the
Union, in peace and war, under her _charter government_, as it is
denominated by the resolution of the House of the 23d March. I must be
permitted to disclaim entirely and unqualifiedly the right on the part
of the Executive to make any real or supposed defects existing in any
State constitution or form of government the pretext for a failure to
enforce the laws or the guaranties of the Constitution of the United
States in reference to any such State. I utterly repudiate the idea,
in terms as emphatic as I can employ, that those laws are not to be
enforced or those guaranties complied with because _the President_ may
believe that the right of suffrage or any other great popular right
is either too restricted or too broadly enlarged. I also with equal
strength resist the idea that it falls within the Executive competency
to decide in controversies of the nature of that which existed in Rhode
Island on which side is the majority of the people or as to the extent
of the rights of a mere numerical majority. For the Executive to assume
such a power would be to assume a power of the most dangerous character.
Under such assumptions the States of this Union would have no security
for peace or tranquillity, but might be converted into the mere
instruments of Executive will. Actuated by selfish purposes, he might
become the great agitator, fomenting assaults upon the State
constitutions and declaring the majority of to-day to be the minority
of to-morrow, and the minority, in its turn, the majority, before whose
decrees the established order of things in the State should be
subverted. Revolution, civil commotion, and bloodshed would be the
inevitable consequences. The provision in the Constitution intended for
the security of the States would thus be turned into the instrument
of their destruction. The President would become, in fact, the great
_constitution maker_ for the States, and all power would be vested
in his hands.

When, therefore, the governor of Rhode Island, by his letter of the
4th of April, 1842, made a requisition upon the Executive for aid to
put down the late disturbances, I had no hesitation in recognizing the
obligations of the Executive to furnish such aid upon the occurrence of
the contingency provided for by the Constitution and laws. My letter
of the 11th of April, in reply to the governor's letter of the 4th, is
herewith communicated, together with all correspondence which passed at
a subsequent day