with the assertion that the bill of rights is
similar in character to Magna Charta, and
that that was wrung at the point of the sword
from the British Government. Admitted.
But are we to suppose from analogy that our
bill of rights was wrung from any power?
From whom? Can it be said that the people
of the United States have wrung anything
from themselves? That would he absurd.
The theory of government that then existed,
not only in England but all over the civilized
world, was that the powers that were, held
their title, but not immediately from the peo-
ple, but immediately from God. They ig-
nored man. Hence it was necessary then to
wring Magna Charta. and the rights guaranteed
by it, act the point, of the sword, from the
government. But the bills of rights of the Uni-
ted States and of the several States in this
country, are unlike that in this respect. They
are mere abstract declarations what the rights
of the people are.
The gentleman objects to the insertion of
this article into the bill of rights, that it is a
novelty We admit that it is a novelty. We
admit that this is the first time it has been
proposed to place it in the bill of rights of
any State in this Union. But is there not
occasion for it? Have we not fallen upon
evil times? Have we not been brought by
false philosophy and false political doctrines
of the self-styled States' rights party into the
very predicament where it becomes necessary
to go back to the original fountains whence
our government proceeded, and to consult
the opinions and convictions of the men who
framed the Constitution of the United States?
It is a novelty. But the times require that
men should be brought to confront the doc-
trine of their allegiance to the Federal Gov-
ernment as well as of their allegiance to the
State Government.
Does the article assert anything that is
false? Is it not true that the paramount al
legiance of the citizen is where his paramount
duties are, and where the paramount power
of the government is? Where is the para-
mount power of the government? Is it in
the States? No. Yet it has been gravely
argued that it was in the States. Such an
utter confoundment of all principles of clear
reasoning, I never heard, as we have heard
this morning upon this very question. We
have beard declarations that the people of
the States are sovereign, that the States are
sovereign, but that the Federal Government
is not sovereign. If the States are sovereign
there is no room for any other kind of sover-
eignty; and in God's name, what is the
Federal Government? If the States are sov-
ereign in every respect, what becomes of the
Constitution of the United States? What
becomes of the laws made in pursuance there
of? They are a dead letter, not worth the
parchment upon which they are written
What do gentlemen mean when they say that |
the only sovereignty recognized by the Con-
stitution is the sovereignty of the States? It
is as absurd as a beclouded intellect can make
it.
Sovereignty is supreme authority, supreme
power, paramount power, a power that is
over and above all subordinate power. That
is what we claim for the Federal Govern-
ment. We do not claim for it absolute sov-
ereignty. We do not claim that it is to over-
ride entirely the individual States. We
merely claim that it is sovereign in the sense
in which the framers of the Constitution de-
clared that it should be sovereign; in the
sense that the Constitution and the laws of
the United States made in pursuance thereof,
and all treaties made under the authority of
the United States, are the supreme law of the
land, and the judges in every State arebound
thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws
of such State to the contrary notwithstand-
ing.
When gentlemen talk about State sover-
eignty and hold that a State stands over and
above the Constitution of the United States,
they are involved in this predicament, that
they have operating upon the self same set of
men, two sets of powers, in direct antagonism,
and having no connection with each other.
Surely that is not the theory of our govern-
ment. Our theory is that of the planetary
world. The planets and the satellites are free
in their orbits and independent of each other ;
but the superior attraction of the great cen-
tral orb governs and controls them all. They
are free to move as it was designed by the
Almighty that they should move, but not to
wander off into illimitable space as chance
may direct. But the States' rights theory is
that the several States should lie cut loose
from the governing power of the Federal
Constitution, and should wander ad libitum
In the immense fields of political power, liable
at any moment to come in jarring and crush-
ing contact with other powers moving in the
same direction, and equally wild and erratic,
it is said by gentlemen that State sover-
eignty is a unit, incapable of division, It so,
there can be no power above it. if it is in-
capable of acting in harmony with or in
subordination to the sovereignty of the Fed-
eral Government, there can be no authority
above it. The argument leads gentlemen into
the gulf of political anarchy and political
madness, and civil war such us has never
been described in the annals of history. This
is the legitimate result of the doctrine of
States' rights, lt leads to anarchy and noth-
ing else. It is the embodiment of the prin-
ciple of anarchy. It as the very principle
which took Satan out of heaven and which
has carried mischief everywhere and will carry
mischief everywhere. In the church it is
ruinous. In the State it is equally ruinous.
In individual communities it, is ruinous. It
is the principle of individualization against |
