municipal or state affairs; these powers are reserved to the states respectively, and there can be no legitimate interference by Congress, or by any other state or power whatever, provided they in no manner conflict with that clause in the Constitution of the United States quoted above declaring "this Constitution, and all laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land."

Having ascertained what are the powers reserved, let us next see what it is that is prohibited to the states. First, then, every state is prohibited from passing any constitutional, legal, or conventional enactment that shall in any degree conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States. It is furthermore prohibited, in express terms, that any state "shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, expost facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility; lay any impost or duties on imports or exports, except such as may be necessary for executing its inspection laws, and they shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; and no state shall, WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF CONGRESS, KEEP TROOPS or SHIPS OF WAR in time of peace, ENTER INTO ANY AGREEMENT OR COMPACT WITH ANOTHER STATE, or WITH A FOREIGN POWER, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

Such, then, are the reservations and prohibitions contained in the Constitution, under which it is claimed that the power was reserved to each state to annihilate the Constitution of the United States, and all law made under it; to enter into treaties, alliances, and confederation; grant

letters of marque and reprisal; and enter into agreements and compacts with other states; engage in war with the United States, and smash all things up generally, and the government of the United States in particular; such are the nonsensical and absurd pretensions of the disciples and followers of their great, impracticable, selfish, ambitious, and mischievous leader, John C. Calhoun.

I am aware that a good many honest, well-meaning persons have been cheated into the belief that in this state the right to withdraw from the Union at pleasure was expressly reserved at the time of the adoption of the Constitution; than which nothing could be more fallacious or unfounded.

Upon this point it can only be necessary to quote the letter of Mr. Madison to Mr. Hamilton in 1787. The State of New York had proposed to adopt the Constitution, and thereby become a member of the Union, but upon the conditions of certain amendments to the Constitution; and Mr. Hamilton addressed a letter to Mr. Madison, asking his opinion whether New York could come in on the conditions stipulated, to which Mr. Madison replied,

"My opinion is, that a reservation of a right to withdraw, if amendments be not decided on under the form of the Constitution within a certain time, is a conditional ratification; that it does not make New York a member of the new Union, and, consequently, that she could not be received on that plan. Compacts must be reciprocal: this principle would not in such a case be preserved. The Constitution requires an adoption IN TOTO, AND FOREVER. It has been so adopted by the other states. An adoption for a limited time would be as defective as an adoption of some of the articles only. The idea of reserving a right to withdraw was started at Richmond, and considered as a conditional ratification, which was itself abandoned as worse than a rejection."

In a letter written to Mr. Webster in 1833, Mr. Madison

says,

"I return you my thanks for your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. It crushes nullification, and must hasten an abandonment of secession."

Speaking in the same letter of the Constitution, he says, "It makes the government, like other governments, to operate directly on the people, places at its command the needful physical means of executing its powers, and, finally, proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions and laws of the states; the powers of the government being exercised, as in other elective and responsible governments, under the control of its constituents, the people, and the Legislatures of the states, and subject TO THE REVOLUTIONARY rights of the people in extreme cases."

By reference to the proceedings of the Virginia Convention of 1787, it will be seen from what this dangerous and most unfounded pretense has been derived. A preamble was then and there adopted, containing the following language:

....

"We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, elected . . . . . do, in the name and on the behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them" (the people of the United States) "whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression; and that every power not granted thereby remains with them, and at their will," etc.

This, it will be perceived, is a mere declaration of a philosophical opinion expressed in a preamble, and which, whether true or false, can not modify or change the effect of the resolution following it. In this case, however, it hap

pens to be a truism founded upon a universally recognized principle, to wit, that the powers of the government are derived from the people of the United States, and may be resumed by them—the people of the United States—whenever these powers are perverted to the injury or oppression of the people of the United States.

When it can be shown that the people of South Carolina, or Virginia, or even of all the Southern States combined, constitute the people of the United States, it will be time. enough to waste time and breath, or ink and paper, for the discussion of this proposition.

But when you arrive at the resolution adopting the Constitution, it will be found absolute and unconditional, and containing no reservation whatever. The resolution is as follows:

"We, the said delegates, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, do, by these presents, assent to and ratify the Constitution recommended on the 17th day of September, 1787, by the Federal Convention for the government of the United States, hereby announcing to all those whom it may concern that the said Constitution is binding upon the said people, according to an authentic copy hereto annexed."

In like manner, we hear a great deal said about the "sovereignty" of the states. Now what is the sovereignty of the states? That the states are supreme, and - if you choose to misapply the term-are "sovereign," in the exercise of all their legitimate powers, is true; but no more so than is a county court, or a grand or petit jury, with whose functions no other power can interfere. What are the functions and powers of sovereignty? I presume it will not be denied that the power to declare war; make peace; regulate commerce; impose duties, imposts, and excises;

prepare for the common defense; to coin money and regulate its value; to establish post-offices and post-roads; to grant letters of marque and reprisal; to provide and maintain a navy; to make treaties; enter into alliances, etc., etc., are all sovereign powers, each one of which can be exercised by the government of the United States; and not one of which can be exercised by any state in the Union, and there never has been a moment of time when they could.

What an anomaly it would be to see thirty-six sovereignties, not one of which could have a civil officer in its service, from a constable up to the governor, without his taking an oath to support the Constitution of another government which was not sovereign; and that which is not sovereign having the service of all its officers, domestic as well as foreign, in every state, not one of whom was required to swear to support one of the sovereignties!

It is an entire misapplication of the term to apply “sovereignty" to a state. There is no state in the Union that ever could exercise a sovereign power, unless Texas (though never a government de jure) might constitute an exception. It will not be questioned that what are now the States were originally the colonies of Great Britain, and it will not be claimed that while colonies they set up any pretensions to sovereignty. In 1776 the then thirteen colonies entered into a Declaration of Independence and common compact, under the designation of the "United States," and declared themselves free, and, as a united body, claiming the right of the whole united, not of each one, to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do; but it never was pretended that any one of these states could of itself exercise any one of these powers of sovereignty.