It was, however, abundantly worth while. The assailed
Constitution needed such a defender. It was necessary that the
patriotic feeling of the American people, which was destined to a
trial so severe, should have an unshakable basis of intelligent
conviction. It was necessary that all men should be made distinctly to
see that the Constitution was not a "compact" to which the States
"acceded," and from which they could secede, but the fundamental law,
which the people had established and ordained, from which there could
be no secession but by revolution. It was necessary that the country
should be made to understand that Nullification and Secession were one
and the same; and that to admit the first, promising to stop short at
the second, was as though a man "should take the plunge of Niagara and
cry out that he would stop half-way down." Mr. Webster's principal
speech on this subject, delivered in 1832, has, and will ever have,
with the people and the Courts of the United States, the authority of
a judicial decision; and it might very properly be added to popular
editions of the Constitution as an appendix.
Pages:
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196