administered by a man appointed by the British crown, guarded by
British soldiers; the use of this old Faneuil Hall was refused by the
town authorities to a British Governor, to hold a British festival,
because he was going to bring with him the agents for collecting, and
naval officers sent here to enforce, an unconstitutional tax upon your
commonwealth. Such was the proud spirit of independence manifested
even in your colonial history. Such the great stone your fathers hewed
with sturdy hand, and left the fit foundation for a monument to state
rights! [Applause.] And so throughout the early period of our country
you find Massachusetts leading, most prominent of all the States, in
the assertion of that doctrine which has been recently so much
decried.

Having achieved your independence, having passed through the
confederation, you assented to the formation of our present
constitutional Union. You did not surrender your state sovereignty.
Your fathers had sacrificed too much to claim as the reward of their
trials that they should merely have a change of masters. And a change
of masters it would have been had Massachusetts surrendered her State
sovereignty to the central government, and consented that that central
government should have the power to coerce a State. But if this power
does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, I
say, who can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your
candidate this evening, when he has plead to you the cause of State
independence, and the right of every community to he the judge of its
own domestic affairs? [Applause.] This is all we have ever asked--we
of the South, I mean,--for I stand before you one of those who have
been called the ultra men of the South, and I speak, therefore, for
that class; and tell you that your candidate for Governor has asserted
to-night everything which we have claimed as a right, and demanded as