1830, the country was threatened with destruction. The error again ventured to show itself. Its disciples once more rallied to its support. Do you remember his 7th of March. speech? Let me recall a part of its lofty eloquence and its more lofty patriotism:

"I hear, with pain and anguish and distress, the word secession, especially when it falls from the lips of those who are eminently patriotic, and known to the country and known all over the world for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling its surface! Who is so foolish, I beg everybody's pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without producing the crush of the uni

verse.

"There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live here-covering this whole country is it to be thawed and melted away by secession as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun-disappear almost unobserved and die off? No, sir! no, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the States; but, sir, I see it as plainly as I see the sun in heaven-I see that disruption must produce such a war as I will not describe, in its two-fold characters.

"Peaceable secession! peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary separation with alimony on one side and on the other! Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What What am I to be?-an American

is to remain American?

no longer? Where is the flag of the Republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink and fall to the ground?

Why, sir, our ancestors-our fathers and our grandfathers-those of them that are yet living among us with prolonged lives would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us! if we, of this generation, should dishonor these ensigns. of the power of the Government and the harmony of the Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty States to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, there is to be a Southern Confederacy.

"I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I do not mean that it is true, but I have heard it suggested elsewhere, that that idea has originated in a design to separate. I am sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, or dreamed of, in the wildest flights of human imagination. But the idea must be of a separation including the Slave States upon one side, and the Free States on the other.

66

'Sir, there is not-I may express myself too strongly perhaps but some things, some moral things, are almost as impossible as other natural or physical things; and I hold the idea of a separation of these States-those that are free to form one Government, and those that are slaveholding to form another, as a moral impossibility. We could not separate the States by any such line if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country.

"There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break, if we would, and which we should not break, if we could. Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present moment-nobody can see where its population is most dense and growing-without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that ere long America will be in the valley of the Mississippi.

"Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthu

siast has to say on the possibility of cutting off that river, and leaving Free States at its source and its branches, and Slave States down near its mouth? Pray, sir; pray, sir, let me say to the people of this country, that these things are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are five millions of freemen in the Free States north of the river Ohio. Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and alien Government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi?

"What will become of Missouri? Will she join the arondissement of the Slave States? Shall the man from the Yellow Stone and the Platte be connected in the new Republic with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it-I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up! to break up this great Government! to dismember this great country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe, for two centuries, has never beheld in any Government! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no secession. Gentlemen are not serious when they talk

of secession."

The Supreme Court, too, speaking through each of its great chiefs, Marshall and Taney, repels the doctrine.

In the case of McCulloch and Maryland, the first of these, as the organ of the whole Court, rejected it in clear terms. The very foundation, the only one on which it can for a moment stand, is, that the Constitution is a compact, and not in the usual and sovereign sense of the word, a government. Let me read you how he disposed of this:

"In discussing this question, (the question of compact,) the counsel for the State of Maryland have deemed it of some importance, in the construction of the Constitution, to consider that instrument as not emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent States. The powers of the General Government, it has been said,

are delegated by the States, who alone are truly sovereign; and must be exercised in subordination to the States, who alone possess supreme dominion.

"It would be difficult to sustain this proposition. The Convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected by the State Legislatures. But the instrument when it came from their hands was a mere proposal, without obligation, or pretensions to it. It was reported to the then existing Congress of the United States, with a request that it might be submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its Legislature, for their assent and ratification.' This mode of proceeding was adopted, and by the Convention, by Congress, and by the State Legislatures, the instrument was submitted to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, effectively, and wisely, on such a subject, by assembling in Convention. It is true, they assembled in their several States-and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the State Governments.

66 "From these Conventions the Constitution derives its whole authority. The Government proceeds directly from the people; is ordained and established in the name of the people, and is declared to be ordained, 'in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, 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 instrument 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 already surrendered all their powers to the State sovereignties, and had nothing more to give. But, surely, the question whether they may resume and modify the powers granted to the Government does not remain to be settled in this country. Much more might the legitimacy of the General Government be doubted, had it been created by the States. The powers delegated to the States sovereignties were to be exercised by themselves, not by a distinct and independent sovereignty, created by themselves to the formation of a league, such as was the confederation, the State sovereignties were certainly competent. Bnt when 'in order to form. a more perfect Union,' it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into an effective Government, possessing great sovereign powers, and acting directly on the people, the necessity of referring it to the people, and of deriving its powers directly from them, was felt and acknowledged by all.

"The Government of this Union, then, (whatever may be the influence of this fact on the case,) is emphatically and truly a Government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit."

The principle here adjudged was over and over again, under the administration of the same great Judge, maintained as the settled judgment of the Court, and without a dissenting voice.

In

It has with equal clearness, uniformity and force, been upheld since Chief Justice Taney became the presiding ornament of that high tribunal. It was involved in the case of the United States and Booth, in 21st Howard. that instance the State of Wisconsin, through its Courts, resisted the authority of the United States, aud denied the validity of an act of Congress, constitutionally passed. It was the object of the writ of error to have the judgment reviewed. The supremacy of the General Government was again denied. The alleged inherent sovereignty of the State was again asserted, and the conduct of Wisconsin