presentation, and put down there, lest it grow into proportions
which will render us powerless before it.

"The theory of our Constitution, Mr. President, is one of peace,
of equality of sovereign States. It was made by States and made
for States; and for greater assurance they passed an amendment,
doing that which was necessarily implied by the nature of the
instrument, as it was a mere instrument of grants. But, in the
abundance of caution, they declared that everything which had
not been delegated was reserved to the States, or to the
people--that is, to the State governments as instituted by the
people of each State, or to the people in their sovereign
capacity.

"I need not, then, go on to argue from the history and nature of
our Government that no power of coercion exists in it. It is
enough for me to demand the clause of the Constitution which
confers the power. If it is not there, the Government does not
possess it. That is the plain construction of the
Constitution--made plainer, if possible, by its amendment.

"This Union is dear to me as a Union of fraternal States. It
would lose its value if I had to regard it as a Union held
together by physical force. I would be happy to know that every
State now felt that fraternity which made this Union possible;
and, if that evidence could go out, if evidence satisfactory to
the people of the South could be given that that feeling existed
in the hearts of the Northern people, you might burn your
statute-books and we would cling to the Union still. But it is
because of their conviction that hostility, and not fraternity,
now exists in the hearts of the people, that they are looking to
their reserved rights and to their independent powers for their
own protection. If there be any good, then, which we can do, it
is by sending evidence to them of that which I fear does not
exist--the purpose of your constituents to fulfill in the spirit
of justice and fraternity all their constitutional obligations.
If you can submit to them that evidence, I feel confidence that,
with the assurance that aggression is henceforth to cease, will
terminate all the measures for defense. Upon you of the majority
section it depends to restore peace and perpetuate the Union of
equal States; upon us of the minority section rests the duty to