must necessarily extend. The sagacity of New Jersey had led her, in agreeing to the original proposition of Virginia, to enlarge the object of the appointment of commissioners, so as to embrace not only commercial regulations, but other important matters. This suggestion the commissioners adopted, because they thought, as they inform us, "that the power of regulating trade is of such comprehensive extent, and will enter so far into the general system of the Federal Government, that to give it efficacy, and to obviate questions and doubts concerning its precise nature and limits, might require a correspondent adjustment of other parts of the Federal system." Here you see, sir, that other powers, such as are now in the constitution, were expected to branch out of the necessary commercial power; and, therefore, the letter of the commissioners concludes with recommending a general convention, "to take into consideration the whole situation of the United States, and to devise such further provisions as should appear necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

The result of that convention was the present constitution. And yet, in the midst of all this flood of light, respecting its original objects and purposes, and with all the adequate powers which it confers, we abandon the commerce of the country, we betray its interests, we turn ourselves away from its most trying necessities. Sir, it will be a fact, stamped in deep and dark lines upon our annals; it will be a truth, which in all time can never be denied or evaded, that if this constitution shall not, now and hereafter, be so administered as to maintain a uniform system in all matters of trade; if it shall not protect and regulate the commerce of the country, in all its great interests, in its foreign intercourse, in its domestic intercourse, in its navigation, in its currency, in every thing which fairly belongs to the whole idea of commerce, either as an end, an agent, or an instrument, then that constitution will have failed, utterly failed to accomplish the precise, distinct, original object, in which it had its being.

In matters of trade, we were no longer to be Georgians, Virginians, Pennsylvanians, or Massachusetts men. We were to have but one commerce, and that the commerce of the United States. There were not to be separate flags, waving over separate commercial systems. There was to be one flag, the E PLURIBUS UNUM; and toward that was to be that rally of united interests and affections, which our fathers had so earnestly invoked.

Mr. President, this unity of commercial regulation is, in my opinion, indispensable to the safety of the union of the States themselves. In peace it is its strongest tie. I care not, sir, on what side, or in which of its branches, it may be attacked. Every successful attack upon it, made anywhere, weakens the whole, and renders the next assault easier and more dangerous. Any denial of its just power is an attack upon it. We attack it, most fiercely attack it, whenever we say we will not exercise the powers which it enjoins. If the Court had yielded to the pretensions of respectable States upon the subject of steam navigation, and to the retaliatory proceedings of other

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States; if retreat and excuse, and disavowal of power had been prevailing sentiments then, in what condition, at this moment, let me ask, would the steam navigation of the country be found? To us, sir, to us, his countrymen, to us, who feel so much admiration for his genius,. and so much gratitude for his services, Fulton would have lived almost in vain. State grants and State exclusions would have covered over all our waters.

Sir, it is in the nature of such things, that the first violation, or the first departure from true principles, draws more important violations or departures after it; and the first surrender of just authority will be followed by others more to be deplored. If commerce be a unit, to break it in any one part, is to decree its ultimate dismemberment in all. If there be made a first chasm, though it be small, through that the whole wild ocean will pour in, and we may then throw up embankments in vain.

Sir, the spirit of union is particularly liable to temptation and seduction, in moments of peace and prosperity. In war, this spirit is strengthened by a sense of common danger, and by a thousand recollections of ancient efforts and ancient glory in a common cause. In the calms of a long peace, and the absence of all apparent causes of alarm, things near gain an ascendency over things remote. Local interests and feelings overshadow national sentiments. Our attention, our regard, and our attachment, are every moment solicited to what touches us closest, and we feel less and less the attraction of a distant orb. Such tendencies, we are bound by true patriotism, and by our love of union, to resist. This is our duty; and the moment, in my judgment, has arrived when that duty is summoned to action. We hear, every day, sentiments and arguments, which would become a meeting of envoys, employed by separate Governments, more than they become the common Legislature of a united country. Constant appeals are made to local interests, to geographical distinctions, and to the policy and the pride of particular States. It would sometimes appear that it was, or as if it were, a settled purpose, to convince the people that our Union is nothing but a jumble of different and discordant interests, which must, ere long, be all returned to their original state of separate existence; as if, therefore, it was of no great value while it should last, and was not likely to last long. The process of disintegration begins, by urging the fact of different in

terests.

