hat I am right in making the assertion, I put it to the Senator--Have
we not a right under the Constitution to our property in our slaves?
Would it not be a violation of the Constitution to divest us of that
right? Have we not a right to enjoy, _under the Constitution, peaceably
and quietly, our acknowledged rights guaranteed by it_, without
annoyance? The Senator assents. He does but justice to his candor and
intelligence. Now I ask him, how can he assent to receive petitions
whose object is to annoy and disturb our right, and of course in direct
infraction of the Constitution?

The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Tappan], in refusing to present these
incendiary and unconstitutional petitions, has adopted a course truly
constitutional and patriotic, and in my opinion, the only one that is
so. I deeply regret that it has not been followed by the Senator from
Kentucky in the present instance. Nothing short of it can put a stop to
the mischief, and do justice to one-half of the States of the Union. If
adopted by others, we shall soon hear no more of abolition. The
responsibility of keeping alive this agitation must rest on those who
may refuse to follow so noble an example.

STATE RIGHTS

From the 'Speech on the Admission of Michigan,' 1837

It has perhaps been too much my habit to look more to the future and
less to the present than is wise; but such is the constitution of my
mind that when I see before me the indications of causes calculated to
effect important changes in our political condition, I am led
irresistibly to trace them to their sources and follow them out in their
consequences. Language has been held in this discussion which is clearly
revolutionary in its character and tendency, and which warns us of the
approach of the period when the struggle will be between the
_conservatives_ and the _destructives_. I understood the Senator from
Pennsylvania [Mr. Buchanan] as holding language countenancing the
principle that the will of a mere numerical majority is paramount to the
authority of law and constitution. He did not indeed announce distinctly
this principle, but it might fairly be inferred from what he said; for
he told us the people of a State where the constitution gives the same
weight to a smaller as to a greater number, might take the remedy into
their own hands; meaning, as I understood him, that a mere majority
might at their pleasure subvert the constitution and government of a
State,--which he seemed t