CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



197 



most priceless legacy they could leavo to pos- 

 t.-riiy. Those men wero familiar with the 

 i ! ilelugated to Congress, and the extent 

 :ni' I Si-opo of those powers, and yet we find that 

 Washington, who presided over the Constitu- 

 tional Convention; Madison, who of all others 

 \ ;i> most conspicuous in draughting it; and Jef- 

 f -r< in, wlio understood it quite as well as either, 

 all concurred in asking and recommending to 

 Conirivss appropriations analogous to this." 



Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, said: " Mr. Chair- 

 man, what do you propose to celebrate in this 

 centennial year? Do you propose to have a 

 in it -rial exhibition only, or an exhibition 

 worthy of the great moral principles which 

 are illustrated by the anniversary of our inde- 

 pendence ? 



" If I mistake not, three great principles 

 underlie or are involved in the Declaration of 

 Independence : the principle of individual lib- 

 erty, the principle of local government in its 

 struggle against centralized power, and the 

 exemption of the American destiny from the 

 controlling influence of European polity. I 

 will cordially unite with gentlemen anywhere, 

 North or South, East or West, in celebrating 

 the centennial anniversary in the maintenance 

 and illustration of these three principles, so 

 vital and essential to the full success of our 

 republican institutions. 



" Let me feel that the liberty of the citizen 

 is S3cured against despotic power ; let me be 

 assured that the freedom and independent ac- 

 tion, the autonomy of the States, as Chief-Jus- 

 tice Chase has expressed it, is well guarded 

 against the arbitrary and usurping exercise of 

 Federal authority; let me see that American 

 destiny is guided alone by its own polity, and 

 free from the interference and intrusion of 

 European counsels ; and then, indeed, sir, wo 

 may have a real centennial anniversary ! 



"The gentleman who preceded me (Mr. Frye) 

 has said that the Constitution and constitu- 

 tional questions are an enigma to him. I am 

 not surprised at it, looking at his mode of in- 

 terpreting it. Any gentleman who will ever 

 raise a constitutional question after this bill 

 shall have passed upon the interpretation adopt- 

 ed to sustain its constitutionality, will really 

 be worthy of commiseration. 



" I say, sir, that the spirit of the centennial 

 is obedience to the Constitution. And when 

 gentlemen tell me that the centennial exhibi- 

 tion is to be a manifestation of the inventive 

 power of the American mind, I answer that 

 the greatest invention of American genius has 

 been left out of view entirely. And what is 

 that ? The greatest invention of American gen- 

 ius is this : the absolute subordination of gov- 

 ernmental power to the rigid, inflexible, and 

 intending rule of the Constitution. In no 

 other country on the earth has this principle 

 of one inflexible law, supreme over all ordi- 

 nary acts of legislation, ever been inaugurated 

 .mums men. And I say that the gentlemen 

 around me will better keep the centennial an- 



niversary by a strict and honest adherence to 

 the Constitution of the country than by all 

 tlic material exhibition that can be aggregated 

 in Philadelphia. 



11 Mr. Chairman, I have said that one of the 

 great principles which are illustrated in this 

 centennial year is, jealousy of the centraliza- 

 tion of power. In the great preamble and 

 resolutions of 1774, which were adopted by 

 the Continental Congress assembled in Phila- 

 delphia, the language used has the true old 

 English ring in its bold assertion of right against 

 power : The deputies of the colonies do, ' As 

 Englishmen, their ancestors, in like cases have 

 usually done, for asserting and vindicating their 

 rights and liberties, declare that the inhabi- 

 tants of the English colonies in North America, 

 by the immutable laws of Nature, the principles 

 of the English Constitution, and the several 

 charters and compacts, have the following 

 rights,' etc. 



"Then follow the cardinal rights of life, 

 liberty, and property ; the trial by jury ; ex- 

 emption from standing armies ; and they place 

 preeminently among these cardinal rights the 

 right of the people of each colony to determine 

 its own internal policy by its own provincial 

 Legislature, without interference on the part 

 of the Imperial Government of Great Britain. 



" These were the institutional rights and lib- 

 erties which they claimed, demanded, and in- 

 sisted on, as indubitable, and ' which could not 

 be legally taken from them, altered, or abridged 

 by any power whatever, without their own 

 consent by their representatives in their sev- 

 eral provincial Legislatures.' 



" It is thus clear that jealousy of centralizing 

 power was the key-note of our Revolution. 

 It was embodied in the Articles of Confeder- 

 ation. It was not lost sight of in the Consti- 

 tution of the United States. And gentlemen 

 will find, although they seem to think that a 

 constitutional question is unworthy of delib- 

 eration on this floor, that the great distinction 

 between delegated and reserved powers is con- 

 tained in that tenth amendment : ' All powers 

 not delegated to the United States by this Con- 

 stitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are 

 reserved to the States respectively, or to the 

 people.' This is, therefore, a Government of 

 granted and enumerated, not of original and 

 unlimited, powers. It is not like the govern- 

 ments of the countries to which gentlemen 

 refer for precedents. It is not like the Govern- 

 ment of Great Britain, whose Parliament is 

 omnipotent. It is a Government of granted 

 and enumerated powers. And I claim this, 

 not upon reference to any of the doctrines of 

 1798 and 1799, which I suppose are not in very 

 good odor in some portions of this Hall, but I 

 do it upon grounds stated by the Supremo 

 Court of the United States. Mr. Justice Story, 

 in the case of Martin t. Hunter (1 Wheaton, 

 304), uses this language : 



The Government of the United States can claim 

 no powers whicli are not granted to it by the Con- 



