CONGRESS, F. B. 



259 



provement, progress, and elevation. Then the 

 nation, ' regenerated and disinthralled by the 

 genius of universal emancipation,' will run the 

 career of development, power, and glory, quick- 

 ened, animated, and guided by the spirit of the 

 Christian democracy that ' pulls not the highest 

 down, but lifts the lowest up.' " 



Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, opposed the 

 joint resolution, saying: "I may be about to 

 announce a heresy, but if it is a heresy I firmly 

 believe in the truth of it, that if the Senate of 

 of the United States were to adopt this joint 

 resolution, and were to submit it to all the 

 States of this Union, and if three-fourths of 

 the States should ratify the amendment, it 

 would not be binding on any State whose in- 

 terest was affected by it if that State protested 

 against it. I know the popular doctrine is, 

 that if a convention is called by two-thirds of 

 the States and proposes any amendments what- 

 ever to the Constitution, which amendments 

 are ratified by three-fourths of the States, such 

 amendments then become the supreme law of 

 the land, and are binding on each and every 

 State those who had not assented to them as 

 well as those who had. Such is not the opin- 

 ion which I entertain of this matter. I may 

 be in error; I know my view is against the 

 popular opinion ; but let us test it and see who 

 is right and who is wrong. Who framed this 

 Constitution ? Who ruad.. 



Sir. that Constitution was framed by the 

 States, by the people of the States, who elected 

 delegates to their conventions or Legislatures. 

 It was submitted separately to each State. It 

 never was submitted to the people of the 

 United States as an aggregate body. It was 

 not even submitted to the Congress of the 

 United States elected by the people from the 

 particular States. It was not submitted to a 

 general convention of delegates elected in the 

 different States, but it was submitted directly 

 and immediately to the States themselves. It 

 was to bind no State, and had no effect in any 

 State except those States which, in their inde- 

 pendent and separate character, ratified it. 



" Our seceding fathers withdrew not en masse 

 from the old Articles of Confederation. The 

 State which I have the honor in part to repre- 

 sent, although now one of the least populous in 

 the Union, was the first seceder. Xew Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, and other States followed, until 

 finally Xew Hampshire made secession complete 

 from the other States by ratifying that Con- 

 stitution. Xew York, Virginia, North Caro- 

 lina, and Rhode Island were left to determine 

 the great issue of peaceable separation or forci- 

 ble opposition to- it. They were left to try the 

 power of military coercion or to exclaim that 

 their wayward sisters might depart in peace. 

 Xew York and Virginia soon seceded from the 

 old Confederation and came in, and finally 

 Xorth Carolina ; but Rhode Island would no't 

 whip them back again. 



" The Constitution of the United States is a 

 contract made for the government of the peo- 



ple of the whole United States. It is a con- 

 tract to which, in the language of Mr. Madison, 

 the States themselves are parties, and it is to 

 be construed, just as any other contract is to bo 

 construed, by its own terms and by the sur- 

 rounding circumstances showing the objects 

 and the purposes for which it was formed. 

 What were those purposes ? To form a union 

 among the States for common purposes, not to 

 give them the control over the domestic rela- 

 tions existing in the States, not to regulate the 

 right and title to property in the States ; but 

 there were great common purposes to be sub- 

 served by the formation of this Union which 

 could be better subserved by the States in the 

 aggregate than by the States separately. They 

 were intrusted with the interests of the States 

 so far as intercourse with foreign nations was 

 concerned, with the regulation of commerce, 

 with the coinage of money, and many other 

 things. But the framers of that instrument 

 show in it the object which they had in form- 

 ing it, because they delegate the powers which 

 the Federal Government should have, and then 

 declare that the powers not therein delegated, 

 and not prohibited to the States, are reserved 

 to the States respectively or to the people. 



" Do any suppose if, at the time of the for- 

 mation of that Constitution, it had been sug- 

 gested that, by allowing it to be amended by 

 the ratification of three-fourths of the States, 

 a future convention would undertake to invade 

 the rights of the States and to determine what 

 should be property in the States, or to regulate 

 the relation of parent and child, husband and 

 wife, master and slave, within those States. 

 that the fathers would ever have entered into 

 such an agreement ? Why, sir, even with the 

 omission from that Constitution of the pro- 

 vision which provides for the rendition of fugi- 

 tive slaves, we are told by so high an authority 

 as Justice Story, the Constitution could not have 

 been framed. Do you suppose that men who 

 were so tenacious of their rights men who 

 had waged a long seven years' war for the 

 achievement or preservation of those rights, 

 after all their experience in that bloody conflict 

 would ever have committed to any body of 

 men, present or in the future, the power to 

 regulate the relation of parent and child or 

 husband and wife ? 



" Sir, if you can go into the States and at- 

 tempt to regulate the relation of master and 

 slave, you can go into a State and attempt to 

 regulate the relation between parent and child 

 or husband and wife. IT you have a right to 

 go into a State and say that one particular spe- 

 cies of property which has heretofore been 

 property shall not in the future be property, 

 you have a right to say that any other subject 

 of property heretofore shall not be property in 

 the future ; and you have a right to say in that 

 case, by way of amendment, that there shall 

 be no such thing as property at all. It will not 

 do to answer me by saying that no convention 

 of the States would do this ; that three-fourths 



