Our Political Parties ... |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adoption afterwards American Articles of Confederation authority blood British citizens colonies common country compact Congress conspirators contending contest Continental Congress countrymen danger debates declared delegated empire ence fact fearful Federal Union fellow-citizens fight force free-labor system Free-State freedom fundamental law geographical party giving glorious hostile House of Burgesses human bondage idea illustrious independent James Monroe Jeffersonian John Tyler Kansas labor Lecompton legislature liberty maintained majority ment Mexico Missouri Missouri Compromise National party National Senate nearly never North opposition organization partisan Patrick Henry patriotic perpetual political population President principle pro-slavery Provincial party Rebellion reignty Republic resisted ruin saved slave slave-labor slaveholding slavery South Carolina Southern sove sovereign sovereignty spirit spite stand State-rights doctrine State-rights party State-sovereignty doctrine struggle suffrages territory theory thing Thomas Jefferson thousand tion treason United uttered Virginia vote Washington whole South words
Popular passages
Page 17 - The unity of government which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize.
Page 15 - The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States, which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies ; to make those mutual concessions, which are requisite to the general prosperity ; and, in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community.
Page 25 - That to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming as to itself the other party : That the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of...
Page 25 - Resolved, that the several states composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government ; but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving each state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-Government ; and that whensoever the...
Page 36 - In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view that which appears 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.
Page 15 - There are four things which I humbly conceive are essential to the -well-being, I may even venture to say to the existence, of the United States as an independent power.
Page 25 - ... the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it— since that would have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties, having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
Page 62 - No. We were not mistaken ! The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault : its language directly contradicts the imputation: its spirit — its evident, intent, contradicts it. No, we did not err ! Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them. The sages, whose memory will always be reverenced, have given us a practical, and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional compact. The Father of his country did not affix...
Page 48 - House dissenting) had declared that 'by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that Government and the United States...
Page 61 - We have hitherto relied on it as the perpetual bond of our Union. We have received it as the work of the assembled wisdom of the nation. We have trusted to it as to the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe.