons (or propositions) for who the actual voter did not cast a vote, as by taking a voter's absentee ballot and marking that ballot to show votes in races in which the voter did not actually vote at all; and altering a voting machine, or its software, to show votes for candidates for who the actual voter did not vote, as by showing votes cast for one candidate as if they had been cast for another candidate, or by showing voting choices left blank by voters as having been votes for a candidate; and casting ballots for registered voters who did not appear at the polls. Election fraud would also include taking a group of voters from polling place to polling place sonthat each voter could cast votes in each polling place. Election fraud would also include taking absentee ballots marked by the voter as casting votes for one candidate and destroying those ballots instead of submitting them to the election officials or, if done by election officials, destroying those ballots or not counting them.All of these have been done in the American past. The first, falsely marking a ballot, is what was investigated and admitted and found in the North Carolina election. The second, altering a voting machine to show an incorrect count of ballots actually cast, was the subject of a comment by Earl Long, Governor of Louisiana, that if he controlled the election commissioners then he could make voting Machines play Dixie. This type of fraud is the heart of arguments about the security of electronic voting machines, including the mechanism for reporting votes; this, I believe, is a very valid concern. The third, casting ballots as if cast by registered voters, is an old form of election fraud, perhaps best known for the votes in one county in Texas in the 1940 Senate election, won by Landslide Lyndon Johnson; but this is also the subject of a comment about votes from the northwest of New Mexico - the inquiry, "How many votes do you need ?" A variant of this is the accusation against the Chicago political machine, that the population of Chicago cemetaries voted. The fourth, taking people from polling place to polling place to have them vote at each, is famous in Louisiana as how "King" John Slidell managed elections; concern about this practice, and again I think this a valid concern, is the heart of objections to same day registration of voters. The fifth, destroying ballots marked with votes for the "wrong" candidate, is something I suspect happened in the North Carolina election; recall, there was a record number of absentee ballots requested and sent in the one area, but not so many were returned to the election office - so what happened to the rest of them ? I am curious why this question was not part of the inquiry.The important things to note about these types of election fraud, and there are more, is that none of them would be foiled by the popular, with Republicans anyhow, measure of requiring a photo identification to vote. And several of these require the participation, or acquiescence, of voting officials; again something which would not be prevented by requiring a photo identification.Voter fraud, though, is simpler: impersonation. One person shows up at a polling place, falsely states his (or her) name as a registered voter, and casts votes as if he (or she) was that voter. Impersonation could also happen if a person requested an absentee ballot as if he (or she) was a named registered voter, received that ballot and cast it as if he (or she) was that registered voter. Note that the registered voter would not have to be still alive, so long as the deceased voter had not been purged from the voter list.From the reports of the North Carolina inquiry, these types of voter fraud were not subjects of the inquiry, and no evidence of such impersonations were presented.That same absence was the problem with the trial involving Kobach. Neither he nor any of his expert witnesses were able to point to any instances of such voter fraud or impersonation.The important thing about voter impersonation is that it is the only type of voter fraud which could be prevented by requiring a photo identification for voting. Of course, to be a significant problem, there would have to be a considerable number of impersonations - of which there has been no evidence presented. And if such a considerable number of impersonations occurred, donyou not think that at least some of the impersonated voters would also present at the polling place to vote, and protest loudly if prevented from voting because someone purporting to be him (or her) had already voted ? Have you heard of or seen reported any such events ? Didn't think so.Though I do recall a similar event from 2016, with a voter casting an absentee ballot and then also voting in person. This, I recall, happened in Iowa, but my memory may be faulty; but the voter was apprehended, after the election, and charged and, I recall, convicted. But I also recall that she was a local Republican Party official.A final note. There is another form of voter fraud, where a person registers to vote in two places, and votes in each. A person, who had moved from Alabama to Texas, might maintain his voter registration in Alabama and also register to vote in Texas - and vote absentee in Alabama (which would require some forethought, as I would think Alabama might wonder at a request for an absentee ballot from and to be mailed to Texas - but active duty military personnel can and do vote absentee in their home state though stationed elsewhere) and in person in Texas. This also happened not too long ago in a suburban couty near Houston, and the voter was detected, charged with fraud and convicted. And, a nice touch, again the fraudulent voter was a Republican Party official, the Republican Party chairman for his county.

Why do people widely believe that the American Civil War was fought over slavery rather than over state's rights and economic policies?No one disputes that the Civil War was over states rights.The state’s right to own slaves.Its rather simple really. The states that wanted to break from the US took the time out to write about what was pissing them off.Read what they wrote.In fact… I’d go so far to say that, if the war wasn’t over slavery, this really means that the Confederate States were horrible communicators who couldn’t stay on topic, because slavery was all they seemed to want to talk about.Think about it for a moment… you’re so upset about your states rights that you’re willing to go into battle for it. But when you get those in the intellectual class to sit down and write out your state’s grievances… all that they want to talk about is slavery?Seems a bit strange to me. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a break down of the topics discussed as the reason for secession as written by those designated within each state.Do get mad at me for believing what they wrote.The Reasons for SecessionThe Declaration of Causes of Seceding StatesHere’s one from my state, Georgia. The word slave was mentioned no less than 34 times.The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation.Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution.While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government. The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade.Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency.The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections-- of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution. Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the Government from the beginning. Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787. That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country, and therefore this case must stand on its own special circumstances. The Government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina, by treaty from France, and by treaty from Spain. These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic. In all of these acquisitions the policy of the Government was uniform. It opened them to the settlement of all the citizens of all the States of the Union. They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves). All were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous and otherwise capable of bearing the burdens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt for themselves.Under this equally just and beneficent policy law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked every step of the progress of these new communities until they entered as great and prosperous commonwealths into the sisterhood of American States. In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri. The venerable Madison at the time of its adoption declared it unconstitutional. Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity. This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation.The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the tribunals of justice. The majority of the people of the North in 1860 decided it in their own favor. We refuse to submit to that judgment, and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude us. We offer the practice of our Government for the first thirty years of its existence in complete refutation of the position that any such power is either necessary or proper to the execution of any other power in relation to the Territories. We offer the judgment of a large minority of the people of the North, amounting to more than one-third, who united with the unanimous voice of the South against this usurpation; and, finally, we offer the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of our country, in our favor. This evidence ought to be conclusive that we have never surrendered this right. The conduct of our adversaries admonishes us that if we had surrendered it, it is time to resume it.The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union. They are content if they can only injure us. The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property. Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations.A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor. This provision and the one last referred to were our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States. Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the Constitution. In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision. This act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in the several States for its efficiency. The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty. Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete execution of this duty by Federal officers. This law, which their own bad faith rendered absolutely indispensible for the protection of constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and all conceivable modes of hostility.The Supreme Court unanimously, and their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its constitutionality in all of its provisions. Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding State in the Union. We have their convenants, we have their oaths to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal officer with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments to elude, to resist, and defeat him. Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity. In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments. It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren.The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations.These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates.These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved.Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861