and is declared to be ordained ' in order to
form a more perfect union, establish justice,
Insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the
blessings of liberty to themselves and to their
posterity.' The assent of the States in their
sovereign capacity, is implied in calling a
Convention, and thus submitting that instru-
ment to the people. But the people were at
perfect liberty to accept or reject it; and their
act was final. It required not the affirmance,
and could not be negatived by the State
governments. The Constitution when thus
adopted, was of complete obligation, and
bound the State sovereignties.
''It has been said that the people had al-
ready surrendered all their powers to the
State sovereignties, and had nothing more to
give. But, surely, the question whether they
may resome and modify the powers granted
to government, does not remain to be settled
in this country. Much more might the legit-
imacy of the General Government be doubted,
had it been created by the States. The pow-
ers delegated to the State sovereignties are
to be exercised by themselves. To the form-
ation of a league, such as was the confeder-
ation, the State sovereignties were certainly
competent. But when, 'in order, to form a
more perfect union, 'it was deemed necessary
to change this alliance into an effective gov-
ernment, possessing great and sovereign pow-
ers, and acting directly upon the people, the
necessity of referring it to the people, and of
deriving its powers directly from them, was
felt and acknowledged by all."
Can anything be clearer and stronger than
that? I ask next to refer the gentlemen to
one of Judge Taney's decisions; although I
do not know whether, if he had not decided
as he did in the Dred Scott case, they would
have listened to him. It is the case of Booth
vs. the United States, 21 Howard, 515. This
was something like the Dred Scott case. It
was the case of a fugitive, slave in the State of
'Wisconsin. The question came up before the
State Court, which decided that the marshal
of the United States should execute the pro-
cess, and an appeal was made to the Supreme
Court of Wisconsin, which decided that the
law was null and void, and set it aside, and
that the marshal had no right to execute it;
and an appeal was made to the Supreme
Court of the United States, and the question
came up there,
[The hour having expired, the hammer fell.]
On motion of Mr. STIRLING,
The rule was suspended, to allow fifteen
minutes further time to Mr. Daniel.
Mr. DANIEL resumed The Court say:
''And the powers of the General Govern-
ment, and of the State, although both exist
and are exercised within the same territorial
limits, are yet separate and distinct sover-
eignties, acting separately and independently
of each other within their respective spheres.
And this sphere of action appropriated to the |
United States, is as far beyond the reach of
the judicial process issued by a State judge or
by a State Court, as if the line of decision
was traced by landmarks, and monuments
visible to the eye."
"It was felt by the statesmen who framed
the Constitution, and by the people who
adopted it, that it was necessary that many
of the rights of sovereignty which the States
then possessed should be ceded to the General
Government; and that in the sphere of ac-
tion assigned to it, it should be supreme, and
strong enough to execute its own laws by its
own tribunals, without interruption from a
State or from State authorities. And it was
evident that anything short of this would be
inadequate for the main objects for which the
government was established."
With regard to the Court they say :
" This tribunal, therefore, was erected, and
the powers of which we have spoken con-
ferred upon it, not by the Federal Govern-
ment, but by the people of the States, who
formed and adopted that government, and
conferred upon it all the powers, legislative,
executive and judicial, which it now pos-
sesses."
I will now read a letter from Mr. Madison
to Mr. Webster, on this subject, in relation to
the speech to which I have already referred ;
" I return my thanks for a copy of your
late very powerful speech in the Senate of the
United States. It crushes "nullification,"
and must hasten an abandonment of secession.
But this dodges the blow, by confounding the
claim to secede at will, with the right of se-
ceding from intolerable oppression.
" The former answers itself, being a viola-
tion without cause solemnly pledged. The
latter is another name only for revolution,
about which there is no theoretic controversy.
Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the
countenance received from certain quarters,
is giving it a popular currency here, which
may influence the approaching elections, both
for Congress and for the State Legislatures.
It has gained some advantage also by mixing
itself with the question, whether the Consti-
tution of the United States was formed by
the people or by the States, now under a the-
oretic discussion by animated partisans.
''It is fortunate when disputed theories
can be decided by undisputed facts. And
here the undisputed fact is that the Constitu-
tion was made by the people, but as embodied
into the several States who were parties to it,
and therefore made by the States, in their
highest authoritative capacity.
"They might, by the same authority and
by the same process, have converted the con-
federacy into a mere league or treaty, or con-
tinued it with enlarged or abridged powers ;
or have embodied the people of their respect-
ive States into one people, nation or sover-
eignty; or, as they did by a mixed form,
make them one people, nation or sover- |
