on the ground that the bank was unconstitutional. The case went to the
Supreme Court, and therein it was decided that the bank was
constitutional. The whole Democratic party revolted against that
decision. General Jackson himself asserted that he, as President, would
not be bound to hold a National Bank to be constitutional, even though
the court had decided it to be so. He fell in precisely with the view of
Mr. Jefferson, and acted upon it under his official oath, in vetoing a
charter for a National Bank. The declaration that Congress does not
possess this constitutional power to charter a bank has gone into the
Democratic platform, at their National Conventions, and was brought
forward and reaffirmed in their last Convention at Cincinnati. They have
contended for that declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court,
for more than a quarter of a century. In fact, they have reduced the
decision to an absolute nullity. That decision, I repeat, is repudiated
in the Cincinnati platform; and still, as if to show that effrontery can
go no further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in which he
denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott decision that he stands on the
Cincinnati platform.

Now, I wish to know what the Judge can charge upon me, with respect to
decisions of the Supreme Court, which does not lie in all its length,
breadth, and proportions at his own door. The plain truth is simply this:
Judge Douglas is for Supreme Court decisions when he likes and against
them when he does not like them. He is for the Dred Scott decision
because it tends to nationalize slavery; because it is part of the
original combination for that object. It so happens, singularly enough,
that I never stood opposed to a decision of the Supreme Court till this,
on the contrary, I have no recollection that he was ever particularly in
favor of one till this. He never was in favor of any nor opposed to any,
till the present one, which helps to nationalize slavery.