ained with the States severally, and that the residue was
vested in the Union. By Union, I suppose, the Senator meant the United
States. If such be his meaning--if he intended to affirm that the
sovereignty was in the twenty-four States, in whatever light he may
view them, our opinions will not disagree; but according to my
conception, the whole sovereignty is in the several States, while the
exercise of sovereign power is divided--a part being exercised under
compact, through this general government, and the residue through the
separate State governments. But if the Senator from Virginia (Mr.
Rives) means to assert that the twenty-four States form but one
community, with a single sovereign power as to the objects of the
Union, it will be but the revival of the old question, of whether the
Union is a union between States, as distinct communities, or a mere
aggregate of the American people, as a mass of individuals; and in this
light his opinions would lead directly to consolidation....

Disguise it as you may, the controversy is one between power and
liberty; and I tell the gentlemen who are opposed to me, that, as
strong as may be the love of power on their side, the love of liberty
is still stronger on ours. History furnishes many instances of similar
struggles, where the love of liberty has prevailed against power under
every disadvantage, and among them few more striking than that of our
own Revolution; where, as strong as was the parent country, and feeble
as were the Colonies, yet, under the impulse of liberty, and the
blessing of God, they gloriously triumphed in the contest. There are,
indeed, many striking analogies between that and the present
controversy. They both originated substantially in the same
cause--with this difference--in the present case, the power of taxation
is converted into that of regulating industry; in the other the power
of regulating industry, by the regulation of commerce, was attempted to
be converted into the power of taxation. Were I to trace the analogy
further, we should find that the perversion of the taxing power, in the
one case, has given precisely the same control to the northern section
over the industry of the southern section of the Union, which the power
to regulate commerce gave to Great Britain over the industry of the
Colonies in the other; and that the very articles in which the Colonies
were permitted to have a free trade, and those in which the
mother-country ha