as individuals, are now, and ever have been,
united on the principle of the social compact,
and as such, are now formed into one nation
or people,"—
That is just what we are trying to substan-
tiate, and what the other side are trying to
ignore.
—"or that they have ever been so uni-
ted in any one stage of their political exist-
ence , that the people of the several States
composing this Union have not, as members
thereof, retained their sovereignty; that the
allegiance of the citizens has been transferred
to the General Government;"—
That is just the doctrine; we say that the
Government has been transferred.
—"that they have parted with the right
of punishing treason through the respective
State governments; and they have not the
right of judging in the last resort, as to the
extent of the powers re served, and of conse-
quence of those delegated,—are not only
without foundation in truth, but are contrary
to the most certain and plain historical facts,
and the clearest deductions of reason; and
that all exercise of power on the part of the
General Government, or any of its depart-
ments, claiming authority from such errone-
ous assumptions, must of necessity be uncon-
stitutional,—must tend directly and inevita-
bly to subvert the sovereignty of the States,
to destroy the federal character of the Union,
and to rear on its ruins a consolidated gov-
ernment,"—
The very reason of their objection, that it
will rear a consolidated government on the
ruins of the State.
—" without constitutional check or limita-
tation,"—
So we hear them say that every species of
liberty has been usurped by the General
Government.
—''and which must necessarily terminate
in the loss of liberty itself."
That is what Mr. Calhoun says; and I
think these gentlemen must have been read-
ing these resolutions before they made their
speeches. They have taken the same view,
Now what was Mr. Webster's exposition of
those resolutions in that powerful masterly
speech in which he reviewed them until there
was hardly a man to raise his head in the
Congress of the United States to defend them
for years afterwards? Mr. Webster says:
"The first two resolutions of the honora-
ble member affirm these propositions, viz:
" 1. That the political system under which
we live and under which Congress is now
assembled, is a compact to which the people
of the several States as separate and sover-
eign communities are the parties,"
"2. That these sovereign parties have a
right to judge each for itself of any alleged
violation of the Constitution by Congress, and
in case of such violation, to choose, each for
itself, its own mode and measure of redress." |
Here is the doctrine of Mr. Calhoun, both
as stated in his own resolutions and as stated
by Mr. Webster before he begins his reply
which utterly demolishes them? They were
these same arguments rehashed over here
which provoked the gentleman from Balti-
more city (Mr. Abbott) to declare that it
was the old Calhoun doctrine. I do not
care in what skin the animal is wrapped,
the ears and the proportions will stick out.
Now I assert this proposition, that so far
back as the earliest history of the colonies
goes, the people acted together as a united
people, and they continued so to act up to
the time of the formation of the Constitution.
If we go back to colonial times and trace these
States up, we shall find that there was never
any supreme authority vested in them, either
as colonies or as States.
In the first place, the-supreme sovereignty
was vested in the Crown of Great Britain.
Coming down to the Continental Congress of
1774 and '5 and '6, when they declared their
independence, when they broke away from
the Crown, the supreme allegiance was vested
in these Continental Congresses which con-
tinued to act for them as a united people un-
til the formation of the Constitution, when
the power was vested in the Government of
the United States in order to form a more
perfect government with three departments,
legislative, executive and judicial. In those
days, as far back as the resistance to the
Stamp Act, we hear the great Otis crying
out and pleading for the Union, and saying
that the Union was his hope. He wanted
that Union to work through the very blood
and bones of every new region as it came in-
to the Government. We find it recorded in
Bancroft's U. S., vol. 5, page 292 :
" Union was the hope of Otis—union that
should knit and work into the very blood
and bones of the original system of every re-
gion as fast as settled.' "
And Mr. Gadsden, of South Carolina—I
only wish he had been followed by the peo-
ple of that State instead of Calhoun, for we
should not have had these troubles,—says
(p. 335):
" I wish the charters may not ensnare us
at last by drawing different colonies to act
differently in this great cause. Whenever
that is the case, all will be over with the
whole. There ought to be no New England
man, no New Yorker known on the conti-
nent, but all of us American."
These were the sentiments of Mr. Gadsden,
one of the leaders of South Carolina, as far
back as 1765, when the colonies were united
under the British Crown. The same sentiments
prevailed on the other side of the water. Col.
Barre speaks of these as a people that are jeal-
ous of their liberties and will maintain them.
Lord Camden speaks of them as a great and
mighty people. Lord Chatham uses similar
terms when he plead against the grievances |