Sir, is not the end obvious, to which all this leads us? Who does not see that, if convictions of this kind take possession of the public mind, our Union can hereafter be nothing, while it remains, but a connexion without harmony; a bond without affection; a theatre for the angry contests of local feelings, local objects, and local jealousies? Even while it continues to exist, in name, it may, by these means, become nothing but the mere form of a united Government. My children, and the children of those who sit around me, may meet, perhaps, in this Chamber, in the next generation; but if tendencies, now but too obvious, be not checked, they will meet as

strangers and aliens. They will feel no sense of common interest or common country: they will cherish no common object of patriotic love. If the same Saxon language shall fall from their lips, it may be the chief proof that they belong to the same nation. Its vital principle exhausted and gone, its power of doing good terminated, now productive only of strife and contention, and no longer sustained by a sense of common interest, the Union itself must ultimately fall, dishonored and unlamented.

The honorable member from Carolina himself, habitually indulges in charges of usurpation and oppression against the Government of his country. He daily denounces its important measures, in the language in which our revolutionary fathers spoke of the oppressions of the mother country. Not merely against Executive usurpation, either real or supposed, does he utter these sentiments; but against laws of Congress, laws passed by large majorities, laws sanctioned, for a course of years, by the people. These laws he proclaims, every hour, to be but a series of acts of oppression. He speaks of them as if it were an admitted fact, that such is their true character. This is the language which he utters, these the sentiments he expresses, to the rising generation around him. Are they sentiments and language which are likely to inspire our children with the love of union, to enlarge their patriotism, or to teach them, and to make them feel, that their destiny has made them common citizens of one great and glorious republic? A principal object, in his late political movements, the gentleman himself tells us, was to unite the entire South; and against whom, or against what, does he wish to unite the entire South? Is not this the very essence of local feeling and local regard? Is it not the acknow!edgment of a wish and object, to create political strength, by uniting political opinions geographically? While the gentleman thus wishes to unite the entire South, I pray to know, sir, if he expects me to turn toward the polar-star, and, acting on the same principle, to utter a cry of Rally! to the whole North? Heaven forbid! To the day of my death, neither he nor others shall hear such a cry from me.

Finally, the honorable member declares that he shall now march off, under the banner of State rights! March off from whom? March off from what? We have been contending for great principles. We have been struggling to maintain the liberty and to restore the prosperity of the country; we have made these struggles here, in the national councils, with the old flag, the true American flag, the Eagle, and the Stars and Stripes, waving over the Chamber in which we sit. He now tells us, however, that he marches off under the State-rights banner!

Let him go. I remain. I am, I ever have been, and ever mean to be. Here, standing on the platform of the general constitution-a platform, broad enough, and firm enough, to uphold every interest of the whole country-I shall still be found. trusted with some part in the administration of that constitution, I intend to act in its spirit, and in the spirit of those who framed it.

In

Yes, sir, I would act as if our fathers, who formed it for us, and who bequeathed it to us, were looking on us—as if I could see their venerable forms, bending down to behold us, from the abodes above. I would act, too, sir, as if that long line of posterity were also viewing us, whose eye is hereafter to scrutinize our conduct.

Standing thus, as in the full gaze of our ancestors, and our posterity, having received this inheritance from the former, to be transmitted to the latter; and feeling, that if I am born for any good, in my day and generation, it is for the good of the whole country; no local policy, or local feeling, no temporary impulse, shall induce me to yield my foothold on the Constitution and the Union. I move off, under no banner, not known to the whole American People, and to their constitution and laws. No, sir, these walls, these columns

I came into public life, sir, in the service of the United States. On that broad altar, my earliest, and all my public vows, have been made. I propose to serve no other master. So far as depends on any agency of mine, they shall continue united States; united in interest and in affection; united in every thing in regard to which the constitution has decreed their union; united in war, for the common defence, the common renown, and the common glory; and united, compacted, knit firmly together in peace, for the common prosperity and happiness of ourselves and our children.