nation. The States remained as living parts of
the body, important to the national strength, and essential to those
currents which maintain national life, but plainly subordinate to the
United States, which then and there stood forth a Nation, one and
indivisible.

MISCHIEFS IN THE NAME OF STATE RIGHTS.

But the new government had hardly been inaugurated before it was
disturbed by the pestilent pretension of State Rights, which, indeed,
has never ceased to disturb it since. Discontent with the treaty between
the United States and Great Britain, negotiated by that purest patriot,
John Jay, under instructions from Washington, in 1794, aroused Virginia,
even at that early day, to commence an opposition to its ratification,
_in the name of State Rights_. Shortly afterwards appeared the famous
resolutions of Virginia and those of Kentucky, usually known as the
"Resolutions of '98," declaring that the National Government was founded
on a compact between the States, and claiming for the States the right
to sit in judgment on the National Government, and to interpose, if they
thought fit; all this, as you will see, _in the name of State Rights_.
This pretension on the part of the States increased, till, at last, on
the mild proposition to attach a prospective prohibition of Slavery as a
condition to the admission of Missouri into the Union as a new State,
the opposition raged furiously, even to the extent of menacing the
existence of the Union; and this, too, was done _in the name of State
Rights_. Ten years later, the pretension took the familiar form of
Nullification, insisting that our government was only a compact of
States, any one of which was free to annul an act of Congress at its own
pleasure; and all this _in the name of State Rights_. For a succession
of years afterwards, at the presentation of petitions against
Slavery,--petitions for the recognition of Hayti,--at the question of
Texas,--at the Wilmot Proviso,--at the admission of California as a Free
State,--at the discussion of the Compromises of 1850,--at the Kansas
Question,--the Union was menaced; and always _in the name of State
Rights_. The menace was constant, and it sometimes showed itself on
small as well as great occasions, but always _in the name of State
Rights_. When it was supposed that Fremont was about to be chosen
President, the menace became louder, and mingling with it was the hoarse
mutter of war; and all this audacity was _in the name of St