the colonies in a collective capacity, and not
as individual, distinct and separate entities.
But allow me to proceed in reading what
Mr. Pinckney said
"The separate and Individual sovereignty
of the several States were never thought of
by the enlightened band of patriots who
framed this declaration; the several States
are not even mentioned byname in any part,
as if it were intended to impress this maxim
on America, that our freedom and indepen-
dence arose from our Union, and that without
it we could neither be free nor independent.
Let us then consider all attempts to weaken
this Union, by maintaining that each State
is separately and individually independent,
as a species of political heresy, which can
never benefit us, but may bring on us the
most serious distresses " These golden words
were spoken by General Pinckney on the
18th of January, 1788. Ten years after the
treaties with France, and five years after the
treaties with England were negotiated, by
which Mr. Davis says, "the separate and in-
dependent sovereignty of the several States "
was recognized by these power?, General
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney declared to his
fellow-citizens in the emphatic language just
cited, "that the separate independence and
individual sovereignty of the several States
was not thought of ! "
Now, this is a cotemporaneous authority
from the very State in which this rebellion
originated; from the very hot-bed of treason,
I might multiply these authorities. But,
however we may dispute, however we may
differ upon what are the limited powers of
this Government, and whether they have
been usurped and whether they have been
transcended; whatever difficulties may have
interposed themselves in the way of our unity
and harmony as a people, by reason of the
inevitable differences of opinion which must
arise among people everywhere and under all
circumstances, and whatever may have been
the theories of men heretofore, it is only in
our day and in our generation that these old
theories have been reduced to practice. Not-
withstanding the difficulties and troubles
that surrounded the administration of Mr.
Madison, at the time of the Hartford Con-
vention; not withstanding the distracted state
of the public mind of that era; notwithstand-
ing all those things, it is only at the particu-
lar time in which we live that these bold
theories of governmental interpretation have
been put into unholy and disastrous practice.
I ask gentlemen who claim—and it was
claimed everywhere a few years ago—
that the Constitution of the United States
established a model form of government; that
it was the offspring of the most enlightened
minds of the best men and the purest pa-
triots; I would ask whether it is not a
direct contradiction of such a sentiment, di-
rectly in antagonism with such a theory, to |
suppose that men thus endowed with wis-
dom, with foresight, with patriotism, would
undertake to establish a government, which
of all governments of which history speaks,
would be the most frail, and have the least
vigor and power and strength; a govern-
ment utterly incapable of self-protection?
A government that, contrary to all ideas we
have of the rights of men and things by na-
ture, was divested of that inherent and cog-
nate right which is inseparable from the law
of self-preservation. And not only that, but
that a government was intended to be formed
and created of a number of different sover-
eignties, any one of which, at any moment
of time by setting itself up as the arbiter and
exponent of its own rights, could destroy it.
is it possible to conceive that men of wisdom,
men of foresight, men of pure characters,
with all the experience they had passed
through, with all the memories of the Revo-
lution clustering around them, could sit
down and deliberately form a Constitution
which under such a structure would be aptly
indeed pronounced to be a mere rope of sand ?
I cannot believe it; I can reach no such con-
clusion either from the debates which have
been had from the formation of the Constitu-
tion, or from any light that has been re-
flected upon the subject in this House.
I have listened with care and attention to
all that has been said here. I have listened
with an earnest desire to be enlightened and
instructed and informed by the course which
the argument has taken. But I confess that
the more I have heard this subject discussed,
the more it has been agitated, the stronger
has become my conviction that, while I re-
cognize this Government as one of enumer-
ated and limited powers, it is nevertheless to
the extent of its powers the true sovereignty
of the country. And however the barriers
of State lines may be interposed, however
ingenuity and sophistry may be invoked to
rear up the State governments as formidable
claimants to the national sovereignty, the
Government of the United States neverthe-
less is the Government of the people, the
whole people of the United States, and not of
any part of them as such.
Let me refer to the argument of my friend
from Anne Arundel, (Mr. Miller,)—to whom
I always listen with a great deal of pleasure
—always precise and clear in his logic, and
generally to my mind convincing; while fur
the most part I agree with him in his premises
on the subject, I must wholly depart from
his conclusions, for the reasons that they
carry me to the same point which other gen-
tlemen on that side have reached; they lead
irresistibly to Dixie. Whilst he denies the
constitutional powder of any one of these so-
called sovereignties lo secede and thus dis-
solve the Union, he yet contends that in cases
where the Supreme Court of the United
States is not competent to act as an arbiter |
