pling the throat of the national existence, you
are openly in opposition to the action of the Government, and
apparently in sympathy with the rebels. Yet you claim to be loyal, and
you vindicate your claim in a very remarkable way. Loyalty with you is
fidelity to the sovereign. That sovereign is the people. To that
sovereign you profess to bear true allegiance, and therefore your
loyalty is not to be impeached, however much you may oppose yourself to
the action of the authorities constituted by the sovereign. A singular
sort of loyalty; very much of a piece, some may say, with the religion
of the man who disobeys the bidding of those whom God bids him obey,
because of his profound reverence for the supreme authority of God!

You, of course, deny this. You make the issue that the action of the
constituted authorities is contrary to the will of the sovereign--is, in
fact, the exercise of usurped powers. You propose to appeal directly to
the sovereign for the determination of this issue; that is, you propose
to bring the sovereign to be of the same mind with you, if you can. 'We
mean,' you say, 'to use our rights of free discussion, and to look for
the answer to our appeal to the ballot box.' And you ask, 'Is it
disloyalty to appeal to the sovereign, or to exercise that portion of
the sovereign power which of right belongs to us, as part of the
people?'

Now, there is certainly nothing necessarily disloyal in making and
discussing before the people the issue you make, any more than there is
anything necessarily villanous in a man's availing himself of his
extreme legal rights before the courts: whether it be so in fact or not,
depends on the circumstances, on the spirit, purpose, and effect of the
thing. But there is a great deal of nonsense (pardon me) in calling this
an exercise of _that portion of the sovereign power which of right
belongs to you as part of the people_--nonsense which, if it were merely
nonsense, and as palpable to everybody as it is to those who are
accustomed to correct thinking and accurate expression on the subject,
it would not be worth while to expose; but which, being taken for sound
sense (as it is very likely to be by many of the people among whom you
have undertaken to diffuse political knowledge), becomes very pernicious
nonsense, that ought not to be suffered to pass.

A portion of the sovereign power belonging to you and your associates as
individuals! The sovereignty of the nation split