for a failure to redress them, this Government is
threatened with civil war. To justify this unnatural and diabolical
resort to arms, the chimera of "State sovereignty" is invoked. And
what is State sovereignty? The gentleman from North Carolina has
endeavored to enforce this doctrine, and deduce from certain premises,
the right of a State, when she feels herself aggrieved, to secede from
her sister States, and assume an independent position and a separate
nationality. The fallacy of the gentleman's position, in fact the
fallacy of the doctrine of "State rights," and the deductions made
therefrom by the school of politicians and statesmen to which the
gentleman belongs, arises from confounding the terms State rights and
State sovereignty, and using these as though they were convertible
terms. The several States of this Union possess certain rights clearly
defined, and known and understood by the reader of American political
history. Subject to the restrictions of the national Constitution,
they have the right to establish, regulate, and control their internal
police and entire polity so far as it affects the persons and property
subject to their jurisdiction; to regulate trade, commerce, contracts,
marriage, the acquisition, possession, control, and disposal of real
and personal property; also the assessing and collecting of taxes, and
disbursement of the public revenue.

These are some of the main rights belonging to the States as such, but
these do not in any just sense constitute sovereignty. The several
States of the Union are not now and never have been sovereign States.
They never possessed the right to declare war, to make peace, to coin
money, to enter into treaty with nations, and none of them ever
endeavored or attempted to exercise any such rights as these. These
are attributes of sovereignty, as laid down by writers upon the laws
of nations, and recognized as such by the civilized world. Examine the
history of your several States, and tell me whether in any one of them
any act or fact can be found which would entitle either of them at any
time, past or present, to be recognized as sovereign independent
nations?

Mr. RUFFIN:--Will the gentleman from Indiana permit me to inform him
that during the Revolutionary War, the State of North Carolina had
laid the foundation of a navy, and at the close of hostilities she
transferred her vessels to the United States.

Mr. ORTH:--I thank the gentleman from North Car