e
Federal Constitution. The rebellion is the child of State usurpation,
State supremacy, State allegiance, and State secession. And now the
Government is paralyzed financially, in its efforts to suppress the
rebellion, by a question as to State banks, depreciating the currency,
and State banks based on State stocks. The Government wishes a currency,
not redundant, and to borrow money to save the Union. But one State
says, we have placed all our surplus money in State banks, and another
State (as in the case of New York) says, we have based the circulation
of these banks, mainly on our own State bonds, and you must do nothing
which will injuriously affect their value. It is true the Union is in
danger, but are not the credit of State banks and State bonds of higher
value than the Union? The State first, the Union afterwards. Our
paramount duty is to our State, and that to the Union is subordinate.
Why, this is the very language of rebellion--the echo of South Carolina
treason. But it is not the language of the Constitution, which declares
that "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall
be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be
made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law
of the land: and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby,
anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary
notwithstanding."

The _supremacy_ then, is with the Federal Constitution and laws;
otherwise there could be no uniformity or nationality. And does New York
suppose that she can tear down the temple of the Union, and that the
principal pillar which supported the arch will stand firm and erect? No!
if the Union falls, New York will only be the most conspicuous among the
broken columns.

But New York knows that the path of interest is that of honor and of
duty. It is the Union only that has made her great. It is the
concentration by the Union of interstate and international commerce in
her great city, that was consummating its imperial destiny. Before the
Union of 1778 and 1787, New York city was the village of Manhattan:
destroy the Union, and she will again become little more than the
village of Manhattan. The trident of the ocean, the sceptre of the
world's commerce would fall from her grasp, and London be left without a
rival. Deprive the Government of the power to regulate commerce, and the
fall of New York will be as rapid as her rise. Eac