Charles Francis Adams, in a letter to the editor of May 18, 1914, from which the editor is authorized to quote, refers to the "crystallization of United States nationality" He says: "As you, doubtless, know, I have made rather a specialty of this subject. The result has left my mind perfectly clear. Your grandfather's statement is correct both historically and legally. When ap proached with an open mind his position is unas sailable.
He wrote of a condition of affairs, and of a law, prevailing anterior to the year 1830. I do not think that his statement and conclusions admit of ques tion. The process of crystallization,—or, to put it in other tehns, the growth of the idea of nationality, —may be dated from that time. It is a most in teresting historical development. Story initiated it in his Comments on the Constitution. Webster de veloped it in his debate with Hayne. The Nullifica tion Question presented it as a concrete fact at issue to the community at large. The result was apparent in the growth of the generation which grew up, and took control of public affairs in 1860. . . . .
"Lawyers and judges, as a result of a profession living by contention, are always disposed to stand for a written law, everlasting, fixed and invariable. The historian, seeing things from a different point of view, recognizes growth and elasticity. These two elements of law had in my judgment curious exemplification in the case of the constitution ; and in this connection the record contained in Rawle's Commentaries has in my judgment great historic value. But it needs to be developed historically ;
and people should be made to understand the pro cess of crystallization which went on in this coun try from 1642, when the New England Confederacy was formed, and which reached its final climax at Appomattox, some 220 years later. The last pre tence of the right of secession then was reluctantly abandoned, as something outgrown.
"I hope, therefore, you will not hesitate to revive what I consider by no means a 'dead question,' but, on the contrary, an historical fact of great consti tutional moment." It may be added that the question of whether this work on the Constitution was used as a text book and the right of secession was taught at the West Point Military Academy has received much discus sion in the last few years. The evidence le not con clusive; the last and fullest treatment of the ques tion is by James W. Latta, a member of the Phila delphia bar and a student of military affairs, in a paper read before the Loyal Legion, in 1909. He reaches the conclusion that Rawle on the Constitu tion (published in 1825) could not have been used as a text book at West Point for more than two years from the date of its publication, that it may have been so used during that period, and that con stitutional law was a part, of the course of only the graduating class.
The reader is referred to Charles F. Adams' "Studies Military and Diplomatic," and "Trans-At lantic Historical Solidarity," for his further con sideration of this subject.