grant. They never parted with their sovereignty, but only with sovereign
powers. Where does sovereignty reside under our system? With the people
of the states. What follows from all of this? Why, that each state is
left to decide for itself all questions save those which have been
expressly given over to Washington to decide. Who is trying to nullify
these inestimable principles and safeguards? That is the real
nullification. The humbug Whigs, who would like to centralize all
authority at Washington ... "and Mr. Wyatt here in this new country,
among people of plain speech and industrious lives, is the spokesman of
these encroaching despotisms, which he has vainly attempted to defend
to-night. He dares to assail the great name of Andrew Jackson. He would
like to overcome the state sovereignty which permits Connecticut to
raise cranberries and Virginia to have negro slaves, which leaves
Kentucky with whisky and Maine with water, if Maine ever chooses so. He
does not know that the French Revolution was waged for the great
principle of the people to rule; and he fails to see that the whole
world is coming to accept that doctrine. With the growing wealth and
power of the North, of Illinois, it is necessary that the rights of the
individual and local communities and of the small states as well as the
large states should have the effectual counterbalance of state
sovereignty to protect them against the ambition of centralists, who are
money grabbers wrapping themselves about with the folds of the flag and
with the garments of superior holiness."

He wished to see Illinois crossed by two railroads, from north to south,
and from east to west. He would see the Illinois and Michigan canal
completed, so that the great lake at the north of the state would be
connected with the Mississippi River and with the Gulf of Mexico. What
did it mean? The state would fill up with earners of wealth. Lands would
increase in value. Cities would be built. As for himself, he would do