content
with the mere colors and superficies of things. And if we were now at
the bar of some stall-fed justice, the inquiry would insure the victory
to the maker of it, to the manifest delight of the constables and
suitors of his court. But, sir, we are now before the tribunal of the
whole American people; reasoning concerning their liberties, their
rights, their Constitution. These are not to be made the victims of the
inevitable obscurity of general terms; nor the sport of verbal
criticism. The question is concerning the intent of the American people,
the proprietors of the old United States, when they agreed to this
article. Dictionaries and spelling-books are here of no authority.
Neither Johnson, nor Walker, nor Webster, nor Dilworth, has any voice in
this matter. Sir, the question concerns the proportion of power
reserved, by this Constitution, to every State in this Union. Have the
three branches of this government a right, at will, to weaken and
out-weigh the influence, respectively secured to each State in this
compact, by introducing, at pleasure, new partners, situate beyond the
old limits of the United States? The question has not relation merely to
New Orleans. The great objection is to the principle of the bill. If
this principle be admitted, the whole space of Louisiana, greater, it is
said, than the entire extent of the old United States, will be a mighty
theatre, in which this government assumes the right of exercising this
unparalleled power. And it will be; there is no concealment, it is
intended to be exercised. Nor will it stop until the very name and
nature of the old partners be overwhelmed by new-corners into the
confederacy. Sir, the question goes to the very root of the power and
influence of the present members of this Union. The real intent of this
article, is, therefore, an injury of most serious import; and is to be
settled only by a recurrence to the known history and known relations of
this people and their Constitution. These, I maintain, support this
position, that the terms "new States," in this article, do not intend
new political sovereignties, with territorial annexations, to be created
without the original limits of the United States. * * *

But there is an argument stronger even than all those which have been
produced, to be drawn from the nature of the power here proposed to be
exercised. Is it possible that such a power, if it had been intended to
be given by the people, shoul