principles of eternal
justice. We will pause and consider them; but mark me, we will not let
you decide the question for us. * * *

Senators, the Constitution is a compact. It contains all our obligations
and the duties of the Federal Government. I am content and have ever
been content to sustain it. While I doubt its perfection, while I do
not believe it was a good compact, and while I never saw the day that I
would have voted for it as a proposition _de novo_, yet I am bound to it
by oath and by that common prudence which would induce men to abide by
established forms rather than to rush into unknown dangers. I have given
to it, and intend to give to it, unfaltering support and allegiance,
but I choose to put that allegiance on the true ground, not on the false
idea that anybody's blood was shed for it. I say that the Constitution
is the whole compact. All the obligations, all the chains that fetter
the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely
excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that "the powers not
granted by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to
the States, belonged to the States respectively or the people." Now I
will try it by that standard; I will subject it to that test. The law
of nature, the law of justice, would say--and it is so expounded by the
publicists--that equal rights in the common property shall be enjoyed.
Even in a monarchy the king cannot prevent the subjects from enjoying
equality in the disposition of the public property. Even in a despotic
government this principle is recognized. It was the blood and the
money of the whole people (says the learned Grotius, and say all the
publicists) which acquired the public property, and therefore it is
not the property of the sovereign. This right of equality being, then,
according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all
States, when did we give it up? You say Congress has a right to pass
rules and regulations concerning the Territory and other property of the
United States. Very well. Does that exclude those whose blood and money
paid for it? Does "dispose of" mean to rob the rightful owners? You must
show a better title than that, or a better sword than we have.

But, you say, try the right. I agree to it. But how? By our judgment?
No, not until the last resort. What then; by yours? No, not until the
same time. How then try it? The South has always said, by the Supreme
Court. But