a duty resulting from the guarantees of the Constitution, made for our
mutual protection. [Applause.] Nor is here alone in that such doctrine
is asserted, the like it has been my happiness to hear in your
daughter, the neighboring State of Maine. I have found that the
democrats there asserted the same broad, constitutional principle for
which we have been contending, by which we are willing to live, for
which we are willing to die! [Loud cheers and cries of "good!"]

In this state of the case, my friends, why is the country agitated?
What is there practical or rational in the present excitement? Why,
since the old controversies, with all their lights and shadows, have
passed away, is the political firmament covered by one dark pall, the
funeral shade of which increases with every passing year?

Why is it, I say, that you are thus agitated in relation to the
domestic affairs of other communities? Why is it that the peace of the
country is disturbed in order that one people may assume to judge of
what another people should do? Is there any political power to
authorize such interference? If so, where is it? You did not surrender
your sovereignty. You gave to the federal government certain
functions. It was your agent, created for specified purposes. It can
do nothing save that which you have given it power to perform. Where
is the grant of the Constitution which confers on the federal
government a right to determine what shall be property? Surely none
such exists; that question it belongs to every community to settle for
itself: you judge in your case; every other State must judge in its
case. The federal government has no power to create or establish; more
palpably still, it has no power to destroy property. Do you pay taxes
to an agent that he may destroy your property? Do you support him for
that purpose? It is an absurdity on the face of it. To ask the