the decisions. It is enough, if I call attention to the precise text of the Constitution, which is, "No State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts."

Look at these words, and it appears, in the first place, that this inhibition is addressed to the States, and not to Congress, whose powers are not touched by it. Look still further at the railroad charters, and, even admitting that they were grants in the nature of contract, you cannot deny that the contract must be interpreted. with reference to the Constitution of the United States. Learned judges have held that the law of the place where a contract is made not only regulates and governs it, but constitutes part of the contract itself. But if the law constitutes part of the contract, still more must the Constitution. Apply this principle and the case is clear. Every railroad charter has been framed subject to the exercise of the acknowledged powers of Congress, all of which are implied in the grant as essential conditions, not less than if set forth expressly. The Supreme Court has decided that all contracts are made subject to the right of eminent domain, so that they cannot be considered as violated by the exercise of this right.1 But the powers of Congress, invoked to regulate commerce among the several States, to establish post-roads, and to raise and equip armies, are in the nature of eminent domain, to which all local charters are subject. Therefore, I repeat, nothing is proposed "impairing the obligation of contracts," even if that well-known inhibition were applicable to Congress.

From these details of criticism the Senator jumped to a broader proposition. He asserted that the pend1 The West River Bridge Company v. Dix et al., 6 Howard, R., 507.

ing measure destroyed what he called the sovereignty of the States, and he even went so far as to say that it was the same as if you said that all State legislation is null and void. These, Sir, were his exact words. How the Senator, even in any ardor of advocacy, could venture on such assertion, it is difficult to comprehend. Here is a measure, founded, as I have already demonstrated, on three different texts of the Constitution, upheld by three unassailable supports, and also in essential harmony with the Union itself; and yet we are told that it destroys the sovereignty of the States. Such an assumption seems uttered in the very wantonness of unhesitating championship. If anything but a phrase, it must be condemned, not only as without foundation, but as hostile to the best interests of the country.

Sir, the pending measure is in no respect destructive of any rights of the States; nor does it in any sense say that all State legislation is null and void. On the contrary, it simply asserts a plain and unquestionable power under the National Constitution. If in any way it seems to touch what is invoked as State sovereignty, or to set aside any State legislation, it is only in pursuance of the Constitution. It is simply because the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, are the supreme law of the land.

The assumptions of the Senator bring me back to the vital principle with which I began. After exhibiting the public convenience involved in the present question, I said that it concerned still more the unity of the Republic. It is, in short, that identical question which has so often entered this Chamber, and is now convulsing the land with bloody war. It is the question of

the Union itself. In his ardor for that vampire monopoly, which, brooding over New Jersey, sucks the lifeblood of the whole country, the Senator from Maryland sets up most dangerous pretensions in the name of State Rights. Sir, the Senator flings into one scale the pretensions of State Rights: into the other scale I fling the Union itself.

Sir, the Senator from Maryland is a practised lawyer, and he cannot have forgotten that Nathan Dane, whose name is an authority in our courts, tells us plainly that the terms "sovereign States," "State sovereignty," "State rights," and "rights of States" are "not constitutional expressions." 1 Others of equal weight in the early history of the country have said the same thing. Mr. Madison, in the Convention which framed the Constitution, said: "Some contend that States are sovereign, when, in fact, they are only political societies. The States never possessed the essential rights of sovereignty. These were always vested in Congress."2 Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, in the same Convention, said: "It appears to me that the States never were independent. They had only corporate rights."3 Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania, with the same distinct language he used in denouncing Slavery, said of the States: "They were originally nothing more than colonial corporations." Both Patrick Henry and George Mason, in the Virginia Convention, opposed the Constitution on the very ground that it superseded State rights. But perhaps the true intention of the authors of the Constitution may be best found

1 Abridgment of American Law, Appendix to Vol. IX. p. 10

2 Yates's Minutes, June 29, 1787: Elliot's Debates (2d edit.), Vol. I. P. 461. 8 Ibid., p. 464.

4 Madison's Debates, July 7, 1787: Madison Papers, Vol. II. p. 1049.

Q

in the letter of General Washington, as President of the Convention, transmitting it to Congress. Here are his words:

"It is obviously impracticable, in the Federal Government of these States, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. . . . . In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view that which appeared to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence "i

I am content, when I find myself with the support of this great name.

By the adoption of the Constitution the people of the United States constituted themselves a Nation, one and indivisible, with all the unity and power of a nation. They were no longer a confederation, subject to the disturbing pretensions, prejudices, and whims of component parts; but they became a body politic, where every part was subordinate to the Constitution, as every part of the natural body is subordinate to the principle of life. The sovereignty of the United States, where all are but parts of one vivifying whole, was the controlling unit. The powers then and there conferred upon the nation were supreme. And those very powers I now invoke, in the name of the Union, and to the end that pretensions in the name of State Rights may be overthrown.

I have thus presented a picture of these intolerable pretensions. But they must be examined more

1 Madison's Debates, September 12, 1787.

minutely. They may be seen, first, in their character as a monopoly, and, secondly, in their character as a Usurpation under the Constitution of the United States. I need not say that in each they are equally indefensible.

If you go back to the earliest days of English history, you find that monopolies have from the beginning been odious, as contrary to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm. A writer who is often quoted in the courts says: "All grants of this kind relating to any known trade are made void by the Common Law, as being against the freedom of trade, and discouraging labor and industry, and restraining persons from getting an honest livelihood by a lawful employment, and putting it in the power of particular persons to set what prices they please on a commodity."1 But, without claiming that the present monopoly is void at Common Law, it is enough to show its inconsistency with the Constitution. Here I borrow Mr. Webster's language in his famous argument against the monopoly of steam navigation granted by the State of New York:

"Now I think it very reasonable to say that the Constitu tion never intended to leave with the States the power of granting monopolies either of trade or of navigation, and therefore, that, as to this, the commercial power is exclusive in Congress."2

Then again he says:

"I insist that the nature of the case and of the power did imperiously require that such important authority as that

1 Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, Book I. ch. 79, sec. 1.

2 Works, Vol. VI. p. 8.