Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/32

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS stitutional legislation. Sir, as to the doctrine that the federal government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its powers, it seems to me to be utterly subver- sive of the sovereignty and independence o± the States. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court is invested with this power. If the federal government, in all or any of its de- partments, is to prescribe the limits of its own authority, and the States are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to ex- amine and decide for themselves when the bar- riers of the Constitution shall be overleaped, this is practically "a government without limi- tation of powers." The States are at once re- duced to mere petty corporations, and the peo- ple are entirely at your mercy. I have but one more word to add. In all the efforts that have been made by South Carolina to resist the unconstitutional laws which Con- gress has extended over them, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserved — a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. The measures of the federal government have, it is true, pros- trated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin. But even this evil, great as it is, is not the chief ground of our complaints. It is the principle involved in the contest — a principle which, substituting 22