slaves, etc.

"It has already been stated that the States which comprise our
Federal Union are sovereign and independent communities, united by
a constitutional compact. Among its members the laws of nations
are in full force and obligation, except as altered or modified by
the compact, etc.

"Within their limits, the rights of the slave-holding States are
as full to demand of the States within whose limits and jurisdiction
their peace is assailed, to adopt the measures necessary to prevent
the same, and, if refused or neglected, _to resort to means to
protect themselves_, as if they were separate and independent
communities."

Here, perhaps, was the clearest statement yet made, not only of
the independence of States from Federal interference and of their
right, on their own whim, to break the "_compact_," but of the
right of the slaveholding States to dictate to the other States
legislation on the subject of slavery.

It was at once a declaration of independence for the Southern
States, and a declaration of their right to hold all the Northern
States so far subject to them as to be obliged, on demand, to pass
and enforce any prescribed law in the interest of slavery. The
South was to be the sole judge of what law on this subject was
requisite for slavery's purposes.

No duty was demanded on this question of the Federal Government;
and Southern States, according to Calhoun, owed it none where
slavery was concerned.

Calhoun and his committee could discover no power in the Southern
States to enforce their demands save to act as separate and
independent communities--that is, by setting up for themselves.
This led logically to disunion, the result intended.

There was much in this report setting forth and professing to
believe that it was the purpose of the North to emancipate the
slaves, and through the agencies of organized anti-slavery societies
bring about slave insurrections. The fanaticism of the North was
descanted on, and the character of slavery and its wisdom as a
social institution upheld.

He further said:

"He who regards slavery in those States simply under the relation
of master and slave, as important as that relation is, viewed merely
as a question of property to the slave-holding section of the Union,
has a very imperfect conception of the institution, and the
impossibility of abolishing it without disasters unexampled in the
history of the world. To understand its nature and importance