CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



155 



are to lie at the mercy from day to day of a 

 tribunal created by themselves." 



The President pro temper e : " The question 

 is on the amendment offered by the Senator 

 from Oregon to the amendment of the com- 

 mittee. The amendment proposes to strike 

 out all of section one of the amendment re- 

 ported by the Committee on the Judiciary, and 

 to insert in lieu thereof the following : 



Congress shall have power to abolish or modify any 

 restrictions upon the right to vote or hold office pre- 

 scribed by the constitution or laws of any State." 



Mr. Davis : " Mr. President, my honorable 

 friend from Indiana (Mr. Morton) referred to 

 myself, in connection with other Senators, as 

 having given some support to the doctrine of 

 nullification. I choose, at this late hour of the 

 evening, to disclaim that that is my position. 

 My position is simply this : according to prop- 

 er language, there is no sovereignty in the 

 United States or in any of the States ; the sov- 

 ereignty rests with the people. The people 

 divided their sovereignty, and they delegated 

 it to two governments ; that is, to two classes 

 of governments. They delegated a portion of 

 it to the Government of the United States by 

 the Constitution. The rest of the sovereignty 

 of the people of the United States is in the peo- 

 ple respectively of the States. My position is, 

 that as to the sovereignty and powers delegated 

 by the Constitution of the United States to the 

 Government of the United States, the Govern- 

 ment of the United States and the United States 

 are a nationality. "Within the scope and opera- 

 tion of all the sovereignty and of all the power 

 delegated by the Constitution to the United 

 States, the United States exercises the full and 

 entire sovereignty delegated to it by the people 

 in the Constitution. 



" My other position in relation to that sub- 

 ject is, that as to the sovereignty not delegated 

 by the Constitution to the people, but reserved 

 to the States, the States are sovereign ; and the 

 States are as much sovereign, within the scope 

 of their reserved sovereignty and powers, as 

 the Government of the United States ; and the 

 United States are sovereign within the sphere 

 of the powers delegated to the United States 

 and to the Government of the United States 

 by the Constitution. I hope that my position 

 is understood. That distinction has been taken 

 repeatedly and sustained by the judgments of' 

 the Supreme Court. There is not a commenta- 

 tor upon the Constitution of the United States, 

 from the Federalist and Hamilton and Madison 

 down, that does not recognize the same parti- 

 tion of sovereignty and the same exclusive and 

 paramount authority of the States as to all the 

 sovereignty and power reserved by them, and 

 so of the United States in relation to all the 

 sovereignty and powers delegated to the United 

 States by the Constitution." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, said: "If the 

 honorable Senator from Kentucky will allow 

 me to say a word, I am not entirely certain 

 that I fully comprehend his idea of sovereignty. 



He speaks of sovereignty as resting in the peo- 

 ple. Let me inquire of the honorable Senator 

 what people he refers to the whole people of 

 the United States, constituting in and of them- 

 selves an imperial popular community ? Are 

 those the people in whom the ultimate supreme 

 sovereignty rests, or is it in the people of the 

 several States ? " 



Mr. Davis : u My position is, that, as to pow- 

 ers delegated to the United States and the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States by the Con- 

 stitution, that portion of the sovereignty be- 

 longs to all the people of the United States ; 

 that it is a delegated sovereignty from all the 

 people of the United States to that extent. So 

 far as the sovereignty and powers of govern- 

 ment are not delegated by the Constitution to 

 the United States and the Government formed 

 by the Constitution, that sovereignty belongs 

 as exclusively to the people of the States as it 

 did before the formation of the Constitution." 



Mr. Howard : " Then I will inquire whence 

 the honorable Senator derives that doctrine? 

 Is it from the history of the American nation, 

 or is it from the Kentucky resolutions of 

 1798?" 



Mr. Davis : "I derive it from the Constitu- 

 tion ; I derive it from the treatises upon the 

 Constitution by the men who made it ; I de- 

 rive it from Hamilton and Madison, from Kent 

 and Story and Marshall, and every other great 

 light and luminary of the Constitution. I will 

 read a paragraph from Madison's letters on 

 this subject : 



It has been too much the case, in expounding the 

 Constitution of the United States, that its meaning 

 has been sought not in its peculiar and unprece- 

 dented modification of power, but by viewing it, some 

 through the medium of a simple government, others 

 through that of a mere league of governments. It is 

 neither the one nor the other, but essentially different 

 from both. It must consequently be its own inter- 

 preter. No other government can furnish a key to 

 its true character. Other governments present an 

 individual and indivisible sovereignty. The Consti- 

 tution of the United States divides the sovereignty ; 

 the portions surrendered' by the States^ composing the 

 Federal sovereignty over specific subjects ; the por- 

 tions retained forming the sovereignty of each over 

 the residuary subjects within its sphere. 



" In the case of McCulloch vs. The State of 

 Maryland, Chief-Justice Marshall decides that 

 all powers of government appertain to sover- 

 eignty. He decides explicitly that the charter 

 of a Bank of the United States is an exercise 

 of sovereignty, and he says in the most explicit 

 language that all exercise of political power is 

 an exercise of political sovereignty. Now, my 

 position is simply this : that the portion of it 

 yielded up by the people of all the States, as 

 enumerated in the Constitution, is an emana- 

 tion from the people of all the States, acting 

 by States, to the United States and to the Gen- 

 eral Government; that, so far as sovereignty 

 is not delegated by that instrument to the 

 United States and to the Government formed 

 by the Constitution, that sovereignty is retained 

 by the States; and it is as distinctively, as 



