It is always to be carefully borne in mind that the declarations of Quincy, Pickering, and Griswold, brought forward by Southern writers, favoring or threatening a separation, were never made on the ground of the sovereignty of a State and its right to secede. The doctrine of those who held the most extreme opinions was that the policy and acts of the general government were so tyrannical and oppressive that the eastern commercial States were justified in rebellion and in separating themselves from the more southern States, where the political party was dominant, that had most grievously oppressed and impoverished them and annihilated their commerce in a futile attempt to injure Great Britain. This was not a claim of right to leave the Union and dissolve it at pleasure. Indeed, when the leaders went too far in their discontent, the people of the Eastern States would sometimes elect governors and representatives of the Republican party. The spirit of loyalty to the Union and the love of a common country would always spring up and assert itself when it came to the question of disunion and treason. Towards the close of the war of 1812 there was great discontent at the failure of the government to repel the English forces from Maine, then a portion of Massachusetts. Troops raised in that State were sent to the defence of our more western Canadian boundary. Beyond the discontent, there was some disloyalty. At this time the Hartford convention was called by Massachusetts. That convention did not even pass resolutions of hostility to the Union. The convention was called to devise means of security and defence “not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union,” and, according to Mr. Lodge, Josiah Quincy was not made a delegate by reason of his extreme views.[88] The convention neither asserted nor suggested nullification or secession, but _proposed amendments to the Constitution_. Its recommendations were of no particular importance.[89] The only persons who were affected by its doings were the members, who ever afterwards suffered politically from a taint of disloyalty. Peace soon came and terminated the oppressive grievances and removed the discontent. [88] Lodge’s _Life of George Cabot_, p. 518. [89] _History of Hartford Convention_, by Theo. Dwight. Not only as stated in the beginning of this article is the Hartford convention with the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions brought forward by Mr. Lodge in proof of the weakness of the Union, but Southern orators and writers delight in referring to that convention in justification of nullification and secession. We have the journal of the proceedings, of the motions made and votes passed. Is it not the strongest proof possible of the universal belief in the nationality of our government that nobody, in that body of malcontents, suggested that any right existed to refuse an obedience to the laws and policy of the administration they deemed so oppressive?