to fully accept Rhodes' statement, they must confess
that the Scotch-Irish soldiers that followed Cromwell, and after the
restoration of Charles II moved to North Carolina, at last became
slave-holders; while many Southerners, young men who were educated in
Northern colleges and married Northern girls, finally freed their slaves
and moved North, becoming abolitionists. Circumstances, environment, and
association, modify men so profoundly that Buckle believed that climate
and grains determine men's civilization.
Again, in 1820, Northern leaders became alarmed at the invasion by
slavery of the Northern and Western territories, and Northern
representatives threatened to withdraw from the Union if slavery was
extended, just as in 1861 the Southern leaders not only threatened but
withdrew,--the only difference being this, that the North would rather
withdraw from the Union than have slavery, while the South preferred to
secede rather than have free labour enforced.
Nor must we forget that Calhoun's principle of the absolute independence
of each State in political government is freely accepted by all
Congregationalists in church government. In 1875, when a Congregational
Association tried to interfere with Mr. Beecher and the government of
Plymouth Church, Plymouth told them plainly that every church is an
independent and self-governing organization, that sovereignty is
natural and government artificial, and that government by the
Association might be transferred but had not been so transferred. The
Congregational principle in church government is pure democracy.
But the United States were a federal representative republic, under a
constitution; and, to recur again to ecclesiastical illustration, the
Presbyterian form of government is representative and federal. The
Presbyterians base their government on our political institutions. For
the political township, they have a Presbyterian church; for the county,
they set up the Presbytery; for the State, they organized a synod; for
congress, they organized the General Assembly; for the president, they
substituted a moderator.
In politics we believe in representative government, but as to the
church, Congregationalists believe in pure democracy, and the
independent principle.
Now John C. Calhoun took this Congregational principle and translated it
into terms of politics, and called it the States' rights or State
sovereignty theory. If John C. Calhoun had been struggling,
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