ld be required to reproduce, even in substance, the
arguments which he employed. Yet the fundamentals are so simple that
they can be stated in a dozen lines. Sovereignty, under our form of
government, resides in the people of the United States. The exercise
of the powers of sovereignty is entrusted by the people partly to the
National Government and partly to the state Governments. This division
of functions is made in the federal Constitution. If differences
arise, as they must, as to the precise nature of the division, the
decision rests--not with the state legislatures, as Hayne had
said--but with the federal courts, which were established in part for
that very purpose. No State has a right to "nullify" a federal law; if
one State has this right, all must have it, and the result can only be
conflicts that would plunge the Government into chaos and the people
ultimately into war. If the Constitution is not what the people want,
they can amend it; but as long as it stands, the Constitution and all
lawful government under it must be obeyed.

The incomparably eloquent peroration penetrated to the heart of the
whole matter. The logic of nullification was disunion. Fine theories
might be spun and dazzling phrases made to convince men otherwise, but
the hard fact would remain. Hayne, Calhoun, and their like were
playing with fire. Already they were boldly weighing "the chances of
preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be
broken asunder"; already they were hanging over the precipice of
disunion, to see whether they could "fathom the depth of the abyss
below." The last powerful words of the speech were, therefore, a
glorification of the Union:

"While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects
spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not
to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that
curtain may not rise.... When my eyes shall be turned to behold for
the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the
broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States
dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds,
or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and
lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic,
now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced,
its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe
erased or poll