eignty, for certain purposes, and not so for
others.
" The Constitution of the United States
being established by competent authority, by
that of the people of the several States, who
were the parties to it, it remains only to in-
quire what the Constitution is, and here it
speaks for itself. It organizes a government
into the usual legislative, executive and ju-
dicial departments; invests it with specified
powers, leaving others to the parties to the
Constitution; it makes the government op-
erate directly upon the people; places at its
command the needful physical means of ex-
ecuting its powers; and finally proclaims its
supremacy, and that of the laws made in
pursuance of it, over the Constitution and
laws of the States; the powers of the gov-
ernment being exercised as in other elective
and responsible governments, under the con-
trol of its constituents, the people and Legis-
latures of the States, and subject to the revo-
lutionary rights of the people, in extreme
cases.
"Such is the Constitution of the United
States de jure and de facto; and the name,
whatever it be, that may be given to it, can
make it nothing more nor less than what it
actually is."
The resolutions of 1798 have been cited here
to sustain the States' rights, doctrine. They
were appealed to by the gentleman from
Prince George's (Mr. Belt,) and the gentle-
man from Somerset (Mr. Jones,) who said
that the States had prospered under the effect
of those resolutions, as managed and con-
trolled by the democratic party, and had at-
tained such prosperity as they bad never
known before. I deny that the resolutions
of 1798, the Kentucky and the Virginia reso-
lutions, sustain any such doctrine. What
are those resolutions? They were enacted in
order to counteract what was called the alien
and sedition law of that time. They were
framed by Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson,
passed by Kentucky and Virginia, and were
sent to the other States, but not a single
other State adopted them. General Wash-
ington said it was done with a political view,
and it had its effect in the election of Jeffer-
son as President, and the appointment of
Madison as Secretary of State. Leaving that
out of view, I have merely to say that they
do not sustain these doctrines, and Mr. Madi-
son, one of their authors, said they did not.
In the letter which I have just read, he utterly
denies that doctrine; and to say that the re-
solutions contain it would have made him
inconsistent with himself,
In reply to the doctrine of coercion I have
only to say that Jefferson held that the doc-
trine of coercion was even contained in the
articles of confederation. Washington, in
his Farewell Address, said it was fur the pur-
pose of a consolidated government that the
Constitution was formed. |
What is the absurdity into which we are
led by this doctrine as proclaimed and an-
nounced by Buchanan, that a State has no
right to secede, and that the government has
no power of coercion? Suppose in 1783,
when the whiskey insurrection broke out in
Pennsylvania, when General Washington,
with 15,000 men, marched to quell it, the
State of Pennsylvania had said by its Legis-
lature, that the law was unconstitutional,
and that it should not be enforced. What
would have been the result? Would General
Washington have been required to return
home with these 15,000 men? The proposi-
tion is absurd upon its very face.
Suppose that when Millard Fillmore was
President of the United States, and attempted
to execute the fugitive slave law in the streets
of Boston, it had been said then, you cannot
coerce a State; and suppose the Legislature
of Massachusetts had said, you shall not en-
force the fugitive slave law here. Would
these gentlemen then have said there was no
right to coerce a State? I imagine not, be-
cause the negro was in question then.
Take another instance. When John Brown
with half a dozen deluded followers, some
time ago, invaded Virginia, suppose that the
State of Pennsylvania or any other State had
by its enactments, said that the General Gov-
ernment had no right to restrain John Brown,
or protect the citizens of Virginia? But I
think gentlemen did not then agree to the
doctrine that the United States Government
had no right to coerce. The coercion was
then to operate upon the other side.
In conclusion, these gentlemen want peace.
They did not want peace when South Caro-
lina, with ten thousand men and with bat-
teries planted all around, fired upon a few
starved men in Fort Sumter, whom the Gov-
ernment had not even attempted to reinforce,
but simply to feed. When they tore down
the old flag and trampled it under their feet,
and said that the rebel flag should wave over
Faneuil Hall, and that they would dictate
terms of peace in the city of Washington,
they did not want peace then. But they want
peace now. Why? Because the General
Government have shown their teeth; because
they have demonstrated that there is power
and a determination upon the part of the
people to execute the laws. Now they want
peace, and deprecate bloodshed. Sir, I want
no peace with Fort Pillow murderers, or re-
enactors of the same scenes at Newbern. I
want no peace with men who will destroy
and torture our prisoners in the way they
have done, until they will lay down their
arms and submit to the authority of the Gov-
ernment, and acknowledge and yield to the
civilization of the age,
I have already trespassed upon my time,
and I will not occupy the attention of the
Convention longer, except to say here and
now, that novelty though it may be, I am |
