held the States together. You have seen your churches divided; you
have seen trade turned aside from its accustomed channel; you have
seen jealousy and uncharitableness and bickering springing up and
growing stronger day by day, until at last, if it continue, the cord
of union between the States reduced simply to the political strand,
may not suffice to hold them together. Once united by every tie of
fraternal feeling, shoulder to shoulder, step by step, our fathers
went through the revolution, prompted by a common desire for the
common good, and animated by devotion to the principle of popular
liberty. They struggled against the mother country, because that
country endeavored to legislate for the colonies, and the colonies
claimed as a right that they must not be taxed except by their own
representatives, and refused to submit to unconstitutional
legislation. If now, in this struggle for the ascendency in power, one
action should gain such predominance as would enable it, by modifying
the Constitution and usurping new power, to legislate for the other,
_the exercise of that power would throw us back into the condition of
the colonies._ And if in the veins of the sons flows the blood of
their sires, _they would not fail to redeem themselves from tyranny
even should they be driven to resort to revolution._ [Applause.]

And what is the other question of difference now? It is the agitation,
as a national question, of the right of foreigners to suffrage within
these States. Now, I ask, what power has Congress over the question?
Yet members to Congress are elected upon that question. How would
Congress legislate upon it?--They say, by modifying the naturalization
laws. What do those laws confer? The right to hold real estate and the
right to devise it by will; the right to sue and be sued in the courts
of the United States; and the rights to receive passports and
protection from the government of the United States. Who wishes to