the money of the whole people (says the learned Grotius, and say all the
publicists) which acquired the public property, and therefore it is not
the property of the sovereign. This right of equality being, then,
according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all
States, when did we give it up? You say Congress has a right to pass
rules and regulations concerning the Territory and other property of the
United States. Very well. Does that exclude those whose blood and money
paid for it? Does "dispose of" mean to rob the rightful owners? You must
show a better title than that, or a better sword than we have.

What, then, will you take? You will take nothing but your own judgment;
that is, you will not only judge for yourselves, not only discard the
court, discard our construction, discard the practise of the government,
but you will drive us out, simply because you will it. Come and do it!
You have sapped the foundations of society; you have destroyed almost
all hope of peace. In a compact where there is no common arbiter, where
the parties finally decide for themselves, the sword alone at last
becomes the real, if not the constitutional, arbiter. Your party says
that you will not take the decision of the Supreme Court. You said so at
Chicago; you said so in committee; every man of you in both Houses says
so. What are you going to do? You say we shall submit to your
construction. We shall do it, if you can make us; but not otherwise, or
in any other manner. That is settled. You may call it secession, or you
may call it revolution; but there is a big fact standing before you,
ready to oppose you--that fact is, freemen with arms in their hands.

_THEODORE ROOSEVELT_

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

(1905)

MY FELLOW CITIZENS:--No people on earth have more cause to be thankful
than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in
our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good, Who has
blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large
a measure of well-being and happiness.

To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our
national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet
we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are
exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been
obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our
life has called for the vigor and effort without whi