House Documents, Otherwise Publ. as Executive Documents: 13th Congress, 2d Session-49th Congress, 1st Session, Volume 1

Front Cover

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 76 - This state of things could not be endured, and our present happy Constitution was formed, but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevails. It was formed for important objects that are announced in the preamble, made in the name and by the authority of the people of the United States, whose delegates framed, and whose conventions approved it. The most important among these objects, that which is placed first in rank, on which all the others rest, is, " to form a more perfect Union.
Page 38 - The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people: and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.
Page 81 - ... to pass acts for punishing the offender, unless that right is modified, restrained, or resumed by the constitutional act. In our system, although it is modified in the case of treason, yet authority is expressly given to pass all laws necessary to carry its powers into effect, and under this grant, provision has been made for punishing acts which obstruct the due administration of the laws.
Page 105 - But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede...
Page 80 - This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the Constitution, which, they say, is a compact between sovereign states, who have preserved their whole sovereignty, and, therefore, are subject to no superior; that, because they made the compact, they can break it when, in their opinion, it has been departed from by the other states.
Page 76 - ... founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed. After this general view of the leading principle, we must examine the particular application of it which is made in the ordinance. The preamble rests its justification on these grounds: It assumes as a fact that the obnoxious laws, although they purport to be laws for raising revenue, were in reality intended for the protection of manufactures, which purpose it asserts to be unconstitutional; that the operation of these laws...
Page 100 - That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact : as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact...
Page 13 - States, and even to the preservation of the Union itself, that the protection afforded by existing laws to any branches of the national industry should not exceed what may be necessary to counteract the regulations of foreign nations and to secure a supply of those articles of manufacture essential to the national independence and safety in time of war.
Page 80 - To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States are not a nation...
Page 100 - States of all powers whatsoever: That they will view this as seizing the rights of the States and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government...

Bibliographic information