the world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts;
allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many
instances, and no decision made on any question--the first instance of a
decision made under so many unfavorable circumstances--thus placed, has
ever been held by the profession as law, and it has always needed
confirmation before the lawyers regarded it as settled law. But Judge
Douglas will have it that all hands must take this extraordinary
decision, made under these extraordinary circumstances, and give their
vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it, and obey it in every
possible sense. Circumstances alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember
the case of that same Supreme Court some twenty-five or thirty years ago
deciding that a National Bank was constitutional? I ask, if somebody does
not remember that a National Bank was declared to be constitutional? Such
is the truth, whether it be remembered or not. The Bank charter ran out,
and a recharter was granted by Congress. That recharter was laid before
General Jackson. It was urged upon him, when he denied the
constitutionality of the Bank, that the Supreme Court had decided that it
was constitutional; and General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court
had no right to lay down a rule to govern a coordinate branch of the
government, the members of which had sworn to support the Constitution;
that each member had sworn to support that Constitution as he understood
it. I will venture here to say that I have heard Judge Douglas say that
he approved of General Jackson for that act. What has now become of all
his tirade about "resistance of the Supreme Court"?

My fellow-citizens, getting back a little,--for I pass from these
points,--when Judge Douglas makes his threat of annihilation upon the
"alliance," he is cautious to say that that warfare of his is to fall
upon the leaders of the Republican party. Almost every word he utters,
and every distinction he makes, has its significance. He means for the